TALK DIRTY (STD TEST) TO ME

Bad Ass Frank, who as far as I know is neither, but he does proclaim to have nice hair, sends me this chapter from his book

which can be purchased here

Reprinted with permission from the author

BAD ASS FRANK’S PIMPIN’ AIN’T EASY
BY FRANK PRATHER
WWW.BADASSFRANK.COM
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM
TALK DIRTY (STD TEST) TO ME

One of the biggest fallacies perpetuated by the adult industry is that the performer’s health and safety is of major concern to all and, as such, it is closely monitored through monthly testing for sexually transmitted diseases. That’s like saying that flying is safe because they fueled the plane and made sure the wings haven’t fallen off. If you’d take to the air knowing that those were the only safety criteria, you’re definitely cut out for porn.

Most movies are shot without condoms, primarily because the consumer doesn’t want to see them. Safe sex is not sexy sex. When a dude lubes up his unit, and starts watching some other guys cock sliding in and out of a starlets many orifices, he’s imagining how it would feel if that was his cock. No one fantasizes about fucking with a condom on, so they certainly don’t want to have someone else insert one into their fantasy. Think about it. When is the last time you envisioned porking some girl and the daydream began with you rolling on a Trojan?

Because of this, people in the adult industry are regularly exchanging all manner of bodily fluids. Not to mention that they’re licking each other’s dirty assholes and sometimes even drinking fluids out of them. You’d think that OSHA, or even the local county health department, would somehow regulate the porn business for the safety of the performers. You’d be wrong. As of the writing of this particular chapter, the government has attempted to force some regulation upon the industry, and failed. So, if a smoothie shop gets a poor health rating, you will not be able to drink their delicious smoothies until they rectify the situation. However, you can absolutely drink semen out of a young pornstars butt, regardless of her rectal situation.

Years ago, the porn biz was a free-for-all where anyone who wanted to work, could. Nothing more than proof of age was required so, as long as a company wanted to hire you, it was a done deal. Then, in 1998, a former pornstar named Sharon Mitchell cofounded a non-profit organization called Adult Industry Medical or, AIM. Miss Mitchell is apparently a doctor, although I’m not sure if her credentials are more similar to those of Dre or House. Both walk with a limp but I’m reasonably sure that Dre’s is affected for dramatic purposes while House has what medical experts refer to as a “boo boo” or “ouchie”.

AIM claims that it exists in order to care for the physical and emotional needs of sex workers, but does not list orgasms or hugs on their roster of services. What they are primarily known for, within the industry, is their STD testing and reporting system.

As the government never enacted any regulatory control over performer safety, AIM decided to create a system in which the industry could be self-policing. This accomplishes a number of things. First and foremost, it allows porn to say to the government, “No need to pay any attention to us. We’ve got it all under control!” Secondly, it gave Sharon Mitchell a pretty good job running a non-profit. One that likely pays her a decent salary given that she aged her way out of porn movies. Finally, it creates the illusion of safety for the performers which is essential, particularly in getting new girls to join the industry.

Over time, AIM was able to get virtually all of the porn production companies on board, utilizing their system as the definitive standard for STD testing. Now, all talent must get tested every thirty days and, in order to perform, present a “clean” (aka negative) test. They even give each patient a beautiful print out of their test, with an official AIM seal, suitable for framing. So every month the pornstar gets a reminder that they are very healthy and clearly not dying of AIDS. It’s comforting to know that you have not contracted HIV, gonorrhea, or chlamydia, the three STD’s that are covered through their standard test. Very comforting indeed.

Until you catch herpes.

Oh, did I not mention that they don’t test for herpes? Or HPV. Or genital warts. Or hepatitis. Or syphilis. Or any other transmittable disease. Yeah, you know why I didn’t mention that they don’t test for those?

Because they don’t mention it either.

Of course, it probably just slipped their mind. I mean, who really thinks about herpes or hepatitis anyway? I certainly don’t. Does anyone even have those diseases? And if they do, it’s not like they can’t take Valtrex for the rest of their lives, or get a liver transplant once they start to turn yellow. Seriously, who even worries about that kind of shit? I know that a nineteen year old girl entering porn isn’t worried about it. Why would anyone want to put those negative thoughts into her pretty little head?

Okay, so perhaps it didn’t slip their mind. Perhaps it’s a calculated decision on the part of AIM, and/or the producers, and/or the agents in the adult industry. I’m not saying that they’ve conspired to disseminate misinformation about STD testing and safety. I’m saying that, theoretically, they could have perhaps conspired to not disseminate information about STD testing and safety.

Now why, you ask, if AIM, and the industry as a whole, are so concerned about a performers health, are they not testing for all of the diseases, as opposed to just those three? I can’t answer as to their motives. However, what I can do is use my logic and deductive reasoning to formulate a theory that may, or may not, be accurate. Hence, if my theory is inaccurate, I invite AIM, Sharon Mitchell, and any producer or performer in the adult industry to publicly set me straight. May I suggest a town hall meeting with your representatives, myself, officers of OSHA, and the mainstream media, where you can clear the air on the complete lack of thorough STD testing in your “self-policing” industry? I’m free on Tuesday.

In all fairness, I do have to offer up my theory so that they can begin to develop their feeble and ridiculous argument against it. Let me begin with why they test for the three diseases that they do.

HIV is an easy one. If people in porn started contracting HIV, the government would step in and shut the business down immediately, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars in dirty porn money. Even the rare occurrence of a positive HIV test has caused shockwaves throughout the industry and a great deal of unfavorable press. When this has happened, producers quickly shut down production and AIM “quarantines” anyone who has worked with “patient zero”, the one who tested positive. Again, this is the industry screaming, “Don’t worry. We got this. All is well!” The problem is that it always results in cries from the outside that porn needs to be regulated. So, above all else, HIV needs to be kept at bay for the protection of the producers er, I mean the performers. The more intriguing question is, why gonorrhea and chlamydia, as opposed to herpes, HPV, or hepatitis? What’s so special about them? Are they life threatening, more debilitating, more insidiously dangerous than the other diseases? No. They’re included for one reason, and one reason only.

They are curable.

That’s right. The big G&C are easily treated with nothing more than a weeks’ worth of antibiotics. Most performers don’t even share the news with anyone that they’ve tested positive. They simply take a week off, re-test, and get back to work. Nobody is the wiser. Never once in my three years in porn, did anyone, AIM included, ever make an attempt to contact any of the talent’s scene partners to say, “Hey, you may have contracted this disease, please come get checked.” So if you got tested on the 4th of the month and it came up clean, then you contracted chlamydia on the 7th, you had approximately twenty-seven possible work days to infect other people. If you worked every third day, you could pass it along to nine people, give or take. Hence, on any given day, a decent percentage of porn talent is likely to have gonorrhea or chlamydia. Now don’t you wish you could fuck a pornstar and acquire that sexy drip, drip, drip and burning-when-you-pee sensation?

AIM includes them on the test to make it appear that they’re not only testing for the life threatening HIV, but also run-of-the-mill STD’s that could adversely affect your health. It gives them the marketing benefit of saying that you’re taking an “HIV/STD” test rather than just an “HIV” test. This is a great semantic tool used to create a false sense of security in the performers, particularly new ones. It also allows them to use a broad stroke term when explaining the “safety” of porn to the outside world. “Our industry cares about health and, as such, is self-policing, requiring performers to be tested for HIV and STD’s every thirty days.” Also, there are WMD’s in Iraq and we will have Bin Laden in custody momentarily.

Of course, this brings us to the really disturbing part of the testing façade, which is the fact that they don’t check for any other STD’s. I can almost, but not quite, live with the fact that they don’t regularly test for syphilis or hepatitis. Statistically speaking, these are not as prevalent as many of the other diseases. However, both are life threatening and, as such, should be monitored. I would love for someone to explain why those two tests aren’t required every 6 months? It’s not like they’d knock a lot of talent out of the industry. Hell, syphilis can be cured with antibiotics, so that one is a no brainer. Hepatitis can’t be cured but, in the event that someone had it, they would at least be blacklisted from performing thus unable to infect anyone else. On top of that, they’d be made aware of a potentially fatal disease for which they could now seek treatment. Eh, fuck it. Why go through all the fuss.

The only possible reasoning that I can see behind not testing for these is that it’s not worth the risk, to the powers-that-be, to scare performers with the possibility of contracting them. I’ve said before that the industry needs new talent pouring in all the time to keep running profitably.

HPV is incurable and also potentially life threatening, as it can lead to cervical cancer in women, as opposed to men whose cervixes are immune to cancer. It is, according to the Center For Disease Control (CDC) website, the most common sexually transmitted infection. AIM doesn’t even test for the most common STD that exists. That’s like a cop pulling over an erratic driver and testing for everything except alcohol. “Well sir, you tested negative for marijuana, LSD, heroin, glue fumes, and a sugar rush from too many gummi worms. I suppose you’re fine to drive. Have a nice day.”

The biggest joke of all, in my opinion, is herpes. It is my stance that the reason they don’t test for herpes is because, if a positive test meant you could no longer work, the entire industry would shut down immediately. If all the pornstars that take Valtrex on a daily basis suddenly quit, shares of GlaxoSmithKline would plummet. If a performer goes to AIM and does get diagnosed with herpes (or HPV), they are treated or referred to a “real” doctor. Yet there are no ramifications as far as work is concerned. AIM does not report it to producers nor is there a system implemented to warn potential scene partners. They prevent you from working if you have chlamydia, but not herpes or HPV. It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. They don’t want you infecting anyone with anything curable, but it’s okay to give them a traumatic lifelong outbreak of the herps or cervical cancer. I mean, they’re not careless and unreasonable.

AIM explains that they help educate new performers, who are entering the industry, as to the dangers of STD’s. Unless they’ve changed their protocol, they have a video that you’re supposed to watch when you go for your first test. Sometimes they would require you to sit and watch it in their lobby, other times a copy was given for you to view at home. To the best of my knowledge, few newbies paid any attention to this video. I often saw people at AIM sitting in front of the television engrossed in conversation or texting on their cell phones. I suppose Sharon Mitchell considers that due diligence. The fact is, her salary is paid through AIM tests, and they need talent who will pay for those tests. Is that not a conflict of interest? Is anyone at AIM interested in deterring new performers from entering the industry? I think not.

You are absolutely retarded if you think for a minute that anyone who profits from the adult industry is going to be honest with people, particularly young girls, who are considering performing in adult movies. The producers only care about testing because it provides one small degree of protection against claims of unsafe work environments. The agents would probably rather that testing didn’t exist at all, as it’s nothing more than an inconvenience for them. A positive gonorrhea test is money out of their pocket for a week. Even talent in the industry keeps their mouths shut when it comes to the testing. Either because they’re naïve, uneducated, or simply embarrassed. Nobody wants to admit they’ve contracted or knowingly work in a business where they could contract, herpes or any other STD.

I understand that this chapter was less of a “guide” and more of a dissertation on my disdain for the farcical claims and testing procedures of AIM and, by extension, the entire adult industry. Every single young girl who enters the business is going to contract either chlamydia or gonorrhea at some point, probably multiple times. She is also, in all likelihood, going to contract herpes and/or HPV. Anyone who tells you different is a lying and is probably taking a week off of work “to rest”. They’re reenergizing after months of hard work, deservedly enjoying lazy days, fruity cocktails, and copious amounts of penicillin.