Let me toss out some assertions to see what discussion they create:
Why all the knee-jerk reactions to HIV in straight porn? Would it be so bad if people working in straight porn got HIV?
I will suggest that it would change nothing. Consider:
1) With triple-combination drug therapies, most people with HIV never get AIDS. HIV becomes an annoyance, much like herpes or any other STD. No one is hollering about herpes, which almost all straight porn stars have. One in five adult Americans has herpes, even. You manage the disease with medication, and that’s that. Yes, people whine about lypodistrophy and the
“possibility” of antiviral therapy failing. But come on — more people die of drug overdose and suicide in porn than HIV!
2) The gay porn industry has thrived even though as many as half its active performers having HIV. You don’t seen them dropping like flies. You don’t see careers ruined by it. Indeed, almost 50 currently-active gay porn stars constantly perform in bareback videos — superstars like Michael Brandon,
Mike Nichols, Jeff Palmer, Matt Sizemore, Jackson Price, Joshua Scott and Tony Donovan. Not minor leaguers, but big names! Yet, they continue to work for other studios. So someone gets HIV? So? They don’t keel over dead. They don’t hock up a lung on the set or do other gross things. The most that can happen is that they pass on HIV to someone who doesn’t want
it. Fine — if you don’t want it, then use a condom. If you don’t want herpes, or syphillis, or whatnot, use a condom. But I don’t see people reaching for the Ramses over herpes.
3) Most of straight porn’s women are prostitutes on the side — just like most of gay porn’s men are. While they can say “I make my johns use a condom every time!”, I also have heard that from HIV-positive gay porn stars who escort. And you know what? It’s often a crock of shit. An extra hundred bucks will stop that. And the girls who work without rubbers get a
hell of a lot more work than the girls who do. I’ve got straight friends who’ve fucked a couple big-name straight porn stars, and the girls don’t even ask about condoms. They just hop on and ride til the slime flows. Maybe they have HIV already and don’t care. Maybe they want to take their
chances. But most don’t ask. So where is the problem with HIV in straight porn? It’s already there, baby. (You know, syphillis used to be a killer until after penicillin was developed during World War II. But now, it’s manageable — even when drug-resistant. Is HIV any worse? No.)
4) And HIV is already in the industry, whole-hog. Anyone who claims otherwise is really putting their head in the sand. After all, this is an industry where drug and alcohol abuse are rampant. Girls date vicious, violent men who beat the crap out of them — and don’t see anything wrong with it. This is an industry where many girls get knocked up fairly often, because they forgot to take the Pill. This is an industry in which most of the men and women make HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE life-choices routinely — every day, every week! Yet, we are supposed to believe that these same people with the same rotten ability to make smart choices — these people make the “right choice” on HIV and safe sex EVERY SINGLE TIME? Come on. If you believe that, I’ve got a 10″ penis, I’ll love you in the morning, the
check’s in the mail, and yes — that bridge is for sale.
5) Isn’t this worry over HIV just a mask? I mean, look at the way most people in straight porn respond to it — it’s the “gay disease.” Peter North, even after 20 years out of gay porn, is HORRIFIED that the industry will see him as a risk because of 8 films involving unprotected anal sex that he did almost 20 years ago. Really, the industry is quite inconsistent in the way it beats men up with the HIV/fag label. Paul Morgan, who has made close to 100 straight porn videos while working as a top and a bottom AND doing bareback videos (the infamous one he made with then-lover Emilio Sands is still for sale on eBay, last time I checked). Yet, no one in the straight porn industry is saying a word against the guy. Mac Reynolds, Rod
Garretto, Andre Bolla — there are many gay porn stars who’ve topped and bottomed, and have done lots of straight porn. Their gay porn careers are widely known about. Yet, no one in the straight porn industry hounds them at all. Instead, they hound people like Frank Towers — who got ONE blowjob from a man, and got blackballed overnight. And is to this day. Why??? Why Frank Towers and not the barebacker Paul Morgan? Why? Maybe because it’s a POLITICAL thing. It’s not that Paul is less or more risky than Frank. It’s that people in the straight porn industry like Paul, and they didn’t like
Frank. Frank rubbed them the wrong way. And Bam — why, he’s black, he’s hung, he’s popular. He’s rubbing some people the wrong way, threatening them, threatening their livelihoods, threatening their fame, threatening their income. Threatening their position of authority and power in the industry. So ATTACK! Go after him! Spread the HIV/fag stuff on thick!
Drum him out! But stay quiet about barebacker Paul Morgan’s past. We like Paul… To my mind, it’s not HIV. Everyone in the industry already has it. Everyone in the industry knows it. It’s about slandering people who threaten you. It’s a political decision to use the industry’s open homophobia against those who you don’t like.
In the end, it’s not about how terrible getting HIV would be, because it’s not terrible any more. It’s not about how sick all the stars would get and then they’d die, because they don’t get sick and don’t die and the experience of the gay porn industry is that the industry actually continues to grow and thrive. It’s not about protecting the industry, because the
industry exposes itself to HIV every time a porn stars is a hooker. It’s not about getting HIV, because the industry already has it. And it’s not about HIV at all — it’s about homophobia and using the HIV/fag label to blackball those performers who threaten the powers-that-be.
Some devil’s advocating.
In some ways I agree with Tim here BUT not in his main assertion, which is that HIV is essentially harmless, if nothing else the triple cocktail drugs are extremely expensive and they don’t always work and AIDS kills ya. I do think we have other things that we should be equally concerned about. I guarantee you more girls in this biz have been chronically ill from doing ass to mouth than they have from anything HIV related. Not to mention chocking out and other really stupid shit that most people in this biz who claim to be all concerned about the performers health just ignore.
The one thing that does keep coming back to me is that HIV testing is not standard in the gay porn biz and that is a MUCH MUCH higher risk group.
