Moratorium on Adult Entertainment Lifted, Extra HIV Tests Ordered
The two week moratorium on pornographic filming has been lifted by adult film group, Free Speech Coalition, after a fourth actor tested positive for HIV. The production for the adult films can resume by Friday.
"Our industry protocols are designed to be conservative and our doctors support a conservative approach, for the health and well-being of the performers," Diane Duke, head of the Free Speech Coalition.
The fourth actor to be tested HIV-positive was disputed by the Free Speech Coalition. The group only acknowledges the first three actors named Cameron Bay, Rod Daily and another actor not asking to be identified. The three actors are said to have contracted the virus in their private sexual lives and not through working in the adult film industry. Their on-screen partners had not been infected by the virus.
Condom use has been mandated for use by some of the states like L.A. but this has not been strictly implemented which is why some pornographic production films chose not to follow the measure.
The adult film group also laid down some extra HIV and STD testing for the actors every 14 days as opposed to the previous ruling of every 28 days.
Sexually contracted diseases are not strange in the adult film industry wherein every actor is engaged in sexual contact with co-actors. The adult film associations do their best to maintain the safety of their workers and to not spread the disease contact. But however way they try to implement measures, STD/ HIV scares always looms for these industries.
Actors, on the other hand, dread the disease. Aside from not getting work, they are also void of benefits specially the ones they need medically. Some insurances only accept actors after two year of contracting the disease to make sure that the strain of HIV is not life-threatening. Some actors like Bay, acknowledge the importance of getting acquainted with the disease so as to avoid it and use measures along with it.
"Education is power. I've done more reading in the past couple weeks than I have since high school," Bay says in her interview with Huffington Post.