The results of the investigation revealed:Ī dense sexual network of 47 persons and documented syphilis and HIV infections associated with the Internet pornography business. The trail of infections lead to a northside Chicago apartment building where many of the Cocodorm performers worked. In Chicago in 20, the Chicago Department of Public Health had been investigating a string of seemingly related HIV and Syphilis cases and their connection to Flavaworks and the company’s employees. Although the stories of James, Roxx, and Burts are troubling, there are clearly some safe guards ( e.g., monthly test at a centralized location AIM) and policies ( e.g., test results are to be shown before filming a scene) in place for mainstream porn actors, but are they enough? What about gay male performers of color and those with start-up porn companies like Flavaworks or Cocodorm? Such patterns, as suggested by these findings, not only give credence to Derrick’s allegation, but project an image of a revolving door of multiple sexually transmitted infections for new and old performers alike, particularly for those porn actors working in LA. Of the 1153 positive test results 722 (62.6 %) were Chlamydia, 355 (30.8 %) were gonorrhea and 126 (10.9 %) were Chlamydia and gonorrhea co-infections. Males comprised 33%, females 67%, whites 13%, African Americans 6.6%, Hispanics 2.4%, unknown race/ethnicity 76.6% and 40% were between 20 and 24 years of age. During this period, approximately 976 individuals were reported with 1153 positive test results. Nearly 48.1 percent tested positive for Chlamydia, and 23.6 percent for gonorrhea. Of approximately 1500 people tested between January 2003 and March 2005, approximately 8.4 percent had at least one disease. Moreover, a 2006 study conducted among porn actors found the following: His words are sobering and alarmingly disruptive to the imagined-image of the healthy, sexually desirable bodies featured in mainstream adult films. In 2010, Derrick Burts, a 24-year old gay and straight porn actor, said “I was in the industry for one month and I came down with Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Herpes.” During the halt of the California Porn Industry, all of the performers who had worked with Darren in the last month before his positive test or performers who had sex with other performers who had been in scenes with him, were asked to go to Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM), a clinic set up to serve performers in the industry. Unfortunately by the end of the testing period, two other female adult performers had become HIV positive. James was found to be HIV positive, one of his female co-stars, Lara Roxx, was also found to be HIV positive. The halt was because a couple of weeks after Mr. In April 2004, according to the New York Times, the California porn industry came to a halt for either one or two month(s). Tiger Tyson, a black gay porn star, shows that some porn stars are willing participants in the Russian roulette nature of sex:ĭarren James, 40-year old heterosexual porn star, contracted HIV in 2004, allegedly during a performance in Brazil with adult performer Bianca Biaggi. Are porn actors healthy people, making well-informed decisions, or are they the blamed – possibly vulnerable – victims who willingly participate in an on-camera Russian roulette that we know sex to be? Whether you see it as a mega-industry providing a valuable service or a destroyer of the moral fiber of societies, it is an industry that sells us an imagined image of healthy sexually-active individuals. So you can imagine when vaginas, penises, and anuses are filmed and paid to go “bump in that night,” what kind of uproar is made against the porn industry.Īlthough pornography is legal and has more than its fair share of enthusiasts, its detractors paint it as an industry that produces violence against women and acts as fodder to the sexually dysfunctional.
Even when we talk about “them” bumping in the night, many of us create euphemisms to get around the discomfort of talking about sex. For many, it is hard to have open conversations about vaginas, penises, and anuses, especially when ‘beavers,’ ‘one-eyed snakes’ and ‘poop-chutes’ play bump in the night.