With news cameras flashing, adult film
performer Cameron Bay told reporters
that in her last porn shoot before testing
positive for HIV, her partner’s penis was
bleeding — and he wasn’t wearing a
condom.
After stopping momentarily, the cameras
continued rolling, she said.
Bay, whose positive HIV test sparked the
first of two porn moratoriums in the last
month, spoke Wednesday at a Hollywood
press conference with other adult film
performers, including two who said they
also contracted HIV this year. The press
conference was coordinated by the AIDS
Healthcare Foundation, which advocates for
mandatory condom use in porn.
Five current and former porn performers
spoke about the dangers and uncertainty of
life in the adult film industry. While the
performers said they can’t be sure when
and where they contracted HIV, they agreed
the industry is not adequately protecting its
performers.
Choking back tears, Bay continued to
describe her last shoot, filmed at a public
bar in San Francisco for Kink.com.
“There were up to 50 people in the room
with us. And we were laying on top of
them. And they were touching
inappropriately,” Bay said. “It all happened
so fast. I didn’t realize how unsafe it was
until I saw the pictures … You’re on a
whole other level when you’re doing
something so extreme.”
Last week, Bay revealed that condoms were
available, but not required at the shoot.
She said she didn’t think she needed to
use a condom because her male costar had
recently tested negative for sexually
transmitted diseases, and she left the
choice up to him. Kink.com confirmed to
HuffPost that Bay was offered a condom,
but it was not used.
Porn performer Patrick Stone told reporters
he was asked to perform in a shoot even
after he tested positive for HIV. He said he
was told he was HIV-positive in an email
on Sept. 10 from Performer Availability
Screening Services, which handles STD
testing for the industry. Stone said he never
got a follow-up call or email from PASS, or
from his employer Kink.com, to discuss the
results or schedule follow-up testing.
Instead, he got an email from Kink.com two
days later inquiring about scheduling a
shoot this week, he said.
Since then, Stone has taken two additional
tests that he said show him as HIV-
negative. He said he’s awaiting results from
a fourth and final test.
“It’s been kind of a whirlwind week for me
emotionally,” Stone said. “I feel that the
testing process for PASS is not working. If I
was allowed to fall through the cracks like I
did, who else is out there?
“I mean, they had me scheduled for a shoot
tomorrow and as far as they knew, I was
HIV-positive,” Stone said.
Kink.com said that it did not know about
Stone’s positive HIV test when it scheduled
him for the shoot.
“He had tested negative for us previously.
Because of the moratorium, tests were not
updated on the PASS system for producers
(because no one was cleared for work),”
Mike Stabile, spokesman for Kink.com, said
in an email to HuffPost. “He would have
been required [to take] a new test
regardless before shooting.”
Another man who identified himself as a
porn performer joined the press
conference by phone, saying he wanted to
remain anonymous. He claimed to have
contracted HIV working in the industry and
tested positive in the last six months. That
would make him the third performer to test
positive for the virus this year.
About two weeks after a shoot, he said he
developed acute symptoms and tested
positive. He said he had tested negative for
HIV two weeks earlier.
A fourth performer, Rod Daily, said he
learned he was HIV-positive earlier this
month. Daily, who has been in a romantic
relationship with Cameron Bay for about
two years, has performed in gay porn since
2005 and said he always used condoms.
“That’s 12 years that I’ve shot with HIV-
positive people, used condoms and never
been HIV-positive,” Daily said. “If anything,
I know that condoms do work. I was a
guinea pig for that.
“I just don’t know how an industry stands
here and says they care so much about
their performers and, a week after someone
tests positive, they’re out there shooting
without condoms,” Daily said. “Ultimately,
it’s a business, and their main concern is
money and not their performers.”
Daily thanked the AIDS Healthcare
Foundation “for everything they’ve done,”
including helping him and Bay get
medication.
Former performer Derrick Burts said he
became infected with HIV in 2010 working
as a porn performer. Burts said that, like
Bay, he had only worked in the industry for
a few months before contracting HIV. In his
four-month porn career, he said, he
contracted chlamydia, gonorrhea and
herpes as well.
“To me this is one huge flashback,” Burts
said. “What’s the acceptable number of
cases of HIV or herpes or HPV or syphilis
or any other dangerous STD before people
step up and do something about this?”
Another former performer, Darren James,
who said he became infected with HIV in
2004 working as a porn performer, said he
“almost lost it” listening to Bay tell her
story.
“I didn’t want to see a whole army of
people sitting at this table,” said James,
who now works for the AIDS Healthcare
Foundation. “This industry has failed and
continues to fail. We all need to wake up.”
When Bay found out she had HIV on Aug.
21, the Free Speech Coalition, which
oversees a database of all adult film
performers’ STD tests, placed a moratorium
on porn shooting. Six days later, the
organization lifted the moratorium.
A week after porn shooting had resumed,
Bay’s boyfriend, Daily, announced that he
had tested positive for HIV. Two days after
Daily said he was HIV-positive, another
performer, who wasn’t identified, tested
positive. That prompted the Free Speech
Coalition to impose a second moratorium.
The Free Speech Coalition announced this
week that it would lift the second
moratorium on Friday. It also said it will
begin requiring STD testing of performers
every 14 days, twice as often as before.
The Free Speech Coalition maintains that
the three performers who recently tested
HIV-positive — Bay, Daily and the
anonymous man — did not contract HIV on
a film set.
LA voters in November passed a measure
mandating condom use in porn, despite a
large, coordinated campaign against it by
the porn industry. Industry insiders say
there has been no enforcement of the new
law.
The law was authored by the AIDS
Healthcare Foundation, which maintains
that no amount of testing is safe without
condom use. “It’s like trying to prevent
pregnancy with a pregnancy test,” said
foundation communications director Ged
Kenslea.
Source: Huffington Post
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