tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post1318837200067882202..comments2023-10-23T09:51:37.441-05:00Comments on Blog of Pro-Porn Activism: HIV Porn Scare 2013: AHF Money Flips Cameron Bay, Rod Daily; Invents 2 New "Victims"Renegade Evolutionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17905949172886730262noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-76906792592638413732013-09-19T17:12:24.199-05:002013-09-19T17:12:24.199-05:00That's what I said:
"What we have appear...That's what I said:<br /><br />"What we have appears to be another isolated situation involving people who were at high-risk from off-camera activities resulting in new infections that were only detected by the unparalleled effectiveness of the industry's existing testing procedures." Like a number of other situations over the years in which we excluded aspiring performers because they were positive on their initial tests, the source of infection, by definition, couldn't have been porn, as they hadn't made any yet. They were infected in their personal lives, which appears to be the situation with Ms. Bay, Mr. Daily and their unnamed friend. Such things are far from unknown in the world outside porn. In fact, as those pesky statistics keep remind us, a shocking number of people in now way associated with porn have contracted HIV in Los Angeles County over the past ten years. They all caught a horrible break in the same manner in which Bay and Daily appear to have done so: by engaging in unsafe behavior in their private lives unaffiliated with work. <br /><br />But I'm glad you agree that simply kicking sick performers to the curb is unacceptable. Even if the new infections turn out to be totally unrelated to porn, these are still performers we're talking about and they deserve our support.<br /><br />At AIM, they got it. Sharon Mitchell was an ace at steering people through the maze of assistance programs for new HIV cases and kept up with them. AIM offered direct employment working in the clinic to at least two individuals who tested positive, and AIM had not one extra dime to spare.<br /><br />I find that in the long run the right thing to do and the smart thing to do usually turn out to be the same. It would be right for this industry to offer a group insurance plan under the new exchange laws that go into effect next week. It would be voluntary and for otherwise-healthy young participants, available at a very modest cost. FSC has promised to look into creating such program, but so far I see no evidence of that. It would be righteous to help sick performers, however they got sick, and would help us spike AHF's oft-repeated lie that we "chew people up and spit them out."<br /><br />You can bet Weinstein will keep cooking up new publicity stunts like yesterday's. That's his specialty. <br /><br />A little humanitarianism toward performers on the part of those who have most of the money in this game would be both admirable and wise. But how often can we really apply those words to the decision-making class in this or any other industry?<br /><br />When we fail to step up in a situation such as the current one, we create new recruits for Mr. Weinstein, who has much more largesse to distribute. There's at least one of his false charges we can discredit easily, once we make it false by showing a little compassion at the executive level for those whose labor built the nice, big houses in Encino and paid for the fancy cars producers park in the driveways. <br /><br />There won't ever be a union in this business because the young and transient nature of the working population makes that impractical to organize. But there can be an institution created by the industry itself to offer more service and support to performers. At the very least, when we go to twice monthly testing pooled funding from the producers should pick up the tab for at least one of those panels. Expecting performers to bear the entire cost of keeping themselves save and then to do so little for them after they've ceased to work on camera paints an unlovely picture of those who run this shop, and rightly so. <br /><br />Anyone else want to come forward and accuse Nina and me of shilling for the industry and being on its payroll? What's one more lie to people who lie as if talking about the weather.Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-22036269477576931432013-09-19T08:33:46.115-05:002013-09-19T08:33:46.115-05:00Ernest:
Maybe it's not nearly as complex as t...Ernest:<br /><br />Maybe it's not nearly as complex as that....could it be that Cameron Bay and/or Rod Daily (and possibly even Unnamed Performer #3) may have gotten infected through private extracurricular sex unrelated to their professional porn activities? In short, simply a horrible break with the wrong people at the wrong time? <br /><br />The other two "cases" seem to be imported in by Weinstein for blatant propaganda purposes, I feel.<br /><br />Still, I understand your point about the industry not having an effective means of financial support for those who do get STI's and are therefore denied their livelihood. That's one reason why I still support the formation of an Adult Performers' Guild to offer some kind of pooled insurance that would cover most of the costs of treatment. Either that, or pass it off to some form of universal health care coverage like single payer.<br /><br />Either way, it's one total hot flowing mess that isn't going to be resolved easily or quickly. I'm sure Weinstein has more than enough stooges to invent more crises down the road.Anthony Kennersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00103420620416144653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-12486211009373430732013-09-19T02:56:14.256-05:002013-09-19T02:56:14.256-05:00What we have appears to be another isolated situat...What we have appears to be another isolated situation involving people who were at high-risk from off-camera activities resulting in new infections that were only detected by the unparalleled effectiveness of the industry's existing testing procedures.<br /><br />And yet AHF attempts to use the same data to prove the opposite of reality. Those performers who followed the existing procedures were quickly identified and isolated. Those who did not - who either didn't test or went outside the existing system of centralized reporting - were unable and/or unwilling to identify the source of their infections, how they found out about them and who else they may have exposed.<br /><br />What seems to have happened is that gay performers who relied on condoms with testing a virtual afterthought - an example Mr. Weinstein would have the rest of us emulate - got infected with HIV, either on or off a set. Given the assumptions on which gay producers operate, a calculation that recognizes an existing HIV+population of 30% among the gay porn talent pool - brought the virus with them into the het talent pool with very unhappy results for Cameron Bay. The two nameless, faceless performers, both male also, rolled out at this circus were quite probably gay side players also who found out about their status at some point by way of AHF's own clunky ELISA testing after who knows how many high-risk exposures. <br /><br />From the het talent pool that tests by the PASS protocols, no transmissions whatsoever have been documented. AHF would have us believe that there is no distinction between het and gay porn performers and indeed Measure B recognizes none, which is where Weinstein dives off the cliff. Gay producers are about as eager for universal testing as het producers are for universal condoms. State and federal laws make mandatory testing likely DOA due to anti-discrimination laws and mandatory condoms will ultimately die in front of some federal judge who has to rule by law, not the propaganda of any given faction. <br /><br />So what we end up with, if we're lucky, is a return to the status quo, which includes a known risk of STD transmission kept to the lowest possible level among those who use it. A separate population of porn performers who don't will be at higher risk as they have been all along and to the extent that they work with those who do test, will be lucky to enjoy the protections that testing affords as the price of admission. <br /><br />Here's where I say something nice about AHF. Alert the media. Every doctor I know has nothing but praise for their treatment programs for HIV patients. I have no doubt they were quick to extend a warm welcome to those programs to Cameron and friends and I don't blame them one bit for taking advantage even if the cost was being paraded in a dog-and-pony show by a shameless huckster who profits from their misfortune.<br /><br />Does our industry have something better to offer them? No, it doesn't. Back when AIM was still operating, we moved people seamlessly from detection to treatment, but PASS assumes no such responsibilities. It offers referrals and counseling, but it's not and never has been and never will be a full-service clinical operation. This business does not offer any kind of assistance to those for whom it has no further use and it's not about to start doing so now. <br /><br />I do not blame any infected performers for grabbing the life-preserver that AHF offers them until this business can offer them something comparable. And as those of us who worked on creating the existing safeguards have always known and admitted, there will be isolated cases like these in the future. <br /><br />It's reprehensible of AHF to parade these frightened young people in front of the media as victims of the status quo. It's reprehensible on the part of the industry that we can't extend them anything better.<br /><br />Still, bad as things are, they'd be a lot worse if we relied on AHF and its supporters to keep us safe by their preferred means and abandoned our own in the process.<br /><br />Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.com