Porn Panic 2014: The Cali Senate Labor Committee Hearing on #AB1576 -- Part Deux (Now With 50% MORE AHF BS!!)

OK..we continue now with my review of last Wednesday's hearing on Isadore Hall's condom mandate/testing/documentation bill, AB 1576, before the California State Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee. If you want to re-read Part 1 of this essay for background, feel free by all means.

When we last left, the opposition of this joint effort of Izzy Hall and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation had just exited the microphone, but not without doing significant damage to the case for mandatory condoms in porn and weakened testing and forced documentation to the state. In particular, performer Lorelei Lee was especially devastating whole planks of AHF's illogic for justifying shoving condoms and dental dams and PPE down and up perfomers' orfices. Quoting again Mark Kernes' review of the hearing from AVN:

When it became Lee's turn at the rostrum, she noted that she was delivering to the committee "a petition of over 600 performers who have signed to say they have grave concerns with this bill and they strongly oppose it.

"I also have reached out to and spoken with over 100 performers myself, who have expressed their concerns to me," she added. "There can be no doubt that the majority of performers oppose this bill.

"The author of this bill does not speak for performers," she charged. "The sponsors of this bill do not speak for performers. They have not sat down with us. They have dismissed our attempts to give input, and the result is a bill that is shortsighted, that disregards any of our actual labor concerns, and that would mandate testing protocols that are in fact less strict and less rigorous than the ones we now have in place."

Lee also addressed the health privacy concerns: "In addition to jeopardizing our safety, this bill would force us to consent to the sharing of our medical information with the state. Mr. Hall has amended the bill so we no longer share that information with our employers, we share it with the state. This is a dangerous precedent to set, and I do not believe they would ask this of workers in any other industry."

Also there to deflate the AHF balloon of myopia was FSC Chairwoman Diane Duke, who offered a sterling defense of the current PASS screening/testing system, as well as the caveat that the entire exercise would potentially be in vain due to constitutional issues with both the condom mandate and the documentation requirements.

When it became Diane Duke's turn to speak, she emphasized that there had been no on-set HIV transmissions in the adult industry in ten years.

"The speakers who spoke earlier today contracted HIV in their private lives," Duke stated. "We have strict protocols, as Lorelei has mentioned, in the industry already. That has resulted in no on-set transmission of HIV, and that's nationwide we're talking about. Just to put that in perspective, in LA County alone, daily, five cases, new cases of HIV occur every single day. So in LA County, just five a day. Nationwide, none on set in 10 years."
Duke also warned that there is currently a lawsuit in Los Angeles County regarding Measure B, which is "a very similar bill [a law, actually], not as onerous as this bill"—and that portions of it had already been found unconstitutional in federal court.

"The enforcement provision of that has been found unconstitutional," she noted. "The narrow issue of condoms has gone on appeal. The oral arguments were in March, so we're expecting a decision handed down by the end of the year. So this bill may be pushed through and may be found unconstitutional before it is even able to make it to law, so I really urge everyone not to create a law that may be found unconstitutional."

That last paragraph was in relation to the ruling by federal district judge Michael Pregreson which upheld most of the provisions of Measure B, the condom mandate ordinance passed in 2012 by voters  in Los Angeles County, while striking down provisions dealing with enforcement and collection of fees from porn production companies and due process procedures. That ruling is currently under appeal in the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, both on the constitutional grounds that the mandate violates First Amendment rights of free expression by imposing a content-based restriction on legal speech, and on the ground that AHF has no legal standing to defend the law because they are a third party not bound to enforce the ruling.

After that, there were brief statements of testimony from other opponents, raging from performers Jizz Lee, Amber Chase, Veruca James, and Chanel Preston of APAC; to reps from the St. James Infirmary in San Francisco, to reps from the porn syndicate MindGeek, among others.

Then, the Q&A from the committee members got going....and it turned out to be eye opening. First...

It was then the committee members' turn to ask questions, and Sen. Holly Mitchell, who voiced support for the bill, asked if passage of the bill would affect any plans that CalOSHA has to revamp its health code to include regulation of the adult industry. AHF's Martin said it wouldn't affect it at all, and noted that it was AHF which had brought the lack of condom use in the adult industry to CalOSHA's attention in the first place. Martin also noted, in response to one of Sen. Mitchell's questions, that "You all just approved a restoration of 26 employment slots at CalOSHA for investigation purposes, because one of the problems during the recession is that they cut and cut and cut, and were not able to enforce the law as vigorously as they would like. That will now change now that you've been able to restore that money for them," referring to a budget bill.

Of course, that was no surprise, considering that CalOSHA had been colluding with AHF from the get-go on attempting to rationalize the condom mandate, and that one of the big issues that afflicted Measure B was that the funds for enforcement would come directly out of the permit fees imposed on the "pornographers". That issue wouldn't exist with 1576 because the enforcement would be entirely on CalOSHA's dime, with money probably appropriated to them from general revenue. (Though, I'm sure that AHF will be more than willing to chip in with all that grant money they get from the state as well.)

In addition, that "revamp" of the health code to bring adult porn producers into compliance (and ultimately, be enforced nationwide through the Federal branch of OSHA) would effectively impose not only condoms and "barrier protection", but also effectively outlaw nearly every bit of current porn fashion in the name of "STI protection". No anal or vaginal penetration AT ALL unwrapped. No facials. No spooge shots in the vicinity of the butthole or vagina, or anywhere from the neck up or between the belly and the knee. No double anals or double vaginals, and possibly even no "double penetrations" (ass and pussy simultaneously) or "airtight" scenes (mouth, ass, and pussy simultaneously). No ass-to-mouth scenes, either. There was thought of allowing unwrapped oral sex scenes, provided that the perfomers therein subject themselves to doctor's approval and a regimen of Hepatitis C/HPV vaccinations prior to clearance, but that has not so far made it into the draft proposed regs. Effectively, the only allowed acts of "closure" would be internal ejaculation into a condom anywhere, or "nutting off" on approved parts of the body.

Next up, this highly illuminating response by AHF legal counsel Rand Martin to an inquiry by Sen. Mark Leno on the potential constitutional issues. Naturally, Martin simply blew that off in a whiff.

Sen. Mark Leno, who gave an impassioned statement at the end of the hearing about why he opposed the bill, asked Martin to comment on the constitutional issues raised by the Vivid lawsuit against Measure B, but Martin downplayed the possible effects of a ruling in that case.

"The issue of First Amendment protections under Measure B is now before the Ninth Circuit, and we have no idea when it will be decided," Martin said. "So we acknowledge that this is not done in terms of the court's ruling. However we don't believe that the issue of First Amendment is ultimately going to prevail. We appreciate the trial court's decision in that regard and [it] echoed our concerns. I would also point out that ultimately, again, this bill is about documentation and not about the underlying condom requirement, so I suppose in one scenario, that in the future, the court could throw out the condom requirement, that could ultimately have an impact on the regulation of it, which is what this bill is, is about the regulation of that requirement. Obviously, it would not be enforced at that point. However, we don't want to hold off on moving forward with this important documentation requirement on the off-chance that a court, a higher court will ultimately decide that there are certain First Amendment protections that are not being afforded under Measure B, and Measure B, of course, is what's being enforced."

Of course, the documentation requirements have their own constitutional issues, including that federal law called HIPPA, on top of the free expression/content-based speech restriction issues. But, if this bill is not about mandating condoms, why is AHF, who has built their organization squarely on the condom mandate for the past 5 years, so readily backing it?? It's not as if they even have their own brand of condoms to pitch to people for the goal of making lots of money off condom ads....errrrrr, spreading the word about "safer sex", right??

Then there is that little thing about the "FIVE!!! KNOWN!!! HIV!!! INFECTIONS!!! IN!!! PORN!!!!1111ONEHUNDREDELEVEN111!!!!" meme that turned out not to be so accurate...so much so that the Sacramento Business Journal had to print a retraction from the LA County DPH rebuking Hall's claim. When Leno inquired Martin about that bit, the response by the latter was classic....in blowing the roof off the entire Bullshit Mountain built around the condom mandate.

What was of particular interest was Martin's response when Leno brought up the fact that after the last Assembly hearing on the bill, the Sacramento Business Journal was required to print a retraction of its previous statement that there had been some HIV transmission within the industry on film sets.

"There has been a misunderstanding," Martin said, "and I'm sure we—and the opposition is just as guilty about perpetuating this: The bottom line is, because of California HIV privacy laws, it is impossible without a county public health investigation to actually determine where a transmission occurred. We have tried to be very careful to not say that HIV transmission occurred; we have said that HIV cases have happened within the adult performer community in a very short period of time last year, but we have not said that they happened on the set. The opposition has said, and they said it today, that it did not happen on set. They don't know any better than we do whether it happened on set or not. The bottom line is, because it could happen, and we believe that it has, that doesn't mean it's right or it's accurate, but we believe it has, it's important to make sure that protection is available."

As previously noted, the industry does indeed know, because of its testing procedures, that transmission did not occur on set, and AHF has previously at least strongly implied that it had, and one might suspect that Martin's backpedaling here might have something to do with Peter Acworth's recent threat of bringing a cease-and-desist order against AHF for strongly implying that on-set transmissions did occur.

In the faraway magical Bullshit Mountain occupied and ran by AHF and Izzy Hall, facts that deviate from the party faith simply flow off their backs like....you know...crap through geese. "We don't know if it occured or not, and they don't really know either, but we BELIEVE people are DYING of AIDS because of them slutty pornsters not wrapping up with OUR brand of condoms, and Goddessdammit, we need to DO SOMETHING NOW before our gravy train runs out....ahhhh, I mean...before another performer gets infected and DIES!!!!!!" Also, I'd say that Cameron Bay's  and Rod Daily's (and Derrick Burts') paychecks from AHF are essentially cashed with the assertion that the idea that HIV was indeed spread on that Kink.com set is more than just a "strong implication"....whatever the actual evidential facts may be.

The discussion then turned to the porn performer surveys cited by Izzy Hall and AHF at the beginning to justify the condom mandate: the 2010 survey done by UCLA and CalOSHA, and the more recent 2013 survey done by UCLA, which were both used by AHF to allege that porn performers were up to their asses in STI's. The 2010 study had already been dissected and debunked by Lawrence Mayer (his pdf here); the later study has been effectively woodsheded both by Mark Kernes and this blog right heya. When Mark Leno attempted to call out these surveys for their lack of correlation and causation, this merriment ensued:

Martin, however, went on to tout two studies of STDs in the adult industry, one which was published in 2012 (and debunked here) and the other done just one year ago, which AHF touted at a press conference just two weeks ago, and which was much discussed on AVN.com. However, when Leno asked the proponents to respond as to whether those studies indicated correlation or causation, Martin asked Dr. Paula Tavrow of UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health to speak to it—and she dodged the question.

"Two studies were conducted," she said. "One in 2012 was conducted over—in a single clinic over a five-month period that ended I think in August, 2010, and in that study, we found that there was a 28 percent prevalence of chlamydia or gonorrhea among adult film workers, and then there was a second study that was just completed a year ago, in June, 2013, of two clinics and that found that the rate just of gonorrhea and chlamydia was 28 percent among that community of adult film workers."

Actually, for the record, the first study, authored by Dr. Robert Kim-Farley and Dr. Peter Kerndt (he being the one who gleefully backed the condom mandate as a means of forced mentoring of the public on "safer sex"), only quotes "up to one fourth" of porn performers as having contracted either gonorrhea or chlamydia, and then later rounds off those quotes to "between 15 and 25 percent". Not quite 28 percent there.  And, for those of you who missed that blockbusting infographic that AHF blew out when they released the findings of the second "survey", their percentage of performers stricken with either gonorrhea of chlamydia came out to 23.7 percent, rounded up to 24%...off again by four percentage points.

But who cares about such namby-pamby things about facts and controls when there's DEADLY VIRUSES floating around???

But when Leno reiterated that his question was whether the studies showed that adult film performing caused the infections, or simply that they found infections but could not state a cause, Tavrow admitted, "None of these studies can determine how someone acquired a disease," but later added, "The fact that, as Senator Hall was just mentioning, that it's ten times higher among the performers than it is among a comparable LA County population of 20 to 29 year olds does suggest to us that it was due to their work."

Yeah, that's right. Ten times higher. As compared to what control group that you call "comparable"? The ones that test as often as porn performers? You know, like the prison population, where condoms are few and far between? How many "civilians" don't even know they have STI's until they go to a clinic and test themselves when they become sick? Oh..and what about the rate of STI infection inflated by the high impact of HIV/STI's on the gay male community and the gay male porn industry, where condoms are far more the rule than testing, and seromatching is done to attempt to prevent cross-infection...and gay performers and civilians still succumb to the virus every year?? Are you saying, Ms. Tavrow, that only porn performers, not the public at large, engage in "high-risk" sexual acts that leave them more vulnerable to infections? What about other factors like sharing dirty needles during drug use or non-wrapped anal sex leading to tearing and bleeding, which opens up the real risk of blood-to-blood transmission of STI's?

Both Lorelei Lee and Diane Duke were ready for that nonsense, though.

This "suggestion" was refuted soundly by Lorelei Lee, who stated, "The UCLA studies that were mentioned, one factor in those studies is that they were looking at performers who went to West Oak Urgent Care clinic. This is not a testing facility; this is someplace where performers go when they know they have an STI, so if you were to test performers from that clinic, you would get a 100 percent result of performers who have an STI. I have seen what's been published of the study. I have not seen any peer review of the study. I also have not seen it compared to a comparable population. I do not believe that that has happened. I do not believe that there is a comparable population who tests as often as we do, for example."

"I need to point out it is not a published study," Duke added. "It has not been published. There is a poster out about the results, and it was presented at a conference, but it is not a published study. They used two facilities. One was a test facility that was a PASS testing facility; the other was a treatment facility, so it would be like, as Lorelei said, like going to an oncologist's office and saying everybody's got cancer. When you go to a treatment facility, you're going to be surveying people who are being treated, so that's why that is problematic."

The fact that even with all those cooked-up facts, created out of the the thin whiff of raw sewage, they still could find only 25% of adult performers in LA County suffering from either chlamydia or gonnorhea, speaks well about the discipline of the overwhelming majority of adult performers in playing safely, and the effectiveness of the screening system in place. The fact that even with 5 confirmed HIV infections within the last 3 years in the "straight" porn community, none of them have been found to have been caused by on-set action, and -- most importantly -- no other performers have been found to have been infected as a result of any of these acts -- speaks even louder about the effectiveness of the PASS system (and even the system ultimately refined by AIM before AHF targeted them for destruction as part of the condom mandate crusade. (And I won't even mention the inconvenient fact that two of those infections came from gay male condom-only sets. Oh, wait...I just did!!)

Diane Duke also addressed yet another of Izzy Hall's wack memes: the alleged failure of industry moratoriums to prevent the spread of diseases.

Duke also described how moratoriums work in the adult industry, pointing out that they're not done casually, but upon doctors' recommendations. She also seemed to take umbrage with Hall's earlier statement that, "While these moratoriums sound good to the press, they were unenforced and largely ignored by the industry."

Now, during the syphilis scare and dual moratoria of 2013, there were some real grumblings from porn agents and some models/performers about why they had to suffer the loss of income while waiting for nearly a month without pay; and there was one attempt by a porn production company -- namely, Dan Leal's Immoral Productions -- to break the second moratorium and shoot product (with condoms, of course) which ultimately blew up in Leal's grill after performers blasted him back. Also, remember the controversy during the syphilis scare from some performers (Lisa Ann leading the opposition) to being forced to take a syphilis vaccine when not afflicted due to medical complications and the lack of an effective testing regimen for syphilis back then? In any case, the fact that everyone was ultimately cleared confirmed that the moratoriums did do their jobs, though not without some economic pain to those having to pay bills in the internim.

If AHF had their way, of course, there would be no need for moratoria to begin with, because condoms would save both the world and the industry from all those bad STI's, allowing everyone, even those with full blown HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, or even HPV, to gambol around and fuck freely. Either that, or softcore simulated porn would come in and save the day....I guess.

As to the other meme that "Condoms are already the LAW, HO-MAAAAYYY!!!" ...

Leno also asked the bill's opponents to comment on whether condoms were actually already required in adult film work?

"Regulation 5193 does not contain the word 'condom'," attorney Karen Tynan noted. "We have trial dates set on this issue on July 9, 10, 15 and 22-24 for two different companies, where ALJs [administrative law judges] employed by the state will be making determinations about the exposure control plan, but it's important to remember that that regulation, which was written in 1994 for healthcare industries, created exposure control plans that require testing that meets the standard of 5193, which says you either eliminate or minimize the hazard. We believe we eliminate or minimize the hazard with that exposure control plan through the testing."

 It should be noted that AHF has already won one case where they insist that condoms are the only true means of protection: the Treasure Island Media ruling where an ALJ upheld an earlier ruling (yet reduced the fine by two-thirds); that ruling is currently under appeal.

All of this was rendered a moot point, when both Senators Mitchell and Committee Chair Ben Huesco both declared in favor of the bill's passage, both citing the need for protection. Mitchell, though, did gently rap AHF for not addressing the plight of HIV+ Black women, whom she called "the hidden face of HIV". Considering that there is no AHF clinic in Izzy Hall's district in Compton, in spite of nearly five new cases of HIV every day, that probably would fall on deaf ears.

And speaking of Izzy Hall....the reverend closed his sales pitch for 1576 with an extra special and heretofor hidden punch to the groin of the industry...using Mr. Marcus' allegedly syphilis infected dick.

"I would just like to say, we had a witness here today, Cameron Bay, who very clearly stated that she tested negative and still had HIV while performing on the set, and you saw articles with Mr. Marcus in Los Angeles who was found guilty of infecting and exposing to a female to syphilis on the set and was fined $130,000 just this week and also served jail time," Hall lied. "She's really a person, she's present and she's telling you what happened. Mr. Marcus is a real person. The LA Times didn't just make up a story. It's the reality of what happens, and it's time that we start putting worker safety in front of profit in California."

Of course, it probably wouldn't even register in Hall's brain that if Cameron Bay was indeed infected on that Kink.com set, it probably was because of her own off-the-set sexual activity (or that of her boyfriend); or that Marcus not only did not infect anyone with syphilis (not even the accuser, Lilith Lavey, went that far as to say she was infected, only that he, through cloaking his positive test for syphilis in the face of unemployment, exposed her needlessly to the possibility of infection), but probably couldn't even have infected her because he had undergone the full treatment for the infection and was thusly unable to infect anyone. Even the jail time served was for a parole violation from a previous offense totally unrelated. (Also...condoms would not have prevented the spread of syphilis in areas not protectable by "barriers".) The LA Times may not have the ability to make up stories, but Isadore Hall, thanks to his benefactors at AHF, sure has perfected that art to a crossed T and a dotted I. And a great big L-I-E.

There was one bright moment for the opponents of 1576, though: Senator Leno declared his opposition to the bill in some of the most powerful and succinct tones possible, and it gives at least some hope if this bill ever reaches the full Senate.

"Some of the concerns that have been raised with regard to protecting the privacy of these actors, apparently overwhelming—I know it's anecdotal—opposition to the bill by those who work in the industry, concerns with regard to mandatory HIV testing, all leave me a little uncertain as to whether this is the right way to go," Leno said. "I would imagine with regard to Mr. Marcus, and I don't know why he wasn't fined more than he was, though someone of his ilk very likely could do what he did again even with this bill as law, and as a gay man who has experienced the HIV epidemic in San Francisco over the past 30, 35 years now, lost my own life partner to it, very close...  Those that I worked with in the community for the past three decades, the organizations that started it in the early '80s and are still foundation stones of our HIV/AIDS community in San Francisco, are not in support of this bill. They've remained publicly silent, though I've had some conversations with any numbers of them—I'll leave the names of the organizations out, but they're both treatment and prevention advocates for treatment groups and they have reservations about this—privacy, mandatory HIV testing, things that they have been on the frontlines for the past many years, so for those reasons, I will not be supporting the bill today."

 Alas, he was alone in his opposition, as Senators Mitchell, Huesco, and ultimately Padilla following a brief break, voted to move AB 1576 forward to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It could face hearing there as early as this coming week. After that, on to the full Senate, and then, if it passes that without amendments to be reconciled with the Assembly, on to Governor Jerry Brown's desk for signature or veto.

As always, we'll keep you updated on its progress or lack therof.

Porn Panic 2012: Primer On Facts Rather Than Hype: Ernest Greene Redux (2009 "Scare") -- Part Deux

[A continuation from Part One]

When we last left, Ernest Greene had just finished setting up the characters involved in that attempt to milk that 2009 HIV "scare" into their condom mandate/destruction of AIM Medical Foundation/make money gullywasher for AHF crusade. Now, he begins to give us the method to accomplish their madness.

Cal-OSHA, which would be charged with imposing the mandatory condom scheme outlined in Kerndt’s plan, has only one established standard for dealing with potentially pathogenic bodily fluids. It was written for health workers and IACB [Iamcuriousblue, BPPA contributor] summarizes nicely the more extreme and irrelevant provisions of Cal-OSHA’s blood-borne pathogen provisions:

“The last time OSHA became involved, the rules they set down were pure overkill, mandating not only condoms for high-risk acts, but use of dental dams, gloves, and, I kid you not, eye goggles for all sexual contact. They basically took the rules they've mandated for medical workers and applied this to the porn industry, without regard for context.”

Of course, as you now know, Cal-OSHA is now promulgating new regulations into the official record for imposing on the porn industry, essentially building on those very same principles of "barrier protection" from "bloodborne pathogens" and other dangerous "bodily fluid" exposure. While Weinstein has denied that the new regs will offer nothing different other than mandating condoms for all penetrative anal, vaginal, and oral sex acts; there is nothing in the regs that would preclude Cal-OSHA from also requiring goggles and face shields for facials, or dental dams for oral sex acts, or even PPE (personal protective equipment) for accidential exposure to blood or other bodily fluids. The only exception that was even considered was for oral sex...and even that was conditioned on the performers having to endure a regimen of shots for Hepatitis C and an ensurance of clearance from a licensed doctor before each act of oral sex. Emphasis on each act. And, it's only a consideration, because as of now, there are no exceptions to the requirment of "barrier protection" for any penetrative act of sex that is placed on film.

Naturally, those same requirments are also integrated in the LA County proposed ordinance, with porn performers and producers required as part of obtaining a permit to shoot porn to endure a "bloodborne pathogen/barrier protection" course, along with mandatory reports to the LADPHS tracking their compliance with the ordinance, with surprise raids and spot inspections added for good measure. The LA City law thus far does not have such stringent requirments, only calling for mandatory permits conditioned on the condom mandate..but the details of enforcement are still being fleshed out by city officials. A similar law was passed by Simi County in suburban LA, but that county is far more socially conservative and far more resistant to porn production than LA County or the city of Los Angeles.

As he says, such an unworkable regimen would be universally flouted, essentially turn a legal industry into an illegal in which state regulations were routinely violated, making producers and other performers liable for confiscatory fines and other administrative restraints clearly imposed by an agency whose agenda is not regulatory, but rather prohibitionist.

No surprise there. Members of Cal-OSHA’s staff, like those of Dr. Fielding’s department, have been unbendingly hostile in all my face-to-face dealings with them since 2004. They’re approach to performer safety is to destroy those performers livelihoods and drive the industry out of the state completely. Confronted with this prospect, Dr. Kerndt stated directly that he wouldn’t object if that were the result.

Of course, Mike Weinstein would insist that they are not interested in censorship or driving out the industry; their only interest is in the safety and well being of the performers who are simply pawns of an aggressive industry that uses women (and men) for their profit. Which totally explains why they ally themselves with the likes of Shelley "Porn Is Legalized Slavery" Lubben. Now, it may also be that some avant-garde porn producers and softcore/simulated sex producers of Showtime/Cinemax late-night "erotica" might also benefit from running explicit XXX media out of Hollywood's shadow due to getting rid of the competition for talent and content...but the exposition of that argument will be taken up another day.

And besides that, Weinstein and Cal-OSHA has made it abundantly clear that this isn't just a California mission; they are serious in planning to take their crusade for the condom mandate nationwide, either through the national OSHA extending these rules or other jurisdictions passing ordinances like LA County's. Or, as he put it: "Wherever they go, we will follow them."

But wait...it gets worse.  Much worse.

Worse, if that’s possible, than Cal-OSHA’s plan for porn would be the means through which it would have to be put in place. Cal-OSHA has jurisdiction only over employees. Independent contractors, which is how porn performers not under contract to specific companies, are currently classed under state law, would not be subject to Cal-OSHA supervision unless reclassified as employees.

So what, you might ask, is so bad about that? After all, it would make them eligible for workman’s comp and provide them with a mechanism for reporting unsafe working conditions on the set.

There’s just one little hitch in this plan. It is against the law in California for any employer to require an HIV test, or even to ask about a potential employee’s HIV status, as a condition of employment. Doing so is considered employment discrimination and carries significant penalties to the employer.

In fact, if performers were considered employees rather than contractors, it would be illegal for a producer to hire [fire???] a performer on the grounds that said performer was, in fact, HIV positive. That’s right. Producers would be required to hire HIV+ performers, and if other performers didn’t like working with them, those performers would be fired while the HIV+ performers would be allowed to remain on the set until partners could be found who would work with them.

This, put simply, is insanity. In thirty-five years of legal pornography in this country, not a single clinical death has been correctly attributed to HIV transmission in the making of heterosexual porn. During that time, thousands of sexually active young Californians from very similar demographic cohorts have died of AIDS contracted in circumstances utterly unrelated to porn, including a significant number whose cases were contracted in bathhouses and sex clubs where HIV prevention has been the province of governmental oversight.

Our good fortune in porn is directly attributable to two things: constant voluntary testing and the much-derided conceit of the external ejaculation, which significantly reduces the risk of serum transmission through mucous membranes.

This is the portion that so many opponents of the condom mandate usually ignore, but what strikes fear into the heart of many performers..especially since the  2010 "outbreak" in which a bisexual performer (Derrick Burts/Cameron Reid) managed to get infected with HIV on a gay male shoot in Florida in a condomized scene, while he himself was infected with either gonnorrhea or chlamydia, yet nevertheless was able to readjust himself to become the designated "smoking gun" victim of the AIM/Porn Industrial Complex at all those AHF/Cal-OSHA hearings and press conferences...his Rentboy.com profiles and open admission of bareback swinging and escorting aside.

Indeed, my own personal theory is that the reason Weinstein (who,after all, is gay and whom has no problem with promoting bareback gay porn when it profits him, as one trip to his thrift store will show) is so hot on mandating condoms is exactly to exploit the antidiscrimination laws protecting HIV+ gay performers to allow them to cross over into the more profitable hetero porn field. Since the testing and screening process currently in place in "straight" porn would obviously get in the way of allowing gay performers that opportunity, what better way to topple it and replace it with the system of condoms only with little or no testing that assumes that HIV+ performers are there and have the right to perform...regardless of how the others feel about losing their protection and having to just trust the condom.

Of course, not all or even a majority of gay male performers are HIV+ or evern STI+, and there should be no excuse whatsoever to justify homophobia of any kind..especially not the kind of gay bashing that the original Porn Wikileaks (NOT the current site run by Sean Tompkins, which is 120% legit and prejudice-free) ran freely when it was at its peak.

And, oh, by the way?? It should be noted that under the proposed Cal-OSHA regs, facials would be banned as overexposure to "bodily fluids". Only condomized internal shots or faked-up "money shots" would be allowed if this mandate were to pass.

But wait a minute, didn’t I say that gay porn is made without testing but with condoms instead? Why wouldn’t that work in straight porn as well?

In part, because it doesn’t really work in gay porn. Though condom use has become less of an absolute in gay porn, it has been the standard for 20 years, during which time, unlike in straight porn, a number of performers have died of AIDS. This is most likely a result of imprudent behavior in their personal lives rather than on the set, but it points to an important difference between the composition of gay and straight talent pools.

An unspoken by generally accepted truth in gay porn is that many performers are already HIV+ when they enter the industry. Producers and directors make quiet but diligent efforts to pair them only with other already-infected partners, but the fact remains that testing is regarded as pointless in gay porn because, as one of the best known gay directors told me privately, “it’s just assumed that all of our talent is or will be infected and that the use of barriers is a secondary precaution.”

And given the propensity of most gay men in porn to engage in the highest risk behavior in enviroments that also include the other high-risk elements such as sharing dirty needles or unprotected sex on the "down low" with other infected individuals, it would be prudent to make such an assumption. However, as Susie Bright has recently pointed out, a gay man who is currently undergoing sero-treatment for HIV might actually be safer for sex than a "civilian", because his drug regimen has so reduced his viral load count to a level that no longer threatens infection.

Then again, AHF has not exactly been known for its enlightened policy towards actual treatment or developing effective vaccines; as Weinstein's recent whining and bitching about Truvada being approved by the FDA as a trial HIV vaccine clearly shows.

Our model in straight porn is to try and keep the talent pool disease free rather than simply accept the permanent presence of infected performers as a necessary work-around. If you visit the web site that lists all the porn performers who have died during the past twenty years, you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of them were gay male players who died of AIDS. The risk of a similar situation in straight porn is what Fielding, Kerndt, Weinstein, et al would subject us to in the interest of setting a better example for our audiences.

Given the essential fact that there has been NO cases of any straight performer getting infected with HIV from shooting a porn scene (and no, Derrick Burts still doesn't count, because even he admitted that he got infected off camera) since the Darren James/Lara Roxx "outbreak" of 2004, I'd say that the regime of testing by AIM has been an unmitigated success...in spite of all the distortion and lies put forth by AHF, Cal-OSHA, and the Holy Ex-Porn Sluts of the Lubbenite Order. And, it should be noted that even in that scare, only two more performers were confirmed to have been infected in that instance.

Thanks but no thanks to that noble sacrifice. For uninfected female performers, not only are condoms in the absence of testing a more dangerous approach than bare-backing with tested performers, it actually puts them at greater risk. To understand why, it’s necessary to recognize that sex on camera is quite different from sex in private.

As a director, I allow two and a half hours to shoot a typical boy-girl sex scene. That’s over two hours of intercourse in various positions with constant stops and starts during which male performer’s erections rise and fall, condoms frequently tear or unravel and the degree of latex abrasion on the internal membranes of female performers’ vaginas lead to micro-abrasions that make them more vulnerable to all kinds of STIs. Most condom-only female performers eventually abandon condom use, not under pressure from producers, but rather because of the constant rawness and end-on-end bacterial infections produced by countless hours of latex drag.

Now, here is where the "sex-positive" wing of the pro-condom mandate crowd would shout in unison: "But...but...b-b-b-b-b-b-but....that's nothing that lots of lube can't prevent!! You're just making excuses not to wrap up for the good of mankind...and you're a selfish traitor who puts your own profits and pleasure above everyone else's safety!!!" And on the side, you will find that minority of performers (such as legend Brittany Andrews) who will add: "Oh, yeah?? What about those of us who would love to perform with condoms for safety's sake, but are pushed aside by greedhead producers who won't hire someone like me because we insist on condoms?? We're for performer choice here..as long as they all insist on wrapping up!!!"

Their concerns are totally legitimate and should be addressed seriously by anyone opposed to the condom mandate as I am (and Ernest Greene is and has been). It should be a given that NO performer who wants to insist on condoms should be blackballed or denied gigs merely because they prefer their partners to be wrapped. Our point, though, is that the same right of choice should also go to those performers who would prefer unwrapped dick, and insist on other means of protecting themselves, such as frequent testing and verified clean tests using the most up-to-date technology and a commitment to responsibility for their profession and craft.

Condoms are fine for ordinary folks having a quick bang, but they’re not suited to effective use in porn. I know whereof I speak because I refuse to shoot as a director for any company that won’t allow performers to use condoms if they wish and have probably shot more condom footage than any straight porn director alive. I began doing so way back in 1993, when all we had was the elisa test, which though still regarded as the so-called gold standard outside of porn because its antibody detection screening is virtually never wrong when it comes to detecting active HIV cases (if you’ve got HIV antibodies in your bloodstream, you’ve got HIV, no doubt about it), may not detect a case for as long as six months, while the PCR-DNA test has a window period no longer than two weeks. That’s still too long, and I would personally prefer twice-monthly testing to reduce the false-negative results that contributed to the situation in 2004. But it’s a lot safer than a six-month interval during which a newly infected person would be at his or her most contagious, having the highest viral load because antibodies had not yet begun to fight the progression of the disease process. From having shot so much condom footage, I would estimate the condom failure rate at about 15% in any given encounter.

The industry has since then adopted even stricter standards of testing (thanks to the newly created APHSS replacing AIM) and better testing procedures (such as the Abbot and Aptima RNA tests), and performers are also more adept on requiring more stringent test verification (with most performers requiring clean 2-day past tests) or reducing their on-screen or online sexual partners to those who they trust. One of the main issues with Cal-OSHA, also, is that they still utilize the old ERISA test for verifying HIV infection, even to the point of offering that particular test free of charge. By contrast, APHSS (as did AIM before them) requires more modern tests and protocols that, while they do cost money, are far more effective at tracking down and verifying infections much quicker. The actions of porn conglomerate Manwin in creating a pool for funding performer tests will go a long way towards making those tests more accessible to more performers.

So, if we give up universal testing in favor mandatory condoms, what we would have is a large group of internally compromised female performers having sex with a number of men whose HIV status would be unknown.

I ask anyone reading this who is HIV- if he or she would knowingly have penetrative intercourse with someone who they knew for a fact was HIV+, condom or no condom. I’m betting the honest answer for the overwhelming majority of readers would be “no way.” That is just plain common sense.

The choice is pretty simple and pretty stark: condoms or testing. It is legally impossible to have both. At the investigative hearings in 2004, lawyers for the ACLU made it clear that numerous challenges to the anti-discrimination laws sought by specific professions to weed out HIV+ potential employees were successfully resisted in court challenges and that the ACLU would vigorously resist any attempt to gain such a waiver for the porn industry.

I repeat: testing or condoms: that is the choice. If you’re HIV-, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.

Also...simply to say that porn performers are by nature of their profession more likely to engage in "dangerous" high-risk sexual encounters, or encourage their regular viewers to engage in "dangerous" bareback sex, when people have been engaging in those same acts for centuries, if not millenia, before they even had the possibility to watch such acts on screen or on line, sounds a lot like the kind of scapegoating and targeted group witchhunting more prone to a reactionary campaign, not a progressive one.

You don't ban professional wrestling or force pro wrestlers to wear protective gear just because a kid watching WWE Smackdown! decides to attempt The Rock's patented Rock Bottom closing move and thusly cracks his elbow; you repair him and remind him that Dwayne Johnson is a professional sports entertainer trained to perform his craft, and that you shouldn't really attempt such moves yourself. You don't ban shows like MTV's Jackass just because some idiot decides that it would be a good idea to catapult himself off his roof; you laugh at his stupidity and remind him that what he sees isn't quite what is really going on.

Porn, contrary to the ramblings of some wannabe Grundys and self-appointed Samaritans, is not supposed to reflect dominant political tastes or invoke official social ideology.  It is intended to do only one thing: get people horny. As long as no one is hurt, forced against their will, or otherwise denied or not fully conpensated for his/her labor of love or lust, ultimately, what consenting adults do or how they do it should be none of our concerns. When someone gets hurt or coerced, on the other hand, that's when government or the proper authorities should step in and adjudicate the situation and address relief for whatever injuries are sustained...but otherwise, there are far more pressing issues for people to deal with than micromanaging how they engage in consensual sex.

I will end this with Ernest Greene's concluding paragraphs, since they speak for themselves why we do NOT need, and should oppose, any attempt at a government mandate at forcing condoms or any other form of "barrier protection" on performers under the guise of "protection".

Instead, whatever we do, there will always be some risk associated with sex among groups of young people whose behavior off-set cannot be entirely controlled.

Personally, I’ve always thought the term “safe sex” was something of an oxymoron. Whatever measures are taken, physical intimacy is never completely free of risks of various kinds. It is from that understanding that the current harm-reduction approach, which has saved countless lives over the past decade by acting as an alarm system rather than a policing operation, evolved as it has.

No matter what we do, we will find ourselves back here from time to time, dealing with the worst outcomes as they inevitably arise.

No occupation is without hazard. When compared to things like commercial fishing, mining, logging, construction, fire-fighting and, of course, military service, porn rates very low on the list of dangerous occupations according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s no accident that porn is as safe as it is. The porn community’s own efforts, free of the ignorant and sometimes malicious attempts to interfere with them, have kept it that way.

But three is no absolute guarantee that any system will always work, and attempting to require that guarantee in porn, when it is not required in any other occupation, carries with it the prospect of truly catastrophic failure.

The existing system is not perfect, but it is far superior to any of the schemes proposed to replace it.

That is where we are and that, no matter what happens, is where we’re likely to end up staying.

Feel free to spread this to anyone living in Los Angeles County...and then let them make the decision what to do with it when they go to the polls. At the very least, they will get the rest of the story that AHF and well paid propaganda shills won't tell them...and that might just make a difference come November.

Porn Panic 2012, Supplemental: APHSS/FSC/Cutting Edge Testing Blink First, Abandons Abbot HIV Test

Already, we are seeing the first signs of a breakthrough in the Great Porn Testing War.

Remember that battle between the Free Speech Coalition/their APHSS protocols/Cutting Edge Testing and Shy Love/ATMLA/LATATA over which tests would be most effective in diagnosing HIV??

If you will recall, CET and APHSS had been promoting a dual regimen of testing using two new tests: the Aptima HIV1-RNA Qualitative Assay which is a diagnosis test, and the Abbot RealTime HIV 1 Assay which is more of a viral load test that focuses on the level of infective antibodies in a person's bloodstream.

CET had been using the older PCR-RNA tests as well as Abbot, and until Manwin ponied up with the funds to purchase them a new "machine" to perform the Aptima tests, it was only TTS whom had provided Aptima. Manwin's "gift", however, evened the score, and it strengthened the efforts of APHSS to allow both tests as used for a more comprehensive testing regime.

The problem was that Abbot is not yet sanctioned by the FDA as a standalone HIV test due to concerns about its accuracy, and the fact that it along with Aptima, of whom no one in the industry opposed, were equally favored did raise some concerns amongst agents.

Well, today CET and APHSS threw in the needle, so to speak. From XBiz.com:

APHSS to Only Accept Aptima HIV Test

 CANOGA PARK, Calif. — APHSS.org today said that starting Aug. 31 it will accept only the Aptima HIV-1RNA Qualitative Assay test for monthly performer screening.

The move comes after dialogue with industry members who have expressed concerns over the “off-label” use of the Abbott RealTime HIV 1 Assay HIV PCR test, said the APHSS, formally known as Adult Production Health & Safety organization.

"Though recommended to APHSS.org by experts for screening purposes, the Abbott test is not FDA-approved for diagnosis of acute (early) HIV infection," the organization said in a statement.

Producers approached FSC Executive Director Diane Duke with concerns over the off-label use of the Abbott test, leading to a decision to accept only the FDA-approved test.

“In our research as to the best test for the industry there were expert doctors and pathologists that preferred the Abbot test which is why we kept it on the list,” Duke said. “But we heard from producers and performers that they would prefer only the Aptima test. All of the experts we spoke with said that both tests were appropriate, so Aptima it is.”

The Aptima test, a "qualitative" one that looks for the HIV virus itself and reveals a prognosis of either infected or not infected, is FDA-approved for early diagnosis of HIV infection. It also has a 9-11 day “window period,” which shortens the time of accurate diagnosis, compared to a 14-day window for PCR-DNA tests previously used by APHSS.org and the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare (AIM) clinic.

The Aptima test is a "qualitative" one that looks for the HIV virus itself and reveals a prognosis of either infected or not infected.

The APHSS program was developed to fill the void left by the AIM clinic closure. APHSS upholds industry self-regulation of performer testing and carries on with the protocols developed by the AIM clinic for handling of any STI exposure incidents that may occur on adult sets.

APHSS said that includes responsibility for protocols in the event of an HIV exposure, as well as any needed production moratoriums.

The Aptima vs. Abbott debate reached its pinnacle last week after a producers meeting was called to discuss the issues between the two performer tests.

Some two dozen adult entertainment executives and others, along with three officials from Gen-Probe, makers of the Aptima "machine," gathered at Penthouse in an event coordinated by Shy Love to discuss why the Aptima is the far-superior choice for the porn biz.

 The main advantage of Abbot was that it could also be used to test for viral loads of other STI's like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and Hepatitis B and C. The Aptima test only applies to HIV.

Whether or not this begins the process of bridging the gap between the two factions, we can only wait and see....and hope.

Oh, The Tangled Webs We Weave, When First We Practice To Deceive: Derrick Burts (2010 "Patient Zeta") Gets Exposed

Let's just say that today was not a particularly good day for Derrick Burts, the "Patient Zeta" of the 2010 HIV porn "scare".

Actually, tomorrow might be an even worse day for him...but I'll get to that later.

The fun began this morning when Mark Kernes of AVN released a new blog article on Burts and his current legal problems, as well as his being called by his mentors over at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the UCLA School of Public Health to participate in another seminar on health and safety in the porn industry, scheduled on October 11th.

Problem is, Burts might have a bit of a problem making that panel. Well..more than a bit. Unless they can do teleconferencing from his jail cell.

You see, tomorrow is when Burts is due to appear in Riverside County Municipal Court to be arraigned on some serious felony charges (burglary and laundering), for which he was arrested on July 31st.. And that's only the beginning of it, because those charges also put him in violation of not one, but TWO probations that he was serving for past offenses (one in LA County, and the other in Orange County, the latter of which is now repealed and an arrest warrant now active).

But it's not his personal life that is making the most headlines, his story about how he contracted the HIV virus is starting to unravel the way a house of playing cards collapses under the gentlest of breezes.

Also this morning, The Real Porn Wikileaks (the revised and legitimate version that replaced the racist/homophobic version first originated by Donny Long) ran their own article quoting emails that had been exchanged between DBurts and porn agent Mark Spingler, regarding the challenge issued by Spengler that Burts take a polygraph test to prove his accusations that he contracted HIV from shooting porn. At first, DBurts agreed, but then attempted to crawfish his way back from his commitment by attempting to set some conditions to the questions that would be asked him.

Some deets from the RPWL article (bolded emphasis in original):

Burts initially agreed to the offer, but the emails exchanged between Burts, Spiegler and the potential polygraph examiner reveal that Burts backed out after Spiegler refused to allow Burts to choose or substantially re-write the questions!

Regarding his alleged “escorting” activities – which came to light when his ad on the gay hook-up site Rentboy.com surfaced — Burts wanted to narrow the questioning to: “Did you ever meet or have sex with anyone from escorting on RentBoy?”

Burts explained that because he had never acted on his RentBoy ad, there was “NO WAY possible for me to have contracted HIV from escorting….”

He also sought to alter a question about whether he had contracted HIV on set to “Did Jennifer Miller from AIM tell you that you had sex with a known positive gay performer while in Florida shooting?” In addition, Burts sought to narrow the question concerning whether or now he’d ever had bareback gay sex to whether or not he’d ever had bareback sex during a gay shoot.

“I would never risk having bareback sex as I am aware of the high risks involved of getting HIV from that method,” Burts wrote. “My agency is 100% against bareback porn and I never participated in a bareback shoot.”

Asking things like “If I ever did this or that” could refer to any point and time in my life before contracting HIV. I would like to stick to the time frame in which I may have contracted HIV which is between August and September as the widest gap. Based off the Western Blot test I contracted HIV around mid September. My last negative test was September 3rd… I tested positive on October 8th. There is a 60 day time frame for HIV to show in the body. So that would be all of August and September.

Yes, I did have sex with partners while swinging without a condom. Is it possible that I got if from swinging? No. It was outside of the time period and every girl I did swinging with was cleared on the quarantine list. Have I EVER had anal sex with a guy before? Yes… long time ago before starting porn…. If I am going to do this test then the 4 questions have to be specific and not broad.

On the next go-round, Burts suggested another configuration of the questions, including, “Did you have bareback anal sex with guys in any of your shoots in the time frame you may have contracted HIV?” [emphasis added]

Spiegler was flummoxed, and wrote the polygraph expert,

Please remind Derrick that the questions will be questions that I choose – not him. I am paying for the test and I want to have MY questions answered. Derrick cannot craft the questions to HIS liking.

Even more interesting is how DBurts attempts to explain away his belief that he couldn't have contracted HIV from anywhere other than on set.

After reading Spiegler’s ultimatum, Burts wrote a lengthy response — and also mentioned in passing both his “AHF Legal Council” [sic] and his Florida attorney, Norm Kent. Having previously stated, in his initial email, “I NEVER met with anyone from escorting PERIOD!” Burts now contradicted himself with some startling new admissions:

I had a posting for escorting during the time I got HIV, however, I did not meet with anyone from the ad. The reason I am time specific on the escort question is because back in May or June I met with a guy from Craigslist and gave a massage and a handjob on a guy… I classify that as escorting, however, there is no way I got HIV from that time since there was no sex and out of the time frame of being able to get HIV.

As for the anal sex question, there was a time I had unprotected sex with another guy while participating in a threesome at some point in June. I know I didn’t get HIV from that time as well because it was out of the range of time I could have got it and all people in that threesome have been tested since, it was also before I started porn….

Spiegler, interviewed the next day on AdultFYI, mocked Burts’ logic: “He goes, ‘I didn’t get it from [swinging] because they all tested negative.’ Like who gets everyone’s name and number at a swinger party?”

Many in the industry continue to speculate that Burts sought to alter the questions because he may have contracted HIV from someone involved with his Florida gay porn shoots with whom he had sex off –camera – perhaps even on set.

It's also interesting because since becoming AHF's point man for the trashing of AIM and the condom mandate (despite the known fact that all of the hetero scenes he did were condom-only), Derrick Burts' recollection of how he got infected has been, to say the least, more than a bit fleeting. Quoting from Kernes' article:

Indeed, since joining up with AIDS Healthcare, Burts has rarely told the same story twice regarding the source of his infection, claiming at times that he may have contracted the disease through oral contact (since the scene itself was condom), or that he may have become infected by having rubbed a towel coated with infected semen to clean up after his scene.

AVN has acquired much more information on Burts' pre-porn life as well as more complete background on the polygraph test that agent Mark Spiegler asked Burts to take regarding his statements about his HIV-positive status and how he acquired it, but Spiegler and Burts were never able to come to an agreement as to which questions would be asked, and the exam was never given.

Hold up here...isn't the prevailing rule that unless your throat or mouth happens to be infected with some way, there's no way you can contract HIV from oral sex?? And...even if you do happen to wipe yourself with a contaminated towel, you still would have to have open bloody sores in the anal passage in order for the virus to be transmitted?? Oh, and did I mention that that scene was a condom scene where the condom was deliberately removed for the pop shot on the back??

And then there is that infamous Rentboy.com ad that Derrick Burts made in September 2010..the one where he promotes himself as "AIM-TESTED", based on his September 3rd negative test.  Strangely enough, when Burts was exposed to be "Patient Zeta", he nuked all of his sexual contacts...except that ad. Coincidence?? Conspiracy??  You decide.

But wait...there's even more!! This afternoon, the blog LukeIsBack.com unleashed Part 1 of a two part essay documenting the life and times of Derrick Burts, and it does not paint a flattering portrait of him. The most troubling aspect was his flip-flopping between his early dream as a "Christian magician" and his...shall we say, his sexual experimentations.

However, his financial debts and troubles at home might not be the only reasons Burts left Hemet to take his magic act on the road. Two local parents, who did not know anything of Burts’ life after 2005 – including his porn career – and were surprised to hear that he’d returned to live in Hemet in 2011, offered an alternative explanation involving Burts and some minors at the Ramona Bowl Ampitheatre.

Burts moved suddenly to Hermiston, Oregon to live with his grandmother, and worked up a magic act. In April 2006, an article in the East Oregonian featured the heading, "Illusionist Never Runs Out of Tricks".

Burts, then 19, announced he planned to embark upon a nation-wide magic tour to_raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

It is a two-part tour. The first trip is simply to raise $20,000 in pledges_from businesses to finance the show. Burts and others will actually perform on_the second trip in towns where funds were raised. Donated proceeds from_performances will go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Essentially, Burts was planning to use the charity’s name to raise money for his own magic tour; to later return and perform in those cities where enough money had been raised – and then send the charity some portion of the show proceeds.
Burts’ grandmother, Susan Dickens, was quoted in the article. "He was always a trickster," Dickens said. "He liked center stage."

Burts’ next stop was Spokane, Washington, where he partnered up with a young local magician called "Kenneth K." He adopted the stage name “Derrick Chambers”, and over the next few years he took work wherever he could find it: including the Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho in 2007. Burts later found stable work on a cruise ship, Norwegian Cruise Lines’ 2000-passenger Pride of Aloha, and eventually, settled down in Orlando, Florida.

He toyed with the idea of creating "Christian based magic ministries", but returned to California in March 2009, having found a job as Front Office Supervisor at Marriott Hotel in Anaheim, right next to the Disneyland Amusement Park.

And this Sybil-like dichotomy would only get more amplified later:

In June 2010 Burts and Crystal walked into the office of porn talent agency OC Modeling as a couple, and signed a two-year contract with agent Phil Mack. As Burts would tell later the world, they wanted to make some good money fast. What he didn’t mention is that there was another couple that approached OC Modeling at the same time – Crystal’s friend Hayden Winters, and Hayden’s boyfriend.  Of the four, only Hayden’s boyfriend was not signed by OC.

OC Modeling primarily booked performers for "straight" porn shoots, but had also been dabbling in gay porn bookings. "When he saw me, the agent said I had money written all over me in the gay business." Burts later told The Independent. Translation: uncircumcised, shaved smooth, now quite lean and standing a mere 5′ 7", Burts was the all-American "collegiate" type – and being "uncut" had a novelty appeal in gay porn.

Crystal, under the name "Kaycee Brooks" would work in "straight" porn, working with both men and women; Burts would do "crossover" work in both "straight" and gay porn, using different names for each side of the business.

But porn wasn’t Burts only part-time gig.

From June to August of 2010, Burts also worked as a counselor at the Salvation Army’s Wildwood Ranch Christian Camp in Ramona, California. The camp’s website states that it "strives to serve the physical, social, and spiritual needs of children from the ages of 7 – 12."

"It is our desire to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to all at camp; staff and campers alike! … Camp counselors help campers make good decisions, gain confidence in their own talents and abilities, grow in independence, and learn to have fun with other children in a nurturing, supportive, loving environment."

WOW.  A gay/bi porn performer/swinger doubling as a Salvation Army counselor. Not even Shelley Lubben could top that for mendacity.

The LiB post also chronicles Burts' entry into the world of Florida gay crossover porn, including Burts' attempt to play himself as being more comfortable as a gay male star, even as he tried to cross over into the "straight" side. It was during this time that he made his interview with gay male performer James Jameson....the one that would soon be released to the public as proof that Burts was using gay porn to infect others. (For the record, Jameson was and still is HIV-.)

The LiB post promises to go into how Burts ended up with AHF on their next segment.

So, what does all of this mean?? Well, it shows the depths to which some will go to pursue their agenda, and it shows that all that glitters might not be gold.

But, I'll just leave it to Lydia Lee (using her former porn altar ego Julie Meadows) for the proper perspective to all this:

What is amazing to me (and as Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals so eloquently points out in her own article on the .XXX sTLD), is that the adult industry is accused of profiteering and immorality (to name a few), yet no one questions the moral intentions of people and organizations from the outside who gouge the industry for their own profit. AHF’s Michael Weinstein has been unrelenting in finding any means necessary to insert himself into the Los Angeles-based adult industry in what appears to be an effort to take over and reap the financial rewards of policing the industry through condom mandates and clinical testing. It didn’t matter that their first personality for the ‘dangers of the porn industry’, Shelley Lubben of Pink Cross Foundation, is anti-gay, or that her own credentials and testimonies are dubious. (Lubben touts a theology degree from a non-accredited college and claims that god cured her herpes, though she has no medical data to prove she ever had herpes.)

And now AHF is using Derrick Burts to parade their campaign, even though it appears he is just as questionable at the core of his intentions. In fact, Burts is scheduled to appear on behalf of AHF at a UCLA discussion on performer health and safety this October 11th, 2011.

[...]

I have two questions.

How many questionable people will Michael Weinstein slap his brand name upon in the name of performer safety? And how many details is Michael Weinstein willing to overlook in his unceasing effort to mind the details of adult industry performers?

I guess that's what happens when you get caught in your own web of deception.


ADDEDUM:  MIchael Whiteacre has emailed me a timeline of the legal problems of Derrick Burts over the past couple of years, all of which are public record. Here it is for your review and background:

On March 18, 2010, Burts was arrested in Orange County and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving without a valid driver's license, straddling or changing lanes when unsafe, and reckless driving.

On April 19th, Burts failed to appear in court in Westminster, CA, and a warrant was issued. He was eventually arraigned on May 6th, where he pleaded guilty to reckless driving in exchange for all other charges being dismissed. Burts was sentenced to 3 years probation, as well as a 12-hour Alcohol and Drug Program, and ordered to pay a $250 fine.

Then, in August 2010, Burts was arrested in LA County and booked for domestic violence and misdemeanor-level assault. Burts pleaded to a charge of disturbing the peace in a Van Nuys courtroom on August 3rd, and he was fined and sentenced to 52 weeks of classes.

But this arrest constituted a violation of his Orange County probation, and it was reported to the court in mid-August (Orange County notes case activity on August 18, 2010, and his probation was revoked on that date). Following an arraignment on September 21, 2010 for violating the terms of his probation, probation was re-instated.

Back in the LA County court system, a progress report from January 2011 shows that Burts had paid his fine, and that he requested his court-ordered classes be moved to Riverside County.

He was supposed to show up in court in Van Nuys on July 6, 2011 to inform the court that he had complied with its order and taken his classes, but he failed to appear. A $50,000 warrant was issued in his name on that date.

According to LA County, that warrant is still outstanding.

On July 31, 2011, Burts was arrested by Hemet police and charged with felony embezzlement and burglary in Riverside County. He posted $5,000 bail through a bondsman on August 4th.

Due to his Riverside County arrest, Burts’ Orange County probation was revoked on August 31, 2011. The Orange County Superior Court website currently lists Burts' status as "Fugitive".

  

Burts is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, September 29th at Riverside County’s Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.

Like I said at the beginning: tomorrow should be quite an interesting day.