HIV Positive P0*n Star Narrates How Co-Star’s P*n*s Was Bleeding Inside Her
With news cameras flashing, adult film performer Cameron Bay told reporters
that in her last P0*n shoot before testing positive for HIV, her partner’s
man-hood 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 P0*n 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 P0*n.
Five current and former P0*n 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.
P0*n 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 P0*n 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 P0*n 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 P0*n performer. Burts said that, like Bay, he had only worked in
the industry for a few months before contracting HIV. In his four-month P0*n
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 P0*n 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 P0*n shooting. Six days later, the organization lifted the
moratorium.
A week after P0*n 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 P0*n, despite a
large, coordinated campaign against it by the P0*n 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.
Category:
Health Matters
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