It's the third moratorium this year.
On Friday, the porn industry came to screeching halt when yet another porn performer tested HIV-positive. The identity and gender of the performer have yet to be disclosed. The complicated aftermath of a HIV scare in the porn world is a formidable headache requiring partner backtracking and ample new rounds of screenings. The Free Speech Coalition would not indicate any information regarding the star, other than that the positive result came from a testing center in Los Angeles and that they were investigating further to see if any other performer's may have potentially been exposed.
If this nationwide porn industry shutdown feels familiar, it's not just déjà vu. This is actually the third porn moratorium this year alone, with one in August and another in September when performers Cameron Bay and Rod Daily publicly announced their positive status. The last HIV porn scare before that was in 2010.
The latest shutdown will undoubtedly restart the calls for Measure B – the law requiring condom use on adult sets – to be strictly enforced in Los Angeles county. Some officials have accused the county of being too lax with the condom mandate since it passed in early November 2012. “Are we still going to be having this argument when there’s the 10th shutdown or 20th? Or the 50th infection?” asked Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has been an advocate of the law. Weinstein's pragmatism and outrage seem valid in the wake of yet another deadly diagnosis, but the influence of Measure B has been hotly contested, with porn advocates and stars remaining largely opposed to the legislation.
The positive test not only has a palpable impact on the health of the porn community, but the economic effects for Los Angeles will be widespread. If porn producers are suffocated with restrictions, they will take the porn industry out of its current mecca, L.A. into another state with no safe sex requirement. After the passing of Measure B, applications for permits to shoot porn in L.A. county dropped 95 percent. While some unpassed current drafts of Measure B require superfluous protective goggles for porn stars, it's evident that a compromise needs to be met to ensure both the health and profit of the community does not collapse. Perhaps a super frequent and strictly enforced STD screening mandate is in order. After all, we want to keep our porn alive, well, and shooting.
Image via Flickr.