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At the 2019 Adult Video News (AVN) convention, the Free Speech
Coalition—a porn industry trade association—organized a panel on HIV stigma
and prevention. The goal was to review advances in HIV science and how these
might impact on-set HIV prevention. Key topics covered were PrEP (Pre-Exposure
Prophylaxis, a drug regimen to prevent HIV acquisition) and the principle of U=U
(Undetectable = Untransmiable; that is, HIV+ people with a suppressed viral
load are not infectious). Tension was palpable during the event, and there was
a great deal of controversy in its wake. Aendees were divided on if and how
these advances should impact the way on-set prevention is handled. Discussion of
hypothetical changes to the current straight-industry protocols set Twier aflame
with gossip, fear, and outrage.
Health research about porn typically focuses on the potential porn has to
influence viewers’ sexual health behaviours (e.g. Harkness et al. 2015; Lim et
al. 2016). Rarely do the health practices used in porn production itself become
the object of inquiry. The porn industry, as Heather Berg and Constance Penley
describe it, is not some “monolithic, static, or internally consistent body” but
rather made up of “dynamic networks of workers, management, and institutions
that take part in the production process of adult film” (Berg and Penley 2016,
160). These industry networks have always expressed an interest in ensuring
worker health and safety. But as the AVN panel demonstrated, they do not always
agree upon the best way to do so. All film production entails an on-screen/off-
screen compromise between the envisioned final product and performer needs
and capacities. Porn production offers fertile ground for investigating this
tension between the ambitions of art/commerce and the protection of worker
health. The “use” of porn, in this instance, is that it brings into relief broader
assumptions around what a worker is, who is responsible for them, and what
those responsibilities should entail.
In this paper, I suggest that the notion of consent acts as the basis for sexual
health protocol in mainstream straight porn production. I further suggest that
this is problematic, and demonstrate alternative policy visions offered by gay and
queer production procedures. Aer a brief description of my methods, I sketch
the porn industries with which my research deals. I then evoke the controversial
figure of the “crossover” performer (cismen working in both gay and straight
porn) to illustrate the role played by choice and bodily autonomy in conversations
about porn health protocol. An emphasis on informed consent, I argue,
Crossovers and Consent
Underlying Assumptions in Porn Health Protocol
VALERIE WEBBER
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presupposes three questionable interrelated assertions: that workers’ bodies are
discrete, individualized, immunological entities; that some form of asymmetry
between these workers is required to determine occupational health and safety
rights and responsibilities; and that in the absence of some other asymmetry,
the ableist protection of a “clean” (i.e. pathogen-negative) body is imposed, with
discriminatory implications. I then look to differences in how gay and queer porn
productions operate to suggest other approaches.
Methods
This paper draws on my PhD research, which applies critical interpretive medical
anthropology to the politics of occupational health protocols in pornography. I
have been involved in the porn industry since 2002 and official data collection
for this project was conducted between 2016 and 2020. This included participant
observation on four film sets in the United States, at eleven major industry events
(trade shows, award shows, and film festivals) in Canada, the United States of
America, and Germany, and online (e.g. Twier, key industry media outlets and
newsleers, etc.). I conducted forty unstructured interviews, primarily with
current performers and performer/producers, but also with directors, marketing
and tech professionals, and lawyers working with adult industry clients. I
transcribed interviews verbatim, returned them to participants so they could
review and edit if desired, and thematically coded all by hand. This research
received ethical approval from Memorial University (file #: 20180439-ME).
It is common to impose a pseudonym upon participants to protect their
confidentiality, particularly when they are framed as “vulnerable” by some outside
institution, as is oen the case with research dealing in sex (Irvine 2012; Webber
and Brunger 2018). However, this denial of authorship can be an expression of
undue paternalism (Gustafson and Brunger 2014). My consent process explicitly
asked participants how they wanted to be cited in related publications. Many
chose to be identified, as they wished to be credited for their thoughts and ideas.
Direct quotes are therefore cited with the name, stage name, or pseudonym of the
participants’ choosing. Some quotations have been lightly edited for readability.
An Industry Sketch
Historically the porn industry has been concentrated in California, largely due
to legal and infrastructural factors. A 1988 California Supreme Court decision,
California v. Freeman, legalized pornography production in the state (Shachner
2014, 350), and Hollywood offers all the necessary film production resources
(Sullivan and McKee 2015, 36). The industry has decentralized in recent years due
to factors such as rising production costs, falling profits, and a general increase
in mobile and “gig” economic structures, combined with the development of
technological platforms that support independent production and dissemination.
Additionally, Measure B, which mandates condom use in LA County, has led to
out-migration of production (Berg and Penley 2016; Sullivan and McKee 2015).
Nevertheless, California continues to play a central role in the global industry
both ideologically, as the apex of the porn imaginary, and materially, as the site
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of important institutions like major production companies, trade associations,
health and community services, and media and award show outlets. Throughout
the 2000s and to some degree today, the California landscape can generally be
divided into two primary sectors: the “straight” industry concentrated in Southern
California (mainly Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley) and specializing in
heterosexual content, which includes some “girl-girl” and transwomen content;
and the gay, queer, and kink industries located more in Northern California and
the San Francisco Bay area (Tibbals 2012, 233–36).
Therefore, the industry is oen spoken of in binary terms, having a “gay side”
and a “straight side”. The two sides have adopted different safer sex protocols. The
“straight side” relies largely on STI and HIV testing according to “PASS” standards
(Performer Availability Screening Services), a database service operated by the
Free Speech Coalition1 since 2012 (following the closure of a similar system, Adult
Industry Medical, that operated from 1998 to 2011; Shachner 2014, 352–59). The
PASS protocol mandates that in order to perform, talent must have tested negative
for HIV RNA, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, syphilis, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, and
chlamydia, within the preceding fourteen days. At the time of writing, performers
could avail themselves of services at approximately 500 draw centres linked to
one of three private labs participating in the PASS network (at a cost of about $140
to $280 USD, usually paid by the performer). Producers can then access the third-
party PASS database, and while they cannot see a performer’s full test results,
they will see a green or red check, indicating that a performer either does or does
not have a current negative test on file. Some sets may also use condoms, and
some performers may elect to take PrEP, but these are not standard practice. If
a performer ever tests HIV+, they are barred from using the PASS system in the
future.
For the “gay side”, on the other hand, things are generally less standardized,
as it is more common to use some combination of testing, condoms, and/or PrEP.
Some gay productions use condoms with no testing while others use testing and no
condoms. PrEP is used widely by HIV negative performers, and some productions
may not use testing or condoms. HIV+ performers are not uncommon, given that
contemporary anti-retrovirals make it relatively easy to achieve an undetectable
viral load, impeding transmission of the virus (Eisinger, Dieffenbach, & Fauci
2019). The PASS system is used by some studios, typically those whose parent
company also owns major straight studios and has standardized sexual health
protocols across all brands. But since PASS excludes anyone who has ever tested
positive for HIV, many gay studios do not opt in (Clark-Flory 2019).
Much debate over health in porn—and the crux of the controversy surrounding
the AVN panel—has been over the relative risk of working with those oen
disparagingly referred to as “crossover” performers: cismen who perform with
both ciswomen in straight porn and other cismen in gay porn (whether or not
working with transwomen makes someone crossover seems to be in flux at the
moment, as porn centring transwomen shis from a marginal “fetish” category
to a mainstream straight market).
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Some performers believe that working with these men represents a greater
risk of contracting HIV on set, assuming that cismen who work with other
cismen engage in sexual activity and/or drug use that makes them more likely
to come into contact with HIV. This issue intensified following the tragic death
of performer August Ames in 2017, who died by suicideaer being met with
criticism for tweeting that she would not work with a man who had performed
in gay porn (Horn 2017). Occupational health has proven a perennial and divisive
topic ever since.
The decision not to work with crossover talent is framed as a maer of health
management and risk reduction. The argument is that men who have sex with
men are more likely to have HIV, so avoidance is not indicative of homophobia or
discrimination but rather a statistical risk calculation. For example, when Ames
was rebuffed for her initial tweet, she responded:
NOT homophobic. Most girls don’t shoot with guys who have shot gay
porn, for safety. That’s just how it is with me. I’m not puing my body at
risk, i don’t know what they do in their private lives. [@AugustAmesxxx,
December 3 2017]
Challengers of this position point out that anyone working on a straight set has to
go through the PASS system regardless. Performer Adela put it succinctly in our
conversation:
If we put faith in the testing system, then that’s it. It doesn’t maer if
someone does crossover porn, it doesn’t maer if someone escorts. It
doesn’t maer. We accept that the testing protocol we’ve established is
going to protect us based on the science behind it.
Performers also point out that we rarely know much about the private sex lives
of the people we work with. As Charloe Sartre, who was on the AVN panel in
question, told me:
You can’t limit like, “oh I’m not gonna fuck this type of or this class of
performer who’s done this because I’m taking a calculated risk”. We have
no idea what anybody’s doing off camera. Anytime you have your scene
partner’s test in your hand, you’re taking it at face value. But the fact is, you
just don’t know what actually has gone on.
Adela and Charloe acknowledge that it is impossible for scene partners to
know one another’s risk profiles with total transparency. For them, PASS testing
operates as a rigorous barometer. Other performers, however, express doubt:
the PASS system tests for HIV using the viral RNA test rather than the antigen/
antibody test (Ag/Ab). Some fear that HIV+ performers with an undetectable viral
load could “slip through” unbeknownst to their scene partners, appearing to be
HIV negative on paper but in fact carrying the virus. As with the rationale behind
the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, these performers argue that informed
consent requires certain knowledge of their scene-partners’ HIV status, because
otherwise relevant risk-assessment information is missing. Failure to obtain
informed consent, the argument goes, is tantamount to sexual assault. This subset
of performers demanded that the Ag/Ab test be added to PASS protocol, so that
anyone who had ever tested positive for HIV would be detected regardless of their
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viral load. This would expose invisible infections, perform the work of disclosure,
and ensure fully informed consent is possible.
Requiring an Ag/Ab test, or simply refusing to work with crossover talent,
are both presented as expressions of one’s right to exercise bodily autonomy. Or
rather, that bodily autonomy is an occupational right that can be secured through
the disclosure of certain kinds of information. Tweets in this vein focus on how
performers have “the right to decide what I allow with my body” [@APAGunion,
April 24, 2018], sometimes including hashtags like #mybodymychoice [@
alanaevansxxx, January 23, 2018]. Similar sentiments were expressed in interviews
I’ve conducted, including one with performer Jasmeen Lefleur who said, “I didn’t
agree with the statement that August Ames made, but I respected her opinion
and what she said because it is our bodies and it’s her choice.”
The precedence of personal choice stems partly from a liberal sex worker
rights movement deeply invested in the neoliberal rhetoric of choice. Mainstream
sex worker movements have oen aempted to justify sex work by positioning
it as “legitimate” work that, when chosen, is personally satisfying and fulfilling
(Berg 2014).2 Additionally, however, is the fact that the only framework available
for thinking about how to choose individuals to perform sex acts with has been
borrowed from a recreational sexual consent model. Necessarily so: there is no
model of consent specifically designed around sexual labour wherein all involved
parties are labourers (and not clients); there is no specific framework to address
sexual labour gone wrong (what we might call “breaches of contract” in other
domains). Sexual consent becomes the default criteria. Is this problematic?
Karla O’Regan undertakes a genealogy of consent, illustrating how the
concept is presumed ahistorical and self-evident. Debate about consent tends
to focus on if and how it can be communicated, rather than on what it actually
is. The “content of consent,” O’Regan writes, “is le to presumptions about its
heralded foundations in personal autonomy and free action” (O’Regan 2020,
7). Understood as an expression of individual autonomy, the idea of consent is
invested in preserving and idolizing the myth of a universal, “individualized
agency” that ignores and obscures social inequalities (7). I suggest that because
of its presumed foundation in autonomy, recreational sexual consent is not an
appropriate basis for ethical occupational health practice. As the following
sections argue, the very notions of informed consent and bodily autonomy fail
to appreciate the reality of material bodies. A consent model also invokes ableist
solutions to the ways that occupational health typically distributes rights and
responsibilities. By failing to adapt to the unique dilemma posed by workplace
sex, this solution risks ostracizing the very performers that health policies are
intended to protect. I now address these three issues in turn.
Discrete Bodies
“A challenge for HIV prevention” writes Mark Davis, is “its reliance on
individualised action that does not address the ‘we’ of sexual practice and
therefore joint action” (Davis 2008, 190). Sex, and therefore sexual health, is a
collective project. Like all viruses, bacteria, and parasites, STIs connect bodies,
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even those that don’t touch directly. They have a way of revealing the inherent
we-ness of even the most ardently individualized lives. Lotus Lain cut to the heart
of this reality while talking with me about how some performers avoid working
with crossover talent as part of their sexual health plan:
[I don’t understand] that whole sense of security that people give
themselves when they put barriers in front of working with “crossover”
talent. Because my argument to that is always: what is it when you’re doing
a threesome, or a gangbang? Or those double anal penetration or double
pussy penetration scenes? Is that not literally a crossover scene happening
right there in the very same vagina holes? Or anus holes?…[Even] if you’re
not working with crossover, if you’re not doing those kinds of scenes, even
if you’re just doing one-on-one, boy/girl sex, who’s to say that girl didn’t
just do a scene with someone that does crossover work? Or did a scene
with a girl who does scenes with crossover? Like, we’re all connected.
Here Lotus points out how any decision that treats one’s own body and the bodies
of scene partners as discrete entities ignores the inextricability of one performer
from another. Margaret Lile (1999) has pointed out the fallacy of discourse based
on “the premise that people are physically demarcated” (295). While she was
writing about abortion rhetoric, I would argue that sex work similarly:
asks us to face the morality and politics of intertwinement and enmeshment
with a conceptual framework that is…poorly suited to the task. A tradition
that imagines persons as physically separate [doesn’t] do well when analyzing
situations in which persons aren’t as it imagines them. (297)
When it comes to thinking about sex and consent, the notion of autonomy
has sometimes been swapped out for the idea of “bodily integrity” because, as
Mahew Weait (2007) writes, “autonomy” falsely treats bodies as “nothing more
than the vehicles through which mentally formulated choices by people of full
capacity are realised” (Weait 2007, 108). But while the shi to “bodily integrity”
might avoid certain assumptions around agency, it retains other assumptions
around wholeness: “such a shi ignores, or discounts, the fact that human beings
lack the very bodily integrity which is justification for that shi” (109–110). The
notion of bodily autonomy has important symbolic value that is crucial to honour
when grappling with best practices around disclosure and consent. But the idea of
discrete bodies has lile material value. Bodies are porous. There are no decisions,
no disclosures, that can socially detach the body and render it impermeable.
There exist many critiques of individualism—both the mythical ideal itself,
and the ethnocentric binarism with which it is contrasted to the notion of humans
as relational beings or “dividuals” (Smith 2012)—and of the idea that autonomy is
absolute and universal, versus being a set of inherently constrained choices. I am
far from the first to suggest that “bodily autonomy” is not an ideal foundation for
ethical decision-making and political practice. In this instance, however, it is not
just sexual consent that is at stake, but also work. Does the context of work change
things? Does the permeability of bodies maer differently when sex is work,
and if so, how should this be reflected in occupational health and safety policy?
For the work context invites additional questions around responsibility: who is
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responsible for who, and what rights do people have to secure an income? Most
critiques of consent focus on a “reformulation (and expansion) of the procedural
requirements of consent, thus leaving its foundations in autonomy intact”
(O’Regan 2020, 10). What might be true were we to renounce this foundation in
autonomy? Are there instances where one’s right to have work should override
someone else’s right to reject scene partners in the name of autonomy?
The question is uncomfortable, because when we consider it in terms of
recreational sex, people should obviously be entitled to select their sex partners
according to whatever criteria they like, no maer how racist, homophobic, ablest,
or otherwise problematic it might be. In recreation, this means some people
might be refused sex, but in porn production, this means that some people are
refused work. Is the inability to secure employment a different kind of issue than
the inability to secure recreational sex, and is that cause for concern? Yes, it is,
when we take up the position of those who are edged out of the performer pool.
Some people should be edged out: those who act disrespectfully towards scene
partners and repeatedly violate their boundaries. The industry has regularly
grappled with how to call out performers who exhibit a track record of abusive
conduct. Lacking more formal grievance procedures, performers’ individual
“no” lists (which name specific performers people refuse to work with) are one
of the best ways that talent can exert power to remove people from the pool. The
experience of a bodily boundary violation at work can feel indistinguishable
from the experience of a boundary violation in one’s private sex life, and consent
(however inadequate) is the framework we have to think through that experience.
The type of rejection that concerns me, and to which “bodily autonomy”
is perhaps improperly applied, is the universal rejection of a type of performer
because of their real or imagined pathogen status, especially when there are
alternative ways to manage safer sex that would enable those people to work
without posing exceptional risk to their scene partners. Application of the logic of
sexual consent, not just to sexual acts that constitute a breach of contract (i.e. the
performance of sex acts different from what performers agreed upon, or which
did not stop when safe words or other indicators were used) but to STI and HIV
testing and disclosure mandates, broadens the impact of individual consent in
important ways. If crossover performers are refused work based on stigma or
generalizations about HIV, despite there being no actual risk of transmission,
do they have a right to claim labour discrimination? Not according to a consent-
based occupational health logic. Why not? Partly because of how occupational
health and safety policies are typically structured, to which I now turn.
Asymmetry
Occupational health and safety has traditionally depended on asymmetry
between workers/clients or employers/workers to determine who is responsible
for whom and the direction of liability. Workplace safety either a) regulates
conduct between providers and clients, where the provider is burdened with the
task of ensuring a safe environment or procedure for the client (e.g. restaurant
food safety, aesthetician services, or health care practices), or b) regulates contact
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between workers and certain substances or conditions, where the employer
is burdened with ensuring workers are safe (e.g. procedures to protect against
contamination by toxic chemicals, the risks of using dangerous equipment, or
exposure to environmental harms in the workplace). In both instances, a hierarchy
is assumed or imposed. One entity is responsible for conducting certain practices
or procedures that protect another; the protective relationship is not reciprocal.
Porn production, however, is different. While direct service sex work like
dancing or escorting can be plugged into the asymmetry framework, porn
performance entails protecting performers from one another.3 This means
regulating a symmetrical relationship. If both workers are simultaneously the
person to be protected and the potential source of danger, what does this do to
our traditional understanding of occupational health? Who is burdened with
ensuring worker safety? How, in this instance, might occupational health protocols
discriminate against the very workers they are supposed to protect? Here we have
entered a tricky ethical conundrum where we must balance multiple kinds of
rights between equivalent workers. When sexual performance is our source of
livelihood, economic justice and fair hiring practices must reside, no maer how
uncomfortably, alongside maers of consent and bodily autonomy.
Claims of possible job discrimination are usually met with the defense that
informed consent on the part of pathogen-negative performers takes precedence
over any rights on the part of positive performers. As Eric, who directs for gay
companies, told me:
Personally, I think the entire industry should be tested only. The real
conflict comes from how the gay industry allows so many HIV+ performers
to work, which I have a problem with. But I have to suppress that opinion
when working in that environment. It’s an unpopular opinion. They see it
as job discrimination. I see it as seeking a healthy work environment.
Later, he conceded a more nuanced approach: “The HIV+ guys can work together,
and if somebody wants to work with an HIV+ performer they can sign the release.
No problem. It’s not about discrimination. It’s about providing a safe and informed
workplace.”
Eric’s two philosophies—that no workplace is safe if HIV+ performers
are present, or that HIV+ performers can work safely contingent on legalistic
standards of informed consent—demonstrate how consent is stretched to fit
different scenarios, while maintaining its foundation in a particular sense of
autonomy. It is difficult to imagine otherwise. An intriguing alternative was raised
by Charloe Sartre, as we discussed the possibility of undetectable (and therefore
non-infectious) HIV+ performers “passing” a PASS test and being cleared to work
in straight porn:
The way I see it, if somebody takes the test, the next day they go to work
with me. I don’t know this person. Their test says negative. If they’re
undetectable, I end up not geing HIV and I never really find out that they
had HIV, how is that hurting me? If anything, I would be more burdened
with the information and the fear.
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Charloe offers a perspective where an HIV negative person’s right to certain
information does not override a non-infectious HIV+ person’s right to work. This
defies the pathogenic asymmetry that typically structures porn health policy,
whereby protection (symbolic or otherwise) of STI negativity takes unquestioned
precedence over any competing worker rights. I explore this issue more in the
next section.
The Morality of Negativity
In order to establish the kind of asymmetry that simplifies the distribution of
occupational health rights and responsibilities, STI negativity and positivity are
positioned in hierarchical opposition to one another. Pathogen-negative persons
are the object of protection; or rather, negative persons are the only one’s able to be
protected, inasmuch as a (real or presumed) positive person is beyond protection—
they have already fallen victim to the target of protection. This presumption takes
for granted that the only acceptable goal of occupational health is to identify and
reject those with a positive status so as to maintain a worker’s negative status, and
where the preservation of pathogen-negativity is prioritized over any other needs
that pathogen-positive workers might have.
It is crucial here to recognize that many performers and activists would like
to see PASS, or some parallel program, include HIV+ performers so that they
could avail of an equally structured system of STI and viral load testing. This idea
was floated hypothetically at the AVN panel discussed at the outset of this paper
and is what provoked the massive negative response. That some HIV negative
performers would consent to work with HIV+ performers is seen by many as
reckless and delusional, because consent, while ostensibly ensuring personal
freedom, actually entails “a series of unspoken presumptions about what is
‘normal’ human behaviour,” such that “the availability of consent hinges on the
‘reasonableness’ of the defendant’s4 conduct” (O’Regan 2020, 5–6).
The emphasis on maintaining pathogen-negativity serves many ends. For one,
it offers a defense against governmental and non-profit entities that try to regulate
(or some would argue, stifle) porn production via health policy. As performer
Courtney D told me:
Performers with HIV are treated with a mixture of a bogeyman, ew gross
kind of thing, as well as a bit of “this gives us a bad name, having performers
with HIV”… There’s so much pressure from political organizations that
are trying to commute the spread of HIV within the adult industry that it
seems like in order to be taken seriously within that debate, the industry
has to position itself also against performers with HIV.
Because of pornography’s precarious social and legal standing, the industry is
pressured into taking an abolitionist stance to HIV in order to ward off groups
like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and various California public health
departments. These organizations have repeatedly lobbied to impose health
policies that are not informed by current porn professionals, but rather modelled
off of healthcare blood borne pathogen protocol and completely incompatible
with porn production. The industry has argued that external regulation is
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unnecessary given the success of their voluntary, self-regulatory measures, with
the PASS system lauded for its rigor and effectiveness. Free Speech Coalition
press releases regarding health issues in the industry oen remind readers, in
some variation or another, that “[t]he adult film industry has not seen an on-set
transmission of HIV on a PASS-regulated set in over a decade” (FSC 2018) or “we
have not had a transmission of the [human immunodeficiency] virus on a PASS-
compliant set since 2004” (FSC 2019).
In this way, the industry has positioned itself as not only not irresponsible,
but as seing an enviable standard for sexual health that is far superior to what
external agencies suggest or what the average civilian does. The frequency,
transparency, and effectiveness of PASS testing protocol is exceptional, and
deserves the accolades it receives. Most of the performers I spoke with, whether
they had access to PASS or not (draw centres are scarce throughout Canada, non-
existent in Europe, and, where they exist, prohibitively expensive for many lower-
earning or part-time performers) considered PASS an ideal system and a worthy
model. The key critiques, when present, were that a) the cost usually falls upon
performers, b) that site-specific swabbing is unavailable or costs extra, enabling
the undetected spread of certain STIs, and c) that window periods (the period of
infectivity between contraction and detectability) always present a risk beyond
mitigation. Otherwise, most people felt that PASS strikes the correct balance
between enabling the work to be done effectively within an acceptable level of
risk. Indeed, many of the performers I spoke with said they prefer to only have sex
with other porn performers, believing these individuals are more risk-aware and
conscious of their sexual health:
We’re tested every fourteen days. That is literally twenty-three more times
than the average American. If that person makes it to their yearly physical.
I have met tons of people that haven’t been to the doctor in years. That
scares me because they have no idea what their status is.… I don’t hook up
with people outside of the porn industry because I’m terrified. And I’m
not the only one. There’s many performers that know: if you go out into
the wild, you will come back with something. [Ash Hollywood]
Or as Chanel Preston said “the reality is most performers I know care about their
health more than other people, and they’re more aware of it, and a lot of them
don’t even have intercourse with people outside of the industry just out of fear
that they’re the ones that are gonna give them an STD.”
Online, performers also promote the notion of the porn industry as a sexual
health role model. They oen mention PASS protocol in media interviews to
counter mainstream assumptions about pornography production. For example,
veteran performer Nina Hartley told the Huffington Post: “I have had over 165
negative HIV and STI tests…I have been tested every three to four weeks for the
last twelve years. How many people out there actually know their HIV status?
Testing works for us, and condoms work for outsiders” (Williams 2012). Many
performers also tweet when they have just been tested. Certainly, this is a form
of promotion, indicating their availability to work with the goal of obtaining
bookings, but many also take the opportunity to advocate for testing, using
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hashtags (some more problematic than others) like #knowyourstatus, #healthfirst,
#stdfree, and #teamclean.
Finally, some performers explained that PASS protocol now informs how they
conduct their personal sex lives. For example, Delirious Hunter told me:
I feel [working in porn] is actually much safer than just meeting someone
at a club or anything like that. It’s even changed my negotiations with
friends.… Now whenever I look at a partner, it’s like “ok, here’s the deal,
you have to get tested and if you want to continue playing, you must
continue to keep up on the testing. Because I am not gonna let you fuck up
my life”.… I don’t have a lot of trust in other people. And I also don’t trust
when, even some friends just saying, “oh, well let me just go to my doctor
and I’ll give you a paper copy.” I’m like “nope, Talent Testing has a civilian
version, it’s called I Know My Status.com”.
I Know My Status refers to a testing service powered by Talent Testing Services,
which was at the time of writing the largest and most popular lab network
participating in the PASS system. They launched www.iknowmystatus.com for
civilians, with the telling catch phrase, “Test Like a Porn Star”. Their advertising
uses “testing like a porn star” as short-hand for rapid, reliable, high-tech testing.
This capitalizes on the idea that porn performers achieve the height of sexual
responsibility.
In many ways, this label is well deserved: the PASS protocol has done a
commendable job of preventing HIV and other STI transmissions on-set. Frequent
testing and disclosure are sensible occupational health protocols, and it makes
sense that performers want to work in conditions that minimize their risk of STIs
and HIV. For many, it is an obvious material truth that being pathogen-negative, if
possible, is preferable to being pathogen-positive: symptoms can be uncomfortable
and painful, including the structural symptoms of living in an ableist, pathogen-
moralizing society. When the porn industry responds to accusations of sexual
“irresponsibility” within the terms of debate set by critics, however, it perpetuates
those same structural symptoms and makes no allowance for workers with
current or incurable STIs or HIV. As an industry advocate, I participate in this
defense myself; mainstream antagonists don’t leave us much choice. But the
wider implication of this defense is that it can limit the conversation of sexual
ethics to “being responsible,” and equate “responsibility” with the maintenance
of a pathogen-free body/work seing (versus advocating for other kinds of harm
reduction that could enable STI and HIV infected people to work).
The imperative to be negative can be read as a form of ableism, inasmuch as it
normalizes and prioritizes a (real or imagined) pathogen-free body and buresses
discrimination against certain sexual subjects. Is there a way to enable workers to
take occupational health precautions as they see fit without reinforcing STI stigma,
and without limiting the possibilities for “healthy” (read: “rational”) sex and safer
sex options? Referring to the practices of gay and queer porn productions, as I do
in the next section, offers some alternatives.
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Explicit Access
While perceived promiscuity and HIV risk is precisely a common point of
stigmatization for both sex workers and gay communities, the debate over
crossover talent is framed by some as a clash between sex worker and gay politics.
In a new iteration of the disconnect between gay and sex worker movements,
“gay rights” were seen by many as a threat to the health of (straight, female)
porn performers. As Becki L. Ross (2018) writes, gay men and sex working
women share many of the same oppressive forces and political goals, since both
“homosexuality and prostitution were administered by medico-moral authorities
as sources of maladjustment, degeneration, and threats to the health of the white-
seler nation” (257). Additionally, both
navigated oppressive forces within institutional apparatuses of the
law, organized religion, families, politics, mass media, medicine, and
education. In the mid-80s a new moral panic—AIDS—targeted “hookers”
and “faggots” as sexually spoiled and fatally promiscuous. The pain and
shame of imposed and internalized stigma necessitated subcultural
formations as bulwarks against hate and violence. (258–59)
Despite this, the seeming natural ally-ship between gay men and sex working
women never really took off, largely because when homosexuality was
decriminalized and depathologized (but sex work was not), the mainstream gay
movement embarked on a rights-based project of homonormative acceptance
and assimilation. Straight industry debate over crossover performers replicates
these dynamics, although now rearranged, framing straight porn performers as
respectable community members, and those with or suspected of having HIV as
gay infiltrators.
Many gay and queer porn studios have a different relationship to HIV and
sexual health than straight studios. HIV is not something which infiltrates the
community, but rather coheres it. “I have a responsibility to a community and a
tradition,” writes Paul Morris of his gay studio, Treasure Island Media (Morris
and Passonen 2014, 216). His explanation divorces respectability from pathogen-
negativity, rejecting the imperative of safety as it is typically understood:
TIM is two things, basically. We’re a developing and living archive of real
male sexual experience. And we’re a laboratory that performs experiments
that the men involved in our community propose.… Most gay porn hides
behind a façade of “safeness.” But in my case, the men in my work are
considered prized for being damaged, for having taken what conservative
gays deem “the ultimate risk” and lost. (217)
Tellingly, Treasure Island Media is one of the few studios to have signed the Porn
Producers for Safety Against Discrimination pledge (hps://ppsdpledge.com/).
The first statement in the pledge, authored by porn performer and activist Jason
Domino, asserts that
Having reviewed and discussed available trial results and medical
information, we accept that individuals living with HIV who maintain an
undetectable viral load cannot pass on the virus to their sexual partners.
As such, we encourage people living with HIV with an undetectable viral
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load to approach us for work as performers without fear of discrimination.
Aside from Treasure Island Media, the other sites or studios that openly and
explicitly allow STI/HIV+ people to work are largely gay or queer-identified.
This is perhaps unsurprising, given the historical connection between queer
communities and movements for justice around sexual health and HIV status.
Whatever the epidemiology of STIs and HIV today, queer communities have
a history of advocating for the rights of HIV+ folks. Queer, trans, kinky, sex
working, and HIV+ communities are historically and persistently policed by
public health and law enforcement agencies, be it through the criminalization
of HIV non-disclosure and sex work, or through the shaming, blaming, and
disproportionate responsibilization of targeted prevention campaigns. A strong
desire not to replicate such policing animates these communities. What remains
is a legacy of fighting discrimination faced by people living with STIs and HIV,
and of honing expertise in safer sex methods beyond testing, such as barriers
and lubricants, strategic positioning, serosorting, and non-fluid-exchanging play
(Webber 2018; see also Schieber 2018). This broadening of what constitutes safer
sex (and by extension, occupational health) opens porn work to those who are
excluded by a rigid testing system. Robert McRuer writes that both queer and
disability rights movements are “cultures…founded on access” (McRuer 2003,
99). Access is a fundamental political goal for these movements because “another
world can exist in which an incredible variety of bodies and minds are valued”
(McRuer and Wilkerson 2003, 14), and everyone is enriched by this heterogeneity.
By adopting a broader notion of occupational health and a broader usage of the
concept of consent, studios that explicitly hire HIV and STI positive performers
critique pathogen-ableism by enshrining their right to be sexually expressive,
while directly challenging the economic marginalization of performers barred
from the industry because of their serostatus. I illustrate these methods and
motivations more below.
Alternatives to Asymmetry
During a panel on Ethical Porn Production held at the 2018 Toronto International
Porn Festival, performer and director Icy Winters lamented that by not allowing
performers with STIs to work, the mainstream straight porn industry shames
people for having STIs. Given the variety of options for preventing transmission,
she argued, there is no reason to bar pathogen-positive folks from sexual
performance. Doing so insinuates that people with STIs/HIV have forfeited the
right to be sexual beings.
In our interview, queer producer Kate Sinclaire agreed. She states that “as a society,
we insist, ‘you’ve got HIV, you’re no longer a sexual person. You don’t get to enjoy things’.
That’s prey much it. It excludes those people from the porn world.” At the time of our
interview Kate Sinclaire had not yet worked with any openly HIV+ performers, but
her policy allows for it. The FAQ on her site, Ciné Sinclaire, includes the header: “I’d
like to perform, but I have an STI.” The posted response says that all performers need
to produce a recent STI test, and that “a safer sex conversation must be had before the
shoot can go ahead.” However, “Having an STI does not mean that you are not able to
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work as a performer for Ciné Sinclaire. It does mean that your partner deserves to be
informed, and that they will be, by you. If the partner consents to using barriers, the
shoot will go ahead as planned” (hps://www.cinesinclaire.com/faq/).
I asked Kate to expand on the motivations behind this decision. She recounted
an incident where performers had disclosed, only aer shooting, that they carried
the herpes simplex virus. The situation made her ask herself, “why did these
people not feel like they could disclose?” She continued:
Realizing that people won’t come forward with things if they feel like the
money they’re gonna make, their job, is in jeopardy, I was like: ok, well,
rather than crack down on it, I’m just gonna be like, “declare everything
and we’ll find a way to make sure you get your money. We’ll shoot
something. We won’t endanger your livelihood because of this.”
She describes this approach as a way to “put my money where my mouth is, to put
myself at risk in that way, because people are puing themselves in a vulnerable
position for me [when they] perform”. The decision is thus a “very deliberate act”
that aims to balance performers’ bodily autonomy with their financial security.
To do this, Kate employs a variety of harm reduction techniques on set. Of her
process, she says:
I don’t require to see the tests.… But we are required to have the conversation
and have it as honestly as possible.… Especially for queer people: maybe
there is any number of things keeping them from seeing a doctor for these
things. But I do want people to be as open and honest as they can be, and
if they come forward and say, “I haven’t been tested in 6 months,” that’s
honest too. Then their scene partner can be like, “you know what, I’m
actually not comfortable,” and they’re empowered to do that.
As this last point aests, the inclusion of pathogen-positive performers does not
override the value placed on informed consent but complicates and stretches the
principle in important ways. For one, Kate addresses the structural parameters
and inequalities that can impede the ideal of informed consent (such as the
disincentive queer people might have to seek healthcare, see Paine 2018). She also
explicitly acknowledges the unique role of labour, whereby material need and
potential financial gain inform the consent equation.
Informed consent is also stretched in subsequent points of the Porn Producers
for Safety Against Discrimination pledge:
Performers who are not living with HIV will have the opportunity to agree
to work with other performers who are undetectable… We will also make
reasonable effort to educate all performers about HIV and other STIs,
including that people living with HIV maintaining an Undetectable Viral
Load can’t pass HIV on. Along with advice on testing, condom use and
accessing PrEP/PEP.
As noted above, informed consent procedures usually default towards protecting
the decision not to work with performers who are HIV+, assuming this is what
most “rational” HIV negative performers will choose. In this pledge, however, the
right to accept work with HIV+ people is emphasized, as many people in the porn
industry are comfortable doing so when policy allows them to. Also addressed
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here is the maer of education in defining when consent is truly informed, by
underscoring how many people are ignorant of the latest HIV science and
prevention methods.
What modifications to straight policy might we draw from these queer ways?
Porn health protocols could reconsider how they prioritize pathogen negativity, by
integrating maers of financial and social justice alongside maers of individual
consent. Advocates on the AVN panel with which this paper opened suggested the
possibility of building an additional testing system, to be used by HIV+ performers
with an undetectable viral load and those open to working with them. Another
option would be a flexible/modular system where performers could be pooled
and matched according to their STI/HIV status, personal boundaries around
exposure, and preferred harm reduction methods. Whatever shape it might take,
the point is that alternative designs are possible when we disrupt assumptions
about what is considered a rational health choice, and what constitutes informed
consent to make such a choice. The next phase of this project aims to work with
industry stakeholders to concretely reimagine occupational health protocols and
procedures.
Conclusion
Workplace health and safety in the straight porn industry is shaped by decision-
making frameworks that were never designed with pornography in mind.
Interrogating how standard notions of consent and occupational health are
applied to porn reveals the problematic assumptions of these models. It is crucial to
trouble these and strive towards fair working conditions for all porn workers. Gay
and queer studios offer some alternatives, as these communities have contended
with sexual health in different and deeper ways. Whatever changes to policy and
protocol occur, they must emerge from within communities of porn professionals
and porn-adjacent service providers. External bodies—such as government and
non-profits—should not have a role in enforcing “solutions”. As it stands, however,
performers must too oen be suited to a protocol, rather than the protocol suited
to performers. A testing and disclosure process that utilizes a wider variety of
harm reduction techniques may be one way to create more flexible protocol.
Beyond supporting the immediate needs of performers, it is useful to examine
porn health policy because porn is uniquely positioned to illuminate what is
taken for granted about bodies, sex, health, work, risk, and responsibility; and
what is considered a rational way to navigate those things. While we can and
should put porn to use in these ways, it would also be a mistake to overemphasize
porn’s uniqueness. In the same way that the umbrella term “sex work” can erase
the variability between different jobs that happen to deal in sex, so has it erased
the many points of commonality that sex work jobs have with different kinds of
“straight work.” Viewing assumptions about the body-at-work as they arise in the
context of porn can enable us to see how else these assumptions fail us, who else
doesn’t easily fit within them, and what else slips through the cracks le by them.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to those who agreed to participate in
this research; our conversations inspire me in new ways every time I revisit them.
I wish to thank the editorial team at Synoptique for their comments and support,
and the peer-reviewers for their engaging and productive critiques. I would also
like to thank Dr. Fern Brunger and Dr. Christopher Kaposy for their input on
earlier iterations of this paper, and Kailey Bryan for their constructive feedback.
Notes
1. Since the writing of this paper, PASS has undergone several changes that are
not reflected in its description here. PASS now operates as an independent
organization, has introduced COVID-19 protocols in addition to STI/HIV
testing, and the network of affiliated testing facilities has fluctuated. The
author has also joined the PASS Board of Directors.
2. This liberal defense contributes to classist discrimination against certain sex
workers (a system known colloquially as “the whorearchy”) by securing rights
and respect only for the most upwardly mobile, racially-, geographically-, and
class-privileged individuals.
3. Reviewing the regulation of legalized prostitution demonstrates this. For
example, Nevada requires that “legal courtesans” (as they are referred to on
their licenses) adhere to a STI testing regimen that can include restrictions
of their movement (not being allowed to leave the brothel during shis) and
having to get a fresh test once they go off-sight for a given number of hours,
whereas clients do not need to provide any kind of proof of testing, although
clients with penises must wear condoms for all penetrative acts, akin to a “no
shirt, no shoes, no service” mandate of responsibilizing customers to contribute
to overall occupational health and safety status (Nevada Administrative Code
441A; Nevada Revised Statute 201.358).
4. As the language indicates, O’Regan is referring to the allocation of legal
consent in judicial contexts, however I think the argument holds for other
standardized norms, such as occupational policies and community standards.
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