An advocacy group that has been demanding greater government protections for adult film performers plans to file a complaint Thursday with state regulators against nine Los Angeles-area porn talent agencies.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation officials, opening a new front in their fight with the porn industry, said they plan to send a letter to State Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet arguing the agencies encourage porn performers to engage in unsafe sex that puts them at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
“Many of these agents are callous enough to describe the unprotected sexual acts their clients will engage in on a checklist on their websites as cavalierly as if one was ordering off a menu in a restaurant,” said Michael Weinstein, the foundation’s president.
The nonprofit foundation, based in Los Angeles, has been campaigning for increased regulation of the porn industry since a 2004 HIV outbreak among performers in the San Fernando Valley.
Agencies named in the complaint include A List Talent, ATMLA , Gold Star Modeling, LA Direct Models, Lisa Ann’s Talent Management, Metro Talent Management, SpieglerGirls.com, Type 9 Models, Inc. and World Modeling, according to Weinstein.
Woodland Hills-based ATMLA’s website features a list of mostly female performers’ names and photos. Click on a photo, and up pops a list of sex acts the actress is willing to perform on screen, including many that involve unprotected sex.
The agency’s owner, a former porn actress known as Shy Love, said she believes AIDS Healthcare activists are on a witch hunt.
"They keep trying to figure out who to blame, and now they’re blaming the agents,” Love said.
Love said she cannot dictate what sex acts the performers she represents are willing to do. She said her job is simply to match performers with production companies and projects, just as a mainstream movie agent would.
“They tell us what they want to do, we find those jobs and present it to them. We don’t force them into anything,” Love said.
Love said that she worked as a porn actress for a decade and performed more than 2,000 scenes, 95% of them without condoms. She paid to have herself tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases and said she never tested positive.
“We’re adults who make adult decisions to protect ourselves the way we see fit,” Love said.
Last month, in response to an AIDS Healthcare petition, a state workplace safety panel created an advisory group to consider mandating condom use and added testing and other health protections for porn performers. Los Angeles County public health officials have recommended that condoms be required for porn productions and that adult film industry producers, not performers, pay for testing. Public health officials contend that as many as a quarter of porn performers are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease in any given year.
Porn industry officials have disputed the sexually transmitted disease figures quoted by county officials and AIDS activists. They said AIDS activists are bent on attacking them even as they have been trying to work with regulators to improve performers’ safety.
“We make sure our performers are well taken care of,” said Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a Canoga Park-based porn trade association. “This is a legal, vital and important industry.”
— Molly Hennessy-Fiske from the http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/
“Love said that she worked as a porn actress for a decade and performed more than 2,000 scenes, 95% of them without condoms. She paid to have herself tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases and said she never tested positive.”
I real wonder if this can be believed.Just like Ron Jeremy stating in his book he never did catch anything…ever…Hum!
Sure,when you read about Tiger’s romp,seems condoms weren’t part of the show and nobody did complain of catching anything but…
“Many of these agents are callous enough to describe the unprotected sexual acts their clients will engage in on a checklist on their websites as cavalierly as if one was ordering off a menu in a restaurant,” said Michael Weinstein, the foundation’s president.
I’d like to know what restaurant you can go to and say: “I’d like some b.j. with Stormy Sunshine for an appetizer”, and for the main course I’d like some reverse cowgirl anal with Ditzy Titzjiggler… and a coffee with lotsa cream.”
Mr. Whinestein should sooner consider it cavalier and callous to force pregnant HIV+ mothers to take cytotoxic “medicines” which cause stillbirths and birthdefects, even while many HIV positive people never get AIDS and many more have AIDS diseases in the absence of HIV. AHF’s policy gives mother’s no right to choose, unlike other hospitals and care facilities.
Meanwhile, I saw a billboard recently of AHF’s claim that they save lives. Really? They’re just drug pushers. Yet another “non profit” organization raking in $ by pushing fear and Hitleristic legislations.
Looks like we will see very soon just how organized LATATA is. This will be the first real test to see just how legit this organization is, or isnt.
Legal agents are under very strict regulations in California. There is that pesky little regulation that requires agencies to not send an artist to any job that could adversly affect their health or safety. Lets see how these LEGAL ADULT TALENT AGENCIES(lol) try to wriggle there way around this one.
“NO talent agency shall send, or cause to be sent, any artist to any place where the health, safety, or welfare of the artist could be adversely affected, the character of which place the talent agency could have ascertained upon reasonable inquiry.”
I wonder if Joel,Derek, Mark,Lisa,Jim,etc. will be stupid enough to admit that they keep medical test records of their talent. Not only is this illegal, it could also be used to show that they do indeed have knowledge that the work they are procurring for their performers “could adverlsy affect their health….” But this is really minor point. The fact that they advertise on their website that they will work without protection is enough to sink these so called Legal Talent Agencies.
I love the phrase…’porn idustry officials’
Exactly who are these ‘officials”, Sharon Mitchell, Diane Duke, Jim South, Steve Hirsch, Elmer Fudd?
considering it is the TALENT who pay for all the testing, and the talent who pay for all the treatment when someone catches an STD, how is it that Diane Duke claims …”We make sure our performers are well take care of.”
Can anyone name one single thing the FSC has ever done to benefit PERFORMERS? What did they do for Miss ayoro, Jessica Dee, etc…Have they ever paid for a single test, or a single dose of antibiotics for an infected performer?(NO) What a joke!!!!
If porn agents are sending their clients into “unsafe” environments, aren’t mainstream agents doing the same thing when they send their clients to work in a third world country or to work in an action movie? Ask Brandon Lee, Roy Kinnear & Vic Morrow. Oh wait, you can’t. They were killed while filming..
missbiatch,
Your fist sentence would make total sense if you had just left out that first word, “if.”
the differnce with other industries is that those industries, and agents in those industries provide some type of rememdy when the employee is affected by the foseeable injury or illness. Neither the employers(producers,directors), or agencies provide any remedy whatsoever for the talent in the adult industry. You know full well it is the performers who pay all the costs associated with the illnesses that certainly do occur in the porn workplace. This is a fact that is not in dispute.
Agencies that provide temporary workers in the medical field are required to provide all of the hepatitis vaccines, tuberculosis tests, etc, BEFORE they send a worker on an assignment.
One might ask what did the indsutry do for Lara rox or jessica dee, oh wait, they got HIV while filming.
And those incedents where people were killed while filming mainstream movies were covered not only by workers comp, but private insurance that paid their surviving families.
Like so many industry aplogists, trying to compare apples to aranges doesnt stand up in court.
I can Honestly say in all the productions I have performed in ,I haven’t caught anything in 5 years yeah Five years since 2004 and then back then I caught Clap, and Gonnerha, and got rid of it pretty fast. So it can happen…Knock on wood every day I got in for my result or check on sexcheck.com…ohhh shoot!!
Even if i wasnt performing ever again i would still get tested @ AIM frequently because im super sexually active by choice. They dont encourage anything by testing us. Speaking for myself,my agents dont exactly send us to the wolves outta nowhere, I asked to be on these agents sites. This is so crazy!
Britt,
When you are being super sexually active OFF of a porn set, do you use condoms? Or do you not use condoms, thereby increasing the risk of your fellow performers.
Most porn girls who escort would not even consider not using condoms with their paying johns.
Brit, did you know that California state law requres that EMPLOYERS pay for all medical testing after someone has been exposed to a blood borne pathogen in the workplace.
Has any company you ever worked for paid for any of your testing?
Do you think it is fair for performers to have to pay the cost for testing that the state law requires emplioyers to pay for?
If you as a performer get an std from a fellow performer, do you think it is right that you pay the cost for that disease.
If you as a performer give somone else an std, should you be liable in any way?
Shoiuld producers be allowed to have diseases on their sets and NOT pay for any of the consequences of those diseases in THIER workplace?