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In March of 2004, the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM), an organization founded to provide adult film performers in the San Fernando Valley with counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, reported that an actor tested positive for HIV. Within a week, four additional adult entertainers tested positive. The national news media jumped on the story – resulting in dangerous overreaction by the Los Angeles Department of Public Health Services (LADPHS), missed opportunities for sex education, and mistrust by members of LA’s HIV-positive community. The HIV outbreak was deemed a public health emergency and the LADPHS seized medical records of adult entertainers without a subpoena, prompting lawsuits by the Southern California ACLU. Within months, the state was called to intervene and the Department of Work & Safety began to enforce heavy fines against adult entertainment companies whose material depicted unprotected sex. The California State Assembly even staged a hearing about the importance of condom use for the protection of adult actors.
AIM believes that regulations and fines enforced by government agencies cause more harm than good. AIM was established by the adult entertainment industry to ensure that actors are free from sexually transmitted diseases at the time of production. Companies affiliated with AIM require that actors produce test results for HIV, gonorrhea, and Chlamydia, as well as proof of vaccinations for Hepatitis B. Of the 80,000 HIV tests performed to date, only 14 people have tested positive.
Under AIM’s system, HIV-positive performers are identified, counseled, and banned from performing for any cooperating company. AIM has been widely accepted by the pornography industry – unlike California’s new regulations on condom use, which threaten to drive some companies underground or to more lenient production markets in Nevada. Mitchell suggests that regulation of pornography should occur through a “seal of approval” process: Pornographic materials that show condom use would receive a seal of safety, making it possible for hotel chains or cable companies to choose, if they wanted to appear socially conscious, to air only approved pornography in their establishments.
Instead of working with the adult entertainment industry, Los Angeles County and the State of California have created an environment that does not foster safe workplace practices and instead drives the adult entertainment industry further underground. The county’s response to the HIV outbreak in March has been considered so detrimental to people living with HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles that the ACLU of Southern California concluded the county’s actions were counterproductive to overall HIV prevention efforts. By ordering AIM – without a subpoena – to turn over health records of people who voluntarily agreed to be tested for HIV, the department violated patient confidentiality. The County sent the wrong message to film actors and anyone else considering being tested for the disease.
Justin Ross is a sophomore in Trumbull College