Condoms in Porn: One Adult Star Says Yes to Measure B

Porn star @MissAuroraSnow describes how UNSAFE porn often is, and thus why she’s in favor of condoms and says @YESOnB!

[The Daily Beast] [Excerpt] The porn industry has campaigned against Measure B, the L.A. County ballot initiative that would require performers to use condoms. But porn star Aurora Snow says it’s necessary.

Aurora Snow: I would prefer to have both condoms and testing in porn. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; it makes sense to have both. This is not what a girl in the industry is supposed to say, but it is what a lot of us think when quietly eyeing Los Angeles County’s ballot initiative—known as Measure B—mandating condoms in adult films.

Safety isn’t sexy. Wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle makes me feel like a dork, but I do it because I know what’s at risk if I don’t. No one feels or looks sexy wearing a safety hat or knee pads. That’s what the condom is for the porn industry, it’s our safety hat.

No one wants to wear the safety hat, it’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t look pretty and it may make the day longer. Condoms are known to rip. Who knows how many condoms one scene will take. If it’s a three guys-on-one-girl scene and the condoms keep ripping it could go from a two-hour scene to a four-hour scene. Only one porn company that I know of is and always has been all condoms: Wicked. They have been doing what other companies fear: selling safe sex.

I have done the majority of my six-hundred scenes without condoms, but I predominately use condoms in my personal life. In real life, I ask that my partners both wear condoms and get tested. Yet when I go to work I follow the standard procedure of working without a condom and taking my fellow actor’s most recent test at face value.

Every month when I get tested, I wonder if I’ll have to come home to my guy and say, “Please don’t be mad at me, but we have to go see a doctor because you might have been exposed.” Because even though I primarily use condoms in my personal life, like most people I know, I don’t use them with oral sex. While it’s not as easy to catch something through oral, the possibility remains, and due to the nature of my work the risk is high. Luckily, most STDs that float around the world of porn—most often referred to as the “industry flu”—can be cured with a single shot of antibiotics. Because these STDs are so easy to get rid of, most performers have a certain level of comfort with them. It’s almost common. There are other not-so-easily cured STDs that aren’t tested for in the adult business. We test monthly for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and the big one, HIV. There are zero requirements to be tested for anything else, but there are other risk factors, such as herpes, HPV, and syphilis. Thanks in part to the recent syphilis outbreak, there may now be a standard monthly syphilis test.

When I heard about the syphilis outbreak, my first feeling was one of relief. For the first time ever, I was so removed from the Los Angeles porn scene that I didn’t have to check my calendar and start calling every partner I’d had in the last two weeks to see whether I was at risk. There have been several HIV scares when I had to make those phone calls and figure out for myself how close I was to patient zero. There are no groups within porn protecting performers; it’s always been up to performers to keep track of their scene partners, to check tests for themselves, and to make those phone calls no one wants to make.

It isn’t safe to rely on someone else to keep me safe on set. I showed up one day with a fresh test, still a newbie to porn and very trusting. What happened? The other girl in our scene couldn’t seem to “find” her test. She was a big star at that time, and she was an exclusive performer for this company. The director did his best to persuade me and the male performer to work with this prized performer despite her lack of a test. When we both refused, he yelled at us, but didn’t fire us. That could have happened. Instead, we shot the scene without the untested girl. That was the first time I understood porn directors aren’t looking out for me, so I have to.

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That’s right, Aurora, porn directors are NOT looking out for you — or any other performer for that matter, which is just one of the reasons why the porn industry is unsafe and corrupt, and why Measure B needs to not only be PASSED, but vigorously ENFORCED! (And it’s also why anyone who values their health, well-being and future should NOT enter into the “adult” film industry!)

Read the rest of this informative story at the link, and please don’t forget to like, comment and share to support the cause! Thanks!

ARTICLE LINK: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/18/condoms-in-porn-one-adult-star-says-yes-to-measure-b.html

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