Recently a number of articles have been published about more porn performers becoming HIV positive in the US. Each time it stimulates debate about condoms in porn becoming compulsory in California.
This article on the American blog The Daily Beast makes some interesting reflections. The industry has changed from the old days of a small group of performers who all knew each other and made films in California. Now people willing to travel to work – and get paid much less to work outside of America.
One performer says she is now much less likely to know the others who she works with until she meets them on set. Now we all know that knowing someone does not mean that they are HIV negative, but it does mean a smaller group of less people having sex with each other, and maybe more joint discussions and group loyalty to being safe.
The article also highlights that new technologies mean a wider less regulated labor force.
Means that many more people in lower income countries are performing for people in higher income countries. A point also made in this article recently in The UK Guardian byJill Filipovic.
So are we hearing that a globalization of the porn industry makes a more unsafe porn industry – and one in which compulsory condom use is still a distant dream ?
