Condom Use Below 20% in American Porn Movies

October 13, 2006 email@tunnel7.com

The New York Times writes about how porn workers are put at risk to satisfy consumer tastes in “Sex-Film Industry Threatened With Condom Requirement” (8/24/04)…

While most people in the sex industry appear to agree in principle with the idea of consistent condom use, it has long been believed here that condoms are not sexy.

“In any sexual interaction where condoms are used, consumers tend to drift from that,” said Graham Travis, head of production at Elegant Angel Video, a production company that turns out as many as eight new releases a month. “What the consumers want to see is performers without condoms, something that’s as real and intimate as possible…”

The issue of worker safety in the pornographic-film industry has become more urgent in the wake of the most recent outbreak here of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The outbreak was prompted in March by an actor who was infected while shooting a movie in Brazil and who transmitted it to at least three others after he returned to work in Los Angeles.

As many as 60 actors were believed to have been exposed to the virus, according to the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, which tests about 1,200 sex-industry performers every month for sexually transmitted diseases. Filming was shut down until the outbreak was declared contained in early May.

Outside one of the foundation’s two clinics in the San Fernando Valley on Monday, an actress who calls herself Nautica Thorn said the idea of all male performers wearing condoms was “great,” but impractical.

“People these days really go for the shock value, for the high-risk stuff,” she said, “and that’s harder to do with a condom…”

Sharon Mitchell, a former adult-film actress who earned a Ph.D. in human sexuality before co-founding the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, said on Monday that condom use in the industry had gone up after the H.I.V. outbreak to 23 percent from 17 percent and that it was now back to about 17.5 percent.

Read the complete article.