Porn's Talent Agencies Targeted In Drive To Require Condoms In Adult Film Industry
In its drive to get the government to mandate condom use in the adult film industry, the Aids Healthcare Foundation states that it will file state complaints Thursday against nine porn talent agencies for encouraging what it argues is dangerous, unsafe sex.
"These talent agencies are a pipeline for the procurement of young people for the adult film industry," said Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "It is reckless for these agents to jeopardize the health of their clients by encouraging and profiting from the unsafe, potentially life-threatening behavior of the models and performers they represent."
The complaints, which call for investigations into agencies such as World Modeling, will be filed with California labor commissioner Angela Bradstreet, according to the AHF. The organization cites this state law: "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."
AHF contends that the agencies in fact knowingly send talent to situations that involve exchanges of bodily fluids that could be dangerous. The industry has experienced a few, small outbreaks of HIV. But other sexually transmitted diseases such as genital warts and herpes are widespread. The industry has a voluntary system of self-testing for STDs in which actors are expected to show up to shoots with clean test results in-hand. However, that doesn't always happen.
"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," Weinstein said. "We are asking the California labor commissioner to investigate and crack down on the illegal behavior of these state-licensed agencies."
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