Lara Roxx is still spreading the canard that she got HIV from the porn industry when still shots of her scene with James clearly shows she has some atrocious malady already in her body.

from www.montrealgazette.com – Former adult film actress Lara Roxx left Montreal for Los Angeles seeking stardom in 2004 and ended up with HIV just two months after doing her very first adult-film scene, an unprotected double anal.

Roxx then became really famous – her case even shut down California porn production for a whopping 30 days.

“But the business hasn’t changed since I worked,” Roxx says today.

“Like I said [on the TV show] Tout le monde en parle, I think it’s deplorable that animals are treated better in mainstream movies than human beings are in pornos. Porn movies are like snuff films – you die for real. In porn, you get HIV for real. I’m just happy I’m out of the business.”

Almost a decade later, Roxx will take part in Inside Lara Roxx: A Screening/Lecture about Porn, Prevention, Hype and Hope, on January 31 as part of Concordia University’s Community Lecture Series on HIV/AIDS that is open to the general public.

The lecture will open with a screening of Montreal-based filmmaker Mia Donovan’s critically-acclaimed 2011 documentary film Inside Lara Roxx which chronicles Lara’s gritty life story and how the press exploited her story, then quickly forgot about her afterwards, much like the porn industry.

“I felt compelled to make this film because I had been working as a photographer at that time, and I was completing a documentary photo essay on sex workers just prior to learning about Lara’s story,” says Donovan, who is also acutely aware of how media condescendingly portray sex workers. “So when I saw her being interviewed on the local news I remember just thinking that it could have been any of these girls I had met while researching subjects to photograph.”

Donovan continues, “But what really struck me about Lara was how despite all that she had gone through she was still cracking jokes to the newscaster and there was something about her persona in these interviews that seemed to be starving for someone to really listen to her and take her seriously – two things that none of the newscasters or journalists at that time seemed to be capable of doing. I was also annoyed at how much of the media seemed to trivialize her story. All this inspired me to contact Lara back in 2004.”

For her part, Roxx says meeting Donovan was a life-changing.

“Just hanging out with Mia changed my crowd of negative people,” says Roxx, now 30 years-old.

“Meeting Mia and making this documentary is the most positive thing that’s ever happened to me. It changed my life. I’m now engaged, I’m in school studying graphic design, and graduate in April and now I’m looking for an internship in a publicity firm!”

But Roxx is still angry, though not so much with Darren James, the former porn star who gave her HIV in 2004 (James has since criticized the porn industry for failing to protect actors from infection).

“If I saw Darren James today, I’d feel more sorry for him than angry because he thought all he could do with his life was make porn movies,” says Lara.

“I didn’t think of myself as worthy [to do anything else] either. You have to have low self-esteem to think that having sex in a porn film is the most money you’ll ever make. So, yes, I am still angry. But in many ways I’m at peace with that because this journey has helped make me the person I am today.”

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County voters passed a ballot initiative in November 2012 mandating porn actors wear condoms during sex scenes. Reuters reports most U.S. porn movies are filmed in the county’s San Fernando Valley, but Roxx doesn’t think the ballot will make a genuine difference.

“The law only requires movies filmed in LA County to use condoms, but when it comes to distribution they don’t care,” Lara says. “A film without condoms can still be filmed in Montreal and distributed in LA County. Besides, the majority of porn films are not made in LA County anyway, so this gesture doesn’t really mean much.”

But if it saves one life, the ballot will have done its job. Just ask Lara, who is proud that Mia Donavan’s documentary film Inside Lara Roxx is indeed helping make a difference.

“If I can warn just one young girl about going into porn, then I’ve done my job,” says Lara. “The money isn’t worth it and neither is the fame. I always dreamed of being famous. Now I’m infamous, I guess.”