Porn Valley- Pornographic film studios producing adult videos for gay men were recognized as models for safe sex practices earlier this month as California’s multi-billion dollar straight adult film industry voluntarily suspended operations after two performers tested HIV positive.

Unlike the gay studios, nearly all of the straight pornographic film production companies based largely in Southern California encourage sexual acts without the use of condoms, according to a health foundation that provides services to the porn industry.

“In our part of the industry, mandatory condom use has been the rule since the 1980s,” said Todd Montgomery, vice president of Falcon Studios, one of the nation’s largest gay adult film companies.

Montgomery said a few, smaller gay porn studios have recently begun producing “barebacking” videos, in which performers engage in anal intercourse without a condom.

“They are scorned by the industry,” he said. “This is being done in a very small number of places which we hope, over time, will go away.”

Officials with the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which was created by the straight porn studios, said the foundation provides HIV testing to about 1,200 performers in the industry once a month under mandatory rules established by the studios, the New York Times reported.

A requirement that the performers provide a written report of their negative HIV status each month as a condition for working had largely kept the male and female performers free from HIV during the past decade, industry spokespersons said.

But what appeared to be an effective system in screening for HIV fell short last month when a male porn star went to Brazil to perform in a film, industry officials disclosed. HIV testing isn’t mandatory for adult film performers in that country. When he returned to California, he resumed work in a porn film production after testing negative.

To the dismay of those he worked with, he tested positive one month later after having performed in films with at least 12 females, industry officials told the Los Angeles Times. One of the female performers tested positive, the L.A. Times reported, and studio officials identified about 65 performers who had sex with someone else who had sex with one of the two.

On April 13, the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which is known as AIM, identified on its Web site Darren James as the “screen name” of the male porn star who contracted HIV while making a film in Brazil. The foundation identified Laura Roxx as the screen name of the female porn star whom he infected when he returned to the United States to continue his work on porn films.

The foundation, one week later, published on its Web site the screen names of more than 45 first and second generation contacts with James and Fox in subsequent films before James’ next HIV test turned up positive.

L.A. County health officials on April 22 ordered AIM to hand over medical files on more than 50 porn performers who may have had sexual relations with James and Foxx or others who had sex with the two. Peter Kerndt, director of the sexually transmitted disease prevention program for L.A. County, said the real names of the performers would be kept confidential.

He said the department would conduct contact tracing to alert the performers’ spouses or personal partners outside the film industry, just as it does for other county residents found to have a sexually transmitted disease.

Ira Levine, chair of AIM’s board of directors, called the action by the county a violation of the privacy rights of the foundation’s clients.

Montgomery said gay porn studios don’t require performers to disclose their HIV status.

Porn studios close downFearing that HIV could spread among performers who often work in several different porn production studios, nearly all of the major studios producing straight porn films announced two weeks ago that they had voluntarily suspended filming for 60 days. This would allow all performers who had sexual contact with an infected person to be tested twice.

News of these developments prompted the Los Angeles County Health Department and the California Occupational Health & Safety Administration, known as Cal-OSHA, to consider opening an investigation into health and safety issues related to the porn industry.

Kerndt told the Associated Press that the county might impose a mandatory condom use rule for porn film performers. Cal-OHSA officials said the state’s worker safety laws don’t cover the adult film industry, but the work safety agency might be able to apply a general worker safety law on the industry.

One provision, put in place for nurses, calls for employers to have a written plan for preventing work-related injury or illnesses, including protection for workers who come in contact with infected blood or fluids, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Montgomery, of Falcon Studios, said his company opposes government-imposed regulations. He said Cal-OHSA most likely would not have the authority to regulate most porn industry studios – especially the gay studios – because the performers are retained by contract rather than hired as in-house employees.

According to Montgomery, the gay segment of the industry generates between 8 and 10 percent of the revenue, which is said to total about $13 billion a year in sales of films.

Titan Media, another gay adult film production company, issued a statement last week saying it will not knowingly hire performers who have appeared in films that feature anal sex without the use of condoms.

“Any potential model who has performed in any film featuring unprotected anal sex will automatically be disqualified from performing in a Titan Media or ManPlay production,” the statement said.

“Today’s ‘bareback’ films depict and eroticize high-risk behavior as the centerpiece of their sensuality,” the statement said. “We find this to be reprehensible and an attempt to profit at the risk of the health and safety of performers and the community at large.”

The gay porn industry adopted its mandatory condom rules in the mid- to late-1980s, Montgomery said, at a time when gay men as a whole were hit by the AIDS epidemic. Montgomery said predictions by some in the industry that customers would be turned off by condom use in films proved to be false.

“We realized we could promote safe sex while continuing to provide the most erotic productions,” he said, though the videos rarely depict the performers actually unwrapping and applying condoms.