The ever-interesting Fleshbot has some links on the subject of Porn and Privacy . . . In particular, the question has been raised of whether publishing the names of the first and second generation of exposed actors in the latest HIV rumpus violated their privacy.
I’m going to avoid talking about the legal aspects of it, as I’m not really up on the statutes in question. Just on the basis of the ethics of the situation, did AIM do the right thing by publishing the list?
Yes, they did, and to say otherwise reflects (at best) a naïveté about what this industry is really like.
For every Nina Hartley in porn, there are a dozen girls (and guys) who are not making very good decisions about their lives. Porn still very much has the underground, travelling-show, gypsies-tramps-and-thieves thing going on. Actors arrive and leave with amazing speed. Laura Roxx, the second confirmed HIV-positive performer, flew into town to make some quick bucks and was planning to fly out again.
Relying on agents, friends, producers and the like to get the word out wouldn’t do it. When Laura Roxx arrived in town, she was told that the only shoot she could get on required a double-anal, when she’d never done anal before. Oh, really? In the entire San Fernando Valley, the only porn shoot was doing just one scene that required a double anal? Bullshit. Whoever told her that was having trouble getting a girl to do a double anal, and leaned on her.
Do you think that person would have tracked her down to tell her that she had been exposed? He would have probably whined that he would have, but he didn’t have her number, and anyway she lives all the way up in Canada and that’s an international call.
Many people in the adult industry truly care and truly do look after each other. But counting on those people is not enough when something like a potential HIV outbreak is involved. Although I can understand the point that having one’s real or potential HIV status splashed across a public web page is not anyone’s idea of a good time, maximum publicity is the only sane way to respond to this.
posted 19:56