A veteran porn producer is taking a stand and has vowed to use condoms on her set. Tristan Taormino told CNN that she was looking for performers for a new movie when as casting agent recommended a woman named Cameron Bay.
Taormino put the name on her list of possibilities but less than two weeks later she found out Bay had HIV. She said that close call shook her up and she couldn't stop imagining what would have happened if she would have picked Bay to come to her set that day.
From that point on Taormino decided that she was going to require her male actors use condoms while filming - even if she was the only producer of straight porn to do so.
"It just struck me we need to take a step back and look at how we can give people the safest work experience possible," she told CNN. "I can no longer roll the dice on my set."
She said she is fully aware this decision probably won't sit well with the industry. Besides Bay, four other people have come forward with HIV. The infected performers are now demanding it be required that all performers use condoms while filming but the industry doesn't seem to be supporting the idea.
Not only is the industry fighting the idea but other performers don't agree with it either.
"We all take risk going to work every day," performer Danny Wylde wrote in a blog post. "It's a managed risk. And it's something I choose to participate in so that I can get a paycheck at the end of my day."
In his blog post he wrote about a time when the porn industry did require condoms on set and the drop in sales almost crumbled the industry. Wylde claims viewers don't want to see performers wearing protection.
"People don't want to see condoms in their porn. In straight porn, they didn't want to see condoms," he wrote. "Everybody tried it, and nobody bought the movies."
The Free Speech Coalition, which represents the industry, agrees. Nine years ago there was another HIV outbreak and the $14 billion-a-year business saw a 30 percent decrease in sales. Following this recent outbreak the industry shut itself down for two weeks and had all their performers re-tested.
According to CNN, they determined that the infected performers did not contract the disease at work and didn't spread it to any other performers. Since then all workers have returned back to filming.
Taormino told CNN that she is going to require her performers use protection even if she does lose some viewers.
"I know there's a lot of talk about how porn watchers don't want to see condoms and sales will plummet and everyone's going to be miserable," she said. "But I'm not buying it."
