LOS ANGELES — Adult star Kimberly Kane blasted the recently adopted Los Angeles city mandatory condom law and the motives of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) in an article she penned for Vice.com.
Kane pointed out that porn hasn't had an HIV outbreak since the 2004 Darren James incident after shooting outside of the U.S. and that the industry effectively policed itself with a self-adopted 60-day moratorium led by AIM Healthcare.
“I was personally fourth generation exposure. Which means, I worked with someone who worked with one of the women Darren James worked with. Since then, the porn industry has had no outbreaks in eight years. That is largely because of our strict 28-day testing rule. We do not work without a current, clean test.
"This is not a law, it's a universally agreed upon and adhered to industry standard. And it works. There is probably not a more frequently tested group of people on the planet than adult performers in Los Angeles. This is not an ‘at risk’ community. Statistically speaking, there are hundreds of more ‘at risk’ communities in the world, and even in L.A. itself,” Kane said.
She furthered cited the instances where 16 HIV-positive potential adult performers were denied work in porn because of AIM’s screening. “This is further evidence that testing has worked in keeping the industry HIV-free.”
Kane said that although not perfect, AIM’s central testing facility and database was effective but ended when the AHF “pushed the Public Health Dept to investigate AIM Healthcare and, due to legal expenses and harassment lawsuits, AIM was forced to close their doors in 2010.”
She noted that the AHF wanted adult performers to be categorized as “employees,” so that they would fall under the jurisdiction of Cal/OSHA medial worker category and be required to use “barrier protection” that included more than condoms. She further noted that it's in fact illegal to require an HIV test of an "employee" in California (or most States).
Kane maintained that most adult performers work for numerous studios and are independent contractors — not employees.
“The AHF championed this current condom law by paying people for signatures to get it on the ballot and pushing the city council to just pass a law rather than spend $4 million creating a ballot initiative. The effect that's had and is still having is that it's decentralized healthcare in the industry and pushed it underground.
“Now, there are multiple testing facilities and draw stations with no central database. This means that in the case of an emergency like an HIV outbreak, it would be harder to quarantine and track performers, basically making us less safe,” Kane said.
The performer also noted other less-than-safe methods, pointing to gay porn’s predominantly condom-only stance without regular testing, that if adopted, could put straight performers at risk if condoms should break.
“Testing has kept us safe and while some performers might not mind the idea of condoms in some circumstances, no one would feel safer with condoms instead of testing. There has been a lot of speculation within the industry as to what the AHF's motivations are. Headlines? Fundraising? Grant money? Nobody is naive enough to believe that its intention is to make porn more safe. Everything the AHF has done has made us less safe,” Kane wrote.
