SAN FRANCISCO — Former porn stars Cameron Bay and Rod Daily each have filed civil suits against Kink.com and others after making claims they contracted HIV on separate occasions while performing at the BDSM studio.
Bay and Daily, who were previously linked romantically and have each taken sides with the AIDS Healthcare Foundations’ continuing initiatives to regulate the porn industry since they were both diagnosed with HIV in 2013, filed their respective suits at San Francisco Superior Court two weeks ago.
Kink.com, which was served with the complaint yesterday, rejects both suits, saying that neither performed with anyone who was HIV-positive, and that suggested transmission methods were unsupported by any existing science related to the transmission of HIV.
“The lawsuits, which appear to be funded by Michael Weinstein’s controversial AIDS Healthcare Foundation, are so illegitimate as to be offensive, avoiding science altogether in favor of emotional arguments about HIV, sex work and BDSM,” a Kink.com spokesman said. “At times, it reads less like a lawsuit and more like a statement from the Pat Buchanan or the Westboro Baptist Church, in which AIDS is retribution for immoral behavior."
Bay alleges in her claim that, while playing the role of a sub with one male dom and one female dom on a PublicDisgrace.com production in July 2013, she was exposed to blood after one male performer rammed his penis so hard into her mouth that the head of it got cut on her wisdom tooth.
She also claims that she was fisted without consent and that she was in “subspace,” as if she was having an out-of-body experience and not capable to make her own decisions while filming continued, and that her left breast was roughed up and needed surgery.
Bay also noted that Kink.com guest director Lorelei Lee, who is named as a defendant in the suit, failed to pay attention to all of the extras on the set who were prohibited from engaging sexually but allegedly penetrated her.
Bay’s suit goes on to claim that Kink and Lee ignored precautionary measures to protect the health of performers and that the BDSM studio has a “documented history of failing to create, implement, and uphold safety regulations.”
Daily’s suit claims that Kink and directors Van Darkholme, Sebastian Keys and Tomcat — all named as defendents in the claim — also didn’t follow proper protocols over exposure to blood on the set.
Daily, who was said to have performed exclusively in gay and TS scenes during his porn career, claimed he shot for Kink on three occasions, including for the websites TSSeduction.com, KinkMen.com, BoundInPublic.com and NakedKombat.com.
On one shoot in August 2013, Daily said that he engaged in both oral and anal sex despite that he earlier requested condoms be used during the shoot that involved a transgender female.
“At the end of the shoot, the transgender performer ejaculated in [Daily’s] eye,” the suit said. “Plaintiff alerted defendant Tomcat of this. Instead of following proper protocol associated with exposure to bloodborne pathogens, plaintiff was handed a towel and nothing more."
Kink.com in a release today, however, said that Daily used a condom with an HIV-negative transgender performer.
“He cites an eye splash of semen during the shoot as the source of his infection, neglecting both that the performer he worked with was HIV-negative, and that in all of scientific literature, there is exactly one case of HIV being transmitted through an eye splash, and that was in a lab setting,” the Kink spokesman said.
“Likewise, all of the performers in Cameron Bay scene were HIV-negative. For Bay, its digital penetration that resulted in the virus, or perhaps spanking (she refers to both as sexual acts), assumedly from an extra on the set. (There has never been a recorded HIV transmission anywhere from digital penetration or spanking.) The lawsuit also suggests that she might have contracted the virus from her partner, Xander Corvus, who nicked his penis during the shoot. He was and remains HIV-negative.
“Somehow, both Daily and Bay each contracted the virus in a statistically impossible way, on separate shoots on separate days. In the absurd logic of the lawsuits, this is somehow a more probable explanation than the undisputed fact that Bay and Daily were dating at the time both became positive, and living with a third person who also later tested HIV-positive.”
Bay and Daily’s suits, both seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, are similar to another claim made earlier this year by a John Doe performer who worked on a BoundInPublic.com shoot and later found that he was infected with HIV.
Bay, Daily and Doe’s suits each allege negligence, fraudulent representation, civil conspiracy to commit fraud, negligent supervision, intentional infliction of emotional distress and premises liability, among other charges. In Bay and Doe’s suits, claims for battery also were made.
The suits, all filed by San Francisco attorney Sandra Ribera Speed, also name as defendants Kink owner Peter Acworth, as well as the studio’s incorporated Armory property, its branded online properties and numerous John Does.
Kink's spokesman said the lawsuits are retaliatory, not just against the BDSM studio, which has fought hard against AHF’s anti-porn legislation, but also against individual performers and directors at Kink, three of whom who were named in the suit.
"Lorelei Lee, Tomcat and Sebastian Keyes were all public in their opposition to AHF’s failed [California's] AB 1576 legislation, and now must suffer Weinstein’s wrath," he said. "The intended effect is to intimidate or silence future opposition to anything AHF proposes at the legislature or at the ballot box.
"This claim is a logical outcome of Michael Weinstein’s endless and defamatory campaign against adult industry. It’s a masterwork of fear mongering of both sex work, HIV, BDSM and trans and gay sex, using inflammatory language to cover for a complete lack of factual evidence," he said.
"It also goes against everything that Weinstein has claimed until now — that condoms are foolproof, that he isn’t interested in condoms for oral sex, and that safety goggles for performers are the fevered imagination of the producers. His tactics are not only disgraceful and dishonest, they harm the real education and prevention efforts taken by performers and HIV advocates.
"HIV is a virus. It is not a political weapon. It is not a rhetorical device. It is not a punishment. Unfortunately, for the past several years, Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has used the cases of Bay, Daily and several others as cautionary tales for those who choose to work in the adult industry. It’s shameful, and we call once again for the board members of AHF to #RemoveWeinstein."
