Few perishable items have had as unlikely a second act as the humble condom. For decades, it lurked in the shadows with girlie magazines, aphrodisiac powders, and oddball sex devices. Then in the 1980s, AIDS hit and condoms suddenly entered the fast lane. In 1987 alone, right after Surgeon General C. Everett Koop started the pitch for condom use, sales rose 20 percent nationwide and have increased steadily ever since. The key to our HIV global control strategy rests not on vaccines, pills, or saltpeter but rather on the surprisingly broad shoulders of our old friend the rubber.
via The case for bringing condoms to adult films. – By Kent Sepkowitz – Slate Magazine.
How mandating condoms in adult films will put the industry more at risk.
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Last week, several health groups, led by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, announced plans to develop a strategy that will push California legislation to regulate the adult film industry, mainly by mandating the use of condoms in all movies. The goal of such legislation is to protect adult film workers as well as their partners and the community at large. But the industry is already doing an excellent job protecting its performers. Mandating condoms in all films would lead to unintended consequences that would likely increase, not decrease, HIV outbreaks.
Since the industry’s HIV testing policy was implemented in 1998, there has been only one major outbreak. All other cases of performers testing HIV-positive were discovered before they could infect other performers. The PCR-DNA test used by the industry detects HIV much earlier than the standard ELISA test used by the general population. And most adult film performers are tested monthly, while only 10% of the general population reported being tested for HIV in the last year. There are an estimated 250,000 people living with HIV who are unaware of their infection. AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the supporters of mandating condoms imply that the threat is coming from inside the adult film industry. The reality is that, since the adult film industry implemented its HIV testing policy, all but four performers who tested positive for HIV contracted HIV outside the industry. The threat does not come from inside the industry but from outside.
via Not-So-Safe Sex – Forbes.com.
You won’t find “Debbie Does Condoms” or “Jenna Loves Prophylactics” on offer from any of the major porn studios, but that could all change thanks to an ongoing campaign to require rubbers in hardcore flicks. From the outside, it seems a rather admirable way to protect porn actors from the consumer push for risky bareback porn, as I wrote a couple months back. The approach seems basically humanist – or even feminist, considering that female porn actors are most at risk for contracting HIV in straight porn. But, I’m finding that there are actually some Magnum-sized issues with such legislation.
“If I were required to use condoms, my performance would most likely suffer, and in the end I would suffer”
Late last week, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed an official complaint against 16 pornographers for producing films featuring unprotected sex and promised to raise hell until condoms are mandated throughout the industry. This is just the group’s latest war cry: Earlier this summer, shortly after a performer tested positive for HIV, the organization staged a protest and once again called for legislation. They say the industry’s voluntary testing program leaves open a dangerous window: Once a month, actors take the PCR-DNA test, which can detect HIV within two weeks of infection. Since 1998, the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation has reported five HIV cases among actors in straight porn. That’s a relatively low number, industry insiders point out, given the cosmic amount of condomless sex that has gone on in that time — but many, myself included, are disturbed by the idea that five infections over 11 years is considered adequate (particularly with regards to the four cases that were a part of a 2004 outbreak, in which it seems clear there was on-the-job transmission).
It isn’t that the industry as a whole is opposed to tightening its voluntary prevention system — plenty of people in the biz actually support a transition to twice-monthly testing — but there has been an overwhelming outcry against mandating condoms. It isn’t just the bigwigs, who know that condom porn makes much less money, either. Some female porn stars argue that condoms make their job tougher: Belladonna wrote on Babeland’s blog, “If I were required to use condoms, my performance would most likely suffer, and in the end I would suffer.” For others it can be an issue of comfort: “For the women, there are just four words: rubber rash/friction burn,” veteran performer Nina Hartley wrote on her Web site. Remember, porn actors don’t get down like most folks; the sex they have is more like a three-ring acrobatic act that lasts for hours on end. Ernest Greene, a longtime director and Hartley’s partner, explains on his blog:
via Porn’s last taboo: Protected sex – Broadsheet – Salon.com.
TORONTO, July 14 — Consistent condom use reduces the risk of genital herpes by 30% compared with never using such protection during sex, researchers said.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that this study showed that consistent use of condoms during sex has a significant but moderate effect on the risk of getting genital herpes.
Although the magnitude of the effect is lower than for some other sexually transmitted infections, it could have a substantial benefit for individuals and on a population level, according to Emily Martin, MPH, PhD, of Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Seattle, and colleagues.
The finding comes from a pooled analysis of six studies that had individual data on condom use, as well as laboratory confirmation of acquisition of herpes simplex 2 (HSV-2), the researchers said in the July 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
via Medical News: Condoms Reduce Genital Herpes Risk – in Infectious Disease, STDs from MedPage Today.
Condoms: Are teenagers sufficiently aware of their existence? Despite being the subject of the world’s highest number of bizarre ads, you can never be too sure. The newest ways to corrupt kids’ minds, sexually: direct mail, and Leighton Meester videos.
Planned Parenthood is mailing condoms to college kids in their welcome packets, which would be totally passé in developed regions of the country. But this was in Missouri!
Chief among the university‘s concerns, Smart said, was an ad for Planned Parenthood with a condom attached. In bold type at the top of the insert are the words: “Welcome to MSU!”…
via Gawker – How Are We Tricking Kids Into Using Condoms Today? – Marketing.
Fleshbot editor [link NSFW] Lux Alptraum has a new piece in BlackBook about the renewed debate surrounding condoms in the porn industry. She says performers don’t use them because viewers simply don’t want to see them.
Alptraum says:
The reason for condom scarcity in straight porn, ultimately, is you: the consumer. Porn companies make porn without condoms because that is the kind of porn that patrons want to see. And porn companies want to give you what you want-it’s how they make a living.
As evidence, Alptraum cites the drop-off in sales (particularly abroad) by Wicked Pictures, the only condoms-required porn company in the States and the movement, even within the condom-heavy gay porn genre, to go condom-less.
via Jezebel – Should Porn Industry Performers Start Sheathing Their Swords? – Condom use pornography.
The federal government has spent nearly half a million dollars to fund a study to find out why some men would prefer not to wear condoms during sex. PPHOTO Condoms. Why some Men don t like to wear them. Condoms Stockbyte Getty Images The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development a branch of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a $423 500 grant to researchers at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex Gender and Reproduction. The Bloomington Ind. based research team will use the funding to study “barriers to correct condom use ” according to a release from the institute.
via Why Are Condoms Disliked by So Many Men? – ABC News.
Last month, the Guttmacher Institute released a controversial report showing that the much-maligned withdrawal method, when used correctly, is almost as effective in preventing pregnancy as condoms are. Withdrawal is also increasingly popular: The report cites CDC data showing that the number of women who have used it went up almost 15 percent from 1995 to 2002. Meanwhile, CDC data also shows that as women get into their late 20s and early 30s, they use condoms less and less, even if they’re not married.
My theory, based on an admittedly small sample of educated twentysomethings, is that there’s a connection here between the condom ebb and the withdrawal flow, so to speak. Many of my friends have admitted to ditching condoms and adding withdrawal to their contraceptive repertoire, even when they’re not on the Pill. These women say that they’re not afraid of the STDs that condoms protect against. And to the extent they think withdrawal still poses a greater risk of pregnancy, well, they’re not worried about that the way they used to be.
A year before the Guttmacher study came out, a 27-year-old friend, let’s call her Amanda, started using withdrawal with her new boyfriend. “I mean, there are really not that many days per month that you can get pregs, and if you are pretty regular it’s not rocket science,” she says over instant message.
via Why educated young women are using withdrawal instead of condoms..
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