Effects of the industry can be felt by performers after they leave the industry. One example is Robert Kerman – he was highly sought after by pornographers during the 70s and 80s when he was active in the industry because of his ability to act, which would land him in significant and lead roles. However his highly successful pornographic past made it difficult for him to land similar roles in mainstream movies – and although he did have some success working with Italian filmmakers, he was unable to carry the success on to mainstream American film and television. Kerman has since stated that he regrets being a porn actor because it stunted/crippled his acting career for mainstream roles.

In 2004 there was a significant HIV outbreak in the US porn industry. At the time I felt largely indifferent to this, recently after hearing “Lara Roxx” speak about her infection, my mind was changed significantly. Darren James caught HIV in Brazil and then brought it back with him to the USA and spread it to other female performers before his HIV status could be accurately diagnosed. It has been determined that he caught HIV from actress Bianca Biaggi for the movie Split That Booty 2. Roxx caught AIDS from James when they filmed a scene for the same movie (Split That Booty 2) in America. The movie itself contains the scenes where James “contracts HIV from Biaggi”, and where Roxx contracts it from James – even though the actors caught HIV in these scenes, they were used in the film anyway.

Now I use quotations because you can’t take the word of a porn star. James never told his family about his career until they found out about it following his HIV contraction. He lied to his own family. Biaggi insists that she caught HIV from James; and in actual fact in Brazil they usually always use condoms – it was the American pornographers that had Biaggi and James perform unprotected double-anal together. James is known to have infected three women – Roxx, Miss Arroyo, and Jessica Dee. 4 people if he infected Biaggi too. And besides James, Biaggi apparently did not infect anyone – probably because she was usually using condoms for the Brazilian pornographers. So the claim that the Americans made that Biaggi gave James HIV and not the other way around cannot be proven, and I think it is pathetic of them to conspire to set up the Brazilians to be the scapegoats.

At the time the USA adult industry’s preferred STI testing clinic was AIM, and every single straight and/or lesbian pornographic actor working in San Fernando Valley, California got tested there at least once a month (gay pornography usually does not involve HIV testing, and rather relies only on condom usage). AIM operated without a license and was shut down last year – worse still, they only tested for 3 sexually transmitted diseases. The one reason why they were able to “contain” HIV outbreaks was because their patients had to sign a release form allowing AIM to publically disclose their test results – in other words, once a pornographic tests positive for HIV, AIM can start contacting the companies or other adult performers they’ve worked with and disclose their HIV status so that they can be refused work.

What concerns me greatly is the exposure of children to pornography – and the very limited information they are given regarding it. I would like to see it taught in sex-ed – it is just as important, if not more important, to explain to them that pornographic actors routinely catch STD’s at a much higher rate than the general population, including HIV, and that many are exploited into doing things that most people would not agree to do. And in the finale part of this three-part entry, I’ll explain even more why it is required.

Some women do prosper – I don’t hide that fact. But if you listen to what they say about pornography you realize that they’ve been moulded somehow. Marina Hantzis entered the porn industry in 2007, aged 18 under the pseudonym “Sasha Grey”. She has spoken publically defending pornography, her decision, she told her family early on, she was willing to perform “almost anything”, and she intended to get in for a few years, make “big money” and leave; and she did just that. She intends to go into mainstream acting – and while is having limited success at this at the moment, there is every possibility that she will end up like Kerman – unable to find work because of her past. After all, film director’s legitimately don’t exactly want their audience to recognize the lead female in their movie as a porn star they’ve seen perming all kinds of extreme sexual acts! She herself was exposed to pornography at 15 or so and stated this publicly in the context that she was a “fan of pron” before becoming a pornographic actress.

Hantzis got lucky – a lot luckier than Roxx; but she still might get cervical cancer or genital warts from her pornographic past because – STD’s are very high among pornographic actors. She may have been cured of the testable ones that she caught in the three years that she was active in the industry; but there are plenty of ex-porn stars out there with incurable STD’s – some even with HIV.

Roxx experienced – first hand – the industry’s selfish, conspiring, and consumed nature. In her own words she describes her dread at being told she had to perform “double anal” (by Marc Anthony) and the physical pain involved when she performed the scene. What is most notable is that Roxx claims she categorically informed her manager before travelling to San Fernando Valley from Canada that she would only film traditional sex scenes (boy-girl only, no anal, with condoms). She would soon have learned the hard way that the industry mostly rejects condom usage. She would later learn that after you’ve been there a couple of weeks you’re expected to do more (including anal, etc) than just traditional sex. The fact that her manager hadn’t informed her of this before she came shows the extent of malevolent conspiring against young, vulnerable and naïve women. Further more, managers routinely book their girls to do the things they say they don’t want to anyway; leaving the producers (in this case Marc Anthony) to put pressure on the girls (in this case Lara Roxx) at the time of shooting. Again they’re conspiring together against the participants.

At 17 Roxx had began stripping for three years, moving on to modelling and then in early 2004 she travelled to the USA to film in pornography. Performing double-anal would have caused severe tearing of the anal lining and pain, combined with the fact that James proceeded to ejaculate in her anus pretty much sealed her fate. She had worked in the industry for 2 months, and filmed 14 scenes prior to being infected; she left with HIV and essentially penniless. Like the vast majority of women who enter the porn industry, she came from a broken home.

My only observation is that pornographers typically rape and pillage and will do whatever they think they can get away with – this is certainly the case in the USA where adult performers are routinely required to participate in painful, humiliating and demeaning scenes.

Stay tuned for the gripping, and highly controversial, finale – Pornography: No child is sacred.