Wow! Talk about a potentially explosive situation! AIM’s Sharon Mitchell says (at least Gene Ross and AVN says she says) that a “prominent actor” in the adult community has been refusing to test for STDs. Mitchell also reveals that this actor is “responsible both for chlamydia and gonorrhea outbreaks.”

Assuming all this is true--and I’ve known Sharon a long time and since I believe she’s normally forthright in these matters, I’m pretty sure it is true—we have a big fucking problem here.

First off, AIM is caught between a rock and a hard place. Morally, I believe they’re obligated to share the name of this individual with the adult community. Legally, I think that would present some big problems for AIM.

So the question du jour is: Should Mitchell and AIM rat this guy out or not?

I’ve always been of the mind that this industry has not exactly been in conformance with certain laws designed to protect a person’s privacy, including and especially privacy laws aimed at keeping an individual’s confidential medical records, uhmmm…. confidential. It’s one thing to have actors show each other their tests. It’s quite another for an employer to insist on keeping a copy of that record, and then later possibly sharing that record with others, e.g., licensors of the product that the actors appear in.

The other side of this coin is the need to protect talent who comes into intimate contact with their co-workers; i.e., the people they have sex with in front of a camera.

Now we have a situation where an industry organization says it has hard evidence that an individual is responsible for the spread of certain STDs, and that because this individual continues to refuse to submit to blood tests, could be responsible for spreading other potentially lethal STDs-- HIV infections come immediately to mind.

Because I’m not too bad at extrapolating shit, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and guess that Mitchie also knows which producers have continued to hire this un-named spreader of STDs, and I’ll further guess that these producers have been complicit in encouraging others to work with the un-named spreader of STDs whom I’ll now refer to as the UNSSTD (Un-Named Spreader of STDs).

Obviously, I’m personally and professionally curious as to the identity of the UNSSTD. I’m pretty sure the UNSSTD hasn’t worked for me as I’m pretty darn thorough about paperwork, always insisting that proof of blood testing is shared between performers. I also keep a copy, which I’ve never been comfortable doing as I’m pretty sure just the simple act of insisting I keep a copy puts me in a potentially vulnerable legal situation. But I ain’t a lawyer (thank God), so what the hell do I know? I’m also not a forensic technician trained in spotting forgeries. I don’t know much about forging and forgeries so I don’t know whether forging one of those tests would be a hard thing to do or a simple thing to do. I’m pretty sure I can spot a phony I.D., at least I think I am, but again, I ain’t no forensic guy.

I’d love to give Mitchie some advice on what to do with the UNSSTD, but I think an attorney would be better suited to do that. I do know there’s potentially-lethal, health, moral, and legal issues brewing here and I’m going to be interested to see where it all goes.

Hey! Maybe the Free Speech people--who have a bunch of lawyers on retainer anyway--could have a lawyer or two take a short break from defending our First Ammendment rights, and take a stab at sorting this one out? Helping us protect ourselves from disease might even be more important than protecting us from the evils of John Ashcroft and his cronies.



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