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To protect our privacy, our test results are not shared, but the doctors who run the testing clinics (which must be vetted before participating in the program), enter into a database whether we are “available to work” or “not available.” If a performer is “not available,” it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve had a positive test - it could mean they’ve been on vacation, went to the wrong clinic, or they’ve been tested but their results aren’t back yet. By contrast, the HIV test we rely on is a PCR RNA test, which tests for the actual virus, and has a window period of nine to eleven days. For example, the CDC still recommends that the average adult be tested for HIV once a year using an ELISA test, which tests for antibodies in your blood and can take three to six months (the “window period”) after a transmission occurred to show a positive result. The STI tests we use are not the same as the STI tests most people can get from their doctors. In actual effect, this means that most of the performers you recognize are tested every ten days in order to ensure that their results are current.
#Does the gay porn industry test for stds full#
Full time performers perform in anywhere from one to eight shoots each week. Every performer who works in “straight” porn (a phrase that refers to the target audience rather than the sexual identity of the performers “straight porn” includes both boy-girl and girl-girl scenes), gets tested for HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomoniasis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C a maximum of fourteen days prior to each shoot they will perform in.
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Over the last fifteen years, performers have developed a complicated testing protocol. Many of the performers who work in traditional heterosexual porn -a lot of whom do use condoms in their personal lives - prefer not to use condoms for STI prevention on set. Under the hot lights, specific choreography, and increased friction of extended use, many performers have found that condoms can have two problems - increased breakage and abrasions which we call “condom rash.” Abrasions on your genitals can increase the likelihood of STI transmission. On set, penetration can last two or three hours. Off camera, most people who have penetrative sex do so for maybe 15 or twenty minutes. Every time we move our bodies, we are thinking of where the camera is, where the lights are - whether you, the viewer will be able to explicitly see what we’re doing. Everything we do is utterly impersonal - that is, it isn’t primarily for our own gratification, but for yours. On set, every sexual interaction is a show. At home, people have sex for pleasure, increased intimacy, and other deeply personal reasons. What people don’t always realize is that the conditions on a porn set are very different than the conditions in most people’s bedrooms (and everywhere else people have sex in their private lives). For sexual encounters that happen off-camera, condoms are often the very best choice. They’re small enough to keep in your wallet, purse, or pocket, and they work immediately when you need them to. You don’t have to have health insurance to get one. Condoms are cheap, effective, easy to use, and readily available. Condoms might be the only STI transmission method that immediately comes to mind when you think about “safer sex.” There is good reason for this. Since the 1990s, when public health campaigns and medical providers have talked about STI prevention during penetrative sex, they’ve mainly talked about condoms. And maybe a few ways you haven’t thought of. How do performers protect themselves against STIs?Įvery way you can think of. This month, I’ll answer some questions that porn performers get asked so frequently, I wish we had a universal database of porn FAQs to direct you to.