By Rachel Swimmer
I feel so lucky I live in a state and nation where I have the right to make personal sexual choices. I have been a pornographic actress for two years now and I truly have never felt more sexually aware and safe than I do now.
I believe I reflect the vast majority of those employed in the adult film industry in my opposition to Assembly Bill 332, which would require barrier protection in the production of adult movies. We in the adult film industry have had extremely little communication with lawmakers, which certainly suggests they are poorly informed in regard to the industry, situation and people they are proposing to regulate.
I get tested every month for sexually transmitted diseases through a secure and scientific testing facility, consciously aware my livelihood is based on the health of my body. I feel confident I work with other like-minded and industry-regulated individuals who are also regularly tested under the same protocols. We trust our lives every day to science, whether it’s getting behind the wheel to drive or getting tested for STDs in order to have safe sex.
Personally, I won’t have sex with someone outside the adult industry who doesn’t show me a clean and current test. Statistically, my odds of contracting an STD are much lower than those outside of the adult industry who don’t test.
According to Sharon Mitchell, then-executive director of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which ran testing for the adult film industry, in 2007 the organization tested about 2,000 people each month, and only 2.8 percent tested positive for an STD, which was well below the national rates: In the U.S. that year, about 22 percent of people ages 15 to 24 got an STD. The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation was closed in 2011 and was replaced by two other testing facilities (Cutting Edge Testing and Talent Testing Service). I urge my friends outside of the business to test, and they are often surprised with their results when they didn’t see any signs to begin with.
Whether you believe in supporting the adult entertainment business or not, I think it’s very important to realize just how many people in the U.S. watch pornography – and therefore should be interested in protecting our rights as citizens to be able to choose.
Could you imagine if someone told you every time you had sex you were required to wear a condom, whether you were tested and knew the person, or whether you wanted to or not? These are personal choices that as an individual living in the U.S. we should be able to make on our own.
As a performer, if someone unfamiliar with our industry came to the set while I was naked to inspect whether my partner was using a condom, I would feel violated and disgusted.
We work on private sets and this is not a public matter. Who makes the rules, for instance, for National Football League players and Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters? Regulators do, under the guidance of experts and power players within their industry. Should we all vote on UFC fighters wearing helmets? Should we base our rules, policies and regulations for an entire industry around the exception to the rule?
The types of acts we perform on set every day are ones I would not do with a condom, period. Condoms are not without their own risks – repetitive use can be painful and cause allergic reactions. Not only are those painful, I believe they are not safe or healthy when used repetitively in the manner used on an adult film set. The type of sex acts performed in adult films are not the same as you might perform in your bedroom, nor are the time frames remotely similar.
I ask myself why UFC fighters, professional wrestlers and athletes are given freedoms, choices and the rights to engage in dangerous activities, but as an adult performer, attempts to place restrictions on us are made continually.
The adult film industry is already tightly regulated by obscenity rules and safety precautions. I believe in risk calculus and the freedom to make personal choices. Measure B, and now Assembly Bill 332, are not only unwanted legislation for the adult industry, but this bill opens a very dangerous door where government intervention in all things private is deemed acceptable.
Should the bill pass, the adult industry faces a very dangerous decline in performer safety through the destruction of already-effective protocols. Preventing this bill from passage represents our desire to protect all of our private lives.
Swimmer is an undergraduate women’s studies student.
This is actually pretty enlightening, though it sounds like you’re a bit more careful in your private life than most people (adult stars or no).
Unfortunately, freedom of choice isn’t held in terribly high regard on this campus, so I’m afraid your words will fall on deaf ears. It’s all about protecting people from themselves.