Positive HIV test for porn actress sends industry into panic

TOKYO (TR) – It is usually an innocuous sentence that any person in the workforce may utter from time to time: “I am worried about my job.”

Yet it took on significant meaning last month when an actor in the adult video (AV) industry said the statement shortly after learning that an actress had tested positive for HIV, the virus which can lead to AIDS — and the industry is, understandably, in a panic, reports Shukan Post (Nov. 16).

According to a message posted by the AV Human Rights Ethics Organization on its site on October 22, the actress from an unnamed agency was found to be HIV positive during an examination in September.

The message by the organization was sanguine. “The infection was not as a result of an AV shoot, and it was possible to confirm that others who came in contact with her were not infected,” the message read. “An unforeseen spread [of the virus] was prevented.”

A person in the industry tells the tabloid that actors who performed with the actress were tested, and the results were all negative. “Of course, the actors, their agencies and concerned parties are not supposed to talk about it,” the source says.

The case is a first for the industry. According to the magazine, a group working under AV Human Rights Ethics Organization tipped off the agency of the actress in question about the positive result before making the announcement on its site in October.

The group told the agency that the actress had been working on and off at a fuzoku (commercial sex) business and was thought to have contracted the virus two to three months before the positive test result. “There is a risk that [she will] infect others,” the group said.

“Only anxiety has spread”

A veteran actor in the industry expresses puzzlement to Shukan Post that the announcement was delayed by one month after the positive result was known.

“I heard that there were more than 10 actors who came in contact with the actress during shoots, and it seems that I am not among them,” the actor says. Yet he finds the outlook by hardly reassuring. “We are being told that everything is fine, but the name of the actress is not known. This is a confined world, with only actors sharing information with one another. But with nobody knowing anything, only anxiety has spread.”

At present, there are only roughly 80 full-time actors in the industry. Even in such a small community, no rumors spread during the roughly one-month period before October 22, says another actor. “I learned about it shortly thereafter,” he says. “At a shoot, a producer said, ‘There is a little something [we should talk about].”

“Those who cannot show proof that they are clean do not work”

The actor goes on to say that contraception is not unusual on the set of AV shoots. “As well, actors are checked monthly for venereal diseases at their own expense,” he tells the magazine. “Those who cannot show proof that they are clean do not work.”

Contracting a disease can be detrimental in the trade, the actor says. “A guy who contracts syphilis even once will not get much work thereafter,” he says. “Since we work independently, there is the risk of being shutdown even if it is suspected that we have a disease. Therefore, an actor who performed with the actress [who tested positive for HIV] has to basically say, ‘I know nothing.'”

Another actor reiterates the frustration felt within the trade. “An actor performing with the actress in question may then perform with another actress,” he says, “and I may then perform with her. You have to defend yourself, but asking for the name of the actress in question results in no answers.”

A person in the industry claiming to have knowledge of the matter tells the magazine that the actress in question starred in 10 films in which contraception was used during the shoots. Yet the person’s comments will hardly put the industry’s actors at ease: “I cannot clarify details since revealing the name of the actress will cause it spread through the industry, and everyone will be inconvenienced. For that reason, I cannot say anything else.”