We’ve all read the headlines, another adult performer tests positive for HIV and the industry imposes a temporary moratorium. Some time passes, another performer tests positive, another temporary production freeze. When I began my career as a porn performer in 2000 the industry felt smaller, and safer.

Safety in porn means avoiding STDs, especially HIV, and there are only a few protocols in place to protect performers from that. The most obvious choice of wearing condoms is controversial and not mandatory industry-wide. Thankfully, testing performers for STDs is mandatory—or so we thought. That depends on which side of the industry you’re on, the heterosexual, often called the “straight side” of porn, or the homosexual, often called “the gay side.”

The way testing, or sometimes lack there of, is done in the gay adult entertainment business is often entirely up to the company. Vice President of APAC (Adult Performer Advocacy Committee) and prominent gay performer, Conner Habib says, “Some studios require condoms and no test, others require testing and no condoms, and others require both. There are also a few studios that use nothing, but those are outliers.”

This combination of protocols is unheard of on the straight side of the industry where performers are expected to have a negative HIV/STD test every fourteen days. Which is why some consider crossovers (a man who performs in both gay and straight adult movies) risky business. In fact, some girls make it a point to put these guys on their “no” list.

And yet, regardless of what side of the industry a performer is on, they think their way is safest. Habib has done close to two hundred scenes and never asked to see his scene partner’s test. “I don’t think it’s any of my business,” says Habib, who has used condoms in every scene. “I don’t really care about other people’s status because I know I’m having protected sex.” Because of the social stigma, he says there are some legal questions about whether or not you can ask to see another performers test.

Adult Entertainment attorney Michael Fattorosi says this is a subject where people get confused about what HIPAA pertains to, and it’s not employers. Which is to say, legally speaking, an individual can share their test results with whomever they choose. “Obviously, employers have to consider employee privacy rights. For example, if a performer comes to a company with an HIV positive test that company cannot share that information,” says Fattorosi.

For Habib, it’s more about respecting another performer’s privacy. And when safe sex is practiced, he feels there is little to fear. “It’s pretty clear, if you look past the hysteria that HIV transmission on porn sets doesn’t really happen, almost ever,” he says.

What if the condom breaks?

“There’s a camera monitoring the condom, so you literally have someone watching to see if the condom breaks the entire time,” says Habib. “Even if it did break, you’d stop and put on a new one.” He adds: “We change condoms a lot, so for a lot of performers it’s not as if you’re using the same condom for the entire shoot.”

According to the AIDS foundation of Chicago, a properly used condom can be 98-99 percent effective in preventing HIV, in addition to other STDs. When used improperly those encouraging statistics take a nose dive.

Despite the fact that performers on the straight side have a choice in the matter, those who request condoms will often not be re-hired. (Unless they work for a pro-condom company, but not many exist.) With few protective barriers in place, their safety relies heavily on testing protocols and trusting their partners.

Crossover performer and Pervout.com owner Lance Hart avoids some of the increased risk his fellow colleagues face. “On the gay side I’m weird because I don’t escort and the only reason I don’t is because I own a production company. But it’s a huge source of supplemental income for most guys,” says Hart.

Escorting is big business on the straight side too, only more of a hush-hush operation. “On a straight set you just don’t hear girls talk about it, but on a gay set guys sit around and shoot the shit and talk about the clients they saw,” says Hart. Even with a “good test” which was taken a week ago, knowing your scene partner just saw four clients last night would make you thankful for wearing a condom.

Award-winning XXX performer Wolf Hudson agrees. “I don’t trust half the people anymore because too many are doing stuff off camera that is very questionable,” says Hudson. “I support sex workers, but I’m against the ones who go out there, do a trick and if they get paid extra don’t use a condom. Those are the ones I’m concerned about.”

Despite his own safe practices, Hudson can’t escape the stigma associated with being a crossover. “People think if you do gay porn you’re less of a man and you’re more likely to have HIV, which is ridiculous,” says Hudson who’s dated girls in the business who’ve kept their relationship secret for fear of losing work, or getting a bad reputation. Hudson says he’s one of the few performers who doesn’t mind wearing a condom and even uses them in his personal life. “I have no problems with condoms and testing, which is part of the reason I stopped doing gay porn,” he says. “I like to know my partner’s status and on the gay side you can’t really disclose it.”

The gay and straight division in the porn industry doesn’t seem to be about bigotry or prejudice, so much as safety concerns. Whereas most men attempt to keep their professional identities separate, by using alternate monikers for gay and straight scenes, in the age of social media it all comes out eventually. And when it does, other performers don’t take kindly to it. In the past some have even taken to outing

Hudson is rare, in that he went by the same name on both sides. This kind of transparency earned him respect, yet made him an easy target. Honesty is the best policy, but when it’s ridiculed it can be discouraging. Which makes keeping secrets more attractive. “Half the men in straight porn have been fucked by a guy,” he says. “Just because you aren’t seeing it on film doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it.”

Prominent porn performer Alana Evans has been active in the adult industry for close to seventeen years. She’s seen it all. “More often than not performers that turn up positive in our industry work on both sides,” says Evans. “It’s not being a bigot, its just statistics.”

Nothing is fool proof. Even with industry testing, without condoms there’s still a modicum of risk. The DNA by PCR test is considered an industry standard, yielding the quickest results and detecting HIV infection in as little as fourteen days. According to Shannon Southall, TheBody.com’s HIV expert, a person is most contagious in the early stages, because the viral load is highest at the point of infection. Basically, there’s a window of time when someone could be infectious, but still test negative. And because HIV positive performers work regularly on the gay side, this is a point of concern.

“Assume that everyone has HIV, that everybody is positive. That’s the best way to respect privacy and resist stigma in the gay community,” says Conner Habib. Frankly, this incites panic on the straight side. HIV positive gay guys can continue to perform, but that option doesn’t exist for HIV positive women.

Some call this HIV anxiety ignorant, and argue that protocols on both sides of the industry are efficient in their own ways. These people believe education about HIV transmission mitigates the fears that performers carry. “Testing protocols identify whether or not they are HIV positive or negative so I’m not sure how someone in gay porn would smuggle HIV past the protocols we have,” says Habib.

For Alana Evans, it’s not just about risk assessment but also attraction. This is sex. And it’s damn near impossible to train your sexual arousal to be politically correct. “As a woman, I speak up and say I don’t want to work with men who are crossover performers. Then I’m called a gay hater,” she says. “For me, it comes down to my sexuality. Am I going to be turned on by a man I know is aroused by other men and has sex with other men? It’s a turn off. There’s nothing wrong with that.” As a professed bi-sexual, Evans is misunderstood by those who find her choices offensive. But it’s her body. Her choice.

And isn’t that what this comes down to? Unmitigated choices. A performer should have the right to choose when and with whom to wear a condom. It shouldn’t be a company decision; it should be a personal one. Empower the performers, encourage education, and above all make safe sex, well, sexy. There are plenty of hands free creative ways to put a condom on. Given a choice, and not just a philosophical one, performers could break down modern day stigmas.

As Hart says, “If you can’t shoot porn with a condom that’s gonna sell, then you’re not very good at shooting porn.”