Porn star Lisa Ann alleged Monday that a male performer was scheduled to shoot a scene despite testing positive for hepatitis, raising questions once again about whether the industry’s current testing standards are covering all the bases.
In the 12 years I was in porn, no one worried about syphilis or hepatitis. In fact, I’ve never been vaccinated against hepatitis A or B; back then it was a series of three shots and I never made it a priority to make it to the third round—not uncommon thinking for most performers in porn. Two years into my career, in March 2002, Pamela Anderson claimed to CNN that she’d contracted hepatitis C from her ex-husband Tommy Lee. (Lee denied having the virus.) As far as I knew then, that was as close as hepatitis had come to entering the world of porn, which is to say it was leagues away. The industry I was part of has changed a lot in the last few years; some could argue it has become more private in terms of information sharing creating a gap in safety protocol.
When I was in the business, most of the performers were tested at AIM (Adult Industry Medical). We tested every month for HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. A few times a year we had what we referred to as “syphilis month,” when an extra vial of blood was drawn and tested for syphilis. Neither syphilis nor hepatitis were big enough concerns to test for regularly; HIV was the big worry.
