Adult Performer Certification? 1
I’ve been thinking a lot about the way the media presents and civilian public perceive adult performers. As much as I optimistically wish for people to take me seriously as an adult woman who possesses more than enough intelligence and sexual agency to make personal health decisions in the course of a professional career, I am forced to recognize that sometimes even people who genuinely believe themselves to be in support of us acknowledge that they aren’t always as pro-performer as they believe themselves to be.
I was thinking about some stuff today. Has there ever been a proposal to have a certification test in order to be an adult performer? Like, if you shoot anything that requires a performer panel test, you must also show your Adult Performer Certification, which is attained by taking a course and passing a test an Adult Performer Certification course every six months-1 year. It would cover things like:
-What risks you take by performing if you choose to perform without a condom.
-The risk an adult performer has of catching HIV, Chlamydia, or Gonorrhea with other adult performers who are tested every 30 days
-First signs of each of the three STIs so that performers can catch them before passing them on
-Other risks and STIs that are not tested for under the performer panel test, like BV and yeast infections, and how to identify and treat them
Something that would require performers to be educated about their own health so that they can make the best decisions for themselves. I’ve been thinking a lot about condoms in porn and Cal/OSHA, and the AHF. (I wish I had gone to their press conference this week. I didn’t find out about it until a day or two before and I had a shoot.) I don’t think think condoms should be required on porn sets, because I think adult performers are smart enough to know the risk they take and they have the agency to choose to do so anyway for the work that they love. I think it’s patronizing when these groups imply that we aren’t capable of comprehending the risk of contracting HIV in the course of our careers, especially when the accepted self-imposed industry standard has kept the incidence of HIV consistently low. But I think it’s important to ensure that the people taking these risks are actually educated on their health with regards to their profession.
I don’t know how realistic or well-met it would be, but I thought it would possibly lend us more credibility when idiots like Shelley Lubben say that we aren’t capable of understanding and signing a model release or contract. As my friend Dr. Chauntelle (www.PVVOnline.com) put it, it could be a
You can never have too much access to health information, but it should come from academically and scientifically sound resources and overseen by industry performers and professionals. As Dr. Chauntelle (www.PVVOnline.com) said,”such certification from within the industry and simultaneously by performers would protect the industry from outsiders and would protect the performers from any power hierarchy-type issues etc.”
I wondered what other people in the industry thought about this idea and if anyone has any suggestions for how to proceed to establish something like that.
Comment here or email me at ela.darling@gmail.com
xoxo
Ela Darling
Aug 25, 2011 @ 14:48:53
This is an intriguing — and likely visionary — idea. I’m not in the industry so will leave specific nuts-and-bolts suggestions to others. Broadly speaking, however, this speaks to the need for an acknowledgement of the specific labor issues that all workers face in their respective industries. American history offers us the labor movement as an example of one of the greatest social movements of all time, and yet today American workers are at the butt end of a historical process of declining wages, increasing hours, decreasing security etc. This suggests that we need labor initiatives for all — including, and especially for adult industry workers and sex workers.