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Three Ex Porn Stars Tell the Truth About Porn on Joni Show!
Sat, 06/06/2009 - 13:09 | by Shelley Lubben
Thre ex porn stars, Shelley Lubben, Tammie Boling and Jan Merritt, tell the shocking truth about the porn industry on the Joni show! Watch it online right now right here.
We really hope the truth we share will inspire people all over the world to stop viewing pornography and to get help if they can't. We also hope women and men in the sex industry will hear our stories and be inspired to leave the sex industry and live the amazing life they were created to live. You only get one life. Live it well!
If you are a sex worker and you need help to leave the sex industry and rebuild your life, please contact us right away at help@thepinkcross.org. We'd love to help you! God bless you and love you, Shelley.
Porn Actress Tests Positive for HIV
Fri, 06/12/2009 - 16:22 | by Shelley Lubben
L.A. County health officials say at least 16 performers have been infected in addition to one reported this week. That brings the number of HIV cases in porn performers to 22 in the last five years.
By Kimi Yoshino and Rong-Gong Lin II
June 12, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-porn-hiv12-2009jun12,0,3569962.story
Despite porn industry assurances that an adult film actress' recent positive HIV test is the first since a 2004 outbreak shut down production for a month, Los Angeles County health officials said Thursday that at least 16 additional unpublicized cases of HIV have been confirmed in adult film performers.
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FOR THE RECORD: An article in Friday's Section A on HIV cases among adult film performers incorrectly reported the first name of attorney Amy Martin, special counsel to the state health and worker safety agency, as Kim.
Porn actress tests positive for HIV
The newly released data bring the number of HIV cases in porn performers in the last five years to 22, including the case disclosed this week.
The report -- and what state and county health officials perceive as stonewalling by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, which tests porn performers for sexually transmitted diseases -- is bringing renewed scrutiny to the estimated $12-billion-a-year industry's long history of resisting regulation and condom use.
"AIM Healthcare has never been cooperative with us and our investigations," said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health. So far, the San Fernando Valley-based clinic has declined to tell county or state officials the name of the performer or her employer.
"You'd think they'd want to be a full partner in trying to prevent the spread of this disease," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, health officer for Los Angeles County.
The performer first tested positive June 4, said Dr. Colin Hamblin, AIM's medical director. She worked the following day -- June 5 -- for reasons Hamblin said are still being investigated. A second positive result came back June 6. And the clinic is awaiting results of a third and final confirmatory test, he said.
The actress had two recent sexual partners, according to AIM. One is a porn actor, now under work quarantine, who performed with the woman June 5. The other is her boyfriend. Those men have had sexual intercourse with an additional six people, who have all been notified and offered testing, Hamblin said. So far, no one known to have had contact with the woman or her partners has tested positive for HIV.
Hamblin said the clinic is following all reporting rules, but because of patient privacy concerns cannot legally disclose the patient's name or employer to the county. "They also have to realize we have limitations too," Hamblin said. "We'd be happy to work with the county in any other capacity."
Attorney Kim Martin, special counsel to the state health and worker safety agency, said that the state health department and other public health agencies are exempt from those privacy laws and that they will continue seeking cooperation from the clinic.
In a statement published on AIM's website, Sharon Mitchell, the clinic's co-founder and a former porn star who appeared in more than 2,000 films, said the media was "like a moth to a flame."
"Rumor is rampant when the words 'HIV' and 'porn' are in the same sentence," she said.
Mitchell said AIM's clinic has been a leader in promoting prevention and testing. But, she added, "we are not the police department of the industry nor wish to be."
Public statements from clinic representatives downplaying the incident -- which one clinic official called "not a major event" -- drew some criticism.
"This industry screams for regulation," said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Cal-OSHA needs to require that condoms be used in any film. Yesterday."
The positive HIV test has concerned health officials and AIDS activists because the Valley is one of the leading producers of pornography in the world, with about 200 production companies that employ about 1,200 people who work as adult performers, and about 5,000 others. With some of the nation's largest pornography producers based in the Valley, any disease has the potential to spread quickly.
The 16 unpublicized HIV cases were not investigated by county public health officials, partly because privacy rules before 2006 prevented the disclosure of the names of HIV-infected individuals to government agencies. Because no government investigation of those cases took place, it is unclear whether those performers contracted HIV at work or elsewhere.
County officials were able to investigate the HIV outbreak in 2004 because AIM disclosed the names of the infected performers to the public. In that outbreak, Darren James, a well-known porn star, infected three actresses he had worked with before learning that he was HIV-positive. Another unrelated performer also tested positive. The cases spurred a series of public hearings, but legislation to force safer practices quietly expired without a vote.
No state laws specifically require condom use and the vast majority of heterosexual porn movies are shot "bareback," an industry term for unprotected sex.
State labor codes, however, do require use of personal protective equipment and protection against blood or bodily fluids in the workplace. Since 2004, five adult entertainment companies have been cited for a variety of violations. Each case has been settled, state officials said.
Since 2004, 2,378 people who identified themselves as adult film industry performers have tested positive for chlamydia in Los Angeles County. An additional 1,357 tested positive for gonorrhea and 15 for syphilis, according to data released Thursday by the county's health department.
Public health experts tried again in 2007 and 2008 to require condom use in adult films, but no lawmaker agreed to sponsor legislation, said Paula Tavrow, an assistant professor at UCLA's School of Public Health. But porn industry executives and officials, including its advocacy group the Free Speech Coalition, argue that they do a good job of self-regulation and say that the rates of HIV infection remain low. If laws are passed requiring condom use, they said, porn production would be pushed underground or outside California.
John Stagliano, a former porn star and president of Evil Angel productions, said: "The market determines whether or not this will be shown. A government agency the size of Los Angeles couldn't stop it. It's not going to change."
To read more about the HIV and STD epidemic in the porn industry click here. Los Angeles County has been receiving reports from the clinic of 60 to 80 new cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea a month among adult performers. Read it!
Please consider giving so we can offer resources to really help these women leave porn and do something better with their lives! They just feel they have no options but with your help we can help them rebuild their lives. You may donate here. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CARING!!
Male Porn Star Darren James Tests Positive for HIV
Mon, 06/15/2009 - 14:34 | by Shelley Lubben
"I feel really bad for this girl," he said. "One thing I can say, I just wish her well. It's the worst thing to get that call."
He had tested HIV negative just days before performing on screen.
"I predicted it would happen again," he said late last week in an interview at his attorney's Woodland Hills office, his second since his name became public five years ago.
The latest HIV case in the porn industry became public last week when officials from the San Fernando Valley-based Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation said a female porn performer had tested positive. The acknowledgment came as rumors about a new HIV infection spread on porn websites.
Officials from the clinic, which serves the porn community, have said the woman most recently worked June 5, the day after undergoing tests for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The medical director, Colin Hamblin, and co-founder, Sharon Mitchell, have given conflicting statements on whether the woman's test results first came back positive June 4 or June 6.
Regardless, clinic officials said the woman should not have worked on June 5 since she had last tested negative April 29, outside the industry's voluntary requirement that performers show negative test results within the last 30 days.
Los Angeles County public health officials said last week that the woman's case, which has not officially been reported to them, would mark the 22nd report of an HIV infection in an adult film performer since 2004.
When he worked as a porn star, James said, he followed the clinic's guidelines closely, paying $100 a month out of his own funds to be tested. The rules, he thought, kept him protected, even as he routinely worked without condoms. If everyone had to test, he reasoned, everyone was safe.
By April 2004, he was at the pinnacle of his career, traveling to foreign countries to shoot films, sometimes working six days a week and two or three scenes a day.
"You're like Superman. Especially with the amount of work that I had? It was nonstop," James said. "I'm thinking, I'm invincible. . . . That's just the way our mentality was. It was, you get the test, you're clean, not realizing that in between the tests, and after the tests, you know, other people, you don't know what they're doing."
The call that changed his life came as James was getting ready to book tickets to Japan for another international shoot. AIM clinic officials told him he was HIV positive. And, he said, they told him they planned to release his name publicly.
He asked them not to -- in part out of concern for his parents who did not know how he made his living -- but they did anyway.
"It was like a hit in the gut," James said. "My whole world stops. . . .Life was pretty much over."
A Detroit native, James said he joined the Navy after high school, working in the construction battalion. When he left the Navy in 1989, he settled in Southern California, attracted by the sunny weather. He planned to pursue a career in law enforcement but struggled to find work.
At times, he was homeless. At one point, he lived at a friend's gym. Then, in 1997, another friend referred him to a modeling gig in the San Fernando Valley, which turned out to be a porn shoot.
Desperate for cash, he performed, the shoot went well, and he was hired for more scenes. In the beginning, he worked as a standby performer without getting credit, making little money. But by 2004 he had loyal fans and was earning a good living. Then he got the HIV diagnosis.
Distraught, James said, he bought a bus ticket to Tijuana, planning to disappear. But the news spread quickly. In Mexico, he saw TV footage with a photo of him smirking as if, he said, he was smirking at the situation.
In Tijuana, James said, he tried to kill himself. After the attempt, he woke up days later in a hospital near San Diego. It took him months to recover, he said. He later found out that his mother learned about his diagnosis, and his porn career, on TV at her church.
In 2005, James sued the AIM clinic and several of its officials, alleging medical negligence and invasion of privacy. His suicide attempt and the turmoil caused by disclosure of his name are among the lawsuit's contentions. James and his attorney said the case settled out of court under terms that they not disclose the amount.
James said he recently started talking to public health officials and young adults about his experiences and is studying to become an HIV counselor. Other than a bad knee and bad back, James said, his health has remained good and his viral count is low.
James, who looks as if he is in his mid-30s rather than his mid-40s, has worked steadily as a security guard since recovering from his suicide attempt. He said his porn past and HIV-positive status have cost him some jobs when he is recognized, but he still wants to speak out. His story, he said, might get the attention of people who could require condom use on porn sets.
"That's why I want to come out and do a little more, if I can. And if it's just to help . . . just to get them to listen. Not to boast up porn, not at all, just to make people be aware that I got caught up, man. I thought I was invincible, and I got shot down so fast. . . . There's some really good people, and they want to change."
Asked whether he felt he was to blame for infecting the three women with whom he had performed, James said: "I don't know what to say on that one. I wish I could just go back and rewind that time. If it was just me and myself in place of them not having it, I would do that. But I can't."
Ex Porn Star Lara Roxx: I went to LA and all I got was HIV: Watch Video
Wed, 06/17/2009 - 04:07 | by Shelley Lubben
Ex Porn Star Lara Roxx Story
(Watch shocking video below.)
In March of 2004 Lara Roxx took a plane to Los Angeles leaving her native Montreal in search of a quick fortune in the Adult Entertainment’s land of opportunity known on the map as San Fernando Valley. Her plan was simple. She would first meet her agent and then embark on a busy work schedule. The more scenes, the more money, and in L.A a young woman could perform several scenes a day and easily earn as much as $10,000 to $15,000 a week depending on how open minded she was in terms of her physical boundaries. Eager to get to work Lara Roxx performed her first scene within 24 hours of landing on American soil. What was meant to be the first of many lucrative scenes was destined to end her career before it ever got off the ground.
