Study: Over Two Thirds of Porn Stars Don't Wear Condoms on Set Despite New Law

On Tuesday, a UCLA study revealed that almost one in four adult video performers has contracted gonorrhea or chlamydia and that a whopping 69% claim that they never use condoms while performing on set, despite the 2013 Los Angeles city and county laws mandating they do so.

The new study, according to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is grounds to support AB 1576, which requires condom use on-set for California porn film productions, sponsored by L.A. area Assemblyman Isadore Hall.

The LA Weekly reported that AHF president Michael Weinstein offered a statement about the study claiming that it uncovers the “high STD risk” for all adult film performers “throughout California and elsewhere.” He added that the adult film actors “deserve better… unscrupulous producers place the actors in jeopardy every time they require–or intimidate–these performers to work without condoms or other workplace safeguards.”

A group of adult film performers known as the Free Speech Coalition discounted the study’s results and accused Weinstein of trying to shut down the industry. Diane Duke, the executive director of the coalition, contends that the research on the porn industry has shifted from studying HIV AIDS to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) because “their HIV numbers don’t stand up to scrutiny.”

She added, “If you compare adult performers to the population as a whole (that is, including a data set that includes preteens, monogamous couples and seniors), you can manufacture data that looks intimidating. However, if you compare adult performers to other sexually active adults in their age range, you actually see a lower incidence of STIs.”

The LA Weekly reported that the study, entitled “Adult Film Performers Transmission Behaviors and STI Prevalence,” was released at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2014 STD Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Looking at 366 performers, 75% of which were women, the study revealed other significant findings:

• More than half (58.7 percent) of the performers used marijuana, one in 5 used cocaine, almost 1 in 5 used ecstasy or Xanax and one-third said they had used drugs in the last three months
• 15 percent reported that they had to give sexual favors in order to get work
• Over 16 percent said they had not been paid for work
• 13 percent said they ended up doing something on-set that they did not want to do
• Nearly 60 percent had done scenes involving vaginal or anal ejaculation, according to UCLA
• 42 percent had done a multipartner “gang-bang” scene