THE PORN STAR JOURNALIST
Porn star Kayden Kross, AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2013, Las Vegas, NV / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
In 1998, I moved to Los
Angeles, in part to cover the adult movie industry. In April of that
year, a male performer infected several female performers with HIV. His
name was Marc Wallice.
Recently, several adult performers learned they're HIV+. They include Cameron Bay, a female performer, and Rod Daily, a male performer. There appears to be a third party who tested positive for the virus, as well: a female performer. And there may be a fourth, or that may be a rumor. In the meantime, a legal debate is raging over whether or not condom use in porn movies should be mandatory.
Back in '98, I visited porn star Tricia Devereaux at her apartment. She had tested positive for HIV, but she was waiting for the results of a second test that, as I recall, would prove definitely whether or not she was positive. (She was.) We sat on the sofa in her living room, and she told me her story.
Since then, as I wrote on my Forbes blog, I wince every time another HIV case surfaces in the adult movie business. Like Dr. Tim Lahey, a self-described "HIV doctor" and Dartmouth professor who wrote an eloquent and insightful post on the subject for ScientificAmerican.com, "The Dignity of a Porn Star," I feel compassion for these performers.
"Not only is it tempting to have an oversimplified view of how porn stars get HIV, it is also easy to oversimplify the relationship between HIV in porn stars and the worldwide HIV epidemic. Porn stars are not the cause of the HIV epidemic. They are its public face (et cetera). We could arrest HIV transmission entirely in the porn community, yet HIV would rage on around them. Porn stars, like all of us, make bad decisions and suffer hard consequences. They deserve our compassion, and I hope they get it."
What's different about the latest HIV outbreak is who's telling the story.
Picture the map of an earthquake. At the core: a red dot. This is the epicenter, "where a seismic rupture begins." It is the temblor's ground zero:
Full Definition of GROUND ZERO
1 : the point directly above, below, or at which a nuclear explosion occurs
2 : the center or origin of rapid, intense, or violent activity or change; broadly : CENTER 2a <the party town that served as ground zero for those corporate … bashes — Rich Eisen>
3 : the very beginning : SQUARE ONE
From there, the concentric circles span out across the surrounding territory, the tremors' impact lessening as the distance from the site of origin increases.
I grew up with earthquakes, in Berkeley, California. The ground was always moving. In 1989, I was asleep at my then-apartment in nearby Oakland when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. The San Andreas Fault sprung to life with a 6.9 jerk. The epicenter was somewhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I awoke with a start. Half-dreaming, my first thought was that a gorilla was bouncing on the electrical wires in the alley. Then, we ran outside. Elsewhere, a freeway pancaked, part of the Bay Bridge collapsed, the World Series halted.
Years later, in Los Angeles, I rented a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a courtyard building on Los Feliz Boulevard. I could feel the earthquakes on a regular basis. The structure would sway slightly, I would wait for it to stop, and then I would go back to work.
Who knows the earthquake best? The person standing at its epicenter.
On September 3, 2013, Rod Daily tweeted:
Rod Daily, September 3, 2013
Since her status was made public, Cameron Bay has been chronicling her story on Twitter, from her diagnosis, to the high cost of treatment, to living with HIV.
Cameron Bay, September 10, 2013
In the 21st century, the porn star stands center stage. She is a gonzo journalist, reporting from the front lines of the war on Porn Valley, the Internet her Teletype. Stoya deconstructs the industry and HIV. Kayden Kross exposes the economics of the business. Aurora Snow considers the future of Google Glass XXX.
What's left of Adult Video News, porn's once-mighty trade magazine, has been eclipsed by a pack of digital Walter Winchell's steeped in porn's insider intel: Mike South, AdultFYI, Luke Is Back, Porn Valley Observed, The Real Porn Wiki Leaks. Their headlines bark the latest X-rated news, their beat a mix of industry gossip, behind-the-scenes facts and rumors, pics of naked porno chicks having sex on adult movie sets to which you were not invited (but they were).
The mainstream media gawks at the spectacle. By the time the "real reporters" show up in the San Fernando Valley, the caution tape has been hung already. Dumbstruck and days late, the serious journalist lingers on the periphery, parachute deployed. Under one arm: a cache of banner ads.
(Is this journalism or a jerk-off session?)
Sex machine, Woodland Hills, CA / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
In this latest case of HIV in the porn industry, it is not entirely clear who patient zero is. Bay performed in straight adult movies. Daily performed in gay adult movies. Since the Great Porn Recession, it is not uncommon for adult performers to supplement their income by escorting on the side. The third HIV+ performer has not stepped forward, although several adult sites have published her name (if it is, in fact, her).
Years ago, I met a porn star who was also a call girl. She had slept with the world's most famous actors and the world's most famous athletes and the world's most famous rock stars. She was a knockout, a dime, a straight-up stunner. Years later, she reappeared in the media in connection with a famous man and a sex scandal. "Oh, my god, that's [redacted]!" I announced to no one and pointed at the TV screen. In another life, I had waited in her living room while she smoked crack in her bathroom, her brooding boyfriend looming in the background.
Porn is messy. Most journalists don't like to get dirty.
What is a journalist? As Dave Winer points out, the government is attempting to answer that question for you:
"Imho if the government says who's a journalist, under penalty of law, then there will be no journalism."
Is Julian Assange a journalist?
Is a suicide bomber about to detonate a journalist?
Is a porn star who publishes her story on TwitLonger a journalist?
In 2013, the porn star is tired of being your fantasy. She has something to say. Her medium is her message, and in cyberspace her bytes are what make her real.