3 young porn actors infected with HIV on UK bareback shoot

I think his point is that straight USA producers do testing and do not use HIV+ performers. Whereas the majority of bareback producers, at least in the USA, do not do testing and use HIV+ performers.

The unspoken truth is that most of the perfomers in USA produced gay bareback are HIV+. That's why they usually have no issues with taking multiple loads and performing bareback, they are already positive. At the very least the producers should tell the truth and put warning screens on the films telling people that the performers are already HIV+ and are chosing to perform without condoms. At least that would help people better understand the behaviour and make more informed choices.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in most of the Euro twink bareback being produced. In most cases there is no managed and honest testing going on. Another issue is that many of the Euro twink models are from poorer Slavic countries with little if any HIV education. Many are "straight" or bi and think that if they only perform with other "straight" or bi guys they will not get HIV. They think that they are only at risk if they have sex with a self identified gay performer.

Any studio that wants to do so can establish rules such as Kushiel is suggesting for models who will be working with them.

We are unusually strict; models who work with us cannot drink or do drugs for the entire time they are working with us (though if they wish to stick around in the area for a few days afterwards, we don't care what happens once the shoot is finished.) We don't permit them to go out to clubs or whatever either, simply because when we attempted to allow models to act responsibly, it never worked. This is in part to ensure they're ready and looking good when it's time to do their scenes, and in part to reduce the risks of sexual encounters outside the controlled setting of our shoots. And we do this in spite of the fact that we don't shoot any bareback.

So we make it clear, they sign an agreement that has pretty severe penalties, and we don't hesitate to send anyone home who breaks the rules. The surprising thing is, while they might grumble when they first get here, by the end of the shoot period (usually 7-10 days), they are all happy and delighted, they've made deep, often longlasting friendships with the other models, and many who have worked with other studios before us tell us they have no interest in working for anyone else after working with us.

Of course, there are some models who grumble and complain, and they can simply go work for somebody else. We have way more applicants than we can ever use, so I just don't buy the argument that a studio cannot control the actions of its models. If they decide to work with us, they do so under our terms, which are spelled out in detail, in writing, before they arrive. If they don't like the terms we offer, they go elsewhere. So there are almost never any disagreements, we don't have issues with models fucking around off set or getting drunk and disappearing, and we are able to at least make a best effort at risk reduction. Any studio that wishes to could do the same.

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Originally Posted by hdkbill

Jasun,

And Chip, just as a point of clarification, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the issue of....what is referred to as a "super-infection" has, to the best of my knowledge never been proven. Their is a lot of literature that talks about the "possibility" of it, but everything I've read about it, and as a person with HIV, I stay pretty updated on HIV research, all I've ever seen is that it is referred to as a theory and possibility, especially if the particular strain of the HIV virus that is common place in remote parts of the world every begins to spread here within in the United States. At this point, the number of individuals who have been diagnosed with that strain in this country as to not even being counted in the statistics.

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I can't say you're right or wrong, and I don't have time to update my research right now, but as of 10/2005, when I originally posted this to GWW, there was apparently some pretty solid evidence on the reinfection issue:

I just did a fairly exhaustive Medline search and there is apparently pretty solid evidence for two different problems relating to reinfection: recombinant HIV, in which two slightly different strains of HIV form a recombinant form of HIV that becomes medication resistant, and the emergence of what in the literature is called "superinfection", which is apparently the new infection of people with the recombinant strain. (Sex Transm Dis. 2004 Apr;31(4):201-4 )

Among other issues, they specifically address bareback sex between HIV+ people as the source of the recombinant HIV, though it is less certain whether superinfection is a result of exposure to multiple HIV strains (as in barebacking with multiple HIV+ partners) or a single exposure to a person that already has a recombinant infection.

Other articles in the literature point to difficulties with these strains responding to known medications and, additionally, a significant acceleration of the pathological effects of HIV as a result of the recombinant strains.

As with any other emerging research, there is some conflict in the literature, with some studies indicating less impact than others, but it seems the majority of studies are now reporting this as being a serious problem. It also appears to be a *separate* problem from the emergence of HIV-2, the more aggressive strain of HIV.

So while my initial post was based on repeating the information given to one of my friends by his HIV-specialist physician, this post is based on my own research in the peer-reviewed medical literature.

The full thread is located here
http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ad.php?t=14165

and when I get a lil caught up, I will do a new search of the medical literature and see how the thinking has changed in the past two years, but perhaps this will help in the meantime.