Well, surprise, surprise. It looks like CEHBeach, aka, HeavyTrafficAhead has decided to chime in after I tweeted this message:
AIM Clinic shut down: http://is.gd/aimclo. Now there's no comprehensive screening in the porn industry. Thanks #antiporn movement! #proporn
CEHBeach responds:
@iamcuriousblue #ScouseCaspaXS Let's get both sides of the story, shall we? While anti porn activist may cheer, they'd be mistaken (as you are) if they believe that this is about 'getting' the porn industry. It's about public health Also seems that this industry supported venture was guilty of half stepping and bullshittin about the services they were providing and illegally releasing patients medical records. What I want to ask is why is it that some people think that workers in porn don't deserve the same level of protection under OSHA that someone working at Home Depot gets? Worker Safety+Public Health > 'body autonomy'
My response:
Beach, as usual, you step into a debate without being in possession of the facts. Have you done any background reading on this, other than the Aids Healthcare Foundation press release? Seriously.
First, you trash the AIM Clinic as an "industry-supported venture". As if that automatically invalidates their work. AIM was a non-profit, supported in no small part by industry charity. If I had my way, "the industry" would have supported it more heavily than they did. They offered good-quality sexual health care and counseling in addition to HIV testing. The for-profit competition, Talent Testing Services, offers only the latter. Other testing services, including AHF, do not offer the kind PCR-DNA testing necessary to check whether somebody is infected with HIV *right now*, instead relying on run-of-the-mill ELISA antibody testing with a three- to six-month window.
Additionally, the press release goes as far as to blame AIM for having their database hacked by so-called PornWikiLeaks, blaming AIM rather than the website that violated performer privacy by stealing and publishing the information. In fact, I've got to say, seeing their database hacked like that, then seeing them sued for it by their critics sure reeks of "dirty tricks" to me.
AIM had an excellent track record since 2004 of catching HIV+ infections before they could be spread to others in the industry. (Oh, and the more recent so-called "outbreaks" in the porn industry? In each case, that was somebody who was infected outside of the porn industry and who's HIV status was picked up before they went and had sex on a porn set. "Outbreak" indeed.) AIM was not perfect, but it was a good institution in need of further improvement. Instead, AHC chose to destroy AIM through a relentless series of groundless lawsuits. Even for those who believe in mandatory condom use, I have to ask, how does destroying AIM improve anything? This is the same kind of broken "we've got to make things worse before they get better" logic used by "prostitution abolitionists" who attack existing harm-reduction measures.
You bring up the specter of Cal-OSHA regulations. Of course, if you had been following this issue, you'd know that there is no regulation specific to the sex industry, hence, they are falling back on unworkable regulations made for medical workers. Which means gloves and goggles in all porn, not just condoms. The lack of any industry-specific regulation is a big part of the problem.
And as for the larger political battle, I really don't think that AHF is coming from a "workers rights" standpoint. If this were the case, why have they systematically tried to exclude working performers from decision-making around rules governing the porn industry? Why is it that their main "representative" for straight female porn workers is the odious Shelley Lubben? A Religious Right crusader with no connection whatsoever to working performers, and who is quite explicit about it being her goal to use this battle to shut down the porn industry, not improve the lot of working performers. Much of this as well is about the grandstanding of Michael Weinstein, the head of AHF, who's previous claim to fame before his relentless campaign against the porn industry was an attempt to get Viagra classed as a Schedule I drug of abuse. I don't trust either part of this alliance, and I don't think their goal is meaningful worker protection.
It seems to me that if this was about supporting the industry workers against the industry bosses, there should be a hell of a lot more input from those workers than there is right now. But then given your demeaning rhetoric toward sex workers rights issues, I guess the entire idea of "Nothing About Us Without Us" has ever sunk in with you. And that's too bad, in my estimation, because that pretty much nullifies whatever might be progressive about your perspective.
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