HIV-positive porn star says barebacking must be banned
A porn actor who contracted HIV while filming has called for condoms to be made compulsory across the adult film industry.
Derrick Burts, 24, tested positive for HIV in October after starring in US gay and straight porn films.
He was named only as Patient Zeta when the news broke last month.
The straight industry currently requires performers to be tested regularly and checks them against a database called AIM but this is not a requirement in gay porn.
Condoms are normally used but there is still a market for bareback films.
Mr Burts told the Los Angeles Times that he received a phone call from the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation clinic on October 9th, telling him he had tested positive for the virus.
A follow-up test confirmed he was HIV-positive and the clinic asked for the names of performers he had recently worked with, along with the name of his girlfriend. All tested negative for the virus.
He said that when he returned to the clinic several weeks later, he was told that he had caught the virus from someone who was a “known positive”. He says the clinic would not tell him the name or gender of the actor because of patient confidentially.
However, he says he believes he caught the virus on a gay film shoot where condoms were not worn for oral sex.
Last month, the clinic said: “Patient Zeta acquired the virus through private, personal activity”.
“That’s completely false,” Mr Burts told the Los Angeles Times. “There is no possible way. The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend.”.
He added that testing is not enough to ensure performers remain healthy and said that he had also tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes in the months before he caught HIV.
“It’s very dangerous,” he said of working in the porn industry. “It should be required that you wear a condom on the set.”
