Because of an STD outbreak in Europe, there have been calls for a union of British adult film stars.
This week, Lianne Young, a former porn actress who is now a sex educator, told the Independent that a syphilis outbreak in Europe may finally get UK porn stars to work together. Some have stopped working because they are afraid of getting syphilis because of the industry’s lax safety standards.
She said that Young talked to eight adult film performers who quit their jobs because they were worried about syphilis. She told them that they were “losing a lot of money” and would be able to make their voices heard better if they bargained as a group. “For a few years now, people have been asking for a union,” she said. She also said that she had talked to Alana Evans, who is the president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild in the US, about starting something similar in the UK.
A union could help protect professional actors from tests for sexually transmitted diseases that aren’t done well enough. Porn stars in the US and EU get tested once a week or “at worst” once every 14 days. UK actors, on the other hand, have to test themselves once every 28 days. A union could also keep them safe from amateur actors who don’t want to miss out on a big paycheck just because they’re sick.
Even though it’s not clear how common the second thing is, Young said it “absolutely worries” her because “it can spread very fast.”
She told the Independent, “Porn stars are real people.” She also said, “There needs to be a union to connect with Public Health England and the police.” She has talked to that agency about reports of outbreaks, but foreign groups have found that the reports don’t go far enough.
PASS is a database of sexual health certificates for porn stars who work in the US. It was said that “multiple positive syphilis tests” had been done on European stars, but all they could do was send a warning to Xbiz, a global industry resource, last week. STD testing in Europe is “not standardised,” and PASS does not officially work there. This means that the organisation cannot “know the full extent of the exposures or additional cases” or put a hold on a production if an actor is found to be infected.
But a union for porn stars isn’t a guarantee that there won’t be an STD outbreak. The US Centers for Disease Control reported last month that the number of syphilis cases rose 26% last year.
