Porn stars Dylan Ryan and Danny Wylde (both stage names) recently boasted to CNN’s medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, that they weren’t too worried about contracting STDs because they both get monthly tests for various infections.
Ryan claims she has sex with about five partners each month in the course of her work and has not contracted a single STD in eight years. Given that genital herpes is thought to be present in about 20% of the world’s population and that the majority of those infected do not know they are, I find this claim very hard to believe.
Wylde claims nonchalantly that he reckons to be diagnosed with Chlamydia or gonorrhea about once each year. “I take some pills and it goes away in a week”, he says, as if referring to a bout of hay fever or a nasty cold.
Pink Cross, a religious organization dedicated to campaigning against pornography, claims that since 2004 there have been 2,396 cases of Chlamydia reported among sex workers – the organization does not present figures for HSV-2.
Alarmingly, although “Talent Testing Services” (no I didn’t make up the name) of Miami FL, offers an STD testing service for adult performers, it does not routinely screen for HSV-2, claiming that results can be inaccurate.
And the use of condoms? Ryan makes the bizarre claim that when having sex other than at work she always uses a condom. The risk, she believes, is greater outside the porn industry than within. Wylde claims only to bed fellow sex workers, even off set, for the same reason.
I guess you have to make up your mind who you believe – but for my money sleeping with multiple partners each month over an eight year period is not only asking for trouble for oneself, but putting each and every one of those sex partners at risk too. Pornography may not be directly responsible for the prevalence of HSV and other STDs, but so long as attitudes like this prevail I thank organizations such as Pink Cross for their anti-porn campaigns.
