The pendulum continues to swing.

One of the nice things about my job is that it allows me regular access to an AVN subscription. No, it isn't for the myriad ads featuring scantily clad porn stars cunningly placed to catch the eyes of retailers. It doesn't take that long in this line of work to distance oneself from the subject matter. It either dissolves into a sexual "white noise" or the hapless clerk burns out. Instead, it is the constant state of frenetic action going on just under the surface in the industry. Talent, directors, producers; all seem to ricochet around like three dimensional Chinese checkers in a blender. I do my best to maintain a general idea of where things stand from month to month because it really irks me to not know the answer to a customer's question. They seem to have a sixth sense about where to find out the newest information too, because sometimes they possess an uncanny specificity in their inquiries. And so I read.

One of the issues that has kept with me since I got the March copy in my clutches had to do with Vivid moving to a "condom-minimum" policy. What that translates to is that performers get to choose whether or not they will use condoms in their scenes. Vivid was one of the last major players who required condom use in the industry. In my meager opinion, this is very telling. Porn wants a return to bareback.

It wasn't that long ago that several performers contracted HIV and several more were exposed. But that was two years ago. In the speed that the adult industry moves, that span could have comprised the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Viewers have the memory of a mayfly with ADHD. Production companies have a need to keep the films going. Various agencies are eternally poised to mitigate any scandals or problems.

It seems that in any statement regarding the use of condoms or lack thereof in porn movies, the crux of the argument falls upon testing. It touches on the labs that do the majority of screenings for adult talent. It discusses the mechanisms already in place.

The industry wants to tout science as some sort of talisman. They want to believe it will solve all their worries. That it will make the subject of STI transmissions on the movie sets somehow evaporate. Personally, I think they're whistling in the dark.

Testing, even when consistently performed, is not infallible. Infections have incubation periods. If it hasn't progressed far enough, it won't trigger a positive result on the test. At the very most, it will certify at the time the samples were collected for testing, the subject was uninfected. The only sexually transmitted disease that seems to be discussed is HIV. How often are the performers tested for other diseases like HPV or syphilis? Many cases don't actually present symptoms.

Human nature being how it is, I would lay good odds that few if any performers are tested before every scene and/or new partner off the set. It would be an annoying inconvenience. But that's about has secure as you can get setting aside the condoms.

There are several companies who don't shoot scenes with condoms. And almost everyone else out there leaves it to performer's choice. It's hard to really say how the currents run on the sets about that choice. Sex feels better without a barrier. The customers seem to enjoy watching unwrapped sex. However, even if that is not a factor for them, there might be intangible pressures. What if the director has a personal bias? Would insisting on condoms imply to fellow performers that you don't trust them? Would it imply they themselves were not clean? It's a business based on people and that introduces a multitude of uncertainties.

There's really no way to remove the risk entirely. Humans are too good of a vector to other humans. The vogue of increasingly rougher anal sex, ass-to-mouth, bukkake, and cream pies all raise the stakes.

Ultimately, something serious will slip into the talent pool again. It's just a matter of time. There will be another scare/scandal and a couple years later, it will be forgotten anew. I wonder how many times the pendulum will continue to swing from extreme to extreme.