Adult Film Production to Resume Today

A nonprofit group that provides health services to sex-film workers announced Tuesday that an industrywide moratorium on filming is being lifted nearly a month early, effective today.

Sharon Mitchell, executive director of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, the organization that provides HIV testing and counseling to sex-film workers, said producers and performers have been eager to resume production.

Four weeks ago, after actor Darren James tested positive for HIV, Mitchell and other leaders in the sex-film industry called on production companies to stop shooting unprotected sex scenes until early June, when the HIV status of everyone James had worked with could be ascertained. Since then, three actresses who had worked with him were also diagnosed with HIV, as was a transsexual performer unrelated to the other cases.

To contain the outbreak, AIM also placed more than 50 performers who worked with the HIV-infected actors or their sex partners on a “quarantine list.” After repeated testing, about a third of those performers have been cleared for HIV and are free to return to work, Mitchell said, while the remainder on the list are still being asked to refrain from working until they can be retested.

But the voluntary production moratorium was being undermined, as some producers and performers -- including at least one actor on the quarantine list -- had already resumed working, according to insiders.

Others said they didn’t plan to start shooting sex scenes again just yet, just in case.

“We’re still going to wait,” said Corey Jordan, owner of the production company Fate Enterprises. “We’d rather be safe than sorry.”