Brazil may be a popular place for American adult filmmakers to shoot and work - especially given its own vibrant adult film and entertainment industry - but the HIV scare which has rocked the adult industry this month has shaken Brazilian performers enough to criticize their American counterparts for relying on testing over condom use, according to a published report.
"America's adult film industry relies on testing to prevent the spread of the virus," wrote Independent Online. "But testing is scoffed at in Brazil as expensive and unreliable. The Brazilian porn industry, Latin America's largest, has long depended on condoms to prevent actors from getting and spreading HIV."
So far as Brazilian Erotic Industry Association chief Evaldo Shiroma is concerned, American adult star Darren James "took a risk that many Brazilian actors won't."
James and actress Lara Roxx, with whom he worked after returning from Brazil where he's believed to have contracted HIV, tested positive for the virus earlier this month, sending a shock throughout the adult entertainment industry and bringing no small level of heat upon it. James had also performed with thirteen actresses after his return to the U.S. but before blood tests confirmed he was HIV-positive.
The test results provoked the American adult industry to bar over fifty performers who had contact with either James or Roxx, pending new test results on the fifty. The James-Roxx results also prodded at least thirty adult entertainment companies to impose a moratorium on production - and various proposals for legislation to impose tighter safety compliance regulations on the industry.
First Amendment attorney Lawrence G. Walters said the news of the HIV scare was just the kind adult's detractors could use effectively enough to push for closing down adult production longer term. "This comes at a difficult time," Walters told AVN, "as we're on the verge of a massive obscenity crackdown, and our enemies are searching for additional reasons to justify this potentially controversial action."
"While roughly 80 percent of Brazilian porn films are made with actors using condoms, about the same percentage of American movies feature actors not wearing them," Independent Online said. "Brazilian industry executives say most Americans who film in Brazil require their actors to film unprotected sex scenes."
Independent Online said Brazil's adult industry is believed the second largest in the world behind the United States, with "dozens of porn production companies" working in Sao Paulo alone, with product "so widely accepted that videos and DVDs are showcased on corner newsstands."
"It's become the place to go," said AVN publisher Tim Connelly to Independent Online. "What drives it is economics and beautiful women."
The problem is that Brazil may have the most people in the Western Hemisphere with the HIV virus or with full-blown AIDS behind the U.S. Independent Online said they normally go to Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, which are believed - according to the World Bank - to have over 60 percent of the country's estimated 540,000 with HIV or AIDS making their homes there.
"Though the Brazilian porn film industry is unregulated, most production companies honor a gentleman's agreement requiring actors to use condoms," Independent Online said. "Actors could not afford regular HIV tests that cost $140 (about R940) each, and producers feared being sued by actors getting the virus while working."
Buttman Brasil marketing director Norberto Brunni told Independent Online condoms are far more preferred over regular testing. "We use the best condoms in the world," he said, "and that's the safety of my business."
If some believe condoms are somewhat "impure" when it comes to making adult films and videos in the U.S., Brazilians don't necessarily see it that way. "Brazilians are more accepting of erotic films with actors using condoms," Independent Online said, "because the government's internationally renowned HIV prevention program has handed out millions of free condoms annually for years and bombarded the country with advertisements encouraging their use, particularly during Rio's world famous Carnival."
In fact, the publication continued, Sao Paulo's eighth annual Erotkia Fair included Brazilian porn performers saying American directors "often bring in their own male talent but usually hire Brazilian actresses who often moonlight as prostitutes and are willing to have sex without condoms."
Brazilian actresses like Lana Starck think U.S. performers' reputed preference for testing over condoms is "absurd. They should learn from us," she told Independent Online, "because the HIV test doesn't mean anything. I use condoms with actors and with my husband, always."
And renowned American adult photographer Suze Randall told Independent Online the Brazilian model should be adopted more widely to help guarantee American adult's safety and survival. "We thought we were being smart with testing, but we were naive," she said. "No one wants to work with condoms, but that will probably be the way to go. The marketplace is going to take what we give them."
