NL- Forgot to run this thru spell check sorry Tim, fixed)
Quite an interesting little meeting. In my opinion, the most important part of the discussion was about the gay vs. straight industry. There was the usual rhetoric about testing vs. condoms. I mentioned the gay company that recently signed an HIV+ performer to an exclusive contract. It would seem to me that advertising the fact that you’re hiring HIV+ performers just begs for regulation, and mandatory condoms. There was a short discussion of employer vs. contractors.
An OSHA representative let it be known in no uncertain terms that performers are employees. I was most impressed with Mr. Marcus. I have met and spoken with Marcus a few times in the past. He spoke ‘to’ the people who were there, not ‘at’ them. This is one guy that performers need to listen to. There were a number of UCLA law students there. I think some of them were taken by surprise seeing how easily terms like double anal and facial ejaculation were used as if we were discussing last nights Laker game.
There was one guy there, I didn’t catch his name, who said he was a performer for a short time. Other than him Mr. Marcus, Dianne Duke, and Mark Kernes, nobody else from the industry showed up. Dianne Duke again stated that the industry and the FSC believe that the current testing system works and no further regulations are needed. Some of the students, who have never looked into this industry before, seemed to brush this off as pretty unbelievable.
There needs to be more forums like this. It was quite informal, and was more of a discussion than a debate. The saddest part was the lack of performers standing up for themselves. No producers showed up either.(Marcus is also a producer, but he spoke mainly from the performers perspective.) AHF and Shelley did their regular things. Not much new there, but interesting anyway. Informative and interesting, but nothing really new. Maybe next time. I will be more than happy to answer any question the best I can. Tim Tritch tritchtm@ca.rr.com