Darren James, Porn Star, Recalls Nightmare Of Testing HIV Positive

Los Angeles Times:

Darren James saw the news flash on his TV screen last week: A porn actress had tested positive for HIV. James, 45, felt a moment of shock, then sadness.

"I feel really bad for this girl," he said. "One thing I can say, I just wish her well. It's the worst thing to get that call."

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[BlackYowe]

I am trying to find some compassionate thing to say but its hard. What I have to say is, its a dirty risky business and if you don't respect your own body this is what happens.

[goodgravy]

The pornographic industry (world) is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink.

There are 4.2 million porn websites (12% of total)

Daily, 65 million pornographic search engine requests are made (25% of total)
and 2.5 billion porn emails are send.

42.7% of internet users view porn. US Internet porn sales alone are $4.9 billion.

40 millions US Adults regularly visit internet porn websites (72% male-28% female)

I wonder how many porn consumers in this comment section are trashing this man.

[igtplans2bdaman]

Forgive me for going 'postal'... but does the black man really have to be the face of a HIV/AIDS story in a field dominated by white men. Hey, I'm just saying... fruit for thought.

[Malkin71]

Name a straight white guy with AIDS?

[MacManLB]

I agree with you. The crazy thing is that it is a white dominated industry (producers, distributers, directors, lead actors, etc). People of color are placed in a subservient, compliant, obedient, biddable, docile, passive, role even in pornography. It is mostly white men on women of color (Latina, Asian, Indian, African and African American). The irony is that it is easier to talk about AIDS and do nothing about if it has a black face.

[BankerTee]

I always find people like you who speak bombastically without having any idea of what you are speak rather funny. How can you say that the "porn industry has more revenue than Microsoft, Google, Amazon ... and Earthlink combined? You clearly won't even recognize an income statement if it sat on your lap and called you "papa."

The porn industry is purported to be multi-million dollars, while Microsoft's revenue alone was about $60B last year.

Please get your facts straight and don't show your unintelligence so easily.

[Malkin71]

Actually, it is you who is showing their ignorance. Porn is a multi-BILLION, not million, dollar industry.

[Malkin71]

Also, wouldn't lack of intelligence rather than "unintelligence" be more grammatically correct?

[BlackYowe]

Do stunt men and women jump off buildings without a net below?

[RhymeAndReason]

Hmmm..... I figured they were all ok because they all already had it! Are you kidding me? If you've ever seen one of these movies who in their right mind would think you were safe because you got tested every month, there are 30 days in the month....what about the 29 before the test day and 14 after when it takes time to get to your new test date and getting the results back? Do you stop working those days? I'm not rooting against ya but please I can't spend too much time feeling pitty either. The s**lly abused teen who gets involved, yeah maybe, but even she at some point must do better when she knows better. Give me a break.

[Babele]

Porn = AIDS

Enjoy making your porn.

[PeaceIsMyName]

AIDS and porn? *Yawn*

Well, there's that old saying: if you play with fire, you get burned.

Cry me a river.

[AdamX]

A porn star with aids? Why is this news?

[Malkin71]

It is, though....

Besides him and Magic Johnson, can you name any other straight men with AIDS?

And before I hear once again how ignorant I am...let me be clear...

I'm not saying straight men cannot get AIDS.

I am asking why we don't have more (a lot more actually) examples?

[Darcman]

You actually believe Magic Johnson is straight! Yikes!

[fcsakes]

When straight men get AIDS, in the obituary it always says "cancer" or "heart disease."

[goodgravy]

arthur ashe.

[ec1012]

Seriously? The disease started on the African continent and was primarily spread through heterosexual transmissions. It entered the U.S. due to the gay sex trade in Haiti and the amount of Ugandan and Congo immigrants in the country. There is a great article about it, but you have to pay (a year ago you didn't, go figure!), but the abstract is free.
http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll?BU=http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll&QF0=DocNo&QI0=061241&TN=Popline&AC=QBE_QUERY&MR=30%25DL=1&&RL=1&&RF=LongRecordDisplay&DF=LongRecordDisplay

Most of the people I have encountered through various AID organizations from Thailand and other East Asian countries believe the disease tends to spread through heterosexual contact with prostitutes. Unfortunately, the highest rates tends to be amongst child prostitution due to the practice of "stitch virgin", continuous stitching up of female child prostitutes to give the allusion of virginity.

[Debanne]

He deserves to be talked about, if he had a bigger head he would be a bigger fool. Oh, now he wants to be a security guard. (sometimes those jobs get you killed, too) Ultimately, it was greed and stupdity that took his life.

[4peace]

Please don't rush things, the man is still living, it hasn't taken his life yet.

[MacManLB]

...yet!

[tomasedison]

Was he shocked ? Shocked he didn't catch it sooner ?

[Dupree]

I do feel compassion for this young man and any person who is infected with HIV. I am of the conviction that even after all the data is out, people still do not understand that sex is a very serious entity. It should never be looked upon as a casual "anything" for it has the capacity to create life and nature continues to remind us...regardless whether we are religious, spiritual, or atheist...that there is always a consequence to sex whenever it is reduced to a "sport" ....nature itself defys that status...by imposing its own stipulations regardless of our beliefs and forcing us to reexamine how we estimate this very personal and intimate act that must be respected.

[MacManLB]

What's really sad about this dude is that from the article he just fell into this debased and abhorrent life because of hard times. His mother discovered her son's lifestyle and was HIV positive status while at church watching television.

[Malkin71]

Not to focus too much on the trivial, but...

Why was his mom watching TV in church?

What was his mom watching on TV in church that news about her HIV infected porn star son came on?

[MacManLB]

Most likely, she was at the church during the week, per haps volunteering in the church office. The secretaries have tv's to watch the news, etc.

[mckinley]

You're in the SEX INDUSTRY!

I cannot feel sympathy for you.

There are young women and men whose lives are ruined and lost, by contracted HIV/AIDS the first time they had sex.

[mike63]

Its Bush's fault!

[A Meat Beetle]

A whole lot of things are, true, but not this. This one goes back to Reagan and Bush 1, on whose watch this plague was unleashed and on whose watch virtually nothing was done about it. He//, Barbara Bush couldn't even be bothered to walk across the street from the White House to look at the AIDS quilt. That would not have played well with the (very substantial) h8 wing of the GOP. No wonder they raised such an amoral son.

[ywcachieve]

I have no sympathy for these men and women who have sex with multiple people without even being responsible enough to use condoms. They are playing Russian Roulette.

[youvegot2bekidding]

How about all the fatties - and others - who eat fast food and crap all the time and then get diabetes or colon cancer. Any sympathy there?

How about smokers and lung cancer?

[screwedrus]

Actually, no. I don't have a great deal of sympathy for them. They all know the risks associated with their behavior. I wouldn't wish any of these conditions on anyone, but they could have seen it coming miles away and changed course.

I did. I don't eat crap anymore, and I don't smoke. I don't engage in promiscuous sexual relationships or shoot drugs. It's not difficult to avoid the easily foreseeable outcomes of each of these behaviors.

I pity them, but I don't feel any sorrier for them than I would the run of the mill idiot that insists on taking part in some sort of "extreme" sport and winds up paralyzed. You keep poking a tiger, you're gonna get mauled.

[nanya]

While it is tragic that some of those who work in the porn industry have contracted aids, they did have a choice. You can either chose to have protected sex or chose not to. If you chose the latter, remember you are opening yourself up to the possibility of getting AIDS. To lament the "Woe is Me" or "Poor Me' song is very insincere to me. We all have an accountability factor for what we choose to do and how we choose to live.

[motoGpifupleez]

Excuse me, Mr. James? there's a clASS act in Florida named Tyler Hayes I'd like you to meet.