Deb Sperling writes on www.nypress.com – At first, as a hardcore safer-sex activist, I was pretty confused and appalled by feminist porn star and director Madison Young’s [pictured] seemingly cavalier stance www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=44604 on the issue of mandating condoms in her industry. Then I went in a little deeper.

In an interview yesterday with Salon, Young said that when she’s acting, she likes to use condoms when she can, but that as a director, she feels its important to give her actors a choice.

With reasonably strict testing policies standard in the industry—porn actors have to get tested for HIV and other STIs every month in California—the risk of transmission is lower than you’d think.

Add to that the fact that condoms can sometimes increase the risk of infection, particularly for female porn stars. The hours upon hours of thrusting and filming and thrusting and filming can lead to all sorts of icky vaginal tearing, and bacteria loves little holes in warm, moist flesh.

Industry big-wigs also make the argument that condom use hurts sales, because (big surprise!) we like to watch people stop to put condoms on in porn almost as much as we like stopping to put our own condoms on. Still, advocates for industry-wide mandated condom use argue that bareback porn is irresponsible—not for the actors, but for the viewers.

Porn Star Nina Hartley has this to say on her blog: “I know it sounds harsh, but it’s not porn’s job to set a good example to the viewing public. It’s an entertainment medium like anything else out of Hollywood, and mainstream entertainment is not held up as needing somehow to set a good example. It’s a shame that our country does such a piss-poor job of educating its young people so that they’re driven to view porn to try to get a clue about sex.”

That’s a position I can get behind.