In fact, most sex workers I talked to are way ahead of the curve on the use of lubes or rubbers with nonoxynol-9, a detergent that kills HIV in lab conditions. Many in the porn industry avoid products with n-9 because they say it causes "wood problems" on the set -- numbing a man's dick so he can't achieve a hard-on. And both male and female prostitutes say that they limit their use of products with the agent because they've long regarded it as an irritant.

"That's not news!" exclaimed Carol Leigh, aka "The Scarlot Harlot," a San Francisco prostitute who acts as the spokesperson for COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), an advocacy group for sex workers with chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. "We've known that for 10 years. Oh yes, it's an irritant and it's very problematic for us."

Leigh, who has been a sex worker since before the start of the AIDS crisis, said she uses some lubrication containing nonoxynol-9, but only very lightly. As for her other precautions, she regularly uses latex condoms like Trojan Ribbed or Crown for all forms of penetration, including oral sex.

"I had gonorrhea in my mouth very early on in my career, before I used condoms for oral sex," she explained. "Basically I use condoms for everything. It's difficult with the criminalization [of prostitution]. In order to negotiate around safe sex, you have to make it clear that you're going to use safe-sex techniques. However, that's actually a crime -- to negotiate around sexual services. What it takes to keep me safe I would be arrested for."

Leigh pointed out that some clients derive a thrill from engaging in "risky" sex and try to bribe sex workers into forgoing condoms. And prostitutes undergoing economic hardship may be tempted to cut corners in order to get paid.

Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunnyranch in Carson City, Nev., agreed that the criminalization of prostitution hampers the drive for safer sex. Fortunately for Hof, that's not a problem he has. Prostitution is legal in most of Nevada, so his brothel, perhaps the largest in North America with almost 250 licensed women, operates in the open, with plenty of scrutiny from local health officials.

"At the Bunnyranch, our girls get tested for HIV every 30 days, every seven days for gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis," he told me. "Then it's all condom usage -- even for oral sex. They're also trained on how to inspect a client. We actually have the Health Department come in and tell a girl what to look for. It's not 100 percent -- but by inspecting a man and making him use a condom, it helps take the risk out of it."

Hof said that the testing the brothel does is mandated by state law. And registered prostitutes are required to have cards signed by a health provider indicating that they're disease-free; otherwise, they don't work. Police check the cards once a week, and if the women are not cleared, Hof gets slapped with a substantial fine.

"It's just good business," said Hof, who calls himself the "Eagle Scout" of prostitution. "The customers know my girls are checked properly and timely. Legalization does that. The guy that's out there dealing with illegal prostitutes, massage parlors, etc., he might as well be playing Russian roulette and have the gun to his head. Because he's going to get something, and he's not going to like it when he does."

JenLynn Sweet, who worked for Hof from July 1999 to January 2000, said she found the safety precautions required of Nevada's brothels reassuring. Sweet, an erotic dancer and writer who lives in Las Vegas, has worked as both an adult-film actress and a legal prostitute. On the whole, she found legal prostitution as epitomized by Hof's Bunnyranch to be the safer environment.

"I absolutely felt safer working at the bordello," Sweet told me. "I was able to find video roles where condoms are used, but it takes a lot of hunting around. Most directors prefer the actors not to use condoms. I quit doing videos after less than 10."

She continued, "There is an organization called AIM (Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation), and just about every adult video company complies with its standards. What AIM does is keep records of PCR-DNA tests for all of the film stars. These tests check for HIV and are done monthly. Without the test, you won't find a role in adult film or video. The problem is that now that everyone feels safe and secure, the adult performers tend not to use condoms in their scenes.

"Most of the porn stars I met at the Bunnyranch were amazed at the precautions we took there," she added. "I was always amazed at the precautions the adult-film industry doesn't take."

Located in Sherman Oaks, Calif. -- in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, porn center of the universe -- AIM was founded by industry veteran Sharon Mitchell two years ago as a sort of industry watchdog after a series of incidents in which porn stars tested positive for HIV. Essentially, AIM now sets the industry standard, administering HIV tests on a monthly basis for about 500 or so persons, either approving them for work because of a negative PCR-DNA test or quarantining them because of a positive result and notifying adult-film performers who may have been exposed to HIV through that individual. When longtime porn star Tony Montana recently tested HIV positive, for instance, Mitchell placed the compliant actor on quarantine, tracked down through AIM's database those he may have exposed to the virus, placed them on quarantine pending future tests and warned anyone who had worked with them to come in for testing as well.

AIM also provides a number of other services, such as testing for other STDs, counseling and support groups and handing out free condoms and Inner-Lube, a lubricant not yet on the market that contains a mild 0.1 percent concentration of nonoxynol-9. But as laudable as AIM's efforts are, Mitchell admitted that at best the group is "putting a Band-Aid on a shotgun wound" when it comes to HIV and STDs in the porn community.

"The majority of the large companies will not shoot unless they have a current PCR-DNA test from us in their files," Mitchell said. "Of course, these tests are only as good as the day they're drawn. But if they have it on file, it releases them from a certain amount of liability.

"Of the folks we test, only 17.2 percent use condoms. That's alarming because part of the population gets paid more for high-risk sex acts like anal sex without a condom. So even with AIM Health Care in place, we have a tremendous amount of denial. With the people who don't use condoms, we find chlamydia and syphilis resurfacing every one to three months. They're spending the extra money they're making for working in noncondom productions on meds at the end of the month."

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