It’s been four months since the Free Speech Coalition called for a hold on shooting, and some people in the adult industry are feeling the pinch. It’s a tenuous situation—even as cases of COVID-19 continue to climb around the country, performers and producers are weighing their options. While many performers have been making ends meet using platforms like OnlyFans or camming, some want to get back to shooting for studios. And, meanwhile, production studios have been watching their bottom lines dip lower and lower. 

On July 13, the FSC issued a statement advising “against shooting adult film content with anyone who does not live in your household.” However, they have not ordered an all-out production hold because, they said, “We are not a public health agency, and thus are reliant on the guidance of public health officials as to whether or not production is safe. If they determine that, in a given locality, it is unsafe to shoot, we will follow their lead and call for a production hold in that region.”

So, when Los Angeles County started reissuing film permits to mainstream Hollywood film studios in late June, some adult companies followed suit. Falcon Entertainment began shooting in Las Vegas for a film called No-Tell Motel. “So far, knock on wood, everything is going well,” the company’s vice president of production and operations, Adam Q. Robinson, told Rolling Stone’s EJ Dickson.

Falcon’s performers, said Robinson, will be required to have clean COVID-19 tests within 24 hours of shooting. They’re also prohibited from sharing rides to the set, and quarantined in hotels overnight after their tests clear so that they’re in no danger of contracting the virus between getting results and shooting. And, of course, everyone on set will be following the FSC’s recommendations: performers and crew will be wearing masks on set (though not during the sex itself because, as Mike Stabile told Rolling Stone, “You’re already sweaty and in close contact with somebody.”)

Numbers are being kept to a minimum on newly resumed shoots, too. AdultTime’s content director, Patrick, said that for now, “foursomes, gang bangs, multiple sex partner scenes, anything around swingers that has a lot of people on set” were a no-go for the company, along with sex acts that entail lots of fluids. The FSC has recommended that there be no kissing on set, which the FSC’s Mike Stabile called “the ultimate mode of transmission.”

That may seem ridiculous to some—including performer Casey Calvert, who told Rolling Stone, “I’m certainly of the opinion that if someone’s penis is going to go inside of you, that’s the same amount of risk as kissing them.” 

But the FSC is primarily concerned right now with harm reduction, as Mike Stabile put it. “We knew there were a lot of independent producers facing choices about whether they would survive financially,” he said, so the FSC has been trying to provide guidance for those in the industry who felt they couldn’t hold out on shooting any longer. 

With adult production companies having been left out of the federal government’s stimulus package for small businesses, porn studios have been losing money since the shutdown began in March, and many are eager to get back to business—even if it’s not exactly “as usual.” And it’s not.

“Many of the clinics under the industry’s testing system, PASS, are unable to incorporate COVID tests, leading many performers and crew members to use an independent company, Talent Testing Services (TTS), which is offering tests for a relatively cheap $35 a pop,” wrote Dickson for Rolling Stone. But with so many people wanting tests so fast, her producer sources told Dickson that TTS has developed a backlog that can delay results and thus shooting. With companies like Falcon working so hard to incorporate clean Covid-19 test results along with clean STI test results from PASS-approved clinics, that can make scheduling a nightmare. (A representative for TTS, however, told YNOT directly there is no such COVID test backlog at TTS, so it’s not clear whether delayed COVID test results are the contributing factor Dickson’s reporting makes them out to be.) 

And then, last week, came a fuzzy report of rumors that “at least a dozen publicly unreported positive COVID-19 tests” had been discovered “among talent and crew testing outside the PASS system.” There’s been no official word from the FSC on this possible cluster of infections since July 14, and no production hold has been called.

Still, the FSC wrote in a July 15 statement, “We cannot state strongly enough or repeat often enough that regardless of governmental orders or the existence of a production hold, we do not believe it is safe to create adult content with anyone outside of your household.”

But not everyone feels that they can keep waiting for the all-clear. “Even Calvert, one of the industry’s top names, acutely feels this pressure,” wrote Dickson for Rolling Stone. “‘I feel like if I don’t work, somebody else will,’” she said.

Man in PPE photo by cottonbro from Pexels