Many female performers believe that the risk of contracting HIV during a scene is vastly increased if their male partner participates in gay porn. The reason for two distinct names is that in the porn industry, doing both gay and straight porn-called “crossing over”-is both relatively common and also fairly taboo. Like many male porn actors, Burts sometimes went “gay for pay,” performing in both straight porn with women under the name Cameron Reid, and gay porn with other men under the name Derek Chambers.
When it comes to working in a sex industry, however, “straight” is a flexible term.
And no HIV-positive performer has stepped forward to admit to working with Burts. The new question became: How did Derrick Burts, who says that outside of work his only sex partner was his girlfriend, get infected? The answer to that question may reveal some hard truths about the porn industry.