This Day in Hypocrisy: AHF Store Sells Bareback Videos

WILTON MANORS, Fla.—AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) president Michael Weinstein has been outspoken on his group's position that adult companies must be forced to use condoms for all movies featuring hardcore sex. "We're calling on the county to shut down porn sets that do not use condoms," Weinstein said in June, 2009, shortly after an adult performer seeking to re-enter the industry was found by AIM Healthcare Foundation to be HIV-positive. But apparently, Weinstein's position has a bit of wiggle room if it turns out that non-condom sex will make his organization a little money. According to an exposé posted to TheSword.com website, a former employee at one of AHF's "Out of the Closet" thrift stores—the recently-opened location in Wilton Manors—has revealed that among the used items that can be purchased at that store (and possibly others in the chain) are various "bareback videos," featuring men having sex with other men without condoms. "Out of the Closet is supposed to be a fundraiser," wrote former adult actor Kameron Scott, "but to sell bareback porn movies behind the counter just to make money makes me sick. I confronted a fellow employee about it, then the assistant manager, and finally my store manager about not feeling right about selling them because of what this company is supposed to be portraying. When [name redacted] was asked about it, he looked at me, shrugged, and said, 'Who cares? It's been made and they're probably already dead from whatever they caught'." "As a former adult model living with HIV, that comment was the last straw for me," Scott's resignation letter continued. "Are we not the same company that protests studios that make videos without condoms, but yet it's ok to sell their movies because it's 'already made'?" According to TheSword editor Zach Sire, although a press representative from AHF/Out of the Closet confirmed that the store chain does sell hardcore porn at some of its locations, the person had no comment on the extent or amount of bareback video sales. But the organization's hypocrisy was not lost on Free Speech Coalition executive director Diane Duke. "AHF's activities have always been about gaining power, fame and fortune," Duke said. "This is the kind of train wreck that happens when a nonprofit loses site of its mission and follows the money." And what if some unsuspecting person buys a bareback video from Out of the Closet and incorporates those fantasies into his (or her) personal sex life? No problem: The store also has its own built-in pharmacy to take care of all of that person's retroviral needs! And so readers (and customers) will worry even less, "Ninety-six cents of every dollar raised through the Wilton Manors store and through 'AHF Pharmacy' will benefit AIDS Healthcare Foundation's HIV/AIDS prevention and education programs in Broward County and statewide," Weinstein announced in conjunction with the store's opening in 2008. Okay; you can stop laughing now.