Condoms in Porn on the Ballot

by Rong-Gong Lin II  from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com

A ballot measure asking Los Angeles County voters whether porn actors should be required to wear condoms during filming has received enough signatures to qualify for the November 2012 election.

The initiative, one of the most explicit ever seen on a ballot, will be decided among voters in a county that is the nation’s most populous and also is headquarters of the U.S. porn industry.

The measure is backed by Los Angeles AIDS activists who say porn performers are at constant threat of HIV and sexually transmitted disease infection.

"The lives of these performers are not disposable," AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein told The Times on Wednesday. "This industry is sending out the wrong message about safer sex."

Many adult film producers oppose the initiative, saying that actors and actresses should be able to choose whether to use condoms.
Diane Duke of the adult film lobby group Free Speech Coalition could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. She has said previously that the condom measure  was "government overreach into the way we make movies." And porn producers have said they tried using condoms in the late 1990s following an HIV scare, but it became clear that consumers were not interested in spending money on porn with condoms.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office late Tuesday "certified that the initiative received the sufficient number of signatures to qualify for the ballot," Efrain Escobedo, manager of government and legislative affairs, confirmed to The Times Wednesday.

The county Board of Supervisors must take the final step of voting to approve the measure for the ballot.

Weinstein said his group collected 371,000 signatures in five months, far exceeding the 232,000 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot.

If approved, the measure will require adult film producers to obtain a health permit from the county Department of Public Health, pay a fee, and require the use of condoms for acts of anal and vaginal sex. County officials will have the authority to suspend or revoke the permit for violations, and could follow up with civil fines or misdemeanor criminal charges, according to the AIDS group’s petition.

The measure is modeled on similar health permits for tattoo shops, massage parlors, barbershops and nail salons, the AIDS group said. It would apply to the unincorporated area and 85 of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, including Los Angeles. The three cities exempt from the law would be the cities of Pasadena, Long Beach and Vernon, which have their own public health departments.

Weinstein said he was confident of success at the ballot box. The AIDS group released the results of a March poll of more than 1,000 likely voters, which said that 63% would vote yes.

"The people are ahead of the politicians on this issue," Weinstein said. "There’s never been something on the ballot as sexually explicit as this, so it’s going to be excellent education for people."

The  effort at the county ballot box comes after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a city ordinance into law in January directing porn performers to wear condoms while acting in areas requiring a city film permit. The City Council approved the ordinance after the AIDS group gathered enough signatures to ask voters to decide the issue during the June election.

Believing that voters would approve the ordinance, the council approved the new rule to avoid spending $4 million on a special election.

The ordinance became effective in March, but the city is still studying how to enforce it, said AIDS Healthcare Foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea.

The controversy over a condom requirement in porn has flared up on and off for more than a decade as the porn industry, centered in the San Fernando Valley, flourished after a 1988 California Supreme Court decision ruled that adult film producers cannot be prosecuted under anti-prostitution laws.

But the industry has been marred by the announcement of HIV infections in porn performers, such as Darren James in 2004 and Derrick Burts in 2010, and infection scares have suspended porn filming at various times.

AIDS activists have said that condoms are necessary under state and federal workplace safety laws that require employers to protect workers from potentially infectious bodily fluids. But those laws are usually enforced only when someone files a complaint to a government agency, which is done rarely on porn shoots. AIDS activists said California state lawmakers have not voiced support for additional legislation in Sacramento, largely because the issue has an "ick" factor.

AIDS activists have asked the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to require condom use on porn sets, but have been rebuffed. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes the San Fernando Valley, has said the state, not the county, needs to act to protect adult film performers.

Yaroslavsky did not return a call for comment Wednesday.

Porn industry leaders have said they are considering plans to fight back in court or by moving filming out of town. But there may be a legal obstacle to pulling up stakes entirely: New Hampshire is the only other state whose courts have ruled that adult film producers cannot  be prosecuted under anti-prostitution laws.

For his part, Weinstein said he did not worry about the porn industry’s threat to move away.

"This is a principled question," Weinstein said. "Do we have slave labor or child labor in California because they do it in some country abroad?"

20 thoughts on “Condoms in Porn on the Ballot

  1. jeremysteele11 says:

    I don’t need any so-called “safe sex”. My cock already has its own helmet!

  2. Third Axis says:

    I have little doubt that this measure will pass. Because, sadly, L.A. county voters won’t take the time to research the facts, let alone consider the incredible cost and difficulty of enforcement. They will just think, “E-w-w-w-w, AIDS! We have to stop it!” Porn b-a-a-a-d!”

    I guess all we can do is stand back and laugh while a broke and inept city/county government attempts to enforce an unenforceable ordinance. All the while Mikey Whine-Stain will stand on his little Mussolini soapbox and wag his finger in the air, spitting, “So there!” A great triumph for AIDS-mongers everywhere…

  3. jeremysteele11 says:

    Well, since there never was any AIDS epidemic in porn prior to condom nazi legislation, we’ve already proven that either a. testing works. b. the HIV/AIDS thing is a scam just like the magic bullet theory, in spite of what corrupted, sold-out authorities continue to tell us.

  4. Weinstein can use his smoke and mirrors act to make it look like he is doing this for the benefit of porn performers everywhere but in fact this whole show he is putting on is to drive porn underground and/or out of business.

    The holy joes tried for years to stamp out adult entertainment as illegal and immoral. When that didn’t work (well its not illegal at any rate) they went and back doored their way to getting rid of porn based on an AIDs epidemic that never was.

    U.S. govt. used that same model when it came to invading Iraq looking for WMDs that were never there. But thats a story for another day.

  5. Third Axis says:

    @Karmafan, you’re absolutely correct in drawing that parallel. It requires a dumbed-down, uninformed, and gullible populace to allow its leaders to lie, steal, murder, and then glad-hand each other over their good work. And to think that to this day, Amerikans consider George H.W.M.D. Bush to have been a great “leader.” He should be rotting in jail as the traitor that he is, like his father before him. Beware when Jeb throws his hat into the ring…

  6. jeremysteele11 says:

    Hey now, Partner (never mind I’m from the north east), there ain’t no WMD in GHWBush… (or Lil’ Dubya Bush) just like there were no WMDs in Iraq, Iran, etc… you cants fools me.

    I hear the new candidate for President is named Obamney.

  7. Sandy Bunz says:

    Oh yea the voters who vote for Jerry Brown , the two billionaire Senators and Tony future President should vote for this issue. In pre-internet days there was enough work in the biz that male actors and females would not hook as much as now. With the web hungry talent do desperate behavior to feed the kids or a drug habit. The big players in the business should lobby for no free porn on the web and bring back the DVD market so that shooting porn was profitable again. They won’t though, they are stuck on feeding the webmasters and dating site crooks.

  8. The DVD market is overpriced and prone to piracy. Not to mention more of a legal liability when it comes to distribution.

    Membership sites. No free porn and no downloads.

  9. They need to follow the record industry by having sites that sell porn content ala cart cheap. Charge .99 per scene and folks will probably go for that. Sites charging $29-$49 a month with a few updates per month are gonna starve and be pirated out of business.

    Live shows are a good idea and if porn wants to survive they are gonna have to be creative. Sitting on their hands and lamenting and wailing over people downloading for free what they overcharged the fans for in the past isn’t gonna get the companies anywhere.

  10. “The DVD market is overpriced and prone to piracy.”

    *nods*

  11. jeremysteele11 says:

    This ignorant toxic condoms in porn bullshit now has the industry geared towards “outlaw” status, as in the days of old, in the name of right of consensual free expression, while placating the viewer interests of our mostly mute closet porn community. And outlaw status is appropriate as porn has become too fucking mainstream, anyway… as I’ve said before, porn is the last vestige of the wild west… and we were born to be wild.

  12. Don’t forget the vast majority of porn fans that pay the bills (saw one report a while back that said 85% don’t want to watch porn with condoms).

  13. Third Axis says:

    When the porn industry first developed the inflated image of itself as being some “mainstream,” legit branch of the entertainment biz, it bit itself in the ass. Along with that, it grossly overcharged consumers for many years—just like the record industry did for decades—while investing very little in its product. Remember the days of $40-$50 DVDs? Most of those productions cost under $10,000, so the industry’s profits were absurd. No wonder consumers today feel little remorse as they avail themselves of free content.

    Even if, or when, barrier protection is mandated for all content produced in the US, we’ll still have Europe and every other region of the world to which to turn for our bareback viewing pleasure.

    But more to the point, whatever happened to our good ol’ fashioned American sense of rebellion? Is US porn just going to roll over? Fuck the legislators and people like Whine-Stain. Let ’em try to police the entire industry (impossible). Make these broke and inept municipalities fight a bloody war of attrition until they simply give up in failure. A few porn freedom fighters will be sacrificed in the process, but they certainly can’t get us all. In the end, American consumers will vote with their wallets.

  14. Not only was it overcharged there was so much sneaky decietful stuff going on in the industry it was like a shark feeding frenzy in bloody water of porn marketers ripping off the consumer left and right.

    Stuff like double billing credit cards, making it almost impossible to cancel a monthly membership, buying a DVD/VHS of a star only to find the girl on the cover wasn’t even on the tape (had that happen to me with a Lisa DeLeeuw tape), cheap tapes arriving in the mail already broken and unable to watch even the 1st time (I bought a 3 hour compilation VHS tape that arrived with no tape on the VHS tape just the case and 2 spindles) and all kinds of crap.

    Due to the nature of it being porn most folks did not return all the fake and broken crap and fans ate it. Thats why so many feel no sympathy for the porn industry now.

  15. Third Axis says:

    Yeah, multiple billing was the veritable Royal Scam (great Steely Dan record), because few, prior to the arrival of blind billing, were going to contest charges and risk being outed to their spouses. The porn biz has and always will be shady. And filled with drug users, just like the legal profession, government agencies, law enforcement, ad infinitum.

  16. jeremysteele11 says:

    “Don’t forget the vast majority of porn fans that pay the bills (saw one report a while back that said 85% don’t want to watch porn with condoms).”

    That’s what I was saying, KF, when I wrote “placating the viewer interests”.

  17. rubikscube says:

    condoms in porn is fuckin stupid!!!!

  18. jeremysteele11 says:

    Condoms are a dumb con. Can’t feel nuthin. Viruses are way smaller than holes in condoms. STDs are really STIs, people get them and they go away. Condoms contains well over 100 toxic, synthetic chemicals, cause rashes and even STIs. STIs and other infections are caught outside the realm where the scapegoated phallas is covered, fans hate them, most performers hate them. He hate the Big Pharm which controls AHF pushing condom nazi legislation. We hate politicans who cow tow to the money and not to the will of the democracy (us).

  19. jeremysteele11 says:

    Condom nazis have no concern about their Pharm Mafia sponsored condoms causing latex allergy or even toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Latex allergy symptoms usually include a burning sensation inside and out, rash and itching. Severe allergy sufferers can experience rapid heart rate, loss of consciousness, throat swelling and trouble breathing, all of which require immediate medical attention. TSS is caused by bacterial toxins in the bloodstream and can even be fatal if not treated as soon as symptoms appear. Sudden high fever, sunburn-like rash, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, hypotension and seizures are even possible, although, like catching HIV (according to dubious tests), rare.

    The war is not meant to be won, only continued. War is, by far, the biggest industry. Real soluions are bad for business and the status quo feeding its fat face.

  20. jeremysteele11 says:

    phallus whoops

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