Porn Industry Being Crippled
by Shelley Lubben on Fri, 08/21/2009 – 12:07
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation joined by former porn actresses and Pink Cross Foundation filed official complaints Thursday, asking California state regulators to force San Fernando Valley porn companies to require actors to wear condoms and follow health and safety laws.
The Cal/OSHA complaints will be supported with over 60 porn DVDs where unsafe sex and illegal production of porn is demonstrated.
The film companies to be named in the complaint include Anarchy Films, Backend Productions, Blue Pictures, Critical X, Hustler Video, Heatwave Entertainment, Immoral Productions, Latin Media, Legend, Mayhem, Maverick Entertainment, Raw Flesh, Sin City, Top Dog/Magnus Productions, Vivid Entertainment, and Club Jenna. 58 films from the 16 companies were considered in the AHF analysis.
But that’s only a handful of the companies breaking the law as followed:
“The California Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees, and pay the costs of their health and safety program. This same act gives Cal/OSHA jurisdiction over virtually all private employers in California, including employers in the adult film industry. Employers must comply with all relevant regulations, which are contained in Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations.”
Nobody is complying with these regulations. Porn producers could care less about the law. Even the self-professed “doctor” of porn stars doesn’t care. Founder of AIM (Adult Industry Medical clinic) and industry leader Dr. Sharon Mitchell stated in an article in the New York Times, "Honey, this is pornography. People don’t pay attention to the Legislature."
The porn industry better pay attention because legislature is about to get involved in a major way. Former porn actresses will make sure of that.
“We aren’t playing around with the porn industry,” stated former porn actress Shelley Lubben and executive director of Pink Cross Foundation who publicly challenged the porn industry to a debate in a press conference held at Sheraton Universal Hotel on Thursday, August 20.
So far no takers for the debate. What, is the porn industry scared of a few former porn actresses with overwhelming evidence of porn companies not following Cal/OSHA standards?
According to the California Occupational Safety and Health Act porn employers are required to offer a safe and healthy workplace for porn workers. These requirements include:
• Following a written safety and health program, known as an injury and illness prevention program, or IIPP, pointing out potential hazards specific to the workplace and ways to protect workers from those hazards.
• Training employees in health and safety hazards
• Protecting employees from electrical hazards, such as those associated with special lighting
• Protecting employees from hazards associated with bloodborne pathogens
• Providing sanitation facilities
• Not discriminating against employees who complain about safety and health conditions.
As insiders of the porn industry know, these standards are NOT being followed at all in the porn industry. Certainly it can be proven and porn companies don’t deny it. Instead the adult film industry cowards hide behind the free speech amendment or make ridiculous remarks like:
"If Los Angeles County chooses to enforce mandatory condoms, what you’ll see is all adult production leave California," Vivid Entertainment founder Steve Hirsch told the Los Angeles Times.
The porn industry isn’t going anywhere. First off, keep in mind that California is the ONLY State in which it is actually legally produce adult films due to a 1988 decision of the California Supreme Court (California vs. Freeman).
As a result of that decision, California became the first and ONLY state where a person can be legally hired to have sex for the purpose of making adult films. NO OTHER STATE HAS SUCH A PRECEDENT and it is simply ILLEGAL to make adult films anywhere else in the United States.
Sex in exchange for money (regardless of reason, or circumstance) is considered prostitution in ALL states. California just happens to be the ONLY one to make allowances for adult film production. While it is true there are companies who make films in other states, they do so contrary to law and are subject to arrest and face charges ranging from prostitution to pandering (pimping) if caught. 2
Not to mention, what other health department in another state, knowing the risks the porn industry poses on public health, will allow porn companies to set up shop? And if the health departments aren’t aware of the risks, be assured that porn companies won’t be able to pack fast enough before Pink Cross Foundation and other advocacy groups will be knocking on doors of health departments with evidence in hand.
The porn industry WILL comply or be shut down. They WILL care about the health and safety of workers.
But Hustler’s Larry Flynt is more concerned with porn consumers than he is with the very ones who risk their lives to work in his films. He told The Associated Press, "people who enjoy viewing adult films do not want to see people using condoms."
Perhaps Larry needs to think about the fact that his workers don’t want Herpes, HIV, or to live out the rest of their lives on medication, if they live that long. Maybe Larry needs to be forced to have unprotected sex in films for a year and see how he enjoys Genital Herpes or Gonorrhea. Maybe Larry needs to live paralyzed in fear like the porn stars do.
The porn industry has disabled and destroyed thousands of lives and porn companies don’t care. LA Public Health doesn’t care. Cal/Osha doesn’t care. But Pink Cross cares. Yes, the “conservative, religious” according to AVN (Adult Video News) cares more about porn stars than AVN does. That’s for damn sure.
We care deeply about the thousands of lives risking their health to make a buck. Your life is worth more than that!
Get help now at www.thepinkcross.org
There was an interesting factoid about AIM’s Porn 101 tutorial on another post (which my answer makes more sense to post here, rather than there).
I wonder if Ms. Lubben is creating a situation that might ultimately lead to the Porn Industry’s overall rights being strengthened (rather than weakened, as she seems to believe her latest actions are doing).
if you actually look at what the Freeman decision was attempting to decide, you’ll see that even by the standards of the law, pornographic films are basically a visual record of prostitution being performed for an audience.
As per the prosecution, Hal Freeman had committed an act of pandering by merely hiring actors to perform sex on camera. Convicted, he won on appeal as the CA Supreme Court came to rule that because Freeman was not receiving ‘gratification’ himself, nor presumably the actors hired to perform sex (as they are ‘actors’ and simply ‘acting’ as if they’re having fun/orgasms et cetera), no one was actually engaging in prostitution (hence the ability for porn to be freely made in California and as recently as 2008, New Hampshire).
Likewise, I gather if Ms. Lubben were to really try and force the hand of OSHA in California, creating a situation where major pornographers had to go to say Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico to shoot porn…would that set the stage for a lawsuit that would eventually make its way to the Supreme Court (which didn’t hear the Freeman case, nor 2008 New Hampshire v. Theriault — which upheld the right to make pornography in New Hampshire thanks to the precedent in the Freeman case).
Is Lubben actually helping the Porn Industry with her nonsensical lawsuits and legal shenanigans? As once you start to mandate such standards, is it not a slippery legal slope, to people suing each other for the transmission of STDs?
Imagine a day when a guy ends up having a sexual encounter with a woman he works with while they are ‘on the clock’ — one of them contracts an STD — the victim sues not the other party…but their boss for not ‘enforcing’ the ‘training’ about the dangers and/or ‘protection’ from STDs. For can the victim say that because their employer didn’t provide a seminar about STDs, provide condoms and dental dams for employees, nor did they do anything to discourage ‘workplace romances’ — they are liable in the event an employee contracts an STD.
People can sue for STD transmission now, but it’s very difficult to win because there is a tough burden of proof.
It’s hilarious how Lubben is outraged nobody is bothering to “debate” with her over this. HEY LADY, NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR POINTLESS PROBLEMS AND EMPTY THREATS. Seriously, when is this chick going to get a real job and actually do something that amounts to something in life other than playing a professional victim for the media? And yes, they can legally shoot porn elsewhere besides California, it happens all the time and has for decades. What a moron.
lol fucking porno ralph nader.
Mr. President,
I doubt that the 16 production companies who now face fines ranging from 30 to 160 thousand dollars for each violation are considering these empty threats.
Whether you agree with the LAWS or not, and the merits of these laws are certainly debateable, they are the law of the land as it is today. Call it a technicality, but it has been proven, the precendent has been set(TTBOY) and it has ben upheld on appeal. These companies are being hit with the exact violations as TTBOY and they are not going to get off(imho)
I believe the ONLY other state where porn is legal is either New Hampshire or Connectcut. Yes, there is a lot of porn being produced in alot of places, but it is not being done legally. Just because it happens all the time, and has for decades(and I agree it does) doesn’t make it leagal.
Sammy mentions moving to other states above also, and mentions Nevada. There is legal sex work in Nevada in the brothels, and the STATE mandates the use of condoms, as well as WEEKLY testing. In order to work in a brothel, a girl must pass a STATE madated physical, and be granted a sex worker license by the STATE.
As far as all the porn being shot in Florida these days, where do you think these guys(Pink cross&AHF) are going next. And unlike California, Florida is a very CONSERVATIVE state.
I also agree with Sammy that this may eventually set the stage for a Supreme court case on a national level, but that realistically wont happen for at least ten years from now.
SHELLEY also makes one VERY good poiint, What health department in any other city, seeing what is going on with the L.A. Health Dpt right now, is going to allow this indutry to come in and set up shop?
As far as burden of proof in the transmissionof STD’s I would suggest Mr. President that you read the Brooke Ashley workers compl California Supreme Court decision from DEc. 2008. Without provideng one single peice of evidence that any other person on that set had HIV(not one single test, not one single persons testimony) she won the case. It is very interesting the legal theory and it applies directly to the situation now at hand. It is a supreme court(California) ruling, and it is here to stay, like it or not. WHile the burden of proof in a ‘Civilian” STD case may be higher, in a WORKPLACE, workers comp case the burden of proof for the complaintant is much lower. I will give you just one example…..Carpal Tunnel Syndrome…If I sit at a keyboard all day at work, and get CTS and file a claim for that industry, my boss might try to say, “How do we know that he doesnt sit at HOME for hours on his own keyboard ant that is what caused the CTS. That has been tried, and the boss looses EVERYTIME.
And Mr. President,
I find it hillarious too that nobody would debate her. You would think that the industry would jump at the chance to defend themselves in a public forum against the very person making the accusations. Of course the only real place for the debate is in a court of law, and that has already happened(Brooke Ashley&TTBOY) and the industry lost both times, as a matter of fact, the industry got their ass kicked both times.
With al lthe ballyhooing that this industry does about free speech rights you would think that someone would man up and exercise that right in a public forum to defend themselves and their beloved industry, but we all know that nobody in the inustry has balls big enough to do it.
This is the person(shelley) who is taking on the industry, and nobody will take her on, one on one, in a public forum.
Sammy,
Just a little technicality. the Pink cross is not involved in any “Lawsuits”. Aids Healthcare Foundation(AHF has filed a suit against the county.
Pink cross and AHF have filed complaints with OSHA. OSHA complaints are not lawsuits. Just technicalities.
—–With al lthe ballyhooing that this industry does about free speech rights you would think that someone would man up and exercise that right in a public forum to defend themselves and their beloved industry, but we all know that nobody in the inustry has balls big enough to do it.
Talk about shortsighted and stupid. Anybody who “debates” this fringe wack job only gives her exactly what she wants which is credibility. She’s not even worth publicly acknowledging beyond the blogosphere for laughs. And “the industry got their ass kicked” just because of TT Boy and Brooke Ashley? That was nothing. Who other than you and a couple of other bloggers cares about that today?
Who cares about that TODAY? How about the owners of the 16 companies who now face the exact same sanctions that TTBOY did. TTBOY paid 60,000 per company(two of his companies were fined). they face the EXACT same charges as TTBOY, TTBOY appealed and TTBOY was denied and found responsible.
Do you really think that these 16 companies are not concerned about this?
http://www.aim-med.org/news/2009/08/06/1249595520/
This meeting was cancelled. Now mr.President, do you still think nobody is concerned about this. I think we need to impeach the President.
Be it ‘complaints’ or ‘lawsuits’ it’s all a bunch of bullshit!
Granted, there are times when the government needs to step into private industry for the public good, but in regards to pornography, when everyone knows the rules and risks, there is little need for bureaucrats to go around fining producers for staging/filming unprotected fucking, ATMs or blowbangs.
Two things I can’t stand. Cowards and excuses.
I know how you feel, Shelly, or should I call you by your porn stage name Roxy. You see, once a whore, always a whore. When all is said and done, what you truely want is to get some attention, turn some heads and make a few bucks in the process. You don’t give two fucks about these whores, to you they’re nothing but your bread and butter and poster children for a little, sad, losing crusade.
You’re desperate because nobody cares about you and your baseless, empty threats. You’re pissed off because you can’t find any audience outside the religious nuts and white supremacists who’ve been paying your bills since you stopped doing DPs and gang bangs on film. You’re sad because nobody takes you seriously and nobody gives two fucks about you. Why should they; remember I offered you to come over and lick my ass? The offer still stands, and trust me, that’s all the attention you’re gonna get. Now either come over and get down to it, or go fuck yourself.