Porn Makers Challenged For Not Mandating Condoms

(08-20) 16:16 PDT LOS ANGELES, (AP) --

An AIDS advocacy group filed complaints Thursday with state officials against 16 production companies that show unprotected sex in porn movies.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed the action with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, alleging the practice amounts to unsafe behavior in a California workplace.

"We will not stop until there is a policy of requiring condoms to be used in porn," foundation president Michael Weinstein said.

By law, U.S. adult film actors must prove they have tested negative for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases within 30 days of going to work on a film.

CalOSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said the regulatory agency requires workers in any industry where there is a "possibility of transmission of fluids," including health care and adult films, to reduce the risk of disease transmission.

"The employers of porn actors are required to provide a safe and healthy work environment," Fryer said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/20/national/a125225D40.DTL#ixzz0OljZlI12

:eyes:

unless the flick is filmed in a repair shop.

IMO it's one of the worst smells on the planet.

Not putting it on my stick shift!

"In June, health inspectors paid a surprise visit to the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in San Fernando Valley, a clinic where an adult film actress recently tested positive for HIV.

The inspection was part of a broader investigation into the clinic, which has reported 22 other HIV cases since 2004. At least five performers for Vivid Entertainment, tested positive for HIV that year, prompting a brief self-imposed moratorium on porn production."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/20/national/a125225D40.DTL#ixzz0OlklpUU7

not to the June event

just keeping the facts straight

Forget the fact that they edit out the "donning of the condom"...it's still not as entertaining.

And, the last I checked, porn was "entertainment".

The characters in most movies don't practice "safe drinking"...or "safe driving"...or "safe spending". Why should porn have to feature "safe sex"?

...or driving under what we would consider normal circumstances. The people in porn movies are actually fucking.

For the industry workers, I agree...unprotected sex has potential consequences.

For the audience? DeNiro is actually snorting HUGE amounts of coke in The Godfather as much as people are "actually fucking" in porn movies.

DeNero was in Godfather II (played young vito corleone set in the 1920s - don't remember any cocaine use).

But if you read the OP it's quite clear that it's to do with workplace safety and not the audience.

Because unlike the other activities you described, the sex in porn is not simulated.

Viewers of porn, specifically.


Whether real or simulated, movies present the act as real.

But it is still a bad image to put out there for viewers.

If they were, we'd all just live our lives and dispense with the $7 matinees...

They have a union that protects them on set as much as possible. You'll never see someone in a bikini set on fire in a film. They're always wearing some thick, asbestos flame-proof suit. And we know that when someone flings themselves off the Empire State Building, in reality they've fallen four feet onto a thick mattress. We suspend reality in order to believe in the story. Sort of the same thing, no?

I admit though, I don't have much stake in this porn discussion, so I'm just blabbering. :)

I did see ONE porn movie with a discernable condom. It did strike me as a bit weird, however...

In real life, in fantasy life. It is what it is...a shower wearing a raincoat. Still waiting for a better analogy.

If a beautiful woman wants to have sex with you, the fantasy gets ruined if you have to wear a condom?

...have never gotten to the "If a beautiful woman wants to have sex with you" part.

"I'd be suspicious of any woman who wanted to have sex with me, and therefore want to protect myself...."

Seriously, it does not make one bit of difference to me.......that's not what I'm looking at.

I know we have different porn but gay porn uses condoms a lot.

... instead of actually doing anything to stop HIV.

I can see two possible arguments for demanding that porn stars wear condoms: to set an example to the audience, or for their own good.

The former makes no more sense than banning depictions of other unsafe behaviours like violence or car chases.

The latter is extremely paternalistic - if you're going to mandate that people wear condoms when having sex and filming it, you're only one step away from banning unprotected sex between consenting adults in other situations.

i wonder how many people here who think govt. shouldn't be able to mandate that porn stars wear condoms are perfectly ok with govt mandating that private businesses can't allow smoking. many who do advocate for the no smoking laws claim it is to protect the bar workers, etc. from second hand smoke.

my philosophy is that govt has no place telling a private business (like a bar) that it can't allow smoking. people have choice. don't want to be around smoke, don't go to a bar that allows smoking.

in the gay porn industry up until about 6 years ago it was very taboo to do "bareback" porn. Then came cheap camcorders and cheaper porn imported from Czech Republic etc. It now cost under 3K to buy the rights to a gay porn produced in Eastern Europe - all condom free. Its cheap and easy - the markets now saturated but the reality is people dont want to see condoms in their porn because they dont want to use them in real life either.

(It should be noted that nearly all reputable non amateur gay porn companies still have a ban on Bareback - however there are a gazilaon companies that do bareback amateur and have made a fortune doing so until a year or two ago when online piracy took over.)

I'm wearing one right now.

Not sure if I really want to know why you are wearing one right now. To protect your laptop when you come across a real good thread here at DU maybe?

So I don't get any on me.

and not trying to be a buzzkill for those who watch porn.

He always hits it raw-dog.

It's about damned time.

People are being paid to have sex. Why is that suddenly legal when they're being paid to have sex on camera?

And again, not that I'm anti-porn in general, but honestly, "mainstream" porn today really IS shot through with woman-hatred: 1) everything's "anal" 2)"DP"s - even worse! and 3) the requirement, it seems nowadays, that the money-shot be a "facial."

other actors. It's just that their film's 'script', such as it is, happens to include a lot of sex.

is that porn is a first amendment expression, whereas prostitution is not

the MEANS to make porn is that people fuck. and get paid for it.

but the end result is "speech" (to the extent that courts recognize porn as speech under the 1st amendment, and they do). sex is merely the means to create the speech. thus, the first amendment concerns are what take precedence. also, a porn actor is not paying another porn actor to have sex with him/her. they are both being paid by a third party who is creating a form of expression.

prostitution has no first amendment issues whatsoever.

personally, i am for legalization of prostitution, but that's a POLICY issue. i certainly think anti-prostitution laws are constitutional. i just think they are bad policy.