Porn industry may boogie out of L.A. over condom law
For decades, the nation’s pornographic film industry found a happy, largely accepting home in Los Angeles.
Producers operated lucrative businesses in anonymous office parks in the San Fernando Valley. Available in the city were a steady supply of actors and film production talent as well as opulent mansions that often served as theatrical backdrops. By one estimate, at least 5% of on-location shoots were for adult films.
But this coexistence has been suddenly shaken by sweeping health regulations that, starting March 5, will require porn performers to wear condoms while on location.
The landmark law marks a rare attempt to regulate how films are made, threatening an industry that has been a source of millions of dollars in revenue. AIDS activists are gathering signatures for a countywide ballot measure that would extend the ban to dozens of additional communities.
The industry, however, is fighting back. Leaders say they are considering plans to fight back either in court or by moving filming out of town.
It’s a debate that pits the desire to protect the health of porn actors against the freedom to make films that audiences want to see.
The Los Angeles City Council acted earlier this year after a series of incidents in which adult film productions were suspended amid concerns that HIV had been transmitted among performers. Despite the health risks of having unprotected sex on movie sets, the industry has strongly opposed a condom requirement, saying that monthly testing already safeguards performers and that customers won’t pay to see such films.
Los Angeles council requires condoms in porn films
Actors in adult movies filmed in America’s pornography capital would be required to use condoms under an ordinance granted final approval Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
The measure, adopted 9-1, next goes to the mayor for his signature. Before it can take effect, however, the City Council has ordered police officials, the city attorney and others to hold meetings to figure out how it might be enforced.
The council’s second and final vote to approve the law was taken without public discussion on a day when most of the porn industry’s major players were in Las Vegas preparing for Wednesday’s opening of the Adult Entertainment Expo, their industry’s largest trade event.
Several industry officials condemned the move as being an unneeded exercise in political correctness that cannot be enforced.
“It’s certainly a fascinating conundrum,” said Jason E. Squire, a USC professor of cinematic arts. “You want all performers, whatever they do, to be safe. That transcends content. I don’t know what the proper solution is.”
Veteran porn actress Tabitha Stevens said she has worked with and without condoms during her 17-year career. Although Stevens, who also produces films, said she prefers to work with condoms, she doesn’t believe their use should be mandated by a government authority.
“If you want to wear them, wear them. If you don’t, don’t. That’s up to the talent to decide. It shouldn’t be up to the government to decide,” she said by phone from Las Vegas.
AIDS activists say that the fight over condoms is about protecting performers’ health and opposing the promotion of unsafe sex.
“The fact that porn sends out a message that the only type of sex that’s hot is unsafe ... we think that’s detrimental,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
The Los Angeles law was the result of months of aggressive lobbying by Weinstein and other AIDS activists, who have long called on the government to step in and make the porn workplace safer. The council approved the law only after activists pressured it by gathering enough signatures to ask voters to decide the issue at the ballot box. The industry has been forced to suspend production several times amid reports that adult performers contracted HIV. One was Derrick Burts, who tested HIV-positive in 2010 and said clinic staff told him he was infected by a fellow performer.
“It’s a broken system that they have in place,” said Burts, who backs mandatory condoms. “What performer wouldn’t want to feel more safe on a work set?”
Porn industry representatives say the law is unnecessary because they regularly test actors for HIV. They maintain that Burts was not infected on the job, and that they haven’t had a confirmed work-related HIV case since 2004. When a performer turned up HIV-positive in another state in 2011, companies here voluntarily halted production until others could get tested.
Steven A. Hirsch of Vivid Entertainment said his company’s performers are allowed to use condoms if they want - but most don’t.
Filmmakers tried requiring condoms on their own in the late 1990s after an HIV scare, but sales began suffering.