By Alex Johnson
Reporter
msnbc.com
updated 8:12 a.m. ET April 30, 2010
It’s just a 50-cent piece of latex, but depending on whom you ask, it will either kill or save the multibillion-dollar pornography industry.
California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board agreed in March to consider a request by anti-pornography activists and the country’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit to require actors to wear condoms in sex scenes in pornographic features.
The petition has created sharp divisions in the
San Fernando Valley, the area in and around Los Angeles where most of the country’s legally distributed pornography is produced. That’s where a new adult video is shot every 45 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Advocates say the industry is already breaking the law by creating a hazardous workplace — one where performers are at risk of contracting HIV infections and other sexually transmitted diseases. They want adult entertainment businesses to observe the same pathogen exposure regulations that protect California’s medical workers.
“The evidence is on film,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The agency turned to state regulators for help after a judge dismissed its lawsuit seeking to force Los Angeles County to require condoms in adult films in December.
“What documentation is clearer than the product itself?” Weinstein asked. “When it’s a pair of Nike shoes, you don’t know that an 8-year-old in that sweatshop in Indonesia made it, but when you slip the DVD into the machine, you know that they’re violating the law.”
What do the porn producers say?
But many producers and performers say they follow a rigorous testing system precisely so they can perform without condoms, arguing that consumers don’t want to see them. _ _ _ continued. . .
What do the porn actors say?
“I really hope that it does not go all-condom, because this is entertainment,” Sunny Lane, an actress who says she has appeared in more than 180 adult films, said in an interview with NBC station KNBC of Los Angeles. “This is hot. It’s passionate. You want to have fun.”
continued . . .
Were any of the pornstars identified HIV positive?
What do the producers of Porn films say?
What do the porn actors say?