California

Condoms in Porn Rule Rejected by CalOSHA

One actress said requiring condoms, which Los Angeles County already does, would "endanger me and my colleagues"

Heeding the pleas of scores of actors, directors and producers, California officials in charge of workplace safety have rejected a proposal to require that porn actors cover up with condoms.

Spokeswoman Julia Bernstein says the measure was rejected Thursday when only three members of the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health's Standards Board voted in favor.

Four yes votes were required for passage.

Bernstein says Cal/Osha will now begin considering a new workplace safety measure for porn actors.

Board members heard more than five hours of testimony from those who said audiences won't accept condoms in porn films.

The board was told the requirement would force the industry underground.

That, they say, could eliminate safety standards already in place, such as testing every 14 days for sexually transmitted diseases.

The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health's Standards Board considered a 21-page set of standards that would require, among other safety measures, that porn actors use condoms when they film sex scenes.

One after another, the people who work both in front of and behind the camera filed to the dais at a hearing room in Oakland, California, to tell the board that would be wrong.

Several said doing so would force the industry underground, prompting it to film in secret, which would essentially make all those involved criminals. They added it might also put an end to the industry's own requirement that actors be tested for sexually transmitted disease every 14 days.

"I ask you not to approve this policy that will endanger me and my colleagues," porn actress Maxine Holloway said during the hearing that continued for more than five hours.

Under the 21-page proposal the agency is considering, so-called engineering controls "such as condoms" must be used by actors engaging in sex to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV and other diseases.

Producers would also be required to pay for medical visits, treatments and other health-care costs for their performers.

The problem, several speakers said, is that a large segment of their audience loses interest in a film when they see actors with condoms. "Like it or not, there a very real market demand for condomless sex," said one woman who identified herself as a sex worker.

Some speakers said that if the rules take effect, Cal/OSHA inspectors could also eventually begin ordering actors to use safety goggles and dental dams, adding no one would want to see a film with that equipment.

"That's pure fantasy on their part," Michael Weinstein, head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who has pushed Cal/OSHA for years to adopt workplace safety rules aimed specifically at the porn industry, said before the hearing.

Although the new provisions make no mention of goggles or dental dams, they do require that sex workers, like those in the medical industry, make sure their eyes are protected from being infected by blood-borne pathogens. Industry officials worry that, without goggles, that could put an end to explicit oral sex scenes.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which also had several former porn actors scheduled to speak at the hearing, said the condom requirement is long overdue. One of the scheduled speakers, Derrick Burts, said he became infected with HIV while making porn films.

"People have suffered serious consequences due to lack of regulation in this industry," Weinstein said.

Condoms are already required for films made in Los Angeles County, thanks to an AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored ordinance that voters adopted in 2012.

Weinstein has complained that filmmakers, who sometimes work out of houses they rent for just a day are two, sometimes ignore that law.

Cal/OSHA could enforce its regulations with, among other things, the kind of workplace visits it requires of other industries.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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