Residents of California will decide in 2016 whether porn films’ actors have to wear condoms while shooting a porn movie.
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The measure was proposed by Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who said it is needed to provide statewide rules modeled on those adopted by voters of Los Angeles County in 2012.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has bankrolled the initiative campaign.
That measure, which is strongly opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, would require state agencies to pay no more for prescription medication than does the federal Veterans Administration, which negotiates aggressively with drug companies. What they don’t tell you is that if a performer wants a condom, they’re paid less.
Diane Duke, CEO of the industry’s Free Speech Coalition, called the initiative unnecessary because porn actors already undergo regular testing for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
A public vote is to be held in California on whether adult film stars should be forced to use condoms. “I worked in the adult film industry for just a few months”.
Controversial… The issue of condoms being worn in pornos has long-term consequences for California’s multibillion-dollar adult film industry.
Wednesday’s qualification came as the porn industry criticized a new round of Cal-OSHA regulations for the industry. The November 2016 measure would enshrine the safe-sex rules in California statute, requiring film production companies to be licensed and report to the state, under penalty of perjury, that actors used condoms in a film. “However, in a December 2014 decision, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the adult industry’s First Amendment claims and upheld Measure B, noting that, “…Measure B, passed in 2012, was created to address the spread of disease and is narrowly tailored to that end”. Imposes liability on producers for violations, on certain distributors, on performers if they have a financial interest in the violating film, and on talent agents who knowingly refer performers to noncomplying producers.
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With the adult film industry threatening to move productions out of state if the measure passes, the state Legislative Analyst and Finance Director estimates that state and local tax revenue may decline by tens of millions of dollars a year.
