By M.Christian
YNOT – Following a successful bid to force condoms onto the erect penises of all male pornographic performers in Los Angeles, AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein on Wednesday vowed to mount the same effort anywhere the adult film industry decides to relocate.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance that will require male talent to wear condoms on all adult film sets. The ordinance will take effect in 90 days, assuming the mayor signs it.
Police and licensing officials already are in discussions with the city attorney and others involved in the matter about how to accomplish enforcement. The ordinance imposes an additional enforcement fee on all film permits, and police may make spot checks of any location that has received a filming permit. One city council member suggested that enforcing the condom law may prove easier and less costly than enforcing other ordinances, because evidence of infractions will be captured on film.
On its surface, the measure was reactionary, an attempt to head off a ballot initiative led by Los Angeles-based AHF. The nonprofit organization gathered enough signatures to force a public vote on the issue later this year. City officials said they saw no need for the cash-strapped municipality to incur the estimated $4 million expense of a public vote.
Adult industry trade group Free Speech Coalition, though, sees the matter another way.
“The council’s decision is yet another example of government overreach and intrusion,” FSC Executive Director Diane Duke said. “The regulations imposed are without any input from the stakeholders most impacted: adult performers and producers. Mandatory condom regulation will not increase performer safety; it will diminish the successful standards and protocols already in place and compromise performer health.
“Government regulation of sexual behavior between consenting adults is, and has always been, a bad idea,” she continued. “The government has no business in our bedrooms — real or fantasy.”
Meanwhile, AHF’s pleasure over its success in the year-long battle has taken on the proportions of gloating.
“I think we’re setting a great example,” said Weinstein. “Why shouldn’t Los Angeles be the safe sex capital of America? You really can’t argue that people who go to work at a job really ought to be putting their health at risk. I mean, we put a thing at the conclusion of a film saying no animal was hurt in the making of this film. We can’t say that about [adult] films when it comes to people — real-life people.”
Duke had something to say about that, as well.
“Weinstein’s grandstanding on the condom issue is groundless,” she said. “Using provocative language like ‘epidemic’ and quoting statistics that have proven to be inaccurate, Weinstein has politicized the issue of mandatory condom use while alienating the industry he claims to protect.”
The San Fernando Valley north of LA has become known as “Porn Valley” because of the number of adult entertainment companies headquartered there. The area is within the bounds of the City of Los Angeles and stands to be impacted in a big way by the new ordinance. Several adult studios have threatened to take their operations elsewhere if the law affects their bottom lines, and such a move would mean the loss of tax revenues for both the city and the county, as well as a loss of jobs in the area.
On Wednesday, Weinstein told The New York Times he doubts the adult film industry will relocate to less restrictive digs, but even a mass exodus from California would not do away with what the industry views as unnecessary, and potentially harmful, intrusion.
“They cannot just pick up their stakes and move to another state,” Weinstein told the newspaper. “They’d hardly be welcomed in West Virginia or Utah or Mississippi, or even a place like Nevada, where legal prostitution is highly regulated and condoms are required. And we will follow them wherever they go.”
