YNOT – In the wake of confirmation that a performer tested positive for HIV last week, California’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration continued its consideration of revised regulations for the adult entertainment industry. During a hearing on Monday in Oakland, Calif. — the fourth in a series to be hosted statewide — public health and adult industry advocates addressed CalOSHA representatives, lending further fuel to an already blazing debate about whether condoms should be required on adult film sets.The jury is out on the question, as both sides claim current state regulations favor their position. CalOSHA has indicated it may refine the pertinent regulations to clarify any perceived vagueness.
Public health advocates, led by Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, want condoms and other barrier protection mandated for all heterosexual and gay productions. The adult industry, led by trade association Free Speech Coalition and testing-and-reporting agency Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, claim the industry’s testing and education programs protect workers while allowing personal choice in condom usage on-set. Mandating barriers would chase the industry from the state or encourage studios to move underground, doing more harm than good to California’s already slumping economy and performers’ wellbeing, they say.
“The position advocated by AHF will place adult industry workers in a far less protected environment than they are in now [and is] sure to drive production to locations where there are no protections,” said industry attorney Paul Cambria, who represents a number of studios that stand to be affected by changes in the regulations. “Under current procedures, the incidence of [sexually transmitted diseases] in the adult industry is significantly less than it is in the population as a whole.”
On the other side, AHF’s general counsel insisted the adult industry “doesn’t seem to think the rules apply to it,” and former performer Shelley Lubben called the industry disingenuous.
“They don’t want to lose money,” she put forth as a reason the industry opposes condom barrier requirements, after relaying that she founded the Pink Cross Coalition to educate sex industry workers after she contracted herpes, human papillomavirus and ultimately cervical cancer as a result of working in adult films.
Monday’s meeting “started on a productive note with a constructive and proactive discussion,” FSC Executive Director Diane Duke remarked afterward. “Unfortunately, it went south rapidly when AHF came to the front of the room and aggrandized its political agenda. Health for performers is the goal for the industry. We will continue sound industry health practices in spite of AHF’s political posturing.”
She also issued a prepared statement that encapsulates FSC’s position about the CalOSHA hearings, barrier usage in general and what the organization calls “the detrimental influence of AHF on the proceedings.”
In its entirety, the statement reads:
The current CalOSHA regulations have been imposed devoid of any dialogue with adult film professionals whatsoever. Regulations developed for medical clinics in the early 1990s have been arbitrarily imposed upon the adult industry. In no other industry would this kind of regulation be tolerated. Moreover, CalOSHA has taken a zero-risk approach to the adult film community — a standard no other industry is required to meet.
AHF, L.A. County [Department of Public Health] and CalOSHA are taking the approach that any and all incidents of [sexually transmitted infections] happened at work. With Patient Zeta [the recently diagnosed performer] and Patient Zero in 2009, that was not the case. [According to AIM, both performers contracted HIV outside of work.] A percentage of all sexually active individuals will contract an STI and/or HIV. That is a statistical fact. One would be naïve to believe that those statistics don’t apply to adult-industry professionals, as well. Still worse, the adult community must spend a great deal of time addressing false claims and wrong assumptions.
The adult entertainment industry has come to the table to work with CalOSHA in an attempt to develop industry appropriate regulations. It is a shame that AHF is politicizing and undermining the effort with ridiculous attempts to go around the process — asking L.A. City Council and L.A. County Commissioners to regulate something they know nothing about and have no authority to regulate, and filing frivolous lawsuits. AHF is demonstrating nothing but contempt for our industry, utter disregard for the process that CalOSHA has defined and complete disrespect for those tasked and trusted by the [state’s] Standards Board.
These are important, complex issues that require thoughtful dialogue and research to understand fully. Such dialogue and research underlie the regulation of all other California industries. If CalOSHA is truly concerned about workplace safety, then it will take the necessary steps it needs, not only to provide adult entertainment businesses and professionals with the opportunity to provide feedback, but also to allow for a thorough and in-depth study of adult industry related data.
