LOS ANGELES – Adult performer James Deen will face California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) over workplace safety citations and fines during a preliminary hearing in September. Deen has said he will meet the agency in court, if he must, but he will not back down from a fight to overturn what he sees as harassment by a Los Angeles-based AIDS charity and unfair prosecution by the state on behalf of the charity.
In March of 2016, Cal/OSHA issued nine workplace safety citations against James Deen Productions, along with fines for $77,875 in regards to failure to use condoms and dental dams for female oral sex while filming adult films in California. The citations were brought against Deen after the Aids Healthcare Foundation, a vocal anti-pornography non-profit organization, filed a complaint against Deen’s company and eight other adult companies.
Deen intends to show the regulations he is accused of violating were voted down by Cal/OSHA’s own standards board when the board considered expanding sections of the division’s regulations so as to add special restrictions for the adult entertainment industry. Since then, members of the adult film industry and representatives from Cal/OSHA have been working together to create proper regulations that will actually protect workers.
Deen continues to be a prominent figure in the fight against mandatory use of condoms and other safety devices on adult film sets.
The “industry already regulates itself extremely well,” according to a statement Deen’s camp distributed Monday morning. “The adult industry already has a testing structure in place that is as safe or safer than any of Cal/OSHA’s proposed options.”
“The adult industry has always been pushed around and used as a scapegoat,” Deen said. “We are regularly bullied to help others further their agenda. At a certain point, enough is enough. The adult film industry is a constitutionally protected career. We are very strict with our safety methods because we care about one another. We want to create erotic material for an audience, but that in no way means that we are irresponsible in how we create it.”
Neither performers nor crew members who have worked for James Deen Productions have complained about working conditions, he noted. All members of the productions for which Deen’s company was cited tested negative for sexually transmitted infections including HIV before and after filming. According to Deen, the complaints against his company were “strictly biased targeting from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.”
As support for that position, Deen pointed to a recent quote from AHF founder and President Michael Weinstein: “We want to thank Cal/OSHA for acting so swiftly on our workplace safety complaint against James Deen Productions and Third Rock by citing and fining Deen, one of the industry’s most well-known producers and adult performers—and the one who is the most vocal critic and prominent public face of the industry in its opposition to condom use.”
By taking a stand against the citations, Deen hopes to set a precedent that will allow the adult performers to maintain control of their own bodies and the content they produce for viewers.
The hearing is set for Sept. 12. James Deen Productions is represented by the Law Offices of Michael W. Fattorosi P.C., located in Woodland Hills, Calif.
