YNOT – Chauntelle Anne Tibbals PhD, a YNOT columnist and noted sociologist specializing in gender and labor issues, will present her soon-to-be-published paper “Adult Film Performers and Occupational Safety and Health” at Stanford Law School in Stanford, Calif., on Wednesday, April 11.

The paper has been accepted for publication in the professional journals Stanford Law and Policy Review (volume 23, 2012) and Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

Tibbals is one of three panelists expected to present work during Stanford Law School’s Safety of Sex Workers event. The event will begin at 12:45 p.m., and presentations will be followed by question-and-answer sessions. During her presentation, Tibbals will summarize data and insights gleaned from 24 women and men currently working as adult performers in the Los Angeles area. Her findings call attention to disconnects between California state law and adult production practices.

Dr. Chauntelle, as she is popularly known, said she hopes to address adult industry workplace and safety issues commonly ignored by policy makers, regulators and academics during the event.

“Current regulations do not take the inner workings of the adult industry or the concerns of the workers they’re trying to protect into account,” she said. “Disconnects existing between adult industry producers and performers, regulators and the wider social world are deep-seated and significant. Reliance on the concept of bloodborne pathogens protection as it is currently defined points to a lack of understanding about the mechanics of professional sex performance.”

A sociologist, visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and the driving force behind industry perspective and opinion website PVVOnline.com, Tibblas has spent almost 10 years researching the adult industry. Among her goals is demystifying — and consequently, increasing understanding about — the adult business, its enterprise and its socio-cultural significance.

“We need to work to understand the realities of adult production and performers’ concerns,” she said. “Systematic analysis of the structure and operations of the adult industry in Southern and Northern California is imperative, as are comparisons between the two. This work must be done before further attempts at regulation are made.”