LA County recently mandated that actors uses condoms in hardcore porn shoots. So gross and who cares, except porn is a billion dollar industry in LA. So this matters.
Basically the dispute is safe sex advocates on one side and the porn industry (and, crucially, the porn stars themselves) on the other. It's a pretty simple argument: "This is basic workplace safety stuff, and promotes safe sex besides." vs "We already have a vigorous STI testing program that keeps performers safe. We don't want to go further since using condoms hurts profits, both because dudes are dumb and don't like watching condom-porn and because it increases production costs, since condoms chafe a bit, especially over the super-long sex sessions used on a shoot, and actors and actresses need to spend more time on a shoot resting when they are used." I strongly suspect the pornographers are right on this one, and I'm going to do a series of blogs explaining why. I am planning on three posts: why it's a bad idea as workplace safety regulation, why it's a bad idea from a first amendment point of view, and why it's a bad idea from a privacy rights point of view (there should be a better term for the kind of rights I am talking about, but the courts call them privacy rights so I will to).
Crucially, I won't be doing a close cost-benefits analysis of how much this will cost the industry vs. how many people it will save from STIs. I think that's the most relevant kind of way to figure out the right solution here, but that sort of thing is hard to do. Suffice to say there are real costs (Vivid pictures tried to go all condom and was losing so much money they had to stop) and real benefits (people won't get sick, duh) involved here.
Click here for part 2 of this series, IF YOU ARE MAN ENOUGH. Or woman enough. Or gender-is-a-spectrum enough.
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