Under the guise of protecting the workers, they are destroying the marketability and there will be no workers.

This will be known as the "golden age of porn". It's never been any better in my opinion. It seems the end is around the corner.

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"Perverts March On Sacramento, CAL/OSHA Changes Mind"

On a beautiful sunny day in Sacramento, the raincoats were out in full force to protest the latest CAL/OSHA guidelines that affect the adult film industry. The United Raincoaters Interest for Non-protected Entertainers (URINE) marched today to let the government know just how unhappy they were about the recent fines imposed on TTBoy/Evasive Angels, and express their fears that the government is trying to abolish the enitre XXX industry. "This is the American Taliban at its finest", said one protester.
CAL/OSHA, while unavailable for official comment, was said to have been shocked and "a little grossed out" by the signs and placards waved by the protesters according to one informed source. It was certainly made clear that this protest was unlike so many others protesting the war in Iraq and same-sex marriage in that this protest actually caused the agency to completely reverse itself just a few short hours later. While a press conference is scheduled for later in the week, sources say that the agency was stunned by the protest and had no idea that they had caused such a kerfuffle among tax-paying lechers in California.
Makers of dental dams and other protective gear, however, are less than pleased. "Those URINE-ators have cost us a lot of money," said PR vice-president Elisabeth Von Heffle-Twee Smith St. John Smythe. "We paid for two whole new ad campaigns that were set to go out this week. We managed to get an ultra-hot star to pose in nothing but a scrap of rubber with the tagline 'Does This Dental Dam Make Me Look Fat?' and anthoer featuring a wide array of goggles and gloves with the line 'Latex! Well...it's got the same last two letters as the word [bold]sex[/bold] anyway!' That's all money down the URINE drain. Damn perverts."

On a more serious note, okay yeah. The gloves thing sucks. The dental dam thing sucks. Goggles? Well, for other than fetishists, that sucks too. But if they can take the zits off of a girl's ass (and they can, they just rarely DO), they can take some lab goggles off of her face. Pina colada mix is a great substitute for jizz if you wanna to a faux creampie. And pink condoms can barely be seen. Especially if it's shot so that the base of the penis is out of frame. Protesting will not work. Trying to find loopholes and creative ways to work the guidelines, though, may be challenging and well worth the effort.

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Did I miss a meeting?

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Those who think there is a technical fix of some kind that would allow us to live with OHSA's instant porn standard just aren't getting the intent of these so-called regulations. They're intended to put us out of business, and if we capitulate to the degree of trying to work within them in any sense, the agencies involved will simply come up with new ones that are even worse, if such a thing is possible.

And BTW, there is no cost-effective way to digitally eliminate obvious lulus like goggles and dental dams and gloves. I'm all for condoms and always have been. They're a minor challenge to a good cameraman and a good editor. It's the other stuff that's clearly meant to kill the whole operation.

And as to working out some kind of compromise on the standards, Cal-OHSA made it quite clear at the hearing that they have no interest in negotiating degrees of risk with the likes of us.

It's a declaration of war, folks, and we better start shooting back mighty soon. As it is, we're standing by to be overrun.

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The proposed regulation facing our industry has nothing to do with a "right wing agenda" and everything to do with local politicians desperately seeking a reason to be relevant.

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Know your enemy.

Edited by - Mike Quasar on 9/21/2004 7:00:48 AM

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You point out how you've been supposedly championing the health and welfare of performers since '92 -- well, considering where the standards and practices of this industry has gone in that time, I'd say you weren't particularly effective. How many HIV outbreaks have there been in that time? Where was your public doomsaying of the dire consequences of our actions during those times? Since the, how many people have had their lives changed forever by the callous standards and practices of the industry that participating in pays the bills for the both of us? A dozen? At what does it start to matter?

At the farce of an industry meeting you helped chair, all the usual suspects were put on the stage to masquerade as "responsible industry spokemen" -- most of whom continue to shoot extremely high-risk sex to this very day, without changing a damn thing about the way they do business, and others of whom threatened to take their business to an unregulated foreign country if they were forced to in any way behave as responsible businesspeople.

Anybody with a dissenting opinion, such as myself, was pushed to the back of the speaker's line until the people who most needed to be called on the carpet had wandered off to network while they enjoyed the fine steam-table chicken wings and pepsis provided by LFP -- an extraordinarily wealthy corporation for which it might serve you well to be a long-time independent contractor, since to my knowledge you are not a performer on the front lines exchanging suspect bodily fluids daily and having their mucous membranes abused, all in direct contempt of even the mildest standards of safer sex suggested by responsible health professionals such as your wife.

And by the way, it's one thing to be an independent contractor and actually HAVE a contract which guarantees you more than a one-time check for your services, but the fact is that performers (and most directors) don't even HAVE the luxury of a signed contract with the companies they toil for on a regular basis that would guarantee them ANYTHING at all, how ironic is it to insist that the state label such workers "independent contractors" .... Does the guy paving your patio lift a finger until a contract is signed? Does an author deliver a manuscript until a contract is signed?

When was the last time you were on the front lines, and directed a video with hardcore, penetrative & unprotected sex? As far as I know, it would be the Tristan Taomorino video. Which was hardly the same situation as dealing with an uneducated 18-year-old's confusion over how the authority figures who hired her to have her ass ripped open didn't seem to care that the herpes/anal warts/hepatitis she contracted on their set was just the price of doing business -- certainly worth it for the company who will profit through endless comps and website usage of such a scene without having to take any responsibility for the performers they use and toss aside like come-stained toilet paper carelessly left in the corner of a "set" without even a proper bathroom, but perhaps not so for the young lady who's life has been changed for the princely sum of a single month's rent --- or less, because "it's a gonzo scene, and we'll have you in and out in two hours."

You claim to the authority on what's best for all of us -- even if what you claim flies in the face of every professional health organization's recommendations. What I find most troubling is that unlike many of those on your side of this argument, you are a highly educated man who certainly knows better -- I know that Nina does! You can argue that you are practicing some version of real politik, but I have trouble seeing it that way.

Yes, it;s more cost-effective to do business by locking up children in a windowless sweat shop to sew shirts for fourteen hours at a pop, and call them "independent contractors." Yes, it's more cost-effective to deny porn actors any sort of real shot at safety in the workplace.

Too bad -- the bottom line can never be more important than human lives. If safe-sex videos -- or God forbid, softcore! -- isn't as lucrative as video companies would like, perhaps they can make a deal with the sort of people who stage bumfight videos, or the "Faces of Death" folk. I don't see where the defending the right to pander to people's basest instincts at the cost of human lives is what any reasonable person could honestly call the Good Fight. This simply is not a freedom of speech issue. It's not about portraying interracial sex, or "alternative lifestyles," it's about exploiting the ignorant and/or the poor. Why are prostitute's unions a good idea but a porn actor's guild not?

Since you present yourself as an authority figure and spokesperson for this business, perhaps if you had used that status and taken a more activist and controversial stance in the last few years, and as passionately and stridently stumped for performer's rights within the industry, you would not have to be trying so hard to paint CAL-OSHA as some sort of evil, anti-free speech, anti-let-us-make-our-money-however-we-see-fit-cuz-that's-the-AMERICAN-WAY Conspiracy of Evil.

Would the world end tomorrow if stud A was no longer allowed to ejaculate into slut B's anus? Or would Brooke Ashley not be dying penniless, sick and miserable in Hawaii, the object of merry contempt and physical threats by the very producers who cast a performer with a faked HIV test for the anal gangbang video which they are still enjoying the profits from? Those producers and that performer continue to enjoy the good will of the industry. Why does that not move you to activism as the threat of OSHA intervention has?

And I certainly hope you don't mind me addressing you by your "legal" name -- or don't you stand behind your statements? Me, I've never seen the need to do my work here in the industry under a psuedonym -- though I certainly understand why it's a wise decision for performers whose images are widely deseminated to the public, I've never quite understood how producers and directors who supposedly see nothing wrong with what they do need to have secret identities, unless they're not comfortable with taking responsibility for their work and the decisions that accompany them.

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ernestgreene2000 I can understand that people are scared that the entire American industry is under threat - there will still be plenty of porn for all us pud pullers , just not US stuff - but what has been the alternative ? For all your talk of championing the rights of the performers can you point to one substantive regulation that you've managed to get the porn studios to agree to ? Because from my vantage point it seems to have been just the same old same old , with well intentioned people like yourself tolerated as a moral voice but not heeded in any meaningful way . And of course trotted out when outside ( especially governmental or media ) forces focus their attention on porn%5C%27s dodgy game .

Here's a simple question for you . If the OSHA were only insisting that condoms be used in Californian porno shoots would that be acceptable to you ?? Would that be something you could get behind ? Because as ludicrous as the mouth guards and gloves undoubtedly are I get the impression that many people are simply using those extremes to hide their true desire of maintaining the status quo . A status quo which is wrecking lives . Shouldn't a true supported of performers rights be cheering on the insistence on condom use while simultaneously arguing for all their worth that the other 'safety devices' are overkill ? Thank you for your time .

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The gentleman behind all of this regulatory nonsense is a Democrat. Know your enemy.

Great point, Quase...Everybody seems to think that if Bush gets the boot, everything will be better again. I hardly think that's the case. Kerry will do exactly what every other politician would do...appease the people with the most clout and voting power to save his own ass while in office. Dems, Repubs...doesn't matter. When we let business get sloppy, somebody is going to call our ball on the issues.

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Quite the lengthy bill of indictment you fire off at me. Always have enjoyed your writing, even when, as in this case, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have all day to exchange brick-bats with you, as I have other, actual duties, some of which are purely commercial, others of which involve my duties at AIM, where I have been working diligently to protect the health of performers since the I helped create the organization in1997. Moreover, I don’t want to see this otherwise intelligent discussion degenerate into the usual ad hominem attacks that too often pass for debate whenever these issues arise.

I do not, however, intend to let some of your more egregiously false charges stand unanswered. Let’s go down the list.

I think many of the company guys in whose service you think I act would be quite amused by your depiction of me as a callous capitalist and opponent of labor rights. One of the reasons I’ve never held a staff job at any production company, and I have been told this by more than one exec, is that I am viewed as too much in the camp of the performers. In a long battle, to which you were not a party, at the beginning of AIM, several major companies and virtually all “talent agencies” tried to pressure us not to provide new performers with specific information about their own safety interests and their right to protect themselves. If you really wonder where my loyalties lie, you might ask some of the many performers who have worked for me how they feel they were treated. For the record, unlike yourself, I have never shot double-anals, creampies or other stunts I consider high-risk. My insistence that performers always be allowed the use of condoms has cost me literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost directing employment, but I have consistently refused for a decade to shoot for any company that has a no-condom policy. I still do.

I understand that porn, like other industries, resists attempts by workers to organize themselves. I, on the other hand, believe that performers can and should organize around the issues that concern their welfare. In fact, back in 1993, I was one of the seven founding directors of the Adult Performers Association, the first formal attempt to organize performers in the face of the first HIV scare to hit the industry. I was targeted with every kind of harassment from companies and agents for my participation in this effort. I was even the object of a rather comical threat of bodily harm from some
‘old-timers,” all for daring to advocate that performers have a say in how they were treated. For what it’s worth, which isn’t much in the current environment, I still think a broad-based performer’s guild would be an excellent idea and a good vehicle for both education and advocacy regarding performers’ rights.

To answer your most damaging and least founded charge, much has changed for the better since 1993, and particularly since 1997. I believe that AIM represents a tremendous improvement over the informal, haphazard ELISA testing that was the industry’s only line of defense against HIV before the events of 1997. Not only were we able to obtain quick and inexpensive access to the PCR-DNA test for all who wanted it, we successfully lobbied producers to accept this test as an industry standard and to require it from all talent. In an industry as fractious as this one, that is no small achievement.
And the results:

So far, in that seven years, we’ve detected a number of HIV cases in incoming performers who we’ve kept out of the business, detected one or two isolated cases that were never transmitted, and limited the ONE outbreak that did, finally, occur after seven years and 80,000 negative tests, to three transmissions. Not a perfect record, but indisputably a much better one than the industry could have claimed by now if AIM hadn’t been there. I’m sorry if you see that as unimpressive. Given the number of sex-acts performed in that time, including high-risk scenes you shot, I’d say we’ve done pretty well.

Obviously, every single instance of HIV infection matters. But it would be reasonable to bear in mind that the average transmission rate throughout LA County for that same period has hovered around 1500 new cases per year. No matter what regulations are instituted, porn can never be made risk-free for as long as HIV exists in the general population. AIM’s mission has always been harm reduction, and have not a single doubt that we have reduced the harm to performers from HIV and other STDs.

In my experience, it has been underemployed directors willing to do anything to land an assignment who have endangered performers by shooting needlessly high-risk behaviors in order to please their low-end employers.

Gee, Dave, I feel bad for you that most of the audience had drifted at the meeting you mention had drifted off by the time you wound up your lengthy, confessional remarks, and I’m sorry you found the refreshments sub-par, but many others with differing opinions had already spoken before you, including Seymore Butts who took the industry to task in even stronger language than yours and boldly announced his intention to take his productions all-condom, for which those of us on the panel congratulated him warmly. That some other participants continue to shoot high-risk behavior is unfortunate. I oppose this personally. AIM opposes it officially. But neither favors government intervention as a remedy, not because we oppose the goal, but rather the means. I don’t believe any governmental agency will be effective in preventing the risks we both agree are unacceptable. Instead, I believe any government agency would demolish the existing safeguards without putting anything workable in their place. Because state law forbids employers to require HIV testing for any occupation, a government standard would eventually have to eliminate testing as part of the regimen, relying only on barrier-protection instead. I don’t think most performers would be comfortable working with other performers whose HIV status is unknown, barriers or no, and justifiably not.

You go on to fire a couple of very cheap shots at me, including the suggestion that I have no personal stake in the safety of performers, including Nina. Nina and I are both long-time advocates of condom use in porn and we agree 100% that attempts to make it mandatory will fail. Nina makes her own choices about the use of condoms for each scene she does, using them with people she doesn’t know and not with longtime friends of whose responsible behavior she feels assured. I do have a very direct interest in Nina’s well-being, though I am not a performer myself, because a) she’s my wife and I love her and b) because she is also my sex partner and anything that puts her at risk also puts me at risk. I have been the partner of many other performers over the years and I can appreciate the dangers they face from a very personal perspective. To suggest otherwise is both factually incorrect and ugly in its implications.

I’m not going to debate with you over the definition of a contractor under California law. I’ve already stated my opinion of this, but I’m not a lawyer and my opinion is no better or worse than your own.

As far as you know about when I last directed a boy-girl hardcore picture evidently isn’t very far. In the past three years I have shot 15 hardcore titles for Adam&Eve and continue to shoot hardcore titles to this day. You may have gotten the idea that I don’t shoot BG hardcore during the long period between 1993 and 1997 during which I was essentially black-listed for my outspoken advocacy of condom use and my already-stated refusal to work for companies that forbid it. Fortunately, PHE isn’t one of those companies. I work all the time on hardcore projects, but the vile working conditions you describe don’t exist on my sets because I won’t accept work from companies that don’t give me enough money, time or freedom to do the work right and treat the people well. For the record, condoms are used in every picture I shoot and they remain extremely commercial. I completely reject the contention that condom use would make porn unprofitable. That is a red herring. I said at the very meeting where you accuse me of flacking for irresponsible producers that I consider condom use nothing more than a creative challenge for picture makers that can be easily integrated into successful productions with a bit of imagination. i’ve shot, and sold successfully, more condom footage than any director in the history of this medium, starting with Nina’s first Guide shoot in 1992.

My position on safer sex, and AIM’s as well, may not fall in line with PC standards advocated by some organizations, but we feel that porn work is done under unique circumstances that require very specifically tailored safety standards, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all approach to which government agencies in particular are naturally inclined. Call that a nuanced position if you like, but I believe it reflects the medical realities of our unusual situation. Here again, your attempt to create a false conflict between my wife and myself is both low and misinformed. If you want to know Nina’s views on this subject, I’d suggest you go to her site and ask her yourself. You might find it educational.

As for my own views, realpolitik is not my concern. Real, workable protections, as opposed to mad, unenforceable schemes, are. I’ve never cared who likes me or who doesn’t in this business. I have always cared for what I regard both as its collective best interest and the individual best interests of its members. That I do not ignore the political dimensions of these questions reflects that concern.
Cost-effectiveness is a concern because measures that make porn impossible to create will be flouted, period. The bottom line is never more important than human life to me, but I recognize that protecting human life in this industry requires the support of producers. It’s a fool’s dream to believe that any government agency or performer’s organization can effectively alter the practices of this industry against overwhelming producer opposition. My concern is with the unintended consequences of such an attempt. I’m genuinely disgusted at the way you dismiss my hundreds of hours of uncompensated effort through AIM, through my writing and through my unselfaggrandizing lobbying work to make this industry a safer and more humane place. Until last spring, I don’t remember seeing you or hearing your dulcet voice at a single meeting concerning any of the issues now under discussion. If anyone’s record here needs defending, it wouldn’t be mine.

And yes, there is an issue of freedom of expression involved here. I’m not attempting to paint Cal-OHSA as doing something it is not. The standards they seek to impose are completely impracticable, and they have been told as much directly by myself and others. In response, public health officials involved in trying to impose these regulations have told myself and others flat-out that they couldn’t care less if their efforts result in the destruction of the industry. How is that to be interpreted if not as a direct threat to our continued operation in all forms?

For my own part, as a director who refuses to shoot high-risk behavior, safer sex in porn wouldn’t hurt me a bit. In fact, it might help me get more work. I’m all for it. And my history as an advocate for it is well-known to seemingly everyone but you. I’ve always been an activist in this area and will be for as long as I’m associated with this business. I simply see Cal-OHSA’s hostile intervention as the latest in a series of outside threats to the safety net I’ve worked so hard so long with so many others to put in place. Can’t remember the last time you volunteered to work a day at the AIM clinic. Maybe I missed something.

And no, I don’t mind you addressing me by my legal name. On these issues, or any others in which I speak in my capacity as chairman of AIM’s board of directors, I always use my real name. I stand behind my views under any name, and I’m legally and publicly on record regarding all AIM-related matters, since I serve on the board as Ira Levine. I also speak to mainstream media under my own name. I’m not ashamed of what I do, either in porn or on porn’s behalf. I’ve also outed myself and joked about my so-called pseudonym in many public situations. I have nothing to be ashamed of in my politics or in my labors, other than a few sub-standard titles I wish I hadn’t made.

I hope this addresses your questions, though I doubt it will change your opinions, which I suspect are more personal than political in any case. I don’t know how you’ve come to dislike me with such rancor, as I’ve generally been helpful and supportive to your career where and when I could.

I really think this is your problem, and I’ve spent quite enough time dealing with it.

Ernest, Ira or Whatever

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Maybe the industry needs to promote a union for the employees and only hire union workers. The point is, obviously, that having a union demonstrates that not all the power is in the hands of the companies - the performers have leverage as well. Plus, a union would standardize employer/worker relations. The union could require all its members to pass a course on health education, for example, thus assuring the industry that the performers know what risks they are accepting when performing different acts. A union could provide a standardized contract. Such a contract could encode the health/safety practices that will be adhered to, and it wouldn't be left up to each individual company to deal with, or neglect, these health issues in an ad hoc manner.

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Edited by - M.B. on 9/21/2004 5:44:54 PM

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I would like to think that some voluntary changes on the part of porn producers - increased use of condoms, fewer high-risk stunts like double-anals and creampies - would call off the regulatory dogs. However, since the dogs in question are motivated more by a desire to prohibit than regulate porn, I doubt they can be appeased. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try. More responsible behavior is desirable in itself.

A suggestion I read on another site that we could extricate ourselves from the jaws of Cal-OHSA by supporting legislation in the State Assembly with less restrictive language than the Cal-OHSA standard sounds somewhat appealing, but the chances of a bill we can live with actually being passed aren't that great.

The idea of a performers' union has been floated many times in many contexts, but here again, there are structural problems. Would a union-established standard of safety supersede one imposed by the state? A dubious prospect. And would a transient, fractious performer community really join and support such a union over an extended period of time? Unions derive their authority from solidarity. Would performers in need of money pass up work in order to sustain a union job-action? My own best guess is that the scabbing would begin around the end of the first month of such a union's existence, when people's rents start to come due.

And as to trying to disguise the locations at which porn is shot, this is nothing more than the kind of underground shooting I have long feared such regulations would produce, leading to the de facto de-legitimatizing of an industry we've worked long and hard to make and keep legal. It would also fail, as has been stated here, the first time a disgruntled performer or crew member went to the authorities.

Our best hope of blocking Cal-OHSA's blatant attempt to crush the porn business with onerous regulations lies with the courts, which have shown a willingness in the past to strike down other efforts to misapply state statutes in a similar manner, as in the Freeman case. I think the major production companies need to pursue injunctive relief from this abuse of authority immediately. I suspect that such a move is forthcoming.

Otherwise, we really are looking at dire consequences, not just for the companies, but for all the performers and other industry workers some folks here still seem to think the hostile officials who generated this crisis are trying to protect.

No one from any government agency has the slightest interest in protecting any of us. The sooner we accept this fact and start resisting, the better the chances of preserving what freedoms we still have left.

More responsible production practices may help. Legal proceedings may help. Getting the Bush administration and its shadow campaign against porn out of power would help a lot. But nothing anyone does is going to make this all go away anytime soon.

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I believe that one of the reasons this industry finds itself in these straits is that, as a group, you have refused to recognize the importance of image. Sure, some people will hate you no matter what, but it has never ceased to amaze me the lengths some in your ranks will go to to provide your enemies with ammunition.

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lordish

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What seems to have you upset is that I'm merely speaking up with my opinions and beliefs; I have seen the, ah, "vigor" with which you have dragged personal issues and various other tools of the modern political debate into your responses to others who have questioned the positions you represent -- come now, discrediting an intelligent writer's opinion because she's a fem-dom and you're a male-dom? LOL I tend to think that everyone who defines themselves through a BDSM lifestyle tends to take their chosen roles a bit too seriously outside the bedroom/dungeon, whichever side of the fence they're settled on ...

My point is this: You and the power structure you are speaking for are NOT the only -- or even necessarily the prevailing -- opinion of those of us in the adult industry. You, AIM, AVN, LFP, et al, don't speak for me, you don't speak for Tony Tedeschi, and you certainly don't speak for Marissa Arroyo, Brooke Ashley, etc.

I find it extraordinarily amusing -- and not in a bitter way! -- that those in this industry who are decrying "government interference" in their "First Amendment rights" are the first to viciously attack and attempt to blackball those who dare to exercise their own First Amendment rights on this issue. And no, I'm not accusing you personally of attempting or threatening to blackball anyone -- that would be Devan, among others. You are much too canny to indulge in such tactics.

As well, my kudos for conducting your personal career in an exemplrary fashion -- it doesn't blunt my point, however, that you are unaware of the prevalent atmosphere on today's gonzo sets, having removed yourself to the genteel quarters of Adam & Eve condom-productions. Therefore, you are, one might assume inadvertantly, defending a bunch of producers and a culture that is not worth your defense.

As well, my point was not the quality of victuals provided by LFP at a supposedly "open" industry meeting to which the legitimate press was banned, and Tim exhorted us all from the podium to ignore the presence of outside the doors as if they were IRS agents, but that the heavy-handed corporate sponsorship of the meeting pretty much made obvious whose agendas were going to be favored.

best,
dac

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First, let me say I much appreciate the relatively cordial tone of your reply. I like it much better than what I consider the mean-spirited side-swipes you’ve taken at me in this and other forums. I’m glad you bear no personal grudge and still place some value on our pre-existing working relationship. It’s by no means inconceivable to me that we might work together again someday.

But judging by the rest of your post, I doubt that day will come anytime soon. Accusing me of personalizing a debate that began with personal attacks from others is bad enough. Conflating my comments about Gloria Braeme’s jeremiad against straight porn in general with an unrelated observation I made about her BDSM book to cast my differences with her on the issue at hand as some kind of parochial fem-dom v. male-dom competition is both personally offensive and factually incorrect. It’s also bad rhetorical technique, which is a recurrent problem in addressing what I see as the more important points in your arguments. Let’s just leave our views of BDSM out of this for the moment. We have more important things to discuss.

Again, you accuse me of speaking for the power structure of the porn industry. Again, I can only point out that this would be news to the influential producers I assume you’re talking about. I don’t work for them that much, rarely in video, and even if I did, that wouldn’t influence my remarks on the current situation. I give you the credit for having and representing your own ideas and I would appreciate it if you would extend me the same courtesy. No one tells me what to think or say, and I manage to piss off all interests with my opinions on a regular basis. That I disagree with you doesn’t put me in any particular camp except the rather large one of people who disagree with you.

Likewise, I do not attempt to speak for the performing community, which is so varied and so divided over the key concerns here that no one could. In fact, I find it extremely unproductive for a tiny number of marginal players to presume to do so, such as those you cite in your post. They have their views and are certainly entitled to express them, but they are no more representative of any broad commonality of interest than you or me. We’re all just some people talking, and I think that’s very much how we’re seen by most outside observers.

Not only am I not a part of some sinister cabal, along with AIM, AVN, LFP and other elements of what you identify as porn’s power structure, I question that any such structure even exists. There are great differences of priorities and policies among all these entities. They do not speak with any one voice, least of all mine, and do not necessarily agree on all things with one another. It is something of a practical problem that there is no centralized authority in this industry that can set policy for it on any important matter. Both the delight and the danger of the porn biz lie in its anarchic, anti-authoritarian nature. When all goes well, that’s great. We just each do our respective things and nobody gets hurt. But when somebody does get hurt, or some important initiative needs to be taken, there is no governing body that can step up. Right now, we’re under attack as an industry by highly centralized, powerful bureaucracies that can and do wield power with a consistency and conformity of which we are incapable, which puts us at a terrible strategic disadvantage. Every day that goes by without a unified industry response to this challenge strengthens the hand and the determination of the opposition. Frankly, we could do with a bit more of a power structure just now.

As to the matter of outspoken internal industry critics finding themselves on the receiving end of some payback from those they criticize, that’s not really an infringement on anybody’s freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not mean that anything can be said with no consequences to the speaker. If those who espouse controversial ideas are unprepared to pay the price for offending those who might be in positions to cause them problems, they might be advised to avoid controversy. I know from experience that adopting a contrarian stance in any community is likely to bring some heat. That’s the unfairness of real life.

The charge that I am unaware of conditions on gonzo sets, or sets in general, is simply false. Though you have made it clear that you don’t think much of AIM, the fact remains that we hear from performers in great detail about what goes on all over the Valley. Moreover, the same performers and crew who work for me work for plenty of other producers on the other side of the fence. I suspect I hear more of the ugly stuff that goes on out there than most anybody in this whole business, and I don’t like what I hear. My resistance to what I see as a clumsy and potentially catastrophic governmental attempt to regulate porn out of existence should not be taken as an endorsement of the status quo. I have been and shall remain an outspoken critic of what I see as dangerous and exploitative conduct throughout the business. I have worked for reform tirelessly for twenty years here, and I have no intention of stopping. I’m not defending the reprehensible activities of anyone, inadvertently or otherwise.

Finally, concerning the long-past meeting over which we seem to be fruitlessly still arguing, I point out once again that a variety of different views were heard, both from the stage and from the audience. If minds weren’t changed in the way you had hoped, perhaps it was because the arguments advanced simply weren’t coherent or convincing enough to significantly sway the sentiments of those present.

Beneath all the bluster and all the pot-shots you take at others, Dave, what I really want to know is this: What is your plan? What is it that you think we should all be doing that we’re not? What specific solutions do you have to propose?

What we need now are sound, workable, practical ideas to get us out of the mess we’re in. If you have any, let’s hear them.

Ernest

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We do know that part of the porn market is opposed to condoms. On an informal poll on the AdultFYI site, about 30% of respondents said that they wouldn't buy safe-sex porn. That's a pretty unscientific survey, and the real percentage is probably lower. Let's say 10% of the existing customers for porn won't buy safe-sex films. The other 90% will buy safe-sex porn, but they will also look at condom-free porn. If a retailer carries safe-sex titles, it sells to 90% of the market. But if it carries condom-free titles, it's revenue goes up by about 11% because it sells to the entire market. Retail stores have limited shelf space. If they carry safe-sex titles, those films displace condom-free titles. So carrying safe-sex titles means giving up revenue. Adult video stores may be able to carry a mix of titles, but if everything coming out of LA is safe-sex, the stores are going to start shifting to Brazilian and European titles in order to get that extra 10% of revenue. That will put the squeeze on producers in LA. In order to stay in the business, many of them will have to produce elsewhere.

Obviously, part of the porn industry won't be affected. Companies that produce for cable are already using condoms, and their production costs are high enough that additional costs from safety rules aren't going to matter much. Cable companies won't switch to lower cost European producers because the producers in LA produce a product that the cable companies know that their existing customers want and doesn't inspire local DAs to prosecute. Switching to unknown producers may upset their highly profitable little applecart. I'm guessing that about a third of the industry in LA won't be affected by safety regulations, another third will be hurt by the loss of revenue but choose to stay in LA, and the remaining third will go out of business or move elsewhere.

The real issue is not producers' revenue, but the health of performers. Porn is a world wide industry, not just an LA industry. When you're looking at performers' health, you have to look at all performers, not just the performers in LA. If a third of porn production moves out of LA, it's going to be moving to areas where there is less protection for performers, or none. Consider Brazil; in Brazil, they rely on condoms, and in LA they rely on tests. Everybody knows that condoms are more effective than tests, yet there's more AIDS among performers in Brazil than in LA. Europe has no mandatory testing, and a lot of condom-free production. At the moment, I know of no AIDS problem in the European industry, but if an outbreak occurred, it would probably infect a lot of people before it was caught.

If I'm right about one third of production in LA moving elsewhere, then that means that one third of current production will move from an area where performers are relatively well protected to areas where they have little or no protections. So on average, there will be a decrease in performer health.

The biggest single threat to performer health is the fact that we live in a society that is ashamed of sex and refuses to talk honestly about it. As long as there's no effective health education in public schools, there's going to be wide spread ignorance about how STDs are spread and how the spread can be prevented. As long as that ignorance exists, STDs are going to be common in the general population. And as long as they are common in the general population, they are going to be a threat to porn performers. On the whole, the sexual behavior of porn performers is more responsible than any other segment of the population, primarily because of their periodic testing. But all the testing, government regulations, and safety devices in the world can't remove the threat of infection if performers are exposed to it by non-performers, nor can they guarantee that performers won't be infected by other performers.

One of the problems with the current debate is that it is framed as prevention vs freedom. The fact is that prevention is impossible and producers already have their freedom limited by the economics of porn production. The real issue is harm reduction. Everybody in the industry recognizes that you can't perform any sex act without risk. The question is how far you can go in reducing risk before it backfires on you. Ernest Greene's position is that you cross that line when you go beyond a voluntary testing program. DAC's position is that you can mandate the use of safety equipment without crossing the line. I agree with Ernest, but my position is based on meager evidence: the fact that producers are already shifting production to other countries to reduce costs; the small but significant portion of the porn market that won't buy safe-sex porn; and the fact than anyone that I know of who has gone to video stores looking for safe-sex porn has found only one or two titles, or none.

There are people who specialize in analyzing this type of question. There are social workers and epidemiologists who routinely do studies that take into account people's behavior, social norms, and economic factors. You have to do this in order to understand how and why diseases spread and how to control them. There are economists who specialize in analyzing specific industries and understanding industry behavior. We haven't done this with porn and probably won't do it because it would require being honest. We would have to face the reality that a very large number of Americans want to watch people having sex, and an industry exists to satisfy that desire. Rather than be honest, our current choice seems to be to stumble into ill-conceived legislation without any real debate or understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. If we do more harm than good we won't have to know about it because we're maintaining ourselves in a state of ignorance.

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Ren Galskap wrote:
The fact is that prevention is impossible and producers already have their freedom limited by the economics of porn production. The real issue is harm reduction. [...]
Ernest Greene's position is that you cross that line when you go beyond a voluntary testing program.
DAC's position is that you can mandate the use of safety equipment without crossing the line.
I agree with Ernest, but my position is based on meager evidence: the fact that producers are already shifting production to other countries to reduce costs;

->What has reducing costs to do with your claim to reduce harmful acts towards talents?
I guess you meant the term 'economics of porn production' in a global sense having the (inter)national competition in mind, if so , as harsh as it may sound the very ones you're currently fighting against may help you on the ban of foreign or foreign produced no-condom policy porn to be sold in California.

the small but significant portion of the porn market that won't buy safe-sex porn;

->Why should a few unconvincables give you a justification to make profit on the costs of other peoples lives?

and the fact than anyone that I know of who has gone to video stores looking for safe-sex porn has found only one or two titles, or none.

->That we can change quick :)

We would have to face the reality that a very large number of Americans want to watch people having sex, and an industry exists to satisfy that desire.

->can't this desire be satisfied with safesex flicks? What leads us back to, why should a few...

Rather than be honest, our current choice seems to be to stumble into ill-conceived legislation without any real debate or understanding of what we're trying to accomplish.

Ernest wrote:
What we need now are sound, workable, practical ideas to get us out of the mess we’re in. If you have any, let’s hear them.

Alright,
Of course as noble as Ernest's insistence "that performers always be allowed the use of condoms" sounds as watery it gets in conjunction with the statement to just promote an "increased use of condoms" It's a one way ticket to 'the status quo'. Why is that so? Well, every Joe Doe can found a "spotlessly clean show-off company" while holding ownership of a dozen dirty sublabel spin offs to grease the no-condom market.
Hey, even if a talent actually prefers to have sex w/o condom it doesn't matter. Safersex comes first. That's no matter of personal freedom, that's Ren's 'harm reduction'. Should of course a performer not be able to give a 100% scene with a condom it's time to watch out for a different job, easy than that.
Ernest stated that should 'the whole thing' have to be tested in court the results will be quite unpredictable.
or if you allow me to put it more simple: all or nothing.

Hardware wrote:
SO, if this is headed for the courts, wouldn't it behoove the industry to accept and promote condom use along with better, standardized practices and protocols now, so as to demonstrate proper concern for the health and safety of the employees? It is nice that you can tout a lower HIV transmission rate than what occurs in the general population. It is nice that Ira and DAC care about the talent, even if they don't care for each other (lol), but I doubt that will be enough to sway a judge's opinion as to the industry's fitness to regulate itself.

So what about making the result in court a bit more predictable by showing the gov/osha/public that the Californian based porn industry has what it takes to protect their talent pool and even more they do so without pressure by themselves (or at least make it look like that). How?
Well, get as much of the major jizz biz players in the boat as you can, than make your own 'Bill' which demands condom use in all penetration acts, bans creampies but misses all those over the top regs like gloves and dental dams.
When the bill is signed announce it in public and try to get as much media attention as possible.
The participating studios get some kind of logo on their DVD cases, (so it gets easier for caring guys like kperv to vote with their wallet ;))
Now do buisness as ususal and continue shooting porn always paying attention to the self-applied safersex regs.
I could bet OSHA will prosecute the not participating studios first, however that's not important at all!
If they come after you the chances to stand this through in court are much better than for the 'outsider companies' and certainly much better than they are right now.
As a surprising side effect you would have done something really good for the health of the Californian talent pool.

Ernest wrote:
I would like to think that some voluntary changes on the part of porn producers - increased use of condoms, fewer high-risk stunts like double-anals and creampies - would call off the regulatory dogs.

No backdoors.
not increased use of condoms but mandatory use of condoms.
not fewer creampies but no more creampies.

Edited by - x-ray on 9/22/2004 10:55:10 PM

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I don't have a problem with your writing. You do better in English than I do when I'm not writing in English.

Ren Galskap wrote:
The fact is that prevention is impossible and producers already have their freedom limited by the economics of porn production. The real issue is harm reduction. [...]
Ernest Greene's position is that you cross that line when you go beyond a voluntary testing program.
DAC's position is that you can mandate the use of safety equipment without crossing the line.
I agree with Ernest, but my position is based on meager evidence: the fact that producers are already shifting production to other countries to reduce costs;

->What has reducing costs to do with your claim to reduce harmful acts towards talents?

I devoted an entire paragraph to this. In an effort to reduce costs, producers are moving production to areas where performers have less protection. In addition, I'm not making a claim to reduce harmful acts.

I guess you meant the term 'economics of porn production' in a global sense having the (inter)national competition in mind,

No. I meant the accountant's profit and loss statement that determines whether a producer is living out of his car or can buy a nice house and support his family. If you read what I wrote, I was obviously referring to the economic constraints on individual producers.

if so , as harsh as it may sound the very ones your're currently fighting against may help you on the ban of foreign or foreign produced no-condom policy porn to be sold in California.

I'm not trying to ban imports. I haven't written anything to suggest that I was. And who am I fighting against?

the small but significant portion of the porn market that won't buy safe-sex porn;

->Why should a few unconvincables give you a justification to make profit on the costs of other peoples lives?

Where did you get the idea that I was trying to justify making a profit on other peoples' lives?

and the fact than anyone that I know of who has gone to video stores looking for safe-sex porn has found only one or two titles, or none.

->That we can change quick :)

No, you can't. If you really think you can change it, explain how.

We would have to face the reality that a very large number of Americans want to watch people having sex, and an industry exists to satisfy that desire.

->can't this desire be satisfied with safesex flicks?

If part of the market consists of people who want condom-free flicks, how are you going to satisfy their demand with safe-sex flicks? Instead of trying to satisfy demand, you can limit supply to safe-sex flicks only by banning both the production and the import of condom-free flicks. Banning imports would require, among other things, cutting all Internet connections between the US and the rest of the world.

A few more comments not related to X-ray:

Ernest has said here, and I've said elsewhere, that the rate of HIV transmission is lower among porn performers than among the general population. Since making that claim, I've dug up the numbers for the LA area and crunched them, and unfortunately, I can't support my claim. Since AIM started its monthly testing program, the mean yearly rate of transmission has been roughly the same among performers and the general population in and around LA. However, the variance on the statistic is so high that it makes the statistic meaningless. The population of porn performers isn't large enough to produce enough HIV transmission to create meaningful statistics. The bottom line is that there isn't any meaningful way of comparing transmission rates between the two populations.

X-ray mentioned "the ones you're (I'm) currently fighting against". I thought I had made clear that the enemy is ignorance; mine and everyone else's. If you look at the micro-brewery industy, which has annual revenues roughly equal to the porn industry, the business has been pretty thouroghly studied. Customer preferences, supply and demand elasticity; just about any question you could ask can be answered by someone somewhere. There's no equivalent body of information for the porn industry. The disrepute associated with the industry makes it hard to collect information. People don't want to talk about it and researchers don't want to be tainted by being associated with it. People fill any information vacuum with their own fantasies and speculations. In the case of porn, these fantasies and speculations are based on their own feelings of fear and shame about sex. To paraphrase Keats, porn is evil and evil is porn; that's all you know and all you need to know. People "know" that producers are all exploitive and porn chicks are all victims. If there's a problem in porn, you solve the problem by protecting the porn chicks from exploitation and sweep the industry back under the rug. Unfortunately, not only is this approach uncaring and dismissive, but it also does nothing to deal with a very real problem of disease transmission. In fact, it may make it worse.

This debate about STDs in porn has been going on continuously since the 1980s. Most of the time, it hasn't been public, and sometimes it hasn't even been verbal. Sometimes it has consisted of certain producers' efforts to avoid constraints on their freedom of action, and the efforts of others to keep those constraints in place. Since those constraints are voluntary, enforcing them has been a bit problematic. DAC refers to the "power structure" that Ernest represents. From a different perspective, that power structure is a fractious group of people with different interests and ideologies who have been forced to recognize that they need to work together to solve a specific problem. Ernest has referred to getting agreement among people in the porn industry as "herding cats". As a contract director with no independent financial base, Ernest's power lies in his cat herding skills. He can create change by persuading people to follow a course of action. If he can't persuade, he has no means of coercion. If the best agreement he can get is a program that is less than he thinks is optimal, he can accept the compromise and support it publicly, or he can undermine it by failing to support it. To the extent that he's been able to promote change in the industry, he's done it by accepting his limitations.

DAC wants change now. That's not an unreasonable position. The threat of infection doesn't exist sometime in the future. It exists now. HIV positive ex-performers isn't an abstract possibility; it's the present reality. Tests are powerless to prevent infection. AIM's testing program works by applying a certain amount of ruthlessness; if you are an HIV positive performer, you'll never work again. Performers with pleasant personalities and friends in the business can get non-performing jobs. AS DAC points out, anyone else is SOL. A "fair" system would provide support even to people like Laura Roxx.

Unfortunately, any solutions proposed so far are more likely to make the situation worse than make it better. The latest round of infections occured in the extreme end of the industry, which is the part most likely to pack up and move elsewhere if it is regulated. The performers in the extreme end are the ones most in need of protection, and the ones who will lose what protection they have if production shifts out of country. I don't know anything about California's worker comp laws. I don't know if making performers employees will provide infected performers with support or not. I do think that making them employees will result in the performers most likely to become infected working in areas where they receive no compensation. Solving a problem in the US by moving it to other countries doesn't strike me as a solution to the problem.

My position, that the root of the problem lies in social attitudes and ignorance, runs the risk of turning into apathy. As the police in Monty Python's Dead Bishop skit pointed out, if society is at fault, then we'll have to arrest everyone. DAC is right in pushing for specific solutions that impose resonsibility on specific people. We need DAC's sense of urgency. We also need specific, practical proposals, and I don't see anyone proposing anything that isn't likely to result in exposing more people to infection and screwing up more lives.

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Edited by - x-ray on 9/23/2004 1:35:11 PM

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If they actually follow up on this then yes, porn as we know it in California is being rushed to intensive care.

This kind of involvment has been called for by a long time from people on the net (Mike Paul, LT, etc) and now we've got it. Welcome to the new world y'all.

LATE

Rog

Rog Reviews

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It seems to me that the porn industry has little choice than to comply, at least for now. Hopefully they will relent on the dental dams and goggles at some point, but at the very least I think condoms are here to stay.

I'm curious if people are now shooting according to the new regulations, if all shooting has ceased, or is it pretty much Business As Usual? Cal/OSHA does not have to visit a set to see if a studio is in compliance, and they may actually be counting on people violating the regulations to put them out of business.

Las Vegas isn't that far away, but does Vegas really want porn being shot there? They've spent years and billions of dollars cleaning up their image to the point they're now considered a family-friendly resort, so I'm not sure that's much of an option either. Some may relocate out of the country, but let's face it, the talent pools are limited and not everyone's cup of tea.

I don't mean to sound negative, I'm just looking at the reality of the situation. As long as it can be kept a level playing field, I think most fans will adjust.

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I agree with my friend Ren that your command of English seems quite good. But I think you misread his intentions and his concerns. Like me, he is a strong advocate of safer sex in porn and the protection of performers. But he is also a practical-minded guy who understands the impact of economics on this problem and looks for workable solutions. We all want the same thing, but differ on how to get there.

So, first to your idea of banning the importation of non-condom porn into California to level the playing field for safer-sex porn. There’s a couple of little problems with that idea. For one, it constitutes a completely unconstitutional prior restraint on expressive speech. The name for what you propose is censorship, and whether done in the name of safe sex or religion, it’s against the law here, and stands in direct opposition to the very principles that make legal porn possible in this country. If pictures can be banned for the lack of visible safe-sex precautions, why not for any of a hundred other reasons censors want to ban porn. They too argue that it’s unhealthy, bad for people, a danger to society, etc.

Even the misguided bureaucrats attempting to impose the Cal-OHSA standard recognize this, stating explicitly in their enforcement guidelines that they will make no attempt to assess the legality of production activity based on viewing the products created after the fact. They also point out another problem with your proposal, which is that digital post-production techniques could easily muddy the question of what precautions were used when the material was shot. No agency here has the power or resources to review all incoming material and make that call. So much for any help from them on keeping non-condom products out.

And then there is the practical problem of trying to physically keep out the porn you want to get rid of. As manufacturers and distributors know to their frustration, digital video is so easily ripped, burned and dubbed, there’s virtually no way of keeping it from getting into any market. Attempting to prohibit non-safe-sex porn would simply create a hugely profitable black-market in such merchandise.

A final, and catastrophic, flaw in this approach is the existence of 30 years worth of non-condom porn in this country. This material can be cut up and cloned into “new” non-condom comps eternally. Attempting to retroactively make all this tape illegal over the lack of protection methods that weren’t applicable at the time it was made wouldn’t make it past the courthouse door.

So the idea of eliminating non-condom competition from the porn market is simply a non-starter. Ain’t gonna happen.

As to the market for such porn, I completely agree that a handful of what you call unconvincibles ought not to influence the question of performer safety. Alas, here I disagree with both you and Ren. As someone who works everyday in the porn marketplace, I think the anti-condom buyers are far more numerous than might be immediately apparent. Many consumers will claim they don’t mind visible barriers in scenes, but when they get down to spending their money, they go for the non-condom product everyt ime. Again, trying to make it unavailable to them is both illegal and impossible. The gay video model often cited for switching over an entire market to safer-sex products is inapplicable here, because the volume of material is so much greater and the sources so much more numerous. I believe consumer resistance to condoms can and will eventually be overcome, but this is a process of consciousness raising that can’t be legally enforced and will take some time. Will safer sex porn eventually come to satisfy most of the consumers - perhaps eventually, but this is not
“something we can change quick” as you suggest

On a more positive note, I do believe that if major US companies, particularly those with popular talent rosters, institute condom use policies, the market will eventually come around. However, as Steve Hirsch from Vivid will tell you, it will take time and cost money to bring this about. Not all companies have deep enough pockets to withstand the initial loss of sales during the conversion process. I agree that this is the companies’ problem, but it does make the work of convincing them to do the right thing more difficult.

The all-or-nothing approach you propose to safer sex practices in porn shows little familiarity with how large, varied and unmanageable the production process really is. Simply making a rule doesn’t mean it will be followed. California is basically bankrupt and the agencies that want to institute these rules lack the ability to enforce them. The money isn’t there to hire the personnel needed to police this huge, unwieldy work-force. LADOHS head Dr. John Fielding told me in his office the best they could hope for was “to make examples of a few of the bigger offenders.” Making examples has never worked in this industry. The feds have been busting a few pornographers here and there for years, during which time the industry has continued to grow steadily. Like it or not, we’ll only have safer sex practices as a widespread reality in this business when performers insist on them individually, even at the cost of their own employment. Fair? Hardly. Why should the most economically vulnerable class of workers have to shoulder this responsibility? In a better world, they shouldn’t. The companies should simply do what’s right and eat their losses. Too bad it’s not that kind of world.

Now, as to the idea of heading off what are clearly prohibitory regulations with an industry-supported set of standards to be created by the legislature with our input, you present an idea with much appeal. The suggested standards to emerge from Assemblyman Paul Koretz’s investigative hearings are far more workable and might meet with widespread cooperation within the production community, if the legislature would enact them without the permanent anti-porn faction in Sacramento tacking on all kinds of deal-breakers.
But even here there is a problem, and it is a very serious one indeed, undoubtedly the most. It would apply equally to a legislative standard, unless very carefully written around it, as it now does to the Cal-OHSA standard, and will likely spell the doom of both.

Under California law, as in many other states, it is illegal for employers to require HIV testing as a condition of employment. This law is intended to prevent hiring discrimination as a result of HIV status. It has the strong support of the ACLU and has withstood many court tests, as have similar laws in other states. By classing performers as employees, Cal-OHSA, or the Assembly if it chooses to join in, could make producers liable for judgments under this law if they attempt to keep HIV-positive players out of porn by testing. Nothing about these new regulations is more ominous than this prospect. The California ACLU has already stated unequivocally that it will challenge any legal standard for porn that requires HIV testing. If that challenge is successful, and it probably would be, producers would be compelled to hire performers regardless of their HIV status.

In what conceivable way would this make the talent safer? Condoms or no, very few HIV-negative performers would be willing to work with performers known to be HIV positive, but with testing no longer an official requirement, they would be left to rely on one another to get tested and bring reliable proof of their negative status, all without participation by the producers. Anyone who actually shoots porn will tell you that it’s difficult enough already to get performers to stay on top of their testing requirements. When testing is no longer required, the kinds of situations that get performers sent home now - test a day stale, test left at home, test still pending, test eaten by dog - will no longer constitute a legally defensible justification for denying employment.

Which brings us to your final point about mandatory condoms or mandatory measures of any other kind. If the cost of trying to make safer sex mandatory is the abolition of existing safeguards, the result will be more STD transmission, not less. Barrier methods aren’t fool-proof. They’re designed to work for ordinary people having ordinary sex. The kind of prolonged, multiple-partner sexual encounters that are necessary to shoot porn will inevitably compromise the effectiveness of barrier protections. Without testing as a back-up, such a mandatory approach, and the widespread misapplication of it sure to develop, will open the door to a truly disastrous outbreak of HIV that will threaten both the health of the porn industry talent pool and that of the surrounding community.

All these utopian attempts to impose a collective solution to what is fundamentally an individual problem that has to be resolved between performers and producers, regardless of what laws, regulations, decrees, fatwas or whatever are imposed from the outside. On the set, all that will matter is the determination of performers to protect themselves and the enlightened self-interest of producers wishing to avoid the kind of situation in which TT Boy now finds himself.

Everyone wants a simple, one-size-fits-all answer here, but there is none.

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Edited by - M.B. on 9/23/2004 3:54:56 PM

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Isn't it the case the the Boxing commission in Nevada denies licenses to any boxer who is HIV positive?

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If the cost of trying to make safer sex mandatory is the abolition of existing safeguards, the result will be more STD transmission, not less. Barrier methods aren’t fool-proof. They’re designed to work for ordinary people having ordinary sex.
an abolition of existing safeguards? imho it doesn't have to be at all.
You told me about the problem that an industry 'bill' followed by free will of several companies
might apply equally to a legislative standard. Which it is not.

And you told me about a Californian law that states it is illegal for employers to require HIV testing as a condition of employment. Further you said the California ACLU stated unequivocally that it will challenge any legal standard for porn that requires HIV testing.
Well, I say that one should go to court, they (ACLU) will encounter their personal Waterloo with any sane jury.

While barrier methods aren’t fool-proof you can't really question that condom-free sex is inferior to sex involving condoms when it comes to STD transmission.

Simply making a rule doesn’t mean it will be followed.
Yes, but when you take a look at the OSHA regs which are undoubtably overkill, they still have one benefit for the performers that is 'legal certainty' (if my dic doesnt play tricks on me).
Do I get infected as a performer with an STD I would like to think (coz I don't know for sure) that I don't have to break that much resistance in a trial to get accommodation without having to answer the question of individual responsibility first.

Everyone wants a simple, one-size-fits-all answer here, but there is none.
I have yet to see the one-size-fits-all fishnet top, so don't think I try to give such an answer.
What I do try however is thinking about improving talents situation.
And to me a union of companies that show they care, by following rules they have given themselves, is far more likely than every talent union will ever be, if such a union is visible for the pornfan (logo) it would be even better, especially if you have the long term goal in mind to speed up the 'process of consciousness raising'.

We all want to be 'strong advocates of safer sex in porn', so why does no one start acting like that?

Start shooting high risk acts like DP, DAP etc. with condoms today. Even a 'practical-minded guy' should notice that doing so will drop the risk for talents drastically. So what are we waiting for?
Another forty pages of 'harm reduction' talk?

Edited by - x-ray on 9/24/2004 1:12:21 PM

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"In Nevada's licensed brothels, by law, prostitutes prior to working MUST be screened for Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, and HIV. If they are found positive for Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, or Syphilis, they cannot begin work until they are adequately treated, followed-up, and test negative on a subsequent test. For HIV, they are barred from working for life. There have been brothel applicants who have tested positive for HIV. Because of their HIV positive status, they were prohibited from working at all."

So, here is a case of a law in the US that says for this line of work, a negative HIV status is required. It would be interesting to know what the ACLU's position on this law would be.

Edited by - Renee on 9/23/2004 6:07:59 PM

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I've been reading this thread a lot, over and over again. I stated before that the "contracted services" issues are very complicated.

Some food for thought, "What if a couple contracted my services to videotape their conception?"

Guy Capo pointed out some "Waste disposal issues."

I have also read about the elevator incident pertaining to the owner of the building and the General Contractor.

When it get's down to the legalities of who is liable for what, it get's even more complicated, everybody wants to point a finger at somebody. There are always exceptions to the rule until it comes down to OSHA.

If I were a General Contractor and I subbed out a job to an Electrical Company, it is that company's responsibility to adhere to OSHA's rules and regulations, UNLESS I specifically tell them otherwise.

It is also their responsibility to come to me and say, "Hey, I can't do this without taking these extra safety precautions and we will have to bill you X amount more."

Now OSHA rules are pretty much set in stone and also pertain to our personal lives. It is very Illegal to not dispose of hazardous material unless it is via a hazardous waste site and if semen is "hazardous material" we most certainly need to get the EPA involved.

I can't dump my used motor oil in the backyard, where the hell am I supposed to put my Semen!!!!

Most definately not into somebody elses body!!!

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since there's nothing that I, the little porno watcher, can do, I hope you producers, directors, actors and actresses, sellers, DVD producers, etc. get your money and mojos together and invest in some high-powered lawyers who specialize in these federal health cases. Don't you dare be stingy with money. Get the best. You don't want to later down the line bemoan to yourselves, "I shoulda, I coulda, I woulda." You guys have had it super good in the time between the two President Bushes and produced so many great movies for all of us to enjoy. We don't want you to stop. Now you are challenged. Please fight the good fight and win. See if ACLU can help. Find out what Larry Flynt would do. After all, he is a veteran of a Supreme Court battle. Your livelihood is at stake and yours to lose. You will win if you deserve to.

Good luck.

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I got my degree in economics. We were taught to look at the world in terms of short-term change and long-term change. In the short term, you're right. Supply and demand are fairly rigid and don't shift much. The supply and demand curves that everyone learns about in Econ 101 don't move up or down very far. In the short term, the supply curve for girls in other countries isn't going to move much. A sudden shift of production out of the US would raise the price of foreign performers without increasing their number. Since the issue here for producers is cost, that would just drive production back into the US.

In the long term, the opposite is true. Demand and supply curves move as much as necessary. If you consider the number of East European girls engaged in prostitution in cities as distant as Oslo, Paris, and Seville, and consider how much safer porn is than prostitution (not much risk of getting killed on camera), then it seems clear that the potential talent pool is as large as necessary. All that's necessary for that potential pool to become an actual pool is for the girls to realize that the jobs are available, and they'll start showing up in Budapest or Prague at roughly the same rate that they're showing up in LA. Economic conditions in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union will make that pool of performers even bigger.

There is a shift of production from the US to Brazil and Europe going on right now. When I talk about producers moving out of country in response to regulation, I'm not talking about a sudden change. I'm talking about an increase in the existing trend. It will take time for the pool of performers to expand. It will take time for European producers to find American distributors. It will take time for the pool of workers with the necessary technical skills in film and video to expand enough to support a larger porn industry. My guess is that the most extreme part of the industry could move in one to two years. If a third of the industry moves out, it would take about five years. Again, that's my guess. Producers who have worked in Europe and are familiar with what's available there could probably give you a better prediction.

As for foreign performers not being everyone's cup of tea, Jenna Jameson isn't everyone's cup of tea either. Ashley Blue and Belladonna have faces and figures that are not what is conventionally considered beautiful, but they've been pretty successful the last couple of years.

Ernest Greene wrote:
Alas, here I disagree with both you and Ren. As someone who works everyday in the porn marketplace, I think the anti-condom buyers are far more numerous than might be immediately apparent.

You know more about it than I do. Without market research, the best estimates probably come from people whose income depends on knowing what the market wants. I was going by the results of AdultFYI's survey, and trying to take into account the fact that people who are opposed to something are generally more vocal than people who are indifferent. There's no reason why my approach has to produce an accurate estimate. On the other hand, if you're right, that strengthens my point, which is that there's enough anti-condom consumers to affect the sales that support the industry.

Dumbblonde wrote:
Hasn't all this already been decided by Cal/OSHA?

What Cal/OSHA has decided is to treat performers and employees and enforce workplace safety regulations. The porn industry has always contended that performers were contractors, and the various tax and safety authorities have gone along with this interpretation. One question is whether federal and state tax authorities will go along with Cal/OSHA's change in interpretation. If they continue to treat performers as contractors, it will be hard for Cal/OSHA to claim that they are employees. On the other hand, if all the relevant authorities agree that performers are employees, the courts will probably go along.

I've seen different interpretations of the labor laws. I'm not a lawyer and I don't have any way of knowing which interpretation is correct. What I do know is that Cal/OSHA and LADOHS appear to lack the resources to enforce their new interpretation. Without enforcement, they're not going to be able to bring the industry in line. In order for Cal/OSHA to impose its new interpretation on the industry, it will, first, have to get support from the courts, and second, have to find a way of funding enforcement.

Renee wrote:
So, here is a case of a law in the US that says for this line of work, a negative HIV status is required. It would be interesting to know what the ACLU's position on this law would be.

It would also be interesting to know what the ACLU's position is on the existing ban on HIV positive performers. The ban is informal and unwritten, but it is completely effective. You can't work in heterosexual porn in LA if you are HIV positive. The ACLU has stepped in before to challenge informal or unwritten workplace policies, so the fact that the ban isn't a legal requirement isn't the reason they haven't challenged it. My guess is that the reason is that, until now, performers have been contractors. If that's the case, then an ACLU lawsuit would be triggered, not by the imposition of an HIV ban, which already exists, but by a change in status of performers from contractors with informal rules to employees with legally mandated rules.

Even so, I have a hard time understanding the rational behind a lawsuit. Ernest has to deal with the legal regime that porn operates under and he may have worked out the consequences of a lawsuit to a further degree than I have. Since requiring HIV testing would put legal force behind an already existing industry practice, I (as a non-lawyer) don't see a problem with it. But in the course of a trial, there's no way of predicting what legal principle a judge will apply in issuing a ruling. By attempting to change the rules, Cal/OSHA has drawn a number of different competing players into a process that none of them, Cal/OSHA included, have control over.

Something else I don't know is the effect of a change of status on performers' privacy rights. At the moment, AIM can ask each performer to sign a waiver that allows AIM to publish the names of any HIV positive performers, along with second and third generation contacts. This is a powerful way of protecting performers, because it give the people with the most to lose the power to refuse to work with someone with positive results on their PCR-DNA test. If employee privacy rules make it impossible to continue publishing theses lists, then performers will have to rely on directors and producers to make the decision for them. Without questioning the integrity of my friend Ernest, DAC, or anyone else in the porn industry, if I were a performer I would want to have the information so that I could make the decision for myself. The best way to protect against carelessness, miscommunication, or any of the other problems that could cause an unnecessary infection is to give the people affected complete information and allow them to monitor the process and make the final decision themselves. Part of what gives the AIM testing program its power is the fact that, as a voluntary program, it has to be conducted in full view of the people involved, and anyone can criticize or raise the alarm if they see a problem. It would be nice to know how employee privacy regulations in California will affect this, and what the ACLU's position on this is.

Edited by - Ren Galskap on 9/24/2004 2:54:39 PM

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Both of you two used arguments of such low weight (the Brazilian example and the 'condoms are for ordinary people having ordinary sex' thing) that I really wonder what your intentions are. For sure not the improvment of working conditions for performers. Ren even admited that part. For him 'harm reduction' means harm reduction towards the producers wallet nothing else.

You can tell me a hundred times you're both 'strong advocates of safer sex in porn' in the end it's what you do what counts.
AIM was a step in the right direction but noway the end of it all solution, many american companies don't want to shoot with condoms because they might lose money. Money comes before health.

Edited by - x-ray on 9/24/2004 6:43:12 PM

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