On Thursday, over one hundred adult performers planned to protest against mandatory condoms and “porn goggles” at an Oakland meeting of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
Cal/OSHA was scheduled to vote on whether or not to implement certain required safety and engineering controls, such as condoms, goggles and dental dams for porn actor,s in order to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
In 2012, Los Angeles County passed a local law mandating condom use on adult film sets, with the help of an AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored ordinance. Thursday’s hearing seeks to expand that state-wide, causing many in the industry to worry that it could drive businesses out of the Golden State.
A study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases that same year revealed that 28 percent of adult film workers tested positive for chlamydia and/or gonorrhea.
“If you think about how porn is looking today, and how it’ll look after February 18th, we’re talking about gloves, full body cover, and goggles,” Eric Leue, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a porn industry trade group, told local Bay Area public radio station KQED. “It’s going to turn into surgical porn,” he said, adding that studios are already testing every two weeks, versus every three months, as the new rules propose.
However, Adam Cohen, a public health consultant with the non-profit AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has been pushing for the new rules since 2009, told KQED that “testing is not prevention. Taking an STD test to prevent an STD is like taking a pregnancy test to prevent pregnancy. Testing, and condoms, is the best form of prevention.”
Breitbart News spoke with Kissyc Alonso, the owner of the California-based Sex Prep Academy, a website that was created to help couples become intimate again. She said the line should be drawn between amateurs and professionals, and the new rules, if passed, should be applied accordingly.
“I see the point of what they’re saying and I have nothing against it in regards to wearing condoms. However, porn is a fantasy,”she said, suggesting “wearing goggles is ridiculous” when shooting professional pornography.
“Porn should be done with professionals. Amateurs try to do porn and that is where they make mistakes and HIV and STDs come into play.”
She continued: “When professionals do porn, they have blood tests done and everyone is checked properly. So when they are checked and tested properly and decide not to wear condoms, I’m fine with it.”
She explained that in amateur pornography, however, the same guidelines are not followed, and suggested taking “all the proper precautions like you would in a one night stand.”
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz.
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