LOS ANGELES — Porn giant Kink.com has accused the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) of political bias and “selective enforcement” after the agency announced citations and fines against the company for allowing its performers to decide whether to wear condoms while filming.
In a statement Friday, Mike Stabile, a spokesperson for Kink, said that the fines were the result of numerous complaints by Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and leader of a November state ballot measure that would mandate condom use on all adult film sets in California.
“Weinstein is abusing Cal/OSHA to harass his political opponents,” Stabile said. “There were no injuries. These were not complaints filed by anyone on set. They were filed by a man on a computer watching adult videos, looking for an opportunity to strike back against people who opposed a regressive condom mandate.”
In February, the Weinstein-led “California Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act” was narrowly defeated after a five-hour hearing that saw dozens of adult performers and representatives from pornography companies testify against the measure. The proposed safety ordinances would have mandated condom use on all adult films shot in California, and would have further required eye and other forms of barrier protection, a provision the adult industry called excessive.
“We believe that this is payback for Oakland,” Stabile, who is also a spokesperson for the adult trade organization Free Speech Coalition, added of the citations. “This is about silencing and intimidating those who spoke out.”
Weinstein is the driving force behind the California Condoms in Pornographic Films Initiative, currently one of eight measures slated for inclusion on the November 8 ballot. The measure would require condom use on all adult films produced in the state and would further require adult film producers to pay performers’ costs for vaccinations, testing and examinations related to sexually transmitted diseases.
The “For Adult Industry Responsibility” ballot measure committee has spent more than $1.8 million in support of the measure to date, with most of the funding coming from Weinstein’s AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Weinstein was also behind 2012’s Measure B, a controversial law that requires condom use on all adult film sets in Los Angeles County.
The November ballot measure is widely opposed by the adult film industry. Pornography companies maintain that industry-standard, mandatory bi-weekly testing for HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases is sufficient to ensure performer health. Adult film producers say actors and actresses should be allowed to choose whether or not to use condoms, and have claimed that no serious health accident has occurred an an adult film set in California in more than a decade.
The industry has also said that the ballot measure would establish Weinstein as a self-appointed “porn czar” who could choose to file lawsuits against individual adult film companies at will.
“Frankly, the average California citizen should be appalled that Weinstein wants state employees watching and evaluating porn for their workday,” said Karen Tynan, an attorney who has represented adult film companies since 2009.
Porn industry advocates have said an increasing number of regulations governing adult film sets has pushed the lucrative adult industry out of California and into other states like Nevada and Florida.
Representatives for Cal/OSHA, Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation did not immediately return requests for comment for this story.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum