Friday, August 21, 2009

The Great HIV-in-Porn Fracus Continues:The Weinstein/Lubben Alliance Bites Back

So now, the folks who want to impose condoms on the mainstream sex media have now put their chips (and their lawsuits) on the table. And as is the usual with such matters, strange alliances (well, not quite so strange considering the issues) have been created on the fly.

Gram Pomante gives the entire story in his blog:

Cal/OSHA plaintiffs save adult DVD industry

The solution to the dying adult DVD market? Large-scale purchases for the purpose of registering complaints.

Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) yesterday filed complaints against 16 porn companies with Cal/OSHA, stating that the adult industry's "blacklist" of condoms contributes to unsafe workplaces.

AHF president Michael Weinstein and his staff collected 58 DVDs from companies like Hustler, Anarchy, All Media Play ("This Ain't the Partridge Family XXX"), Mayhem, Backend Productions, and Vivid ("Drenched in Cum") featuring several scenes of condomless double-penetration and less strenuous activities that an AHF press release calls "potentially life-threatening."

An additional complaint was filed by former performer Jan Meza, who performed as Elizabeth Rollings for two years in such films as "Hot Sexy Plumpers 14" and "Thick 'n' Chunky Fat Freakz."

[original snapshot of Rollings' complaint redacted, can be seen here.]

AHF associate director of communications Lori Yeghiayan said that the choice of DVDs cited in the complaint was random, but that the purchases were made at traditional brick and mortar outlets.

"The collection process (of the DVDs) was not particularly scientific," Yeghiayan said. "We wanted to get a cross-section of what was available, and picked up movies from what seemed like the most prolific companies at places like (West Hollywood's) Pleasure Chest and a couple of places in the Valley."

Yeghiayan said the decision to file a complaint based on unsafe practices depicted in the movies was consonant with AHF's mission statement, "Cutting-Edge Medicine and Advocacy Regardless of Ability to Pay."

While the adult industry does not have a formal blacklist against condom use - it rarely has a formal anything - both the market and working performers tend to agree that condoms don't lend themselves to short-term profit.

"Condoms just don’t feel good to suck on, or to take in the ass, hard and fast," said performer Belladonna. "If I were required to use condoms, my performance would most likely suffer, and in the end I would suffer."

Not only that, but organizations like AIM Healthcare, the de facto STD testing facility for Porn Valley's performers, also maintain standards that AIM is fond of saying makes porn performers less-STD-ridden than the general population of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) disputes this.
According to figures cited by DPH, there were 2,013 documented cases of Chlamydia among LA porn performers between 2003 and 2007. In the same period, 965 cases of gonorrhea were documented. Many performers suffer multiple infections. In the period April 2004 to March 2008 there have been 2,847 STD infections diagnosed among 1,884 performers in the hardcore industry in LA County. DPH attributes the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in the porn industry to a lack of protective equipment for partners, including condoms.
But, AHF's Weinstein says, the DPH does not or cannot enforce its own suggestion, hence the need to file complaints over its head.

"Los Angeles County Public Health officials cannot keep passing the buck on this by playing ping pong on this with the state and the industry itself," he said. "That is why we are filing these complaints with Cal/OSHA today."

That by itself would be news...but guess who Weinstein decided to bring forth to butress his case for mandatory condom use. Some one we all know and love, do we???

AIM's safety claims were also disputed by members of an organization called the Pink Cross Foundation, which joined AHF yesterday in its caravan to Cal/OSHA's office in downtown Los Angeles.

The Pink Cross Foundation was founded in 2008 by former prostitute and porn performer Shelly Lubben, who "conquered the horrible effects of her past and became a Champion in life through the power of Jesus Christ." Other members of Pink Cross include Jan Meza and Michelle Avanti, whose experience in more than 100 adult scenes resulted in
"catching STDs all the time. My lower body hurt so badly and at times my private area felt like it was a blazing fire. I could no longer work because I caught so many STDs and infections. I believe that if condoms had been allowed to be used in my own films, I would not have suffered so many physical ailments and infections."
Lubben says that consumers should be aware that porn stars are diseased.

"We want the fans to know what they're contributing to," Lubben told the LA Times. "They're demanding harder and grosser porn. We want to educate them to exactly what they're watching -- diseased people [emphasis added]. It's illegal for bodily fluids to touch skin, and yet it happens every single day in the porn industry."

Cal/OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said the agency would investigate the combined claims.

"They have a valid point here," Fyer told the Associated Press. "The blood-borne pathogens standard is designed to protect workers where there is risk of transmission of diseases through bodily excretions that occur as part of adult film activity."

Yeghiayan said that AIDS Healthcare was "not ruling out" additional complaints against larger studios or adult Internet companies.

If Cal/OSHA succeeds in making condom use mandatory and if both fans and performers won't tolerate it, Vivid co-founder Steve Hirsch suggests a third option.

"If Los Angeles County chooses to enforce mandatory condoms," he said, "what you'll see is all adult production leave California. It will move to other places."

Hirsch did not say where. but I hear Detroit could use some help. "Hotown" has a nice ring to it

Ahhhhh, that's real nice.
So, Weinstein, in his zeal to protect porn performers from themselves and "save" their industry, uses an antiporn fundamentalist Christian whackjob along with her ex-slut/ex-porn ministry as a foil for his public attempts to impose his agenda on them. What's next...getting Donna Hughes and Samantha Berg as support witnesses?

And yeah....kinda hard to say that you are saving people when you call them "diseased". Kinda like calling sex workers "prostituted women", ehhh??

Once this case gets flipped out of court without cause, I hope that Weinstein gets sued for libel and slander.

I'm thinking that AIM and Porn Valley is already organizing a response to this nonsense. And I'm guessing that our man on the case has a trick or two of five in store for these fools as well.

But...I'll save that for Ernest's ultimate response to this news. Anytime you're ready, Counselor.

5 comments:

  1. I find it very strange that the religious fundies wants to join the campaign to have mainstream porn use condoms. Mostly because the religious fundies wants to ban condoms. It is just a smoke screen to make porn performers think they care about them when in reality they don't. My advice will be that the porn industry should donate some of the billions it earns even if it is a small number to help fund research in order to develop a cure and vaccine HIV and STDs.

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  2. I'm not sure if fundies are calling for a ban on condoms, with the possible exception of Dominionists, who want to ban everything. However, they get a lot of political hay out of the idea that condoms are ineffective. (Of course, condoms are effective under the circumstances where they are normally used, they just don't always lend themselves well to the rather unique conditions on a porn set.)

    I don't if Lubben stands with the typical abstinence education crowd on that, and if she does, she's talking out of both sides of her mouth. In any event, the alliance of a HIV clinic with its roots in gay activism with a Christian fundamentalist activist is one of the stranger alliances I've seen, beating out even the radfem/religious right one. Which to me says volumes about how far some people will go to be able to impose their rules on other people's sexuality, even lining up with other sexual authoritarians who are in many ways natural enemies.

    Then again, destructive alliances like this are not historically unprecedented – the Weimar Republic was brought down the by the actions of both the Nazis and the German Communist Party in an unspoken alliance, even while the two were battling each other in the streets. (And for anybody who wants to ritulaistically invoke Godwin's Law here – just can it – I haven't called anybody a Nazi.)

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  3. Well....I'm of the impression that this is solely a tactical, short term alliance where each one gets what they need from the other.

    For Weinstein, he gets the use of a former porn starlet turned "ex-slut" to "witness" about the evil dangers of porn lords threatening women with deadly and harmful disease for the benefit of the quick buck, along with the free use of some of Lubben's "clients" for quick propaganda purposes for his lawsuits. It's no surprise or accident that two of the "starlets" who are featured and who filed complaints with AHCF just so happen to be Pink Cross Foundation members recruited by Lubben.

    As for Shelley...well, she gains instant publicity as well as sympathy as a "born again" ex-porn starlet that she never ever got as a performer, and she gets to paint herself as a guardian angel saving those impressionable 18 year olds from themselves and from THE MEN.

    Of course, Lubben already gets some run and praise even from elements of the porn industry whom should otherwise know better. Sites like LukeIsBack.com and even a few porn gossipers have actually credited Lubben for her activism in informing people of the dark side of porn....though after her smackdown of porn performers as "diseased", those bridges might be burning away.


    Anthony

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  4. yes this is very strange.
    They should distribute them.
    This is the best way against abortion-

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  5. Everybody has a different on the pros and cons of pornography

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