Why Beetlejuice Could Take Master Classes From Mike Weinstein When It Comes To Spinning: The AHF/ImmoralLive "Condom Letter"

WOW...just when you thought AHF couldn't get any freakier.

Yesterday, Mike Weinstein held yet another of his publicity stunt press conferences in yet another attempt to push his condom mandate law on Los Angeles County Public Health officials and impose his "condom Nazi" regime on porn shoots.

The centerpiece of this farce was a letter that was sent by AHF's legal counsel, Mark McGrath, to LA County DPH Director Jonathan Fielding, in which McGrath decided to level his complaint at one particular porn company, Dan Neal's ImmoralLive.com, for allegedly violating the newly passed condom mandate law by shooting performers unwrapped.

Apparently, AHF was alerted of the alleged violations by "an anonymous letter" that was sent to them, which they then verified through "a review of content at ImmoralLive.com". Why the letter wasn't sent directly to LACDPH for review and investigation rather than shephereded through AHF is an open mystery.

The full letter is a .pdf file that is available here, though I've gone ahead and taken screencaps of it. I've removed the extraneous header info for brevity's sake, and there is some duplication due to the limits of my screen capture software.

Now...the funniest aspect of this is that Weinstein and AHF is supposed to be so distrustful of LACDPH in enforcing their new playtoy condom law that they are attempting to break the City of Los Angeles off from LACDPH and form their own health care jurisdiction (a referendum on the matter is currently being circulated for inclusion in the ballot for later this year). So, I guess we should assume that this is Weinstein's shot at the bow of Fielding, as if to say: "Don't fuck with us; enforce our law or we kick your ass again!!"

But, that's not all, folks...apparently, at Weinstein's presser, the subject of Mr. Marcus, the performer at the center of last year's syphilis scare, came up again....except that this time, it was over an incident that took place last week on an Internet radio show hosted by Jessica Bangkok, and hosted at the same studios where ImmoralLive.com does their shows.

To summarize what went down: Marcus was a guest at Jessica's show in early March, where the producers decided that it would be a really cool idea to have Jessica watch her own scenes...with hopefully the obvious results. It worked all too well, because Marcus then decided that he just couldn't help himself and decided to "relieve the tension" with a unknown young female performer who was at his side....all of this going on live on air in the studio. Problem was, legendary performer Lisa Ann, whom had her own show following Bangkok's, was a witness to the hijinks, and she went apeshit all over Marcus and Bangkok on Twitter later that night, complaining about why Marcus or his sex accomplice hadn't been tested and why the studio would risk losing everything to allow live sex in their shows. Manwin, the porn megacorp who owns the studio and the shows, promptly investigated, and then dropped the unemployment hammer on not only Bangkok, but also Debi Diamond and Nikki Hunter for performing live sex on their shows as well. (The latter two have gotten Internet radio gigs at other venues.)

Of course, since I wasn't there at the presser, I can't say what was said there, but I'm guessing that Weinstein and his allies were probably attempting to use that incident to justify their stance and to have their "anonymous" sources (mostly paid shills) sneak into porn studios to catch performers Fucking While Unwrapped. (Though, since Manwin always had and is now aggressively enforcing their "no sex on the air" policy on their shows, the attempts will probably not be so fruitful.)

In the meantime, the mystery of how a mostly broke county with more than enough real HIV/STD cases in the real world will find the time and resources to meet Mike Weinstein's demand that they play "condom cop", continues unabated. As does the court challenges.

BTW....former starlet Lydia Lee (fka Julie Meadows) has a rather pithy critique of AHF's latest whackadoodle at her fantastic blog....please go there and educate yourself.

"Wherever They Go, We Will Follow Them": AHF Takes Condom Mandate Statewide; Then Goes Off On Los Angeles County

Never let it be said that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation rests on their laurels.

You would think that they'd be content with the major victory of passing Measure B in Los Angeles County last November.  But noooooo, getting the glass of water 3/4ths of the way full just isn't enough for Michael Weinstein; he won't rest until he owns the whole well, the glass, and the treatment plant.

Last week, AHF dropped the first boot by announcing that they had found a California Assemblyman -- namely, Isadore Hall III (D- Compton) - to execute the next phase of their plan for world condom domination: a bill (titled Assembly Bill 332) which would extend the mandate for condoms for all porn shoots to cover the entire state, rather than just local jurisdictions such as the City of Los Angeles or Los Angeles County.

Basically, the bill would do its damage by mandating that certain "engineering and work controls" be used by porn performers in the shooting of sex scenes, including mandatory condoms for all anal and vaginal scenes; mandatory Hepatitis B vaccines and other testing paid for directly by producers and performers, and it would require, similar to the 2257 regulations regarding verification of performer age, a detailed "Custodian of Records" certification to be made available to state officials.

Aside from the invasive regulatory impact of the proposed bill, there is also the fact that the proposal is almost a mirror image of the proposed Cal-OSHA regulations on "bloodborne pathogen" protection..which, as you recall, would even require performers to don gloves, goggles, and other forms of "barrier protection" to prevent exposure to internal fluids...the kind of protections usually imposed on medical professionals doing surgery or other types of exposure to blood or other internal fluids. (The proposed Cal-OSHA standard, though, does also require "barrier protection" for oral sex as well..though there was an exception to that that was proposed that would mandate a Hepatitis B vaccination and verification for each incidence of oral sex as a substitute for wrapping up.)

Also fascinating is that this proposed bill would apply equally to gay porn as to the "staight" porn industry..which would mean a major turnaround for Weinstein, whom has mostly focused his crusade on straight porn (even as he has profited from selling bareback porn out of AHF's thrift stores.

Reaction from the porn world, natually, has been swift and furious. Here's Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition (full statement here):

“Tragically, this law – if passed – will not only waste taxpayer dollars and compromise the effective performer health protocols already in place, but also compromise funding for critical HIV programs by diverting program funds to create an unnecessary condom-police bureaucracy,” Duke said. “Additionally, this regulation would force an industry vital to the San Fernando Valley and to California’s economy out of the area.”

The proposed bill, which has been tagged as AB-332, follows the passage of the Los Angeles “Safer Sex” Ordinance for Adult Production, which mandates barrier protection for adult productions shot in L.A. County. The new legislation is being sponsored by Assemblyman Isadore Hall III (D – Compton), who held a Valentine’s Day press conference to announce that he will introduce the bill to California lawmakers.

“While other legislators are focused on gun safety, improving our schools and reducing crime, Assembly Member Hall has chosen to use his taxpayer funded salary and staff to focus on adult films,” Duke added. “We look forward to Assembly Member Hall visiting with adult film stars in the coming weeks to learn more about the exhaustive safety precautions already used by the industry.”

See also comments from Mark Kernes from AVN and Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals at PVV.

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But even that was only the second most brazen act performed by AHF. The real kicker took place yesterday, when AHF dropped their second boot and decided to get their revenge on the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health for not being vigilante enough to impose the condom mandate.

Their idea: simply break the ciity of Los Angeles away from LACDPH and establish their own health care district, through a new proposed public ordinance.

Seems like the current LACDPH director Jonathan Fielding isn't too hot on implementing Measure B as quickly as Weinstein would like...which was more than obvious when Immoral Productions head "Porno Dan" Neal -- accompanied by his lawyer, Michael "Pornlaw" Fattorosi -- went to purchase one of these newfangled permits. Mark Kernes explores the deets of the ensuing comedy:

"To get the permit, you have to go to their office, which is in Commerce, just off the 5 freeway," Fattorosi said. "The application has to be submitted in person, and it has to be submitted with proof of identity. Once you apply and you fill out the application, it looks from the application that you have six months in which to secure your bloodborne pathogen training as well your bloodborne exposure plan for your company. Now, it gives you a place to list your directors and everyone else that would be covered by this application, so for instance, if you have a company and you have four, five, six, seven directors, they give you two pages to put those names on. When you're shooting, one of those people has to be on the shoot, okay, because they have the training necessary. Now, you can have other people shooting for you as long as one of those people that's listed on the application is present for the shoot."

The Public Health License/Permit Application form, Fattorosi said, "acts as your conditional permit until the regs are promulgated and they really understand what's going on. The idea I got was that even the Department of Health has to figure all this out, and what they're going to do. The reason you fill this out is because this goes to the Treasurer of the City of Los Angeles, who then approves the permit and sends a bill to the actual applicant—the studio, the production company—and then when you pay the bill is when they send you your full permit. They're estimating anywhere between three to six months before that even happens."

But here's where it gets, as the dearly departed Cajun humorist Justin Wilson would say, "reeeeeeeal good" (Bolded emphasis added by me):

However, Fattorosi also reported that the Health Department has not yet hired any additional personnel to enforce the new law.

"They have a staff that's going to do this," he reported. "They haven't hired anybody else at this point. Right now they've got several inspectors on staff who'll cover it and they'll have people that will cover it, but they are starting to make sure that people are getting their conditional health permits, because the way this came up is, FilmLA refused to renew a film permit for Dan Leal, for Immoral, until this was taken care of. Now that he's got his conditional permit, FilmLA will go back and issue him his shooting permit."

What's perhaps most interesting about the inspections, the first of which may be a year or more in the future, is that the investigation managers told Fattorosi that, "They will not be reviewing scenes; they will not be sitting around watching porn. They made it very clear to us, they've made it very clear to their boss that they have no interest in watching porn as part of their job.  They made it clear that they're not going to be watching the sex scenes."

One might then legitimately wonder how the health inspectors will determine whether any particular production is in compliance with the condom/barrier protection mandate, but according to Fattorosi, the health inspectors don't see enforcement as part of their job.

"They really don't have police power," Fattorosi said. "They don't have the ability to come in, arrest people; they can't close your set. All they can do is cite you. Just like if they walk into a restaurant and they found something unhealthy or unsanitary in the restaurant, unless it's an immediate huge public health risk, they don't have police powers so they can't shut down someone's set. One of the two people I talked to indicated they would have to have a conference with County Counsel as well as meeting with the City Attorney's office, County Attorney's office, and decide, and that's when they would issue any fines or anything like that. But she made it abundantly clear that this is a learning process, not only for the industry but also for them, that they're trying to find their way; they're not really sure about how to do any of this, and it's all new ground for them, so they want to work with the producers, the producers that are willing to step up and do this; it's not going to be a matter of, they're going to come in and the first violation, they're going to fine you. They're going to give you chances to correct the thing before they take any kind of remedial action against the studio."

Certainly, that "hands off" scenario, if it is actually Health Department policy, will meet strong opposition from, among others, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which gathered the petitions to put Measure B on the ballot in the first place, and has consistently pushed the lie that adult performers are in imminent danger from many STDs including HIV while having sex. And it's unclear how, if a health inspector visited an adult movie set and saw that the performers weren't using condoms and other barrier protections, the inspector could give the studio "chances to correct the thing," especially if they don't think that watching sex scenes being shot is part of their job. Would they require the company to reshoot the scene with the condoms and rubber gloves and face shields?

"While we were there, we went into the bloodborne pathogen plan, what's required, and what they're looking at is what's required by the language of the law," Fattorosi reported. "They didn't want to get into all of that because they weren't lawyers; they didn't want to have a legal debate about what's required or what is not required. What they were basically looking at was, we were there to go over the application procedure and how to get the ball rolling. As far as how this is all going to play out, they still don't really know.

"Their attitude is, they're not in the business of trying to hunt down and root out people who violate the law," he added. "That's not their goal, that's not their purpose, that's not what they're going to do. The two people I talked to seemed sincere in regards to their willingness to work with producers. They understand or they're beginning to understand the difficulties of porn producers and studios to deal with this particular law, so they're not—at least the two people I talked to, they're not interested in trying to shut people down. They're not trying to shut studios down, they're not trying to shut porn production down; that's not their goal. Only health inspectors will be asking for the health permits. It doesn't appear that the police will have anything to do with the health inspection or the health permits. The police will deal with the FilmLA permits, and the Department of Health will deal with the Department of Health permits."

In other words, there will be NO "Condom Nazis" invading porn shoots and frogwalking performers to jail or to court for not wrapping up....at least, not for now.

And, that's probably what motivated Weinstein to perfect this instant coup against LACDPH...though he does attempt to cloak this act in the name of tackling "bureaucracy" and "streamlining" health care closer to the public.

Or...it may be simply that LACDPH is starting to get hep to AHF's gravytrainning and money laundering schemes. Quoteh Mr. Kernes once again:

One can only wonder how much money, promises of support and/or other perks AHF promised to Assemblyman Isadore Hall III (D-Compton) to convince him to sponsor Assembly Bill (AB) 332, a measure that would require hazmat suits during sex scenes shot anywhere in the state!

Of course, there is another possible reason why AHF wants the city to form its own health department: Back on August 16, 2012, L.A. County Auditor-Controller Wendy L. Wantanabe issued a report to the County Board of Supervisors charging that AHF overbilled the County Health Department's Division of HIV and STD Programs (DHSP) by $1,731,175 for providing services and medications to STD-infected patients who didn't qualify for county funds, and also billed DHSP more than $21,000 for "unallowable earthquake and flood insurance costs" and other "unsupported expenditures," all in violation of its contracts with the county. AHF has filed a lawsuit against the county, claiming that the county falsified its audit findings.

Perhaps it was that investigative work by Wantanabe's office that led Weinstein, in AHF's press release advocating for a city health department, to charge that LACDPH suffered from a "lack of professional leadership and accountability" that "has led to rampant cronyism and a repeated refusal to adhere to standing state and federal laws." (Needless to say, the press release was short on any information that might let the public know just what "rampant cronyism" was allegedly taking place at LACDPH, and which "standing state and federal laws" it was failing to adhere to—but it wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest that AHF might be talking about the state health code, which already mandates that condoms, rubber gloves, face shields and even hazmat suits be used during sex scenes.)

As one might expect, AHF's alleged overbilling caused the county to retaliate against AHF, according to the press release AHF disseminated regarding its lawsuit against the county—but if the city had its own health department, perhaps staffed by AHF supporters like Dr. Peter Kerndt and Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, Weinstein could easily assume that taxpayer dollars could once again flow into AHF's coffers!

And then there is this:

So with AHF having been involved in so much political activity over the past three-plus years, beginning with its petition to CalOSHA to change the state health code to mandate condom use during sex scenes, to its pro bono (free) representation of Diana "Desi Foxx" Grandmason in her lawsuit against AIM, to its city and county ballot measure petitions, to its advocacy of AB 332, and now to its impending campaign to force the city to form its own incredibly duplicative and expensive health department, one has to wonder how this tax-exempt organization has managed not to have its exemption pulled by the Internal Revenue Service?

See, the federal tax statute in question, 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(3), states in pertinent part that it exempts from taxation "Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes... no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h))." Now, there's no question that AHF has not only carried on propaganda but has clearly attempted to influence legislation. But the question then becomes, has it also violated the terms of subsection (h) by either "mak[ing] lobbying expenditures in excess of the lobbying ceiling amount for such organization for each taxable year," or "mak[ing] grass roots expenditures in excess of the grass roots ceiling amount for such organization for each taxable year"?

We aren't privy to AHF's tax returns, so we have no idea what its annual "lobbying ceiling" or "grassroots ceiling" amounts are, but considering how much time and effort—and money—AHF has put into creating, filing and defending its CalOSHA petition, creating, gathering signatures for, promoting and filing its city and county mandatory barrier protection (so-called "condom") measures, its current and future support of Assemblymember Hall's AB 332 bill, and its creation, impending signature-gathering, promotion and defense of its city health department bill, we have to wonder if it's not the IRS that is suffering from a "lack of professional leadership and accountability"?

Paging Lydia Lee...

These two events make two things obvious:

1) Michael Weinstein doesn't give a tinkers Goddess DAMN about protecting performers from STI's or even about treating AIDS; it's all about getting condom ads on porn for instant strategic placement and $$$$. And, about running porn completely out of California (and even nationwide) if he doesn't get his wish of an all condomized industry.  And, about lining AHF's pockets with government largeese.

2) Sad to say, but Weinstein has been able to use progressive people of color as a foil for his condom campaigns (Isadore Hall is, after all, Black and a Dem represantative), and the ease to which his proposals could pass in the California Assembly (where Dems have a supermajority and Proposition 35, which criminalizes "sex trafficking" to the point of potentially affecting porn performers as well, has passed) does raise the issue of how easy it is for such paternalistic proposals to pass. All I will say on that is that the industry absolutely, even while they fight these laws in the courts, needs to confront the basic fact that they need to win over the majority of Black and Latino voters, rather than merely dismiss them as "stupid" and rely on old tired "libertarian" arguments about "big government" abuse. I still say that that's how Measure B got passed in the first place, and unless some things change really quick, the adult sexual media industry will find itself in a bind that no move to Vegas or South Florida or even Budapest will loosen.

There's a reason I titled this post with Weinstein's blast, people....take heed and react and defend your rights.

More Lying From The "Yes On Measure B" Crowd....And A Bit Of Slut-Shaming, Too (Or, We Are All Pornographers Now)

[This is a continuation of my last post on the scummy tactics of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and other proponents of Measure B, the proposed condoms-in-porn mandate. For background, read my previous post.]

The blog SmartVoter.org just posted at their site the full voter guide to the proposed Measure B ordinance up to vote in Los Angeles County, including all of the arguments and rebuttals by proponents and opponents. I've posted some of the statements previously, but here are, just for recording's sake, the statement in opposition to Measure B, as well as their rebuttal to the pro-B arguments.

First, their original argument (with signatories attached):

Measure B is a ridiculous waste of tax dollars.

It would throw hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars, every year, at an imaginary threat.
It would send government inspectors, at full salary and benefits, to adult film sets to ensure actors are not only wearing condoms but rubber gloves, goggles and lab coats. This is money we need for real public health threats.

Measure B's backers falsely claim a health threat in the adult film industry. Every single actor is tested at least monthly. In 8 years, not one has contracted HIV on a set anywhere in the U.S. In fact, by driving film productions underground where there is no testing and no industry regulations, actors would be less safe, not more. Moreover, the Department of Public Health warns that Measure B would expose the County to expensive lawsuits + wasting money needed for real public health risks.

While we are wasting tax dollars for no reason, we are also driving a vital source of jobs out of state. The adult film industry employs thousands of people out of L.A. County: not just actors, but lighting and sound engineers, caterers, craftspeople, etc. This is exactly what we do NOT need during this recession.

Measure B is a ridiculous waste of tax dollars, kills thousands of jobs, is unnecessary, and does nothing to protect public health.

Vote NO on Measure B.


STUART WALDMAN
President of VICA (Valley Industry and Commerce Assoc.)

DR. PETER MIAO
Infectious Disease Specialist

DIANE DUKE
CEO Free Speech Coalition

PAMELA J. BROWN, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics

RANDALL WEISSBUCH, MD
Physician

Of course, you will recognize Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition and Dr. Peter Miao of Cutting Edge Testing as part of the signatories.

And here's their rebuttal to pro-Measure B arguments:

Safe sex practices are a good idea. However, they shouldn't be forced on adult film actors. Our individual rights have been fading fast since the Patriot Act.

Do-gooders such as New York Mayor Bloomberg seek to create a nanny state where our behavior is increasingly regulated for our own good. Bloomberg decreed that people must buy soft drinks in small cups, because they could become obese if they bought larger sizes. Measure B declares that adult film actors would have to wear condoms during filming. This isn't much different than regulating the size of soda a person can buy. Do you like the idea of busybodies forcing people to do what is healthful for them? If not, vote NO.

Measure B would destroy the adult film industry in Los Angeles County, and it's quite a big industry here. Film producers tried using condoms during the HIV scare of the 1990s, and people refused to watch the movies. So will the producers just stop making these films? No. They will likely move to areas where they have the freedom to make the kinds of films they want to make, most likely to other counties or other states.

Measure B also creates an expensive government bureaucracy at the same time as budgets and services are being cut. Do we really want our tax dollars paying for government agents to go to movie sets and look at how sex acts are being performed? And would the film producers who get permits for their shoots now even bother in the future, if they are being faced with all these new regulations?

Whether you agree with the supporters of Measure B or not, it's a bad idea to impose their standards through force of law. They may regulate your business or your sex life the next time around. Vote NO on Measure B.


NANCY C. ZARDENETA
Chair, Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County

PAMELA J. BROWN, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics

RANDALL WEISSBUCH, M.D.
Physician

JOHN URIBE
Civil Liberties Attorney

TED BROWN
Small Business Owner

Note the reference there to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban the sale of large servings of soda pop, on the notion that such sales lead to obesity.  Never mind that all that would do is allow wealthier people to buy their soda in bulk to bypass the law, and that the enforcement would be selectively limited to poorer people, or that such a law would probably not reduce obesity nearly as much as, say, taxing soft drinks higher accross the board or even making healthier products more accessible to poorer folk.

Now, I may not personally agree with the libertarian slant of that argument, and would argue much more about how the proposed mandate would affect the right of the performer to choose for his/herself how to protect themselves.  But, I'm not an LA County citizen, nor am I getting paid for promoting the opposition.

But, that is a mere trivial beef of mine.  The response of the Measure B proponents, on the other hand, just isn't. Exhale and fine tune your BS sensory apparatuses before you go to the next paragraph.

Comparing drinking soda pop to the immediate risk of infection with a sexually transmitted disease on the job trivializes the threat facing porn performers. The current outbreak of syphilis in the porn industry is living proof that having sex in adult films without a condom is a clear and immediate threat to the health of these performers and our community.

It is widely accepted that when you are on the job you are afforded protection that you may or may not choose to exercise in your own home. If you wish to make home repairs without gloves or a hard hat that is your own business. When you get paid to perform a task, workplace health and safety rules apply. Porn is a legal industry. Performers are paid to perform and they are entitled to the same on the job protection that every other person enjoys.

Measure B makes clear that no public dollars will be spent to enforce condoms in porn. All of the costs will be carried by porn producers. Sex acts in your bedroom are a strictly private matter. When filming is done for money it is a public matter. Why should people or even animals that appear in Hollywood movies be protected and the young people who appear in porn be abused?

The fact that many porn producers break the law and film without permits is not a good reason to do nothing to protect any performers or our community from disease.

Vote Yes on B!

JEFFREY R. KLAUSNER, MD. MPH
Professor of Medicine, UCLA

RICHARD G. POLANCO
Senator Richard Polanco (Ret.)

PAULA TAVROW, Ph.D.
Director, UCLA Bixby Program on Population and Reproductive Health

MICHAEL WEINSTEIN
President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation

MARK ROY MCGRATH, MPH
Public Health Analyst, UCLA

Let us break this bit of hyperbolic bullshittery down, shall we??

1)  "Comparing drinking soda pop to the immediate risk of infection with a sexually transmitted disease on the job trivializes the threat facing porn performers."

Wait...you mean that only porn performers transmit sexually transmitted diseases and then spread them to the general population?? Just like only poor people gulping down Coke and Pepsi spread diabetes to the population at large?? Of course, Weinstein has no problem with the pandemic of obesity or diabetes (and the high content of soft drinks with high fructose corn syrup which does tend to lead to more sugar addiction than usual)...but why even go there in the first place??

And also....most studies show that the threat of STI's in porn is actually a bit less than the threat in the general population, mostly because the industry actually does test for most STI's, and because in general performers are actually more conscious of their private behavior and are willing to make proper safety procedures to protect themselves...and to properly treat themselves on the chance they do get infected. There are actually greater threats of STI transmissions from "down low" public street park encounters by closeted fundamentalists than there are from shooting porn...so why isn't the pro-B crowd going for mandating condoms in public parks or even churches??


2) The current outbreak of syphilis in the porn industry is living proof that having sex in adult films without a condom is a clear and immediate threat to the health of these performers and our community.

Actually, it's more like living proof that AHF and the condom mandate proponents are completely full of shit.

The original syphilis outbreak took place in Budapest, Hungary, last June/July, and at its peak claimed approximately 100 performers in Europe; but really didn't kick in so much in the US until Mr. Marcus revealed his story of contracting the infection in May, and attempting to cloak it away and alter his tests until he was revealed in September. Most of the infected performers have undergone the required treatment and are now back performing, and there have been no reports of infection since last month. Also, when it did cross over to the US, the most that could be found was that the LA County Department of Public Health had confirmed that they had 9 cases of performers whom had contracted syphilis and were being treated. Stangely enough, the Free Speech Coalition had confirmed only TWO infected performers (Mr. Marcus included), and they reported that the other confirmed case was from a condom-only gay performer.

There was a sizeable blowup within the industry about whether or not those who were not infected with syphilis would be forced to endure the penicillin antibiotic treatment, which does indeed pose some minor threats, or whether they would have to face a 60-90 day waiting period before testing using the popular RPR test. However, the FSC and their partners APHSS did discover an alternative test that required only a 14-day waiting period, and offered that as an alternative for those not wanting the antibiotic treatment.

But even with all that, surely Weinstein (or whomever penned that sentence out of their ass) probably are smart enough to Google that syphilis can be spread just as likely through sores in the mouth or face, and that condoms alone would not prevent the spread of that infection. In fact, how does he know that many of the infections in Europe weren't in shoots requiring condoms??

Oh. and there is also this inconvenient fact that syphilis has been able to thrive in the larger population of LA County without the need for porn performers...whether wrapped or not. To quote Michael Whiteacre in a comment to a post at AdultBizLaw.com:

Syphilis cases in California rose 18% from 2010 to 2011, according to new data released by the state Department of Public Health — the adult industry is not the cause of this rise, it is a victim of his massive failure of California’s public health institutions.

Of course, mandating condoms for everyone engaging in sex in real life, rather than just those performing in porn, wouldn't quite do the trick, wouldn't it??


3) It is widely accepted that when you are on the job you are afforded protection that you may or may not choose to exercise in your own home. If you wish to make home repairs without gloves or a hard hat that is your own business. When you get paid to perform a task, workplace health and safety rules apply. Porn is a legal industry. Performers are paid to perform and they are entitled to the same on the job protection that every other person enjoys.

That is one of the few unabashed truths in their "rebuttal"...and even that is twisted around beyond recognition. Of course, plumbers and home repair professionals do have strong workplace protections to deal with occupational hazards, and some of them have detailed procedures for especially hazardous work, such as asbestos-tainted material removal or other forms of hazardous waste. But, the regulations are closely related to and adjusted to the particular hazard they face, and they are crafted with the full input of the workers in mind.

Engaging in sex on screen is indeed performing, and while it is similar to the way that people engage in sex in their bedrooms in private, it is plenty different. When you engage in sex in private, you probably don't have a set of hot lights and a camera/film crew all up in your bra and panties, and a director yelling and screaming to change positions every 5 minutes so that they can get "the perfect shot"; or, if you happen to be the male talent, a director up your jock telling you to stay hard and keep your edge until HE says you can cut loose with your "money shot". No one is saying that there shouldn't be some sembulance of standards of safety when shooting a sex scene, or that there is no justification for health and safety standards.

The problem is, though, that porn, like any other form of creative art form, relies on putting out an enhancement fantasy of real sex...and most porn consumers/watchers have spoken loud and clear that they will NOT buy condomized sex. (Notice I said "most", not "all"; there may be a market for "safer sex" out there, but it is generally restricted.) Merely asserting an audience is out there or can be invented through government fiat simply doesn't make it so.

Besides that. Measure B gives no leeway to even homegrown cam sites or even private owners of home websites the option of not using condoms; it simply MANDATES that they be used: and if you want to even tape a sex scene in LA County, you have to buy a permit which requires you to wear "protection", or face invasive raids from the Condom Police, stiff fines, and even jail time. Plus, those permits won't be cheap, because....well, we'll get to that soon.


4) Measure B makes clear that no public dollars will be spent to enforce condoms in porn. All of the costs will be carried by porn producers. Sex acts in your bedroom are a strictly private matter. When filming is done for money it is a public matter. Why should people or even animals that appear in Hollywood movies be protected and the young people who appear in porn be abused?

 No public dollars??  You mean, the money exercised by the County of Los Angeles from forcing producers of porn to pay for permits, insurance, and the salaries of government officials to inspect them for condoms is not "public dollars"???  Riiiiight..and the excise tax on cigarettes and tobacco isn't public, either?? Well...at least Weinstein didn't call porn producers "pornographers" here...or was that just a slip up??

"When filming is done for money, it is a public matter." But if it is done for free and no condom is used -- or if a condom is used and summarily breaks -- and HIV or some other STI is spread, it's none of our business, right?? Only the "pornographers" and the porn performers should be coerced to become guniea pigs for "safer sex" as a means of "role modeling" the rest of the impressionable public, I guess.

And..."young people who appear in porn be abused.."?? Yeah, because we all know all dem stoopid sluts can't be trusted to think and decide to enter porn for themselves...they must be "sex trafficked" in by those cigar-chomping, trenchcoat-wearing dirty old men with the 70's mustaches who trick them with candy and dreams of Hollywood success if only they'd just lie on that casting couch!!

Paging Shelley Lubben, me thinks??

5) The fact that many porn producers break the law and film without permits is not a good reason to do nothing to protect any performers or our community from disease.

Remember that before the City of Los Angeles passed their version of the condom mandate earlier this year, the only requirement for a permit was that you pay a fee to FilmLA, the board that supervises movie filming in the city. There actually was no requirement for condoms or any other form of protection....until AHF invented them for both the LA city law and Measure B. Also, the LA city law is still subject to legal challenges, pending the outcome of the county ordinance.

And, as for Weinstein and the pro-Measure B's concern for "our community"??  Well that is shown quite starkly in their current billboard campaign, as you can plainly see:

Yep. 

Never mind that they have used and exploited the experiences of "pornographers" like Darren James, Derrick Burts, and Shelley Lubben to promote their ordinance.

Never mind that they actually have gained some support from actual "pornographers" such as Brittany Andrews and Katja Kassin, as well as luminaries in the porn world who have been outspoken critics of both AIM and the FSC (such as Mike South and Gene Ross).

(And oh, by the way...you probably don't want someone like Monica Foster on your side, either.)

And...never mind that everyone from Republicans and Libertarians to even staunch Democrats and liberals have spoken out against this proposal, and that medical experts of all -- and no -- political persuasion(s) have seen the hypocrisy and counterproductiveness of Measure B.

Nope..in their mind, either you are with them, or you're with "the pornographers".

I'll simply let Dr. Chauntelle Tibalis of Porn Valley Vantage get the final word on this, because she says it so well:

Really? The “pornographers” say? That’s the game you’re gonna play, AHF? Reeeeally?

Thank you, AIDS Healthcare Foundation for shaming “pornographers” in this way.

Thank you, AIDS Healthcare Foundation for using donor funds – monies that I’m sure were given to your “own self-created social enterprises” under the auspices of working to “rid the world of AIDS” (quotes from AHF mission statement here) –  to shame “pornographers” in this way.

Because I know that’s what you’re doing!! I know what you’re really saying with this ad is “Eww look at these evil nasty people who say ‘No on B’ – pornographers!! Ewwwwwww!! They’re too gross and awful to know anything about what they know, and you don’t want to be associated with Them, do you?”

How dare you?

How dare you, an organization that claims to want to help so many oft-shamed-throughout-history and continuously marginalized communities, how dare you behave in this manner?

How dare you rely on stereotype, myth, and urban-legend horrors born from decades of speculation and misinformation about “pornographers”? How dare you engage those cultural fictions in such a manipulative manner? How dare you pass judgement on working, tax-paying members of LA County (and the human community as a whole)? How dare you dole out shame-by-proxy to everyone even obliquely associated with porn? How dare you?!!

You know what they say: you can talk shit when you’re perfect (or something like that)… and I’m far from perfect… so guess what I’m doing right now, AHF? Shaming you!! But I’m not gonna pull out stereotypes and slurs to do it. I’m just gonna call attention to the fact that I know what you’re up to.

Shame on you.

In.  FUCKING.  Deed.

Please, citizens of LA County....don't fall for this bullshit.  VOTE NO ON MEASURE B.

Porn Panic 2012: The Syphilis Hits The Fan

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Porn Panic 2012: The UCLA/Talent Testing Services Sexual Health Study: Empirical Research Or An AHF/Cal-OSHA Blindside For The Porn Industry??

Well, now....the Porn Testing Wars just got a new and ultimately interesting twist this weekend. As if the breakdown of the compromise between the Free Speech Coalition/Adult Performer Health and Safety Services and Talent Testing Services wasn't enough of a twist already.

Talent Testing, you will recall, reported last week that they would now back completely out of the compromise that they reached with APHSS, where they would share their test results with the database that APHSS uses to notify performers and producers of porn of their clearance to shoot scenes.  Basically, they cited incompatability with the protocols required by APHSS, including the requirement of a doctor on staff to verify test results and notify performers who are at risk for positive STI infection, as well as the need to maintain their "independence" from production companies such as Manwin, whom had essentially funded and backed the APHSS standards and protocols, and even offered to repatriate some of the costs of testing for performers. Mostly, though, they were opposed to joining APHSS on the concern that the latter group was, to their eyes, only a fundraising shakedown for the Free Speech Coalition, and biased towards a competing testing group, Cutting Edge Testing, that was formed out of the charred ashes of AIM -- the original testing group that was ridden out of LA in 2010 as part of the campaign to impose condoms in porn -- and whom was fully within the APHSS protocols.

Given the timing of all this happening while the Los Angeles County condom mandate is still being prepared for a November vote, one can marvel at the way that the industry is eating itself at precisely the wrong time.

However, a new and intriguing outside source has intervened to further stir things up a bit.

On Saturday, Talent Testing Services announced that they would participate in a sexual health survey hosted by the University of Cailfornia at Los Angeles (UCLA), in which they would offer their clients incentives (such as discounts on testing and free followup care) to participate in the survey. Essentially, any performer participating in the survey would have to sign a waiver giving UCLA the right to use their information (I assume with names removed for privacy protection) from their tests in whatever way they see fit.

That wouldn't be too much of an issue...except for one inconvenient fact: UCLA has also been the home of some of the more strident and openly hostle advocates of the condom mandate.  In particular, UCLA  - though its Reproductive Health Interest Group - has hosted seminars on performer testing and condoms in porn that have degenerated into nothing more than glorified press conferences for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the LA County Department of Public Health, Cal-OSHA, and other groups seeking to impose "barrier protections" in porn. (One such seminar even allowed Shelley Lubben to become the default "repesentative" of porn performers, while totally freezing out active performers who weren't so zealous towards the condom mandate and willing to torch the industry for its supposed mistreatment and "abandonment" of its talent.)

So, the question remains: Why would Talent Testing knowingly ally themselves with an organization which has openly abetted the agenda of AHF and would ultimately seek to undercut the industry??

At his latest post over at Adult Legal Blog, Michael Fattorosi weighs in one factor that may count: $$$$$:

There is a third potential possibility as well. Many people are now starting to understand that information is worth money. Data mining is a big time business in this world. STI testing results are indeed worth money to the United States government as well as corporations developing new drugs for STIs.

[...]

Performers wanting to receive a $40 gift card and free follow up STI medical care can participate in the study. Which essentially means that UCLA will have the right to their test results and medical care to use as part of their study – in essence a performer waives their right of privacy in so much that the information will could be sold. I am sure this information will be sanitized – meaning names will be removed since UCLA probably doesn’t care about a performer’s name or identifying information – rather UCLA cares about the empirical data – how often one tests, how often one catches an STI, the treatment received for such, how long the treatment lasted and how effective the results of the treatment were. That could be a data goldmine for a drug company trying to develop the next anti-biotic to fight any one of the many STIs on the planet.

How much can a group or organization receive for this type of information ? According to the link I posted to the National Institutes of Health’s grant overview information website, there is no limit. However if you want more than $500,000.00 you have to call the NIH directly. Apparently you cannot just email the application for a grant requests at that level.

I am not saying that Talent Testing Services received the grant themselves, however it does appear that UCLA has indeed received grant money for the study of STIs. The performers present a very unique situation in the world when it comes to STI research. I am going to bet that no where else in the United States does a group of people test for and possibly contract STIs as much as performers do in porn. And now that the testing cycle is being pushed to every 14 days, the amount of information is only going to increase and therefore the potential gold mine of data will increase in value as well.

As I tweeted, “there is gold in them thar HIV tests!”

 But as usual, I have a much darker, less pliable motive in play. Remember that UCLA has been all in with the AHF and Cal-OSHA throughout the entire condom mandate, and AHF has had no qualms in using underhanded tactics in using and acquiring performer records (whether it be using lawsuits to force AIM to hand over personal and private medical information, to using LACDPH staff to go to performers' houses with syringes seeking live blood samples, to exploiting both private message boards and underground sites like the original Porn Wikileaks in order to use private performers' medical records for their own cause). There's nothing that says that there wasn't some grease applied by AHF to get UCLA their grant for this study, and nothing says that the information gathered by this study won't be used by AHF as campaign fodder for their condom mandate ordinance. Or worse, that the information couldn't be conveniently be "sold" to AHF for use as blackmailing performers into compliance, or even recruiting them unwittingly in service to their potential "condom police".

It probably has also crossed Talent Testing's mind, too, that collusion with AHF/UCLA/Cal-OSHA, combined with busting the Manwin/APHSS/FSC/Cutting Edge Testing trust could gain them some serious credibility later on if the condom mandate ultimately passes and withstands court challenges. Clearing out a competitor AND getting paid...not a bad concept.

Now, all of this is simply conjecture on my part...for all I know, Talent Testing is simply taking advantage of an opportunity to contribute to a badly needed assessment of performer testing and STD study. But, considering the timing of all this, at the very least some answers are in order as to why they would do this at this time, rather than at least wait until after the condom mandate issue is resolved.

And, Shy Love and all those agents who are so exercised at defending Talent Testing's right of "independence" should take a step back and ask these same questions.

Porn Panic 2012: Primer On Facts Rather Than Hype: Ernest Greene Redux (2009 "Scare") -- Part Deux

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