The Panic Rolls On: AB 332 Clears Another California Assembly Committee

Seems like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has mastered the art of legislative wheel greasing. Two committees down, and their statewide condom mandate bill, AB 332, is thus far cruising.

The latest yesterday, from XBiz.com:

The state Legislature's Labor and Employment committee approved Assembly Bill 332 this afternoon at a hearing at the state Capitol.
After more than a half an hour of testimony, the bill went on to a vote where it stalled and was put "on call" because there weren't enough votes cast.  By 5 p.m. today, the committee had all the votes needed to move the piece of legislation forward. It moved on with a 5-0 vote.

[The official vote was 5-1, with 1 abstension.]

The bill will now move to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for consideration. With approval, AB 322 then would be voted on by the full Assembly. Pending approval by the full Assembly, the bill will be referred to the Senate and go through a similar policy and fiscal review process. If passed, AB 332 would be effective Jan. 1, 2015.

The Labor and Employment committee is comprised of Assembly members  Roger Hernandez, Mike Morrell, Jimmy Gomez, Chris Holden, Luis Alejo and Ed Chau.

Alejo and Chau were not present at the initial hearing, but voted for the bill before the meeting adjourned. 
  
AB 332 essentially mimics Measure B, which requires condom use for porn shoots in Los Angeles County; but differs crucially by making it a statewide mandate.

There was a gaggle of porn performers at the committee hearing to make their cases.  Two former performers, Hayden Winters and Jesse Rogers, did testify in favor of AB 332, invoking their experiences with STI's; but the overwhelming majority of performers who attended came out strongly in opposition to the bill as a violation of their civil liberties and a destruction of the industry testing system that had been in place for the past 20 years. 

One of the most powerful testimonials against the bill, though, came from former performer Lydia Lee (fka Julie Meadows), who has become one of the principal and most eloquent advocates in opposition to the condom mandate. Here's a special bit of snippage from her statement to the committee:

“Frankly one of the most frustrating things about this bill is that everyone wants to speak for women in the adult film industry,” Lee said. “Two weeks ago the author of this bill made an impassioned speech in committee stating that the Legislature needs to protect the women in the industry who cannot protect themselves. And I am quite frankly tired of being compared to an animal in a mainstream movie. I am an adult and I can consent, and let me be clear: no one in this industry is forced to work in this industry.”

There was some initial confusion on the first vote, which was 3-0, one vote shy of what was needed for passage; prompting reports that the bill had been tabled. However, it turned out that it had simply been put on hold (or "on call") so that the abstending members could be cajoled with AHF money to support the bill...and in the end, 2 members ultimately voted for AB 332 to pass, clearing its approval.

So now, it's one more committee, the Appropriations Committee, before Isadore Reed and Mike Weinstein get to play around with the entire California State Assembly. Considering the Democratic supermajority there, it's going to take far more than the regular "Stop evil government intervention" arguments to prevent this bill from passing and ultimately devastating the Cali porn industry. If there was ever a time for the Free Speech Coalition to earn the money that they are constantly and regularly begging for, it is now.

And if there was ever a time for performers, producers, and fans alike to get off the keisters, the bitTorrents, and the tube sites and actually stand up for performers rights and their own right to see safe bareback porn...well, you know the drill. Unless, of course, you like 24/7 PPE fetish porn and softcore...because that's what you are going to get ultimately if this bill becomes law. And..it won't just be a California thing, either...this is meant to be pushed nationwide.

On AB 332, Courage Vests, And The Potential Growth Of Haz-Mat/PPE Fetish Porn

If it wasn't so serious to threaten a legal industry, it would be hilarious.

Last week, the California Assembly's Labor and Employment Committee debated and ultimately sent to the full Assembly AB 332, the attempt to extend the reach of the mandate for porn performers to wear condoms and other forms of "barrier protections" against STI's to the whole state, rather than just the city of Los Angeles (via statue) or jurisdictions of Los Angeles County (thanks to Measure B).

The discussion was pretty intense, with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation represented not only by bill sponsor Isadore Hall, but also by representatives from AHF who testified for the bill; while on the other side, porn performers, producers, and the Free Speech Coalition making the case that the mandate was overbroad, overreaching, and counterproductive to protecting performers.

In the end, though, the bill was sent to the full Assembly on a 5-1 vote, punctuated by a, shall we say, passionate closing speech by Assemblyman Hall in which he channeled all his verbal skills -- accented by probably the ever fattening wallet from AHF contributions -- to motivate the committee to "put on their courage vests" and move this bill on.

That's right, Clones, you heard it correct:  "courage vests".

Because, as you know, it takes genuine courage for an esteemed person like Isadore Hall to pocket all that AHF money to become their new shill and promoter for subsidized condom ad placement on free porn stes....not to mention all the kickbacks he'll be getting for securing AHF's gravy train of NGO funding.

And, what tremendous sac it takes for Mr. Hall to get out in front of the most important issue of our time, especially when "lesser" issues like the continuing HIV/STI pandemic in the broader African American and Latino community can be pushed aside and dismissed for the glory of forcing adult performers to wrap up. Because, as you well know, young impressionable folk only learn about proper sex education and harm prevention from watching porn, not from outreach from medical professionals or proper sex education in schools. Forcing 25-30 year old adult performers to wear rubbers is far more important here than actually distributing condoms and other protective propylactics to the broader public..or, even better, actually seeking cures or vaccines that could potentially prevent STI's from spreading. But, that wouldn't be quite as good for the business of imposing morality, now wouldn't it??

But, maybe this isn't just about exploiting a moral sex panic to destroy a legal industry, or simply special interest groups getting paid off the forced labor of others. Maybe there is something more primal going on with this push for infantilizing porn performers.

Like, you know....Haz-Mat porn fetishes??

Work with me on this one...how do we know that the real reason why Mike Weinstein and his crew are so obsessed with this legislation isn't that they all have secret fetishes for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?? I mean, there are fetishes much more freakier than nutting off on those green aprons, goggles, and face shields, but what's to say that Hall, Weinstein, and company are actually sexual visionaries sensing a potential new and hawt sexual subgenre to mine for instant cash? I can see it now: the instantaneous signage of AB 332 into law combined with the release of the first "safe sex" classic epic, Fifty Shades of Green: Love In The HazMat Room. 

 But, all sarcastic smack aside, folks....the fact remains that AB 322 is a false solution in search of a misplaced problem, and it's passage will not only drive a legal industry underground and threaten the health of actual people; it will also codify an ill-place assumption that scapegoating a minority of performers will somehow help the majority. And, you don't need a "courage vest" to understand that.


See also Lydia Lee's (fka Julie Meadows') outstanding post here, and Mark Kernes' post at AVN here.

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.

Euro Porn Ban Update: Cooler, Smarter Heads Prevail; Porn Ban Language Striken Down....For Now

Well, maybe the European Parliament might not be so bad after all.

Here's the breaking story from C|Net:

Today, 625 members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report aimed at stamping out gender stereotypes in the region, with 98 abstaining. However, the controversial "porn ban" section of the proposal was rejected.

This vote forms a majority opinion based on Europe's voting politicians, from which the European Commission can form legislation. Such a law would again be voted upon, and become legally binding in the 27 member state bloc of the EU.

Because the opinion of the Parliament has now been made, it will be extraordinarily difficult for the Commission to draw up similar porn-blocking legislation only to pass it back to the Parliament for another vote.

Unfortunately, while the attempt to directly ban porn was defeated, there still remains some controversy over the interpretation of what was passed, and how it could potentially spawn future attempts at censorship of sexual media. Again, quoting C|Net:

These porn-blocking proposals, initially introduced by Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Socialist Party Kartika Tamara Liotard, were buried within a report titled "Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU," which was first submitted to the Parliament in early December. The report no doubt had positive intentions as a bid to close the gender inequality gap in the region by developing awareness and effective measures to reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes in education, employment, and the media.

However, controversy quickly stirred because the report included such wide-ranging and ill-defined measures as calling on the European Union to reaffirm its position on an earlier resolution for a "ban on all forms of pornography in the media," as well as giving Internet service providers "policing rights" over their subscribers.

Amendments to the report removed certain explanatory text, but not the references to the previous resolution that was passed by the Parliament, which called for a blanket ban on pornography in the region in 1997.

While the explanation was removed, the effect was not, according to Swedish MEP for the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge.

He explained that a "split vote" was called on to delete the sentence -- "which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media" -- but in spite of this, the 1997 resolution remains referenced, and therefore the call to ban "all forms of pornography in the media" remains intact.

Falkvinge said that striking out this text "has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report."

But to make matters worse, when a handful of MEPs called on their citizens to e-mail their representatives in protest, the parliament's own IT department began to block these e-mails en masse from arriving in politicians' inboxes.

Pirate Party member Christian Engström, who first brought the news to light, called the move an "absolute disgrace", and said that he would complain to the Parliament's president about this "totally undemocratic practice."

The irony was that the method used to block the opposing emails was to label the phrase "gender stereotypes" as spam....on International Women's Day. In a proposal supposedly geared to attacking "gender stereotypes".

It'll be pretty interesting to see the response from folk like Gail Dines on this one. She's not known to take rejection too kindly.

The rest of Europe, at least for now, can freely exhale a sigh of relief.

Because Nothing Cures Economic Failure Quite Like....Banning Porn?!?!? The European Parliament's Grand Folly

It is usually typical that governments who have failed to serve their people with adequate polices will turn to scapegoat campaigns designed to target some group of people or some speech that the majority of citizens might find objectionable. That particular group of mode of speech might be harmful in some contexts, but totally neutral in most...but, nevertheless, the few and limited harmful effects are greatly exaggerated by the new commisars to push for censorship of the entirity of that speech or expression. All of this, of course, done for the protection of the defenseless "victims" of such speech, who need such "protection" because apparently they are incapable of speaking for themselves and need the full force of the State to enforce their stated will.

Except, of course, that it turns out that the "stated will" doesn't represent the actual beliefs of the public, but rather the expressed drive of an interest group who is more motivated with imposing their vendettas and personal myopias on everyone else...and getting themselves paid and power in the process.

It is not too surprising that adult explicit sexual media (aka "pornography") has been a standard scapegoat for governments and special interest groups alike who want to exploit confusion, shame, and self-loathing about sex to invoke socially reactionary policies. Usually, it's been the traditional forces of the Right -- religious conservatives -- who have been the most vocal and strident in calling for wiping out sexual speech and expression that they see as a threat to God/Allah/Yawheh, Country, Tradition, Family, Property, Capitalism, and all other shibboleths of "family values". They haven't gone away by any means, but now it seems that there is a similar breed of antisex censorship and sexual fascism building...but this time it comes from the putative "Left": from certain elements of the more radical fringes of the feminist movement, which have now apparently infused their ideology onto the dominant Left parties in Europe.

Most people by now know about the proposals now being enacted in Iceland, where a left-of-center majority party is attempting to impose extreme limits, if not outright bans, on the availability of adult explicit sexual media in that country. Most of you have also heard of the collorary group of laws known as the "Nordic Model" or "Swedish Model", which attempts to regulate sex work out of existence by targeting the (mostly male) clients and managers (aka, the "johns" and the "pimps") for punishment. All this comes from the same school of radical feminism that was founded by the likes of Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Kathleen Barry, Shelia Jefferys, and Catherine MacKinnon during the 1980's; and is now being further enhaced by the activism of folk like Chyng Sun, Robert Jensen, and (especially) Gail Dines today.

And this week, they got a fundamental boost, through a proposal put forth to the European Parliament that would basically expand what is now being proposed in Iceland to the entire breadth of Europe.

It would do so under the guise of not only "protecting" women from what they see as the deliberate harms of porn, but also raising the notion that the very existence of porn (especially the "violent" and "degrading" kind) in and of itself is a "violation of the human rights" of women.

The proclamations are part of a much larger proposal which seeks to undermine and eliminate "gender stereotypes" in the workplace and generally increase the number and strength of women in European society. Most of the proposals are simple common sense goals that no progressive person would object to, such as comparable pay, paid sick leave, and increasing the number of women in more powerful economic and political entities. The problem is, though, that through their radicalfeminist ideology, the creators of this proposal decided to stick in some of the most corrosive attacks on free expression via these initatives:

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism(10);

18. Calls on the EU to conduct research into the links between child pornography and adult pornography and the impacts on girls, women, boys and men, as well as the relationship between pornography and sexual violence;

19. Calls on the Member States to establish independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls;

20. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in combating the sexualisation of girls not only by compiling the necessary data, promoting good practices and organising information campaigns, but also by providing financial support for measures taken in the Member States, in particular for women’s organisations fighting against sexualisation and violence against women and girls;

In other words, straight out of the Gail Dines/Melissa Farley hymnal. And...straight out of the Old Testament of St. Andrea and Mother Catherine.

You may also notice that this proposal was also propsed back in 1997, but strong opposition from civil liberties groups did manage to dampen support enough to kill it back then.

And, it appears, opposition is mounting to this latest proposal now as well. One such MEP, Christian Engstrom of PiratPartiet (the Pirate Party), today posted at his own blog his reasons for opposing this initiative. He emphasizes that while he supports the concern of gender stereotyping and favors strengthing the power of women, this latest proposal sets a dangerous precedent for civil liberties and for privacy protections, especially regarding the Internet:

Magazines and cable television would presumably be considered to be ”media” by most people, but what about the internet? Without any definition of ”media” in either of the two resolutions, the answer is not obvious from reading just those two articles, at least not to me.

But the resolution we will be voting on next week has other things to say about the internet. Article 14 reads (again with my highlighting):

14. Points out that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field; considers that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a genuine culture of equality on the internet; calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter to which all internet operators will be invited to adhere;

This is quite clearly yet another attempt to get the internet service providers to start policing what citizens do on the internet, not by legislation, but by ”self-regulation”. This is something we have seen before in a number of different proposals, and which is one of the big threats against information freedom in our society.

The digital rights organisation EDRI has produced a booklet called The slide from ”self-regulation” to corporate censorship, where they point out that:

…now, increasing coercion of internet intermediaries to police and punish their own consumers is being implemented under the flag of “self-regulation” even though it is not regulation – it is policing – and it is not “self-” because it is their consumers and not themselves that are being policed.

In the battle against the ACTA treaty, the fact that ACTA contained similar ”self-regulation” proposals to get internet service providers to start policing their customers was one of the reasons why the European Parliament rejected the treaty in the end.

Many members of the parliament (including me) felt and feel that this kind of ”self-regulation” is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the article on information freedom in the European Convention on Human rights, which says that everyone has the right to receive and impart information without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers, and that any restrictions to this right have to be prescribed by law and be necessary in a democratic society.

Next week’s resolution is a so-called ”own initiative report” by the parliament. This means that it does not automatically become law even if it is adopted, but is just a way for the European parliament to express its opinion.

But the purpose of these own initiative reports is to serve as the basis for the Commission when it decides to present legislative proposals to the parliament. If this own initiative report is adopted by the parliament, it will strengthen the Commission’s position if and when it wants to propose various ”self-regulation” schemes in the future.

Although I completely agree that eliminating outdated gender stereotypes in the EU is a worthwhile goal, I will be voting against this resolution next week.

 Of course, the proposed censorship regulations now under consideration in Iceland, which the proponents of this initiative would love to impose on all of Europe, hardly reflect the desire of "self regulation"; they exist to use the power of the state to force ISP's to filter out sexual content that would violate extreme radfem principles of 'proper" portrayals of sex involving women. And, those standards could be used just as easily against any kind of sexual speech or expression that some radfem deems to be "degrading" or "promoting violence" or otherwise "enhancing gender stereotypes".

 And when I say "any kind", I mean ANY KIND....even the type of "feminist porn" produced by the likes of Candida Royalle, Ms. Naughty, Tristian Taormino, or Cindy Gallop which actually challenges the traditional genres of male-oriented porn; or even gay male porn (which, in case you don't know, contain NO women to abuse or degrade).

One of the most interesting ironies is that the week that this initiative came to light, there was also news that the principal trade organization for supporting the British adult sexual media industry, AITA (Adult Industry Trade Association), announced that they were shutting their doors for good come March 31 due to lack of financial support. It is possible that a group like the Free Speech Coalition here in the US could ultimately fill in the gap and provide needed support for European porn performers and producers...but until that happens, the situation will remain in total flux.

The best reaction to this madness I could find at this time comes from sex worker activist Amanda Hess, who also blogs for the sex worker collective Bound, Not Gagged, who wrote this editorial for Slate today. Her comments bear special witness, especially given the tedencies of radfems to silence and make invisible the voices of women who actually do porn for a living and don't feel like they need such "protection" from their own desires and actions.

The belief that pornography, as a genre, discriminates specifically against women is one still favored by leading anti-pornography activists like Gail Dines, Shelley Lubben, and Catharine MacKinnon. In an interview for the MAKERS series, MacKinnon reiterated her view that “exposure to [porn] makes life more dangerous to women” and “promotes a range of atrocities and violence” against them. When we find gender disparities in other sectors—from literary journalism to tech—we urge industry leaders to assess the problem and encourage women to lean in. But when it comes to porn, the impulse is to just shut the whole thing down.

That’s unfortunate, because it reinforces the expectation that women can only ever be innocent bystanders to sexual material, never producers or consumers in their own right (banning all porn would mean negating the contributions of proudly feminist pornographers like Tristan Taormino, Nina Hartley, and Cindy Gallop). It glides over the experiences of female porn viewers (who have leveraged the Internet to find and distribute porn that appeals to them, even when it’s not marketed that way). It totally ignores the men who are "sexualized" in porn (if pornography discriminates against women, can we all keep watching gay porn?). And it curtails discussion about the challenges faced by some men in the industry (like Derrick Burts, who contracted HIV in 2010, and Erik Rhodes, who died from a heart attack at 30 after heavy steroid use).

Enforcing a government ban on pornography won’t actually rid the world of smut (and the proposal, which has been raised before, is unlikely to lead to a legitimately enforceable ban). But the effort does make it a lot harder to talk about porn honestly, and to advocate for better representation of women in the industry. In a misguided effort to advocate for women, these activists are negating the sexuality of women, gay men, and all the straight guys who’d like to see more diversity in the porn they’re watching, too.

And you thought that the condom mandate was the worst that could happen.

"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.

The "Argument" That May Have Sealed The Deal For Measure B: Amanda Marcotte Representing The Paternalistic Feminist "Left"

There may be a lot of people still flummoxed about how Measure B was able to slide through Los Angeles County so easily, in spite of the obvious shortcomings of the proposal and the strong opposition from active porn performers.

As I posted last night, the overwhelming weight of AHF's money chest and their ability to buy useful boosters like Darren James and Derrick Burts were probably the chief factor...but one element that hasn't been covered is the appeal they made to be the universal "saviors" and "protectors" of the wayward porn girls against the evil, bad "capitalist" money grabbing "pornographers" who care more about their dicks and their money than girls catching sexually transmitted infections.

Also, there was the notion that the proponents for mandating condoms in porn were simply standing up for the functional liberal right of government to intervene with adequate regulation to tame a unruly and wild industry that eats women for lunch and spits them out "diseased" and rejected...just like the "sex traffickers" whom were similarly targetted by the statewide Proposition 35, which also passed last night. Those who oppose them are simply evil right-wing "libertarians" who want to privatize everything just to cover their "male privilege" of drowning women in tainted spooge. (Of course, the few women who defend noncondomized porn are simply dismissed as paid shills of the Capitalist Porn Conspiracy, or simply selfish, stupid elitist sluts who put their own pleasure above the "suffering" of real victims.

Now, if you think that this sounds exactly like the rhetoric of extreme antiporn/anti-sexwork "feminist" activists like Gail Dines, Shelley Lubben, and Shelia Jefferys, then you would be correct...but only to a point. There is a segment of slightly less virulent liberal/"progressive" feminism that doesn't go nearly as far as Dines in demonizing sexuality as inherently the will of The MAN, yet nevertheless goes pretty damn far in the paternalistic and restrictive view that it is perfectly fine and liberal to deny sex workers and porn performers their right to a choice of protecting themselves in the name of "safety" and "just regulation".

One such paternalist feminist is Amanda Marcotte, the renowned feminist liberal writer long associated with the blog Pandagon, and most recently a regular columnist for the pro-reproductive rights group RH Reality Check. Marcotte fashions herself to be a progressive "pro-sex" feminist who just loves to bash men -- particularly, the conservative kind -- for their convenient conspiracies to hold women down and repress their sexuality. And yet, she is also just as capable of occasionally going Andrea Dworkin on how men use pornography and sex work as an additional means of depraving women. And, she can be absolutely vicious in demonizing women who don't meet her exacting "sex-positive" standards, as her dissing of large and artificially enhanced breasted women shows. (Marcotte has also been zinged by plenty of feminists of color for her ceaseless appropriation -- some would call it outright theft -- of their struggles in order to maintain her "progressive" credentials...the 2002 "burqa" controversy with compatriot Jessica Valenti being another example.)

Anyways....Amanda decided to intervene herself into the Condoms In Porn debate with an essay for Pandagon (now integrated into the Raw Story site network) published in January of this year.  Titled "Wah!", it pretends to debunk all of the arguments against mandating condoms in porn, and it utilizes pretty much all of the same talking points that Measure B proponents have appropriated during their campaign. I will present the essay in its entirity, for the purpose of breaking it down point by point. If this was the argument that sealed the passage of Measure B in LA County, then I'd say that we who oppose it should comprehend it better, so that we can debunk such nonsense when the next Measure B comes forth....as it inevitably will.

So, L.A. is once again looking at the question of whether or not to require condom use in porn filmed in the city. This was a question I was initially agnostic on, figuring that it was probably a complex argument and I should give both sides a listen before deciding. In taking that approach, I have discovered that the anti-condom arguments are some of the most piss-poor, illogical arguments I’ve ever seen. I was forced by the badness of these arguments to agree that mandating condom use is clearly the path, since it’s the only side that actually bothered to make an argument that wasn’t smoke and mirrors. Let’s take a look at each argument from the anti-condom side and see why they’re just so terrible:

Riiight,  Amanda....like every other ideologue, you approach the condom debate from the "open-minded", "both sides deserve a listen" approach...then proceed to demonize one side for the expressed purpose of boosting the condom mandate as the only solution. How progressive of you, though, to be so "open minded" and "liberal"...because just like you dismiss well endowed women and those who choose to artificially enhance their bosoms as mere tools of dirty men and their sexual deviancies, it's so easy for you to dismiss porn performers who have the gall to think that they are capable of protecting themselves without your trusted assistance.

But, I get ahead of myself...let's actually go over Marcotte's points, shall we??

1) It’ll cut into porn profits. This is really the only argument that the porn industry—like any industry fighting against labor protections—cares about. Everything else is hand-waving (though I will address it, because the hand-waving has sucked in many liberals, mostly men, for reasons that should be as obvious as they are embarrassing). This is a value judgment argument. The question is whether you value the health and safety of the porn actors more than the ability to move units of the producers. I tend to side with people over profits, and have yet to hear a conservative make a compelling argument for why they value profits over people. 

This, of course, is straight out of Gail Dines' "Capitalist Male Porn Conspiracy" Red Book...because porn to Amanda is simply the XXX extension of evil chattel/corporate slavery which reduces women to sub-minimum wage automatons and sperm deposits and "cumdumpsters". The only difference is that Marcotte wouldn't completely censor and blow away porn the way Shelley Lubben would love to; she would only "reform" it through the condom mandate to "liberate" women from such corporate "slavery". Of course, anyone who differs with her is simply a dangerous neocon anarchocapitalist who puts "porn profits" (and the alleged effects of "degradation of women") before the genuine progressive principle of protecting the "people" from the dire threat of STI's and HIV. After all, we wouldn't want to take away the "nice" highbrow condomized erotica that gets Amanda off, now would we??

Also...the implied depiction of porn consumers as mostly down-low right-wing men who simply hate on "independently sexual women" (or lefty porn-addicted men who just pretend to be feminist just to get them some free superior feminist pussy) kind of ignores the essential fact that plenty of porn consumers happen to be WOMEN, that not a few producers of porn are WOMEN, and that the overwhelming majority of women in porn just so happen to pursue their craft and protect themselves adequately enough to the point that they simply don't need condoms forced down their throat. Or, they already use condoms as one option in many to protect theselves. Surely, a professed liberal like Marcotte would actually be willing to listen to and respect actual professional porn performers who know their bodies and their jobs and are more than capable of controlling their own bodies for themselves, right??

I mean, if Sandra Fluke shouldn't be castigated by Rush Limbaugh as a "slut" for fighting for her right to have her insurance pay for her birth control, then why should Amber Lynn be castigated for defending her right to decide what goes in her vagina?? Besides, Amber Lynn is closer to Amanda Marcotte politically than Sandra Fluke, anyway.

Finally, since porn in California is a legal industry, they have as much of a right to pursue profits off their creative talent as Hollywood movies, TV, and sports teams do. I don't see Amanda hating on MMA athletes for the lack of headgear or movie stuntmen for the lack of "protection" when they risk life and limb performing stunts...or calling on them to be forced to sacrifice their livelihoods for the sake of "protecting" them from career- and even life-threatening injuries. There is already a movement for doing away with the profit motive...I believe it's known as "socialism". Since you are not a socialist, Amanda, you probably aren't qualified to run any smack about the evil of profits. Oh, and don't you make royalties from your many books??

2) The customers want this. This is the male entitlement argument. (Yes, I know women watch porn, but the porn industry that we’re talking about has a male customer in mind.) I know this will get me lambasted as some sort of man-hater, but I do think that men really aren’t entitled to any form of gratification they want, regardless of who they hurt. No one is. The law already recognizes this when it comes to porn. There’s a lot of customer demand for stuff that’s illegal or at least should be: high school girls, little kids, actual rapes instead of fake ones, serious injuries or even death inflicted on women, pictures where the subject explicitly did not give consent. There probably are some customers who will be sorely disappointed to see visible evidence of safety precautions on screen, but I’m honestly skeptical that they’re going to be so angry they just decide to boycott jerking off to porn. I remain strongly unconvinced that seeing a little latex in a porn is a greater tragedy than contracting HIV on a porn set. 

Here again, Marcotte plays chicken with the Dines/Dworkin argument of men as perpetual sexual predator and mainstream unwrapped porn as their rape/pedophilia/necrophilia template, without having the integrity to actually cross the line and openly back antiporn ideology because HER most favored "erotica" (the beautiful, "feminist" condomized type) would be taken in the crossfire. She ignores the fact that the "customer demand" for the really bad stuff is sorta tempered by the fact that child porn, necrophilia, "snuff" porn, and actual filming of real rape are actually ILLEGAL, while consensual adult porn depicting adults performing consensual acts of unwrapped sex is still, for now, legal and protected.

As for Amanda's notion that porn consumers will get used to condomized porn ultimately....well, the evidence of what happened to porn production companies who tried going condom only after the initial HIV scare in 2004 proves otherwise. And, considering the abundance of bareback hetero porn that is now stored in millions of porn consumers' 3 terabyte hard drives, and the resulting underground trade that would immediately prosper and flourish through Bit Torrents and message boards once bareback porn production ceases, I figure that there will be no shortage of unwrapped dick available for those who still insist on it.

What will change, though, is that performers themselves will be forced to make the decision to: (1) either accept wrapping up and face the risk of either friction damage to their vaginas and anuses or allergic reactions to latex, or the real risk of condom breakage and inadvertant STI's because the testing and screening regime that had done so well to pAnrotect them will be totally eliminated and replaced with "Just shut up and take the condom, bitch, and trust us that your partner is clean";  (2) take their chances underground with fewer protections and greater chance of getting into really abusive and exploitative situations; or (3) simply leave porn and find some "rescuer" sugar daddy or mama to replace the income they have lost from not being able to shoot porn vids.

Now, I guess that Amanda figures that there will still be a market for wrapped porn as well, and there are some companies who still are condom only that do make a decent profit (Wicked, VIVID, Kink.com).But, those are still niche markets of specific subgroups of porn consumers that specifically ask for such content; simply inventing a forced market of condomized porn by criminalizing bareback will work just as well as tearing down freeways in order to force automobile drivers to switch to mass transit. Which is to say, it won't.

Amanda might also want to be reminded that the guy she references in the last link of that graph who represents the supposed threat of rampant HIV infection (namely, Derrick Burts) was not only not so responsible in his personal life (see Rentboy.com), but actually admitted that he was originally infected in a gay male porn shoot in Florida. A condom only gay male porn shoot in Florida, that is.

3) They’re just going to take porn shoots elsewhere. Really, liberals? This is the best you can do? This is actually a standard argument business always makes against labor protections. This threat has various degrees of seriousness to it, but even in serious cases, it’s an empty argument. It basically deprives the government of the right to protect people within their jurisdiction because they don’t have the right to do so in other jurisdictions. Governments should have a right to say, “This behavior is so wrong that while we can’t ban it everywhere, we can ban it here.” Often, once one jurisdiction does it, others soon folllow, especially with regards to safety regulations. Plus, I’m a little skeptical of the notion that the entire porn industry in L.A. will decamp to another location. They aren’t in L.A. just by accident, you know. The one thing the porn industry needs—more than latex-free dicks, even—is a steady supply of young people who don’t have a lot of money but put a lot of effort into their looks. The steady stream of people who come to L.A. to make it and then don’t is a gold mine for the porn industry. You’re not going to find that in Minneapolis. It helps if they can be convinced that doing porn could be the entryway into a career they want. The porn industry grasps this, which is why they take any porn actress who has a bit part in any Hollywood movie and trumpets the hell out of it, to keep the crossover dream alive. You’re just not going to have that in any other city. Look, the porn industry isn’t fighting this tooth and nail because they have a lot of options. They know that L.A. has them over a barrel on this, which is why they’re fighting so hard.

And here is where Amanda shows her ignorance about how prospective porn girls actually get contacts and connections to get in the industry. I really hate to break it to you, Ms. Marcotte, but porn is no longer centered on Hollywood rejects.  Actually, it wasn't even centered in Hollywood/San Fernando Valley during its "golden" days....New York and San Francisco were the hot spots for producing porn during the 1980's and 1990s, before the HIV crisis and the "Clean Up Downtown" crusades bit into their profits, and the development of the VHS tape drove producers down to Hollywood to take advantage of the excess of technical editing knowhow. Of course, Hollywood has its share of casting couches where young ingenues are broken in on the tried and honored principle of "It's not who you know; it's who you blow"; porn simply made them the center of attraction rather than the means to an end.

Alas, even that has now become diversified as the Internet, mobile phone, personal computer equipped with built-in webcam, and super duper fast wireless Internet has enable average folk to bust through the Porn Valley monopoly and create new avenues and venues for porn production. It's no longer San Fernando and Glendale that monopolizes porn production; it's also Phoenix, South Florida; Las Vegas, London, Budapest,Berlin, Moscow, Beijing.  Hell, even Frisco is beginning to make somewhat of a comeback as a center of porn production.

Moreover, thanks to that same technology, any guy with a working 4G phone and access to his friendly paid website/tube site can download within seconds nice videotape of himself and his girl (or his girl only) banging other hot guys and girls. (Did I say "guy"?? Wait, I mean "guy and gal"!!) And, since that can be done within the privacy of home, where US Constitutional protections like the First Amendment  do apply, the ability of government to intervene and control such matters is somewhat limited. Only a fascist or Maoist government would go through the trouble of jailing THOUSANDS of people for the "crime" of sexing without a condom...which is probably why the defenders of Measure B would prefer first using porn performers in LA as a test run for a national tour.

In addition, thanks to social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, prospective porn performers do not even need to hop planes to Hollywood (either CA or FL) in order to audition to do porn shoots. Sending their PornTube vids to prospective agents will suffice quite well...and it's cheaper than the plane ride.

Remember, Clones, private businesses can be regulated only if they are incorporated. If they are not, it gets a tad harder for any serious liberal to say that government meddling in intimate personal affairs is justified merely by a "threat" of harm. It is up to the person favoring the meddling to prove that the harm actually exists, and that it is bad enough to justify the meddling.

And besides, the real reason why the LA porn industry is fearing Measure B and fighting it tooth and nail isn't because they don't have options elsewhere (though those options do carry expenses and other risks that can cut into their bottom line). They are fighting this law for the same reason decent liberals like Amanda Marcotte fight against the "three strikes" law or pro-mass transit agencies fight against highway funding that gives preference to freeways and automobiles: to protect themselves and their livelihoods against being scapegoated against crimes that they are not necessarily responsible for. It's not only the principal of the matter, it's also the principle of protecting legal free speech.

I need not add the fact that the LA porn industry are made up of flesh and blood PEOPLE, right??

That would be the SECOND most batty justification for the condom mandate, in Amanda's mind. Here comes the winner:

4) Freedom of speech. I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t really think that freedom of speech covers the right to avoid safety precautions for workers. Regular Hollywood has to follow labor laws with regards to their actors, and they have to deal with unions, to boot. The porn industry is exploiting the fact that the world doesn’t care very much about the people that work for them, and I’m glad that L.A. is stepping in and saying porn actors deserve the same kind of labor protections that we extend to other professions.

First off, no one who opposes Measure B has ever said that they oppose voluntary condom usage as one of many means for protection...so that blows up the "they just wanna ban condoms!!!" excuse right out of the water.

Secondly....if Marcotte was really serious about extending "the same kind of labor protections" to porn that are taken for granted by less stigmatized unionized workers, she would be supporting an explicit porn workers' union pushing for increased rates, better and more hospitable venues for shoots, royalties and residuals for performers who see their videos reused again and again without a cent of profit sharing, and especially health insurance to cover the off periods should a performer do get sick from an STI or anything else.

Third...it takes real ovaries for a woman who readily dismisses and disses the actual experiences and concerns of real live porn performers whom have lined up against Measure B and the condom mandate to even think of running smack about how "the porn industry is exploiting the fact that the world doesn't care about the people who work or them". It's really quite obvious that YOU really do care about them, right, Amanda??

5) It’s supposed to be a fantasy! Amanda Hess got a pretty standard version of this in her recent piece on the controversy:

“We’re selling a fantasy,” says Lisa Ann, 39, who enjoyed her own mainstream moment when she was cast as a Sarah Palin-type in Hustler’s spoof of the 2008 elections. “It would be great to teach young people to put a condom on during sex,” she says, but she’s not sure how much the porn industry should be responsible for educating teenagers.

This is a bad argument for two reasons. The most important is that it’s a strawman. The regulations aren’t being written in order to “teach” condom  use to teenagers. They’re protection for the actors on-set, to keep them from contracting STDs and especially HIV. But it’s also bullshit by its own measure. Porn producers are trying to have it both ways. Their main marketing strategy is that they aren’t fantasy, but are real. The sex is real, and they have frequent close-ups and particular emphasis on ejaculation being caught onscreen in order to make it clear that this is real and not a fantasy. Comparing this to explosions and car chases in real Hollywood movies is missing the point; everyone knows that the car chases and explosions are special effects. The whole point of porn is to say, “This is not a special effect, but actual people having actual sex.” The reason people choose porn videos over drawings or fictional sex scenes is the realness of it.

Ahhh...nu-huh. No. No, no, no. Fucking HELL TO THE NO.

First...let us dispatch this "Porn sex is intended to be REAL sex!!!" meme before it metasizes into something really gross. Porn sex is real to the extent that it depicts real people engaging in sex. But, that doesn't necessarily make it completely "real" in that it depicts sexual acts people would normally do. Rather, porn, like most art forms, is an extension of, an exaggeration of, real sex as experienced by its viewers. 

That is....the performer who engages in professional sex scenes is an exaggerated vision, a fantasy extension, of the ideal of what an ordinary person wishes he had: the viewer who doesn't have the sexual chops of the performer or the ability to perform the positions or the stamina to endure 2 or 3 30-minute to an hour long scenes a day, where the guy has to maintain an erection in the midst of hot lights, a screaming director cutting in and changing positions, and a loud film crew overseeing every stroke and poke and suck and lick. (And, he has to look authentic even if he's not up do it, pun not intended.) It's no picnic for the girl, either, because she may have to block out other issues on her mind and focus on looking like the guy or gal boinking her is giving her the time of her life, and that the resulting orgasms are absolutely THE BEST EVER. ..And let's not also forget all this has to be done within a certain time period for editing and printing and distribution, or no one gets paid.

True, there is related advertising that takes advantage of the divergence between the ideal and the reality (see the erectile dysfunction, penile enlargement, and sexual enhancement drug spam, as well as the old tried and true "ADD 5 INCHES TO YOUR DICK, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!!!!!1111ONE111!!!  ads accompanying the tube site free porn.  But even that does more to exemplify the dissonance between the reality of the viewer's actual sex life and the perception and assumption of instaneous and everlasting horniness of the performers and the scene he or she's watching (and hopefully, if the scene's successful, masturbating to). The actual sex is secondary to the scenarios and plots of these fantasies, that are obviously so way out and far fetched to occur for real. No teacher I know of will ever look like Lisa Ann or dress "slutty" like she does for My First Sex Teacher or Big Tit MILF Boss, and I guaran-DAMN-tee you that the real Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska probably did not pall around the Alaskan State Capital building showing off her cleavage and fucking the entire staff. That's why it's called "satire", folks.

And as for the "money shot"...that's more about actual proof of the man's orgasm and his arousal, as well as pregnancy protection, than any attempt at reality. And even that is mostly an exaggeration.....not many men watching porn will blow out like Peter North, you know.

Aaaaaaand....how ironic that Marcotte goes to that card, because if Measure B passes, and porn shoots are forced to follow the standard for "barrier protection" that the California branch of OSHA is currently preparing to impose on porn, then the only form of intercourse that would be protected would be....internal penile-vaginal sex. Talk about attempting to make porn more "real"!!

About that crack about the goal of the condom mandate having nothing to do with teaching "teenagers" how to use condoms, though??  Well, let's hear from one of the principal boosters of the condom mandate, Dr. Peter Kerndt, representing the LA County DPH (via Ernest Greene's seminal 2009 BPPA essay):

“The portrayal of unsafe sex in adult films may also influence viewer behavior. In the same way that images of smoking in films romanticize tobacco use, viewers of these adult films may idealize unprotected sex. The increasingly high-risk sexual behavior viewed by large audiences on television and the Internet could decrease condom use. Requiring condoms may influence viewers to see them as normative or even sexually appealing, and devalue unsafe sex. With the growing accessibility of adult film to mainstream America, portrayals of condom use onscreen could increase condom use among viewers, thereby promoting public health.”

But, it's only all about protecting the brainless and stupid slut performers....right, Amanda??

The sense that porn is real means that it does have an impact on the viewers. Anal sex, Brazilian waxing, and facials have all become more common in real sex because of porn. I’m not judging that—to the extent that porn encourages people to experiment and have more fun in bed, I’m all for it, though some of the practices that have taken off have questionable value as pleasurable—but it is inarguable that porn has a normative effect in a way that stuff that doesn’t present itself as real doesn’t. Whether that should be used for good is up for grabs, but again, while this is all an interesting conversation, it’s also completely moot. The regulations aren’t about directing the message, but about protecting the workers.

 I will simply defer to my friend Jordan Owen on debunking the idiocy of Marcotte miming Gail Dines' stupid claim that Brazilian waxing and anal sex are the byproducts of mainstream porn, and that no woman was getting spooged in the face before she saw Marilyn Chambers get blasted in The Devil And Mrs. Jones back in the 1970's. 

It is hilarious, though, how Marcotte always goes back to the "It's all about protecting the WORKERS!!!" card as her lifeline....because we all know that only men in porn get STI's and then spread them to female performers through such nasty, misogynistic acts like anal sex and deep throating and facials and....ewwwwwwww....creampies!!!!

And we now come to the final point of Amanda Marcotte's fiat for mandatory condoms:

6) Condoms are uncomfortable. The argument is that since the actors are having a lot of sex, condoms “chafe” in a way that they miraculously don’t for us ordinary people. I think this is grasping at straws, personally, because a lot of ordinary people do in fact have bouts of condom-use sex that are intense and long-lasting and don’t seem to have this problem, at least if they use lube. But I also have to point out that the porn industry standardly asks women to cram multiple cocks into them, to have anal sex whether they’re up for it or not (and to make sure they’re up for it with fasting and heavy duty enemas—the kind of stuff that you don’t have to do when having ordinary people anal sex), or to have sex with machines. If keeping the actresses physically comfortable was important to them, porn would look completely different and probably be far less profitable. Which is why #1 is really the only argument in play here, and one that liberals who think you’re killing a puppy if you venture even the slightest criticism of the stuff they jerk off to should stop being so defensive and really think this through. No one is telling you that you’re a bad person for looking at porn. We’re just saying that  the industry should be forced to take more precautions when it comes to the health of its workers. The utter indifference to the health of porn workers suggests that a lot of people think of them as second class citizens who can be used for sexual gratification and then disposed of. And if you do believe that, then yeah, I think you’re a bad person. 

 After slowly digesting this crock of bullshit, allow me to quote from someone whom has long been a supporter of condom usage, and who has done a porn shoot or two or...a thousand, and who knows about how condoms can really fuck with actual porn shoots. Kick it, Goddess Nina:

For the women, there are just four words: rubber rash/friction burn. Not only do I have to work harder for him to feel anything, the scene takes much longer to get through, with the changing out of condoms, needing to give the guy a break and suck him again, and the total passion-killer that is on-set condom use. It's hard enough to create a real connection, so the scene doesn't feel to the viewer like we faxed it in, on a set as it is. If all of our energy is focused on our working parts, there is none left over to actually connect and show a spark, which is what the people at home want to see...
...I know it sounds harsh, but it's not porn's job to set a good example to the viewing public. It's an entertainment medium like anything else out of Hollywood, and mainstream entertainment is not held up as needing somehow to set a good example. It's a shame that our country does such a piss-poor job of educating its young people so that they're driven to view porn to try to get a clue about sex. Except when a movie is expressly done as education-the Guides, Tristan Taormino's movies, etc., their job is to arouse and entertain, period... 

 Or, to put it differently: Porn sex may be an exaggeration of real sex, but it is still sex between two (or more) human beings who have to connect with each other for the scene to work. Putting a condom between them not only screws up the chemistry (literally as well as figuratively, but it adds more time to the taping of the scene...and when time equals money, that can be a major buzz and erection killer for viewer and performer both.

It's really lovely, too, how Marcotte, who has spent nearly 1000+ words denying performers of their personhood and voice -- all in the name of "protecting" them, no less!!! -- now finds the time to be concerned about their being "physically comfortable"...and responds to that by drowning them with lube. As if there's absolutely no issue between mixing the wrong kind of lube with the wrong kind of condom.  As if lube by itself will save a disasterous scene. Of course, the real message that Marcotte has for women performers who don't share her view of "rescuing" them with condoms is for them to just "Shut the hell up and wrap up for womanhood; you're selfish pleasure is killing other women and spreading deadly infections!!!" How in the hell is that any different than a stone cold radical antiporn feminist dissing a straight woman for sleeping with "the enemy" or a fundamentalist Christian ripping on a monogamous gay man for his "sin against God"??

Actually, it is NO different...except that at least the fundamentalist and the principled antiporn feminist is sincere in their principles. Amanda Marcotte, on the other hand, wants to be portrayed as an enlightened progressive hip sex-positive feminist; but her core attitudes towards real sex workers and actual pornographers as well as towards men whose only crime is to defend their sexual arousal towards these women, convicts her as exactly the opposite: a pretender. In short: Amanda Marcotte is Gail Dines, Jr....except without the principles.

But...I guess that to far too many liberal folk in Los Angeles County, that's good enough for them to buy the snake oil that is Measure B. Maybe authentic pro-sex/pro-porn progressives will learn to spot the BS and respond a tad quicker and more forceful next time around...and rest assured, there will be plenty of next time arounds.