Two California Officials, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener and California State Senator Mark Leno, have written a joint letter to the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board regarding a proposed statute that would make condom use mandatory in all adult films being shot in California.
The proposed regulation covers all workplaces in which employees have “occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens due to one or more employees engaging in sexual activity with another individual,” and pertains to “activities during the production of any film, video, multi-media or other recorded or live representation where one or more employees have occupational exposure.” The regulation requires the employers, in this case porn production companies, to provide a physical barrier during the filming of pornographic scenes.
The letter to Cal/OSHA asks state lawmakers to reject the proposed regulation, saying it will not reduce HIV infections and will hurt California’s economy by forcing the adult film industry to move somewhere that will allow condomless porn to be filmed. The letter follows statements from several other California-based HIV advocacy organizations, such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and AIDS Project Los Angeles, and even New York’s Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC).
The proposed addition to California’s labor code comes three years after the passage of Los Angeles County’s Measure B, which requires the use of condoms in all vaginal and anal sex scenes in porn films shot in Los Angeles County. Measure B had vehement opposition from those within the porn industry, as well as several political groups. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News wrote editorials in opposition to Measure B.
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