A Draft from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) may require porn actors to use condoms on shoots–not too surprising for an industry laden with STIs.
A bill called AB640, which requires condoms on porn shoots by law, is currently stalled in the Senate.
However, the new 21-page draft may also require actors to have sex during porn while wearing safety goggles.
The OSHA claims goggles will avoid semen from entering the eyes, a body part susceptible to diseases such as HIV and Chlamydia.
Salon reports that according to OSHA’s deputy chief of health Deborah Gold, barrier methods such as condoms and eye protection are already technically required on porn shoots.
Few porn companies adhere to those standards.
If the new guidelines are deemed mandatory, there may be a trial period in which actors can ditch the ‘barrier method’ during oral sex. The safety rules would be reconsidered again in 2018 and either kept or discontinued.
Slate reports that Wicked Pictures is the only mainstream porn production company that requires condom use during anal and vaginal intercourse.
Porn insiders are not thrilled with the new safety laws and some think the draft regulations are trying to rid the porn industry all together.
Peter Ackworth, CEO of the fetish site Kink.com told Salon that the draft regulations ‘basically criminalize the production of porn.’ He even told Salon that he’s thinking of selling Kink’s San Francisco porn palace named the Armory.
He said he’d ‘have to invest in a warehouse in Nevada or Europe,’ to produce his porns. Unfortunately, porns that use protective barrier methods during sex don’t sell as well as porns that don’t.
One porn actress Lily Lebeau told Slate, I wouldn’t mind using condoms more. It’s just not what people want to see.’
The porn industry started using condoms more after a 2004 HIV outbreak, but after porn sales went down, condoms came off, reported ABC.
The Huffington post reports that The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing the adult film industry, is opposed to laws requiring condom use because it may stop required STI testing for actors. Actors currently test every 28 days or more.
While the draft guidelines don’t require regular testing, they do require that employers provide hepatitis B, hepatitis A, and HPV vaccinations to actors.
The guidelines also require that studios, ‘provide for post exposure prophylaxis’ and that they provide counseling.
Some porn actors are forced to pay for their own testing so the new law may alleviate some financial strain and force companies to take responsibility for their talent’s health.
The draft also says that porn shoots will have to instill new post shoot clean-up requirements such as disposable materials and plastic coverings.
On the one hand, the new law promotes health and safety to workers put in health-threatening conditions. On the other hand, the porn industry in California may die out all together.
Some biased characterizations and factual errors (such as the misspelling of Peter Acworth’s name) in this report by The Mail. It also fails to mention that the new Cal/OSHA draft is not an official rulemaking proposal. Overall, however, it’s more balanced than most summaries of this type.
This is one of the laziest stories on the condom mandate I’ve ever seen. Do these people actually attempt to proofread or check their sources??
They should make all the mopes wear bee keeper masks or welding masks. Maybe welding masks, as they would muffle the mope noises better.
Just have a second chick around to act as a fluffer and wet down some box and dirt pipe, with her tongue, at the beginning of the scene.
Wearing glasses is a great idea about the spread of rumored HIV contamination through the eyes.
This is a livelihood talk and should be taken seriously. Their workers too and they also need right that will speak for themselves.
This story has more holes in it than a sieve. It embodies exactly what I hate most about the “internet journalism.” It seems that facts don’t play much of a role. Starting out with the contention, utterly false, that the porn business is “ridden with STIs” tells me all I need to know about where the author is coming from and the parade of substantive errors that follows can hardly come as a surprise.
LA needs to adopt the Ukrainian Safety Protocols. If the whore has a heartbeat at the end of the scene, yer good to go.