It’s time to accept that Measure B’s impact hasn’t been to encourage condom use; it’s been to encourage evasion and flight, says Times columnist Jim Newton
Los Angeles voters committed some bad public policy in 2012 when they approved Measure B, which mandated the use of condoms in any adult film shot in the county. Now, state lawmakers are prepared to double down on that misadventure and spread the mandate to all of California.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation protesters are seen in 2011 outside the XBiz Awards at the Palladium in Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Times)
At first blush, the requirement seems sensible. Who could oppose safe sex? But the effort to require condom use in adult films is misdirected — the porn business isn’t the hub of AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, asking people to wear condoms is one thing; having the government order it and enforce it is another. And, most important, it doesn’t work.
Measure B is taking a fairly safe business and pushing it underground, outside Los Angeles and quite possibly into places that don’t honor protocols put into place to protect adult film actors, which require that every performer be tested every two weeks for sexually transmitted diseases and cleared for work only if the test is negative.
Kayden Kross, an actress and director who works in the adult film business, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the condom mandate, opposing it first at the county level and now in Sacramento. Since Measure B passed, Kross and her colleagues haven’t quit making movies without condoms, but a lot of production has now moved to places like Ventura County, near where I met with Kross last week during a break from her filming.
More of why condoms and porn don’t mix…
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[…] As the film community battles to keep Hollywood close to home, another local industry – adult entertainment — is fleeing Los Angeles. […]