Porn would be all but unproducible in California, and 26-year olds might become the new MILFs, if Cal/OSHA has its way

Cal/OSHA has been busy improving its draft regulations covering the filming of adult content over the last few years…if by “improving” one means crafting precise language and expansive tools designed to completely destroy adult production in California via over-regulation.

The regulations currently in effect, embodied in California Code of Regulations Title 8 Sec. 5193, were written for medical clinics and mortuaries back in the 1990s, and mandate “barrier protections” for healthcare workers exposed to blood or infectious materials. This application of the regs should strike any rational person as reasonable and necessary, given that the nature of these businesses.

However, the state, in its wisdom, (lol) chose to apply it to adult content shoots as well. Thus, anything you wouldn’t want to happen to you in the course of your duties in a clinic (such as having someone ejaculate or squirt on you, or penetrate you), in the context of adult film sets became a forbidden “exposure event” — even though such “exposure” was the job itself.

Egged on by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Cal/OSHA has undertaken to create a brand new code section, Sec. 5193.1, and the latest draft, dated 12-1-2014, makes it crystal clear that what you or I call “porn”, Cal/OSHA calls impermissible “exposure”, requiring detailed documentation and record-keeping, medical follow-up, etc…

These proposed Cal/OSHA rules do not regulate adult production as we know it; they forbid it.

Reproduced in full, below, its requirements are jaw-droppingly draconian:

• it defines “sexual activity” requiring “condoms or other protective barriers” as vaginal, anal, and oral sex;
• “Post Exposure” medical follow-up, at employer expense, in the event a performer has “eye, mouth, other mucous membrane, non-intact skin, or parenteral contact” with “potentially infectious materials” such as “pre-ejaculate, ejaculate, semen, vaginal secretions, fecal matter and rectal secretions, … and any other bodily fluid when visibly contaminated with blood or all bodily fluids in situations where it is difficult or impossible to differentiate between bodily fluids.”
• an array of mandatory vaccinations;
• garments or sheets touched by ejaculate or other fluids to be treated as hazardous waste;
• “Personal Protective Equipment” required for performances such as squirting scenes, which prevent bodily fluids “from passing through to or reaching the employee’s eyes, mouth, or other mucous membranes” (think goggles and face shields).
• performer and employer training, and mandatory safety meetings prior to a scene;
• producers (“employers”) pay for performer testing;
• a plethora of burdensome medical record-keeping requirements (such as the maintaining of medical records for “at least the duration of employment plus 30 years”) that are likely to raise privacy concerns among performers.

Moreover, the regs are written broadly enough that certain requirements might apply not only to the original creator(s) of the content, but also distributors.

Both “Production” and “Scene”, for instance, are defined as a “depiction” that is “recorded or live” in which there is “sexual activity”. In the absence of a definition of “producer” which limits the term to those who create or direct a “Scene” it may be construed as applicable to “depictions” distributed.

The required HPV vaccination is also of particular interest.

HPV vaccines are only given to females age 26 or younger, and males 21 or younger. That means, among other things, that unless a female performer over 26 years of age was vaccinated during the last nine years since the vaccine became available, she will be precluded from becoming an adult performer.

That’s right, in addition to demanding that producers only create content thought to be unmarketable (condoms for oral, no ejaculation or squirting without barriers such as goggles or face shields, etc), 26-year olds would, in effect, become the new MILFs. (A similar problem arises for male talent over age 21.)

As to performers already in the talent pool, If (for sake of example) these regs were adopted this year, the oldest possible female would be 35 today, and the oldest possible male, 30.

The Standards Board will reportedly consider the draft rules at its March 19 meeting in Sacramento. A 45-day public comment period is expected to begin very soon. FSC and APAC are expected to vigorously oppose the draft regs, and expert medical and epidemiological testimony is anticipated.