Mandatory condom use in US porn

[Len801]

Some 5-6 years ago French porn started to go condom only.
We have been hearing rumours for months in the US industry, located in the L.A. area, especially since the demise of AIM.
It's pretty much official now, and the new law goes into effect in 90 days' time.

L.A. City Council Affirms Mandatory Condom Vote
Posted Jan 17th, 2012 08:08 PM by Tom Hymes
LOS ANGELES?The Los Angeles City Council has affirmed last week?s preliminary vote to allow AIDS Healthcare Foundation's mandatory condom initiative to bylass the election process and go straight to law. Today's 9-1 vote means that the new ordinance?which ties the granting of film permits to mandatory condom use on sets and imposes a fee on producers to fund unannounced inspections?will go into effect in 90 days unless a court challenge is able to derail those plans.
The passage of this ordinance, though anticipated, will certainly be met with consternation and anger by producers of adult content in Los Angeles, and is sure to result in consequences that neither AHF nor the City Council apparently care to contemplate.

Though they couch the ordinance as a measure to protect workers, both the City Council and AHF have ignored warnings from the industry that mandating condom use while disparaging the testing regime?which has protected performers for years?will not only fail to keep performers safe to the extent imagined by instigators of this measure, but may actually put them in greater danger as companies go underground, leave the state or abide by the new measure in lieu of testing.

Testimony has also been provided to the City Council by performers like Nina Hartley that the excessive use of condoms on sets could on its own create a greater risk to performers by resulting in abrasions during sexual intercourse that would otherwise not occur.

[jj]

Idiots.

And it seems to have bypassed the council's minuscule collective intelligence [are
any of them qualified in medicine or risk-asessment, BTW?] that a lot of city
taxes will vansih from their coffers as an additional side-effect.
The industry will doubtless eventually relocate to an area whose administration
has a firmer grasp on reality [accompanied by the usual squeals from religious
groups and NIMBYs, and the muted glee of local commerciers].

[Len801]

It only took one person and a small organization to bring this about.
The US porn industry was asleep at the wheel and never understood the threat.
It only took about 75,000 signatures (obtained by I don't know by what means) to get the L.A. council to cave in. It became law, even without a proper electoral referendum by the people. Only in America!
It is easy to say the porn industry in L.A. will relocate. Relocate to where? San Francisco? A lot of companies, porn performers, and connected companies are located in the L.A. area. Do you expect them to all pack and move within a few weeks?

[jj]

Len801 wrote:
> ..... Only in America!
That's, um, democracy for you. The tail of unrepresentative but vocal lobbies
wagging the silent majority dog.

> Do you expect them to all pack and move within a few weeks?
No; within a few years. Business always goes where the profits are to made.
Let's see what Washington says, too, when the tax-take gets slashed for a
while [I'm not sure how much the industry adds to US BoP but it can't be a
trivial sum]. I can see some outfits relocating commercially to US dependencies
or other tax-havens, along the lines of 21S, and 'outsourcing' the shooting.
The web will make this more and more viable.

A smart dealer might do well to research the mass-importation of Eurosmut
[barring one particular nation's output, of course]...... and I wonder how Vivid
view this potential erosion of their niche-monopoly?

[Len801]

There are not that money big porn outfits left in the US. Apparently Digital Playground has just been acquired by Manwin.
Wicked Video seems to be the only big oufit shooting condom-only smut.
Vivid was condom-only for a while, and they even claimed it did not affect their DVD sales, then they reversed themselves. Since its founding in 1985 it boasted their contract girls, but apparently they no longer have any under contract any more. I don't know how Vivid or other outfits would fare, if they all had to shoot rubberized scres.

DVD porn sales are drastically down. No too many outfits have deep pockets to override this setback. If the L.A. porn industry cannot overturn that decision, for the short run, they may have to shoot outside the jurisdiction of the L.A. county limits. I think the obtention of shooting permits is more problematic for them, rather than the use or not use of condom. I don't think it is the cost involved (I don't think it's that expensive to get a permit), but it flags where/when a porn movie will be shot, etc. You are open to inspectors, etc. If it was just a question of whether performers used condoms or not, it may possibly be easier to obfuscate their origins.

I would be curious to know how the French porn industry has been doing since they reverted to condom use. Anyone know?

[Deuce Bigolo]

I'd imagine this is nothing more than another attempt to nobble/curtail the industries output under the guise of protecting workers.

Shame it will most likely cost some their jobs

If the industry has a down turn then its reasonable to expect other less regulated or unregulated areas of the adult scene will take up some of the slack as they have during past down turns. ie high end parties and so one

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Censorhship or over regulation always results in things going under ground
or morphing


One could imagine some of the religious zealots behind this push wanting all porn to look like this

[jj]

Yes, I think the expansion of the web has changed the industry [although my
impression is that as many titles are being released as always- maybe that's
being offset by lower unit-costs... I just don't know]. There's certainly many
smaller DVD or web outfits now than ten years ago.

There's no real reason why a company can't fly out an entire shoot to a more
reasonably-minded location. Given the diffuse and slightly 'edgy' nature of the
biz it's very hard to get any reliable figures- I expect the IRS has a
tax-breakdown but they're hardly likely to make it public : -)

[Len801]

Well the voters of Los Angeles have spoken on Nov 6. Measure B has been passed with a majority of about 55%.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Will the porn producers shoot outside the L.A. territory, will they produce and import more stuff from eastern Europe?
[IMG]http://img248.imagevenue.com/loc10/th_297154767_MeasureB_results_123_10lo.jpg[/IMG]

[jj]

Len801 wrote:
> ... Measure B has been passed with a majority of about 55%.

I bet they're disappointed with such a marginal margin : -) Assuming the turnout
was about the usual 20% that's not much of a mandate.

[Len801]

If you carefully look at the chart I linked, there were 4.5 million registered voters.
A little under half of those registered voters actually cast a ballot. That is not too shabby. But the Measure B got passed with about 55% of the cast votes.
Whether that represents a great bigf margin or not, the fact remains it got passed. Whether people who voted for or against the measure really understood the ramifications of the measure is another question. The porn industry did not do a great job in informing the public, while the AIDS Healthcare Foundation spent millions in pushing/ramming this legislation through.