But clearly what should be a no-brainer for the safety of the participants should be obvious, but it is not. While I ordinarily believe that the government at all levels belongs OUT of people's bedrooms and sex lives, but when it becomes a matter of money, of commerce, we have a long history of reasons to know that money matters more far too often than safety, and therefore we need regulation whether it is Wall Street, or Mining, or .....Porn.
When the safety of other people is not sufficiently protected by voluntary means, we need regulation.
As I recently quoted here in a different context, 'this is my rifle, this is my gun; this one's for shooting, this one's for fun'. When it presents a danger, whichever one going off presents a danger, we need to regulate it.
From MSNBC.com and the AP
Los Angeles council requires condoms in porn films
Ordinance calls for condom use in all adult movies filmed in city
By John Rogers
updated 1 hour 44 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES — Actors in adult movies filmed in America's pornography capital would be required to use condoms under an ordinance granted final approval Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
The measure, adopted 9-1, next goes to the mayor for his signature. Before it can take effect, however, the City Council has ordered police officials, the city attorney and others to hold meetings to figure out how it might be enforced.
The council's second and final vote to approve the law was taken without public discussion on a day when most of the porn industry's major players were in Las Vegas preparing for Wednesday's opening of the Adult Entertainment Expo, their industry's largest trade event.
Several industry officials condemned the move as being an unneeded exercise in political correctness that cannot be enforced.
"The only thing that the city could potentially achieve is losing some film permit money and driving some productions away, but you can't actually compel an industry to create a product that the market doesn't want," said Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions, one of the industry's biggest makers of porn films.
Like others in the business, he said large numbers of consumers, especially overseas, consistently refuse to buy films in which condoms are used.
Related content: Condoms for porn actors to be on L.A. ballot
Veteran porn actress Tabitha Stevens said she has worked with and without condoms during her 17-year career. Although Stevens, who also produces films, said she prefers to work with condoms, she doesn't believe their use should be mandated by a government authority.
"If you want to wear them, wear them. If you don't, don't. That's up to the talent to decide. It shouldn't be up to the government to decide," she said by phone from Las Vegas.
Stevens and others also said the industry's self-imposed testing standard, in which major companies require that actors be tested every 30 days for sexually transmitted diseases, is working well. They say there has not been a confirmed case of HIV related directly to the porn industry since 2004.
Advocates of the new law said the testing isn't sufficient and the condom requirement adds another level of safety.
"We are not opposed to testing, but testing is not prevention in the same way that a barrier protection is," said Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which supports the condom requirement.
He also accused the adult film industry of not being forthcoming in reporting all cases of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and others.
Kenslea scoffed at the idea that the industry, about 90 percent of which is believed to be based in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, will pack up and move because of the restriction.
"The industry is not going to go away," he said, adding that other parts of America aren't as tolerant of hard-core-sex films and that the industry's infrastructure, from writers, directors and actors to production facilities, is already based here.
No big surprise that you want laws, regulations, mandates creating even more scarcity of freedom & liberty.
ReplyDeleteIt should be left up to the people bankrolling the films, or the performers.
Maybe you can explain how money factors into this for those profiting. Something tells me that having a condom or a dozen available for the performers isn't gonna break anyone involved in a multi-billion industry.
Here's the thing.
ReplyDeleteWhen it is left up to the people making the money and running things, they don't act in the interest of anyone but themselves.
So if they can make more money by marketing a film by not having their performers wear condoms (the term 'money shot' or 'cum shot' comes to mind) then they will, and the risk to their performers be damned.
What you call 'scarcity of freedom and liberty' means - in mining for example - far more deaths every year from accidents and illness.
If you doubt that, then I refer you to the history of mining accidents and disasters. The rate has improved dramatically ONLY when regulation has been required for safety.
When it is left up to the people bankrolling, that doesn't happen. Tragedy happens. It would be nice if it happened that they did the right thing.
But we have hundreds of years of history that shows it doesn't work that way.
So YOU Anonymous can be reality based, as I am, looking at the facts.
Or you can be ignorantly and stupidly ideology driven, disconnected from the real world.
Because no matter how cheap the safety mechanism, people will avoid it to save money, either on the production end,or the marketing end.
Why do you think we have all those tainted products from China? Shouldn't the free market mechanism protect us from that?
The reality is you have taken a stupid position Anonymous, an incredibly stupid, ignorant, willfully blind position.
You aren't free when you are dead or sick. These regs become either labor issues or as in this case, public health issues.
There you go with the typical liberal nonsense. Yes, take your shoes off at the airport and get a dose of radiation from our porn-scanners for you safety and no cupcakes allowed.
ReplyDeleteClose down those little kids lemonade stand, they don't have a health permit and don't serve starving, homeless people that food that wasn't prepared in a government approved kitchen. Let them starve.
Be sure to take your FDA approved drugs that kill people by the thousands. And remember, pizza is a vegetable when it has two tablespoons of tomato sauce on it.
And for your safety, we have the Patriot Act, NDAA, VIPR, SOPA, drones flying overhead cameras everywhere, every conversation, email, keystroke monitored, black boxes in your cars, RFIDs in every product you buy and on and on and on.
Give me an effing break!
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some of the most prominent purveyors of porn say they'll start packing up their sex toys and abandoning the nation's porn capital if authorities carry through with a nascent effort to police adult film sets and order that every actor be outfitted with a condom.
ReplyDeleteThat effort took a serious leap forward Tuesday when the Los Angeles city council voted 9-1 to grant final approval to an ordinance that would deny film permits to producers who do not comply with the condom requirement. The measure now goes to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for approval.
Before the measure can take effect, however, the council has called for the creation of a committee of police officials, the city attorney, state health officials and others to determine how it might be enforced.
"It's going to be interesting to see how in fact they do try to enforce it and who's going to fund it, and all of the time and effort they're going to spend," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder and co-chairman of Los Angeles-based Vivid, one of the largest makers of erotic movies.
"Ultimately I think what they will find is people will just stop shooting in the city of Los Angeles," added Hirsch. "That's a given."
His company, founded in 1984, would be among those that would consider leaving, he said.
Other industry officials condemned the measure as an unneeded exercise in political correctness that cannot be enforced in the city known in the industry as the porn capital of the country. Approximately 90 percent of U.S. porn films are made in Los Angeles, almost all of them in the city's San Fernando Valley, said Mark Kernes, senior editor of Adult Video News.
When films, Internet downloads, sex toys and admission to dance clubs are counted, Kernes said, it's an industry that produces about $8 billion a year in revenue. It has been battered in recent years, however, by the recession and the increased popularity of free Internet porn, and Kernes and others say requiring condoms would further erode business.
They say consumers, particularly those overseas, have made it clear they won't watch films when the actors use condoms, complaining that it is distracting and ruins the fantasy.
"The only thing that the city could potentially achieve is losing some film permit money and driving some productions away, but you can't actually compel an industry to create a product that the market doesn't want," said Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel, another of the industry's largest production companies.
http://news.yahoo.com/porn-industry-mulls-leaving-la-condoms-required-095300909.html
Since the porn industry is (by some estimations) five times as big as the gun industry- their version of the NRA should have no problem squashing this. Unless of course it is not all about money controlling legislators like we hear so often.
ReplyDelete"Since the porn industry is (by some estimations) five times as big as the gun industry- their version of the NRA should have no problem squashing this. Unless of course it is not all about money controlling legislators like we hear so often.
ReplyDeleteJanuary 18, 2012 10:17 PM"
Sorry, that's WAY fucking wrong. While your average reptilican legislizard is happy to shout his support of CCW or any other law that makes it easier for gunzloonz to get more people armed , they aren't about to do the same for the pornos (although a lot of them enjoy it in private).
Right, Democommie. So you are saying it is not all about the money. It is good to know that you’ll be on our side the next time someone whines that the NRA’s influence over congress is based solely on the amount of money they have.
ReplyDelete