As porn stars permeate the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada — right now! — for another round of the ANE show/AVN awards, the Los Angeles City Council has approved an ordinance making condoms mandatory in adult movies of an erotic nature. That means that once the LAPD figure out how to police porn, any set that doesn’t have condoms on it, or on the performers, will pay a pretty penny. And that means police will be able to go onto any porn set they want and spot check for rubbers any time, any day.
Do you think they’ll also be spot checking for dental dams? Or just snapping photos to send their friends? And when does safer sex start? When do condoms have to be used? Does oral count?
Obviously I have a lot of questions. And I also have a lot of opinions, and although I’d love to see a disease free world where safer sex was more exciting than love without condoms, I also think that there are bigger fish to fry than if porn stars use condoms. On the flip side, I like that people care about porn stars and their health and well being. No really, I do. What I want to know is why do they care?
Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of the industry I despise. There are parts that are icky, and having safety precautions for those in the industry who can’t, for some reason (age, lack of IQ, fear, etc.) stick up for themselves, isn’t a bad idea either. The thing is, I hate the authority this will give law enforcement to check out any porn set they want. How many LAPD will be making the rounds of just to say they’ve been on a porn set, or got to fine a porn performer? The novelty will eventually wear off, but at what cost?
There are STI’s floating around porn, but that doesn’t mean that condoms are always the answer. It’s not atypical to have experienced the joy (can you feel the sarcasm) of gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, a grueling yeastie (as one friend affectionally calls yeast infections) or a UTI - if your day job is having sex on film. Most porn performers brush it off as part of the job. And the rates of HIV have always been low in the mainstream porn industry, condoms or no condoms, that’s not going to change much either.
My problem with the mandatory testing has always been that each performer has to do it once every 30 days. That means PRON MAN is tested (day one) allowing him to screw in a film anytime for thirty days. In the time he screws all of West Hollywood, then drives over the border to Mexico, and screws everyone in a small town, then engages in a wild orgy romp on his way back through San Diego and has sex on camera on day 28 (still clean according to the papers) even if he’s not so clean anymore. That’s because all this partying and porking took less than 29 days to achieve and PRON MAN didn’t have to get tested again for a whole other day.
Fine, that’s just one radical example, but the point is that it’s easy to get a clean test and then do dirty things for a whole month until a performer gets tested again. I’m not down with that, although everyone I’ve ever known in porn swears that the community is tight and small and in order to get into their tight and small vaginas (or in order for them to get in yours), you will seem clean, or be clean, or clean up your act before you work again.
Do I think condom use in porn should be mandatory? I think that condom use in porn should be accepted and expected, but when it comes down to it, each performer needs to make the decision for him or herself. If they opt out of using condoms, it doesn’t hurt to have them sign a waiver, or a release, letting everyone know they are fully aware of their big girl or boy choice.
So while I say yes, let’s bring more awareness to safer sex, I also say let’s bring more awareness to the porn industry. Treat it like a legitimate business and it will act like one. Condoms or no condoms.
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