Porn And Condoms: State Tells L.A. City Attorney's Office it Can Enforce Mandatory Condoms at L.A. Adult Video Shoots

The porn industry is pissed off at California workplace safety regulators for telling the city of L.A. that it can enforce mandatory condoms at city-permitted adult-film shoots.

The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has said the workplace safety rules require condoms on the sets of California porn shoots, but it has not had the manpower to effectively enforce the law.

The city of L.A. has already looked into the matter and concluded that, while it could enforce condoms, it too doesn't have the resources to put LAPD officers on the condom beat. But, according to industry trade group Free Speech Coalition a July 20 letter from Cal/OSHA to the City Attorney's office encourages L.A. to have another go at being prophylactic police.

FSC legal advisor Karen Tynan sounds incensed in this statement:

When I saw that counsel for Cal/OSHA was advising the City of Los Angeles to jump into this issue, I was appalled. I don't see Cal/OSHA writing to the city council of Bakersfield or Fresno imploring those cities to write regulations on heat illness to protect the field workers, so why is Cal/OSHA taking this position on condoms? This is another glaring example of the politics, judgment, and discrimination that swirl around the condom issue.

Porn star Ela Darling via her website.

In a letter to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich she said such a hand-off of enforcement duties from the state to the city would be a "first of its kind" move that would have Cal/OSHA "diluting its own authority."

The industry has been fighting against mandatory condoms, arguing that its system of once-a-month testing for L.A.-area performers works.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has been pressing the state, city and county to enforce the law, however. AHF says the porn industry's system doesn't work, and has marched out instances of porn-star HIV infections to bolster its argument.

In some rare cases where AHF has weighed in with formal complaints the state has levied fines against some smut producers, including Larry Flynt's Hustler video arm.

But so far it seems like the cost of doing business. The industry does seem spooked, however, by an AHF-encouraged movement at Cal/OSHA to make a condom rule with stricter, more specific language. (Federal law, as it stands, says workers, particularly in the medical field, shouldn't be exposed to "blood-borne pathogens").

FSC smells AHF in this latest move to push the City Attorney to say condom enforcement on a City Hall level is possible. Tynan:

I certainly hope that the Los Angeles City Attorney and his staff attorneys can cut through the misinformation and propaganda that continues to pour forth from AHF and their allies.

We would be surprised if L.A. takes up condom enforcement any time soon.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]