Monday, Dec 21, 2009    Text size: 

That clarification would include a condom requirement for all films shot in California.

AHF’s request to Cal/OSHA was made after the adult industry’s trade group, the Free Speech Coalition, made public a best-practices plan for the control of bloodborne pathogens on the set.

AHF officials called the FSC’s plan a “fig leaf that doesn’t cover much” and reiterated that it has filed 16 worker-safety complaints with Cal/OSHA over the lack of condom use.

The FSC’s plan covers worker safety and addresses numerous practices over everything from controlling waste to housekeeping to the cleaning of sex toys. It also addresses training, as well as pre- and post-scene evaluation, and makes examination recommendations for new-to-the-industry performers.

On Monday, FSC Board Chairman Jeffrey Douglas blasted the AHF for petitioning state regulators and urging them to make porn companies responsible for making all productions condom-only.

“AHF's petition is part of its effort to mislead the public into believing that adult industry practices endanger the actors and models performing in the industry as well as the general public,” Douglas told XBIZ. “Such a position is fundamentally false.

“There is no justification for requiring a modeling shoot or a film set to function at the same standards as an emergency room,” he said. “Football games, boxing and mixed martial arts matches are all entertainment where open wounds cause potential exchanges of blood not only between performers, but also the arena audiences.

“There is a far greater likelihood of risk during this form of entertainment than on an adult entertainment set.”

The AHF’s petition with Cal/OSHA seeks to amend Title 8, Section 5193, of the California Code of Regulations and was spurred by “an ongoing epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in California’s adult film industry.”

AHF said that the industry is swamped with STD cases and that the business isn’t transparent with the numbers.

“The county documented 2,013 individual cases of chlamydia and 965 cases of gonorrhea among workers between the years 2003 and 2007,” the AHF said in a statement to XBIZ. “Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has observed that many workers suffer multiple infections, with some performers having four or more separate infections over the course of a year.

“These numbers are widely believed to be significantly underestimated as testing within the industry is limited.”

AHF officials also said that as many as 25 industry-related cases of HIV have been reported since 2004.

Douglas, however, disputed that number and said there’s been only one case of HIV transmission on the set.

“That was many years ago, and the protocols have been changed to prevent that from recurring,” he said. “The demand that adult actors and models wear condoms, goggles and not engage in unprotected oral sex is an attack both on the workers and the content they create.

“AHF's petition reflects both its ignorance of the realities of adult entertainment production and its hostitilty to the 1st Amendment protected content which the adult industry produces.

“We are confident that ignorance and hostility will not control public policy in California.”