A website and letter-writing campaign against a statewide mandatory condoms-in-porn bill launched on Monday.
The website has no stated backer or “about” page, but an embedded video PSA against the mandatory condoms-in-porn-bill is hosted at a YouTube page of local porn studio Kink.com.
AB 1576, sponsored by Assemblymember Isadore Hall III (D-Los Angeles), would require porn actors to wear condoms at all shoots, mandate STD tests, and require porn studios to keep health data on its actors. Locally, Kink.com and other porn studios alleged if the bill passes, they may choose to leave California.
“AB 1576 is opposed by both adult film performers and filmmakers because it puts performers’ health at risk,” AB1576.org states. “It would also effectively force California’s adult film industry out of state and underground, putting thousands of people out of work and costing the state a multi-billion dollar business.”
The subject of Kink.com’s possible move from the historic Armory building in the Mission District is the topic of a story in this week’s Bay Guardian, “Getting the Kink Out, [5/14].” The Division of Occupational Safety and Health (formerly Cal/OSHA) fined Kink.com $78,000 for safety violations related to the alleged HIV infection of two actors on the set of a Kink.com shoot last year.
Porn performers have already taken to Twitter using the #stopAB1576 hashtag to speak out against the bill.
“Shame on you for taking away performer rights, Isadore Hall,” tweeted performer Anikka Albrite.
A video PSA against the mandatory condom in porn bill, via Kink.com.
The stop AB 1576 website also calls out the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, largely seen as the driver of the mandatory condom bill. It claims the foundation is pushing the bill for a “hidden agenda.”
AIDS Healthcare Foundation spokesperson Ged Kenslea told us condoms were already essentially mandatory under state law, given workplace protections against contact with infectious materials, and enforcement of those regulations is the organization’s goal.
“It’s not a hidden agenda,” he said,”it’s a pretty straightforward agenda.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has been pretty vocal, leading press conferences with porn perfromers and politicians to champion the bill, which they say strengthens existing regulations.
“Federal and state OSHA statutes require condom use,” Kensela said. “That’s something (Kink CEO) Peter Acworth has not been compliant with. While he threatens to go to another state, those statutes apply there as well.”
But Kensela warned tthat being so loud and out in opposition to the bill may actually damage the porn industry’s cause.
Not just performer but HUMAN rights too @kinkdotcom Shame on you for taking away performer rights, Isadore Hall #stopab1576 (cont…
— Anikka Albrite (@AnikkaAlbrite) April 29, 2014
“There is middle ground, but this is poking the bear,” he said. The porn industry, he said, erroneously suggests the regulations are burdensome on acts like cumshots, claiming “there will be goggles and space suits.”
“In fact that won’t be what AB 1576 would require,” he said.
But inspectors from DOSH told the Guardian even cumshot facials run afoul of state regulations, because it exposes eyes and mucus membrane to bloodborne pathogens.
So is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation picking and choosing which regulations it cares to emphasize?
“We do not have a realistic expectation,” Kensela said, “that condom use for oral sex is necessary or practical, and similar with goggles.”