August 20, 2009

16 Porn Companies Accused of Endangering Workers by Nixing Condoms

Two foundations plan to file complaints against 16 California-based porn production companies, claiming that they are violating workplace safety laws by not requiring their employees to wear condoms, reports the Los Angeles Times.

According to the article, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a Los Angeles–based advocacy group, and the Pink Cross Foundation, a faith-based charity for adult industry workers, took a non-scientific survey of several porn DVDs. Of the 58 films reviewed, only two included scenes in which condoms were used, said Ged Kenslea, the foundation spokesperson. The foundations plan to register their concerns with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Earlier this year, a female porn star tested positive. Porn industry officials argue that it was an isolated incident and that voluntary guidelines—including monthly tests for sexually transmitted infections and quarantines for those found to be positive—are effective.

Shelley Lubben, former adult film producer and Pink Cross founder, disagrees. She contracted herpes and had to have half her cervix removed after contracting human papillomavirus (HPV) while working in the industry.

“We want the fans to know what they’re contributing to,” Lubben said. “They’re demanding harder and grosser porn. We want to educate them to exactly what they’re watching—diseased people.… It’s illegal for bodily fluids to touch skin, and yet it happens every single day in the porn industry.”

OSHA has declined to comment since the complaints have not yet been filed.

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Previous Comments:

Jeton Ademaj, , 2009-08-31 09:25:18
AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the same benighted ASO that tried suing Pfizer over marketing ED drugs to anyone under 60...and this Pink Cross woman wants Law Enforcement to prevent any transfer of bodily fluids? Their inevitable failure is deserved, and a sad distraction from effective HIV prevention. Normal human desires will never be rechanneled by self-righteous activists armed with NewSpeak...if anything, they make people rebellious. hence the growing market in "transgressive" porn. meh.

Hudson, Chicago, 2009-08-25 18:21:05
How are the porn companies the problem when the actor are the ones filling out the applications to work for such companies and then the workers are able to blame the companies when things go wrong. And you can't go on blaming the fans either because people want to see what they want to see and it is entertainment; just like we want to see movies where bombs blow up buildings we want to see bareback sex does not mean that we are wrong for wanting to; it is there lives and they are responsible