Porn actors may be forced to wear condoms

Michael Weinstein who is the President of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, speaks at the launch of the ‘Love Condoms’ campaign to combat the spread of AIDS in 2009.

A proposal to make Los Angeles porn actors wear condoms gained momentum this week, when a health advocacy group announced it had gathered enough signatures to put the question to voters in June.

The proposal would require the actors to use protection during sex scenes in order for filmmakers to obtain a permit to shoot within the city of Los Angeles.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the group behind the drive, said Wednesday it has collected 64,000 signatures for its petition -- well beyond the 41,000 needed to get the measure on the ballot.

"Everyone understood this was an issue of worker protection," Michael Weinstein, the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, told The Los Angeles Times.

Tensions between health advocates and the porn industry have simmered for years. The adult film industry largely opposes more condom regulations, saying voluntary industry standards requiring actors to undergo monthly HIV screenings are enough protection.

Pornographers also say porn viewers generally find sheathed penises less appealing than naked ones on screen and that added government regulation would undermine their industry even as it faces the combined pressures of rampant Internet piracy and economic malaise, The Los Angeles Times reports.

"Contrary to popular belief, our industry is not recession-proof," Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a porn industry group, told the newspaper.

AIDS activists aren't the only ones trying to boost the porn industry's hygiene standards -- state officials are also looking at ways to force porn actors to suit up.

California regulators first passed rules requiring protection for workers exposed to infectious diseases transferred through blood in 1992. State regulators say the rules, developed with medical facilities in mind, apply to the porn industry.

"The regulations require that the employer use controls to protect workers from blood or seamen or vaginal secretions. Federal OSHA has the same wording," Deborah Gold of the California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health said in an interview last year with Los Angeles Weekly.

But the regulations are rarely enforced. Between 2004, after a performer tested HIV positive, and 2010, the state issued only 30 citations for condomless sex filming, Los Angeles Weekly reports.

Public health officials cited 17 HIV cases among porn actors between 1998 and 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times reports. The industry has halted production twice in the last two years to prevent the spread of the disease after two performers tested HIV-positive.

Los Angeles serves as a major base of operations for the U.S. porn industry. The only two states where porn can be filmed legally are California and New Hampshire.