Media reports that as many as 16 actors and actresses in the
adult entertainment industry recently tested positive for HIV have
prompted new calls for legislation requiring condom use in all porn
videos shot in California.
Opponents to condom use include the multi-billion
dollar adult entertainment industry, the Roman Catholic Church and visitors to The Shops in Mission Viejo.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) hosted a press conference, protest and rally Monday night in front of Larry Flynt's
Hustler/Hollywood Store on the Sunset Strip to support the re-introduction of such legislation. In August 2004, Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-Los Angeles) threatened to write such a law if the porn industry did not address an HIV outbreak earlier that year. After initially seeming open to the idea, the industry just let it drop as many believed love gloves just weren't sexy on the screen.
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This time around, the AHF is calling for a
“condoms in porn” bill that would be drafted as a worker safety
provision
of California's Labor Code akin to how the Labor Code currently
requires the use of hard hats and other garments and barriers as safely
precautions on certain California work sites and locations. The stand
was made at First Amendment champion Flynt's facility because Hustler
is considered a “condom optional” production house. According to AHF,
that really means: “Condoms allowed, but if you
demand to use one, you probably won't be asked to work again!”
This latest dust up comes on the heels of Pope Benedict XVI saying condoms are not the answer
to the AIDS epidemic in Africa
and can make the problem worse. His first-ever statement on the issue
managed to divide members of his own flock and especially Catholic
clergy working with AIDS patients.
Flynt and the pope share no love for the glove with shoppers who earlier this year lodged complaints
with The Shops in Mission Viejo over the A/X Armani Exchange store
displaying a giant red heart in a window behind the
words “Give Love Get Love” and “Practice Safe Love Armani Exchange
supports National AIDS Fund.” Because the heart
was made of hundreds of red, packaged condoms, whiners feared the sight
of the display might prompt children to ask questions or have their
heads filled with The Sex.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.