AHF is advancing the position that condom-only pornography would keep everyone safer — yet the alleged “victim” who Weinstein and Co. have trotted out like the prize pig at the county fair claims to have become infected on a condom-only set!

For those not familiar with the tactics of AHF, I recommend the following brief video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MOWF94_II&hd=1

and, from the forthcoming video expose by Julie Meadows and myself (on Shelley Lubben and Pink Cross Foundation):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZmLv1w4RZg&hd=1

I know no one is forcing them to do porn, but no one is forced to be a welder, either, and it is illegal to require a welder to work without a mask. Other industries have to give their workers adequate protection from occupational hazards. Why should the porn industry be any different?

I notice that the norms of the gay industry (excluding the fringe bareback genre) are held up by many as a model, but a quick look at actual gay porn will show what a gap exists between what most reasonable people think of as safer sex and what AHF, CalOSHA, and the rest are trying to legislate. I just went over to AEBN and had a look at a few scenes directed by none other than Chi Chi LaRue. From what I saw, condoms were used consistently for anal penetration, but they were not used in oral sex and rimming scenes at all. (Though I will note that cum shots seem to be almost always external, and cum-in-mouth scenes seem to be mostly restricted to performers consuming their own.)

I trust that LaRue is somebody who’s making a point of having solid safer sex practices in his movies, yet even what he’s doing would not meet the rigid criteria that CalOSHA says are the established rules that porn sets must follow.

I’ll also note that one of the participants in the CalOSHA porn hearings in LA earlier this year was Girlfriends Films, an all-girl production company. Their afraid they’re going to have the use of dental dams imposed on them, something that’s effectively going to aesthetically kill F/F porn.

Basically, we have a situation where safer sex needs to become more the norm, especially in straight porn. However, the only way that this is being pushed is by public health agencies with an unworkable set of regulations and no ability to enforce them, aided by organizations that either have an agenda of making porn illegal (eg, Pink Cross) or grandstanding and winning turf wars (eg, AIDS Healthcare Foundation).

Meanwhile, the media (including a lot of the sex-positive media, unfortunately) dumbs the whole issue down to the greedy porn industry versus the public health good guys.

The whole situation sucks, really, and not in a good way.