Condoms Not Mandatory In Porn Films, California Workplace Safety Board Votes

After listening to hours of arguments from representatives of the pornography industry, including actors and producers, members of California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (Cal/OSHA) reportedly voted down a regulation that would have made condom use mandatory in all adult entertainment movies filmed in the state.

With one position on the seven-member board vacant and another member absent from the Thursday vote, the proposal received three votes in its favor and two against, failing to get the four votes needed for the proposal to become a regulation, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Industry representatives, who argued that compulsory use of condoms would either destroy the multibillion-dollar industry or drive it underground, reportedly cheered and applauded after the final vote of the public hearing in Oakland, California.

“These regulations were based in stigma rather than science, and would have severely hurt adult performers. We look forward to working with Cal/OSHA on sensible regulation that respects performers choices,” Eric Paul Leue, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry, said in a statement following the vote, the Guardian reported.

Cal/OSHA spokeswoman Julia Bernstein said the board would start considering a new worker-safety measure for the porn industry, according to the LA Times. The board also released a statement after the vote: “While the standards board voted against adopting the proposed regulation, condoms are still required under the existing bloodborne pathogens standard in California and nationwide. This includes adult films.”

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a Los Angeles nonprofit that helped the passage of a similar regulation in Los Angeles, was disappointed with the outcome of the vote. Its spokesman Ged Kenslea reportedly said his organization would be interested in working with the pornography industry to achieve some sort of regulation, the need for which the industry agreed to during the hearing.

The adult entertainment industry reportedly argued that a large segment of their audience would lose interest in films that showed actors with condoms. They also expressed concerns that the requirement to avoid blood-borne pathogens could mean the use of other protective paraphernalia — such as goggles and dental dams — and added that no one would want to see adult films with such equipment.

The matter is not closed yet, however. Pushed by AHF, California is set to hold a statewide public vote in November to extend the Los Angeles condom requirement across the state, the LA Times reported.

But for now, many adult entertainment performers took to Twitter to express their relief at the vote.