California Lawmakers Want Porn Stars to Wear Safety Goggles
California's workplace safety guardians have proposed an amendment to a bill that would require porn stars to wear protective goggles while filming.
The bill, which has so far stalled in the state senate, establishes numerous mandates for the porn industry to follow with the goal of curbing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Among these mandates is the requirement that "personal protective equipment" be used to "prevent contact of an employee's eye, skin, mucous membranes, or genitals with the blood or OPIM-STI of another." (OPIM-STI includes pre-ejaculate, semen, vaginal secretions, and fecal matter.)
According to the bill, which was originally posted on a NSFW adult entertainment blog:
The employer shall provide, at no cost to the employee, appropriate personal protective equipment such as, but not limited to, condoms, gloves for cleaning, and, if contact of the eyes with OPIM-STI is reasonably anticipated, eye protection.
So basically, cum shots sans eyegear would be illegal.
The bill would also require employees to wear condoms during vaginal and anal sex, gloves when touching "contaminated laundry," and create a specific exemption for condom wearing during oral sex to be reviewed in January 2018.
Porn actors are actually already required to follow these rules, says Deborah Gold, the deputy chief for health of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health. They just rarely do. In an interview with Salon, Gold said that "these draft guidelines are an attempt to tailor existing workplace-safety rules relating to blood-borne pathogens specifically to the adult industry."
The bill follows in the footsteps of last year's Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act (or Measure B), the much-discussed, voter-approved measure that requires porn actors in Los Angeles County to wear condoms on set.
James Deen, an award-winning porn star and a staunch opponent of condom mandates, spoke with the Huffington Post after the measure passed:
"It will be interesting to see what happens next. People will most likely move production out of Los Angeles and take out tax money with us. Hopefully this measure passing will help us [adult entertainers] get more organized in the future and that, along with Los Angeles losing our business, will allow people in politics to start seeing us as an asset."
There's evidence that Deen's prediction came true: After the measure passed, the number of requests for porn production permits in Los Angeles dropped from an annual norm of 500 to two. Now it appears that California politicians are looking to implement even more expansive protective barrier mandates.
In a satirical video protesting Measure B, James Deen and co-star Jessica Drake show what a scene with mandatory safety goggles and latex barriers everywhere could look like. NSFW! You've been warned. Watch it after the jump.