California voters likely will have a chance next November to decide whether porn actors should have to wear condoms in films made in the state. Many in the porn industry are fighting the idea.
The proposal, which is being pushed by the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, needs 365,880 valid signatures to be on the state ballot in 2016. AHF and its allies announced Monday, September 14, which was the filing deadline, that they would be submitting 557,136 signatures of registered voters.
In a news release Monday, AHF President Michael Weinstein predicted victory.
"[U]nlike most politicians, voters are not squeamish about this issue, seeing it as a means to protect the health and safety of performers working in the industry," Weinstein said. "It's only fair that adult film performers be afforded the same safeguards as other Californians in their workplaces."
AHF was behind a similar law that passed in Los Angeles County in 2012.
Among other provisions, the California Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act would require porn actors to use condoms when they're filming scenes depicting sexual intercourse. It would also allow any California resident who complains to the California Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health about a suspected violation to potentially file a civil action against an actor if he has a financial interest in the film if the agency doesn't start an investigation within a certain time period.
A gay San Francisco porn actor who goes by the name Bray Love said he always wears condoms in his scenes, but AHF's measure "is a little bit ridiculous."
"I understand both sides. I really do," Love, 23, said. "But really, when it comes down to it, it's our bodies. It should be our choice."
When he first started in porn about six years ago, "I did a couple of bareback scenes," by his own choosing, he said, but he now works for Naked Sword, a local company that requires condoms.
Love, who's HIV-negative, is on pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which involves taking HIV medication and has been shown to be effective in preventing transmission. He tops sometimes but bottoms at others.
He prefers wearing condoms in his scenes, "because of the many things that you can contract by doing bareback."
However, he said, "I don't hold anything against anybody that does bareback."
"I know a lot of people who don't like the whole condom aspect" while watching porn films, Love said. "It can turn them off" by "getting in the way of their fantasy."
Naked Sword production director Pam Dore, also known as mr. Pam, echoed Love's comments.
"I believe the government shouldn't be regulating the porn set," Dore said.
Proponents of the proposed ballot measure say that almost two-dozen performers became infected with HIV while working in porn from 2004 to 2014, but Dore said such claims are "misleading."
There haven't been any transmissions of HIV "on a regulated set since 2004," she said, and "none of those people became positive on an adult set."
"This is not a problem," Dore said. "I don't understand what their assault on the gay porn industry is about."
Naked Sword doesn't require HIV testing, since its actors have to use condoms in films "and I don't want to discriminate against people who are positive," she said.
Although the company requires condoms in sex scenes, Dore's open to the possibility of filming bareback porn, since "PrEP is 100 percent effective on stopping HIV transmission." The company's condom requirements were established before prevention methods like PrEP were available.
[A recent Kaiser PrEP study found that none of its 650 subjects - mostly gay and bi men - reported an HIV infection since 2010.]
If the proposed measure becomes law, she said, porn producers will "just move out of California." Some already have, Dore said.
Naked Sword and others will be working against the ballot measure, but "it's hard" with AHF spending large sums on the campaign, "when they should really be spending that money on helping people," she said.
AHF held a barely audible conference call Monday to discuss the proposal. A spokesman for the group didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.
Tim Valenti, Naked Sword's president and CEO, is the board president of the Free Speech Coalition, which is the trade association of the porn industry.
Diane Duke, the coalition's executive director, said in a statement this week that AHF's proposed measure is "an outrageous initiative that would allow any citizen of the state of California to sue a porn star for not using condoms on film, and gives them a financial incentive to do so. ... In an effort to patrol community morals, Mr. Weinstein's initiative turns the state courts into a legalized method of stalking" harassing, and exploiting porn stars.
In its review of the proposal, the state legislative analyst's office said the law would mean "potentially reduced state and local tax revenue of millions or tens of millions of dollars per year," as well as "Likely state costs of a few million dollars annually to administer the law."
Although the analysis found, "If the measure resulted in a lower number of HIV or other STD infections in California, then there could be state and local public health savings of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year," the state office also said, "The ongoing net costs or saving for health and human service programs are difficult to predict."