LOS ANGELES—Adult performer/director James Deen has filed a Cal/OSHA complaint of bloodborne pathogen violations under section 5193 of the California Code of Regulations against mixed martial arts promotion company Bellator MMA and its owner Viacom, Inc.
This development comes after Deen was cited and fined under the same section violation due to a complaint filed against him and his company by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).
Deen seeks to call attention with this move to the fact that adult entertainment is currently being held to a standard and regulation that was not designed for entertainment of any kind, and yet is applicable to spectator entertainment including professional fighting, wrestling, football, basketball, hockey and any other form with the possibility of blood or Other Potentially Infectious Material (OPIM) exposure.
“You can't pick and choose how to enforce the law," Deen said. "Cal/OSHA knows that section 5193 is not designed to protect entertainment workers. If the government is choosing to say that 5193 applies to the adult entertainment industry, then they are also saying that it must apply to all sports and entertainment.”
Deen also wishes to point up with this filing that while both the adult movie and professional fighting industries require their performers to undergo testing for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and the like, only the adult industry is being fined and reprimanded under section 5193. At the same time, he stresses that the adult entertainment industry does not want to be exempt from regulations. His comments echo those of many in the adult industry from the February 2016 Cal/OSHA Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board meeting where Cal/OSHA’s own standards board decided to vote against adopting a vertical regulation that would make section 5193 more specific to the adult entertainment industry.
“I’m not saying I want our industry to have zero regulations," Deen said. "The workers in the adult entertainment industry have never said that. However, we are saying that we want to see proper regulations that actually benefit and protect us as entertainment workers.”
By highlighting the selective nature of Cal/OSHA complaints against the adult industry via this gambit, Deen hopes to further peel back the curtain on the true agenda of AHF fouder Michael Weinstein as being anti-pornorgraphy. Not only has Weinstein tried to pass numerous condom laws under the guise of safety, which have been opposed by not only the majority of active adult entertainment workers, but both Cal/OSHA and the Los Angeles County Health Department, he also is attempting to become the tax-funded chief enforcer of these laws. If his proposed initiative passes on the ballot in November of this year, Weinstein will not only be able to use millions of dollars of taxpayer money, but also continue to use Cal/OSHA as a personal enforcement agency to further his anti-porn agenda.
Evidence of Weinstein’s motives were shown clearly with his statement after he brought forth complaints against Deen: “We want to thank Cal/OSHA for acting so swiftly on our workplace safety complaint against James Deen Productions and Third Rock by citing and fining Deen, one of the industry’s most well-known producers and adult performers—and the one who is the most vocal critic and prominent public face of the industry in its opposition to condom use.”
The fact remains, however, that none of the performers on James Deen’s sets have had issues that mirror those of the complaints. All performers on his sets have tested negative for all sexually transmitted diseases and infections and continue to do so.
"The adult industry is being wrongfully persecuted solely because they have chosen to work in an industry that is still considered taboo," Deen concluded. "Sex workers should not be held to different standards under the same regulations as their mainstream counterparts. I would like to see how someone with more power and deeper pockets is able to influence the enforcement and regulation committees in this state.”
Deen's overall goal, he expressed, is to see Cal/OSHA shift the focus of their work to creating safer, valid regulations that can be better applied to the citizens they work to protect instead of reinforcing political agendas such as that of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
