CYBERSPACE—This morning, public radio station KPCC broadcast the show AirTalk, hosted by Larry Mantle, and the guests who filled the airwaves beginning at about 11:40 were AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) "public health consultant" Adam Cohen and Free Speech Coalition spokesperson Michael Stabile—and for one of them, virtually nothing coming out of his mouth was the truth.
Mantle began by asking Cohen how Measure B had been received by adult production companies, with Cohen responding, "There are actually multiple studios that are implementing condom use as a result of Measure B, as well as certain directors who decided to use condoms in their productions as a result of Measure B, so I would say it's been very, very successful."
Of course, that hasn't been the actual experience on Planet Earth, where Measure B has failed miserably. Virtually no adult producers consistently use condoms or other barrier protections in their filming, at least on the straight side—Cohen considers gay productions, many of which have been using condoms for decades before Measure B was enacted, as a Measure B "success story"—and Mantle's next question, about the enormous decrease in film permit applications, should have tripped Cohen up, but he blissfully blustered through.
"It's actually very simple," Cohen stated regarding the lack of filming permits. "The adult film industry doesn't take out film permits. Measure B requires health permits taking [sic] out, and in order to get those health permits, you have to essentially promise that you're going to use condoms. If you don't take out a health permit, you don't get a film permit, so the industry said, 'You know what? We're just not going to take out any permits at all and just continue filming.' In fact, we were able to prove that seven large companies are still producing content in our backyards in Los Angeles even though they say they're not filming here anymore."
Of course, the adult filming community used to take out plenty of permits. In 2012 alone, it took out nearly 500—a number which dropped to five (5) in 2014 after Measure B went into effect. And Cohen is correct that nowadays, one can't get a filming permit without the "health permit" created by Measure B, and because adult producers don't want to be put in the position of swearing to something—condom use—that they don't expect to put into practice, they're forced into the unenviable position of either lying on their health permit application or simply not getting a filming permit. Most have chosen the latter course, possibly because lying on an official government document can be worth up to a couple of years in prison.
Mantle then gave Stabile a chance to respond, asking if it were true that the low permit numbers were an indication that adult filmmakers were abandoning Los Angeles for the less restrictive climes of Las Vegas. Stabile noted that a few companies have moved across the border, but that "People have been waiting to see the fallout from the Measure B situation, but I don't think that the permit numbers are wrong; I think it's an accurate reflection of what's been going on."
Mantle then asked if it were true that people don't want to see adult movies with condoms, but Stabile added more nuance in his response.
"I don't think the market is really the issue," Stabile stated. He noted that performers are tested every two weeks for a "full slate of STIs. These are our bodies; we want the option to use a condom but we don't want to be forced. In most cases, this is something that should be left up to the performers, and they should drive this discussion."
Mantle had apparently done some homework on the issue, noting that one of the arguments against mandatory condoms is the fact that lubricants on condoms lose effectiveness after 90 minutes or two hours of nearly uninterrupted fucking.
"Yes, condoms are not approved for industrial use like this," Stabile noted. "I think this is—and I'm sure you'll hear from performers because this is something that is very close to them. I think there is a thought that performers would of course want condoms, but in reality, no, they can be very uncomfortable and this is something that performers have been really, really vocal about."
Mantle then took a phone call, with the person on the phone noting that contrary to what Cohen had claimed, most studios do not currently mandate condoms, and that although most are still shooting locally, they have not taken out permits largely because of the Measure B requirements—and that the performer population is still largely STD-free, with no HIV transmission on set over the past decade.
"This issue isn't just about HIV, although I would have about two dozen performers who would disagree with Mr. Stabile's [sic] comment," Cohen responded when given the chance. "Regarding the other infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, there have been thousands of documented infections in this industry. A study just from 2012 that came out just before Measure B was passed found that one in four adult performers were infected with chlamydia or gonorrhea despite the industry's testing scheme, because the problem with the industry's testing scheme is that they actually do not test for all STIs and they do not test all anatomical sites."
It's unclear which "about two dozen performers" Cohen is referring to who would disagree that there's been no HIV transmission on set, but if he's referring to Cameron Bay, Rod Daily, Derrick Burts, Sofia Delgado and Darren James or any of the other HIV-positive former performers that AHF has on its payroll and/or is providing free treatment to, those infectees have already been proven to have acquired their disease off-camera, much as AHF and its president, Michael Weinstein, have implied on many occasions—most recently at yesterday's AHF press conference—that they were infected on-set.
Moreover, Cohen's reference to a 2012 study that "found that one in four adult performers were infected with chlamydia or gonorrhea" would, if Cohen had been honest, have included the fact that the study was horribly flawed.
"First, and perhaps most significantly, of the participants identified as allegedly having been infected with either chlamydia or gonorrhea, the study fails to tie any of them to sexual activity either on or off the set while infected," AVN reported at the time. "The study liberally implies that infected individuals worked and could have infected fellow performers, but no actual transmission connection is made. Instead, the study systematically concludes what might occur in instances where an asymptomatic infected individual whose industry mandated test failed to identify an infection was allowed to perform."
But as far as Cohen is concerned, it doesn't matter if performers got infected on a set or off.
"That actually doesn't really matter, because there are exposures that are occurring on that set," Cohen said. "If a performer tests on one day and performs a few scenes and whatever they do in their personal lives, they still have a two-week window before they're required to get another test. And if that means that they contract something beforehand, they're still bringing something onto that set and may infect other performers."
Trouble is, neither Cohen nor AHF have any reliable statistics demonstrating that performers are being infected on set, so what "may" happen is irrelevant.
Mantle then took a call from "Ela," who was later identified to AVN as APAC Secretary Ela Darling, who stated, "I have two concerns. The first is that this initiative would allow private citizens to bring up charges against producers, and most performers themselves are producers in their own right, whether they're doing clips for their own website or a webcam show with their boyfriend or what have you. This would allow their stalkers and harassers direct access to their lives to harass them and be able to learn their real names and home addresses, anything that you discover in a court situation. And then secondly, given that any California citizen can do these things, why does Michael Weinstein need a special state position created, which is a provision in this bill, that would be—that would give him a lot of power and that he actually wouldn't be able to be fired from; it would take a legislative vote to remove him."
Mantle, who apparently was surprised at the Weinstein lifetime employment provision of the bill, essentially asked Ela if she were sure.
"Yes, he gets a state position that would require a legislative vote to remove him; it's not even at-will, and it has quite a bit of power, and I'm wondering why he needs so much power if the bill already gives every California citizen which he is to bring up charges against producers?" she responded.
"I don't know what version of the ballot initiative she's reading, but there is no such thing of any of that caliber," Cohen (perhaps ignorantly) lied, as AVN noted in its analysis of the final version of the ballot initiative here.
Mantle then asked Cohen if he was saying that it was not the case that any California citizen could sue an adult producer over lack of condoms, but while Cohen initially suggested that they could not, he mainly evaded the question.
"Yes," Cohen said in direct response to Mantle's query, but continued, "so what the ballot initiative allows is any citizen, which already exists right now, to file a complaint with the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration regarding a production that takes place within a certain period of time filmed without protection of the workers. If Cal/OSHA refuses to address this issue within a certain period of time, I believe 45 days, then the individual who filed the complaint may take the production company to a civil lawsuit, and in that case, 25 percent of the proceedings would go to the individual and 75 percent to the state. However, this is only for people who are producers or anybody who is what I would refer to as an agent of control regarding this industry."
Fortunately, Stabile was ready with the facts of the ballot initiative, and of course, those facts contradicted at least Cohen's implication that California citizens could not sue producers.
"Yeah, I think that Adam's response is really disingenuous and I'll tell you why," Stabile told Mantle and his listeners. "One, there is a provision, the last provision of the bill in enforcement, which does make the proponent of the bill, Mr. Weinstein, a—it gives him basically a blank check to go after companies or producers. It's pretty clear. Secondly, the part that Ella brought up, about the individual citizens being able to sue performers, is probably the most contentions issue right now, because most performers are producers; most performers do their own content; they do cam shows, they sell clips, they do all of that, and what this bill does is create an enforcement mechanism that allows any civil person to drag them into court. Performers are concerned, obviously, as Ella mentioned, about stalkers, harassers and people, frankly, with just a profit motive. You know, if I were smart, I'd drop out of the Free Speech Coalition and just start a firm that filed all these things because I'd get 25 percent of the revenue.
"The reason that these things are in here, the reason that both of these troubling aspects have been put in the bill is because the bills previously haven't been enforced," Stabile continued. "Measure B was, you know, by and large declined to be enforced by L.A. County. It's a bad bill. This is something that has been opposed by performers, it's been opposed by the L.A. Times, it's been opposed by the L.A. Commission on HIV, so I think that this is something that is very important to Mr. Weinstein, this is something that's very important to Mr. Cohen, this is something that by and large is opposed by performers, opposed by people who are involved in healthcare and they've written these pieces in that allows them and private citizens to enforce a bill just for watching it; you know, not from anybody who's involved with it."
At that point, Mantle brought the discussion to a close, though it may be possible to hear a replay of the program on KPCC's website scpr.org. But if listeners got anything worthwhile out of the discussion, hopefully it's the fact that AIDS Healthcare and its spokesmodels have absolutely no problem playing fast and loose with the facts of this ballot initiative—if not outright lying about it.
