LOS ANGELES—For those who have been living under a rock, AIDS Healthcare Foundation has for years engaged in a concerted effort to pass laws in California that mandate the use of condoms on adult sets. It succeeded in the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, is trying to do the same at the state level, and is now targeting shoots in Nevada. But make no mistake—whenever anyone from AHF claims, as they have done many times, that condom use for vaginal and anal sex only is the goal of the association's efforts, they are lying. Likewise, when anyone from AHF claims that opponents of mandatory condoms are exaggerating when they state—as AVN has done many times—that condoms are only one element of the barrier protection regime being pushed by AHF, that, too, is a lie.
Proof that these are not simple misstatements but lies can be found in the complaint sent July 25 by AHF to Nevada OSHA, a copy of which has been obtained by AVN, which focuses on unprotected oral sex, and unprotected oral sex alone, as being a sufficient cause for Nevada to act on its complaint.
Specifically, while AHF president Michael Weinstein has himself claimed that it is extremely difficult to acquire HIV from oral sex alone, the complaint claims that Kink.com parent "Cybernet Entertainment LLC allowed... employees to engage in activities in Las Vegas that are highly likely to spread bloodborne pathogens and OPIM in the workplace."
Again, with no mention in the complaint of either vaginal or anal intercourse having taken place during the shoot in question, the complaint states only that the performers in the production "are shown with semen on or around their eyes and mouths."
Indeed, in attempting to focus Nevada OSHA's attention on what it believes are the salient issues at stake, AHF makes no mention of Measure B, the Los Angeles County law that mandates condom (and other barrier) use on set, but instead uses Cal/OSHA and Federal OSHA bloodborne pathogen standards as its overriding authority, because, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted in an editorial published today, "Unlike L.A., Nevada has no condom requirement for pornographic films."
The upshot is that AHF's hypocrisy is simply stunning. Playing a high-stakes political game at the local and state level, the association and its minions are now proven to have no qualms about telling the media (and legislators) exactly what they want to hear, while simultaneously playing any and every card they can to achieve their goal, which is obviously a total fealty to complete barrier protection so that no bodily fluid will ever make its way from one individual onto any part of another individual.
Indeed, the following quote from a CBS News article published in January 2012 could not make the point more graphically. Commenting on the occasion of the signing by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of an ordinance mandating the use of condoms in porn in the city, the article states, "Weinstein noted the ordinance does not require condoms when oral sex is involved because his group, which originally crafted it, agreed with the filmmakers that infection through oral sex was not as great as through other sex acts."
That position is in direct opposition to the claims AHF makes in its July 25 complaint to Nevada OSHA.
Reacting viscerally to the obvious contradiction, Kink.com spokesperson Mike Stabile commented, "This goes against everything AHF has said in the past about their end goals. They filed a complaint based on unprotected cunnilingus! These are acts that they themselves have said are very safe, so it looks to be much more about harassing adult businesses than it is protecting performer health. Based on the objections in this complaint, it's be hard to see how even a mainstream Hollywood could comply —ostensibly, I suppose, AHF could start filing complaints about kissing or spitting. And those people aren't even tested!"
The full AHF complaint can be read here.
