Voters in Los Angeles County will decide in November whether adult film actors should be required to wear condoms.

 

The initiative, approved for the ballot by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was spearheaded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which collected 371,000 signatures supporting the plan.

 

The foundation’s president, Michael Weinstein, said the law is meant to protect sex performers from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The industry has been temporarily shut down occasionally since 2004, as some porn actors have proved positive for HIV.

 

If it becomes law, the mandate would force pornography producers to get a health permit from the county Department of Public Health before making their movies. Producers in the multibillion-dollar porn business, centered around Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley just north of it, have threatened to leave the state if the new rules pass.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

To Learn More:

Should Porn Actors Wear Condoms? Los Angeles County Voters Will Decide (by Matt Reynolds, Courthouse News Service)

Porn Condom Measure Qualifies For Ballot (by Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times)