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This next story pertains to adult content. Los Angeles has become the first city in the country to require male actors in adult films to wear condoms. And the porn industry is not happy about it. Here's Stephanie O'Neill of member station KPCC.
STEPHANIE O'NEILL, BYLINE: Condoms are now required on all film shoots that receive a city permit, but the law does not apply to adult films shot in studios. Those don't require city permitting in the first place. But a ballot measure in November looks to extend the law throughout the county.
MICHAEL WEINSTEIN: You really can't argue that people who go to work at a job, you know, ought to be putting their health at risk.
O'NEILL: Michael Weinstein is president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the group responsible for the city law and the one trying to extend the measure countywide.
WEINSTEIN: We put a thing at the conclusion of films saying that no animal was hurt in the making of this film. I mean, we can't say that about these films when it comes to people, real-life people.
O'NEILL: People like Darren James. He's a well-known former adult film performer. In 2004, his life and career crashed down around him.
DARREN JAMES: I was going to just try to put myself back in school and save my money and get out, and the worst thing happened: I contracted HIV.
O'NEILL: How did you get notified?
JAMES: Well, basically, I got a phone call over - right before the weekend, from what I remember. And it was just devastating that, you know, I was numb, because I figured, what, chlamydia? No, I got HIV.
O'NEILL: James, now 47, was at the center of a highly publicized HIV outbreak that for a month shut down the adult film industry based in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. Three female actors who performed with him were also found HIV-positive.
JAMES: If you're working, you're going to get something eventually with that amount of exposure. And a lot of people who tell you they never got nothing, that's a bunch of B.S.
DIANE DUKE: This law will actually hurt performers more than it will help.
O'NEILL: Diane Duke is executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. That's the trade association for the adult entertainment industry. She points out that the rate of sexually transmitted diseases is lower among the industry's sex workers than among populations with similar demographics. Duke says that's due largely to stringent testing protocols the industry adopted after the 2004 outbreak involving Darren James.
DUKE: What we have in place works.
O'NEILL: Since then, Duke says, there's been no transmission of HIV within the industry.
DUKE: Undermining the self-regulation that we've imposed and that the industry goes by rigidly is unfortunate. And by mandating condoms and trying to regulate from outside, I think it's only going to hurt our performers.
O'NEILL: Duke says mainstream adult film producers require all actors to undergo STD testing every 28 days. The results are registered in a database, and that determines whether a performer is eligible to be called for work.
DUKE: We'll be looking at possibly diminishing the protocols that are in place. Some folks might go underground.
O'NEILL: Or leave the San Fernando Valley altogether, taking with them about 1,500 performers and an estimated billion-dollar-plus porn economy. Duke says consumers don't want to buy films in which condoms are used. But Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation says that's not true.
WEINSTEIN: I don't think that, you know, people are going to be so horrified by that little piece of latex that they're not going to be willing to purchase these films.
O'NEILL: Weinstein says his group has collected half the signatures it needs to qualify the L.A. County measure for the fall ballot. For NPR News, I'm Stephanie O'Neill in Los Angeles.
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