Aspiring porn czar

Protecting adult entertainers from the perils of their craft—that’s how the condom-requiring Proposition 60 is being sold. But just how dangerous is the porn industry for performers, and are there other reasons AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein is giving the initiative the full-court press?

Chanel Preston believes so.

The seven-year industry veteran claims the bill’s architect is more interested in elevating himself to the position of porn czar after Weinstein declined an invitation to a press conference hosted by her organization, the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, which opposes the measure.

“If he really cared about performers, he would have made an effort to understand how the industry works,” Preston said.

Weinstein’s organization is the Yes campaign’s sole funder, spending more than $2 million to pass an initiative that could install him in a new, state-paid position—from which he could only be removed by a two-thirds vote from both houses.

While Weinstein was unavailable for comment to SN&R, he recently told the Los Angeles Times his measure is intended to protect the performers whose industry considers them “disposable.”

“It’s a worker protection issue,” he said.

Thus far, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been unable to enforce existing federal condom mandates. While condoms are technically required in adult films, the original law was meant more to ensure that medical workers put on gloves when dealing with patients that might have HIV, according to Eric Paul Leue, campaign manager for No on 60. It just got also applied to the adult entertainment industry, he says, which considers the policy a bad fit. (One loophole allows producers to hold their films for six months, until the statue of limitations expires, so they can’t be prosecuted when they release them.)

Instead, the porn industry has essentially self-regulated, mandating performers to produce clean STD tests every 14 days. Leue maintains that, by some metrics, adult performers are more diligent about testing than the general public.

Still, a 2008 study by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health found that adult performers had higher chances of contracting gonorrhea and chlamydia than the county’s 18-to-29-year-old general population.

“People outside don’t like to hear that,” Preston said. “They want to hear that there is no risk, but that’s not realistic. So if you’re talking realistically, we do have to weigh our options. But it’s funny, in our industry, we look outward, and we’re freaked out by you guys because we can’t trust that you have been tested.”

The stakeholders of this marginalized, yet multibillion dollar industry have been negotiating with OSHA to create apt regulations for its incredibly diverse workforce, efforts they claim would be derailed by Prop 60.

Instead, he says, he wishes that more funds were spent on transgender, and young black gay male populations that are at far higher risk of catching HIV.