Author: Cordelia Kenney
All it takes to bring the porn industry to its knees is a little bit of latex. Nearly a year after California passed the Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, also known as Measure B, reports have been trickling in documenting the remarkable drop in permits to make adult films in Los Angeles County, where over 90 percent
of porn in the United States is produced. While industry representatives denigrate the law as unnecessary and
damaging to personal liberties, Measure B mandates the bare minimum
regulation for a highly problematic industry both in terms of health and
safety for its actors and in terms of porn’s sexualization of male dominance.
The law requires male actors in pornographic films to wear condoms in
the act and for studios to acquire permits from the L.A. Public Health
Department. Co-founder of the biggest adult film company in Los Angeles Steven Hirsch complained that condoms in adult films are “distracting and
ruin the fantasy,” so actors should not be required to wear them. But perhaps the time has come to examine just what kind of fantasies porn viewers are consuming. Radical feminist Robert Jensen offers a nuanced critique of the skewed representation of sexuality in pornographic media.
“The majority of the pornography that saturates our hyper-mediated lives
presents not images of ‘just sex,’ but sex in the context of male
dominance,” Jensen wrote in a recent essay.
The adult film industry, like any other capitalist enterprise, has one
concern on its mind: how to make the most profit. Marketing sex poses unique challenges to producers, though; there are only so many ways that they can depict coitus without it becoming farcical.
“When all emotion is drained from sex it becomes repetitive and
uninteresting — in a word, boring, even to men who are watching solely
to facilitate masturbation. Because the novelty of seeing sex on the
screen eventually wears off, pornographers who want to expand (or even
just maintain) market share and profit need to give their products an
emotional edge of some kind,” Jensen said in an article from 2008 published in Last Exit Magazine.
That emotional edge translates to increasingly more explicit violence against women in adult films. Producers
have steadily introduced more and more physically demanding (and relatively uncommon in everyday sexual practices) sexual
positions. From making anal penetration routine (which is statistically
unfavored by heterosexual females), pornographic films have now
normalized double-penetration (a penis in both a woman’s vagina and anus) and even multiple penises and dildos simultaneously positioned in both a woman’s anus and vagina.
Jensen also
cites a recent comprehensive study that examined 50 of the most popular
adult films and discovered that 88 percent of scenes contained physical
aggression toward women (such as spanking, open-hand slapping and
gagging), while 48 percent of scenes included verbal aggression
(“usually a man calling a woman derogatory names”). Some women genuinely
enjoy “rough sex.” But representing only this kind of gendered sexual
dominance in pornography presents the false image that all women want to
be gagged, slapped and called “dirty whores” during intercourse.
In a September article in The Guardian from September, neuropsychiatrist Valerie Voon found that the brain chemistry of individuals who identified themselves as “porn addicts” was comparable to that of drug addicts. In other words, Voon found similar patterns of craving and dependency between porn users and drug users. For habitual users of porn, Voon further found that just as substance abusers developed a dependence on drugs, self-identified porn addicts had difficulty deriving sexual satisfaction (i.e. ejaculating) from good old-fashioned sex.
Given the tangible psychological damage inflicted on consumers of adult films, then, condom usage on-set is one compromise pornography producers should be more than willing to make. Since actors are required to get tested for sexually transmitted infections every 30 days, many in the adult film community decry the measure as an unnecessary infringement on their rights that simultaneously hurts the industry’s profits. The Los Angeles Times reported a 95 percent decrease in permits issued for production of pornographic films since the law passed last November. Adult films are almost exclusively made in
the San Fernando Valley, but industry representatives cite a drop of
filed petitions to film in L.A. County from 480 last year to only 24
this year.
Three actors who tested positive for HIV this year alone, though, demonstrate the continued failure to guarantee worker safety on the job. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation study conducted in late 2012 revealed that nearly one-third of 168 adult film star participants had a sexually transmitted infection at the time of the study. Spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and
major proponent for Measure B Ged Kenslea cites nine cases
of HIV in the porn industry within the past nine years. For individuals who make their livelihood in the adult film
industry, a safe working environment requires no less than taking all
necessary precautions to prevent infection.
Clearly, the pornography industry is not doing as great of a job as it claims to be doing in regulating the health of its actors. Veteran actor Mr. Marcus recently came out about testing positive for syphilis, yet he continued to perform on screen after the diagnosis. Infected actors continuing to perform sexual acts incites obvious public health concerns. Like most infectious diseases, if one actor acquires an infection and does not get it treated immediately or does not consistently and correctly use a barrier method, the actor exposes numerous others to infection.
If unprotected sex was isolated to the adult film industry, perhaps producers and actors would be exempt from public health measures meant to prevent the spread of disease. But the reality is that unsafe sex practices is an insidious problem in the United States. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, at least 40 percent of teenagers do not use condoms. A 2004 study found that for 82 percent of U.S. adults, oral sex never includes safe sex practices. For an industry that profits from untenable depictions of sexual interactions, it might seem unfair to mandate condom usage when so many Americans are not even practicing safe sex. But it is exactly because so many people do not appreciate the necessity of using barrier methods to prevent the spread of infection that the adult film industry must comply.
As wrong as porn producers are in nearly every other respect, they do have a point about condoms being cumbersome. For all of the technological ingenuity of our age, it is rather surprising that male condoms have not adapted to become more user-friendly. Although condom manufacturers have tried in earnest to create more sensual rubbers, innovation is lacking. To rectify this technological gap, Bill and Melinda Gates recently hosted a competition to elicit creative solutions to encourage more men to use condoms. According to The New York Times, 812 ideas were submitted to their foundation with 11 contestants winning prizes of 100,000 dollars each. Before any new models hit the market, though, adult film actors may also consider trying out female condoms.
Since porn is likely here to stay, the most reasonable action is to at the very least ensure the health and safety of its performers. Sexually transmitted infections including HIV are public health concerns; adult film stars have sexual partners outside of the studio as well. Condom use needs to be encouraged both onscreen and off.
Cordelia Kenney is a senior history major. She can be reached at ckenney@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyCKenney.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.