Prop 60 assumes that the state of California and its residents know better than the adult film actors themselves. And so, if passed, the ballot initiative would require male porn actors to wear condoms. Furthermore, the proposition would allow residents to act as condom patrols, reporting actors who attempt to sneak unsheathed past this new layer of censorship. To that point, if a non-condom user was discovered in a porn video after the passage of the initiative, and the Cal/OSHA bureaucracy failed to take action, any consumer could file a civil suit and claim part of the revenues from the video.
This is ludicrous on so many levels and, even for left-leaning groups, the nanny-state overreach on this proposition is oppressive. Opponents of the proposition — including the DCCC, the California Democratic Party, the California Republican Party, the California Libertarian Party, various local Democratic and Republican organizations, San Francisco Berniecrats, the Free Speech Coalition, the AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Adult Performer Actors Guild and dozens of others — agree that the law is not only too restrictive, it’d end up becoming a frivolous “lawsuit bonanza.” [...]
Stoya added, “I believe that pornography as entertainment serves a widespread human need as a safe place to fantasize.” Of course that’s exactly right. As long as performers are aware of what they’re doing, and as long as no one is hurt in the process, there’s no point in non-experts telling the experts how to make their movies, nor is it appropriate to meddle with the cinematic fantasies they’re manufacturing — even if you don’t believe porn is an art form or a genre of filmmaking. (It’s a little of both.) No one knows better than the actors who make these movies whether they’re at risk, and holding up the threat of lawsuits against each performer for not wearing condoms seems like an overly punitive measure for a problem that simply doesn’t exist.
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