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California’s Condom Conundrum
I am on the road quite a bit now. Texas Tech, last week; West Point, on Thursday and Friday; the Hoover Institution in Silicon Valley late next week.
In anticipating the latter trip, I thought back to the year that the Rahe family spent in that neck of the woods and felt a wave of nostalgia. Where else would one stumble across the Church of Self-Realization? Where else is lunacy the norm? Where else does one find the great issues of the day debated?
You may think I jest. So I will offer you an example: the weighty question whether actors who perform in porn films should be required to wear condoms. Yes, that question is on the ballot; and, according to The Mercury News, the polling data suggests that a ban may be passed. There is already such a law in Los Angeles County, and it has caused the multibillion dollar porn industry to do its filming across the border in nearby places such as Oxnard. If Proposition 60 passes, who knows what will happen? The industry may move to Reno or Las Vegas or to, ahem, beautiful downtown Hillsdale.
Behind the proposition stand Michael Weinstein and his AIDS Healthcare Foundation, as well as the American Sexual Health Association, the California Academy of Preventive Medicine, and the California State Association of Occupational Health Nurses. These folks think it a matter of public health. Against it you will find a phalanx of organizations including the state’s Republican and Democratic parties, as well as the Libertarians and the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee. Also opposed are the Free Speech Coalition, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and LGBT-rights groups such as Equality California and the Transgender Law Center. These folks think it a matter of civil liberty. Others worry that it will cost California millions of dollars in tax revenue.
As far as I can tell, however, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has weighed in. The next presidential debate would be a lot more interesting than the snoozer last night if this question was raised by the moderator. After all, it is a national issue. As The Mercury News observes,
[F]ederal regulations through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration already require condom use for X-rated actors in the same way health workers must use gloves and other protection when dealing with bodily fluids and other potential biohazards. OSHA has fined companies for filming without the proper protection, usually in response to a complaint from Weinstein’s organization. Cal-OSHA recently fined one producer $34,400, another $78,000.
I will not be called on to vote for or against Proposition 60. But Peter Robinson and Rob Long live in California, and they need your advice. So step up to the plate. What should be determinative: tax revenues, public health, or civil liberties?
Published in Entertainment
The Deep State is going in where it doesn’t belong.
Or out-of-state Mormons.
Since the Left is so obsessed with sex, especially teaching it to young kids, it makes since they want everyone to to practice what they preach. Too bad condoms don’t fit over politician’s mouths. We’d all be better off.
All joking aside, this is a serious question on the proper limits of government interference in commerce between consenting adults, however distasteful or sinful one might find the commerce. I would vote no. These are consenting adults. They full well know the risks inherent in the job. The industry has pretty rigorous voluntary STD testing. I assume at the higher level of the industry, it’s a pretty small closed group of performers that self-monitors. There is no compelling state interest in policing this behavior other that the legislators wanting to control everything.
“Bedroom” implies privacy. If you’re on a stage with a film crew present, and furthermore you broadcast the results to the entire world, I think you’ve forfeited any claim to privacy rights per se.
The problem is in California all you need is a certain number of signatures to get an initiative on the ballot, so if you have the money to hire enough paid signature-gatherers, you can get pretty much anything on the ballot.
I do sometimes wonder what idiots sign some of these petitions though…
I was almost certain that none of the sex in porn films was real. It was done with mirrors and such. So now it’s actually real? And somebody actually cares about protecting actors from the consequences of their own industry? Where were these do-gooders in the 60’s when the sexual revolution was getting it on? Don’t they have ways of testing people for diseases? Oh, I forgot; it’s all about privacy. You should be able to infect a hundred co-workers with AIDS or Hepatitis C before you die. Anyway, maybe they can just sort of use the digital dust to fuzz the condom out of the scene. Oh, that would defeat the message. Maybe they can just include a message to accompany the film or video credits, “NO ACTORS OR LIVESTOCK WERE KNOWINGLY EXPOSED TO INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN THE MAKING OF THIS MOVIE.”
For shame.
Oy!
As soon as I saw this thread and clicked on it I knew my fellow Ricochetti would have comments full of innuendo, and you all have not failed to perform.
What a bunch of suppressed comedians we have lurking here….
That really is the bottom line, isn’t it? If these producers didn’t expect female performers to take it innuendo from bisexual male performers…
Another job I don’t want: CA state OSHA inspector
Nevada State Bordello Inspectors get all the action!
Didn’t @docjay have that job at one time? Maybe he could moonlight in California.
So there actually is a history here. In the 1820s, local governments were allowed to make debt decisions without consulting the voters. What they did was borrow massively, and then the elected officials skipped town, leaving the residents and the states holding the debts -but having never delivered on the infrastructure (roads, trains, and canals) that had been promised. This resulted in the great flood of state and municipal bankruptcies in 1840-41. Eight states and Florida defaulted on their loans, and the Bank of England (our major creditor) cut them off entirely.
The Congress refused to bail them out, and when John Tyler tried to do it anyway (among other things Tyler did to offend the Whigs) he was expelled from the party.
To get back in the good graces of the creditors, the states imposed the Bond Issue Vote, which was a way of forcing the people to agree, in advance, that they would raise taxes if necessary to pay back the bonds. These are the General Obligation bonds.
Of course, then states discovered they could bypass that vote by issue non-GO Bonds, and are going bankrupt again.
*oh deer God*
After EJ, you’re next to the punishment room.
Hey, whatever floats your boat…
Irving Kristol updated: A liberal is someone who does not mind if his eighteen-hear-old daughter is in a porn film, as long as the guy wears a condom!
Sabrdance:
@Sabrdance, I think I know some of this history, if you’re counting what happened to Michigan about the time of Jackson’s specie circular, but I would be interested in your recommendations for additional reading on this topic, whether in the form of books or journal articles.
I’d give you all a good spanking, but I fear you’d only enjoy it!
Will this be an official Rico live streaming event?
make it pay per view and they could stop harassing us about finding new members…
I don’t have a source. It comes up in any history of the states/state politics covering the period, or discussion of GO Bonds eventually. The most detailed presentation I heard was a paper at the 2011 APSA conference, and it’s mentioned (though not in enough detail if you didn’t know what the topic was) in What Hath God Wrought (Daniel Walker Howe’s history of the US in the period). You do have the right history -the aftermath of the Panic of 1837.