It's a Wrap: Complaint Wants Condoms on SoFla Porn Shoots
Adult filmmakers balk at forcing actors to wrap it up, saying sales would plummet
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Bom chicka wow wow! An adult business will open today despite a court case.
The state's sanitary nuisance law, Florida Statute 386, bans any act that might spread disease.
That hasn't stopped the slow march of Katy Perry's insidious "California Girls" on local airwaves, but officials are investigating allegations that the SoFla porn industry's aversion to condoms constitutes a violation.
A complaint was filed in January with the Miami-Dade Health Department by Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a group working to force condoms on porn actors in California.
They say local Miami filmmakers Bang Brothers Films, Josh Stone Productions and Reality Kings Productions are setting a bad example for teens and young adults by not requiring condoms, citing 22 instances of HIV in adult actors in LA County since 2004.
"A lot of young people get their sex education from porn," the foundation's president Michael Weinstein told the Miami Herald as, we assume, parents everywhere fainted instinctively. "They find daddy's DVD or go online.''
Weinstein said his group became active in Florida's growing kudzu-like porn scene as California productions began moving here to enjoy cheaper production costs and litlle union involvement. Last month they opened a Miami clinic named for Magic Johnson, who showed up to celebrate.
The aim of their complaint, Weinstein says, is not to shut down production -- just to force films to practice safe sex. Health Department investigators have taken the case.
But producers point to regular testing of their actors and argue that consumers don't want talent to accessorize.
"What kind of adult film would you have left?'' asked Larry Walters, Bang Brothers' attorney. "Nothing that would sell."
Posted Sunday, Jul 4, 2010 - 10:39 AM EST
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