The most corrupt politicians live in L.A.

[deepthunk]

The issue of the L.A. city council requiring condom use in adult entertainment is not about the safety of the performers, the producers use STD battery tests to insure that, the issue is the censorship of the images that the industry produces. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation wants to drum up publicity and donations and censoring what they deem as unsafe sex from visual media is part of that effort.

The reality is that because of the industries rigorous testing procedures, it really is safe sex. It’s safer even than a monogamous relationship actually, because every performer is tested before preforming whereas a spouse might be cheating on you without your knowledge and never get tested.

The safety practices of the adult entertainment industry are evidenced by the fact that in ten years, there has been only one incident involving two people who have contracted HIV from a film shoot, out of many thousands that have been filmed over the same timeframe. Ladies and gentlemen, in any other business, ten years with only one accident would be considered an excellent safety record by OSHA if it was just one company, let alone an entire industry. Why does an industry with a nearly spotless safety record require more safety regulations?

Furthermore I would go on to point out that the likelihood of infection (with a proper testing regime) is relatively low, you wouldn’t ban stunts from movies because one or two stuntmen were injured over the course of a few years would you? Did anyone propose banning guns from movies when Brandon Lee got accidentally shot?

Yet despite the fact that HIV is even now treatable and not fatal (indeed, those infected have to take medication and are limited in their reproduction, it is little more than a minor disability), you propose that the rare possibility of an accident is cause to impose visual censorship on the entire industry?

This entire issue has been trumped up by AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a lobby group who’s seeing the waning of the significance of their cause and is therefore drumming up publicity in the hopes of spurring corporate and private donation so that they can prolong their proverbial gravy train. Why else would they choose to trumpet the issue now, after HIV has been treatable and manageable for years? Clearly this is an issue of this group seeking donations and exploiting the corruption of the L.A. city council to drum up publicity.

This is nothing more or less than an attempt to censor visual media in the movie capital of the world. If they censor adult entertainment in the name of “public health” today, why not censor violence in movies tomorrow, or how about ideas that aren’t conducive to the public wellbeing such as certain lyrics in rap music? If one special interest group can censor one form of creative expression, why not others?

This is a direct assault on free speech and free expression, nothing more and nothing less and it is not the end. You don’t take away people’s rights with one stroke or there’ll be public outcry, you do it incrementally in little baby steps and that’s what this is, a step toward censorship.

Clearly as anyone can see, all the arguments used to justify this ordinance are fundamentally flawed and just blatantly untrue; therefore the entire ordinance would appear to simply not make sense. When most people see politicians do something that doesn’t make any sense they assume it’s because the elected officials are somehow stupid, I learned long ago however that when government does something stupid, one need only follow the money to make sense of it.

The fact that the ordinance is unnecessary and the arguments justifying it are clearly flawed, as well as the fact that the city council waited until anyone who would voice opposition was out of town or otherwise engaged before passing it in a closed door session, reeks of bribes, mutual back scratching and favor trading, it reeks of government corruption.

It is plain, the L.A. city council passed this ordinance because they were bribed by a special interest group whose sole motive was to drum up publicity and donations, and force the entire adult entertainment industry to advertise a certain industries products for free.

If they want their industry to survive the adult entertainment producers should found a superPAC right now and start fighting every city council member who voted for this ban, and anyone who supports freedom of artistic expression, or opposes blatant corruption of elected officials should support them.

 

[Steel_Banshee]

The issue of the L.A. city council requiring condom use in adult entertainment is not about the safety of the performers, the producers use STD battery tests to insure that, the issue is the censorship of the images that the industry produces. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation wants to drum up publicity and donations and censoring what they deem as unsafe sex from visual media is part of that effort.

The reality is that because of the industries rigorous testing procedures, it really is safe sex. It’s safer even than a monogamous relationship actually, because every performer is tested before preforming whereas a spouse might be cheating on you without your knowledge and never get tested.

The safety practices of the adult entertainment industry are evidenced by the fact that in ten years, there has been only one incident involving two people who have contracted HIV from a film shoot, out of many thousands that have been filmed over the same timeframe. Ladies and gentlemen, in any other business, ten years with only one accident would be considered an excellent safety record by OSHA if it was just one company, let alone an entire industry. Why does an industry with a nearly spotless safety record require more safety regulations?

Furthermore I would go on to point out that the likelihood of infection (with a proper testing regime) is relatively low, you wouldn’t ban stunts from movies because one or two stuntmen were injured over the course of a few years would you? Did anyone propose banning guns from movies when Brandon Lee got accidentally shot?

Yet despite the fact that HIV is even now treatable and not fatal (indeed, those infected have to take medication and are limited in their reproduction, it is little more than a minor disability), you propose that the rare possibility of an accident is cause to impose visual censorship on the entire industry?

This entire issue has been trumped up by AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a lobby group who’s seeing the waning of the significance of their cause and is therefore drumming up publicity in the hopes of spurring corporate and private donation so that they can prolong their proverbial gravy train. Why else would they choose to trumpet the issue now, after HIV has been treatable and manageable for years? Clearly this is an issue of this group seeking donations and exploiting the corruption of the L.A. city council to drum up publicity.

This is nothing more or less than an attempt to censor visual media in the movie capital of the world. If they censor adult entertainment in the name of “public health” today, why not censor violence in movies tomorrow, or how about ideas that aren’t conducive to the public wellbeing such as certain lyrics in rap music? If one special interest group can censor one form of creative expression, why not others?

This is a direct assault on free speech and free expression, nothing more and nothing less and it is not the end. You don’t take away people’s rights with one stroke or there’ll be public outcry, you do it incrementally in little baby steps and that’s what this is, a step toward censorship.

Clearly as anyone can see, all the arguments used to justify this ordinance are fundamentally flawed and just blatantly untrue; therefore the entire ordinance would appear to simply not make sense. When most people see politicians do something that doesn’t make any sense they assume it’s because the elected officials are somehow stupid, I learned long ago however that when government does something stupid, one need only follow the money to make sense of it.

The fact that the ordinance is unnecessary and the arguments justifying it are clearly flawed, as well as the fact that the city council waited until anyone who would voice opposition was out of town or otherwise engaged before passing it in a closed door session, reeks of bribes, mutual back scratching and favor trading, it reeks of government corruption.

It is plain, the L.A. city council passed this ordinance because they were bribed by a special interest group whose sole motive was to drum up publicity and donations, and force the entire adult entertainment industry to advertise a certain industries products for free.

If they want their industry to survive the adult entertainment producers should found a superPAC right now and start fighting every city council member who voted for this ban, and anyone who supports freedom of artistic expression, or opposes blatant corruption of elected officials should support them.

Normaly when I hear about whether or not to require porn stars to use condoms my gut reaction is to be in favor of it, but you make a lot of good points and the princibles of the free market dictate that if people are willing to spend money on it and that’s how the market prefers it, the reqirement of the market should be the deciding factor unless there is an overriding reason to defy it.

If there has been no rash of infections (pardon the pun) that could have prompted the city council to see a need to take action, and when the facts don’t support or justify the actions of elected officials, it reeks of corruption, especially when the decision is made behind closed doors without hearing public discussion.
Funny as it sounds, that’s a valid grievance.