Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
Prop 60, Part One: A Winning Coalition, By Rich Moreland
Everyone knows that California’s Proposition 60 was rejected by the voters last November. But what does that mean for the industry?
At the AVN trade show I decided to find out.
The ruckus over Prop 60 began in 2012 with LA county’s Measure B that required condoms on porn shoots. According to Casey Calvert, the law is “unenforceable as written” because there’s no money to put into it.
Next came AB 1576, really Measure B for the whole state. It failed in the legislature.
Finally, the force behind the initiative, AHF’s Michael Weinstein, went the ballot route, collecting enough signatures to bring the condom proposal before the voters.
“Prop 60 was less about condoms and more about enforcement and how every California citizen could sue a porn production company if they watched a movie shot in the state without a condom,” Casey says.
Evil Angel owner John Stagliano concurs.
“Prop 60 was a horribly written law,” he says. It established Michael Weinstein as “The porn czar” with the power to “prosecute cases and collect his expenses from the state.”
The industry fought the initiative. Ela Darling, the current President of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) comments, “APAC and the FSC (Free Speech Coalition) and a large number of performers did everything they could to defeat Prop 60 and we won.”
The industry “rallied for a cause and we owe a lot of that to the Free Speech Coalition,” Casey Calvert adds. Porn people used twitter and interviews to get the story out. For her part, Casey wrote a piece for the Huffington Post.
Everyone gives performers Julia Ann, SiouxsieQ, and Chanel Preston and the FSC’s Eric Leue much credit for stopping Prop 60.
In fact, Ela declares, it was a grassroots effort that involved talking to legislators in Sacramento. Ela attended the Democratic convention in Long Beach and mentions that porn people “led a protest through Hollywood.”
“I’ve never seen the industry aligned so strongly on anything like they did on Prop 60. It was refreshing, empowering, and amazing.”
Performer Derrick Pierce presents an unvarnished view of the effort.
The FSC built a winning coalition of “talent and producers and production teams.” People “who are typically fragmented in nature” were on the same political page.
In doing his part, Derrick went on to Facebook to check postings from major media outlets.
“I literally went through every negative or misinformed comment and rebutted it.”
Derrick interprets the victory as more than just a defeat for AHF.
“It set precedent. That’s huge because, there’s no more debate.” Should similar issues arise with Cal/OSHA and safety regulations, “just implement what’s already been said,” Derrick concludes.
This, of course, will not stop porn’s detractors.
“Anything to do with the adult business is a wonderful soapbox,” Derrick comments. “You stand on it and preach to the people this is immoral. We have to protect these people [adult performers] that don’t know any better.”
In case similar dust ups occur in the future, he calls out talent to educate themselves.
“Know the process and how it works so you don’t sound like a bumbling idiot when you talk about it” because just screaming performer rights “doesn’t mean anything” when it comes to debating health issues.
So the condom wars are in retreat for the moment. Can we say victory is a game changer for the industry? We’ll take a look at that in part two.
