OP/ED By Michael Whiteacre
As most of you know, tomorrow, in downtown Los Angeles, a Cal-OSHA Advisory Subcommittee is scheduled to address the issue of condom and other "health and safety" regulations on adult production sets. I am writing to strongly encourage ALL members of the adult production industry to attend, but especially adult performers.
The pool of active adult performers has not been heard from by Cal-OSHA since the early meetings. Instead, in testimony, the talent pool has been routinely insulted, demonized, degraded and mocked by Shelley Lubben of Pink Cross Foundation. If there is any one reason why you should show up and make your presence felt, and your voices heard, it might be to forcefully rebut the outrageous, disgusting claims made by this sick woman.
At the last OSHA hearing, in March, Lubben described many current performers as victims, "young, dumb females who couldn’t read a contract," and who "can’t even understand words like ‘litigation’ or ‘arbitration.’" She waived a copy of the standard industry model release as an example! She also characterized adult performers (as a group) as "trained seals", claiming the reason performers don’t show up to these hearings to tell "the truth" is "because they’re frightened."
"Why is it for the past year when we’ve been having these meetings, only maybe a few female adult performers or even non-performers come?" she asked. "They’re afraid for their lives, they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs. Right here in Van Nuys, I’ve personally invited the porn industry to come face this meeting, and where’s the female porn actresses to speak on their behalf? They’re not here because they know that they’re going to be threatened, and they’re going to be blacklisted for telling the truth about what’s really going on…."
Dear performers, if that is how you see yourselves, and your industry; if that is how you wish to be perceived by the world; and if preserving your job and your rights and your freedom is unimportant to you, then by all means, brush this meeting off.
But if you are offended by these charges; if you consider yourself a competent consenting adult with the right to do with your body as you see fit; if you think that the government has NO RIGHT to force the entertainment industry to produce safer sex ads instead of escapist entertainment, and if you support your right to chose condoms or not THEN YOU NEED TO ATTEND THIS MEETING, for it just might be your last chance.
But this is about more than stereotypes, hurt feelings, and the public’s impression of adult performers. This is about your livelihood.
Whether or not you support condom use, you should come to this meeting, for this process is not about condoms, as the OSHA proposal makes perfectly clear. This is about killing adult movie production in California. Period.
There has been NO attempt to actually promulgate reasonable, industry-appropriate regulations. As Lily Cade wrote today, in the wake of a thorough and frank discussion of the OSHA proposal last night, "It doesn’t make us safer on the job to regulate our jobs out of existence. We’re not just talking about condoms here, but about barriers to prevent ALL contact with body fluids. ‘Condoms, gloves and eye protection are specifically mentioned. That’s right, it’s time for the facial, break out your face shield." This is not a joke, and it is not fantasy. This is the Brave New World that the megalomaniacal sexophobe Michael Weinstein would wreak.
This entire crusade for "safety" has represented an attempt to railroad the adult industry by Michael Weinstein’s AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its willing accomplices at UCLA, LA County Dept of Public Health, and last, and certainly least, Pink Cross. This is a cabal of self-interested parties who are out to generate as much money, power and publicity off of the porn industry as they can. They are opportunistic hypocrites, excoriating porn while they profit off it. They think you are all children and poor little victims, incapable of knowing what is in your own best interest.
Do not wait until your opportunity has passed. For like this opportunity, your jobs, your personal freedoms and your way of life may soon be like the snows of yesteryear — gone, never to return.
I know that many in this industry have little faith in the industry trade organization, Free Speech Coalition. Performers rarely join, and may feel that the organization is out of touch with their interests. The reality is complicated — but I’d ask you to consider this: it is only Free Speech Coalition that has ACTUALLY STEPPED UP to address the crises in the adult industry. It is a very small organization, dwarfed by AHF, yet it is fighting this fight daily, and assembling plans to keep the industry going, and to keep performers safe in the wake of AIM Healthcare being run out of business by lawsuits and aggressive governmental action (most of it instigated by AHF). Before you throw stones at FSC ask yourself, what have I done to help protect my industry, my job, my livelihood? Now is the time for your voice to be heard. It’s the bottom of the ninth, and this industry has to make it count.
Danny Wylde notes, "I’m going to assume you’ve become a performer to make money — and to make the most money possible … Even if some of the production companies stick it out and try this condom-mandated means of production, how many companies have to leave before you;re losing out on one, two, three, four, or five thousand dollars a month? … We all take a risk going to work every day. In my opinion, it’s a managed risk. And it’s something I choose to participate in so that I can get a paycheck at the end of my day. So when I feel that someone else who doesn’t really understand our industry is coming in to take away that paycheck, I get kind of pissed about it. And I’d like to have a say in the matter."
Do you want a say in the matter?
Life’s great question is "Where do you stand?" Lily Cade writes, "Porn performers, the ‘workers’ that Cal/OSHA says it’s trying to protect, do not want these regulations. We want to be able to work."
If that is where YOU stand, then you need to attend this meeting tomorrow morning. If not for your industry, then for your self and for those who may count on you for financial support.
The meeting will he held tomorrow, June 7, 2011 at 10 am
CalTrans Building
100 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
I say the adult industry should pack that motherfucker and makes its voice heard. Where do you stand?
You can be sure Shelley and her Christian Mafia will be there in force.
I hope performers will realize (if they don’t already) that someone who FAILED in the adult industry is actively seeking to destroy the industry itself. That this woman has used religion and God to propagate her lies and demonize hardworking people in their chosen profession. The only way to fight this socio-religio-fascism, is for those most affected to gather together take the Lubbenites head on…
The men and women of the industry who attended the roundtable meeting last night, and those who have been emailing, IM’ing and Tweeting about it all day today sure as hell know.
Oddly enough, they weren’t too happy about Mrs. Lubben’s characterizations of them. They are motivated and armed with facts.
Yes, head-on it will be, Voltaire. Head-on.
Awesome!!!
Ok performers, make some signs like “Keep your hands off our privates”, “What epidemic?”… “Don’t force the porn industry out of California”, etc! I’m sure the L.A. Times will be there again.
Some people were talking about showing up in hazmat gear — nothing says sexy like hazmat gear.
Everybody here knows that if you are a performer who shows up at that meeting in SUPPORT of tougher health regulations, and producer liability, your so called career is over.
The FSC represents the interests of PRODUCERS, and producers only. And that is not a bad thing. Producers have every right to have their organization to protect their FREE SPEECH rights.
But for FSC to claim to also represent the health and safety interests of performers is clearly a conflict of interest. Producers dont get fucked in the ass, then have that same cock shoved down their throats, and then up their ass again. Sounds pretty ugly, but this is par for the course in the porn industry every single day.
I strongly urge performers to show up and speak your minds. Do not let the FSC, AHF,, or Shelley Lubben speak for you. The MAIN interest of the FSC is to make sure that PRODUCERS are NOT held responsible for any health costs associated with their workplace, period, end of converstion.
When was the last time Diane Duke, or Paul Cambria had a cock up their ass without a condom? Speak for yourselves because their is no organization of any kind that is there to speak for you, especially the FSC. Remember, they represent PRODUCERS,NOT PERFROMERS.
Performers ask yourselve, “What have I done to protect my industry, my job, my livelihood, my HEALTH, MY SAFETY, and the HEALTH AND SAFETY of my fellow performers, and ask yourselves, what have my fellow perromers done to protect my HEALTH AND SAFETY.
Wouldnt it be interesting if ONLY performers were allowed in this meeting, no producers, no agents, no directors, no FSC etc. And performers were able to speak freely and openly without fear of repercussions.
And what has the FSC or any producer ever done to protect a single performers health and safety, EXCEPT demand that I pay for all my own health and safety costs 100%. @Michalel, can you name one thng the FSC has ever done to protect the health and safety of performers except support the program that requires performers to pay for everything themselves? Just one example would be nice. Of course there is nothing, but I just thought I would ask. Just one example please. And for the record, NEVER has anyone ever been able to give one example of what the FSC or producers have ever done to protect performers, except require them to pay for everyhting themselves. NEVER!!!
Blah blah blah. More bullshit from the same bullshitter.
No thoughts on how LACDPH and UCLA (Drs. Kerndt and Kim-Farley) cooked the numbers to establish that there was a crisis that they couldn’t actually prove through any scientific method, to “establish” an “epidemic” which would demand Cal-OSHA action? I guess you like the idea that these entities, which supposedly serve the public interest, are in the pocket of AHF.
Anyone who claims to know what a group stands for or doesn’t, especially when they have zero relevance, understanding, or experience within that industry that the group participates, is beyond the realm of idiocy.
With Joe’s grossly negligent assumptions and intelligible way of presenting his thesis, I can only believe he is probably 16 or 17 and feels empowered because this message board allows him to speak with adults, something in real life that would be dismissed out of hand…
Here’s a link to swim through folks, with more links to swim through linked off it: http://theindustry.yuku.com/reply/21489
The Hazardous Condom:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=10706
I am at the OSHA meeting now — So many adult performers turned up for the meeting that they had to bring in extra chairs and open up the back of the room for more seating.
How about the fact that there is a cure for AIDS according to this commercial, Why cant we fight for this vaccination? And why isnt it mandatory everybody in America get this vaccination & why keep playing with us pornstars over a damn condom.
More performers, directors, producers and crew have arrived….
Shelley Lubben was late for the meeting. Bolstering the Pink Cross presence is her adult daughter “from a prostitution act.” As far as I can determine, she has no current performers with her — the constituency she claims to represent.
That constituency, in large part, elected to wear FSC sticker badges today.
Lubben just stormed out of the room, without having spoken. Her companion “Ricky B.” and a couple of acolytes followed her.
She arrived late and left early, Michael, like it was a Dodger game.