The dumb asses at the FSC assume that if you don’t support them, you must be for AB332.
So the idea is I must be for government regulation. Allow me to state clearly, on the record. I am NOT.
Now that said here is the reality:
We have an STD issue in this industry, a big one. We all know it. Yes it’s true that AIDS/HIV is pretty much under control but we all know that pretty much every other STD is rampant and we don’t even test for the most dangerous ones.
News flash to porners….It isn’t a secret. AHF knows it too, so does the government. Would it surprise you to know that everyone in that committee yesterday had a report on STD Rates in this industry? They all had a folder with articles from my blog, Michael Fattarossi, AVN and XBiz?
Now we are faced with the same problem that Measure B had us faced with.
We can own up to this problem and start taking steps to address it responsibly or we can shove our heads into the sand and pass gas like calling it a “Forced Hazmat Suit Bill”.
As much as I don’t want government regulation in our business I do want this industry to protect the health and welfare of its most valuable asset, the talent.
An attempt to fight AB332 with the same empty rhetoric and trying to ignore the real problem is going to end the same way that Measure B did and that responsibility that I spoke of is going to be forced upon us in a way that we are not going to like.
That is the reality
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I Have To Drink And Do Drugs To Dumb Myself Down Enough To Cope With the Morons In This Biz http://t.co/3O9Sipxx9O
You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.
I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Always glad to see you speak out on issues about which you’re fairly or totally ignorant.
1) We do NOT have a “big” STD issue in this industry; we have a SMALL STD issue, and were you to test the average 20-something LA bar patron for STDs and the average porn star, the more likely infected person would be the bar patron. Dr. Lawrence Mayer studied the LA County Health Department’s statistics for STDs in adult and found that they were baseless.
2) The industry currently tests for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and optionally for HPV. The testing facilities also offer hepatitis vaccines. The industry does not test for herpes because aside from quitting the business, there’s not much an actor can do about it except take anti-viral drugs, which I’m sure many do. Condoms generally don’t prevent its spread; in fact, nothing short of hazmat suits would.
3) You can decry the label “forced hazmat suit bill” all you like, but the simple fact is, that’s exactly what Measure B and AB 332 will require, and it’s about time the industry said so.
4) The “real problem” is that AHF wants to shut down the adult industry in LA, and it’s using these inartfully-drafted bills to do it. Yes, there are always improvements the industry can make to its healthcare, but stopping production or being forced to make movies that don’t sell because of the presence of condoms, face shields, hazmat suits and the like aren’t solutions, they’re death warrants.
Keep telling yourself that kernes….it plays right into the hand of AHF
Deny deny deny
but every single scientific study shows otherwise.
Hope you like condom porn, because that is what its going to get you.
Here what ignorant FSC claim industry does have STD issues. When clear events that happen show indusrty does. The trouble FSC it bought in owen propaganda which no one else ouy side FSC buy in to. Hey Mark FSC said same thing before Mr. Marcus scandal happen made all look big bunch liers after words. You FSC keep denye that event ever happen cleary did so not four or ten year ago but just last year. It amzasing Mark how ignorant you FSc seem be think if do not talk about Mr. Marcus scandal it well be forgotten well guess again fat boy.
Thoughts Over The Afternoon’s Margarita: Diane Duke and Free Speech, Not Porn Piracy, is What killed Porn
–Gene Ross
If you accept the argument that the adult video store is the porn industry’s first line of defense, then you can accept the argument in that headline.
When I first started in the business in 1986 there was something like 25,000 stores in the United States handling adult movies.
Fox Business News in reporting on the porn industry several weeks ago cited something like 3,400 stores still out there. Hello? That means there’s 22,000 stores that have vanished literally into thin air. It’s not hard to see what’s happening in the mainstream especially if you accept the fact that NetFlix and those kinds of convenience services have ground the mighty Blockbuster Empire and others into dust.
Porn is a different story, however. You still have to make a trip to the local emporium if you want to buy or rent a porn film. The prototypical porn store had viewing rooms in the back, cum buckets in the front, glory holes, seedy clientele and surly cashiers out of heroin addict central casting. Very inviting. Even with that, the industry did incredible numbers. When VHS first came upon the scene you were buying tapes, premium, for anywhere from $59.95 and up. I saw where Deep Throat was going for $89.95.
Then along came a guy named Mark Carriere. Nobody talks about this because very few of the old guard are still around to remember. But Carriere singlehandely destroyed the pricing structure of the business with a company called Video Exclusives which specialized in making and selling garbage.
As beloved as he is, no one, either, remembers that Ron Jeremy worked for Carriere and directed under the name Bill Blackman. Jeremy employed a cast of usual suspects- Frank James, Sasha Gabor, Billy Dee, Tony Montana and Ray Victory; the female cast included the flavors of the month- whoever Carriere happened to have been banging at the time or who Carriere bought tit jobs for. At one time, even Christy Canyon was a contract girl for Carriere.
Still, the business carried on but no one ever cared to notice that video store owners were taking obscenity hits left and right. Oh sure, we heard about adult producers and company owners being carted away in handcuffs. I think Ruby Gottesman who went down in the Traci Lords fiasco did time in a dormitory and Russ Hampshire and Chris Mann spent their incarcerated days at swimming pools back when Boron was the place to go.
While the Free Speech Coalition was set up to fight the good fight, I know of no video store owner that ever saw a dime from Free Speech to pay their legal bills. There was a celebrated obscenity case in Virginia about four years ago, practically to the day. It involved a store owner named Rick Krial who owned After Hours Video. While I won’t bore you with the details, you can read them here: http://www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=33919
Krial’s attorney was Paul Cambria, and I’ll tell you right now Free Speech wasn’t accepting Cambria’s invoices. Krial closed shop.
Several years ago I had the opportunity to chronicle the daily adventures of store owner Greg Sakas who owned a couple of businesses in North Carolina and fought a prick of a sheriff handpicked by the Christian Right. Sakas, bless his soul, beat the opposition out of his own pocket. Did Adam & Eve a neighbor help him? No. Did Free Speech help him? No.
On another occasion, Cincinnati store owner Elyse Metcalf went to the Free Speech Coalition and was turned down because her case “wasn’t high profile enough”- the standard Free Speech answer in those situations. Russ Hampshire personally helped her with some of her bills, but the experience killed Metcalf.
The point? Store owner after store owner over the years have taken hits for this industry. Most stories you never hear about, but they do have a common thread. The Free Speech Coalition left these people blowing in the wind.
If I’m a store owner and have friends like that, who needs enemies?
1. We DO have a BIG STD issue in the industry. Just go to Dr. Riggs and see how many performers are his customers, eh?
2. So you’re saying that a person entering porn can just expect to get herpes as a general rule? I never caught herpes, Mark, but if I’d stayed in the performer pool much longer I would have! With people like mr. marcus willing to work with an obviously infected penis proves my point. There was a time when performers cared about the other performers health, but those days are long gone, sir.
3. The wording is “such as” not the dreaded “up to and including” in the bill. Condoms for anal and vaginal penetration, period! Why are you outright lying? That’s not like you, Mark!
4. The “Real Problem” is that adult film companies have gotten away with infecting their workers with every damned STD available for far too long and now that they’re being called on the subject, they’re crying and pouting like three year olds (yourself included) instead of stepping up to the plate and protecting their greatest assets health.
5. I have lost ALL respect for you now, mr. kernes. STOP spreading lies, you lying liar!
Mr South… I will NEVER forget some 10 odd years ago a Producer from NY flew into LA to have Me do a Shoot for him… He (Of Course)… Had everybody tested… (I actually forget the Why’s and How’s of This and WHY AIM wasn’t doing this?… I kinda forget)…
But the point is… The Producer was in SHOCK when Everyone in the Movie had a CLEAN Non Aids/Hiv test… BUT that EVERYBODY had Herpes!
I agree with YOU that the Government shouldn’t step in… But it’s high time Grown Adults should seek a BETTER way to help PROTECT not only Themselves… But ALL the Others in this Business to help curb OTHER Diseases…
THAT’S My 2 cents…
Oh ya… and I fucking LOVE your TITLE for this!… hahaha
Craig Amabello liked this on Facebook.
Diane Duke Earns Quote of The Week: “Republicans are going to save our asses at this point”
–Gene Ross
I know it’s only Wednesday, but Free Speech Coalition’s Diane Duke gets the quote of the week for the sheer amusement value of her comments in Sacramento yesterday.
Duke was basically lamenting the fact that the adult industry isn’t getting a fair shake in the imminent passage of AB 332 which will mandate condoms in porn movies shot in California when she is quoted by AVN’s Mark Kernes:
“A lot of people disapprove of the fact that we’re having conversations with Republicans, but my experience of coming to the capital time and time again is that whether it’s a tax bill or AB 332, the Republicans are going to save our asses at this point.”
Yeah, Diane, handsome Jimmy Lee [pictured], your Republican hired gun did a great job on spearheading Measure B. By the way, how is that working out for ya? Rumor has it Handsome Jimmy took some of the Free Speech money you paid him and went to Hair Club for Men.
Mark Kernes says there is a small std issue in the industry. So Mark, how many performers test postive for an std every month? What is the rate of std’s in the industry? If you know its a small problem, please tell us how small, and where you get that information. Of course APHSS cannot tell you,,,they only get the clean results and never even hear about the positves, so Markie, where does your information come from, and what is the std rate in the industry? If everybody is getting tested all the time then what are the rates?
Mark, do you think the assembly is just going to take your word for it that the std problem is so small. Dont you think they will want some proof of this? Do you think they will just take your word for it? LOL. Here’s a question Mark will never adress, Why does the industry never talk about Hep C? What does the APHSS medical advisory board say about Hep C? Actually, they say nothing, and exactly who are they?
they’re more worriend about making cents than sense, the herpies situation doesn’t suprise me
It’s funny watching porn people argue if there is an STD problem or not. Of course STDs are high, people are having sex all the time on top of escorting and screwing random people off cam, including untested producers and cameramen. If you think STDs are not high, you are truly living in an alternate universe. You have actual talent saying there is a problem, then you have mouth pieces from the FSC saying there is no problem. Who are you going to believe, the suits in an office or the soldiers on the battle field? This shouldn’t even be open for debate. Sex = STDs. More sex = more STDs. It’s common sense. Deal with it.
How many porn stars of any decent length in the business can say they have never gotten an STD while working? I bet you could count the number on one hand. LOL @ Kernes saying there is no problem.
Mike, what you are getting from FSC is the same shit I get when I talk to pirates about copyright infringement and piracy. Clearly, if I am not 100% supporting piracy, I must be some sort of industry shill, or some sort of government worker, or a huge supporter of SOPA… and so on.
What the FSC is trying to do is make the whole thing “us or them”. They are trying to make an issue black and white, so that they can be the ones standing out as the “supporters of good” – and anyone who doesn’t agree with them obvious supports bad. They don’t consider that there is any middle ground, or third option, because if there is, there is no way for them to squeeze money out of people are their sole protectors.
It’s funny to watch, and very sad at the same time. If this is the best opposition from the industry, then the industry is solidly doomed.
Who is the Biggest Coke dealer and crack slinger in the valley for the porn industry?
Isnt there clinic in the west valley by an old oak tree where you can get just about anything else you need urgently besides coke and crack? And if you want to shoot it up you need your own rig. I’ve heard this rumor before.