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Comment by falsestprophet | Hacker News Reader

Or the law could require both condom use and std tests

The point of the article is that it seems like the law is pointless and only introduces complications and special cases to existing laws. And the simple truth is you cannot stop pornography from being produced, you'll just turn it into a black-market affair. That may be an acceptable problem for certain types of exploitative porn, but for the general body of pornography it's generally a bad idea.

The point of the article is to miss the point. It frames the condom requirement as a protective measure for performers, a possibly flawed solution that threatens to cost lives by pushing some performers outside the very effective safety regime that is already in place. However, that is not the intent at all. The intent is to require the porn industry to portray safe(r) sex. The movies do not portray professionals in a highly regulated industry having sex with each other in a professional setting. They portray people routinely having unprotected sex at the drop of a hat with whatever babysitter, repairman, job applicant, or high school student who happens to be nearby.

Whether that's a good enough reason to require condom is worthy of discussion, but this guy evidently doesn't want that discussion to happen.

> Whether that's a good enough reason to require condom is worthy of discussion, but this guy evidently doesn't want that discussion to happen.

So is unprotected-sex pornography the newest scapegoat we're erecting to cover up our profound failures in sexual education? The last 15 years have seen schools engaging in the most ridiculous forms of sexual education imaginable, and then we wonder why people don't make informed decisions. It must be the porn.

It's this kind of authoritarian control-their-thoughts logic that gives rise to all sorts of absurd laws. It's not even clear that it'll do anything. It's legislation for the sake of itself.

So we can have that discussion, but I don't think it's going to go anywhere for that argument.

So is unprotected-sex pornography the newest scapegoat we're erecting to cover up our profound failures in sexual education?

I'm pretty sure all the supporters of this legislation are strongly in favor of comprehensive, explicit sex education in public schools. The idea that they're working to undermine sex education by using porn as a distraction is ludicrous. If anything, condoms in porn will increase the credibility of sex education in kids' eyes. We know kids are skeptical what they're taught in the public schools is artificial, idealistic BS that will never fly in the real situations they're faced with. (And who can blame them?) We know they're not just influenced by porn but often consciously turn to it as a source of information about sex. Seeing condoms in porn, even if they're only used in 10% of the porn they see, encourages them to think, "Huh, I guess real people actually do this. It's a normal practice that I can reasonably demand of my partners without being a total priss/dweeb." The legislation won't do anything to either promote or discourage better sex ed, but it will make it easier for students to trust the sex ed that is actually offered to them. In what way could it possibly detract from sexual education?

Sex education has no credibility. Abstinence only sex ed doesn't work, but guess what? Neither does any other kind.

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/abstinencereport.asp

Lack of contraceptive education effectiveness http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/does_anything_work_in_se...

Here are some experts (the American Psychological Association) who disagree with your link:

http://www.apa.org/releases/sexeducation.html

The research on adolescents’ sexual behavior shows that comprehensive sexuality education programs that discuss the appropriate use of condoms do not accelerate sexual experiences. On the contrary, evidence suggests that such programs actually increase the number of adolescents who abstain from sex and also delay the onset of first sexual intercourse. Furthermore, these programs decrease the likelihood of unprotected sex and increase condom use among those having sex for the first time.

To put your second link in context, the author is a conservative Catholic writer who calls gay marriage "a threat to religious liberty" and accuses contraception supporters of "Condomism" (sounds like Communism, get it?) The first Google result for her name is her home page, titled "Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse - Your Coach For The Culture Wars," though if you click the link it appears the site is defunct.

Here's what she says about childhood obesity:

"My amateur diagnosis is that the childhood obesity problem is a direct result of the whole constellation of social changes initiated by the sixties. Working mothers, feminism and zero population growth all played a role."

I hardly think the APA committee is unbiased, but I think I'll stick with them over "Your Coach For The Culture Wars" who blames childhood obesity on the sixties.

But people don't want to watch that. The barrier to entry for creating and distributing porn is so low these days that it's almost guaranteed to just push more of the industry into the "amateur" realm.

Yeah, that's a good argument. It should be discussed and balanced against the true intent of the legislation, not against the phony and disingenuous idea that it's meant to protect performers.

This may be their true intent, but they chose not to pursue this goal directly (I'm guessing because a direct attack on free speech would have less chance of succeeding). Instead, they're filing a complaint with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. "we see it as our duty to pursue action on the issue of safety in the workplace": http://www.aidshealth.org/news/press-releases/ahf-to-file-ca...

What about this point?

>Second, condom-only regulation would also encourage a black market in adult film production. So movies featuring no-condom sex would not only still exist, but those actors and actresses would no longer be required to participate in the industry's HIV testing program, increasing the risk of an HIV outbreak in the industry and the population at large. One need only look at prostitution to see what happens when an industry operates underground.

It should also make an exemption for allowing employers to refuse to hire HIV-positive actors. In most cases, this would be horribly discriminatory... but when your job involves putting your sex organs inside other people's bodies... I don't think that restricting the job to the HIV-negative is going to be too damaging to society :)

If HIV infected surgeons are allowed to operate, why shouldn't HIV infected persons be allowed to act in a porn movie?

I think this may be a place where anti-discrimination and OSHA bump up against each other. If producers can't turn down HIV-infected actors, then aren't they endangering their HIV-negative actors?

To answer your question, the risk of a condom breaking is much higher than a surgeon getting bodily fluids into a patient. Sexual intercourse necessarily involves production of bodily fluids with nothing but the condom to contain them. A surgeon is not required to produce highly infectious fluids as part of performing an operation. If a latex glove breaks during an operation what are the chances that some HIV-infected fluids will leak out and into the patient? What are the chances that an actor/actress will be infected when a condom full of HIV-positive semen breaks inside of them?

Because the surgeons aren't spraying their bodily fluids into you.

And nobody using a scalpel EVER accidentally cuts themselves

Do you have figures for the number of surgeons who cut themselves during a procedure?

They should be. But producers should be able to choose not to hire them.

that entirely depends on the precautions taken.

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