While they were turning out to the polls to help reelect President Obama on Tuesday, residents of Los Angeles County also approved a ballot initiative known as “Measure B,” requiring the producers of “adult films”—meaning porn, not Criterion Collection fare—to acquire a public health permit and adhere to a number of regulations, most controversially a mandate that performers wear condoms on the set. Prominent industry figures such as James Deen have opposed the measure on the grounds that it is unnecessary in light of the existing rigorous testing regime, counterproductive in the context of shoots that require performers to have intercourse for “nonstandard amounts of time,” and will ultimately be ineffective as filming will simply move outside Los Angeles County.
These are all compelling points, but the measure also raises some interesting theoretical questions in an industry where, as in journalism before it, new technology has blurred the once-sharp lines between amateur and professional content production.
While I will refrain from linking to any examples on this family-friendly blog, “traditional” professionally produced adult video now competes with an array of sites specializing in amateur or quasi-amateur sexual content. Some entrepreneurial couples and individuals launch their own personal sites, making home videos and live webcam streams available to subscribers. Other sites act as middlemen, purchasing home videos shot by amateur couples for online distribution. Still others serve as platforms on which individuals and couples can stream live sexual content from their home web cameras, earning revenue based on the number of viewers. While it seems clear that Measure B is not intended to target these amateur producers, they do seem to fall within the scope of the law’s definitions, strictly construed.
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