Filed by KOSU News in Health.
January 25, 2012

In Los Angeles, the center of the U.S. adult film industry, condom use during the making of porn films will soon be required.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed the controversial ordinance into law this Monday.

Now it’s up to the L.A. city clerk to post the new rule, which could happen this week, the Associated Press reports. After the posting, the rule would take effect in 41 days.

Filmmakers would have to agree to comply with the requirement to get a permit to make a movie.

How the condom requirement would be checked up on isn’t entirely clear. Last week City Council called for a working group with police and occupational health and safety officials, to figure it out.

Some porn producers have said they’ll leave Los Angeles to film rather than comply.

“I go to L.A. to make porn. I do that because L.A. is where all the talent is, and where it’s 100 percent legal to rent a location and shoot sex,” Tristan Taormino, a New York-based filmmaker, told Shots last week. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She said she was concerned the rule could drive the industry elsewhere. “It’s not going to change anything but to send people into uncharted territory,” she said. “People are going to film in other place and not pull permits.”

“The city of Los Angeles has done the right thing. They’ve done the right thing for the performers,” Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said, according to the AP. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]