California voters reject measure on condom use in porn

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Voters rejected a ballot measure requiring actors use condoms in all porn movies made in California.

Proposition 60 lost 54 to 46 percent early Wednesday with 99 percent of more than 8 million votes cast.

The so-called Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act would have also required that porn producers be licensed by the state and pay to have their actors regularly tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

It also held anyone with a financial interest in a porn film responsible for violations, with fines ranging from $1,000 to $70,000.

Any California resident who witnessed a violation could have sued a filmmaker if state officials didn’t act promptly on their complaint.

Much of the U.S. porn industry is based in Los Angeles, and some prominent producers have said passage of the measure would force them to leave the state.

The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which pumped more than $4.6 million into passing the measure, said adoption was crucial to protecting young, often low-paid actors who crank out films by the hundreds for an industry that by its own account grosses about $5 billion annually.

The porn industry, which raised more than $540,000 to oppose the measure, called Proposition 60 an unneeded overreach that would actually harm actors rather than help them.

Industry officials and some prominent porn stars said the industry’s own requirement that actors be tested every 14 days for sexually transmitted diseases provided better protection than condoms.

Producers also complained that their audiences don’t want to see condoms, and some actors expressed concerns that violating the regulations could subject them as well as producers to fines and lawsuits.

Proponents noted that the industry didn’t leave in 2012 after Los Angeles County voters adopted a similar measure.

Filmmakers said they got around that measure by moving their film shoots to surrounding counties.