A TV ad in support of Prop. 60 ,and featuring former adult film performer Cameron Adams, today began airing on major cable news channels in the Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento markets.
“This powerful 30-second spot will be broadcast in three of California’s top TV markets,” said Rick Taylor,
“Cameron does a terrific job of selling our message that Prop. 60 is needed to protect the health of adult film performers,” said Rick Taylor, chief strategist for the Yes on 60/FAIR (For Adult Industry Responsibility) campaign.
“It’s only fair that the young men and women in this business have the same workplace protections that employees in other industries now enjoy.
“They have been abused for too long. The adult industry’s producers and investors — who are bankrolling the fight against Prop. 60 — refuse to protect their performers’ health. Prop. 60 will change that.”
The measure on the Nov. 8 ballot would close loopholes in a California health and safety rule in effect since 1992. That 1992 rule requires adult film performers to wear condoms in explicit sex scenes to protect them, their partners and crew members from sexually transmitted diseases. However, this rule is routinely violated. Officials at Cal/OSHA have filed dozens of citations against adult film industry producers for violating the rule. But the industry frequently has found ways to evade the law.
In the ad, Ms. Adams relates how she became HIV-positive after briefly working in the adult film business. “I heard [the adult film industry producers’] big promises,” she said. “But all I got after three months on the job was HIV.”
Based on her personal experiences, Adams says adult film industry producers regularly “bully” performers not to use condoms. Producers “get away with” these violations because of loopholes in the rules, she maintains.
Prop. 60 is intended to close those loopholes and strengthen health officials’ enforcement efforts.
A list of the health organizations and doctors who endorse Prop. 60 appears on screen.
The ad ends with Adams asking voters to support Prop. 60, saying “no worker should have to risk their health to keep their job.”
Studies have shown 97 percent of adult film sex scenes are shot without condoms and that one-in-four performers are sick with STDs at any given time. “I never saw so much chlamydia and gonorrhea in a population,” Dr. Peter Kerndt, former head of the Los Angeles County STD Program, told the Los Angeles Times in March after reviewing one study of the incidence of STDs among adult film performers.
Mr. Schwada may be contacted at john.schwada@gmail.com
