Los Angeles is now the first city in the nation that requires performers to use condoms while shooting porn in areas that require permits. The Mayor signed the ordinance pushed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation on Monday. The law will go into effect 41 days after the City Clerk posts the ordinance publicly.

You can read the complete coverage about this on the LA Weekly. But for those of you who prefer the simple version, here’s a summary:

– The ordinance claims the adult industry is responsible for the ongoing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the HIV/AIDS crisis in Los Angeles.

- This measure is tied to the acquisition of permits, so only performers who are shooting outside a certified sound stage are required to use condoms in scenes with vaginal or anal penetration.

- The ordinance makes no mention of protection during oral.

- The ordinance makes no mention of testing.

- Enforcement costs will be covered using the money filmmakers pay for permits. There is no mention of what entity will be enforcing condom use at shoots. The office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has doubts about the ability of the strapped Los Angeles Police Department to take this role and county health officials have raised concerns about regulating the industry through the Department of Public Health.

- The AHF plans to take condom enforcement to the county as a work-place license so that no matter where the shooting is happening or whether it requires a permit, all performers will have to use protection. In the meantime, they are talking with the mayor of Simi Valley, hoping they will adopt the L.A. ordinance. Other plans include taking the measure to San Francisco. AHF has vowed to follow the industry wherever it goes.

Read the ordinance yourself here.

Image of condoms by Robert Elyov, image of Jessica Janson from her collection.

The debate attracted a great deal of attention in the media last month because of the amount of people from the adult industry who were on board to participate. For the proponents, there was Anna Span; Johnny Anglais, the Essex teacher who was outed as a porn star last year and dismissed; and the sex educator Jessi Fischer. On the side of the opposition was the born-again-Christian and former porn star Shelley Lubben; the antiporn feminist Dr. Gail Dines; and Dr. Richard Woolfson, a child psychologist.

Anna Span focused a great deal of her discussion on Lubben, which is not very sporting, but then these events seldom are. For her part, Lubben did a phenomenal job of completely alienating the audience, which essentially lost the opposition their victory at Cambridge.

Per the Cambridge First:

But when Ms Lubben took to the floor, arguably the headline act, her passion and anger hid her argument. The audience did not react well to this. Resting on the lectern, her high-heeled shoe subconsciously beating on the floor, her impassioned attack on the porn industry strayed from the academic debate.

“This is nothing funny or glamorous about this industry,” she said. “Pornography doesn’t do a good public service because it is lying to you. I have the evidence. It’s lying to you. It’s modern day slavery.”

And with that, the Cambridge students voted for porn.

It may not be this simple. Or it may be more simple than this. Porn-positive proponents celebrate this victory, clutching it triumphantly. But we can’t help but wonder what, exactly, this debate has achieved? The battle rages on, no closer to resolution than it was before all these publications took hold of the story, eager for the pageviews that any porn-related story promises to deliver.

What we can celebrate is Cambridge Union Society’s president Lauren Davidson for having the balls to approach the topic. We can only hope it’s based on an honest interest and not just a passing fancy for a “hot topic.”

MORE:
Did Shelley Lubben Blow the Cambridge Porn Debate? on AVN
Does Pornography Provide Good Public Service? on the BBC

KTLA is reporting that Playboy Playmate and former Baywatch babe Donna D’Errico was singled out by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent while going through airport security at LAX for a full-body scan — and not because she looked like a threat, if you get our drift.

D’Errico was on her way to Pittsburgh with her teenage son when it happened.

“A male TSA agent took me by the elbow and said come with me,” D’Errico told KTLA. According to D’Errico, no one else was pulled out of the line for a scan. When she inquired why she was the only one selected for a body scan, the agent allegedly told her, “because you caught my eye and they didn’t.”

D’Errico said the agent pointed her out to other agents afterward, smirking, and she was not given the option to have a pat-down instead of a body-scan.

“I think these are young men and they hang out together and they’re buddies, and they see an attractive woman and they think, ‘hey, I’m going to give my buddy a thrill,” she said. She wants the TSA to take a closer look at their “randomized” system of body-scanning.

Someone should give her a pair of these for Christmas.

The Pentagon has told military recruiters that they must accept gay applicants. Lt. Dan Choi, who was honorably discharged in July under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (DADT) headed to the recruiting station at Times Square with gay rights advocate David Mixner and Justin Elzie, who was also honorably discharged under DADT in 1997.

Choi has made a name for himself telling his story as well as co-founding Westpoint alumni LGBT rights activism group Knights Out, and playing a part in several peaceful protests intending to end DADT.

At the Marine Corps recruiting office, Choi was told he was too old to join. Choi submitted an application to the Army. He is one of many seeking re-enlistment.

These applications are being processed, though it’s entirely possible that the moratorium against DADT could be lifted, despite US District Judge Virginia A. Phillips September ruling that DADT is unconstitutional.

Click to watch a moving speech by Lt. Dan Choi about coming out on NakedCity LA.

Information from The Advocate.

Superior court justice Susan Himel struck down all three provisions. The decision will take effect in 30 days — unless Crown lawyers can appeal with arguments strong enough to delay the decision from taking effect.

Federal justice minister Rob Nicholson expressed concern with the ruling, citing the welfare of sex-workers and the communities where they operate.

“The government is very concerned about the Superior Court’s decision and is seriously considering an appeal,” Nicholson said in a statement.

Judge Himel doesn’t see how the government is trying to protect sex-workers, as the laws that exist do little to ensure their protection from assault or murder — the latter painfully illustrated by a series of murders at the hands of Robert Pickton, a Vancouver pig farmer. The laws force sex-workers to conduct business in secret, with no protection from the authorities, making sex-work more dangerous.

“By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes, the communicating law is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance,” Himel said. “I find that the danger faced by prostitutes greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public.”

The Crown’s main argument was that nothing made sex-work less dangerous and that in and of itself, prostitution is inherently degrading and unhealthy, and measures should be taken to prevent women from thinking of it as a legitimate career choice. Their arguments were — rather unsurprisingly — replete with misinformation and stereotypes regarding the sex industry.

Information from The Globe and Mail.

After we ran the about what differentiates a master from a sex trafficker, last Friday, we received a tip about a case unfolding in Malmö, Sweden, also involving BDSM (which stands for “bondage, discipline and sadomasochism”).

According to The Local, a 32-year-old man charged with assault after engaging in consensual violent sex with a 16-year-old. This isn’t an issue of legal consent as the age of sexual consent in Sweden is 15. What the court is trying to decide is how much violence should be allowed between consenting parties.

This is a landmark case for Sweden as the issue has never been breached by the Swedish court system.

“What I want to establish is that even if they say they are in agreement over this then you not allowed to seriously assault someone,” prosecutor Ulrika Rogland has said.

While the prosecutor’s concerns regarding the 16-year-old’s ability to consent given her history of self-injury are valid, we’re concerned that this case may negatively impact the freedom of adults. How far should the legal system go to protect people? Should they be allowed to tell consenting adults how far is too far as it regards our sexual activities?

Information from The Local, via Jon Catt.

Here’s what is at stake: Recent censorship of online discussions of sex and pornography — not the porn itself, but discussions — isn’t an issue of us versus them, morality versus indecency, conservatives versus liberals, believers versus atheists. This is a matter of freedom to speak, freedom to congregate, freedom to learn about ourselves and to share that knowledge. That’s what this country stands for and it’s essential that those of us who believe in these tenets take a stance against those seeking to oppress them.

Head over to the site to read the whole thing — and don’t miss the comments. They’re getting interesting.

While Verdugo’s termination based on omitting his cameo was considered previously as lawful grounds for disciplinary action, that the city sought to deny Verdugo the right to be an officer anywhere else in the state was not. Per the South Florida Gay News, the Training Commission was unanimous in its affirmation of the agreement.

“The city was seeking a pound of flesh,” said co-counsel, Norm Kent, publisher of South Florida Gay News. “They were trying to force Mikey to drop his challenge to what we believe was an unjust ruling by an arbitrator. But Mikey stood his ground, and he has now prevailed. He is eligible to be hired by any other department if he so chooses.”

Verdugo, you’re a brave man. We here at Sex and the 405 salute you.

Information from South Florida Gay News, via KinkOnTap.

“The evidence presented at trial and the position of the representatives of the State of California show that an injunction against enforcement of Proposition 8 is in the public’s interest,” judge Walker told the New York Times.

Thus, he chose not to extend the stay.

Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown had both asked the court to lift the stay, saying in a brief that lifting it is consistent with “California’s long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect.”

Photo by See-ming Lee. Information via NakedCity LA.

Verdugo, who served on the force for 10 years, appeared in the reality television show Design Star and was recognized by a fan, who had seen the porn film and who quickly posted a clip on the web.

HGTV’s Design Star dropped him and in January, Verdugo was sentenced by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement with a year probation and ethics training for omitting the 15-minute cameo on his police job application a decade prior.

That’s not enough. Now city officials want him to leave the force entirely.

Per the Palm Beach Post, Verdugo made the cameo for $700 at age 22 — as a way of exploring his sexuality. His sequence involved a bondage scene, but no hardcore sex.

At the age of 25, when he decided to join the police force, Verdugo says it didn’t occur to him to mention the film on his resume when applying as a Lauderhill cop in 1999, or when he applied to the Hollywood department two years later.

Norm Kent, one of the attorneys representing Verdugo told the press that Hollywood has offered to drop its case against Verdugo if he “drops his case against them.” Verdugo refuses to back down. He sees this firing rooted in his sexual identity as a gay man, saying he has been facing discrimination since coming out in 2007. He filed a complaint when he was demoted back then — suggesting it is related to his coming out.

He is lobbying for the passage of ENDA, a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that has been proposed to prevent gay and transgender people from being fired on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

But there is more to this story than discrimination based on orientation — as though that’s not bad enough. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Verdugo’s appearance in a sex film. What’s interesting is that just this month, AVN held its Internext Expo in Verdugo’s city of Hollywood, Florida. The sudden need to have him off the force seems to us at Sex and the 405 like a knee-jerk reaction related to unspoken sex-negative views of the industry originating in that community.

The few that are reporting on this case from a human perspective seem to be focused on pointing out that it was only a one-time appearance and that it was only 15 minutes and that it didn’t include hardcore sex.

What if it had? What if it had been a hardcore series of porn flicks? Does that make Verdugo — or anyone — any less qualified to serve in any other kind of industry? The only difference between Verdugo and most other police officers is that his sex happened in front of a camera lens and he was compensated for his time — legally. That’s it. Think about it.

UPDATE: Verdugo’s case reaches settlement agreement. He wins. Read more…

Via KinkOnTap.