Condoms in Porn?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t put a lot of thought into the ballot measure in California mandating condom use in porn (Measure B). I’ll be even more honest: I don’t think at all about protecting the safety of the actors, I think only in terms of whether seeing condoms will impact my pleasure in any way. (The porn actors and actresses can probably care about their own safety better than I can.) Will it take me out of the scene? Will it impact the facial at the end? This is as far as my thoughts go. Sorry, I’m a pretty shallow guy, and even more shallow when it comes to porn.

I did happen to see a post on Stoya’s blog, though, so I thought I should give it SOME thought. (Is it still called a “blog” when it’s on Tumblr? Is it called a Tumble or something? Am I the only one thinking of crass puns about “taking a tumble with Stoya” right now?)

My thoughts are mixed on the subject. Since this is a blog about porn, maybe I should... I don’t know... write them down or something. So here goes.

Cons of the Rule

First and foremost, I agree with Stoya’s main argument that the people who put the rule in place don’t actually understand all of the nuances about the porn industry. It’s hard to regulate an industry that you don’t understand in and out, and I think that’s what’s happened here. (Yes, I just said “in and out,” and no, it wasn’t a pun.) The same thing comes up regularly when it comes to laws and regulations surrounding prostitution: we all think we know what we’re talking about but most of us don’t; we may think we have the best interests of the girls/women at heart, but we rarely speak to them to find out what their needs actually are, and that’s a dangerous way to create rules about anything.

Secondly, I’ve mentioned here before and I’m sure I’ll mention it again: porn is fake. When it comes to erotic fiction, for example, there is hardly ever a condom used, and that’s fine. In fiction there are never any consequences to sex – or rather, there are only the consequences that the author wants. (There are whole genres of porn fiction devoted to pregnancy and getting pregnant, so sometimes the sperm mixing with the egg is exactly what is desired in this type of fiction.) I know that when I’ve tried my hand at erotic fiction or fantasies for girlfriends there is never a condom involved, and almost always the dude cums in the girl’s pussy – to the great delight of all – but nobody ever gets pregnant and nobody ever catches anything because nobody has any STDs or STIs. Erotic fiction writers have that luxury, and condoms don’t have to get in the way. Similarly, in “visual” porn, they have ways of ensuring off camera that nobody gets pregnant and nobody catches anything, without it getting in the way.

In real life, when I’m getting cozy with a special lady (or a lady that I’m paying for the privilege of getting cozy with), just as things start to get hot and heavy, there is a brief lull – a changing of gears, if you will – when I have to stop to get out the condom, and fiddle with the packaging, and try to unroll the thing only to find out that I’ve got it the wrong way and flip it around to try again... and then try to get back into the swing of things. Not that I think this would happen in porn videos; through the magic of editing some of that goes away in porn. The actors start to get hot and heavy, and then the director yells “cut” and they stop the cameras and three assistants whip out the condom and roll it on the actor’s prong while two makeup artists do touch ups. The actors get back in position, the director yells “action,”, and the next thing we see on the screen is a condom-enveloped cock about to enter a waiting pussy. (Note: I have no idea how the porn industry works behind the scenes. Please don’t leave a bunch of comments telling me I’m ignorant; I KNOW I’m ignorant.) But even with this magic of editing, there is still going to magically be a condom there. And when it comes to the facial, there will have to be some more editing magic to get the condom off. (Or the actor will just whip it off when he needs to; I’ve seen porn scenes before where that happened, and it’s not all that off-putting.) Is that condom going to be a distraction? Does it detract from the scene to see it, the same way that it detracts from sex to feel it? I honestly don’t know. Will it impact sales – especially when the potential audience always has the option of finding porn produced elsewhere (especially amateur stuff) that doesn’t have condoms? Quite possibly; it’s hard to say.

Pros of the Rule

So what are some potential benefits, or good aspects of the new rule? First off, although I’m fine with unrealistic porn, it doesn’t mean I’m totally against realism. Sometimes a little bit of realism is a good thing. Remember that “changing of gears” I mentioned earlier, when I have to stop what I’m doing to get the condom out and on and then get back into it? Maybe that’s because I have no “role models” – nobody in porn stops a scene to put a condom on, so I don’t see how others do it. I’ve talked before about the fact that much of our [skewed] view of sex comes from what we seen in porn; maybe if we saw more condoms in porn we’d also, as a society, get a better idea of how to incorporate condoms into sex. (I’m pretty sure this was the original intention behind Measure B; to normalize the use of condoms.)

Also, I don’t always buy the argument that “we know what’s best for us,” or, “we know best how to police ourselves.” Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Bankers and financiers have been saying that for decades, and we saw how THAT turned out. Bastards. Sometimes a little bit of oversight from an uninterested third party is a good thing. So although I definitely agree with Stoya’s point about people who don’t know what they’re talking about creating rules – always a bad idea – I also wouldn’t go too far the other way and say that the porn industry knows best so we should 100% leave it alone. Will there be times when profits trump safety? That’s always a possibility in any industry; I can’t believe that porn is the exception to that rule.

Finally, as mentioned before, porn is fake... but the fact is, we don’t always realize it, as porn consumers. I’ve already mentioned my previous post on how porn shapes our society, but the flip side to that post is that it isn’t always clear HOW porn shapes it. Part of that is great; ladies are becoming wannabe porn starlets in the bedroom, which is awesome. But since there are rarely condoms used in porn, does that mean that it will become normal for us to have sex without condoms? Does it mean that I can start convincing my lovers and girlfriends that we don’t need a rubber, and because they never see condoms in porn – and that’s becoming their main source of information on sex – that they’ll “fall for it?” That’s great in the short term (because it feels a helluva lot better without ‘em), but maybe not in the long term (if I catch something or get somebody preggers).

Conclusions?

I don’t actually have any conclusions on the matter. The porn industry will cope; Stoya already mentioned the idea that porn companies can simply move their locations to film outside of the impacted county, and I don’t know how much of amateur porn will be impacted (probably none). Maybe they’ll find ways to seamlessly incorporate condoms; maybe they’ll find a way to get the law struck down. Personally, I hope for the latter, and I think the strongest argument out of all of this post is the point that the people who made the law didn’t really know what they were talking about.

Regardless of your views on the matter, though, I hope they’re informed by people who are actually in the industry. Read Stoya’s blog, or blogs by other pornstars and starlets. You don’t have to take everything they say at face value, you shouldn’t do that in any context, but you should have some basic facts underlying your opinion rather than vague notions of how you’d like the world to work. Even if you are well meaning.