Producers operated lucrative businesses in anonymous office parks in the San Fernando Valley. Available in the city were a steady supply of actors and film production talent as well as opulent mansions that often served as theatrical backdrops. By one estimate, at least 5% of on-location shoots were for adult films.
But this coexistence has been suddenly shaken by sweeping health regulations that, starting March 5, will require porn performers to wear condoms while on location.
The landmark law marks a rare attempt to regulate how films are made, threatening an industry that has been a source of millions of dollars in revenue. AIDS activists are gathering signatures for a countywide ballot measure that would extend the ban to dozens of additional communities.
The industry, however, is fighting back. Leaders say that they could take legal action against the city or move filming out of town.
It's a debate that pits the desire to protect the health of porn actors against the freedom to make films that audiences want to see.
The Los Angeles City Council acted earlier this year after a series of incidents in which adult film productions were suspended amid concerns that HIV had been transmitted among performers. Despite the health risks of having unprotected sex on movie sets, the industry has strongly opposed a condom requirement, saying that monthly testing already safeguards performers and that customers won't pay to see such films.
"It's certainly a fascinating conundrum," said Jason E. Squire, a USC professor of cinematic arts. "You want all performers, whatever they do, to be safe. That transcends content. I don't know what the proper solution is."
AIDS activists say that the fight over condoms is about protecting performers' health and opposing the promotion of unsafe sex.
"The fact that porn sends out a message that the only type of sex that's hot is unsafe ... we think that's detrimental," said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
The Los Angeles law was the result of months of aggressive lobbying by Weinstein and other AIDS activists, who have long called on the government to step in and make the porn workplace safer. The council approved the law only after activists pressured it by gathering enough signatures to ask voters to decide the issue at the ballot box. The industry has been forced to suspend production several times amid reports that adult performers contracted HIV. One was Derrick Burts, who tested HIV-positive in 2010 and said clinic staff told him he was infected by a fellow performer.
"It's a broken system that they have in place," said Burts, who backs mandatory condoms. "What performer wouldn't want to feel more safe on a work set?"
Porn industry representatives say the law is unnecessary because they regularly test actors for HIV. They maintain that Burts was not infected on the job, and that they haven't had a confirmed work-related HIV case since 2004. When a performer turned up HIV-positive in another state in 2011, companies here voluntarily halted production until others could get tested.
Steven A. Hirsch of Vivid Entertainment said his company's performers are allowed to use condoms if they want — but most don't.
Filmmakers tried requiring condoms on their own in the late 1990s after an HIV scare, but sales began suffering.
"The viewers out there don't want to see movies with condoms," Hirsch said.
Diane Duke of the adult film lobby group Free Speech Coalition said performers should have the right to have sex as they wish. She compared the issue to boxers who fight for entertainment, even though they risk injury.
"The goal of that is to knock someone out — pound them in the head until you knock someone out," Duke said.
"This is the first step of government overreach into the way we make movies," Duke said. "It's clearly the government interfering where it really doesn't belong.… Because our industry deals with sex … we're vulnerable and easy to attack."
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