The California-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation wants Florida health officials to crack down on adult films being produced without the use of condoms.
The foundation filed a complaint with the Florida Department of Health last month, after discovering that a California pornography company had shifted filming to South Florida.
The reason for the new location: a Los Angeles County ordinance mandating condom use in the adult film industry, AHF President Michael Weinstein said Wednesday.
“The industry is playing a shell game, where they are trying to conceal where they film and how they film,” Weinstein said.
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Weinstein said Florida should better protect adult film actors from sexually transmitted diseases.
“The bottom line is, two performers have tested positive [for HIV] in the last few weeks,” he said. “There have been multiple scares related to syphilis. There have been thousands of cases of gonorrhea and Chlamydia. The porn performers in Florida are equally deserving of protection.”
The Florida Department of Health was waiting on additional information from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation before determining how to proceed, spokeswoman Ashley Carr said.
The complaint originated against a California-based company called San Diego Boy Productions.
When the AIDS Healthcare Foundation alleged that San Diego Boy had not used condoms in at least one adult film, the pornography company said the scenes in question had been shot in Florida. They pointed to D&E Productions, a company that operates out of North Miami Beach and Pembroke Park.
D&E co-owner David Adamson confirmed to the Associated Press that his company had done the filming.
Adamson said California porn producers are outsourcing work in which actors don’t wear condoms to filmmakers in other states, like him.
“The state of Florida, they don’t care,” he said. “There’s nothing on the books regarding condom use.”
Adamson added that all of his actors are adults who do the work voluntarily.
“Anybody who does condom-less porn, we get them tested and we make sure they are clean,” he said.
Weinstein, of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is asking the Florida health department to investigate the “sanitary nuisance” created by the production of hardcore pornography without condoms.
State law defines a “sanitary nuisance” as the commission of any act that threatens the health or life of an individual, or directly or indirectly causes disease. The state Department of Health has authority to intervene.
“We ask that the Florida Department of Health immediately investigate this matter and take all appropriate steps to ensure that workers in the adult film industry are protected from the threat of sexually transmitted infections,” AHF officials wrote in the complaint.
Pornography has had a foothold for years in Florida. The most-famous porn film, “Deep Throat,” was partly shot in Coconut Grove. And today, internet outfits flourish, from Bangbros and Reality Kings in Miami to Dixie’s Trailer Park in Tampa Bay.
Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Kathleen McGrory can be reached at kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com.
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