Our brave leader Vince is currently making the rounds at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, possibly so he can be cast as the lead in a Luke Walton porn parody, but mostly so he can put his ear to the sticky ground and catch any of the big stories coming out of the adult film industry’s biggest weekend of the year. One such story involves the developments with the condom laws in the porn industry’s backyard of Los Angeles County, as health advocates and activists in California have been pushing for reform in the porn movie business that would require all male actors to wear condoms.
The law was met with outrage and legal recourse from porn’s big players, but the condom regulation was still upheld by higher courts. Because of that, and also do to dwindling profits, the number of permits filed in L.A. last year dropped 95 percent from 2012. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing for porn enthusiasts, mainly because it means most of the studios have found a new home in Vegas.
“Las Vegas is a fresh town, and it’s where people need the business,” said [Lee Roy] Myers, whose new studio is part of a boom in X-rated production in Sin City sparked by a Los Angeles law requiring male actors to wear condoms.
“It’s not really an option to change the way we make our movies, and moving production isn’t that hard,” said porn purveyor Jules Jordan, who hid out behind nearly naked models at the JulesJordanVideo.com booth.
Jordan warned reporters not to ask him about condoms. (Via USA Today)
I assume that Jordan didn’t want to discuss the condom laws because it’s something that pisses him and other likeminded producers off to no end. But Vegas should make most of them happy once they’ve unpacked the U-Haul trucks, because county officials aren’t charging much for the movie permits and they’re not requiring a bunch of additional health tests. Basically, they’re just pumped to have the economic boost.
“It’s a legalized industry and properly regulated, so I don’t see it as a problem,” said Clark County commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. “I think the city and the county will benefit from any expansion of the film industry. It’s economic diversification.”
Like any new relationship, the porn industry and Vegas are in their honeymoon period, where everything is sex, sex, sex and all smiles, mostly for the sake of pissing off porn’s ex, Los Angeles. But things are bound to get complicated, as success will likely drive politicians to open their hands wider and the price of permits to rise accordingly. Additionally, porn’s enemies in L.A. won’t have to travel hard to find likeminded folks in Vegas who will again try to push the business out of the county and possibly the state. Porn star James Deen knows what’s up.
“The issue with running to Vegas is it doesn’t actually fix anything,” he said, taking refuge near a stairwell at the convention hall to avoid interruption by a constant stream of fans. “We should explain to the people who put that law in place why it’s unnecessary, and appeal it the same way any community would appeal any asinine law.”
Mental note: Ass-to-asinine Law would make a great name for a porn parody of this whole situation.
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