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Is there any real truth behind this story?
ndustrial goggles could soon join inexpensive lingerie, white high heels and breast implants on the California film sets where the billion-dollar adult industry churns out blockbusters with titles such as Everyone I Did Last Summer, The Boobyguard and Good Will Humping.
Legislation, which is heading to California's capital Sacramento, hopes to improve workplace safety drastically in the porn industry by more clearly enforcing existing legislation governing the use of condoms and introducing new rules governing exposure to OPIMs - that is, Other Potentially Infectious Materials.
That's where the goggles come in, but more on them in a moment.
The proposed California Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act would cover any production of pornographic material in the state of California - that is, "all workplaces in which employees have occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens and/or sexually transmitted pathogens due to one or more employees engaging in sexual activity with another individual".
Those pathogens are more formally known as "Other Potentially Infectious Materials - Sexually Transmitted Infections", or OPIM-STIs, and include, but are by no means limited to, semen, vaginal secretions, faecal matter and - brace yourself - "all bodily fluids in situations where it is difficult or impossible to differentiate between bodily fluids".
The question of porn actors and actresses wearing goggles during sex scenes arises when it comes to potential OPIM-STI contact with the eyes.
In such situations, where OPIM-STI-to-eye contact could be "reasonably anticipated", the proposal says, "the employer shall provide, at no cost to the employee ... eye protection".
The proposals do not actually state that goggles are required, merely that an employer must provide adequate "eye protection".
Supporters of the measures, led by Michael Weinstein, the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, say the legislation is necessary to protect the health of people working in adult films.
Read more:
Get an eyeful of this: California's porn actors may have to wear goggles on set
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