Yahoo Lifestyle Uproar as porn actors could be forced to wear condoms
Would a condom ruin your favorite porn scene?
That’s what porn industry advocates argue, as the California government considers making rubbers mandatory for performers.
At a hearing for the proposed regulation last month, industry representatives said that no one would want to watch porn actors have protected sex, according to an Associated Press report. Viewers lose interest when they see condoms, several speakers said.
They argued that the regulation would either wipe out the industry or push it underground.
The California workplace safety board listened, and voted down the measure—for now. A similar proposal is on the state ballot in November.
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But is the porn industry’s central argument really true? Are guys so turned off by condoms that they wouldn’t watch two porn stars go at it with protection?
Would you slam your laptop shut at the sight of a Trojan?
New research from Bowling Green State University suggests that most guys wouldn’t.
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They asked men how they felt about condoms in porn, and only 22 percent said they felt strongly that rubbers were a turnoff. The other 78 percent didn’t mind condoms.
“I think most guys just don’t care,” says Shayna Sparling, a doctoral student at the University of Windsor who studies sexual arousal. “Sex is sexy, whether there’s a condom there or not. Especially for a straight guy—how much is he really paying attention to the porn guy’s penis?”
For those guys who say condoms are a turnoff, it could be that the rubber signals a degree of caution or inhibition—rather than the pure fantasy that porn is supposed to depict.
But Sparling thinks that would change if protected porn became the norm.
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Right now, less than 10 percent of straight scenes involve condoms, research shows. But if all porn showed condoms, you’d get used to seeing them, and then you wouldn’t even notice them.
“It would just be normal,” she says. “And when you look back at porn from the 2000s, you’d be like, ‘Oh, weird, that’s from when they didn’t use condoms. That’s so strange now.’”
Kinda like the full bush in 70s porn. Except this change might help reduce the percentage of porn actors who have chlamydia or gonorrhea, which currently stands at 28 percent.
