And so, the fight is on. LA County itself rejected a proposal to enforce condom use in February, citing limited resources and an insufficient ability to monitor work sites. Although officials supported condom use, they said that statewide legislation was the best solution. CAL-OSHA formed an advisory panel to explore the possibility of strengthening legislation that requires condom use; its initial pronouncements were called a "con job" by Carnal Nation, which also said mandatory condom use would effectively shut down the porn industry.

Mandatory condom use might not eliminate pornography, but, according to some, it might well create new health and safety risks. I spoke via e-mail with friend and Fleshbot editor Lux Alptraum, who has written about this issue in the past. She pointed out that, even if California mandates condom usage in pornography, there's a pretty easy solution for companies that don't want to use condoms. Hint: It involves not making pornography in California.

"If California were to mandate condoms in porn," she wrote, "companies would likely just move to a different state, or even to a different country—there's quite a bit of porn (even American porn) produced in Hungary, where I highly doubt condom use in porn would ever be regulated."

Moving out of California, Alptraum notes, "would make the industry harder to monitor and possibly less safe for performers." In this, she's backed by adult industry journalist Gram Ponante, who told me that "the enforcement of such legislation would only kill the 'legitimate' adult industry and send any other would-be pornographers underground to shoot in an utterly-unregulated and unenforceable black market."

Of course, there's the question of why condom use is being resisted. In straight pornography, Alptraum says, one of the key problems is that it hurts profits. But it's not as simple as that. Alptraum also points out that sex sessions in pornography can last longer and be rougher than more informal, off-the-record sex, which makes the efficacy of the condoms themselves questionable. Performers such as Nina Hartley and Belladonna have spoken against condom use, on the grounds that condoms hurt, make porn shoots difficult, and can even injure vaginal or anal tissue.

Then, there's the fact that, in gay pornography (where some sources say Patient Zero initially worked) condoms are standard and actors still contract HIV. Alptraum describes the standard in gay porn as "condoms but no testing," and the standard in straight porn as "testing but no condoms." Some say that the first route is actually more dangerous, as a performer can start working without first being tested for HIV. Ernest Greene argues that, in order for OSHA regulations to take effect, producers would have to make performers employees, and that this would make it illegal to mandate HIV testing or to take HIV positive status into account while hiring.