US Sex Sells News

Porn company Vivid has failed in its appeal against a recent Californian move to mandate condoms in porn production.

The company had made a constitutional challenge to a 2012 California ballot initiative that paved the way for the new law. Vivid argued that the measure violated a First Amendment free speech right to have unprotected sex on camera.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit disagreed. Judge Susan Graber wrote:

The condom mandate has only a de minimus effect on expression, is narrowly tailored to achieve the substantial government interest of reducing the rate of sexually transmitted infections, and leaves open adequate alternative means of expression.

The requirement that actors in adult films wear condoms while engaging in sexual intercourse might have 'some minimal effect' on a film's erotic message, but that effect is certainly no greater than the effect of pasties and G-strings on the erotic message of nude dancing.

The ruling paves the way for the measure to be enforced, although the number of permits for the production of pornographic films has declined already in Los Angeles County.

Interestingly Los Angeles County refused to defend the law in court, prompting sponsors of the measure, namely the anti porn campaigners, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, to intervene.

Fans and veteran stars of adult movies turned out at a book launch to honor classic adult actress Serena, as she discussed her new memoir, Bright Lights, Lonely Nights , recently published by BearManor Bare.

Veteran actor and activist William Margold set the stage for Serena's talk by recalling that he'd met the lithe blonde 41 years earlier:

I went downstairs to perform with two women for one of Sam's hardcore shootings, and when I walked in, Serena was there but there was another woman who worked with me, and Serena sort of watched. When it was over, Serena, without even attempting to put her clothes on, came over and hugged me.

The result of the hug was that Margold and Serena began to treat each other as brother and sister, a relationship that carries through to today.

When it came Serena's turn to speak, she admitted that much of her early life is now a blank to her. She went on to describe her periods of mania and depression, mood swings that didn't abate until she started taking antipsychotic drugs, though Margold opined that it was those mood swings that made her a great actress:

I wasn't actually in the industry that long, but I made like a hundred movies and finally what brought an end to that career and that part of my life was AIDS; I got scared, petrified of AIDS, and I saw a lot of it because I lived in San Francisco, and I had to run out and get tested right away because I had gotten it on with John Holmes, and I was afraid because it was rumored that John Holmes had died of AIDS, so I was freaked out. But I'm clean, thank goodness.

She went on to describe her time living with the late Jamie Gillis.

He was my beast, and I was his California blonde, she said. We lived together for two years, and I had so much fun with him, and eventually, we just got hired as a couple, and he didn't fly, so we would go back and forth from coast to coast, because there were really two communities of X-rated stuff, on the train, and we had a lot of train experiences where we didn't invite people into our little room.