FSC Responds to Mailman Condom Study

A recent study published in the online journal PLOS One suggested that gay men watching condom-only porn might be more likely to use condoms in their personal life. Given the heated rhetoric in both Utah and California using "public health" as a pretext for censorship and the stripping away of performer rights (both cited by the study), FSC Executive Director Eric Paul Leue issued the following statement on the study, which suggests producers shoot condom-only porn in an effort to alter health effects:

"Pornography is a form of entertainment, not a tool to impart knowledge where public education has failed. The adult entertainment industry is not responsible to make up for the thirty-five year long failure of the public education system to provide adequate sexual health education in schools, as much as it isn't Roland Emmerich's responsibility to educate the public on how to survive an alien attack á la "Independence Day".

What this study shows us is that our society has done an appalling job in preparing and educating its people - that's what we should focus on fixing. But instead the usual suspects, Michael Weinstein, Gail Dines, Gary Herbert, will try to use this study and our industry as a scapegoat to sanction the erosion and censorship of our constitutional and human right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But it's wrong now, just like it was wrong when Jesse Helms and Ed Meese attempted it thirty years ago.

Adult film performers are likely the most self-aware and knowledgeable demographic when it comes to sexual health. Yet they are under constant attack through initiatives such as in California and Utah that are trying to place the blame on them, and strip them of their workers rights in favor of endorsing legal harassment on moral grounds.

There is no unilateral approach to sexual health, and this study seemingly fails to inform about other factors. Were the participants using other methods of prevention? Were they utilizing PrEP, TasP, or were they in a sero-concordant relationship?"