Las Vegas – I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard the discussion about whether it’s legal or illegal to shoot a bondage scene featuring sex.
But that throny issue among others was addressed when four prominent adult industry attorneys held an Adult Products Law open forum this week at AEE.
Other topics, according to an AVN story, included the legalities of choking in an adult video and what you can show on a DVD cover.
The attorneys speaking were Allan Gelbard, who among other things repped Evil Angel in its piracy lawsuit; Reed Lee, the constitutional expert from Chicago; Lawrence Walters [pictured], adult Internet expert and Michael Fattorosi, an established mainstream entertainment lawyer, who’s now repping clients in the adult arena.
“The answers to the choking/bondage questions turned out to be more complicated than a lay person would have guessed,” the article continues.
According to Reed Lee, all depictions of sexually explicit conduct carry the threat of obscenity charges, but Lee wasn’t about to try to tell any producer what he/she could or couldn’t shoot.
Lee also addressed the three-part Miller test for obscenity which states scientific value. Lee suggested that anyone producing hardcore with choking or bondage might think about adding a discussion of the dangers of erotic asphyxia.
According to Walters, the “community standards” of the World Wide Web still hasn’t been resolved, and that the long held belief that it was illegal to depict sex and bondage in the same movie is a myth.
“Fattorosi analogized the choking and bondage situations to the recent Brooke Ashley worker compensation case,” AVN’s Mark Kernes writes. “Ashley was declared an employee of the production company on whose set she allegedly contracted HIV. [Fattorosi] noted that if a performer were injured while engaged in a choking or bondage scene, a similar legal battle could be played out over that incident as well.”
Other topics of the forum addressed such issues as what images can be depicted on a DVD cover, (whatever’s in the movie itself taking into account local standards); whether an employee at an adult business can charge sexual harassment- (yes, with the advisory that it’s important to be professional in the workplace); and how hotels can provide adult pay-per-view while adult stores have been zoned out of the same area. (Their business isn’t primarily the sale of adult products.)
The forum also covered the topic of the recent Occupational Health and Safety Administration (Cal-OSHA) raids on porn sets.
Fattorosi noted that Cal-OSHA’s mandated that producers put together a “blood-borne pathogens” avoidance program, and wants various sex acts to include the use of dental dams, goggles and condoms.
“It will make the industry very sterile if that happens,” he said.
Fattorosi also advised producers to buy easily affordable worker compensation insurance when shooting sex to avoid potential headaches down the road.