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| 19 and looking bored before a late-night Buena-Vista Park (SF) shoot. |
Since 2012, when Los Angeles voters passed a mandate requiring the use of condoms on all porn sets, permits for X-rated shoots have dropped dramatically. So where is porn currently being filmed? “A lot are simply shooting in out-of-the-way places where they won't be caught,” says Mark Kernes, senior editor at Adult Video News, which tracks industry trends. “Normally it's in people's homes who are willing to rent them out for a day. Sometimes it's out in the woods. There are vacation cabins far away from anything that you can shoot a movie at.”
During my ten year involvement in the porn industry, except for one time in Los Angeles, I was never once on a legitimate porn set. Gay porn videos were almost always shot in motels, private homes, and or apartments in San Francisco or Guerneville. Other times, the set ups and filming were rather haphazard at such public locals as the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, the Dore Alley Fair, or in Dolores Park. From what I understood, according to a few conversations I had in the late-90s with an over-the-hill Golden Age female porn star, that even in more progressive LA, porn shoots were then a nefarious affair: casts and crews meeting at clandestine locations, throwing the cameras and lights together, quickly filming, and then making a hurried get-away. But, like then, the demand was high, so the porn-pushers found a way. Perversity knows no limits. Just as in the illicit drug trade, laws will have very little effect; until the minds and hearts of the users are opened to the healing power of Jesus Christ. He is the only answer.