The Los Angeles–based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is touting a new study that suggests people who see condoms in adult video are more likely to use them in their own sex lives.

The research by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found an increase in condom use among porn fans who see condoms onscreen.

Columbia says that condom-free encounters decreased 38 percent for every one-unit increase in the viewing of online adult video that featured condoms.

On the flip side, condom-free sex increased 25 percent for every one-unit increase in the viewing of online porn that featured no visible protection, the school found.

Researchers looked at the video viewing habits of 265 men who have sex with men.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is spearheading a statewide voter initiative that seeks to put mandatory condoms in porn on the November ballot. 

The nonprofit also has prompted state workplace health officials to declare that condoms are the law for adult video production. But enforcement is done on a complaint-by-complaint basis.

“People emulate actions, behaviors, clothing, hairstyles and other things they see in mainstream movies all the time — why would it be any different with porn?” says AHF president Michael Weinstein. “Also, people need to remember that porn is a business and, as such, employers and producers in the industry have a duty and responsibility under both federal and state OSHA statutes to protect their employees, which, in the case of adult film production, means condoms.”

The adult industry's trade group, the Free Speech Coalition, said the study proves that sex education has failed. But it said that it isn't porn's job to teach people how to be safe in bed.

“Pornography is a form of entertainment, not a tool to impart knowledge where public education has failed,” said FSC executive director Eric Paul Leue. “The adult entertainment industry is not responsible to make up for the 35-year-long failure of the public education system to provide adequate sexual health education in schools.”

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