Dennis RomeroOne of the great standoffs in modern history has pitted the multi-billion-dollar porn industry against L.A. City Hall.
The L.A. City Council recently passed a law that requires on-location adult video performers to use condoms, but there's still no fine print about how, exactly, that will be enforced. In the meantime, the porn industry is saying it will abandon its longtime home in “Porn Valley” if it is forced to use prophylactics.
Some porn leaders are even teasing the city: How are you really going to enforce this? Here's one way:
With QR codes.
That's right. Planned Parenthood in Seattle has recently been experimenting with condoms that have QR codes printed on them. They can be scanned and entered into a database that then maps where people are getting it on.
Seriously.
Sex, mapped out.; Credit: Planned Parenthood
What we want to know is, who's in charge of placing scanners in orifices. And how. And what happens to those poor guys who can't fill in the, ah, data?
Oh. The codes are scanned in via smart phone apps prior to sex. Much better.
According to a Planned Parenthood statement:
The check-ins show up on a map on the website that is searchable by gender, orientation, approximate age, location, and other filters. In the past week the response has been incredible. Check-ins have come in from 48 out of 50 states and from six continents!
They're calling the program, in which 55,000 QR-enabled condoms were distributed to community colleges, universities, and health centers “www.WhereDidYouWearIt.com” (and not, as an editor of ours suggested, “Where's Willy”).
In any case, back to the porn industry:
Imagine if there were a program in which porn producers had to scan the condoms they were about to use into a database patrolled by the city. That way we wouldn't have to waste valuable LAPD time on prophylactic patrols:
And porn producers could cheat their asses off by not actually using the condoms they scanned.
What do you think?
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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