No condom needed?

The show must go on, is the entertainer's credo, and it did just that in the U.S. Porn Capital even after Los Angeles County voted to require performers to use condoms when filming sex scenes.

One of the industry's biggest stars, James Deen, reported for work, condom-free as usual, just hours after voters adopted the new law.

During a break in the action Thursday, however, Deen raised the same questions on the mind of everyone in LA's billion-dollar-plus porn industry: Can a planned court challenge get the new law tossed out before it is even implemented? Or, perhaps this time next year, will he be making films like "Atomic Vixens" and "Asian Fever Sex Objects" in some place like Las Vegas or Florida?

The law, listed on the ballot as Measure B, was passed by 56 per cent of voters Tuesday. It won't take effect until election results are certified, which likely will be several more days. It could take months longer before county health officials decide how to enforce it and whether they must begin dispatching prophylactic police officers to keep a close eye on actors.

The Department of Public Health issued a terse statement with no timetable for developing an enforcement plan. There was no hint of whether there would be surprise inspections or if public employees would be paid to watch porn flicks to see if actors were complying.

The nation's adult entertainment industry, which is believed to generate as much as $7 billion a year in revenue, according to the trade publication Adult Video News, vigorously opposed the new law. It argued it is unneeded because of safeguards that include monthly venereal disease checks for all working actors.

They also maintained it would be costly and difficult to enforce and could drive the business out of Los Angeles' sprawling San Fernando Valley, taking with it as many as 10,000 jobs, including actors, directors, film editors and crafts and makeup people.

The main problem, they say, is that fans don't want to see actors using condoms.

Deen, who has appeared in more than 1,000 hardcore films over the past nine years and estimates he's been in about 4,000 sex scenes, said he's never been infected with any disease and he gets tested every two weeks.

"I love condoms, I think they're great and the safest thing you can do in engaging in sexual intercourse with a stranger," he said, adding he uses them in his personal life but not onscreen.

Industry officials, meanwhile, say the last reported case of HIV linked directly to work was in 2004. Since then, they add, about 300,000 films have been made.

Through a quirk in county law, the industry might even be able to pack up and move just a few miles down the freeway to Pasadena or Long Beach.

Those municipalities, although located in Los Angeles County, have their own health departments, and Pasadena said earlier this week it won't enforce the new law.