Acting in porn isn’t like mining coal or building skyscrapers.

That becomes obvious when looking at labor safety debates. Sure, the adult film industry a lucrative business, and healthcare advocates say they’re trying to hold it accountable for its employees’ well being. But porn performers aren’t lining up to support measures that would require the use of condoms and barriers on set.

Perhaps because this is where workplace safety intersects with deeply personal health decisions.

“I’ve not met a single performer who is actually in favor of the mandate,” said Jiz Lee. Lee – who is genderqueer and prefers the personal pronouns they and them – primarily performs in San Francisco-based queer porn. “Compare that to many vocal performers who are 100 percent against it. This is the biggest issue for performers, because their opinions are not being heard.”

But proponents say barrier use in porn is all about making performers safer at work. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is one of the chief backers of a ballot initiative in Los Angeles that will let voters decide whether issuing permits for porn sets should be linked to condom use. The group is trying to get a similar measure on the countywide ballot.

Pope Benedict said Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined "the future of humanity itself."

The pope made some of his strongest comments against gay marriage in a new year address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican in which he touched on some economic and social issues facing the world today.

He told diplomats from nearly 180 countries that the education of children needed proper "settings" and that "pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman."

"This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself," he said.

The Vatican and Catholic officials around the world have protested against moves to legalize gay marriage in Europe and other developed parts of the world.

Christian, Jewish, and Muslim entrepreneurs have launched ‘religious’ sex-toy shops online in an effort to improve pious couples’ sex lives—and strengthen the marital bond. Allison Yarrow investigates: what makes a vibrator holy?

Joyce’s sex life can be divided into two acts: before and after the Turbo 8 Accelerator.

The evangelical Christian from California’s central valley had never had an orgasm alone nor with her husband of 25 years. “I didn’t know I wasn’t having one,” the 59-year-old mother of two told The Daily Beast. Yet after chatting with some church girlfriends, she learned what she was missing. “’All that happens to you?’” she asked. “They looked at me like I was crazy.”

Joyce, who requested that we use only her first name, and her equally devout spouse never would have found the bullet-shaped vibrator or the array of “marital aids” they’ve ordered since, if it wasn’t for the Christian sex toy website Book 22—introduced to her by a friend after their chat. “I’m a Christian, but this is awesome,” she said. “It was like being newlyweds again.”

Sex and religion have long been perceived to be at odds, with carnal pleasures representing sin more than saintliness. Yet in recent years, a handful of savvy Christian, Jewish and Muslim entrepreneurs have embraced the notion that the two can coexist in a way that jibes with doctrine—and even glorifies traditional values by strengthening marriages.

A marathon U.S. House of Representatives debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act took an unusual detour: into the popularity of online porn.

A two-day debate in the House Judiciary committee--which has been postponed until at least next Wednesday and perhaps until 2012--was interrupted by the appearance of the popular meme "The Internet is for Porn."

Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat who presumably knows his way around the Internet better than any other member of Congress (he founded BlueMountainArts.com), was the committee member who decided to bring up the prevalence of online porn. (See CNET's Q&A with Polis earlier this week.)

A "high percentage" of the Internet's use is for porn, Polis said. It's "a pornographer's wet dream!"

Polis then offered an amendment that would stop the Justice Department from using SOPA's vast powers to aid adult industry businesses who happen to hold valid copyrights. "Pornography should not be the focus of the attorney general's protection," he said.

Reality star Kim Kardashian is being urged to back gay marriage after filing for divorce.

The 31-year-old Kardashian, star of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, on Monday filed for divorce from her husband of 72 days, NBA star Kris Humphries, 26. The pair married after dating for about 9 months. Their lavish (read $10 million) August wedding became endless fodder for tabloids and was documented in a two-part television special watched by more than 4 million viewers titled Kim's Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event.

Kim and her sisters, Khloe and Kourtney, have previously endorsed marriage equality and have posed for the NOH8 Campaign, which raises awareness and funds for gay rights causes, including ending Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban.

However, Kim Kardashian's short-lived nuptials have sparked outrage among gay couples who are denied the right to marry.

China says it has shut down 50 websites that were found distributing pornography and "vulgar" content, as Beijing authorities continue their push to police the Internet.

The official Xinhua news agency quotes an unnamed official from the State Internet Information Office as saying the microblogs also were  found carrying information on prostitution and illegal advertising for sex-related drugs and productions.

The report says the shutdowns were triggered by public complaints. It did not say when the complaints were filed or when the shutdowns occurred.