BuzzFeed
by Nitasha Tiku
Plush Talent, a New York City-based agency representing adult film stars, recently started giving new clients a welcome guide to the porn industry. Along with tips on social media (“Twitter is a must have for every porn star, period.”) and taking photos for producers (“Don’t use filters”) the guide has a section on “Reputation.” It begins: “The adult industry is a lot smaller than you think and everyone talks, especially if they run into a problem with someone. What I tell the girls is, they are to act like robots …. Little adorable performer robots.”
Telling women to be well-behaved may sound repressive, said Kelli Roberts, the 19-year industry veteran who wrote it, but her intention was to warn female performers to let their agents handle on-set issues. The guide even suggests that if an issue arises, they pretend to go to the bathroom to make the call.
Roberts, who serves as kind of den mother/advocate for young women in the industry, said on-set issues tend toward “jackass producers who try and change what they agreed to at the last minute,” like one director who booked a model for a blow job scene then asked her to perform in rape fantasy once she was on location, or adding new partners to a scene last minute.
Her advice is a reminder that on-set “issues” in the porn business are common enough that models literally need a guidebook to help navigate them, and that there’s a wide gulf between what happens on paper and what happens on set.
That ambiguity extends far beyond respecting agreements about what people are willing to do on camera. In interviews with dozens of performers, producers, directors, and agents, BuzzFeed News found that not only are avenues for reporting sexual assault on a porn set unclear — it’s even a point of contention whether such assaults are common. Many described the industry as a close-knit community that bands together to drive out bad actors, where assault is rare and consequences for it unforgiving.
Many also argued such an environment leaves performers, especially those new to the industry, vulnerable to abuse, with little formal recourse if something goes wrong. And the events of recent weeks have shone a harsh spotlight on the industry and one of porn’s few household names, who has been accused of — and vehemently denied — sexual assault against co-stars and fellow performers dating back years.
Since late November, nine women have claimed that James Deen sexually assaulted them, quickly elevating the issue from the insular porn community to the national stage.
Two of the allegations were related to incidents said to have occurred in his personal life, but the others allegedly took place in a professional context, at a shoot or in a porn studio — during and after a scene. None of Deen’s accusers formally reported the alleged assaults at the time; in the instances where the women did speak up in the moment, neither the studio nor the director investigated further.
The lack of reporting is a red flag, many believe. “The question I think our industry has to ask ourselves is why did the women feel that they wouldn’t be heard or why didn’t they feel safe coming forward?” Diane Duke, CEO of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for adult film producers, told BuzzFeed News. “The avenues are there,” she continued. “Why don’t people feel comfortable using them?”
In contrast, the industry’s response to the women going public — long after the fact and without the involvement of authorities — has been unequivocal. “He’s the biggest performer in the industry,” said Eric John, a longtime actor and producer. “And they blacklisted him.” …