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James Deen: Porn’s Missing Stair?

Who's got two thumbs and is allegedly a serial sexual assaulter?
Who’s got two thumbs and is allegedly a serial sexual assaulter?

Three women, so far, have come forward to accuse porn star James Deen of sexual assault. It seems exceedingly likely there will be more.

After porn actress Stoya tweeted on Saturday that Deen had forcibly raped her, other women in the porn industry made clear that they’d been warning fellow performers about Deen’s allegedly predatory actions for years.

Indeed, porn actress Sydney Leathers told the Daily Beast that another porn performer “told me when I first got into the business that I should avoid him — that he has boundary issues, basically that he tries to break women.”

In other words, Deen seems to be a perfect example what kink blogger Cliff Pervocracy once called a “missing stair” — that is, a dangerous person that women warn one another about, but whose power in the community shields him from public accusations.

As Cliff wrote in a now-famous post, some people are the equivalent of a missing stair,

[s]omething massively unsafe and uncomfortable and against code, but everyone in the house …. [is] used to it? “Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there’s a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings. But it’s okay because we all just remember to jump over it.”

Cliff came up with this striking metaphor after posting publicly “about a rapist in a community I belonged to,” noting that even without giving a name or details of the rapist’s actions,

I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying “oh, you must mean X.” Everyone knew who he was! … The reaction wasn’t “there’s a rapist among us!?!” but “oh hey, I bet you’re talking about our local rapist.” Several of them expressed regret that I hadn’t been warned about him beforehand, because they tried to discreetly tell new people about this guy. Others talked about how they tried to make sure there was someone keeping an eye on him at parties, because he was fine so long as someone remembered to assign him a Rape Babysitter.

Just as Bill Cosby’s status as a beloved father figure of the comedy world made it terrifyingly difficult for women to go public with their rape accusations against him, Deen’s status in the porn world, and his public reputation as an enlightened, even feminist, porn performer made it similarly terrifying for women to come forward with their accusations against him.

But it wasn’t just Deen’s power in the porn world that kept his alleged victims silent. There is also a strange but widespread belief that porn performers (and sex workers more generally) can’t really be raped.

Tori Lux, one of the three women who say they’ve been assaulted by Deen, explained that she hadn’t gone to the police or gone public earlier because

people (including the police) tend to operate from the assumption that sex workers have put themselves in harm’s way, and therefore can’t be assaulted – which is incorrect, as being involved in sex work does not equate being harmed. …

[S]ex workers are silenced and our negative experiences are swept under the rug in simply trying to protect ourselves from judgement of others, or worse, a variety of problems ranging from further physical attacks to professional problems such as slander and blacklisting. To put it simply, I was afraid.

Her fear is certainly understandable. The “porn performers can’t be raped” argument, despite its obvious absurdity, is one that actually makes it into rape trials. Indeed, only a couple of days before Stoya came forward with her accusations, the lawyer for the MMA fighter known as War Machine, who is currently on trial for sexual assault and attempted murder, suggested that his accuser’s history as a porn actress known for rough sex somehow means that she can’t be raped. As the Daily Beast writes,

War Machine’s attorney … said that even when she wasn’t acting as on-screen seductress Christy Mack, the accuser showed the “desire, the preference, to acceptability towards a particular form of sex activities that were outside of the norm.”

If Deen is prosecuted for his alleged sexual assaults, will we hear a similar argument from his lawyers?

For now, Deen is flatly denying all of the allegations leveled against him:

https://twitter.com/JamesDeen/status/671131915773022209

https://twitter.com/JamesDeen/status/671131998535090176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

But a couple of years ago, Deen took the issue of consent a good deal less seriously than he says he does now. joking about it on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JamesDeen/status/39057114148245504

He liked that joke so much that he used it again later:

https://twitter.com/JamesDeen/status/189541701751287812

Then again, maybe these Tweets weren’t meant as jokes at all. Maybe this is what Deen actually believes.

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AnAndrejaPejicBlog (@A_Pejic_Blog)

I wonder if Stoya is going to be targeted now. She has committed the crimes of A) accusing a man of rape and B) doing something that can’t be fapped to. That’s got to enrage a few manospherians.

Kat
Kat
8 years ago

@auntie alias
I followed the story of Jian Ghomeshi, the sensitive, nice guy feminist, with rapt interest for many months. Despite his workplace antics (arrogance and sexual harassment), and despite widespread rumors that he beat his shocked sex partners, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation treated him with extreme deference for quite a while because he was a star. Then an anonymous woman accused him on Twitter, and then another woman accused him, and then another….

He’s quite a piece of work.

Auntie Alias
Auntie Alias
8 years ago

@Kat

I consumed massive amounts of media coverage when it was a hot topic. The fact that he harassed a co-worker right under their noses and refused to do anything about it was bad. Glad they got their knuckled rapped for it.

@AnAndrejaPejicBlog

Well, the men’s rights subreddit is on the case. https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3uuno8/stoya_incident_update_signs_of_what_will_come_one/

Fruitloopsie
Fruitloopsie
8 years ago

Kat
Yeah you’re right.

brian
brian
8 years ago

Wait… it’s against comment policy to even refer to fictional serial killer characters (as sofania was doing) as sociopaths?

Bernardo Soares
Bernardo Soares
8 years ago

Creepy. What I don’t get is if “everybody” knew he was a “missing stair”, how could he keep his reputation in the community as a safe person to engage in BDSM practices?

I remember the case of a history prof who had blackmailed two students to have sex with him in exchange for their MA. Both women accused him, but retracted after it was pointed out that they stood to lose their degree if the matter was brought before court. Everybody knew he was guitly, but as he had tenure, the University couldn’t get rid of him without a conviction. So his colleagues a) spread the word among the academic community and b) forced him to not supervise any female students and always have his door open when advising students. Not the ideal solution, but I guess better than nothing.

Orion
8 years ago

Brian,

In the last sentence of her post, Sofania says “maybe playing a sociopath isn’t… a stretch for him”, which is an idiomatic expression meaning “maybe he is a sociopath.”

anon
anon
8 years ago

They want her to face repercussions.

I, do these people even.

Dammit.

And there’s the inevitable “what about the menz” post.

Dammit.

Dammit.

Dammit.

They think that he’s the victim.

Just fucking dammit.

I’m sorry but what the hell. Is their default setting, “Shit on women?”

Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
8 years ago

@Brian

It’s also a better-safe-than-sorry, cutting-them-off-at-the-pass thing – same reason why we don’t even allow positive connotations (like “Crazy awesome”). If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.

philosopheria
8 years ago

Bernardo,
Deen had such cachet as the “cute, successful, young porn guy” that many actresses were/are eager to film with him. What other male porn stars can you name who have done significant crossover work into mainstream entertainment? Anyway, it would seem safe to film with him since there are lots of people around.

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

The BDSM community is now suddenly full of people who’ve gone from idolising Stoya to calling her a liar. Even worse, it’s full of people laboriously explaining, rationally and calmly, why “innocent until proven guilty” means that Stoya is a lying whore.

A good 60% of the people saying this identify as female.

Some days I can’t even. Can anyone else even, because I can’t?

BRB, doing astronomy. At least I can trust the stars not to be pro-rape sealions.

anon
anon
8 years ago

They say that they want evidence and that women who don’t provide it should “face repercussions.”

Do they expect her to provide enough evidence to convict him over twitter? How is that even possible?

Even if she did, they still would insult her.

The faux reasonable and veneer of civility which they use as a cudgel is disgusting.

Argenti Aertheri
8 years ago

EJ (The Other One) — sorry but I can’t even either. I’d rather put a cat in a carrier

Orion — my memory is a sieve sometimes, but I read the comment policy earlier and wasn’t narcissistic one of the allowed things? Cuz yeah, that’s the shorthand for charming manipulative and remorseless.

As for terms for fictional characters I’d go with the same standard as real people unless actually directly discussing it as a piece of fiction.

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
8 years ago

Oh FFS…after all that 50 shades of utter shit show and the curious newbies finally tapered down, private messages from total strangers asking to be 24/7 live in subs once again dropped to the usual half dozen a week – but hey at least they weren’t total idiots who thought they should inform me that I just haven’t met the “right dom” who can grant me the privilege of submission that my femaleness secretly longs for…after a while those bag-o-dicks get a clue and move on to more naive seeming and presumably actually give an indication of an interest in things submissive or switch profiles….

Is this going to be Mondays now and for all perpetuity? If so we’re going to need to put it to another vote to make Mondays something else. Like 23764 kittens for Monday. Or Puppies snuggling Monday. Douchecanoes can hold their britches till Wednesday or Sunday.

Anarchonist
Anarchonist
8 years ago

I won’t personally go too deep into the “sociopath” discussion, since I’ve made my feelings about the general use of the term abundantly clear, but I recall there being some discussion on here about how calling someone, say, “narcissistic” can be problematic because it implies a diagnosis, but referring to their behavior and known personality traits maybe not so much. So, in theory, you could say that someone exhibits “narcissistic personality traits” or “antisocial behavior patterns” as they’re generally understood and it wouldn’t be so bad since it’s just describing behavior and what we know about the personality of said person based on what they’ve actually said and done.

But idk, I still think there’s an element of diagnosing people as “others” and “not like the rest of us”, and it’s directing the discussion away from toxic masculinity, privilege and other uncomfortable subjects that society already has a tendency to avoid. Until it is officially recognized that “narcissistic behavior” etc. is a likely and natural end result of unchecked privilege and social power, not just an inherent quality in individual “lone wolves”, I still have my reservations about using such terms. Am I being oversensitive on this subject?

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

@Anarchonist:
IMHO you’re not being oversensitive at all, and you make the case very powerfully. Your argument has sparked a thought in my mind which I’m going to have to develop more fully before I post it, based on the way that “othering” has worked in this case.

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

@Argenti:
“Putting a cat in a carrier” may well be a good yardstick of unpleasantness. It scales, after all – putting two cats in their carriers is more or less twice as unpleasant as one.

Right now, dealing with the pro-Deen partisans rates from about 0.7 CCs (catcarriers) for the shrieking “she’s just a lying whore!” types, to about 1.5 CCs for the Rational Men Arguing Rationally.

Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
8 years ago

@Anarchonist

Not at all. I don’t mind “Narcissistic” as much as the others and have used it myself a couple of times, but it is definitely an iffy one. On the one hand, it can – and on any other site, would – just be a synonym for “Egotistical,” but on the other, oh so much keyboard diagnosing.

Also, post more.

Ghost Robot
Ghost Robot
8 years ago

@James Palmer, Irvine Welsh’s book Ecstasy also features a Jimmy Saville-esque character (depicted primarily as a necrophile, but with definite pedophile tendencies), and that was published 15 years before Saville’s death.

Also, for a whole barrage of showbiz creepers, Claudia Christian’s autobiography Babylon Confidential has some damning anecdotes about Cliff Robertson (who slapped her hard in the face for looking away from him momentarily while running lines), Steven Seagal (who constantly made gross sexual remarks to her throughout the filming of Half Past Dead), Angus MacFadyen (an abusive alcoholic with whom she was in a relationship for several years), Robert Davi (a jerk to Christian during filming of Maniac Cop 2, who even taunted her for suffering a miscarriage at one point), and last but not least, Corbin Bersen, who sexually assaulted her – in full view of the crew – during setup for a scene in the film Nightmare Boulevard. Robertson’s dead, but all the others are still working, because of course they are.

storyending
8 years ago

Sadly, all of these female porn stars are too traumatized and ‘in the thick of it’ to realize they are all being raped.

Erlend J. Alvestad
Erlend J. Alvestad
8 years ago

To me, the pleonasm “forcibly raped” in the second paragraph implies that rape isn’t necessarily forced. I’m assuming that wasn’t intentional.

NicolaLuna
NicolaLuna
8 years ago

It’s so fucking frustrating how several women can confirm the same story but still be called liars. If several men were to say that one woman had made false rape accusations about all of them, they would be believed and the woman wouldn’t get the whole “innocent until proven guilty” stuff that Deen is getting.

I know part of it is that people don’t want to think bad of someone who they like or respect. Like with the Bill Cosby thing, people didn’t want to hear about him drugging and raping women because in their mind they have this positive image of him. And I get it, I do, it’s uncomfortable to have your beliefs challenged. I never really had an opinion on Cosby before the rape allegations came out so I didn’t have to deal with my own preconceptions there. But I’m really shocked about Deen. As it’s mentioned in the article, he’s portrayed himself as a feminist. And I’ve had a thing for him for ages – handsome, charming feminist man who is very knowledgeable about intricate bondage and safe ways of inflicting pain.

I’m hoping that this gets taken seriously and that the women involved don’t have their careers used against them in court. But I’m guessing I’m being too optimistic there 🙁

Kat
Kat
8 years ago

@Ghost Robot
Wow wow wow wow wow.

Ow ow ow ow ow.

I’m sad to hear about those Hollywood jerks.

I love movies and I lived in Hollywood years ago. I seriously considered working in the film industry, but I knew that I’d have to have — I don’t know — a great sense of humor? But this stuff goes way beyond the “boys will be boys” kidding around and propositioning female coworkers.

Kat
Kat
8 years ago

@Argenti Aertheri, @EJ (the Other One)
Put a cat in a carrier? That’s a terrific measurement of unpleasantness. Thanks, EJ (the Other One).

We have a big, strong, smart, bold orange cat who put us through hell for a while when we tried to get him into a carrier. Oh, the yelling and the commotion! The first time I took him to the vet, he yelled nonstop during the taxi ride over. On the way into the office, he reached out to claw the doorframe. Enter me with screaming cat. Other characters: silent animal parents, well-behaved dogs.

On the way home, he hyperventilated.

Then we got him a cardboard carrier, which he broke out of. Twice.

Then we got him an extra-large carrier. Eureka! I think that he actually likes it. Room enough for him and his big butt and some space left over.

sn0rkmaiden
8 years ago

It’s pretty much a given in the porn industry that if you get labeled ‘difficult to work with’ you’re not going to get any work. I guess telling anyone you’ve been raped on camera comes under that umbrella.