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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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RosaDeLava
RosaDeLava
8 years ago

@Anarchonist
I see what you mean. Yes, when one uses sociopathy as meaning “the inability to feel empathy” which is so often used as, one would be making an arm-chair diagnosis, and from that…

katz
katz
8 years ago

Sorry I haven’t been posting much these last months. Long story short, I hit burnout, I was diagnosed with serious depression and I have been regularly getting crippling anxiety attacks, all of which conspired to me having to quit my job and essentially completely removing me from acting as a useful member of society until I’m better. My medication in turn made me unable to form enough coherent thoughts to write meaningful posts. It’s getting better, though.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. Naturally you should take all the time you need.

chaltab
chaltab
8 years ago

There should probably be like a database or something of porn performers that flags those about whom there are credible accusations of rape or otherwise abusive behavior. It would have to be independent and secure though because you know it would become a target of misogynist hackers/GGers.

kale
kale
8 years ago

One of the worst things about this is that he apparently did this knowing exactly what consent is.Like, some rapists dont understand consent but this man made a show of understsnding it and he violated it on purpose.

nparkern
8 years ago

@kale
That’s something that really disturbs me too. He’s given sexual advice in a column about respecting women’s boundaries, so to know that and still do it… ugh.

@chaltab
I can understand the idea in principle, I really can, (ands I don’t necessarily disagree that it could be done) but I’d kind of worry that it would seem to be about ‘othering’ porn performers. The idea seems to single out porn performers as being more likely to sexually offend than non-performers. It just seems- off somehow. Can the sex offender’s register not suffice?

theluckyfrog
8 years ago

I read a GQ piece on Deen awhile back, and a few aspects of it rang funny given his supposed “feminist porn star” reputation. There was one bit where some really screwed-up teenage porn star was sending explicit pictures to her mother, and Deen expressed concern, but mostly about how she was contributing to the porn industry’s shady reputation.

Later the article described a double penetration scene he was in, and the writer completely brushed Deen off for a few paragraphs (“Deen went to take a shower”) and just sat there observing while the newbie girl who’d been penetrated cried on another performer’s shoulder. Given what I’ve heard about Deen, I would have expected him to show some interest in the girl’s emotions. The guy who was supposed to be writing about Deen showed far more.

None of these actions screams “rapist”, of course, but they do tell of a person whose reputation for kindness is somewhat overblown. So I’m not surprised that he’s falling from grace, I’m just surprised it’s happening in such a dramatic way. If he can’t be what he’s cracked up to be, I would rather he have been just a jerk than an actual rapist. But, lots of people suck. I guess I should just be glad that my douchebag radar is sharper than the average bear’s, apparently.

Aerinea
Aerinea
8 years ago

On the sociopath thing; one of my closest friends is a sociopath. We’ve had a pretty good friendship for the last 20 years because the combination of his ASPD (Antisocial personality disorder) and my ASD (Autism spectrum disorder) result in a lot of honesty. I’m an “aspie” autistic and can’t read social cues well despite my love of social situations. He has no sense of empathy and tends towards manipulation involuntarily. He’s found that trying to explain social norms to me helps him to respect them, and my natural aspie earnestness throws him for a loop.

He also finds sexual assault horrifying because having ASPD results in, at least for him, a disinterest in sex unless it forwards something he’s working towards, and he views rape and sexual assault as unproductive and potentially detrimental to his goals.

I’ve been having a fascinating time having discussions with him about our respective disorders.

Basically, Sociopathy isn’t actually a part of being a rapist. Sociopaths can actually be awesome people and loyal friends. But being a privileged, entitled asshole who desires control regardless of consent is a part of being a rapist.

RosaDeLava
RosaDeLava
8 years ago

Basically, Sociopathy isn’t actually a part of being a rapist.

I’m sure of that. I’ve searched for quotes from rapists (to make a point) and they either try to justify their actions, or frame them in such a way in which they don’t come up as the bad guys. They try to create barriers for their empathy, so they can avoid feeling guilty.
I have no doubt that mental illness has less to do with criminal behavior than external circumstances.

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
8 years ago

@Ej the other one

It gets repetitive having to explain to newbies that it will take some time and being part of their local scene if they’re looking for playtime that doesn’t involve payment/tribute/donation made to a professional (which most of the sub men I come across are particularly resistant towards but at the same time they expect to find a dom who embodies their femdom porn fantasies right away and easily – uh….relationships are hard and take time to develop guys!)…but then they don’t want to go to munches or play parties where their particular kink dynamic will be in its highest concentration either. It may be a common quirk in the sub male group, and while repetitive it’s not as bad as trying to participate in the more general kink events that always bring out the Male doms who think femdoms just haven’t met the right Domly dom of all doms thus in their reality I and my fellow femdoms don’t really exist we’re just being bratty yet-to-accept our role of submission. I can’t say that other femdom groups are like those I’m in when it comes to making sure everyone is respectful and properly gets consent. continually checks in to make sure the parties are all good with the activity taking place, and stops when they hear the safe word or a substituted means of communicating “Halt!” in the event that speaking isn’t possible…but we do pretty well with keeping the more concerning things in the kink communities from coming around the femdom specific interactions and the few times there’s been issues people stepped in, had open dialogue and communication about why something was not ok and if it were to continue the person could no longer participate. I can only recall one person who didn’t graciously accept their warning and not doing the bad thing in the future and that person was bounced out of nearly every group in the area and left the kink-scape entirely, but they had other issues in their personal life complicating things so hopefully they’re dealing with those and not just relocated to another area where their sh#t might be tolerated and covered up by the local scenesters.

Pamela
Pamela
8 years ago

“There should probably be like a database or something of porn performers that flags those about whom there are credible accusations of rape or otherwise abusive behavior. It would have to be independent and secure though because you know it would become a target of misogynist hackers/GGers.”

A secret blacklist would come with its own set of problems though.

LeeLa
LeeLa
8 years ago

Can I just say, I hate the reference to sex that isn’t BDSM as “vanilla”. I hate the disparaging of sexual activities that aren’t “kinky” as something to be ashamed of. I’m a woman and I love gentle, tender sex with things that feel good to me happening. It’s never boring to me, I always love the time I’ve spent partaking and I’m happy that I finally realize this isn’t something to be ashamed of.

I’m almost 30 and I spent a lot longer than I would like to admit partaking in, well, very light bdsm type activities in sex because I thought that’s what was expected of me. I modeled SO MUCH of my sexual presence off of what porn depicted was wanted – the submissive sex bunny that could orgasm at the drop of a whip, who enjoyed the pleasure of pain and performing for her partner.
And it just seems that in the more common worlds where sex gets talked about, people are quick disparage so-called “vanilla” sex.

:shrug:

hedin
hedin
8 years ago

@RosaDeLava

Some sociopaths also try to justify their actions, because they like being seen as sympathetic — they crave influence and positive attention. Not all, but some. Like most mental illnesses, sociopathy encompasses a broad spectrum. Some of them are basically functional people who don’t feel a lot of empathy, or have problems with impulse control, and some of them torture animals as children and go on to be rapists and/or murderers. I mean, it’s not a condition so much as a broad set of markers which various people exhibit to varying degrees.

It’s just like with, say schizophrenia. There are people leading basically normal lives who might hear voices sometimes but understand those voices aren’t real, there are people who rant and rave with paranoid fantasies and may be dangerous to be around, and there are people who are catatonic. Mental illness is… complicated and diverse. Being a sociopath certainly doesn’t rule you out as potentially f’d up, violent and abusive.

@ej

It sucks that so many male doms are like that. That’s where it stops being a fun game and just becomes legit misogyny and fascism. If you lack the self awareness to see your kink as a kink, and see it as a reflection of the natural order, you don’t have the self awareness, maturity or empathy to play with others. And anyway, where’s all the masquerade and transgression, then? It’s boring — you might as well be a Duggar.

I haven’t played with groups, and the sensible kinky people in my life might be a skewed sample, because they’re just friends or partners that I’ve known for long enough to know they’re kinky. How big a presence are dudes like that in general? I went to my first party pretty recently and I didn’t get that vibe, but it was hosted by a femdom so that shit probably don’t fly.

hedin
hedin
8 years ago

Sorry, I meant to address the second part to @msexceptiontotherule. Didn’t sleep much last night, so I’m a bit scattered.

hedin
hedin
8 years ago

@LeeLa I hear you, and didn’t mean to disparage sweet, gentle sex. I actually really enjoy sex like that too, and I’m sorry if I offended. The problem is, I really can’t think of a good term for it besides “vanilla.” What do you think would be a better way of referring to sex that isn’t kinky. I guess “sex that isn’t kinky” works, but it feels sort of unwieldy.

LeeLa
LeeLa
8 years ago

Despite how my comment comes off, I’m not truly offended. It’s maybe a little bug that in any other circumstance I wouldn’t bring up, but this is a place that’s pretty safe for having conversations along the lines of exploring topics. So that was more of a post for hoping to add a little to the conversation I suppose.

dhag85
dhag85
8 years ago

What about muggle sex? Maybe that also comes across as disparaging. 🙂

hedin
hedin
8 years ago

@LeeLa, offended or not, it’s a good point. “Vanilla” sort of means “unmarked case” but it also has the connotation of boring, which is unfortunate. I can see how that plays into shaming women for not doing sex as a performance. Sex is this thing that’s super important to most people, and deeply tied into how we feel love and joy and connection. No one should be shamed for how they like it, as long as it’s consensual and respectful.

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
8 years ago

@hedin

It’s generally more common when the event/party doesn’t specify “Male dom+sub of any gender” or “Female dom +sub of any gender”, in larger metro-areas it’s common to have such ‘general dom with sub’ things going on but I prefer to steer clear of them because I get tired of telling these Dom-est Domly Doms guys to piss off, and the ones who respect and recognize that I am female and dominant with no intention of taking on a different role are few in number so those who are friends of mine will invariably end up “hanging out” at different non-kink social things or are attending munches. I’m closer to 40 than 30, and the only time(s) I ever subbed was at the beginning of my kink-exploration because it helped provide me with some important perspective in preparation for being a domme – for me there wasn’t any question about being in that domme role, it just was, and felt natural and right stepping into from the beginning. The groups I currently am part of do Female dom + male sub (or male equipment but not the gender they identify as) and thus there’s no purpose for the “Dom-est Dom that ever dominated”-type guys to show up at our events and if they did there wouldn’t be any female subs for them to play/scene with either – something that those guys are highly keen on having available to them, when there aren’t enough female subs available there are a few who begin to try that “You should do a scene with me, as my submissive – it’s like being a switch and since you’re female I can’t possibly submit/switch to you therefore because I want to play and you’re here with female genitalia so you’re the sub!” nonsense…My current relationship is heavily service-based type stuff and some thwack-thud-ow play – on the occasions where I want to thwack-thud-ow a sub beyond what he’s capable of taking the arrangement is that I can play my reindeer games to my heart’s content with however many subs it takes to get that urge satisfied. The more
“traditional” sexual activities are something I do only with him.

It’s a shame that so many straight men who are doms because it is what ‘feels right for them’ can’t recognize that there are women who are dommes because *that* is what ‘feels right to *them*’ and decide that they need to try and take command to “put things into the natural order” where men are the ones who get to be dom, whether they dom with women or dom with men, and women get to be domm’d *period*. I’m sure many are great doms and are capable of entertaining as well as intellectually stimulating conversations on a multitude of subjects, but I don’t want to be around someone who tells me what role I should be in and how I must behave – not even if they paid me. It’s a lot like when someone is up front and totally clear that they are not interested in anal sex, don’t want to have anal sex, and then when things progress to the bedroom suddenly their partner is pushing them to have anal sex, trying to guilt them into having anal sex, and being an asshat if anal sex doesn’t happen (personally that shit would result in *no* sex of any kind probably *ever*)…Learning that my energies are best spent with people and groups who also like the role and arrangement I like and not wasting my breath or effort on those who don’t, or defending my right to be what I am to said persons is the better path for me to take – that took some time to work out. Can’t change the mind of someone who refuses to listen let alone change their thinking anyway and trying to defend your stance only makes them feel more right in what they believe – infuriating and easier to just avoid them. 😛

Jo
Jo
8 years ago

Vanilla is seriously underrated in cooking, as well as sex.
Them: How do you make X so good, Jo?
Me: Well, it’s several things, one of the most important is to add a little vanilla, but it has to be the really good stuff.
Them: But how do you get that wonderful flavour?
Me: As I said, the vanilla has to be real, not fake and…
Them: Why can’t you just tell me your secret?
Me: There isn’t one secret, but the vanilla is honestly really important.
Them: Well, if you’re refusing to share, I’m just going to have to experiment. I think lots of butter and syrup might be what you’re hiding from me.
Me: I think that will actually cause…. oh, whatever.

Wuthering Lows (@ottodidenari)

When will rape culture be over so these men can be reported and convicted?

Audacieuse
Audacieuse
8 years ago

@Jo–Thank you for this! I always think the same when people use “vanilla” in a disparaging way. Clearly, they have never had really good vanilla anything: it’s not the absence of flavor.

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

@msexceptiontotherule:
I agree with everything you say. Domly Doms and men-looking-for-women-they-can-abuse are people that I loathe and try to avoid. In your opinion, are there any behaviours that I as a male dominant and as a known face in my own corner of the kinky world can adopt to help you?

I must confess that I also have a person dislike for the self-destructive young women who seem attracted to my local scene because they know that there’ll be a stampede of men eager to climb over one another to enable their self-destructive behaviour; needless to say I am not overly fond of the men who do that either. It seems to be a very toxic little ecosystem.

As Orion said, it’s worrying to think that despite all these problems, we’re actually a healthier environment than the straight dating scene.

@hedin:
As you say, a lot of people seem unable to see that there’s a distinction between their own fantasies and the rest of the world. To enjoy having your partner consensually kneel before you is one thing, but to announce that “all women should kneel before all men” is something else entirely.

On unsafe people: One of the events I attend regularly used to be run by a rather terrible creeper, to the point where if you’re in my city you probably know his name. When his last relationship fell apart and the truth came out, I was very impressed by the extent to which the community rallied around his former partner. He ended up leaving town entirely. I feel ashamed that I hadn’t known about it until then.

With that caveat though, most of the events I attend are pretty good and tend to self-police quite rigorously.

@LeeLa:
You make a good point, and raise another interesting one: the kinkification of porn means that it becomes something of a blanket “normal”, and like every homogenous “normal” culture it ends up suiting nobody. Ironically, I don’t feel any more comfortable with the sexual mores that you described than you do. As such, I’m very happy not to use the term “vanilla” in future.

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

Jo wins the thread.

tovalorelai
8 years ago

I really liked James Deen, until i saw Stoya’s tweets of course. Now i’m just dissapointed. It’s always sad when someone you thought were cool turned out to be a douchebag.

ej
ej
8 years ago

On unsafe people: One of the events I attend regularly used to be run by a rather terrible creeper, to the point where if you’re in my city you probably know his name. When his last relationship fell apart and the truth came out, I was very impressed by the extent to which the community rallied around his former partner. He ended up leaving town entirely. I feel ashamed that I hadn’t known about it until then.

It’s great to hear that your community is supporting his partner and showing that kind of behavior is not acceptable.

We had a similar thing happen in the swing dance community this year. A woman came out with a story of sexual abuse by a famous and well-respected swing dance instructor. After that, more women came forward with similar stories about him. He had a pattern and, unfortunately, it involved grooming young and usually naive women.

I’ve been really proud of how our community has responded, for the most part. There has been a lot of support for his victims (if they choose to be called that) and very little support for this particular instructor. There were even other instructors who pulled out of a workshop (sacrificing their paychecks) because they did not want to be associated with an event that would hire a known rapist.

There has also been a lot of discussion about improving our safe spaces policies for events. It’s being made very clear what kinds of behaviors will not be tolerated and systems are being put in place to ensure that people have a way to report anything that might happen. We’re still working on it, but as a social community centered around physical contact, we’ve acknowledged that there are people who will try to take advantage of that and we’re trying to do everything we can to make sure that we limit that kind of behavior.

I wasn’t really a fan of this particular instructor, but it’s encouraging to see that our community will not blindly support people because they are famous or they are good dancers. I can post links if anyone is interested in the details, but I will warn you that some of the stories are very hard to read/listen to.