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Stoya’s impressive amount of courage in calling out Deen, who is practically a porn icon at this pont, has paved the way for more survivors to come forward and speak candidly about their own alleged sexual assaults by Deen.
On Saturday, famous feminist-porn actress, writer, and outspoken sex workers' rights advocate Stoya took to Twitter to finally break her silence after being triggered by continuously seeing her alleged rapist idolized on the Internet.
Stoya’s first tweet read: “That thing where you log in to the Internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks.”
In a second tweet, she elaborated by writing “James Deen held me down and fucked me while I said no, stop, used my safeword. I just can't nod and smile when people bring him up anymore.”
Porn industry veteran Joanna Angel, also an ex of Deen’s, voiced her support for Stoya and later tweeted that James Deen was “dead on the inside and dead to me. He is literally the worst person I’ve ever met.”
Stoya’s impressive amount of courage in calling out Deen, who is practically a porn icon at this pont, has paved the way for more survivors to come forward and speak candidly about their own alleged sexual assaults by Deen.
Ex-porn performer Tori Lux wrote a chilling firsthand account about being sexually assaulted by Deen for the Daily Beast that left me shaking with anger, and Ashley Fires recounted her own disturbing experience with Deen as to why he was the only person on her “No List” in terms of people she would never work with in the porn industry. A woman who wished to remain anonymous told her own disconcerting story of being publicly raped by Deen, making her the fourth accuser to come forward since Saturday.
The hashtags #SolidarityWithStoya and #IStandWithStoya were born as thousands of people took to social media to voice their support worldwide.
The Frisky almost immediately made the decision to cancel their “What Would James Deen Do?” sex advice column in light of Stoya’s accusations. Kink.com and Evil Angel, both of which have distributed Deen’s porn, have decided to cut future ties with Deen.
James Deen defended himself on Twitter Sunday afternoon by disregarding the allegations as both “false and defamatory.”
What’s truly despicable is that James Deen branded himself a “male feminist” in the porn industry, and in doing so exploited female porn fans'desires for someone like his persona to exist in that world. Still, Deen’s supporters have publicly asked why his alleged victims didn’t seek assistance from the police, and in classic rape-culture fashion, have alleged that Stoya is lying and attention-seeking.
Tori Lux responded to these types of criticisms in her Daily Beast article by articulating that “people—including the police—tend to believe that sex workers have placed themselves in harm’s way, and therefore can’t be assaulted.” Truer words couldn’t have been spoken in regards to this situation.
Years ago, I remember accompanying a fellow exotic-dancer friend to a police station after she was physically and sexually assaulted while performing at a bachelor party that quickly got out of control.
The police scoffed at her accusations, refused to take her statement or photograph her injuries, and ultimately yelled at her that they “hoped she would learn” from her nightmarish experience on the way out, adding that, “When you act like a whore, expect to be treated like one.”
Porn performer Christy Mack, who was brutally raped and nearly beaten to death by her MMA fighter ex-boyfriend Jonathan Koppenhaver, experienced the same sort of prejudice last week when her ex’s lawyer’s opening statements concluded that she couldn’t have possibly been raped because, as a porn performer, she’d shown a “desire, the preference, to acceptability towards a particular form of sex activities that were outside of the norm.”
It usually takes one experience of re-traumatization by the police or legal system for any sex worker to seek help and understanding anywhere except the systems that have been known to continuously fail them. And if they have to gain affirmation through social media and catharsis through publicly writing their stories, now is the time for us to listen and to call to action a change in the way the patriarchal system treats sex workers as a whole.
In a perfect world, one that would inevitably support sex workers, none of Deen’s alleged victims should have thought or feared going the legal route. It should always be an option for every woman, even more so for sex workers because of their marginalized status.
Update:
Joanna Angel has broken her silence on Deen and spoke publicly about the alleged physical and sexual abuse she endured during their relationship on The Jason Ellis Show on Sirius XM Radio. At one point Angel describes fearing for her life when Deen grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the bathroom, and held her head under water for long periods of time to the point where she thought she was going to die.
And two other porn actresses, Amber Rayne and Kora Peters have also come forward to allege the abusive nature of Deen regarding their individual experiences with him. Rayne claimed having been punched in the face by Deen on set and that he became so rough with her during an anal sex scene that she required stitches. Peters described having her face slammed down and choked while being anally raped by Deen on set with nobody coming to her aid.
