James Deen, the rare adult film star who appeared poised for mainstream success, was accused of sexual assault by three additional women Wednesday. A few days earlier, four women had accused Deen of sexually assaulting them, allegations he has firmly denied.
The string of allegations began over the weekend when adult film actress Stoya claimed on Twitter that Deen had raped her, and lamented the fact that he is often labeled a “feminist,” by fans. Her accusations led to popular #StandWithStoya and #SolidarityWithStoya hashtags. They were followed by statements from Tori Lux and Ashley Fires, both of whom claimed Deen had assaulted them in the past. Another woman, who asked to be identified only by her initials, T.M., told the website LAist on Sunday that Deen assaulted her an AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at the Venetian in Las Vegas in 2009, when she was 21.
On Wednesday, porn stars Amber Rayne and Kora Peters came forward, telling The Daily Beast that they too had been sexually assaulted by Deen. Rayne said Deen punched her in the face twice as the two were shooting a sex scene for a film, though she added that the two are friends today. Peters said Deen choked her, slammed her face into a couch, and anally raped her during a shoot for which she had not consented to anal sex. Peters said Deen was congratulated by the crew after the alleged assault.
Later that day, porn actress Joanna Angel alleged years of physical and sexual abuse by Deen during their 2005-2011 relationship in an interview on Jason Ellis’ SiriusXM radio show. “There were times that I did fear for my safety, but I felt trapped. I didn’t know what to do.” she said.
No charges have been filed against Deen. On Sunday, he took to Twitter to vehemently deny the allegations that had been made at that time.
“I respect women and I know and respect limits both professionally a privately,” Deen tweeted. “I want to assure my friends, fans and colleagues that these allegations are both false and defamatory.”
Deen has not commented publicly since Rayne and Peters made their allegations Wednesday. Two emails sent by MSNBC to a press contact on Deen’s web site, the first sent Tuesday morning, have not received responses.
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Meanwhile, Deen’s career is already taking a hit from the controversy. Kink.com, a BDSM website with which he has long been associated, has dropped him. The adult film company Evil Angel has also cut ties with Deen.
“While our company presents what is consensual and exploratory about aggressive and rough sex, these accusations are of a nature so contrary to our company values that we feel it necessary to suspend the sales until more information is available,” Evil Angel president and founder John Stagliano said in a statement provided to MSNBC. A sex advice column Deen penned for The Frisky and a “James Deen Loves Food” cooking web series have been scrapped as well.
However, the independent porn website TRENCHOATx, which Stoya runs with fellow adult performer Kayden Kross, will continue to feature scenes of Deen with Stoya on their site, despite the allegations. “The fact is this news about James is news to the public, but not news to us. We took this into consideration back when we were building the site. While we made the decision back then not to hire him going forward, we can’t undo the fact that he is featured in some of the scenes that Stoya directed during their relationship,” said Kross in a blog post on Tuesday.
“I support Stoya,” Kross added. “I will continue to support her as she navigates the attention that her story has generated.”
In addition to the professional setbacks, Deen’s reputation as a more female-friendly porn performer appears to be suffering as well. “The criteria for being a ‘male feminist’ seems depressingly low when James Deen qualified in the first place,” Jill Filipovic, a freelance writer and former political writer for Cosmopolitan, told MSNBC. ” I hope that porn producers, companies and actors will refuse to work with him — I’m pleased to see that a few have already said Deen will no longer appear on their sites. I also hope the industry itself will take a good hard look at how women are treated and imaged in pornography, and take steps to fight abuse and misogyny on-set and off — although I’m not holding my breath.” Deen himself never fully embraced the feminist label, but it was frequently attached to him by viewers who saw his boyish looks and public emphasis on consent as a breakthrough. In the aftermath of the allegations, a 2011 tweet in which Deen wrote “It’s not rape if you yell surprise and if you put enough bbq sauce on anything,” has received renewed scrutiny. “It’s not that James Deen appeals to women—in the face of extreme erotic scarcity, women molded Deen into someone who appealed to them,” wrote Amanda Hess in a Tuesday column for Salon. “For many of them, Deen was little more than just a conduit for expressing their sexuality, or a key to an online erotic world that had previously been closed.” The 29-year-old actor had received a lot of attention from the mainstream press and had recently been cast in a traditional film production in 2013, “The Canyons,” opposite Lindsay Lohan. Some fans had even taken to calling him the “Ryan Gosling of porn.” In the wake of the accusations, he’s now starting to draw comparisons to Bill Cosby, another celebrity dogged by dozens of accusations of mistreating women, which he has continuously denied. Cosby has not been charged with a crime. “A few people with whom I’ve shared this story over the years have asked me why I didn’t call the police as soon as it happened, or publicly speak up about it shortly thereafter. The reason for that is because people—including the police—tend to believe that sex workers have placed themselves in harm’s way, and therefore can’t be assaulted,” Tori Lux wrote regarding her alleged 2011 assault in an essay for The Daily Beast. Whether the scandal will derail Deen’s aspirations for more crossover success remains uncertain. “If I never get a job in mainstream I will be OK. I have a whole other job in a completely different entertaining field,” he told The Wrap in October. “Porn is really honest and respectful and very professional, as opposed to mainstream where it’s all really manipulative and messed up.”
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