On November 28, 2015 porn star James Deen was accused of raping his ex-girlfriend Stoya—also a well known adult performer—via Twitter. Stoya's tweet quickly unraveled a chain of performers who claim Deen assaulted them on and/or off set. The women who opened up about their horrific experience with Deen are: Stoya, Tori Lux, Ashley Fires, Kora Peters, Amber Rayne, Nicki Blue, Lily LaBeau, Joanna Angel, Farrah Abraham from MTV's Teen Mom, former porn stars Bree Olson and Holly Jee, and lastly an anonymous victim who referred to themselves as "T.M." With a dozen women accusing Deen, it's no wonder some have labeled him the "Bill Cosby of porn."
On November 29, the day after Stoya accused Deen, he tweeted, "I want to assure my friends, fans and colleagues that these allegations are both false and defamatory." Unfortunately, even if Deen is innocent in the midst of all these accusations, it's his word against 12 alleged victims. Deen finally spoke out in an interview with Aurora Snow of The Daily Beast on December 8. You can view the full interview here. Deen denies every accusation made against him and although he makes valid points throughout his interview, it's still too soon to tell if he's innocent. Due to these serious claims, gossip blog The Frisky and porn companies Kink and Evil Angel cut their ties with Deen.
Deen has certainly received a lot of backlash, but he still has support from some of his close friends and colleagues. Former adult actress Lisa Ann defended Deen in an interview with Sam Roberts stating, "I feel like we’ve gone too far with social media and what people are allowed to talk about without having credible paperwork, police reports, or anything like this because you’re defaming someone and you’re attacking their character, and we’re guilty until proven guilty in this country." Ann does state that she can't say for sure these situations didn't happen, but she does point out the possibility of the allegations being false and what Deen must be going through. You can watch the full interview here.
Author Bret Easton Ellis has also defended Deen stating that Stoya's original claim is a "wild distortion" and that she's clearly an "unstable person." According to Ellis, Deen has kept his cool on this matter because there's supposedly proof that Stoya has threatened Deen in emails and text messages with rape claims during their relationship. Ellis mentions it wasn't coincidental that Stoya's tweets against Deen were posted the day he purchased a house with his current girlfriend Chanel Preston.
In the United States everyone is supposedly considered innocent until proven guilty but that's largely a fallacy as Ann stated, "we're guilty until proven guilty." Unfortunately for the alleged victims, if the claims against Deen are true, it can be very difficult to prove anything happened especially if you're involved in the porn industry. Many people don't take a porn star's rape accusations seriously since they get paid to have sex on a regular basis. Needless to say, rape is rape whether you're a man or a woman, sex worker or not.
