HELLO ROOSTER
I never pictured I would be in this position: that I would be exposed to sexual misconduct on a feminist porn set. Especially not on Erika Lust’s “feminist” porn set. Lust is the pornographer who was “making consent sexy,” at least according to a 2018 Rolling Stone article praising her production company for creating the kind of porn that feminists wanted to see. The overwhelmingly positive media coverage of Erika Lust Films praises her performers for modeling real-world pursuits of affirmative and enthusiastic consent by asking their partners if they want to use condoms on-screen. Performers discuss their feminist politics on-screen, as well as their sexual limits and desires. In a world in which many feminists worry that the only access young people have to sexual education is through pornography, Rolling Stone tells us that Lust is here to save the day: Lust “believes her work can help the rest of us find our way toward a better sexual future, where explicit consent is a matter of course.”
And so when an event occurred on the set of Erika Lust Films, it was the last thing I thought would happen.
BACKGROUND
Standard protocol: producers or directors introduce performers to their scene partners at least a day prior to shooting. Mandatory protocol: on the day of the shoot, everyone has a conversation about consent and sexual boundaries—sexual acts each performer is happy to perform, other acts that are an absolute no, and those that might be considered a maybe. Increasing industry standards: in order to circumvent and prevent “he said, she said” cases of sexual assault or misconduct, a list of those agreed-upon sexual boundaries would be written into a contractual document.
In my case, nothing happened according to protocol or industry standards. My scene partner and I established consent a month prior to filming our scene. She invited me to practice, train, and rehearse for the scene a month before the shoot, and so we practiced, trained, and rehearsed—in full—all the sexual activity we would perform on camera. Being a relatively new performer, I didn’t question the nature of this proposition. I later came to understand this wasn’t standard industry protocol, but my scene partner and coperformer—who was also my director and my employer for two other scenes—let me believe it was. In my view, this was an abuse of her position.
Despite practicing, training, and rehearsing for the scene, and despite clarifying my sexual boundaries on the day of the shoot, I believe my scene partner violated my consent and the boundaries on set in the process of shooting “ethical porn.” By searching for Erika Lust Films online, I could still access and view my boundary violations, as could any other viewers of the film, which, as of 2021, has since been deleted. This is an aspect of abuse on set that is particular to porn production: performers can reexperience their violations time and again, on any screen. And what I experienced as violations were being advertised and sold for profit as “ethical porn.”
INSPIRED BY SURVIVOR STORIES AND FACING STIGMA HEAD-ON
I am a Black, queer, nonbinary, masculine-presenting performer of color. My race and gender are not reflected in most of the stories our culture tells about sexual abuse. Sex workers are also invisible in those stories. Privilege plays a role in whose story gets a platform. Sex workers, trans and nonbinary folk, women of color and other marginalized folks need our more privileged feminist sisters to stand together and help fight for our voices to be heard. Destigmatizing sex work is necessary to uplifting sex worker voices. Stigma affects whether or not victims will come forward—whether their voices will be heard at all.
Despite the stigma, I came forward. I made my coperformer, employer, and director acknowledge and listen to the ways in which I believe she had harmed me. This proved to be extremely difficult. Navigating the power dynamics that existed between us was challenging. I was alone in addressing these issues, with Erika Lust Films having few existing structures in place to address issues like these. If you label and regard yourself an ethical, feminist company, you assume you won’t need them.
After trying and failing to address these issues in private with my coperformer, I went to the CEOs of the company: Erika Lust herself and her business partner and husband Pablo Dobner. What I learned was that a similar incident had happened with the same director in question on another production a year prior to my experience. This example was used not to validate, but to brush aside and minimize my experience. In my mind, they placed me in a position of danger by having me perform with a known boundary-violator. They tried to wash their hands of all responsibility, placing the onus of responsibility and blame on me. “Forget about it and move on,” was their response. Considering I was in no position of power to challenge this, I took their suggestion to heart and decided it was in my best interest to move on. This occurred in September of 2017, a month before the explosion of the #MeToo movement on social media. Without #MeToo, I would have buried the whole ordeal deep within my psyche, left it unhealed and unad-dressed like so many marginalized victims of sexual abuse have done before me.
It’s not in the best interest of “ethical” and “feminist” porn companies to talk with their performers about violations that have occurred on their sets. “Erika Lust: The Feminist Pornographer” is a brand. It’s what distinguishes them from their competition. It’s an image they are desperate to protect.
Confronting my sexual abuse made me realize how much the harm disrupts our work: we often force our bodies to continue to work onward, past the trauma, in order to survive. If we stop and recuperate, sex workers have little to no benefits or insurance to financially support ourselves. Athletes have insurance policies and guarantees when others injure them. They still have a basic income to survive. Why aren’t there methods in place that help to support sex workers in “our” places of work? I needed to address these failures and issues.
Performers and filmmakers were asked to attend film festivals and openly discuss their experiences, and so I did. Introspection and critical analysis were welcomed: this was the one place I found that this could happen. But what also comes with these festival screenings is seeing your abuse on-screen, in public, being played time and time again to an audience that might not know how abuse can look different for sex workers and performers. Example: a scene may be visually stunning, but ethically questionable in its production. “Feminist” producers tend to use aesthetics to demonize “mainstream porn.” But aesthetically pleasing films are not always the result of ethical production. Ethical porn is a labor rights issue first and foremost.
I had these difficult conversations time and time again, at festivals all over Europe and North America. I made sure to keep an air of nonaccusatory poise, since the director wasn’t there to defend herself and her actions, saying things like “consent can be tricky, especially for those who aren’t well versed in it.” I did this because I never wanted to vilify anyone without giving them a chance to defend themselves. I learned that the same courtesy wouldn’t be extended to me.
THE FAILURE OF A “FEMINIST” ICON
Erika Lust’s response to me carefully talking about my experience—tiptoeing around the details, ensuring I didn’t upset anyone—was much different from their response six months earlier, before the explosion of the hashtag. It seemed the #MeToo conversation had changed their response to dealing with sexual misconduct. They weren’t as dismissive as they were before. They sent me an email with the subject line “SINCERE APOLOGIES / We are improving our qty controls.” However, a sincere apology was nowhere in sight; instead they wanted me to work with them on a document to ensure the safety of future performers. I did, but I would never be credited as a coauthor for my labor and time.
After being “called in” for mediation, my coperformer escalated the issue to the public domain. Erika Lust CEOs, friends, colleagues, and I myself all discouraged taking the issue to social media, but she did, posting a document that accused me of being a jilted lover—scorned, not victimized. I had various correspondences that, in my opinion, proved otherwise, but the accusation was shocking nonetheless. I pleaded with Erika Lust Films to take a public position regarding this, but they refused to act. They claimed they would do the hard work of being an “active ally,” by supporting survivors, but that wasn’t the case when it concerned their own company and workers.
AESTHETICS VS. ETHICS
Once the incident became public, everything changed. The private support I had been getting from the CEOs evaporated. I was characterized by some as a Black brute—a common stereotype used to discredit and incite unease and agitation about Black men—and others claimed I was a stalker, engaged in the online harassment of a white woman. I scrambled to present the private emails of support Lust and Dobner had previously sent me, but in the end, depictions of Black men as aggressors in incidents of their own abuse have historically been used to silence us.
Because I spoke out, I was blacklisted: my peers were warned against associating, defending, or collaborating with me. If they did, they faced being blacklisted as well. In a Huck magazine interview a few months before, Erika Lust made this statement: “The media needs to report on sex workers’ stories of assault, not only because they are at more risk but because they are often unable to report their abusers for fear of punishment. The effects of sex work stigma are active in society and a huge majority of media is complicit in further entrenching and normalizing it.”
GUIDELINES FOR CREATING “ETHICAL PORN”
Before the above-mentioned online attacks, I had begun work with Erika Lust Films to create better ethical standards for their company. This work took the form of two documents: a “Guideline for Guest Directors” and a “Model Bill of Rights.” I wanted others to understand the trauma and harm that had happened to me and others, and the vulnerability that performers endure when performing for their cameras. Through the creation of these documents, I transformed from victim to activist.
The fourteen-page document meant to guide guest directors includes sections on casting, fees, sexual health testing, how to interact with performers before, during, and after sex scenes, as well as how to interact with them on social media. Guest directors must consult a checklist of objectives to make sure that performers are in the best care, and the document states that “it is important in creating ethical porn that we try to balance the power between directors and performers, and create a safe space where performers can express their concerns openly.” This philosophy and “code of conduct” was missing when I performed for Erika Lust Films, and I was proud to have been part of a team that had put it in place: indispensable safety measures for other performers going forward.
But, adding insult to injury, the company erased my labor and contribution to these ethical standards. This erasure coming after that of my abuse made me wonder: as a victim of color, was my humanity even seen and acknowledged? Even as I write this, I wonder: Why does the onus lie on us, the marginalized, to make change? Marginalized victims are often looked toward to find the solutions to end rape culture and violence, when in fact porn production companies and people in positions of power should hold themselves accountable. Helping to find solutions was something I deeply cared about, but having my contribution erased was a retraumatizing experience.
THE ROAD TO ETHICAL PORN
The creation of truly ethical (and feminist) porn is an ongoing project, requiring ongoing conversations. One document can’t fix the general problem of rape culture and sexual violence. Sex workers and performers must come together: organize, unionize, and build a safe(r) community. No one should feel they must be silent. No one should fear being blacklisted in order to keep the peace, to be treated fairly and have reasonable working conditions. The road to building ethical porn starts and ends with prioritizing the voices and labor rights of sex workers and porn performers. We must give performers the tools they need when seeking justice for sexual misconduct of any kind on set. Sexual misconduct can’t be brushed aside and excused with a simple apology and the statement that is used far too often: “Let’s continue shooting.” By prioritizing apologies, producers, directors, and company owners say they are building a model of restorative justice. There is nothing reparative about this approach; it enables rape culture. The choice of how to proceed after sexual misconduct, including steps for repair, should be given to the victim. Sexual abuse is an everyday risk and hazard of sex work, and the tools for mitigating those risks must always belong to us.