“The “French Bukkake” case is still waiting for the Court of Appeal to rule on its referral to the Paris Criminal Court. On Tuesday, the director, Pascal OP, asked to be released from prison. But the judges decided otherwise.
In prison for 44 months, the director of the hard pornographic site, “French Bukkake” . Pascal OP, 62, appeared this Tuesday, May 7, before the Paris investigating chamber, to request his release. But the judges of the court of appeal decided to keep him behind bars.
Gray sweatshirt and white goatee, this little plump man should soon reach the end of the 48-month period authorized by law for his pre-trial detention. Incarcerated in October 2020 after his indictment, he was sent back, in July 2023, along with sixteen other people, producers, directors or actors, to the Paris criminal court, mainly for acts of “gang rape”, “pimping”. » and “organized gang trafficking in human beings”.”
“Since the “French Bukkake” scandal shattered the pornography industry, a number of X-rated film production studios and broadcasters have made ethical commitments. However, our survey in collaboration with Capital shows that they are far from being respected everywhere.
In the study of his home in the south of France, the tripods and projectors of John B. Root, director and actor of pornographic films for 30 years, are covered in dust. He stopped shooting two years ago, disgusted by the legal cases that have tainted his professional sector. “It’s not porn that’s gone ‘#MeToo’. It was the police who made porn ‘#MeToo'”, he stormed when he met Radio France’s investigative unit.
A fake procuress
At the end of 2020, several press articles announced the arrest and indictment of four men for rape, procuring and trafficking in human beings, including the actor and director of X-rated videos, Pascal Ollitrault, alias Pascal OP. At the time, he was quite well known in the industry. He gave interviews on Dorcel TV and in the specialist press. At the time, he was the head of “French bukkake”. For ten years, until its closure in 2020, this site offered, for a fee, to view and take part in bukkake scenes, where dozens of men ejaculated on a single woman. Some screenshots from its Twitter account show hooded men in an arc in a shed, waiting for a woman to shoot the scene.
By looking into this man, the investigators uncovered a scheme he used to recruit female participants. In 2016, I was contacted on social networks by a young woman called Axelle Vercoutre,” explains a complainant, Amélia* (first name changed), in an interview with France Culture. She explained that she was an escort and that it was fun to sleep with strangers”. This virtual friend promised her easy money and discretion if she took part in an escorting evening and then in intimate videos. In financial difficulties, Amelia gave in to the temptation.
But behind this pseudonym, Axelle Vercoutre, hides a man. A flatterer who passes on the women’s details to Pascal OP. Dozens of complainants told the same story to the investigators. The shootings that followed went badly. Several complainants said they had not been warned about certain sexual practices they were about to undergo. They sometimes objected. Nor did they know the number of partners. They were only paid in cash if they signed contracts in which they ceded their image rights in all media, even though Pascal OP had promised them discreet distribution abroad. The police initially turned a blind eye. “I was flabbergasted to see that some of these women had lodged rape complaints as early as 2015 and that they had been told it was a commercial dispute”, says journalist Robin d’Angelo, who wrote Judy, Lola, Sofia et moi (Goutte d’Or, 2018), a book about the filming, two years before the affair broke.
Around fifty complainants
The Gendarmerie’s Paris research unit will finally be re-examining these complaints and viewing hours of footage. Videos in which women cry, complain and ask for the sexual act to be stopped. In extracts from the court file, to which Radio France’s investigative unit was able to gain access, text message exchanges between Pascal OP and other defendants show that he was rushing to shoot the scenes before the women discovered his subterfuge over a more exposed broadcast than planned. “For the sexual acts, everything was explained beforehand.I admit that I didn’t say everything for the broadcast.But not for the filming,” he explained to the examining magistrate during one of his hearings.
In the end, 17 defendants – actors, directors and producers of X-rated videos – will be indicted. This April 2024, the courts will have to decide whether the case should be referred to an assize court for acts of torture and barbarism, or to the criminal court for rape, aggravated procuring, human trafficking, money laundering and concealed work. “It would have been interesting to hear from other players in this industry, including the broadcasters, to really understand how it works,” says Dylan Slama, lawyer for one of the defendants.
Broadcasters caught up in the scandal
The scandal will also have consequences for distributors of pornographic content. This is the case for Union, Jacquie et Michel and even Dorcel. Defendants such as Pascal OP, Mat Hadix, Oliver Sweet and Rick Angel worked with them and supplied them with hundreds of videos. “We’re applying precautionary measures,” explains Grégory Dorcel, CEO of the company of the same name. In other words, some videos have been withdrawn from the catalogues. “This is a risk for us because we are contractually committed to distributing these videos, even though no legal decision has been taken”, says Dorcel’s boss.
A risk, but also a precaution, because broadcasting videos of rape is punishable under the Criminal Code (article 227-24). And the company cannot confirm that it has never had any in its offering. We have only broadcast videos in which Pascal OP is an actor,” explains Grégory Dorcel.None where he is a producer.As far as we know, he has only been implicated in shootings where he was in charge of production.
However, Radio France’s investigative unit found that Pascal OP shared his shoots with another producer, Mat Hadix, to get the participants to shoot as many scenes as possible in as little time as possible. The two men swapped roles, one acting for the other and vice versa. The broadcasters claim not to have been aware of this practice. “After the cases came to light, we took the initiative of removing the videos of the incriminated producers,” the editor of the Union website, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote to us. “We could not condone this behaviour, even though we are not aware of any complaints concerning a video that we broadcast”.
New “good practice” charters
Today, these companies are asserting that they have put good practices in place. Dorcel now has a six-person viewing committee. It also entrusted an actress-director, Liza Del Sierra, with the task of drafting an ethical charter, which was published in April 2021 (PDF file), with the help of a sociologist and a lawyer. “It implies respect for consent at all levels”, explains Liza Del Sierra. In particular, the charter requires independent producers who supply videos to Dorcel to hire an intimacy coordinator on set to obtain the free and informed consent of participants. It also requires a minimum salary of 400 euros per scene and the sending of a work plan with details of the sexual practices accepted or not, at least 14 days before filming. “We have to tick boxes on forms to say what we don’t want to do”, explains one actress.
These forms are being extended every year to include new practices, such as strangulation and the recent use of nylon. “We didn’t pay enough attention to those who didn’t want to make pornography their profession. As a result, we now have 50 women in court”, storms Liza Del Sierra. We’ve given ourselves until 2025 to ensure that 100% of the studios we distribute respect an equivalent charter,” says Grégory Dorcel. At the moment we have 39%”.
But some industry insiders have serious reservations about the effectiveness of these charters, which are mainly promoted by women directors and actresses, despite the fact that it is still men who produce the most films. “They are ‘feminist washing’.We know that women are presented as the director of the film even though they have no interest in the script, the camera or the shooting”, explains a professional who confessed to us that he had credited his partner as the director of his own X-rated film a few years ago at the request of his distributor. “They wrote this to clear their name, but it’s a bit late,” adds director John B. Root.
A privacy coordinator who is both judge and jury
Our survey shows that these charters do have their limits. For example, we met several privacy coordinators who were double-hatted, as they were also actresses on the shoots. “There aren’t many well-trained coordinators”, explains director Anoushka, and “it’s up to the production to pay them”, she adds. It’s impossible to specifically hire someone at 500 euros a day when you only have a budget of 45,000 euros, like that allocated by Canal Plus to make its latest X-rated film. “At Dorcel, they have their intimacy coordinator for their own production.But when you audit yourself, that’s not ideal either,” she adds. She and other directors are calling for productions to set up an independent fund to hire trusted third parties on location.
Actress Carolina Cherry also found that these charters are poorly applied when she shot twice for Dorcel productions last year in Budapest, Hungary, including with a Hungarian intimacy coordinator. “With 24 hours to go, they changed my programme, adding an anal scene.I discovered that this additional scene was broadcast on a label I didn’t know”. She complained to the group’s director of content. “They paid me for the extra scene.But someone younger or less comfortable would have let it happen without saying anything”. Grégory Dorcel claims to have no knowledge of this dispute. However, his communications department later told us that “on certain shoots, the same scene is sometimes shot in two versions: one with a traditional cinema camera and the other with a subjective camera”. A method of working that was eventually abandoned.
Other broadcasters such as Union do not impose privacy coordinators on the producers whose content they buy. But: “We systematically ask them to provide us with a video before and after filming, in which the actors and actresses confirm that the scenes that have just been filmed were done with their consent”, the editor-in-chief of the Union site wrote to us. “Consent isn’t just before and after the scene.It’s being asked all the time”, says Paloma Garcia Martens, an intimacy coordinator in audiovisual fiction and traditional cinema. In her view, the purpose of these videos is above all to protect the production, not to obtain free and informed consent. On a shoot,” she explains, “an intimacy coordinator needs to be able to say no to the director, while at the same time proposing solutions so that he can still carry out the scene he wants.
Jacquie et Michel in turmoil
The Arès group, which owns the Jacquie et Michel brand, was the first to draw up a guide to good practice. Just after Pascal OP’s indictment, it published a deontological (PDF file) and ethical charter applicable to all employees and content creators for their various labels: JM, JM Elite, Hot Vidéo and Colmax. The charter is designed to enable French producers to assure the Arès group that they have taken all necessary measures to ensure the full consent and protection of all parties involved, particularly women, in the production of works for its platforms.
We interviewed several participants in Jacquie et Michel shoots. None of them had received this charter at the time. “I was shocked by the behaviour of Eddy, one of the actors I was with on a shoot in 2021.We were supposed to do a fake photo, and he sat me right on his genitals,” she says. Eddy Blackone is an actor under investigation who has been cited in numerous testimonies in the French Bukkake case. Several of the women mentioned that he attempted to rape them off-camera in the shower after the scenes. In an exchange of text messages, a director who was also prosecuted, MatHadix, talks about him with Pascal OP: “Eddy: he does that to all the girls in the shower,” the file states. With bullshit like that, we could end up with a complaint for rape”.
The actor was finally arrested in October 2021, after having filmed with several professional productions, including that of Nikita Belluci, an actress and director who is now a spokesperson for an industry that wants to be more ethical. I’d been denouncing the practices of Pascal OP and others for a long time,” she explains, “but for Eddy, I’ve never heard anything. Eddy still has his actor’s file on the Jacquie et Michel website, but no one wished to respond to our requests. As for the actor’s lawyer, he is reserving his answers for the courts and points out that his client is presumed innocent.
Contentious videos still online
Despite these findings, in April 2022, at a Senate hearing before the Women’s Rights Delegation, Vincent Gey, Director of Operations for the Arès Group (which owns Jacquie et Michel) defended the seriousness of its charter. “Unannounced checks are carried out on film shoots”, he explains. “If the slightest breach is detected, our collaboration will be terminated”, he explains. He admits, however, that only one person is assigned to these checks, despite the fact that his company broadcasts over a thousand scenes a year.
Two months later, his boss, Michel Piron, the founder of Jacquie et Michel, was indicted for complicity in rape and trafficking in human beings as part of an organised gang, casting huge doubt on his company’s alleged good practices. Some of its broadcasters are distancing themselves. Canal Plus is suspending the Jacquie et Michel TV channel from June 2022. Last February, Colmax TV was also suspended. However, Michel Piron’s son, Thibault Piron, and his content director Germain Chicot set up a new company called Aramis. Now, in Canal Plus’s VOD offerings, we have identified several films shot for the Arès group in 2021 and now credited with the name Aramis.
When asked about a possible resumption of commercial relations with the creators of Jacquie et Michel, the Canal Plus communications department replied: “To the best of our knowledge, no more Jacquie et Michel content is present on the services published by the Canal+ Group (on-air channels and VOD offer)”. Since we contacted them, we have noticed that the films we had found on Canal+’s VOD service are no longer available.
But it shows that it is difficult for broadcasters to guarantee that good practice is being followed in a vague sector where the protagonists also operate under pseudonyms. “Today, new entities have been created.We’ve taken videos from Jacquie et Michel, but we’ve just cut the scene at the moment of the signature line.When we say: ‘Thank you, who?Thank you Jacquie et Michel!” concludes an industry professional.”
Alyssa Ahrabare from the French organisation Osez le féminisme explains how they managed to prosecute traffickers and pornographers in a historic French court case.
Next year in Paris, the owner of a porn site will be prosecuted. It is a historic case involving 40 victims and three organisations as civil parties (Osez le féminisme, Mouvement du Nid and Les Effronté-es). It is a victory for the women’s movement, and especially for us in the Osez le féminisme group, which has pursued the issue and is a civil party to the case. Osez le féminisme (“Dare to be feminist”) is an organisation that provides holistic support to over 40 victims in both cases, including legal assistance, psychological trauma therapy, and social support, with a team of 30 lawyers, two specialist psychologists and a social worker.
The prosecution covers a range of charges: rape, prostitution and human trafficking.1 The subject of the prosecution is the French website ‘French Bukkake’, owned by Pascal Ollitrault (known as Pascal OP), which posts extremely violent pornographic videos. According to a report by the Haut Conseil à l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes (Equality Council), these cases are the norm rather than the exception, and the pornography industry benefits from widespread impunity to minimise “serious violations of human dignity”.2
The preliminary investigation was launched in 2020, and investigators soon discovered that many complaints had been filed across France for several years, but had not been followed up. In the course of their work, the investigators uncovered a system of sexual exploitation for the purpose of rape, and a judicial investigation was opened for ‘gang rape’, ‘aggravated trafficking in human beings’, ‘aggravated pimping’, ‘money laundering’, ‘concealed labour’ and ‘distribution of recordings of images relating to the execution of a deliberate attack on the integrity of a person’.
The survey revealed the grim reality of ‘Bukkake’ films. Paying subscribers were invited to participate in gang rapes based on a particularly dehumanising scenario: many men penetrated a woman (sometimes over 80 times in less than two hours) before collectively ejaculating on the victim, who was displayed on a pallet as a commodity. 500 men were identified in the investigation. Ordinary men, porn consumers who were invited to rape and torture women on camera. They have not yet been prosecuted.
The French Council for Gender Equality published a report this year on the criminality of the pornography industry, including the testimonies of victims.3
The investigation related to the “French Bukkake” case has revealed a well-organised strategy to capture victims. A man named Julien D. targeted women on social networks. He approached them under a fake female profile called “Axelle Vercoutre” and, using the myth of “happy and lucrative prostitution”, convinced them to try becoming “luxury escorts”. He then posed as a buyer, met the women and raped them. Raping victims in order to exert control over them is a common practice used by pimps and traffickers.
After the rapes, Julien D. encouraged the women to try being in pornographic films that would only be shown to limited audiences abroad. They were to go to a specified address where several days of horror ensued. The producer, Pascal OP, at first seemed nice, with the intention of forcing their consent and recording it. Subsequently, the complainants report that they were raped on camera, humiliated and tortured by filming degrading scenes. Hair analysis also shows that some of them were drugged without their knowledge.
Women were also deceived when they asked for videos posted online to be deleted.4) Victims report significant psychological difficulties after the filming. Some tried to take legal action as early as 2017, but the police did not act: warnings in Toulouse, Brignoles, Les Andelys and Reims (where Julien D. lived) were not followed up.5
At the end of the investigation in July 2023, seventeen people (producers, directors and actors) were charged with rape (often committed as part of a group), human trafficking, aggravated pimping, and hidden labour. and concealed labour.6) Several have been in preventive detention since 2020.
The trial will be held in summer 2024.7
As a result of the evidence highlighted by the investigation, the French Senate has produced a report entitled “L’Enfer du décor” (Hell behind the curtains).8
The findings clearly show that pornography is a system of violence against women. Subsequently, a resolution was signed by 255 senators (making it the most signed senate text of the French Fifth Republic) stating that the fight against pornographic violence should be prioritised. The resolution was unanimously adopted in a public session on 1 March 2023.
For the civil parties in the cases, every step of the way is a struggle. Plaintiffs do not always have the money to travel to Paris for interviews, hearings and expertise on the case. Many are traumatised and live in very precarious situations due to the physical and psychological effects of the violence they suffered. Moreover, the films are still available online. Despite countless attempts, it has proved impossible to have them deleted.
Many women are threatened or are recognised and harassed on the street. They experience both a social death and an ongoing fear that loved ones, families or colleagues will accidentally see the films. The difficulties they go through make it extremely difficult for more victims to come forward. This exposure highlights a failure of the justice system for women who are victims of violence.
Ultimately, the word pornography hides an organised global criminal system. In the videos we can see real people being subjected to humiliating and degrading acts, such as ejaculation on the face, spitting on the face, urinating or defecating on the victim.
This kind of violence is the norm: it’s what the industry calls ‘mainstream’ porn, with content showing extreme violence where women are bound, whipped, strangled to suffocation, beaten… Women are muzzled to force them to keep their mouths open and are orally penetrated without restriction. Women are given electric shocks. In any other context, this is considered torture. However, in this context, it means that international criminal networks that could be held accountable under the existing legal framework can get away with offences in the name of freedom of expression.
EU Member States, including France and Sweden, are using the “freedom of expression” argument to limit the potential protection of women and girls from online violence, particularly the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, in the proposed directive on violence against women and girls currently under discussion in the EU institutions.
The EU Council of Ministers, representing the “interests” of the Member States, has included amendments to Articles 7 to 10 of the proposed directive aimed at tackling online violence against women. These amendments significantly limit the criminalisation of non-consensual use of intimate images, stalking and expression of hatred online.
The condition of ‘serious harm’ to the victim was added, as was the condition that the offence be ‘public’, meaning that acts in private groups or forums and online pay sites will not be included. Finally, both the reasoning and legal text now state that criminalising these types of online sexual violence must be balanced with freedom of expression, academic considerations, art and science.
Freedom of expression is not an absolute right. The European Convention on Human Rights states that it can be restricted in a democratic society for legitimate purposes, such as protecting the rights and reputation of others. In the case of defamation lawsuits against survivors of sexual violence condemning the perpetrator, freedom of expression is not used as a shield. This highlights a very dangerous paradigm shift of both approach and culture.
Traditionally, the law only protects speech that is consistent with a humanistic social contract, not hate speech. In European legal culture, freedom of expression was traditionally a right that protected the weak against the strong. This right is now mobilised in the war against women.
Pornography is an attack on the fundamental rights of all women. Violence is a natural part of its economic function as the content must constantly “surprise and shock” the consumer.
Pornography has been condemned and fought in every wave of the fight for women’s rights. After the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, feminist movements gave a voice to victims who testified about rape, kidnapping, violence and sexual trafficking. We have known this for decades. It is high time to fight. It is happening now. What we are seeing is a systematic, global violence that requires a global resistance.
As a general policy response, we call for the reaffirmation of the fundamental principles on which our society is based: the rejection of hatred and violence, and an explicit respect for human dignity. Unlimited freedom for pornocrats means trampling on the rights of the most vulnerable and discriminated against in our society.
In France, decision-makers, especially senators, have been crucial to the progress achieved so far. It takes courage to take a stand against something that has become so normalised. We expect Swedish decision-makers to be brave too. It is time for Sweden to stand on the right side of history in this matter as well.
French prosecutors have indicated that they want 17 men to stand trial over allegations of rape and other crimes committed in the production of online pornography.
Accusations against the men include rape, gang rape, organised human trafficking and aggravated pimping, committed during video production for the French Bukkake platform, according to prosecution documents.
The prosecutors’ call for a trial comes almost a year after French police made several arrests as part of a wider investigation into violence and human trafficking in France’s pornography industry.
The accused include the top manager of the platform, his associate, a talent recruiter and around 10 porn actors, the source said.
Vulnerable women
It is now up to two judges in charge of the investigation to decide whether the trial goes ahead.
Prosecutors believe the recruiter lured young, economically vulnerable women into participating in the filming of the videos in the full knowledge that they would be subjected to “aggravated rape”, according to the document.
Investigators believe the women were told the videos would only be accessible on private Canadian websites.
In fact, the films were viewable in France and the producers demanded large sums of cash from the women to remove them – only for the images to continue to circulate online.
Prosecutors said alcohol and drugs were commonplace during the shoots.
Female actors told prosecutors that they had not been warned before going on set of the type of sexual acts expected of them.
“Sexual acts were performed on them without warning, without them being able to comprehend them, and therefore without being able to give their consent,” the document said.
French porn industry in turmoil following shocking revelations of abuse • FRANCE 24 English
The French porn industry is facing its moment of reckoning. A two-year police investigation has blown the lid on widespread abuse of vulnerable women. A Senate report is now aiming to improve conditions by bringing about stricter controls. In this show, we meet three women who are trying to change the way the X-rated industry in France operates.
Read article here‘Hell behind the scenes’: French Senate blasts porn industry after abuse scandal
A rape investigation targeting a prominent French pornography website is prompting actresses to disclose their own experiences of abuse, a moment of reckoning for an industry where speaking out has long been taboo.
Prosecutors said last month that Jacquie and Michel, which bills itself as a hub for “amateur” porn videos, and other sites had been under investigation since July after feminist groups collected testimonies from several women.
Actresses warned that users should be aware that the concept of “amateur” porn is a misnomer and belies the experiences that performers may have had to endure.
“Those who might be tempted need to know that they abuse women,” Estelle, who asked that her real name not be published, told AFP.
She is one of a few dozen women, according to lawyers and women’s associations, who have contacted lawyers since the inquiry was opened.
Estelle said that she was 22 when she set her sights on becoming a “star” for France’s leading porn production company, Dorcel.
Unable to get a break, however, she started making videos with smaller producers, many of which were shown on Jacquie and Michel.
The experience turned into a nightmare.
One director forced her to accept certain scenes ― despite her objections ― that left her in intense pain for several days.
“He said, ‘She’s crying because she’s not used to it. Stop crying, we can’t sell that ― Smile!'” Estelle recalled, saying she was paid 250 euros ($290).
She said that she was forced to perform without a condom with a man who had lied about having tested negative for a sexually-transmitted disease but in fact had a herpes infection.
“They pay you hardly anything for doing scenes that you’ve never said ‘yes’ to.”
– Amateur acts? –
Other women told AFP about directors who suddenly demanded additional sex acts they had not been warned about in advance.
But Marion Lew, 32, who documents her adult film career on Twitter, said: “The legal system has a very difficult time recognising sexual assault.”
Additionally many women hope to force Jacquie and Michel and other sites to remove their videos, arguing they were unaware that they would be available permanently.
“Many women complain first about the images, which have the most immediate impact on their lives, and initially play down the serious violence they have suffered,” said Lorraine Questiaux, a lawyer for the Mouvement du Nid, an anti-prostitution group.
Jacquie and Michel has denied any wrongdoing, saying it only distributes films and is not responsible for how they are made.
But it has promised to stop working with anyone convicted of rape or other crimes.
Many actors and actresses scoff at the claim, saying the site effectively requires directors to meet certain aesthetic standards.
“We really need to stop with this idea of ‘amateur porn’,” said Tony Caliano, who has acted in X-rated films for the past 10 years.
“The women are always paid, and the idea is to make you think the girl next door is ready to fool around,” he said.
He indicated however that the women were not likely to have long-term “professional” careers either.
“Jacquie and Michel’s business model is based on always having a new actress,” he added.
“The average girl who gets into the industry will do just 15 or 20 scenes, over three or four months.”
And the reality is that the vast majority of women are paid just 200 to 300 euros per scene, far below the four-figure payments given to star actresses in “professional porn.”
“Most often, these are women who need to get out of a tough situation,” said Eric Morain, a lawyer representing around a dozen women trying to have their videos removed.
Many believe “it’s easy money, because it only lasts two hours,” he said.
“But in general, it almost never turns out the way it should.”
Activists hope the Jacquie and Michel inquiry will raise awareness and demolish the idea that victims know what they are getting into.
“We’re at the beginning of a #MeToo moment for pornography,” said Celine Piques, of the Osez le Feminisme! (Dare Feminism) collective, which also alerted prosecutors to victims’ accounts.
But others, including actresses, remain sceptical.
“Some are starting to speak out, but it’s not easy,” said Nikita Bellucci, one of France’s most prominent porn film stars.
“None of them have been contacted or been publicly supported” by the industry.
“The girls who talk get floods of abuse on social media,” she added.
“Since they act in porn videos, people say they have no right to present themselves as rape victims.”
Or, as Kim Equinoxx, another star actress, put it: “Some people don’t understand why they complain about rapes. For them, it’s like a boxer complaining that he’s getting hit.” (AFP)
As part of an investigation on the “French Bukkake” platform, an actor is accused of human trafficking in an organized gang and gang rape.
The investigation into the “French Bukkake” pornographic video platform is progressing. An actor was indicted for trafficking in human beings in an organized gang and gang rape to the detriment of two victims. According to a judicial source, which confirmed information from BFMTV, this 39-year-old man was placed under judicial supervision. This actor was arrested on Monday January 23, said a source familiar with the matter.
This is Tony Caliano, said several sources familiar with the matter. On the IAFD reference site, he appears as an actor in the credits of at least 600 pornographic productions between 2011 and 2021, including many productions of “Jacquie et Michel” and a certain number of Marc Dorcel. After the first crackdown in this investigation, in October 2020, he told the weekly Marianne that the actors were “equally responsible for the abuses of the producers”. “By saying nothing, by not speaking with the actress of the scene, they condone what is happening,” he added.
At least 17 people – actors, directors, producers – have already been indicted in this judicial investigation opened in October 2020 for aggravated human trafficking, gang rape or even aggravated pimping. More than forty victims have joined as civil parties, as well as associations.
Suspicions of pimping
According to elements of the investigation consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the platform of “Pascal OP” identified under the name of “French Bukkake”, named after a sexual practice, first attracted attention of investigators: a subscription allowed customers to participate in priority to these collective ejaculations [bukkake], with places reserved for sessions without condoms. This system, aimed at making individuals pay in exchange for organized sexual relations, has fueled suspicions of pimping in the eyes of the courts.
According to the source familiar with the matter, the investigation is coming to an end and should be closed “by the end of the first quarter”.
The French porn industry has been in the spotlight for two years: another survey carried out in Paris since July 2020 targets “Jacquie et Michel”, the embodiment in France of amateur porn and tricolor pillar of this industry. Michel Piron, the site’s founder, was indicted in June for complicity in rape and human trafficking in an organized gang. Three other men are also prosecuted in this judicial investigation also opened for aggravated pimping or rape with torture and act of barbarism.
DEMOLITION PORNOGRAPHY, ARE YOU WATCHING? SHE EXCITES YOU? YOU REVOLT?
The damning testimonies of mistreated actresses on French porn sets are multiplying following the investigation of Le Monde last September revealing the degrading practices of the “French bukkake” site and the indictment of Michel Piron, the director of Jacquie et Michel , one of the biggest French broadcasters of X, as part of an investigation by the first judicial police district of Paris for “rape and aggravated rape”, “pimping”, “trafficking in human beings” and “forcible confinement” .
These violent practices do not date from today. They began in the early 2000s when porn sites without means and without any rules multiplied on the Internet, practicing an escalation in sexual violence in order to stand out from classic X productions and attract an increasingly public. jaded, in search of new thrills. This is how “ ultra-hard” sub-genres appeared such as “gonzo ”, “ demolition ”, “ throat gagger ” , “ bukkake ” (“splatter” of sperm together, from Japan ), etc. In 2007, in Gang Bang, an investigation into demolition pornography(Threshold, coll Non Conforme), I had given the floor to several actresses revolted by what they had endured and investigated this ultra hard cinema.
At the time, I was shocked by the arrival of these films of extreme violence, wondering how spectators could endure such scenes of degradation of “actresses” without protesting or being indignant – and paying for their subscribe to it. I then understood that this porn was entering a new phase: it appealed to the sadism of the spectators, to their excitement in front of the sufferings inflicted live, in a gonzo style , on young women. He was selling them a cruel and humiliating “gonzo” reality show to get them hard – the justification being that it was “cinema” not debasement or filmed violence. To find myself the ” next door witness”, the “bystander” of these scenes appealed to me. At the time, a declared intermittent amateur of X, I wrote this book not to be an accomplice. Here are some excerpts – they testify to how long it has been since porn has gone off the rails…
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January 2006. Random click on the first “Demolition Porn” site. On the first pages, a few advertising pitches flash: ” THROAT GAGGER ” (Gagged throat), “C’ IS DEMOLITION”. Films are sold there individually or by monthly subscription. Click on a photo. On the screen comes “Natacha”, a frail blonde peroxide in cheap underwear. High heels, thong, silicone mouth. A pretty, pale, slender girl, 20 years old at the drop of a hat. With a small smile, she falls to her knees on the tiled floor in front of a pot-bellied man in socks, whose face we will never see. Immediately the guy grabs her by the hair, opens her mouth with five fingers, spits in her, yelling “Bitch! (Bitch!). The young woman jumps. It’s obviously a bad surprise for her. She may be playing, but nothing is less certain. The man starts again, fiddles with his lips, spits on them, “Bitch! », Grabs her hair, and shoves his whole cock in her throat. Direct. Already, he slaps deep in her face.
Natacha, “18 years old” according to a cartridge that appeared on the screen, emits a kind of liquid squeak, while her nose crashes into the guy’s stomach. Right away, I wonder why I’m watching this. I hate this guy, what he does. My “masculine gaze”, although accustomed to twenty years of erotic magazines and porn films, my “male gaze” (my eye desiring- objectifying the body of a woman spotted by the psychoanalyst Laura Mulvey) does not support the stage. It’s very violent. The big guy blocks Natacha’s face, preventing her from freeing herself. She tries to push him away with her hands. He pushes them away violently, yelling “Without hands, bitch! (No hands, bitch!), and goes back to dabbing it deep in her throat. It makes the funny noise, kind of siphon disgorging. Natacha chokes, rolling wide eyes. She has a spasm of rejection, saliva overflows from her mouth, she vomits.
I stop the movie. I can’t stand what I see. The brutality of the man, the twisted face of the young woman triggered in me an intense emotion of disgust and anger. There is absorption in seeing, incorporation. I don’t want that image in me. Get used to it. Already, I know that it will be difficult to forget. I tell myself that the scene, the filmmaker trapped me. They’ve managed to trigger such a strong, traumatic feeling in me that basically they’re questioning me about what I’m looking for in porn. Isn’t that a strong visual sensation? Isn’t this shock, this disgust, this rejection a form of excitement? Perhaps the film traps me, what I believe to be real is only cinema intended to mobilize my sadism – if it exists?
I click again. It starts again. The fat man hits hard down Natacha’s throat. She drools continuously. She is visibly choking. Suddenly, she pulls away, her head falls back. This time, I’m sure, I see in the hollow of her eyes, in her frantic gestures to wipe himself, revulsion, fear, suffering. She does not play, she endures, she suffers. She hadn’t expected such brutality. She looks groggy. She looks at the guy, visibly distressed, wondering what’s next. Here we go again. Throat gagger. Natacha is suffocating, her eyes go white, she pulls away, shaking. The man drags her like a sack towards a sofa, throws her there, goes back to beating her full face. So he pinches her nose to block the air flow. She rolls her injected eyes. The man makes it last. Natacha hiccups, her gaze fails…
A rustle on the screen, the image jumped visibly. Here is Natacha again planted full throat by the big anonymous. It’s obvious. Her convulsion, her contortions were cut in the editing. The spectator barely had time to notice the vomiting. But we had time to understand. She’s not pretending, Natacha. She does not play violence, she takes it. She did not pretend to return, she pukes for real. The worst happens behind the scenes, between two clashes of images.
I have the feeling of finding myself in a situation of non-assistance to anyone in danger. I am outraged that it is possible to inflict such violence on a woman to shoot an X movie. A scene of violence inflicted and suffered remains violence inflicted and suffered, even under the acronym X. Everyone has already tried to to be surrendered with just a finger on the glottis, everyone knows how Natacha feels. I now understand the meaning of the title block: ” THIS IS DEMOLITION !” and flashing calls announcing to the audience, ” All of our bitches are getting fucked in the throat. ” GUARANTEED ! _ “. On the internet, we’ve gone beyond the “hard” (the hard fuck), we’ve entered some sites in the demolition live. In the imposed suffering – this, without any of the customary manners and precautions of sadomasochistic cinema, with its experts in bondage and whipping, its rituals, its specialized and seasoned actresses (SM, BDSM also increasingly extreme, less and less ritualized, more and more close to the aggression of unfortunates).
Natacha is an anonymous non-rank of this unbridled porn, I will see her again on another video, withered, extinguished. She does not produce a signed “performance” or a provocative film, she does not degrade herself in complete freedom to experience “the extreme sensation of the moment” like an “actionist” artist or the performer Chris Burden; nor is she a hardcore professional, one of those overstrained actresses supporting onslaughts of body-built athletes who rest between two sessions, stopping the game when they get exhausted. She is not a respected star on a set like the French actress Ovidie who refused all sodomy and demanded the wearing of a condom. She doesn’t have the fame of an “X star” who does it several times with each hard scene, before being photographed in lingerie for the specialized press and exhibited at the “Hot d’or”. It is not crossed by the “paradox of the actor” according to Diderot, who knows very well that he is not the character he is playing. She is not an actress according to the Actor’s Studio, somehow possessed by her character, who would vomit from identifying too well with him. She does not embody a “demanding role”.
Natacha suffers the situation. She was seized with several reflex spasms. She vomits during a choking. She couldn’t bear – accepted – the scene. We can only ask the question. What happened during the cut? What about the balance of power between her and the production, her consent and her acceptance, off-screen? Natacha, 18, is unknown to a website among hundreds of other videos presented under the theme “throat gagger”, with dozens of other young women, Vera, Candy, Kinky, only first names, never people, all 18 or 20, come to be abused, humiliated and forced down their throats until they vomit, by faceless guys – a real internet mania today, the “throat gagger”, very trendy.
What happened between the two scenes, during the frame jump? We see nothing behind the scenes of gonzo and the cinema of demolition and “choking throats”. We don’t know anything about ultra-hard off-screen. How is the pornography of pornography? Just looking at Natacha for a single minute portends fierce exploitation.
What does “Carla” (her name has been changed), one of the stars of the X media scene for 5 years, guest on television, making the cover of hard magazines say about it? She is 24 years old, but her black, impassive eyes reveal a strong personality. Her fan club still exists, although today Carla prefers erotic photography and striptease shows. She talks calmly, lucidly, about her past as a hardcore actress. She is proud of what she has done – ” I assume ” – as an underground rock star who has explored where no one goes, she knows what she gives when she releases “Naomi”, her invented character on the sets, “Naomi” which ignites the film. What does Carla think of the “throat gagger”?
“It’s a very ’trash’ practice. It can cause choking and vomiting. As far as I’m concerned, I caught a big bruise on my lips. Gonzo comes from the United States, it’s very violent “hardcore”. In Europe, directors are now doing it in succession, with girls from the East. They follow fashion. You should know that many porn directors have shitty tastes! They are often embittered and failed filmmakers. They love silicone blondes, their approach to sex is minimalist. For them, the guys must be a hit like nags and the girls scream. It’s a shame ! In gonzo, the scenes are shot very quickly, without camera movement, like reporting, always very violent. No games, no dialogue, no fantasy. Anything that would support the excitement,would enrich the sexual atmosphere, is evacuated. When I started, at 20, if I had seen the gonzo films, I would never have done porn. »
Now let’s listen to Raffaëlla Anderson. She played one of the first two roles in the thriller by novelist Virginie Despentes, Baise-moi ( 2000) where two young women kill men with the rage of despair, humiliate them – as revenge after their rape. Before, she shot hardcore X movies. She was the first actress to lift the omerta on certain degrading practices of pornography in her book Hard (Grasset, 2001)). She tells the backstage of several violent filming, describes distressing sessions with “double fist” – two fists in sex scenes that evoke torture. Interviewed in January 2002 in the magazine Blast #4 , she declared: “When I think back to those scenes, it’s simple, I could never watch them in movies, I know how much the girl must suffer! I’ve seen a lot of them bleed, cry. Girls who are 18, super pretty, models. A real mess. They get slaughtered. “She further specified:” At the end of the scene, we told them: “We are going to put a little Biafine on you and tomorrow it will come back on its own!” [Biafine is used for the treatment of second degree burns]. Or: “Okay, you can go wash up… and tonight you sleep with so-and-so!” What do I think of it ? How bad. A woman is no longer even a woman. It’s not even a hole anymore. It doesn’t even have that value. »
The throat gagger. A doctor to whom I showed these films, who treats porn actresses, will explain to me that in addition to the pain, an untrained person can choke during a “deep throat” by pushing saliva back into their bronchi. It can be deadly. Nerves responsible for creating a rejection spasm indeed line the back of the throat, near the trachea, to avoid any dangerous intromission. If your nose is blocked, the repression reflex can take place inside. According to this doctor, this has already happened in hard cinema.
Certainly, one could say that a woman who accepts being abused until she vomits, suffocates, faints, who endures such aggression out of necessity, bad luck, poverty, does so of her own free will. She freely disposes of her body, in a situation of distress, in order to survive. She gives her consent. But isn’t it under pressure behind the scenes, isn’t it forced to go further, beyond itself? Isn’t she subjected to acts of influence, threats, blackmail? And then, this violence would it be consented to – and so badly lived –, should it be tolerated, legal on the set? Should it be given as a show to embellish cinema sites? Should sexually violating, exhausting, damaging a person, making them suffer become the driving principle of a kind of reality show?
In classic X movies, actors mime sex, strike a pose, moan outraged, shout basic obscenities. It’s overplayed, we pretend while doing it, we go back to the same scene several times, we stop if it goes wrong, some expert actresses swallow boners like in the circus of sabers. But they are trained. They are getting ready. They rest between two exhibitions. It is performance, almost martial art or combat sport.The editing, the cutting, certain movie tricks, fake sperm, salacious dialogues help create the impression of a gripping scene. We are sometimes in the sexual Grand Guignol, the Barnum, even contortionist numbers. It’s professional cinema, coded, standardized, heterosexual and terribly macho, often difficult for actresses – trying. But in the internet videos of “Gang bang”, “Demolition”, “Punishment”, “Tournante”, the “Bukkake ”, the women no longer play. The guys let go, the girls endure. Hard banging, throat choking, double or triple penetration, dildos punched, fisted or fisted in the vagina. It’s very hard.
“Gonzo” ads among a hundred others: DOUBLE DROP IN A LANDFILL. These 6 brutes savagely smash a little blonde in a filthy dump! The blonde gets all her orifices bombarded by the 6 cocks! Then fuck the face, smash the pussy, fist and rip the anus wildly by 6 guys at the same time!
NO PLACE FOR THE DEJA – VU ! This blonde only likes anal DESTRUCTION and I can tell you that she is going to take a real punishment. The time has come to introduce him to MONSIEUR GODE. Ten centimeters in diameter to blow her ass off. She looks a little perplexed… The guys literally impale her on it without her having time to understand and force her to get in as hard as she can. She has her ass well demolished. A veritable deluge of anal pounding ensues.
FIRST CAST. Jenny, a 23-year-old Swedish bombshell, is starting to dildo herself just to show that she can fit 40 CM OF DILDO! Once ready, a porn star gives him a deep throat for 5 GOOD MINUTES! If you want to save Jenny, type 1. Otherwise just download this excellent video.
In these films, beyond the standard sexual language of the ad – “I fucked her”, “I blew her”, all this male phantasmagoria, these popular tocsin words of sex – everything happens as indicated. It’s brutal. of the ship. Low budget. No time to take precautions. A camcorder. A few static shots. A young woman harassed by the video. Some sequences recall this dark scene from the film The important thing is to love by Andrei Zulawski, where a tyrannical old mafia, wearing a disturbing strap-on, attacks a drug-addicted teenager. He is going to spin a clandestine reel with her. The girl staggers, we understand that he is going to hurt her, torture her. Zulawski shows us the possible cruelty of porn cinema. He is not mistaken.
It seems to me that if I witnessed a scene of “demolition” in real life, I would intervene. I wouldn’t let these men. I would not behave like a “voyeur”. Besides, a lot of my enraged reaction comes from there: from my inability to stop what the young woman is enduring. To have no other solution than to stop watching, not to stop the ongoing rampage. I feel like an accomplice. To be a “bystander.” A “next door witness”. This Anglo-Saxon term designates a person in spite of himself in the presence of unacceptable violence, sexual assault, abuse of power, and who is indignant. Reacts. The bystander is a neighbour, a passing spectator, a civilian, a colleague, or even a doctor, a nurse, a civil servant who witnesses a war crime, a street attack, a rape, a sexual harassment, an abuse of power. It happens in front of him, at the bottom of his house. He is concussed. So the bystander refuses to be silent, decides to act, to intervene in one way or another. To testify. He wants to “do something”. Let the filth be known. So he comes out of his reserve. He protests. He is ringing the alarm bell. He sounds the alarm. He speaks. He cannot be silent.
I show these films to a writer friend who like me likes cool porn. I need to hear a woman’s point of view on what ultra-hard “actresses” can feel. She immediately points out to me that the girls spit and drool a lot in the “throat smash” movies. In these scenes, always, at the start, they spit on the penis, smear it with saliva. They seem to be drooling with envy, for good, to suck it, while no doubt they moisten it to make the intromission more bearable. The hardest thing to bear, deciphers my friend, is when the blows in the throat force them to make spit clots. It’s as if they ” wet ” through their mouths, “enjoy being choked“, while it is a reflex drool, reactions of rejection. This is what frightens: they vomit, we are made to believe that they enjoy. It is a terrible lie. A cinematic falsehood.
We move forward in “freeze frames”. At first a certain Amber endures the suffocation, blows in the trachea, between two bizarre cries she distributes little automatic smiles. She is paid for that, to look good, to spit, to sink, to collect. Very quickly, the situation deteriorates. The guys force themselves, go deeper, stay longer, take turns, while the others hit her face with their penises, slap her, plug her nose. They have fun making breaking her, suffocating her longer, triggering spasms of disgust. They warm up between them, we hear them. They take advantage of the fact that she has to stay there, to finish the film, to break her resistance. Then we both understand. This is the purpose of the show. Humiliate her. Hurt her. Let it show on the screen. That the viewer has a hard-on out of sadism. Let him see it’s for real. It’s a reality show of suffering, live submission.
In mainstream porn reality show, proven by ‘cum facials’finals (the actor has enjoyed for real), the spectators fantasize that they undertake the actresses who give it to each other on the screen, but that remains a fantasy. Of mental masturbation, accompanying the physical. In the long run, this fantasy is exhausted, the enjoyment remaining visual, scopic: onanism. So the ultra-hard thinks he has found a way to maintain the fantasy excitement of solitaire. He films the degradation of the actress. Her jolts, her reflex reactions to violence, to suffocation, to blows, to dildos. Her humiliation proves that the “hardeur”, with whom the spectator identifies himself, enjoys her for good, takes advantage of her. Its defeat must burst the screen, pierce the virtual. It’s a barbaric reality show. Sadism without a masochist.
What is most disturbing in this logic of the hardcore reality show where the victim offers herself to the pornstar is her virtuality – the dilution of violence in the hollow of Internet screens, throughout videos where pixelated women – the same scene of “choked throat” shown in the theater, with the people in flesh and cries, would be unbearable, the spectators would intervene. Their jolts and sufferings have become electromagnetic chimeras. Derealized images. We have reached the total absorption of the traumatic real by the virtual, by the total screen – what the philosopher Jean Baudrillard calls “the perfect crime “. The pornstar-suffocator and his victim have become “actors” in a degrading reality show where violence itself is simultaneously proven, shown, tracked, sought… and banished, virtualized – and therefore accepted. that’s what it takes to get the sadistic onanist to subscribe to VOD services.
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According to information from BFMTV, revealed this Friday, January 27, a new pornographic actor was indicted as part of the investigation in Paris on the “French Bukkake” video platform for “rape in meetings” and “human trafficking”. human beings in an organized gang”.
New twist in the investigation targeting the “French Bukkake” video platform. A new pornographic actor was indicted this week for “rape in meetings” and “trafficking in human beings in an organized gang” , tells us this Friday, January 27, Vincent Vantighem, journalist at BFMTV. “A week ago, he published his videos on his social networks. But last Monday, he was arrested and finally indicted and released under judicial supervision, “ he said on Twitter.
According to elements of the survey consulted, the platform of “Pascal OP” identified under the name of “French Bukkake”, named after a sexual practice, first attracted the attention of investigators: a subscription allowed customers to participate in priority to these collective ejaculations, with places reserved for sessions without condoms.
XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
Vincent Vantighem: [Info @BFMTV] #FrenchBukkake : Ouverte il y a plus de deux ans, l’instruction du dossier “French Bukkake” continue d’avancer. Cette semaine, un nouvel acteur porno français a été mis en examen pour “viols en réunion” et “traite des êtres humains en bande organisée”.
Last November, Guillaume F., – known in the community under the pseudonym “Rick Angel” and former technical adviser to Michèle Alliot-Marie at the Ministry of the Interior in 2008 – was also indicted for “trafficking in human beings human beings in an organized gang” . On the other hand, he was placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for rape, which means that the investigating judge considered that he had not gathered at this stage the serious or concordant evidence necessary to initiate proceedings for this qualification. They are now 18 individuals – actors, producers, directors – implicated in this case. More than forty victims have joined as civil parties, as well as associations.
SECTOR OVERTAKEN BY BUSINESS
According to elements of the survey consulted, the platform of “Pascal OP” identified under the name of “French Bukkake”, named after a sexual practice, first attracted the attention of investigators: a subscription allowed customers to participate in priority to these collective ejaculations, with places reserved for sessions without condoms. This system, aimed at making individuals pay in exchange for organized sexual relations, has fueled suspicions of pimping in the eyes of the courts.
The French porn industry has been in the spotlight for two years: another survey carried out in Paris since July 2020 targets “Jacquie et Michel”, the embodiment in France of amateur porn and tricolor pillar of this industry. In June, four men, including the founder of the site, Michel Piron, were indicted in an open judicial investigation, in particular for aggravated pimping, trafficking in human beings in an organized gang, rape with torture and acts of barbarism.
