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“French Bukkake” affair: Pascal OP, the king of “hard porn” incarcerated for 44 months, remains in prison

[translated from source: Le Parisien]

By Julien Constant

May, 9th, 2024 à 17h04

“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”.”

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„I was bleeding and ended up in hospital.“ Women accuse producers of Xvideos of violent porn shooting

Source: https://denikn.cz/552186/i-was-bleeding-and-ended-up-in-hospital-women-accuse-producers-of-xvideos-of-violent-porn-shooting

Xvideos, the most-visited pornographic website in the world, faces difficulties due to its content, which is being investigated by the police and card-payment companies. That is why we have looked into the business of the people behind the website, which is located near Prague’s Wenceslas Square. We started gathering testimonies of women who complained about the practices of another company of the same owners, Legal Porno, which focuses on filming extreme pornography. A number of women said they had left the studio injured.

We have found the complaints about the treatment by the production of Legal Porno on social networks but also on closed forums run by the owners of Xvideos. Other women who were contacted by Deník N and who were promised anonymity have confirmed these accounts. The women said they had suffered injuries during the filming of extreme practices. Many of them said they had had no idea what they would be filming.

The production of Legal Porno is operated by GTFLIX TV, which – as the Xvideos server – is located in Prague’s Krakovská Street, close to Wenceslas Square. Both companies are part of the pornographic empire owned by the French siblings Stephane Michael Pacaud and Malorie Deborah Pacaud.

Legal Porno specialises in the most hardcore pornography, for which clients pay well. However, sometimes such shooting represents an extraordinary strain on the bodies and psyche of the actresses. Some of them described to Deník N that they had left the set torn, bleeding and unable to control their bowel movements.

In most testimonies, the same motives are repeated over and over again. Before, and sometimes during, the shooting the women did not know what the producers planned to do with them. The women usually had to engage in very dangerous and complicated practices, for example several men having anal sex with a single woman at the same time.

In addition to publicly available statements, Deník N has obtained testimonies of three women who, independently of each other, shared their experiences with filming for Legal Porno. We do not disclose any details that might identify or endanger them.

Lidocaine against pain

The first witness the reporters spoke to still works in the pornographic industry. She did not leave it although her experience with Legal Porno was one of her first in the industry and, as she says, it has marked her forever. She speaks only very carefully about her experiences: “We had agreed that there would be one guy, but in the end there were three blacks,” says the actress. She says she took the work as she needed money quickly and knew that Legal Porno paid more than other productions.

The woman explained that although she was not raped, she did not feel comfortable because she saw from the beginning that the original agreement had not been kept. However, she needed the money. She describes a similarly difficult situation as other actresses – they feel pressured at the moment, it is often their first experience, they are already on the set where several people are waiting for them, and they cannot refuse once the crew is ready.

The filming process was also unexpected for the woman. Among other things, the actress claims that, without prior agreement, she was given local analgesics to relieve pain. „The worst was the ignorance; I was not prepared for it at all. I didn’t know that lidocaine could hurt me when they started putting it in my anus. They didn’t rape me, but I know very well how they behave, everyone knows how they behave,“ says the actress, adding that they pushed her to complete the scene.

“So they put lidocaine in my anus, it burned terribly, they wanted me to complete the shoot, I kept bleeding so they gave me more and more lidocaine as they wanted to finish it, but it still didn’t work, it hurt terribly,” she describes. She says not only the production but also herself wanted to complete the scene. The actress knew that if she were unable to do it, she would get no money. And that is what happened – because of great pain and strong bleeding she stopped the shooting and left empty-handed.

“They really wanted to complete the scene with me, but in the end they stopped when I said no,” the actress adds. “I did not complete the scene. Nobody paid me anything,” she said.

Lidocaine is used as a local anaesthetic, most often in dentistry. It may affect the heart rate. Its use in Legal Porno has been confirmed also by one of its directors, who uses the nickname Giorgio Grandi and who wrote about it in an official forum. He reacted to a blog post in which an actress described the practices used during shooting. “I use a gel that contains between 1% and 2.5% lidocaine,” wrote the director.

To the witness who talked to Deník N it never occurred to complain about this treatment. Also other actresses said that the entire industry knows that this production uses rough practices against women. According to the actresses, it is a public secret at which nobody should be surprised.

Another witness told the reporters about a similar experience. After the shooting, she even ended up in hospital. “I had to have an operation but I don’t want to come back to it. I will not tell you more about it,” another actress said.

A very trustworthy source from the pornographic industry described to Deník N that Legal Porno often uses girls that have no experience with shooting and do not know what their bodies can stand. “They get paid much more than at other productions. When you have a new girl or you have her exclusively, you earn more. Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, many new faces have appeared there,” said the source.

Legal Porno shoots not only in Krakovská Street in Prague, but also in other studios in the Czech Republic. Every day it launches around seven new videos. “There is not a month, or maybe a week, without a girl having a bad experience. Some agencies do not recommend Legal Porno and do not send girls there. After working for Legal Porno, the girls can’t work, can’t control their bowel movements and need to take a break from filming,” the source added.

The insider did not wish to disclose their name as the owners of Xvideos control a large part of the production in the Czech Republic. If the insider were blacklisted, it would ruin their business. However, Deník N knows their identity.

Public testimonies

Information about the practices at Legal Porno has appeared on social networks. Several famous people from the industry who have hundreds of thousands of followers have shared their bad experiences. For example, the actress using the stage name Veronica Avluv, who has 268 thousand followers, confided on Twitter in 2019 that she had been injured during a shooting.

“I’ve been nursing a serious prolapse injury from one shoot for Legal Porno. It was supposed to be one of 4. I’ve been dealing with blood and shit since the scene. Can’t believe they can sell my pain online but they can,” she wrote.

The porn actress Samantha Rone, who has 144 thousand followers, published her experience in 2016. “I wish I was mad about the money. I’m more mad that people can behave and treat other people like that,” the actress wrote.

Similar complaints can be found on the official forum of Legal Porno. “At the beginning, everything was O.K. The boys were kind and thoughtful. However, the more scenes I had shot, the more ruthless they became as people just want it rougher, rougher and rougher! In the end I bled so much I had to cancel shootings for other productions because I just could not shoot,” a porn actress wrote on the Legal Porno forum last year. Her account is official, it was authorised by the producers.

“In the morning before the last scene, I woke up in fear. I knew that it would be terrible and stupid and that it would be no good. It was just too much. But it was clear to me that no one cared,” she confided to anonymous fans of the Legal Porno production.

None of the girls informed the police about their experiences; at least none of them said so to Deník N. Most of the women said they doubted whether the police would do anything. It is therefore unclear whether the police has ever looked into the possible violence in front of cameras.

“The law prohibits us from providing information on specific persons and other entities,” Eva Kropáčová, spokesperson of the Prague Police, said.

The owners of Legal Porno at first refused to talk Deník N journalists and to answer any of their questions. Then one of the owners, Mr Pacaud, called a reporter. Mr Pacaud said he wanted to clear up certain things and promised to send a reply by email. Then came a reply from GTFLIX TV, but the authors of the reply forbade Deník N to publish the reply and accused its reporters of bias.

“The accusations are completely made up. For nearly nine years we have been victims of a massive disinformation campaign carried out by Pierre Woodman. It includes forging documents and paying models to make false accusations,” the owners of Legal Porno wrote in their reply. “Tomorrow we will consider filing an information with the Czech Police against you and your newspaper,” the company has threatened.

Ten girls speak on camera

The owners of Legal Porno did not mention the name of the world-famous producer Pierre Woodman by coincidence – they have had disputes for years. Woodman, who is active mainly in Hungary and the Czech Republic, has also pointed out to unfair practices of his competitors.

According to porn-industry insiders, Woodman does not have such a heated dispute with anyone other than the Pacaud siblings. Woodman, who was contacted by Deník N, handed over to the newspaper testimonies of ten actresses he says he has collected in recent years. All the women in the videos talk about their experiences with Legal Porno productions similarly as the actresses with whom Deník N spoke.

Deník N will not publish the videos, to protect the privacy of the women. However, the newspaper contacted some of them to verify whether their testimonies were manipulated. The women with whom the reporters spoke confirmed their original statements.

How did Woodman’s videos come about? The producer has said he shoots everything on camera, including interviews with job seekers. He does it to prevent any disputes or accusations. To Deník N he has provided the testimonies of ten girls who, when he asked them about their experiences in the industry, themselves started talking about Legal Porno.

One of the girls said that, in order to make the scenes, she drank a cocktail of painkillers. Another woman said that during the shooting she was bleeding from her anus but they did not stop the shooting anyway. They gave her a gel thanks to which she could continue and did not feel pain. She said she did not know at the time that it was a painkiller.

“They gave me anaesthetics, but it did not help at all. No one raised their voice at me, but when I was crying and said I couldn’t do it, someone came and gave me a shot of vodka to relax,” described one of the women.

According to lawyers contacted by Deník N, in this case – if it happened in this way – a thin line between shooting and rape may have been crossed.

“This creates a situation that cannot end otherwise than in a rape. During such shooting, the woman should not drink – it is clear how it will end. Rape consists also in someone misusing a woman’s helplessness, which can be caused also by drunkenness,” lawyer Tomáš Sokol assessed the situation.

Lawyer Lucie Hrdá sees it similarly. “In my opinion this is rape. When you misuse someone’s helplessness, you commit rape. In particular when you cause the helplessness, which is much more dangerous for the society,” Hrdá said. “Rape includes also expressing resistance during an act,” she added.

According to Sokol, local anaesthetics or alcohol may be used during pornographic shooting if the actress has consented to it and was in a state in which she was able to make such a decision. This means, for example, that she was not drunk.

One of the girls described how, during one of the practices, the actor used force to achieve what he wanted. When shooting anal sex, actresses have to prepare to avoid the intercourse being painful. “At times he held my ass and tried to force a [dildo] in it, so that it would be over fast. But I was already crying and said I did not want to do it, so I ended it,” described the witness.

Another woman alleged that people from Legal Porno forced the shooting of a scene. “They forced me to shoot double anal intercourse. I refused another scene,” said the woman. She said the producers tried to trick her by saying that they would only try a scene and would not film it. The scene was to include anal sex. “I said to them that even simple anal intercourse was painful for me. They told me it wouldn’t be on any video. So we tried it and I said it hurt terribly. I pushed them away and said it hurt. Then I watched previews on Legal Porno and the video was there,” the witness described her frustration.

Penalty for failing to complete a shoot

Other women on the videos say that people from Legal Porno pressured them to continue shooting. The producers allegedly threatened the actresses with penalties in the order of tens of thousand of Czech crowns. “I stopped working for them. A woman did not agree with the fact that I wanted to terminate the contract on the spot. The contract stipulated that when I stop [the shooting] early, I must pay a penalty of 70 thousand Czech crowns. Some girls before me left but did not have to pay anything,” a witness said.

The lawyer Sokol stresses that such practice would be unacceptable and the penalties would be unenforceable. “This is similar to someone agreeing in a contract to pour petrol over themselves and set themselves on fire, and paying a penalty if they did not do it. I believe that, in relation to pornography, such clause is null and void,” Sokol explains.

In some aspects, the situation at Legal Porno may be similar to the case of the porn production Czech Casting. In that case, the girls testified that the producers pressured them and threatened them with penalties if they failed to complete their work. The police then charged nine people with human trafficking, sexual coercion and rape. As in the case of Legal Porno, the girls said that before the shooting they did not know what awaited them.

War of two producers

It is important to bear in mind that Woodman is not unbiased in relation to the situation at Legal Porno. His legal dispute with the Pacauds has a personal dimension. Woodman claims that on the forum of Legal Porno they published pictures of his wife and of his daughter (that picture was allegedly taken when the daughter was a minor) and invited people to visit his daughter. Woodman says this is the reason why he has led a court dispute in France.

On the other hand, the Pacaud siblings, namely their company GTFLIX TV, say in their reply that Woodman has been carrying out a disinformation campaign against them and has been paying models to raise false accusations against them.

“Woodman must have taken an interest in your biased articles and we see that the way in which you are trying to obtain information may easily lead to false testimonies,” GTFLIX TV added.

However, not only Woodman is pointing his finger at Legal Porno. Also other people from the industry have described to Deník N that Legal Porno wants girls to engage in practices their bodies cannot cope with. In addition, the sources say, the actresses are often very young. According to sources who are familiar with the pornographic industry in the Czech Republic – we do not quote Woodman as an anonymous source in this article – there are cases when girls who have just turned 18 appear at a pornographic shooting where they are asked to be penetrated by several men and to engage in dangerous practices that may cause injuries.

“Sometimes they end up in hospital and often they are so traumatised that they quit the industry,” an insider told us under the promise of anonymity. A number of people from the pornographic industry have openly admitted that they are afraid to talk about the issues around Legal Porno. The reason is that the Pacauds control a large share of the pornographic market in the Czech Republic and in the world.

According to financial statements, the Pacauds’ revenues are in the hundreds of millions of Czech crowns. A proof of their wealth is a recent transaction in which they overpaid Pornhub and Larry Flynt, the owner of the Hustler brand, in an auction for the Penthouse magazine. The owners of Xvideos paid for it an equivalent of 250 million Czech crowns.

The most-visited pornographic website of Xvideos faces difficulties

The siblings Stephane Michael Pacaud and Malorie Deborah Pacaud own, through WGCZ, also the porn site Xvideos. According to the analytical website SimilarWeb,  Xvideos is the most-visited pornographic website in the world. Of all the websites, it is the seventh most visited. Legal Porno is not as big, but it ranks among 500 most-visited pornographic websites in the world with nearly 20 million visits, the largest number of them being from the United States.

The reporters of Deník N have described how the system of Xvideos enables to upload any content with just an anonymous email address. That is how, without any supervision, it is possible to upload there illegal pornography depicting victims of violence, revenge porn, or minors. To report an illegal video is actually more difficult than to upload it. The matter is now being investigated by the police and by the Visa and Mastercard card-payment companies.

The situation is analogical to that of the Pornhub website, to which financial-services companies blocked payments after the New York Times wrote a month ago that Pornhub contained child pornography or videos depicting rape.

Following the investigation by US journalists, Pornhub deleted millions of videos, which represents tens of percent of its content. Pornhub will also have to testify before a Canadian federal committee in Montreal.”

Source: https://denikn.cz/552186/i-was-bleeding-and-ended-up-in-hospital-women-accuse-producers-of-xvideos-of-violent-porn-shooting/

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Dennis Black Magic gets seven-year jail sentence for eight rapes

“Dennis Burkas (49), alias Dennis Black Magic, was convicted on Thursday of the rape of eight women.

The porn producer was given a prison sentence of seven years by the Tongeren criminal court and will be banned from his rights for a period of ten years.

According to the court, it is proven that Burkas pressured several women to have sex with him and distributed nude photos of several women. Burkas has also failed to learn lessons from his previous convictions, exhibits a far-reaching form of norm blurring and lacks respect for existing regulations. The possession of images of child sexual abuse was also proven, according to the court.

The judge ruled that Burkas (49) was indeed in a position of power vis-à-vis his victims, whom he put psychological pressure on, harassed and threatened. Burkas took nude photos and threatened to give them to their employer.

According to the court, he also saw the women as sexual objects of desire. When the verdict was pronounced, reference was made to a “total lack of awareness of norms” and a “cunning attitude”.

The file against Burkas was opened after model and OnlyFans star Nanoe Vaesen went to the police with a complaint against the man. He allegedly promised her to make a porn film in exchange for 20,000 euros. He would also put her in touch with other porn producers, but Vaesen had to prove herself sexually first. However, not much came of the promises made. Vaesen also told the police that there were other women who had been manipulated by Burkas in a similar way.

Burkas himself has always claimed that no false promises were ever made and that the women knew that it was agreed to have sex. The judge did not follow that reasoning, the porn producer was sentenced to seven years in prison and will be disbarred for a period of 10 years.

In addition, the man must also pay a fine of 500 euros, an amount that must be multiplied by a factor of eight, meaning he will ultimately have to pay 4,000 euros.

Burkas did not show up for the verdict, and his lawyer Mounir Souidi was also not present in court. He ordered the immediate arrest of Burkas.”

Source: https://m.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20240418_92929957

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REPORT ON PORN CRIME: A TOUGHER FIGHT AGAINST THE IMPUNITY OF THE PORN INDUSTRY

[Translated from French]

The Haut Conseil de l’Égalité entre les hommes et les femmes (HCE) (High Council for Equality between Men and Women) has warned of the proliferation on the Internet of content constituting offences of sexual assault, rape or paedocriminality, with too easy access for minors. It recommends stepping up the fight, in particular by making better use of the existing criminal arsenal.

In a decision handed down on 5 January 2023, the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) made an important clarification to Article 227-24 of the Criminal Code. According to this article, “the fact (…) of producing, transporting or disseminating by any means whatsoever and whatever the medium, a message of a violent nature, inciting to terrorism, pornographic (…) or of a nature seriously prejudicial to human dignity (…) is punishable by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros when the message is likely to be seen or perceived by a minor”. And according to the Cour de cassation, this text applies “even if access by a minor to the messages results from a simple declaration by the minor indicating that he or she is at least eighteen years old”. In other words, publishers of pornographic videos must find a more effective way of preventing minors from accessing their content than simply declaring their age, or risk being prosecuted.

The problem is made all the more acute by the fact that some of the content available on these platforms falls within the scope of several criminal offences. It is against this backdrop that the French High Council for Equality between Men and Women (HCE) recently published a report on the spread of pornocriminality, highlighting the risks incurred as a result of the ever-increasing consumption of content by ever-younger users.

THE FINDING: ILLEGAL ACTS FILMED, VIDEOS ILLEGALLY DISTRIBUTED

The HCE report notes the existence of ten or so categories of pornographic videos, some of which are particularly violent, promoting misogynist hatred and rape culture. These videos include sexual assault (article 222-27 of the Penal Code), rape (art. 222-23, Penal Code), child pornography (art. 222-22) and child pornography (art. 227-23-1), all of which are punishable offences, as is the sharing of these videos on networks, as they incite violence and hatred (L. 29 July 1881, article 24).

According to the HCE, the proliferation of this type of video depicting illegal acts, and the ease with which it can be accessed, has the effect of altering the vision of healthy sexuality for consumers, who are increasingly young: 51% of 12-year-old boys consume it every month, and their first exposure to pornography begins at the age of 10. This illegal content stems from practices that are outside the law, in which pornography producers engage in pimping, sex trafficking or child pornography.

THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF THE PHAROS PLATFORM

According to the HCE, the taboo surrounding pornography contributes to the fact that platforms disseminating illegal content continue to benefit from a “false belief in legality”. There is a platform called “PHAROS”, set up in 2009, for reporting manifestly illegal content on the net: this is the “Platform for harmonising, analysing, cross-checking and directing reports”. It is responsible for centralising reports in accordance with the French law on confidence in the digital economy (LCEN) of 21 June 2004.

Article 6-I-7 of the LCEN aims to prevent so-called child pornography (featuring children), incitement to violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, and offences against human dignity, by means of repressive measures, in particular through reporting. However, despite the many reports made about them, violent and sexist pornographic content, involving torture and degrading treatment, is not removed from pornographic sites. In fact, in its report, the HCE presents tests carried out on the largest platforms displaying pornographic content: none of the content reported has been removed, even though it would qualify as “child pornography” within the meaning of the LCEN. The association Osez le féminisme had carried out the same operation before the HCE, obtaining the same result.

The findings confirm the risks of minors being exposed to pornocriminality, which is contrary to article 227-24 of the French Penal Code, which was strengthened on this point by the law of 30 June 2020, requiring filtering devices to be installed on entry to the sites in question. Platforms were thus required to put in place measures to prevent the risks of minors being connected. The CNIL, which was heard by the HCE, states that “the General Data Protection Regulation of 2016 does not preclude online age checks for access to pornographic sites”, and even adds that it might be possible to introduce checks using bankcards. Alternatively, a device for analysing facial features could also be introduced.

THE HCE’S RECOMMENDATIONS

According to the HCE, the European authorities must “take up this issue”, starting by supporting the draft European regulation on online paedo-crime. It is also proposed that pornography be included under the heading of sexual exploitation in the European directive of 5 April 2011 on trafficking in human beings. The report also recommends criminalising the illegal sharing of sexual content, particularly intimate content distributed without consent: this could be included in Article 7 of the draft directive on violence against girls and women.

UPDATE THE DEFINITION OF PROCURING

Similarly, the HCE urges the authorities to act more firmly, in particular by legally defining prostitution and procuring, so that national laws can be better applied in the event of litigation. By redefining procuring, it would be possible to take into account all forms of commodification of sexuality, particularly those present on pornographic content platforms. In addition, the HCE proposes that pornography be assimilated to “filmed sexual exploitation”, a practice that is developing as a result of the expansion of digital technology. Jurisprudence has a poor grasp of prostitution on digital platforms: a ruling of 27 March 1996 shows that the Court of Cassation has stuck to a purely physical definition of prostitution: “prostitution consists of lending oneself, in return for remuneration, to physical contact of any kind, in order to satisfy the sexual needs of others”.

MAKE BETTER USE OF EXISTING CRIMINAL OFFENCES

The Haut Conseil de l’Égalité (High Council for Equality) also asserts that it is necessary to introduce a criminal policy equating certain forms of pornography with sexist and sexual violence, based on existing offences: exposure of minors to pornography (art. 227-23 C. pén.), child pornography (art. 223-27), incitement to hatred and violence (law 29 July 1181, art. 24). The HCE also advocates training magistrates on this issue, by including a module on pornocriminality in their initial and in-service training.

FACILITATE THE BLOCKING OF SITES THROUGH THE ISP

Lastly, the HCE calls on the Pharos reporting platform to act effectively, through collaboration with the competent authorities and Internet service providers (article 6-1 of the law of 21 June 2004), in order to remove or block illegal content, by extending its administrative police powers to content that glorifies physical and sexual violence, which could be done by assimilating it to acts of torture and barbarism.

The publication of this report therefore seems to reflect a growing awareness of the dangers of certain forms of pornography and the inaction of institutional players. On 18 October 2023, the Court of Cassation ruled that a child protection association can request the blocking of Internet access to a pornographic site accessible by minors, without going through the publisher (i.e. the person who broadcasts the site): all it has to do now is ask the Internet service provider directly (i.e. the person who transmits the site, such as Orange, Free, Bouygues Télécom, etc.). This is a major step forward for these associations, faced with publishers who are often based abroad.

This article was written, when it was first published, as part of a partnership with the Master 2 in Electronic Media Law at the University of Aix-Marseille, between October 2023 and January 2024. More articles can be consulted on the website of the Institut de recherches et d’études en droit de l’information et de la culture (IREDIC).

Source: https://www.lessurligneurs.eu/rapport-sur-la-pornocriminalite-une-lutte-plus-ferme-contre-limpunite-de-lindustrie-pornographique/

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PORNOGRAPHIC INDUSTRY: SYLVIE PIERRE-BROSSOLETTE (HCE) DENOUNCES A “MASSACRE FOR PROFIT”

[Translated from French]

The president of the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE) presented, on Wednesday November 15, to the deputies of the Law Committee the conclusions of the report “Pornocriminality: let’s put an end to the impunity of the pornographic industry “. The former journalist also criticized the government’s strategy regarding age control on websites offering adult content.

Women “crushed, massacred”. On Wednesday 15 November, Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, Chairwoman of the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE), presented the report “Pornocriminalité: mettons fin à l’impunité de l’industrie pornographique” (“Pornocriminality: let’s put an end to the pornographic industry’s impunity”), published on 27 September, to the National Assembly’s Law Commission. The former journalist, who wants to put an end to a “massacre for profit”, described an industry with “absolutely monstrous” practices and spoke of the need to strictly “regulate” the digital space.

A FAR CRY FROM “DADDY PORN”.

Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette began her presentation to the MPs by repeating the figures given by the public prosecutor in Paris, Laure Beccuau, at her Senate hearing in June 2022: “90% of pornographic videos contain violence that falls under the criminal code.” The president of the HCE, who denied wanting to “ban pornography”, believes it is necessary to “fight against the illegalities that it involves”.

“It is illegal to violate the integrity of the human body”, stressed Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, citing several degrading practices, such as “prolapse”, with women “so damaged that they are eviscerated, you can see the viscera coming out”. According to Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, “the degree of violence increases every year” for “click-through and commercial reasons”, in order to “win over new followers, new consumers, and make more money from advertising”.

In this case, the President of the HCE has high hopes for future trials relating to the French Bukkake and Jacquie et Michel cases: “This will prove that these are not just the ravings of specialists”, she explained, describing an industry that is a far cry from the “daddy porn”. These images, easily accessible on the Internet, have “absolutely abominable consequences for young people”, she warned. “They are rushing to the open bar of porn on iPhones from a very young age, 8-10 years old…”.

The President of the HCE is concerned about the “manufacture” of “whole generations of deranged people”, going so far as to speak of a “human tide of deranged or traumatised young people”. Another frightening fact: “85 million videos of child pornography are broadcast around the world every year, and 30% of them involve children under the age of 10”, the former journalist told MEPs.

A NEW ROLE FOR PHAROS?

“We must continue to prosecute the perpetrators, the managers, the producers, the rapists, the organisers, all those who are complicit in this illegal violent activity”, said Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette. But the President of the HCE believes that this will not be enough: “I don’t think the Internet can be totally free on footage like this”. In its report, the High Council for Equality proposes giving new powers to the Pharos reporting platform, so that it can remove or block videos containing “serious intentional attacks on the integrity of the person”.

The former journalist welcomed the adoption of a Socialist amendment to the bill “aimed at securing and regulating digital space” along these lines. This “introduces new content subject to Pharos control: the depiction of acts of torture and barbarism, and the depiction of rape”. However, the President of the HCE warns members of parliament about the use of the terms “depiction of rape”: “These could be simulated scenes”, explains Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, which could lead to confusion with cinematographic scenes, which are devoid of “real violence”. The issue could be settled at the next joint committee meeting on this text.

THE GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY QUESTIONED Referring to a “very alarming report”, Jean-François Coulomme (La France insoumise) expressed doubts about the government’s strategy: “The bill aimed at securing and regulating the digital space led us to believe that we could base the protection of minors online solely on technical devices”, said the elected representative, who believes it is necessary to insist on sex education during the school curriculum.” “As soon as a technical solution is put in place, the possibilities of circumventing it emerge very quickly”, he said.

This concern is not dissimilar to that of Cécile Untermaier (Socialists): “In view of the number of videos you have given us, it is quite clear that a judicial response will not suffice and that we need to work on prevention”. In particular, the HCE report proposes “rolling out a plan” to ensure the implementation of “three sessions on sex and emotional education in all classes”, provided for by law since 2001. Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette has herself expressed doubts about the government’s strategy for controlling the age of Internet users on pornographic sites.

The bill to secure and regulate the digital environment gives Arcom the power, in certain cases, to block websites that allow minors to view pornographic content. The bill stipulates that Arcom, after receiving the opinion of the CNIL, will publish a “reference system determining the minimum technical requirements applicable to age verification systems”.

“We’re in for 10 years of litigation”, laments Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, who believes that the guidelines will be “challenged before the European Court of Human Rights, the [European Union] Court of Justice and 50 other bodies”. According to her, “by the time all this has been sorted out, the guidelines will be obsolete”. The President of the HCE would have preferred to let the sites themselves define the control procedures: this would have made it possible to “observe” that their methods “are not effective” and therefore to “close down these sites”.

Source:

https://lcp.fr/actualites/industrie-pornographique-sylvie-pierre-brossolette-hce-denonce-un-massacre-a-but

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The hidden face of Wyylde

By CAPP, original French article: READ HERE

What is Wyylde?

Wyylde is a porn-prostitution site. It presents itself as a libertine site, connecting and organizing meetings and evenings between “practitioners”.

After some research, we discovered that Wyylde is the official competitor of Jacquie et Michel, a French porn “company” accused of aggravated pimping, aggravated human trafficking, torture and barbarity.

Libertine? No way. If you listen to the survivors of porn-prostitution, you will learn that libertine sites and circles are a gateway to prostitution networks. Many survivors attest to having started out this way.

We will return another day to a feminist critique of licentiousness. You can always read our posts on BDSM and polyamory.

After lifting the veil on the alleged “sexual freedom” promoted by Wyylde, we discovered that this site, formerly Netechangisme, is an instrument of pimping, serving as a platform for women victims of prostitution – just like Onlyfans can be. And besides, why this change of name? An effective marketing strategy, intended to erase the term “swapping”, very marked because of the many scandals linked to pimping and the sexual exploitation of women. What could be better than choosing a new English name to seduce an ever younger audience and transform a specialized practice, whose abuses and dangers are well established, into a so-called mainstream, acceptable, fun fantasy, “ wild”. Harmless and Freed, Wyylde? Don’t be fooled by their new branding. The protection of women and minors is not ensured on this platform: according to several testimonies, no moderation of the profiles or the site seems to be in place.

The more we investigate, the more we discover cases of procuring minors. Among the many alerts, one case, involving a magistrate recently brought to justice, was the subject of extensive media coverage: read for example the articles of Mediapart , Le Monde , or France Info . And Wyylde is not limited to a presence on the internet and social networks. In 2022, the site launched a massive advertising campaign in newspapers but also in the public space, with large posters in the street, on bus shelters and in the metro.

An aggressive promotion of their platform, which trivializes their messages on swinging and the hypersexualization of women. The public space and transport being open to all, the children were exposed and were able to discover this platform, its name and its objective. However, a simple click on their site, followed by a very easy registration (an email address is enough, no proof of identity is required) allows access to explicit and ultra violent pornographic content: images on profiles showing erect penises, penetrated women; groups to organize gang rapes in motorway service areas or racist- themed parties. We are far, very far, from the pseudo “party of pleasure” promised by the site on its advertisements, with smiles and candy pink color.

On social networks, Wyylde plays on several niches to increase its influence and reach an increasingly large audience. 

It naturally ensures its publicity in its quasi-native environment, pornography. We thus discover that one of the women promoting this site via a podcast is an effigy of Jacquie and Michel (Anna Polina), their competitor. 

More recently, Wyylde has extended its ramifications into the world of sex accounts created by women, via paid partnerships. These accounts, which define themselves as educational, liberated, even feminist, are perceived by their subscribers – women and young girls, mainly – as protected spaces. Insidiously, Wyylde can thus benefit from positive publicity with them, thwart their mistrust and make themselves known, while continuing to build the myth of a sexually “uninhibited” platform.

It is in this way that Wyylde gradually made its appearance in certain liberal spheres claiming to be feminist or displaying a so-called “sex positive” discourse, but also in the circles of radical feminists. This is also how we heard about it. We would also like to offer our deepest apologies to the women and survivors that we may have indirectly influenced, by following and sharing accounts that we thought were safe. We should have been more vigilant. 

Because we say it and we will always say it again: the so-called “libertine” sites, like Wyylde, are traps for women and obvious gateways to porn-prostitution. There are men who invent a bisexual tendency in their wives to fulfill their fantasies. There are also men who force women and spouses there or who manipulate them into accepting practices that they deem a priori unacceptable.
Wyylde also does a lot of promotion around candaulism. Candaulism is the act of “OFFERING” one’s partner to others. It is not only a reifying practice, but it is based on hypocrisy. Make no mistake about it: it is actually women who are generally offered, exchanged, treated like commodities.

Contrary to its official presentation, Wyylde is not just a simple dating site for “libertines”. Like porn sites, profiles are sorted by skin color and weight. It can be navigated by means of categories, including of course BDSM, gang bang, hardcore… but also cam sex, with the broadcast of live videos of “exhibitionists”, some of whom are underage – a copy of the camgirls porn sites.

Wyylde has nothing to envy to Jacquie et Michel.

It is very clear to us that the women remaining on this site are already very alienated from porn culture – and for some, are victims of prostitution.
Several testimonials relate the dangerousness of the site for women, especially for single women.

What men are looking for on Wyylde is no different, in practice, from what they are looking for in prostitution: a way to penetrate and submit when they want, how they want. The only difference is that on Wyylde, the man pays his subscription and the victim pays him too. Women looking for free relationships, men looking for hookers.

Full article on Wyylde by CAPP: READ HERE

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Sex Trafficking of Women for the Production of Pornography

Donna M. Hughes
Co-founder, Citizens Against Trafficking

Women used in the production of commercial pornography in the U.S. are often subjected to
violence and coercion during filming. Often they protest and try to stop the filming or back-out
before filming begins. Their protests are ignored or they are pressured by their agent or the
director to continue. Their experiences of coercion and trickery often meet the criteria for sex
trafficking.


Sex trafficking is a federal felony. Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation,
provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act which involves force, fraud,
or coercion, or in which the person involved has not attained 18 years of age. Sex trafficking is
punishable by up to 20 years in prison or life in prison if there are aggravating circumstances.
Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000, almost all federal sex
trafficking cases have involved prostitution. The use of adult victims in the production of
pornography has not been investigated. I believe this is an area that needs much more
attention by activists and law enforcement.


In cases of sex trafficking involving minor victims there have been numerous accompanying
charges for production of child pornography because the perpetrator has taken naked images
of the victim. To be a federal crime, the perpetrator does not have to use the images for
commercial purposes, nor is there a need to prove that force, fraud or coercion were used
because the victims are minors.


For our purpose, we are interested in demonstrating that there is sex trafficking of adult
women (over the age of 17) in the production of commercial pornography in the U.S.


I reviewed the testimonies of women used in the production of pornography to see if their
experiences met the criteria for sex trafficking. Several of these testimonies came from the pornography industry. She is now working to assist other women to escape pornography and hold the sex industry accountable for the harm it does to women

Force or Coercion


If any force or coercion is used to compel a woman to engage in a sex act that is filmed for
commercial purposes, that meets the legal criteria for violation of federal law. This
interpretation of the TVPA was first used in a BDSM (bondage and sadomasochism) case in
which the perpetrator, “slave master” Glenn Marcus filmed the torture of a victim and placed it
on his subscription-based web site. The Supreme Court upheld the forced labor and sex
trafficking conviction on May 24, 2010.

Most women entering the pornography industry don’t know what they will be subjected to.
Like most victims of sex trafficking, they need money and are looking for opportunities. The
agents, directors and producers take extreme advantage of these often naïve young women.
Their first experience making commercial pornography is often brutal and traumatic.
Madelyne knew nothing about the business or what was required, but was eager to make
money because she was broke and in debt.


She was “terrified” when she arrived at the studio to shoot her first scene. She said, “I tried
backing out and wanted to go home and not do porn at all.” She was reminded that she had
signed a contract so she couldn’t back out. “I was threatened that if I did not do the scene I was
going to get sued for lots of money.” “I experienced rough sex scenes and have been hit by
male talent [pornography actors] and told them to stop but they wouldn’t stop until I started to
cry and ruined the scene.”


She told the agent that she had “no limits” on what
she would do. Later, she said she had no idea what that meant. She signed a one year contract.

Madelyn’s description of her experience qualifies as coercion. Even if a victim initially consents
to sexual activity, she always has the option of withdrawing her consent and the activity should
stop. If her wishes are ignored, sex trafficking is occurring.

Alexa wrote: “My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged
me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could
barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel
movement was out of the question.” 7


Sierra Sinn wrote: “My first scene was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was very scary.
It was a very rough scene. My agent didn’t let me know ahead of time… I did it and I was crying
and they didn’t stop. It was really violent. He was hitting me. It hurt. It scared me more than
anything. They wouldn’t stop. They just kept rolling.”8


Both Alexa and Sierra Sinn’s experience describe the use of force in the production of
pornography. If the women protested or asked the actors or directors to stop and they did not,
this qualifies as force and is sex trafficking.


Preying on Drug Use or Addiction is a Form of “Non-violent and Psychological
Coercion”

The William Wiberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 added a new
type of coercion that can be used in sex trafficking cases. Preying on a victim’s drug use or
addiction (whether pre-existing or created by the trafficker) will, in and of itself, form the basis
for convicting traffickers under the TVPA.


Many testimonies of women used in the production of commercial pornography describe their
drug and alcohol addictions and how the pornographers manipulate them.
When Madelyne wanted to back out of doing her first pornography scene, in addition to being
threatened, “I ended up taking shots of vodka to get through it. …Porn producers provided
alcohol and drugs for me.”


Madelyne added: “As I did more and more scenes I abused prescription pills which were given
to me—anything I wanted–by several Doctors in the San Fernando Valley. I was given Vicodin,
Xanax, Norcos, Prozac and Zoloft. The doctors knew I did porn but still gave me any prescription
pills I wanted. All I had to do was tell them I needed them to get through hardcore scenes. … In
preparation for a scene in which multiple men ejaculated on Madelyne’s face, which she didn’t
want to do, “One of the crew members offered me vodka and beer.”

“My agent forced me to use a driver because he knew I was always wasted. About 75% of the
women who make porn have to have drivers because they’re addicted to drugs and alcohol.” 10
When Madelyne could not longer perform in porn scenes because “No one wanted to hire me
because of my drug and alcohol problem was out of control,” her agent suggested she go into
prostitution and stripping.
Madelyne suggested that the doctors might be receiving kick-backs from the pornography
producers.

According to Alexa: “There was always alcohol and drugs readily available on the sets….
Whatever you wanted, they would or could get it. In fact, the set I worked on for two videos,
the stars had their own ‘doctor’ with them! I would see the doctor giving out pills or giving …
injections.”


As anti-sex trafficking activists, we should be pressing the Department of Justice and the U.S.
Attorney in California to investigate the sex trafficking of women for the production of
commercial pornography by preying on victims’ addictions.


Fraud

If a person is compelled to engage in a commercial sex act (which includes the filming of
commercial pornography) through fraud she is a victim of sex trafficking. Using fraud means
tricking someone into doing something she didn’t anticipate.
Madelyne wrote: “The worst scene I ever did was during my first couple weeks in the business.
The agent who handled all my bookings called me the day before the scene and said it would be
similar to a solo masturbation scene. Then he added that there would also be about 10-15 guys
masturbating to me and ejaculating on my body. In the pornography industry this type of scene
is known as a ‘Bukakke.’


He said it would be quick and easy money. When I arrived I saw a
massively long line of men outside the studio. I recognized very few of them….most of them
were strangers I had never seen before.”Once inside the studio Madelyne learned that the men
lined up outside had been recruited by an ad in the LA Weekly to come and ejaculate on a
young porn actress’s face. She called her agent and protested, saying there were at least men waiting for the scene. “My agent told me that I had to do it and if I can’t, he would charge me and I would lose any other bookings I had because I would make his agency look bad.


These actions to compel this woman to make pornography constituted both fraud and
psychological coercion.


Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking Online Petition on Sex Trafficking in
the Pornography Industry


More anti-trafficking organizations and activists are investigating and raising awareness about
sex trafficking in the production of commercial pornography. The Florida Coalition Against
Human Trafficking has launched an online petition urging FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and
Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. to investigate the pornography industry for use of sex
trafficking against women and girls in the production of pornography. (The full text of the
petition is in the appendix.)


Women used in the production of pornography are victims of sexual violence and coercion.
They deserve the attention and support of anti-trafficking activists and law enforcement. In
your work to educate others about sex trafficking, remember to discuss sex trafficking in the
production of pornography.

NATIONAL PETITION TO INVESTIGATE
POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN TRAFFICKING
AND THE PORNOGRAPHY INDUSTRY


WHEREAS, Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking (FCAHT), through evidence
uncovered during research and investigations, has identified potential sex trafficking
victims inside the pornography industry.

FCAHT has found indicators that:

  • teen girls, boys and women are being recruited into the pornography industry
    with fraudulent promises of legitimate jobs at exaggerated pay rates;
  • once these victims are recruited and arrive at the trafficking destination, they
    are being held there by means of debt bondage, physical force and psychological
    coercion;
  • their pay for work performed is given directly to their “agent” or trafficker and
    these debts are deducted before any money, if any remains, is given to the
    victim;
  • the victims are given the “choice” to perform “privates”, which is illegal
    prostitution, to pay off their debt;
  • if the victim attempts to leave and/or speak out against the industry, they are
    physically and emotionally threatened to hold them captive and to keep them
    from seeking help with law enforcement agencies;

WHEREAS, the United States has identified the above actions to be indicators of sex
trafficking which is illegal per the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act and
Reauthorizations of 2003, 2005 and 2008;
WHEREAS, the pornography industry is a legal industry inside the United States and as
such, must submit to the laws of the TVPA and Reauthorizations of 2003, 2005 and
2008;
WHEREAS, spokespersons for the pornography industry have openly admitted in public
forums that they do not follow the laws of the United States;
WHEREAS, the pornography industry, in the United States alone, produces 89% of the
entire world’s hardcore pornography websites with earnings between $2.8 – $13 billion a
year, making it is one of the most profitable industries in the United States;
WHEREAS, FCAHT takes the stance that these indicators should be evaluated for
further awareness and possible action;
THEREFORE, I add my name and voice to those of countless American citizens calling
upon our United States Government to immediately join with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking in efforts to end the exploitation and trafficking of teen children and women in the pornography industry and stop modern-day slavery in the 21st century.

Specifically, I call on FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and Department of Justice Attorney
General Eric H. Holder, Jr. to:

  1. Initiate an investigation of these indicators to determine if, in fact, sex trafficking is
    taking place inside the pornography industry and, if so found, to take possible legal
    action against the pornography industry per TVPA and Reauthorizations provisions.
  2. Work with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking to establish and enforce a
    human rights-based code of conduct, including zero tolerance for forced labor,
    servitude, debt bondage and illegal commercial sex acts within the pornography
    industry in America.

Source

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Robin d’Angelo: a regulatory strategy

Written by CAPP International, translated from French with DeepL.

At a time when the debate on pornography is beginning to gain momentum in France following the opening of an investigation against the Jacquie & Michel website, and the subsequent arrest of several pimping “producers” thanks to a tip-off from three feminist associations, the filmed prostitution lobby is organizing to fend off the blows of abolitionists.

Together, we will analyze the way the media have communicated on the subject since the opening of this investigation, in order to pinpoint the strategy of the defenders of porn-prostitution, notably through the example of Robin d’Angelo.

Robin d’Angelo is a journalist who has “infiltrated” the porn industry in order to write a book on the subject. Some abolitionists relay his work to show the misogynistic violence that is commonplace in the industry.

Don’t get me wrong: although he’s helped expose this violence, this man is no ally, because he’s a regulationist. His goal? To make you believe that there is such a thing as “good porn” and “bad porn”. This idea obviously runs totally counter to the values of abolitionist feminists, for whom “ethical” porn doesn’t exist.

In all his interviews, Robin asserts that he believes this activity should be “regulated”, not “banned”. He argues that we need to create laws, supervise and protect “actresses”. These are exactly the same arguments as those hammered home by associations such as STRASS, which maintain that there is a difference between “forced” and “consenting” prostitutes.
In this debate, one of the trump cards played by those in favor of regulation is to blur the definitions of rape and pimping, by communicating in such a way as to make them ever more confusing.


For example, porn producer Nikita Bellucci posted on her twitter account the news that her colleague Pascal OP had been arrested for rape and pimping, candidly proclaiming that the industry needs to be cleaned up. It’s hard to believe her sincerity when you consider that she and her husband had known about the facts for a long time, without ever having denounced them… With this statement, we rather get the impression that Bellucci is brandishing this sordid example in order to better dissociate herself from the caricatured portrait of the pimp using violence to physically coerce women into prostitution, thus reinforcing the archaic belief that rape can only be defined by violence.

Yet the legal definitions of rape and pimping are very clear:

“Pimping is the act, by anyone, in any manner whatsoever:
1° Helping, assisting or protecting the prostitution of others ;
2° Profiting from the prostitution of others, sharing the proceeds or receiving subsidies from a person who habitually engages in prostitution;
3° To hire, train or divert a person with a view to prostitution, or to exert pressure on them to prostitute themselves or continue to do so.”

As for rape, it is defined by the penal code as.

“Any act of sexual penetration, of any kind whatsoever, committed on the person of another or on the person of the perpetrator by violence, constraint, threat or surprise”.

Consent is not mentioned.

  • This notion, often invoked by feminists who want to combat rape, but also by defenders of the prostitution system, is problematic. Indeed, when you consider the subject of prostitution and porn, it becomes clear that consent can be monetized and manipulated – particularly in a situation of control – that it is conditioned by our social construction based on sexist stereotypes, and that it can be the consequence of traumatic arousal.

It’s clear that regulators brandish consent to make you forget the constraint that leads women to say yes, a yes behind which lies a whole system of domination and pressure: patriarchy, capitalism.

  • It’s in the very nature of porn-prostitution to buy the yes of its victims, to make them consent, thereby suggesting that they alone are responsible, and to use this to prevent them from denouncing the intrinsic violence of this activity.
  • But back to Robin. In a recent interview on Konbini, he recounts the sexism and violence he witnessed on the Jacquie & Michel and Dorcel shoots he attended. In particular, he recounts how producers manipulate women to force them to “consent” to certain practices, for example, by taking them by surprise during the scene, then insisting, often to impose sodomy.

Robin makes it clear: “actresses don’t have the option of saying no”. So he describes rape, but without ever uttering the word. He also cites the reasons why the women he has met do porn: need for money, to feel valued, to please a boyfriend…

So we have a man who is clearly aware of the damage porn does to women. It would be easy for an uninformed audience to see him as a well-meaning man, eager to denounce an unfair situation and bring about change…

  • The interview starts to become problematic when he admits, with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement, to having taken part in certain scenes. However, he denies having shot penetration scenes, which he presents as the most dangerous for women. An insidious way of mitigating the violence of bukkake, the theme of the scene in which he admits to having made an appearance. Bukkake is a very popular practice in porn which consists in ejaculating as a group on a woman’s body, often her face or breasts. The aim of this practice is clearly to use women as “vessels”, to humiliate and dirty them.

At the start of the interview, Robin introduced himself as a pro-feminist and explained that he had been inspired to infiltrate the porn industry because he felt disturbed by the contradiction presented by watching porn that he identified as degrading to women. However, when he talks about it, bukkake seems to be acceptable to him, although he doesn’t go into detail and passes over it quickly.

It’s at the end of the interview that it becomes clear that his apparent criticism of gender-based violence in porn is very superficial. Indeed, he ends by saying that, in his opinion,

“porn is just a mirror of society and those who want to censor it want to make the mirror disappear as if it will destroy the image it reflects of them.”

We note the use of the word “censorship”, a pejorative term that designates an “arbitrary or doctrinal limitation of everyone’s freedom of expression”.

Speaking of censorship, he presents porn under the guise of fiction, a simple cinematographic work, an artistic means of expressing creativity. This is pornographers’ favorite technique for concealing the fact that, unlike action films in which scenes of violence are produced by special effects and acting, porn “actresses” actually suffer the abuse inflicted on them: strangulation, beatings, penetrations causing anal and vaginal tears, etc…

It’s surprising that Robin should present things this way, after going to such lengths to highlight the power imbalance between men and women in this industry, and the physical damage caused by repeated penetrations and other violence inflicted on “actresses”.

The ambiguity of its positioning is thus obvious from this final statement.

  • To sum up, porn-prostitution is a hotbed of misogynist violence, but the solution is not to “censor” this violence, but to try to improve the “working” conditions of “actresses”. In the end, it’s back to the myth of “good” porn and “bad” porn, “good” pimping and “bad” pimping, etc….

Pour faire passer cette idée – dont dépendent d’immenses profits pour l’industrie pornographique ainsi que le maintien d’un privilège masculin archaïque, la stratégie de Robin d’Angelo est la suivante : il commence par dénoncer des violences qui ne peuvent plus être niées maintenant que la parole des survivantes de la porno-prostitution se libère, faisant croire qu’il se range du côté de ces dernières, avant de conclure que la solution réside dans une meilleure réglementation du secteur pornographique.

It’s striking that all the media reporting on the Jacquie & Michel affair chose precisely the same angle.

  • On September 11, 2020, the newspaper 20 minutes published the testimony of Karima, one of the first Jacquie & Michel victims to speak out.
  • Barely a few days later, a second article appeared in the same daily newspaper, containing several more of the dozens of survivors’ testimonies that followed Karima’s story. The facts of psychological and sexual violence recounted by these women were chilling, but the journalist nonetheless managed to conclude his article… by promoting Onlyfans, presented as a “safer” platform for those wishing to launch into “sex work”.
  • As for Elle magazine, in its September 18 issue it published a double-page article entitled “porno mais réglo”, extolling the virtues of so-called “feminist” or “ethical” porn. The article only hints at the “all-too-frequent abuses in the porn industry”, without a word for the victims, and presents the solution as better salaries, “a more humane environment, and above all better supervision”. Here, the main argument in favor of this type of “porn” is that more and more women are consuming it, and this demand must of course be met.

Nowhere did we read that attempts to regulate prostitution have always failed, nor that studies have proven that desireless penetration, whether on camera or not, is a form of violence in itself, with serious physical and psychological consequences.

  • Above all, it’s striking how quickly the media diverted the public’s attention from these revelations to instantly offer them an alternative presented as revolutionary. The observer’s reasoning is thus short-circuited before the conclusion can be drawn in his or her mind that porn-prostitution is filmed rape, because of the constraint it implies for the “actresses”. Rape is essential to the production of the pornographic images demanded by consumers.

The words of survivors, now too numerous to be ignored, are misused to make them seem like a new wave of revelations in the wake of #metoo, putting them on the same level as those of victims of sexual violence in sport or cinema, for example. It’s as if porn “actresses” could be protected in the same way as figure skaters, and that all it would take to put an end to rape in this field was to raise awareness.

The strategy deployed by the defenders of filmed prostitution, from Nikita Bellucci to the editors of Elle and Robin d’Angelo, lies in superficially criticizing the obvious sexism of this milieu, pretending to be indignant about the violence revealed by the victims as if we were only just discovering it, and then using the “ethical porn” model as a decoy to avoid questioning the industry itself at all costs.

We can therefore measure how far we still are from the demands made by abolitionist feminists and, in the first instance, by survivors of porn-prostitution.

WHAT SURVIVORS WANT:
Survivors are calling for an end to the commodification of bodies in all its forms – the only real way to put an end to this unbearable violence.

To this end, they are trying to inform the general public about the disastrous consequences of pornographic practices, not only for the “actresses” – whether “consenting” or not – but for society as a whole.

They insist that content presented as “ethical” is nothing but a scam, both a new loss leader and a front to whitewash an industry that continues to enrich itself on the most despicable macho violence.

They try to dismantle the notion of consent, because they know the mechanisms that construct this famous “consent” based on economic pressure, manipulation, traumatic terrain and sexist societal constructs that lead women to believe that their value lies in their degree of “fuckability”. They also understand that “consent” in no way alleviates the physical and psychological consequences for women who are victims of the violence of repeated unwanted sexual encounters filmed and broadcast on a large scale, with no possibility of controlling these images for the rest of their lives.

Feminist abolitionists are calling for real reflection on what it means for society as a whole, and for new generations in particular, to agree to place our imaginations and fantasies in the hands of profit-hungry industrialists.

Finally, they alert us to the danger posed by lobbies who use every means at their disposal to keep public opinion on their side, using well-honed communication techniques, as the examples cited in this article show. Any intermediate proposal between the current situation and the total abolition of porn-prostitution is a scam.

Written by CAPP International!

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French prosecutors want porn violence suspects to stand trial

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.

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VICTORY: The Senate against pornographic violence!

This Wednesday, March 1st, the Senate voted a resolution calling for the fight against pornographic violence to be made a public policy priority. We welcome this awareness and this salutary vote and invite the government to finally act.

On September 28, 2022, the Delegation of Women’s Rights of the Senate published a report entitled: “Porn, the hell of the decor”. After months of hearings, the findings are clear. The pornographic industry is a pimp industry in the most total illegality, which commits sexist and sexual violence on an industrial scale.

Multiple lawsuits, all over the world, are multiplying. In France, the producers are under investigation for rape, aggravated pimping, human trafficking, or acts of torture and barbarism. Dozens of women are speaking out to demand justice. Pornhub is accused in the USA of knowingly distributing child pornography.

The pornographic industry, which represents 27% of online videos, broadcasts millions of sexist, racist, pedocriminal and homophobic videos. Women are humiliated, violated and tortured.

Following this report, Senators Annick BILLON, Alexandra BORCHIO FONTIMP, Laurence COHEN, and Laurence ROSSIGNOL have decided to propose an ambitious resolution asking the government to make the fight against pornographic violence a public policy priority.

The resolution states:

“that the exploitation and commodification of women’s bodies and sexuality have become an industry on an international scale that generates several billion euros in profits each year” ;

“that pornographic contents are today accessible to all and to all, without any control of the proof of majority of the Internet users, in violation of the penal code;

“that these contents convey sexist, racist and homophobic representations, constituting criminal offences”;

“that the broadcasters, platforms and social networks, knowingly ignore their responsibilities;

“that pornography is a place of learning about sexuality by default, which generates a distorted and violent vision of sexuality, traumas, early sexualization and the development of risky behaviors”;

“that the numerous illicit contents published are never completely removed, even after they have been reported”.

This resolution calls for a collective awareness and asks the government to act, starting with an interministerial plan to fight against pornographic violence, and in particular by reinforcing the means at the penal level.

This text was presented by more than 250 signatories, including 7 group presidents, gathering a record number of co-signatures in the Senate under the Fifth Republic, thus showing a strong transparent consensus on this central issue.

We welcome the Senate resolution, voted unanimously yesterday. We demand that the government, as well as the institutions that are supposed to regulate the digital world, finally become aware of the absolute priority of the fight against pornographic violence. Pornography is the school and the legitimization of sexist and sexual violence. We firmly denounce the reluctance and refusal to act of ARCOM, the CNIL and PHAROS. Their responsibility is great in the persistence of the impunity of the pornocriminal industry.

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