Accused rapist wins ‘Porn Oscars’

A male pornography "star" who has been repeatedly accused of rape won two “Porn Oscars” at the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards Saturday in Las Vegas.

James Deen was "honored" with two AVN awards for pornography.  He had been nominated for 33 "Porn Oscars."  

In 2015, Deen was accused of forcible rape by porn star Stoya, Deen's ex-girlfriend.

Stoya's accusations opened a Pandora's Box against Deen, with so far at least eleven other women going public with allegations of forcible rape, punching them in the face and other violence, degrading behavior, choking until the victim passed out, ignoring their "safe" word (to stop), and sexual assault, both on and off pornography sets.

One of the smutty videos Deen was nominated for had a storyline about a woman who was forcibly kidnapped, and the script "played with the boundaries of consent."

Before the allegations surfaced, Deen was considered a feminist, and many pornographers pointed to Deen as an example of a positive, respectful role model in porn, and of the gentlemanly, "pro-woman" effects of pornography.

The softcore porn magazine Maxim, which had a reporter live at the porn awards, noted, "No one wanted to publicly bash him (Deen)."

"The porn industry has a long history of promoting sexual violence in the 'films' they produce," Haley Halverson of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation said in an interview.  "A recent study revealed that 88% of the scenes from popular porn movies featured verbal or physical violence against a woman, so it should be no surprise that the porn industry is comfortable with lauding a man who stands accused of sexual assault."

"Pornography is built on the premise that degrading and harming others is sexually pleasurable."

Relatedly, AVN cancelled a discussion forum on the subject of Consent that was set to take place the day of the awards.  The oxymoronic title for the panel, promoted out of concern for women’s safety, was "Consent Degrees: Yes, No and Everything in Between."

The pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar profit-making machine, which is often criticized for degrading women and sending the message that when women say "No," they actually want to be coerced, or even forced, into sex.

Deen has denied all nine women's allegations of rape and violence.  The porn star told Maxim, "It’s the thing that I love to do the most . . . perform.”