Consent, Coercion and Rough Race Play Gone Wrong: Who’s Looking Out For Adult Performers?

Chatsworth, Calif. — Adult performers Leigh Raven and Riley Nixon sent tremors through Porn Valley today, when they leveled charges of abuse, deceit and consent violations on the set of  two separate rough sex / race play scenes opposite male talent Rico Strong, in a video created and posted to YouTube by fellow performer Nikki Hearts.

Both Raven and Nixon were already veterans of rough sex and interracial (IR) scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=UfS48ts2x0Y

The allegations are so disturbing that Hearts, who is Raven’s wife, added a Trigger Warning to the video’s title and description, noting “this video describes violent acts of sexual assault.”

In the video, Hearts also provides “her perspective on the abuse” for some reason.

Riley Nixon bolstered her own claim with the following astute tweet:

Porn Twitter was fast to react.

The outpouring of support from the adult community is telling. As performer Kimberly Kane wrote today on Twitter, “feelers went up” among the women of the adult world when they heard Raven’s and Nixon’s accounts, simply because incidences of ‘bait and switch’ impinging upon consent are regrettably far from unheard-of — particularly in the experience of performers who self-book shoots.

In a statement, the Free Speech Coalition also expressed its outrage of the charges leveled by the two performers who stated that they had “suffered abuse, consent violations, deception and assault”

“A performer’s control over their own body is an inviolable principle of this industry. Consent is always granted, not taken. Violating consent is not only unethical, it’s criminal.

“Sex workers do not give up their right to consent when they enter a set or sign a contract.”

A little rough

When performers are violated in the way the women describe, disrespected, abused and taken advantage of, two questions obtrude themselves: who is to blame, and whose responsibility is it to shield performers from this kind of violation?

Another issue bears clarification: what these performers have alleged may be criminal, but it’s probably not sexual assault under California law.

A rape conviction in California, as in most states, requires 1) nonconsensual sexual intercourse, 2) accomplished by means of threats, force or fraud, or with a victim who is unconscious or otherwise incapable of consenting.

According to the women’s own accounts, they consented to sex, as well as to some amount of violence. The crux of the sexual assault issue is whether any force, coercion or duress was used to make the women have sex, or continue having sex.

The allegations in this case appear to concern consent obtained by fraud and/or an overstepping of boundaries.

But since this is a contractual workplace situation, where rough sex was the bargained-for thing, it’s not (as some have wondered aloud online) a clear case of “rape by deception”. That crime has been interpreted to include private consensual intercourse that follows a material misrepresentation by one of the parties—a significant lie that one party tells the other to obtain consent to sex.

A 2013 legal analysis of this issue put it this way:

Consent on false pretenses seems, on its face, very different from non-consent, in some of the ways that an armed robbery seems very different from a con game.

In addition to our visceral sense that rape is categorically different from consent on false pretenses is the suspicion that a large number—if not a majority—of people have engaged in obtaining consent under false pretenses.  That is, deceiving a potential sexual partner about one’s desirability is common in sexual interactions.  People routinely wear perfume and deodorants that disguise their body odor; they wear makeup that disguises facial flaws or install hair plugs that disguise baldness; some color, straighten or curl their hair or undergo cosmetic surgery (including breast enhancement and reduction, liposuction, etc.).  Many prospective sex partners would be turned off to sex with someone if they had the opportunity to see or smell the deceiving individual in all of his or her glory.  Yet it would utterly trivialize the crime of rape to suggest that wearing hair plugs or using deodorant might convert consensual sex into rape.

Traditionally, one cannot consent to what amounts to a criminal act. However, there are notable exceptions, such as sports (think: prize fighting or hockey), in which participants agree to the risk of violent force and/or incidental injury.  This represents a criminal law version of the civil law principle volenti non fit injuria (Latin for: “to a willing person, injury is not done”) under which valid consent does not make for an actionable injury because the prospective plaintiff consents to run the risk (not the certainty) of injury arising within the rules of the game being played.  

The principle is: when someone engages in an event accepting and aware of the risks inherent in that event, then they cannot later complain of, or seek compensation for an injury suffered during the event.

Many debate whether consensual sexual activity is properly analogous to “sports”, but the present situation is even more complex: it involves an employment contract, not a consensual outing, and the issue exists of whether valid consent was ever obtained in the first place.

Firstly, because, according to his accusers, Rico Strong’s actions on set allegedly violated the conditions set forth in the sit-down “consent talk” between and amongst the talent and the director, and secondly because the women were allegedly led to believe (by Rico) that the scene was something far milder than what he knew the director wanted.

Now, I don’t have a problem with rough sex content or race play scenarios, as long as everyone involved knows what is expected of them and has their boundaries respected.  And we must also bear in mind that producers of rough scenes have generally courted controversial reputation: something that may make them an inviting target.

I’m not aware of any evidence that the producer misled anyone in this case; the deception, if any, seems to be alleged to have been done by male talent Rico Strong, by using his personal relationship with the female performers to get them to come to set.

However, the existence of an intimate three-party relationship between Strong, Raven and Hearts is a double-edged sword, for it might add another level of complexity that would be absent in a strictly business situation.

Is this the end of Rico?

Rico Strong is a large man. He too is a veteran of race play and rough sex scenes. And he is either a reliable performer with whom directors and talent “never had a bad experience”, or an angry, petty thug; it all depends on who you ask.

Opinions of directors I’ve spoken with run the gamut, although it appears that his rep has gotten worse since his February 2016 Caverject-induced priapism surgery forced a costly break from employment.

Several porners have also claimed that Strong has a gambling problem, and is often somewhat desperate for cash.

I’ve also heard a few stories like these, which were Tweeted today:

Two performers repped by the small agency Coxxx Models added their own experiences:

However, the veracity of Anastasia’ Rose’s account has been cast in grave doubt. And even if every charge and complaint that turns up online about Strong is true, the only thing that matters in this case is what actually happened after Riley Nixon and Leigh Raven showed up to their respective sets.

Strong responded to Nikki Hearts’ posting of the interview video with a series of angry and incredulous tweets, reproduced here in part:

One may draw a number of conclusions from Strong’s response, but it’s dangerous to do so.  His vehement public stand might show a guilty man in denial, or an innocent one blindsided by nightmarish allegations. After all, what is the “appropriate” response by someone who has been falsely accused? How different would it look than a guilty person’s deflections?

Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald, improbably accused in 1970 of murdering his wife and children, then stabbing himself almost to death to cover it up, is widely believed to have turned public opinion against him after his demeanor was adjudged “inappropriate” in his TV interview with Dick Cavett.  American Amanda Knox was subjected to the same kind of criticism during her murder trial in Italy.

Such second-hand postmortems are highly subjective and unreliable, and in the case at hand, it will all come down to what the video(s) shot on the day in question, the statements of direct witnesses, and other material evidence, shows.

Leigh Raven’s wife Nikki Hearts had this to say:

UPDATE – March 12:

Raven, who has received a hard time online, has appealed to people’s perceptions of the site she erroneously claims paid for the shoot (Facial Abuse) — which she may have selected because it is undeniably a soft target — and of her own propensity for truth..

Whose job is it anyway?

While Leigh Raven booked her scene without the use of a talent agency, Riley Nixon was booked for her January 2018 scene through her former agent, whom she did not name in the YouTube video.  Nixon, a Penthouse Pet and AVN/XBiz Starlet of the Year nominee, is still listed on the website of Gregg Dodson’s Skyn Talent, but she has moved on and is currently self-booking.

Self-empowerment aside, the risks attendant to booking one’s own work, in porn, or any area of entertainment, may best be illustrated by the case of aspiring model and ex-Raiderette cheerleader Linda Sobek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycNNWvt-o9w

Sobek self-booked a modeling shoot with a photographer named Charles Rathbun in 1995.  He got her drunk, then raped and murdered her, and her remains were later found in the Angeles National Forrest.  I knew her agent at the time, and she was certain that Sobek had become a victim because she had surreptitiously taken a job behind her agent’s back.  She didn’t have to pay her agent a fee, but she lost her life.

Entertainment is a competitive and often cruel business; Los Angeles is charged with insults, flattery, rejection and approbation. With the adult industry hammered by free online porn, steady work can be hard to come by.

A paucity of jobs also tends to drive down wages. In both cases, with Leigh and Riley, other adult directors claim the ladies were grossly underpaid. Allegedly they received only $900 each, which is reportedly quite low for a 50-minute scene that is 30 minutes of extra rough bj and 20 mins of rough sex.

As the outrage over the sexual harassment and rape charges against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein rages, some victims, such as Rose McGowan, blame the agents and managers who repeatedly sent young actresses into Weinsteins lion’s den. Their number one job, McGowan et al correctly assert, is to protect their clients.

Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon was quoted in today’s Hollywood Reporter as saying that Hollywood rewards actors who “don’t ask questions”, adding:

“It’s very complicated, in my business especially, because it’s all about your sexual currency,” she said. “Whether you actually deliver to anyone in charge to get a job that way — people hire women they want to be with and men they want to be. And anyone that falls in between is a character actor.”

“”I think that we can’t condemn someone, we can’t slut-shame somebody for embracing their seductiveness. But, at the same time, you want to have enough power and economic stability to able to say no, to not be in a Harvey Weinstein situation where your work is held hostage and you’re forced to do things you don’t want to do.”

These sentiments were seconded this week by actor Michael Caine, who explained in an interview how new talent in Hollywood are often preyed upon.

‘It’s when they’re slightly unknown and they need it. Do you know what I mean? You can’t tell Elizabeth Taylor, ‘You’re going to have to screw me to get this part.'”

In the adult business, just as in Hollywood, there are good agents and bad ones. The best among them would likely not have ever booked the scenes in question, and if they had, things would have certainly gone down differently than what has been alleged.

A quick check of which talent agency represented the women who have this week come forward with stories of abuse is revealing. Performers would be well-advised to be extra cautious when accepting bookings made by agents who are not physically located in the same city as the producer, or who treat their agency business as a sideline to other enterprises.

Leading talent agent and AVN Hall of Famer Mark Spiegler of Spiegler Girls told Ethical.porn:

A lot of the time, especially if the girl is new, they don’t really necessarily know what’s coming. Like if we’re gonna have girls work for Kink.com — who are actually pretty ethical … they treat the girls really nice — but before I let anyone work for them I have them watch [their content], you know, to get a sense of what’s coming. Because even though what you see on screen is not how it’s made, you get more of a sense. Some other people will just throw the girls in there, and they don’t care…. I want them to go into a shoot with the most possible information.

But also, I tell everyone, if there’s a problem just call me. Don’t wait until afterward… And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people feel under pressure that, you know — “We’re on camera, we gotta get the product done.” — that they’ll just go through whatever and complain afterwards. But, you know, once they know us and the business, they know to just call us.

Where the problems arise — it’s kind of our business to filter those out. I mean, there are particular people that we won’t book the girls with… Like Max Hardcore — we’d never book girls with him. That’s our job — to try as best we can to filter out the negative stuff for the girls.

Agent Sandra McCarthy of OC Modeling told me, “I always tell the girls: the one thing is, if you’re ever uncomfortable on set, grab your phone and call me and make me the bad guy.  Sometimes producers will push them. I say to my talent, ‘Tell them you need to go to the bathroom, or grab a cigarette, and call me.’

“I’ve literally gone down the set when girls have called to say they’re uncomfortable. Directors don’t like that; but I won’t take shit.”

McCarthy also repped Rico Strong at one time, but says she dropped him.  She is not a fan of his behavior, or what she views as his attitude toward women.

In no way am I blaming any performer for anything that may happen to them on a self-booked shoot, or any shoot; the fault and culpability lies strictly with the offender.

In terms of prudent preventative measures, allow me to repeat here the advice of adult producer/director/performer Jules Jordan: ask detailed questions, and educate yourselves.

And remember that the power to say ‘no’ is yours, as performer Jaclyn Taylor noted:

But talent agents are there to protect you. It’s what their fee is for.

As the adult business continues to work on ways to propound ‘best practices’ and push out the deadbeats and wrongdoers, agents will remain the first and best line of defense for performers.