Justice

These Porn Companies Are Dropping James Deen

December 1st 2015

Following multiple sexual assault allegations against porn star James Deen, porn companies Kink.com, Wood Rocket, and Evil Angel have severed ties with him, and sex toy retailer Doc Johnson has reportedly abandoned its James Deen adult toy line as well. Deen has also reportedly stepped down from the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) board of directors.

RELATED: Adult Film Star Stoya Accuses Ex-Boyfriend James Deen Of Rape

James Deen Sex ToyDoc Johnson

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Deen's former girlfriend Stoya wrote on Twitter that it's been difficult to see Deen be called a feminist online because he sexually assaulted her. After Stoya's comments gained traction on social media, former porn actress Tori Lux and current porn actress Ashley Fires both claimed Deen assaulted them as well.

Deen has denied the allegations on Twitter, but several porn production companies and sex industry companies have distanced themselves from him nonetheless. ATTN: has reached out to Deen's production company but has not heard back at the time of publication.

"We are taking the allegations against James Deen very seriously," Chad Braverman, the COO and creative director of Doc Johnson, told Broadly. "And in light of the recent accusations we have decided to no longer proceed with the products that we make on his behalf."

Evil Angel, which has distributed close to 100 movies featuring Deen, told storytelling publication, Vocativ that it has halted sales of recent scenes involving Deen.

Evil Angel

“In light of the recent accusations against James Deen, Evil Angel today has decided not to sell any newly created scenes featuring Deen,” company’s president John Stagliano said in a statement to Vocativ. “While our company presents what is consensual and exploratory about aggressive and rough sex, these accusations are of a nature so contrary to our company values that we feel it necessary to suspend the sales until more information is available.”

Kink.com, a BDSM pornography studio and major employer for Deen, told SF Weekly in a statement that it has cut ties with him as well.

"For the Kink.com community, as well as the larger BDSM community, consent and respect are sacrosanct. Effective immediately, Kink.com will cease all ties with James Deen, both as a performer and a producer. Our performers deserve not only safe sets, but the ability to work without fear of assault. Rape or sexual assault, with or without a safe-word, off-set or on, should never be accepted as a hazard of adult production. While many of the allegations against Deen are new, the pattern is alarming. Over the coming weeks and months, we will review our Model Bill of Rights to strengthen rights of performers off-set, and work with the larger industry to help performers to have been assaulted to more easily come forward."

ALSO: More Women Come Forward With Allegations Against James Deen

Kink.com dropped Deen on the same day that Ashley Fires revealed in a Daily Beast interview that Deen tried to assault her at Kink Studios one night. A Kink.com spokesperson told SF Weekly that the company "only learned of the alleged assault at its studio" on Monday morning. Fires told the Daily Beast of her account of the incident:

"I was getting out of the shower of the communal bathroom at Kink, I reach for my towel to dry off, and he comes up from behind me and pushes himself and his erection into my butt. He pushes me against the sink and starts grabbing on me and I was like, ‘No, no, no James, no,’ and he released me from his grasp, and says, ‘You know, later if you want to fuck around I’m in room whatever-it-was. I was like, ‘Fuck you.’ I didn’t even know this guy, he was so out of line and entitled with my body.”

Fires told BuzzFeed News in another interview that she didn't know how to report Deen to Kink.com when the assault took place.

“Is there a complaint form you fill out?” she said "rhetorically," according to BuzzFeed News. “Is there a human resources department? How do you even go about making a complaint? I don’t know.”

Following the slew of sexual assault claims, women's lifestyle site the Frisky has removed Deen's column from its site, and Deen has also reportedly resigned from the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) board of directors.

"APAC recognizes the seriousness of the statements made by performers in the community and that they indicate a major conflict between a board member and other members of the organization,” the organization said in a statement on Monday. "The APAC Board wants to state unequivocally that we stand with performers and other sex workers who are victims of any sort of sexual assault. APAC is committed to being a safe space for performers, and to creating a safer and healthier industry.”

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