Diving into the “decor hell” of the porn industry

• Four senators unveiled this Wednesday a long report on the porn industry and its many abuses.

• In addition to various recommendations, this work draws up a chilling inventory of an environment where violence against women is “systemic”.

“L'enfer du décor” is a 140-page report that took more than six months of work for the four senators who got down to it.

Behind these figures and their recommendations hide broken life trajectories and tragic testimonies.

The pornography industry “generates systemic violence against women generally,” the report states bluntly.

On consumer screens as well as on film sets, porn actresses are transformed into "prey", "robot", "slaves"...

sums up this dive into the "hell" of industrial porn.

Of “modern slavery”

Actors and actresses, sociologists and associations interviewed describe to senators a massification of pornography which touches on slavery.

"Pornography is modern slavery," says Nadia, whose testimony was originally published in the journal

in 2016. Robin d'Angelo, who published the book

after a survey in the middle, says: “Many so-called professional actresses live in situations of total precariousness.

An analysis shared by journalist Marie Maurisse.

“Very precarious women, in great economic and social difficulty, were present without knowing what they were doing there, without knowing how they had landed there, because they needed money.

They did that for a few tens of euros.

They are abused, although they have technically given their consent,” she explains in the report.

“They knew that I had money worries and that in my environment, it was complicated, and that I had difficulties (…) I was the ideal prey”, blows a former porn actress, complainant in the French Bukkake case.

The senators' report recounts a multitude of cases where women's consent is extorted and actresses forced to consent to increasingly brutal and even dangerous practices.

“No rules, no control”

Because the safety of the women who support it is not at the heart of the porn industry's priorities.

Apart from the age of the actress, whose identity card is scrutinized to avoid falling into child pornography, "there were absolutely no rules, no controls, not even concerning the wearing of condoms" , denounces Marie Maurisse, who investigated the sector.

Women are pushed to "do as many things as possible in front of the camera" and the salaries being very low "an actress who refused certain practices - sodomy for example - is today pushed to accept them", underlines the journalist.

Beyond the financial aspect, some young women find themselves on the sets without knowing exactly what awaits them.

"She finds herself doing lots of things that she did not want to do, of which she was not informed, including quite violent scenes", says Marie Maurisse, who denounces the "eldorado" of film shootings in Eastern Europe, where “everything is done under the radar”.

Violence is "the rule, not the exception"

In the world of pornography, violence is therefore not uncommon.

Sandrine Goldschmidt, communications officer at Mouvement du Nid (an abolitionist association), assures us that they are “the rule, not the exception (…).

This is sponsored sexual violence”.

“Gonzo” porn, which uses big shots and small budgets, has become more popular over the years.

American sociologist Gail Dines has been studying the porn industry for two decades.

"Nevertheless," she says, "the speed at which hardcore and cruel porn has come to dominate the internet has amazed me.

Over the years, I saw the images become more and more hardcore, but they were still far from the brutality of the now commonplace gonzo”.

The report mentions two studies that analyzed the most popular videos.

“90% of the scenes contained acts of violence,” reports the senators.

Interviewed in January 2022, the spokesperson for the abolitionist association Les Effronté.es denounced “genuine acts of torture, unprecedented violence, in a search for dehumanization, not at all sexual freedom as the defenders of this industry claim. ".

Robin d'Angelo has also noticed a "form of normalization of violence, quite striking and quite strong".

The eroticization of rape

And the industry's influence on violence against women goes far beyond filming.

Producers “script” rape and “eroticize sexual violence,” the report notes.

On the sites, the vocabulary of rape is used for many sections "with keywords without ambivalence: anal surprise, surprise fuck, taken by surprise, unwanted facial...", lists Claire Charlès, spokesperson for the association. Les Effronté.es Other categories related to crimes exist, such as kidnapping or sequestration.

Nadia, a former porn actress, remembers being "really humiliated" during filming.

“We take very violent blows, we get spat on, pulled by the hair (…).

X is repeated rapes, it's inhuman, ”she says.

“None of us consented.

We were willing to have the money, but not what happened to us, ”explains one of the victims of the French Bukkake case, which gave rise to several indictments.

“Victim alienation often begins with a first rape, termed 'submissive rape',” the report notes.

A victim recounts: "the first rape, with all the stratagems, made me a robot who only obeys men who lobotomized me, trivialized these acts".

"Dehumanized" or even "tortured", some actresses tell of being "out of their body", a common dissociation in the event of rape.

Another woman explains that she was forced to eat the producer's dog food.

Long ignored, the excesses of the porn industry are finally attracting attention.

And through this bitter report, the senators hope to mobilize on sexual violence that remains in the shadows while being displayed freely on our screens.

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• Company

• Porn

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• Rape

• Violence against women

• Sexual violence