Sexual violence: "The porn industry is having its #MeToo moment"

Amateur porn video platforms are in deep trouble.

The police have multiplied in recent days the crackdowns behind the scenes of an industry with little regard for human rights.

Four men were indicted on September 30 for human trafficking in an organized gang and gang rape in the investigation in Paris on the "French Bukkake" pornographic video platform, we learned from a judicial source.

These arrests bring to sixteen the number of men - actors, directors, producers - prosecuted in this case.

The vast majority of them are incarcerated.   

The first kick in the anthill was carried out in October 2020, following an initial investigation opened in Paris a few months earlier.

She was targeting the "Jacquie et Michel" video platform, the embodiment of French amateur porn.

The first elements of the investigation revealed widespread abuses against vulnerable women victims of sexual violence and forced to perform sexual acts on and off camera by actors, directors and producers, anxious to satisfy consumer demand. always bigger.

In all, there are fifteen men who worked in France, in particular on the "Jackie and Michel" platform, who risk being prosecuted, most of them in police custody pending their trial.  

"Young women are taken seriously"

These two investigations open a reflection and a questioning of the entire French pornography industry.

"There is change in this environment, says Khadija Azougach, a lawyer in Paris specializing in violent crimes and spokesperson for L4 Women, a feminist association against all forms of violence against women. The porn industry knows its #MeToo moment. We feel that these young women are taken seriously when they talk about what they have been through."  

A sign of the importance of awareness, the political world has also taken up the subject: in a report made public on September 27, the delegation for women's rights in the Senate estimated that the fight against "systemic violence against women" generated by the pornographic industry had to become a "public and penal policy priority".   

"Illegally Locked Up"

It must be said that the elements of the investigation into "French Bukkake" which are spreading in the French media paint a frightening picture of the working conditions of women.

"Some girls said they were locked up illegally, others said they were fed dog food," says Khadija Azougach. "[The attackers] did everything they could to make the girls even more vulnerable to exercise their influence over them."  

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In this same investigation, almost everything overwhelms those responsible.

At the heart of the case are two producers, the owner of the French site "French Bukkake" Pascal Ollitrault (professionally known as Pascal OP) and his associate Mathieu L. (professionally known as Mat Hadix), both in awaiting judgment.  

The issue of consent 

A flurry of SMS and WhatsApp messages sent between the two men and their associates were discovered when police raided Ollitrault's home in October 2020. According to Le Monde, the two men managed a supply chain of women, treating them largely as commodities.  

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Some messages between the two men, with racist overtones, included photos of naked women, memes and exchanges underline the illegal nature of their activities, in particular on accusations of rape of women.

The analyzes of the videos by the gendarmes of the research section of Paris, "really questioned the consent of young women to the various sexual performances", since in various passages, they verbally opposed sexual practices which were imposed on them.

"They were forced to do things without their consent because, apparently, there was a demand for this type of film", explains Khadija Azougach.

"We cannot describe them as fictional films because the women depicted in them have been raped."   

Updating a system  

The incriminated men are also suspected of having attacked vulnerable French women or women from the East by first inviting them to prostitute themselves and then to be filmed by dangling hypothetical financial windfalls.   

To find "actresses" for filming, an operating mode was identified by the investigators: a tout, posing as an "ally" woman, "Axelle", convinced these women canvassed on the Internet, often with life courses difficult and deprived, to prostitute themselves.

This tout then turned into a client and obtained from them a sexual service aimed at removing their reluctance to paid sex.  

After having left them without pay, "Axelle" contacted them again to suggest a new way to bail them out, via high-paying porn videos intended for Canada.

But the film ended up being accessible everywhere, including in France.   

France, first to react  

“In some places it is thought that it is not porn that is the problem, but children's access to it,” says Dr Emily Setty, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Surrey, UK -United.

"But what France is trying to say in handling these cases is on the contrary that there is something deeply problematic in the porn industry itself." 

This case, which shakes the whole profession, makes France a pioneer in the fight against the abuses of the porn industry.

Because many other countries are facing the same problem.

“France is more advanced than some countries in trying to enforce this legislation,” concludes Neil Thurman, professor of media at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.

"I can already see some countries following France's example. Once the French authorities have evidence of the effectiveness of their legislation, it is possible that other countries will follow."  

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