The porn star, writer and creative has spoken about her rape, as well as the framework of today’s adult entertainment industry
Porn star, writer and adult entertainment company mogul Stoya has spoken candidly about her relationship with James Deen, her rape and the shape of today’s porn industry.
In a profile published in New York Magazine, Stoya details the build up to last November, when she tweeted about how her ex-boyfriend Deen raped her during their two-year relationship. “There had never in my life been a time where someone had held me down and penetrated me with their penis while I used all the words that you should be able to use to stop it,” she said. She detailed her PTSD diagnosis and how she “burst into tears” if someone put a hand to her throat in a scene.
Stoya’s initial revelation gave 12 other women the courage to come forward with allegations against Deen, a then-popular male porn star and columnist.
Since then, the actress has been making moves to reenter the industry and returned to TrenchcoatX, a progressive porn startup with Kayden Kross. Speaking of her life since then, she said: “What I don't want is for my entire career and therefore entire life to be all about James and what he did to me. Has my life not been all about James and what he did to me for long enough?”
She told New York Magazine about her startup, part of a mission to make porn that isn’t “total shit” or “garbage”. She’s been directing a project since April about a 26-year-old transgender activist, Ava, documenting her transition. She intends to keep pushing the pornographic envelope, with ideas of "self-expression and of rebellion”, picking up on age as well as gender.
“Ava wanting to show a sexualized trans body is what inspired me to say, Okay, I want to show a sexualized aging body,” she said. “And I'm really the best person positioned to do this.”
Stoya also discussed the strength of the male gaze she felt imposing on her from a young age, and her will to empower herself in the face of it. She asserted: “When I was 17, I would walk around in these enormously baggy army pants and a big baggy sweatshirt and no make-up and definitely not sexy hair, kind of smelly, and I still got harassed and groped. I learned that by virtue of walking out of my front door, I am seen by sections of the world as someone they can just take sexual pleasure from.” She added that she’s proud of the sexuality that she maintains “under her conditions”.
Additionally, she voiced her displeasure with the avalanche of questions she receives about feminism. She said: “I think part of my problem is, don't put me in the pink corner. I am a deeply conflicted feminist person who gets regularly called a feminist pornographer when I see nothing inherently feminist about the pornography I produce. Feminism is not my focus.”
