Louis Theroux: Forbidden America (2022–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Porn's Me Too - full transcript

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This programme contains very strong
language, scenes of a sexual nature
and graphic accounts of sexual abuse

So we are going to film the consent
talk. All right? Yeah.

Do you feel OK with spanking? Mm-hm.

OK, so we'll try to stick with some,
like, medium spanking, if that's OK?

Head to toe, do you mind your
hair being touched?

That's totally fine. Totally OK?
I'm cool with that, yeah.

Totally OK, great. Chest, back,
arms, do you mind being touched?

That's totally cool. Cool with me.
OK, great.

I'm going to keep
the same safe words,

I'm going to use "mercy" or "yellow"
and "red" or "stop" and "cut,"

look into the camera if I need to.



OK, we got it.

THEY LAUGH

In Los Angeles, I was traversing
a battleground over consent.

WOMEN GIGGLING

One of the criticisms
that's been made of you

is that you can be pushy.

Who...say...that?

The vast and lucrative industry
of adult film has been

transformed by social media,

with a new generation of performers
making fortunes on their own online,

and using their new power to call
out alleged predatory behaviour...

I called him, he said everything
was fine, you know?

"I'm Ron Jeremy.
You're safe with me."

..while an old guard is pushing
back at what they see



as trial by Twitter.

The women have come up with
a narrative and script

that is unbelievably similar.

I was attempting to figure out
what good practice looks like...

Are you...flirting with me?

I'm your stepsister, that's wrong.

..in a world dedicated to pushing
boundaries of taste and taboo.

He allegedly raped her, then, like,

signed a napkin or a piece of paper,

and gave it to her as an autograph.

This programme contains very strong
language, scenes of sexual violence,
and scenes of a sexual nature

In a $4 million castle
outside Portland,

one of the biggest names in porn
was about to do a shoot.

What should I wear?

I think Agent Provocateur
is going to be best.

Maybe something red or white
would be good.

What about this one?
This one's new.

That one works. OK.

A performer with ten years
in the business,

these days, Mia Malkova works
almost exclusively from home,

shooting with her boyfriend, Justin,

and uploading daily
to social media sites.

OK, perfect, right there.

Will you turn your booty towards
the light a little bit more?

Right there, freeze, eyes to me.

Right there, perfect.

So, how many subscribers do
you have on Instagram?

Erm, 9.4 million.

And what about OnlyFans?

Erm, I think I might have 40...

..40,000 right now?

Which sounds like much less,

but they're all paying
is the big difference, right?

That is the big difference. Yes.

Three, two, one.

OK, sweet.

That's good. Mm-hm.

Would you be comfortable giving me
a rough idea of how much you're

making through OnlyFans?

Mm-hm, yeah. Erm...

SHE EXHALES
150 to 250, depending on the month.

150,000 to 250,000? Yeah.

Wow. I love OnlyFans.

I didn't make that while
I was shooting for companies.

And I'm in complete control
of everything.

I do it from home,
I do what I like, how I like.

It's just a better quality
of living.

All right, action.

Mia is at the top of
a new economy of adult film.

Walk forward, towards the chair.

One of the most successful
of thousands of young performers

using social media, who have
transformed the industry

almost beyond recognition.

That's exactly what I want,
right there, perfect.

Able to make money on
their own terms,

many have used their new power
to police the industry and establish

better standards for how
sex takes place.

In Pasadena, north of Los Angeles,

I had an appointment with
a couple who work in porn.

Can we come in?

Named Michael Vegas and Siouxsie Q,

they are two of the new generation
of porn activists.

Who's that?

They were shooting content
for their social media accounts

with their friends
Honey Milk and Lola Fae.

Do you want to do some...
pulling some things to the side?

Sure, wait, like, my holes?

Yeah, they can't see it, but I can.

"Holes" doesn't sound very
romantic, Michael.

Well...it's the romance hole, Louis.

If you put "romance" in front of it,
that sounds much better.

Today, for our scene, erm,

we are doing a foursome,

and we are making it fit with all
of our social media platforms.

And so there's going to be
some pegging,

and there's going to be some...
Pegging is?

Pegging is, like, a strapped-on
dildo in a harness for penetration.

Someone will be pegging me,
hopefully...

At least, probably all of us.
..if all is going according to plan.

Yeah. And you like being pegged,
don't you?

Oh, I love it so much.
Gosh, you can ask any...

You can ask anybody in the business.
He likes it the most.

I love it so much, it just really...

Just hits the right spot,
is the best way I can put it.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

What's it like? Is it weirdly
empowering, or just,

it is what it is?

It's great to walk into an
encounter that, like,

where you know you're not
the one being penetrated.

Yeah! Is it?
But why would that be great?

I mean, what do you
usually do during sex?

Do you penetrate,
or are you penetrated?

Most of the time...

HE LAUGHS

Yeah, if I get lucky,
I'm the one penetrating.

OK, great, so you can imagine
that flipping that and doing

something different would
feel different, right?

Would feel very different, for sure.
Yeah, that's all.

Is one of these Michael's?

This one. This one.

That's not real size, though.

It's scaled up. Scaled up, yeah.

Loves it. That's my happy place.

SENSUAL MOANING

Yes.

I was curious to speak
to Michael and Siouxsie about

the changes going on
in the industry.

Oh, mercy! Mercy!

With the pegging
successfully concluded...

And we're back.

..and everyone more relaxed,
there was a moment to talk.

Wow. How was it?

Outstanding. Great. The scene
went very fluid and smooth.

No surprises? Yeah. I feel like
it went surprisingly good.

Now, with social media platforms,
performers have the ability to

call out bad experiences, right?

Yeah. And go public.

And I just wondered if you had
any observations about that?

Historically, as sex workers,

we haven't had any way to report
violence or problems against us.

Mm-hm. There's no way to stay safe
as a sex worker.

So, yelling out loud in a crowd,
which is social media,

is the only means of, like,
trying to keep your friends

safe from predators. Yeah.

And a performer who felt violated
in some way would be going to

the police and maybe saying,

"I expected to do vaginal,
but anal happened."

Right.

Or, "A male hand came from behind
the camera and pinched my bum."

And the police might say,

"Well, these are academic
distinctions." Exactly. Right?

"What is the big deal?"

I consented to something,
and then something else happened

that was without my consent.

I don't know why that's hard
to understand.

You know, like, no matter
what the situation.

Michael and I met on
a hardcore gang bang set.

But, you know, you'll go for a time
and then you'll pause.

It's not a faux pas to be, like,
"Hey, is your knee OK?

"You want to change positions?"

And so there really is a true
conversation that's happening with

your scene partner and, like,
that is consent all the way through.

So how would you characterise
what's going on right now?

Is this a live issue?

Some of the top, erm,
like, names in the industry,

some of the top earners in
the industry are in a position

where they will only shoot for
the right partner

and the right amount of money,

and the right, sort of,
convenience to their day.

You know, it's really...

Why, because they have the leverage
now, through their own platforms,

to say no? Exactly.
They have the leverage to say no.

Is there a battle within
the industry?

Like, how is it taking place?

Some of these old dudes that
were here to be creeps

are frustrated and leave.

They can't...
"I can't work like this,

"I might hurt somebody's feelings,
or I might assault them," like,

yeah, you probably will.
You shouldn't be here, go away.

Thanks, bye. It's a reckoning.

Out with the old, in with the new.

There will always be predators
in any industry.

But the more that we
talk about things,

and the more that we weed them out,

the more scared that
they are, honestly.

The shift taking place
within porn reflects changes

in the wider culture -
with a younger generation pushing

for clearer conversations
about consent,

and an old guard standing accused
of harbouring predators.

ON COMPUTER: Have you done already
some blow job, or...?

Yes, yes, I do, erm,
blow jobs all the time.

One of those under suspicion is
a 58-year-old director and performer

who goes by the porn name
Pierre Woodman.

Have you been tied up?
Erm, no, but I've been wanting to.

You would like?
Yeah, I would love to be tied up.

Pierre's scenes are known for
being on the more extreme end.

On several occasions,
he's been accused

of violating performers'
boundaries -

accusations he denies.

Though he often works
with American talent,

Pierre is based 6,000 miles
from LA, in Budapest.

He was shooting at a hotel.

Hello. Hello.

You must be Pierre. Hello.
How do you do? Good.

Nice to meet you.
What's your name? Alberto.

Alberto, nice to meet you. Louis.

Scheherazade. Nice to meet you.
Scheherazade.

Do you speak English?

A little bit. A little bit?
A little bit, yeah.

When girls like Scheherazade come
from Spain, doesn't speak English,

I come to translate.

So you're the director? Mm-hm.

And you'll be doing the shooting,
as well? Yes.

And performing?

Unfortunately, yes. Yeah.

HE CHUCKLES

Scheherazade?

Scheherazade? How old are you?

SHE SPEAKS IN PORTUGUESE

25.

And, erm, how many scenes
have you done so far?

ALBERTO TRANSLATES

Three.

Just three.

Am I right in thinking you
videotape everything?

Everything. Even you now.
So have you got cameras going?

Yes. Where? Ah... Hidden?

Yeah, of course, since you arrived
here, everything is recorded.

Really? That's making you smile.

Sorry. It is the truth.

This thing saved me many,
many, many times.

Some girl accused me of some things
that I never did, like,

"Oh, I didn't want to do this,
I didn't want to do..."

Last time, there was a British
girl who said she was, er,

slapped against her will.

Or one girl who said,
"Oh, he didn't pay me,"

or, "He did something
I didn't want to do,"

or blah, blah, blah. Come on.

The big problem now is MeToo.

Since there is a scandal
with Harvey Weinstein,

the MeToo and all this wave,
many girls think,

"Wow, time for me to get money."

What would be the motive for
a woman to accuse you of, erm,

deceiving her or doing
something against her will?

You ask me this question?

Mm, because they want to be
successful performers, right?

And they want to go on and
work again, so in a way it's...

There's a risk for them, which is
if you make a false claim then...

OK. ..you are going to probably
be blacklisted, right?

Most of the time when the girl
makes the complaint,

it's already when they have
finished with this job.

Some girls who today are
30 years old or 40 years old,

and they work 20 years ago,

those girls, because they
have a simple life,

a problem with the boyfriend
or whatever,

and they are in need of money,

and they try to use the MeToo as
a way to get money from people.

This is one situation.

So, petite lady, my God...
has she already tried anal sex?

She's OK to try today?

OK.

It's quite a big step,
to do anal for the first time.

This is why, for me, I prefer
a girl like her who never tried,

because in her brain
she don't have any... No trauma.

..trauma - she has anxiety,
of course, but she don't have

any personal trauma about it,
so it's perfect.

For me, this is the best.

Could we say you specialise in
performing with young women who are

doing anal for the first time?

Yeah, my specificity -
is correct? Sure.

It's to do the anal sex,
because I have a secret.

My grandfather teach me one secret
for that when I was very young.

Your grandfather taught you?
Yes, yes, yes.

And also, because I don't have a
penis like this, it helps a lot,

because also the size is important.

You have a relatively small penis?

17 centimetres,
I don't know if it's small.

Basically, when I was a young guy,
I was thinking,

"Oh, I don't have a huge penis."
But today, for me it's an advantage.

All right, Scheherazade,

can you please show me your body,
if you don't mind?

ALBERTO TRANSLATES

Go.

Oh, my God, she has nice lingerie.

Look at this.

And, please, if you don't mind,
turn around.

She feel good, or she feel bad?

No problem. OK, sit down, please.

Up the legs.

Beautiful, petite pussy.

I love her face so much,
she's so beautiful.

OK, vamos.

It's very easy...

It being her first anal scene,
Scheherazade was receiving

a higher-than-usual rate
of 1,500 euros.

The shoot was happening in
a suite three floors down.

Before the action, there would be
a quick orientation.

Please, Scheherazade, come with me.

Scene explanation.

She wants to be shocked, or not?

How are you with kissing?

If one girl don't want to kiss you,
generally she turns her face.

So it's very easy to know if
she wants or she don't want.

Imagine you go somewhere,
and you don't want something.

Like, when you go to the restaurant.

Me, I don't want onion in my plate.

The first thing I say to the guy -
or when I go to McDonald's -

"I want a hamburger, but no onion."

LOUIS SPEAKS IN PORTUGUESE

SHE LAUGHS

All right, talk to you
in a little bit, then.

Thank you so much, guys,
see you later. Thank you. Bye.

THEY SPEAK IN FRENCH

Having retired upstairs
as the scene took place,

I was mainly conscious of what
Scheherazade might be feeling,

having her first-ever anal
sex on camera,

with someone whose language
she didn't speak...

..and no-one else around.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Two hours later, they emerged.

Welcome back.
Oh, see who opens the door for us!

Hello. Hello.

I didn't expect to see you
here again. How are you?

How was it?

Ah, for me, good, but I don't know,
you must ask her.

A good experience?

I think she enjoyed it a lot,

but the beginning of the situation
was tough for five minutes,

and after, bam,
everything goes well.

She had hard times, too.

At the very beginning, hard times?

She thought,
"I'm not going to do it.

"I'm not going to be able to do it."
Why?

"Because I never did this before."

What was your reason for
doing this today?

"I'm in porn. I knew that Pierre
would be the right person to

"start with this anal thing
in the porn business."

Mm-hm. And your plan is to continue
in porn for a number of years?

Yes. For the moment, yes.

Mm-hm.

SHE LAUGHS

You know, you've said that you
specialise in having anal sex

with female performers
for the first time.

Right, that's something...
That's true.

Can you see that, in a way,
that's a high-risk project for you?

Because, actually, by definition,
they don't necessarily know

what they're getting into, right?

And then also you're very...
Sorry, Louis.

If I propose right now
to fuck your ass,

you will not know what
we speak about?

Come on, are you taking me
like a stupid one?

If I say, "Louis, would you like me
to fuck your ass now?"

you will say, "I'm sorry, I don't
know what you are speaking about."

If you said to me,
"I'm going to fuck you in the arse,"

and I wouldn't know what that...

But I wouldn't really know
what that was like. OK.

I know what the physical act is.

Because you're not gay, you don't
know what it is, OK, fine, and then?

And then what?
Will you say yes or not?

You know, it's just strange.
I'm a 51-year-old man.

You have to decide yourself
if you want to say yes or no.

I'm not an 18-year-old, erm, girl.

If I was committed to
trying to make it in porn,

but I also hadn't really thought
through all the aspects of

what that meant, and I thought
I might dip a toe in it,

but I also had come from an
upbringing that was maybe

conservative or... I mean,
there's so many dimensions to it.

Please. You are 18 years old,
you are supposed to be able to know

what you do or what you don't do.

In America, at 16 years old
you can drive a car,

you can have a gun at 18.

But you need to be 21
to drink one beer.

It's not me who do the law.

What is wrong if I ask one girl,

"Are you OK to get fucked in the
ass by me?" and she said yes?

I am a bad guy because she said yes?

I'm supposed to speak to her in
a way that she said yes,

but finally she didn't want
really to do it, blah, blah, blah.

It's not my concern.

I'm here to do a job.

With Pierre, I had the sense of
someone on the defensive,

who felt himself under siege

in a world where
the rules were changing.

I was curious to learn more
about how the practices of

the new generation of social
media performers

were intersecting with
the old ways of the industry.

I had an appointment with a webcam
model who goes by Ginger Banks.

Ginger's been camming
nearly 12 years.

In her entire career, she's made
only a handful of studio films.

She makes her living almost
exclusively from OnlyFans.

Hi, Ginger? Hi! Hello.
Louis. How do you do?

Good. How are you?
Nice to meet you, can we come in?

Yeah, please come in.

The meeting began with
some quick content creation.

Oh, this looks cool...
the light through it.

SHE SMOOCHES

Tell me about what you do.

OnlyFans is mostly what
I do right now.

I use it to show the
behind-the-scenes of my life,

naked pictures and videos of myself,

and there's also videos of me having
sex that I have, you know, created.

I'll get naked and dance around
and play with myself.

That's my daily work.

And it goes up on OnlyFans

and people can take out
a subscription to see your content?

Yeah, it's basically whatever you
want to put behind this paywall.

You know, you lock it
behind this paywall,

and they pay however much you want
per month.

It's, like, I think $3 a month,

$3 a month up to $50 a month.

A lot of them just want to see
an extra look into your life.

This video is with Chanel Santini.
OK.

She's a really popular
trans performer.

Oh, my gosh, I was so excited when
she asked to come over.

I missed you.

I wanted to have sex
with her outside of work,

so why not do it on camera
and get paid to do it?

It looks like she might be, um,
choking you on her dick.

Erm...

I don't know,
maybe for a second or two.

Of her thousands of videos,

probably Ginger's best known is one
she posted on Twitter in 2017,

calling out porn's most famous
male performer, Ron Jeremy.

So, do you want to talk about how
this first came onto your radar?

The whole Ron Jeremy...

It started with a personal encounter
with him, didn't it?

I thought that he was just one of
the multiple handsy people

at the expo that I ran into.

This was 2016? Yeah.

And what happened?

He grabbed my ass through my jeans
as I was walking by

and meeting him for the first time.

And I just said, "Ew,"
and walked away.

It was the cam models.

The cam models started coming
to these expos.

We were the ones that were working
from the safety of our homes,

so we weren't on set getting groped
by directors -

that shit wasn't normal to us.

It was, like, laughable
to me that people could even think

of it as something that you
would just excuse -

excuse and then give him access to
more people to do it in the future.

So that's when I started compiling
the evidence

and made that YouTube video.

There have been allegations of rape

and sexual assault
against Ron Jeremy

that go back as far as August 2003.

Here we have Ron Jeremy

grabbing Tonya Tate's ass.

Here we have Ron Jeremy fondling
the tit of a random female

out in front of a strip club.

How does Ron Jeremy
just being a porn star

give him the right
to assault these females,

because the woman happened
to be sexual?

Why is that OK?

Are we really still slut-shaming
women to the point

where we take away
their basic human rights?

At what point did you realise,
in addition to the groping,

there were serious allegations
of rape?

There was someone who had added
allegations of rape

to the Twitter thread.

He allegedly raped her,
then, like, signed a napkin

or a piece of paper,
and gave it to her as an autograph.

And it's not the only person
who's said that about him.

He's, like, a giant monster

just going around, like,
sexually assaulting people.

It's classic MeToo in the sense of
being initiated on social media,

on Twitter. Yeah.

A kind of community forms,

experiences are shared,

and that leads to real-world change.

Yeah, 100%.

So it was like a domino effect of,
like, one thing happening that led

to another thing happening, you
know, which is what the detectives

and the prosecutors said got them
interested in actually

finally bringing charges
against him.

Ron Jeremy's alleged offences
span nearly 30 years.

For many younger performers,
his ability to continue working

for so long amid widespread rumours
of his offending

illustrated a problem
in the industry.

I wanted to meet one
of those affected.

In 1997, aged 25,

Jen Mondello had been attempting
to find her way

into an adult film career under
the name Jennifer Steele.

Ron Jeremy had offered
to act as her mentor.

20 years on,
with 100 films behind her,

she is retired from porn
and lives in Florida.

Hi, Jen?
Hi, how are you?

OK. Nice to meet you. Louis.
Nice to meet you too.

Come on in.

Oh, nice and cool in here.
Yeah.

Can we look at some of your old
memorabilia, if you have it?

I have a whole box.

How long were you in the industry?

About ten years.

Like, my movie span is about
a 10-year span.

So, shall I start pulling stuff out?
Sure, yeah.

This is an 8x10 that I would sign
for somebody, you know.

The tan lines are part of
the look, right? Oh, yeah.

I had my tanning bikini
that gave the perfect lines,

so I had the same line every time.

Makes it feel more taboo.
I guess so. Naughty.

I was young and I cared.

I wouldn't go that far now.

Am I right in saying you have
a lot of happy memories?

Oh, yeah.

I have to say that my gang bang
scenes were the most fun.

How many gang bangs did you do?

Somewhere between half
a dozen and a dozen.

And typically how many people
would it be?

The most was 20.
It was the Mexican gang bang.

The Mexican anal gang bang.

You did that?
Yeah, I did that.

How was that? It's not something
that I would enjoy now but...

What was Mexican about it?

All the, erm,
all the men were Mexican.

Here's a DVD.

"Jennifer Steele
Does Amsterdam 420."

What does that mean?

We went to Amsterdam,

and we just picked out a bunch of
random dudes at Cannabis Cup,

brought them back to the hotel
and fucked them.

They stuck a bong in my ass
and then smoked pot out of it.

It looks like you're
with James Corden.

No, there's no James Corden.
Look at him...

SHE LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY

That's not James Corden!

All right.
Shall we talk about what happened?

Sure. Yeah.

When Jen had met Ron Jeremy,

she was working as an exotic dancer
in Oregon.

He invited her to Los Angeles,
landing her a job as a model

in a photo shoot he was doing
for Hustler Magazine.

I went down to Los Angeles,

he picked me up from the airport,

he took me to the Hustler Studio.

In the Hustler Studio,

we got all ready for the picture
and everything.

He kept shaking his dick in front
of everybody

and he couldn't get it up.

Pressure on him
to basically deliver "solid wood."

Mm-hm.
So you felt bad for him?

I felt bad for him. He can't get
it up - what's he going to do?

And then he asked if I would bend
over in front of him

so he could look and jack off
and give him a visual fluff,

and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, totally."

This is something I would do...
In the bathroom?

In the bathroom.

So I bent over for him
so he could look.

He put his hand on me,
and I said, "What are you doing?"

And then he said,
"I'm not doing anything,"

and then he stuck his dick in me.

And that's, you know...

And I tried to push back,

but by pushing back
I was pushing forward

because I, like, had my face
in a paper towel holder.

There was nowhere for me to go.

And then I think once
I started struggling,

that's when, like, I mean,
as I said,

it was only just a few seconds,
you know.

He apologised. Like, "I'm so sorry -
I'll never do that again."

And I felt safe enough
to get into the car.

So, are you OK to talk about what
happened when you went back to his,

was it an apartment or a house?
It was an apartment. Mm-hm.

Yeah. I made the assumption that

I was going to have my own room,
or at least a couch.

I was trying to be polite about it,

telling him that sex
was not part of our deal,

and he told me that
that wasn't an issue.

In fact, he made me feel kind of
silly even saying it, you know.

His couch was all full of, like,
movies and stuff,

like movies and magazines and stuff
like that.

He said, "Just give me 20 minutes

"and I'll get this all cleaned off
for you."

And I'm like, "I'm not waiting."
I was exhausted.

So I literally went over to the
corner of his mattress

and I just crashed
up against the wall.

I'm wearing my jeans,
I'm wearing my tank top,

like, I'm wearing my clothes,

so there was no, you know...

And then he turned on the light
and he woke me up.

And he said, "You're going to get
interviewed a lot

"and one of the things
that I'm well known for

"is that I eat the best pussy
in the business,

"and I want women to say that when
they're getting interviewed."

And I told him, I said,
"Oh, you know, I'll...

"I'll say you killed it," you know?

And he was like, "No, no, no,
I want to really do it."

And he said, "If you let me do
this, please,

"I'm doing all this stuff for you
and everything,

"I'm introducing you
to all these people.

"If you let me do this,
I promise I will leave you alone.

And I'm thinking, "Well, he should
leave me alone, anyway,

"but I have a deal here, so..."

I ended up going for it
and I took my pants off,

he went down on me.

I came,

and then after that...

His pants were off.

He took his pants off during that
somehow, without me knowing, erm...

..and then he raped me.

He was raping me anally
and he stopped when I was crying

and bleeding, erm...

In your account, you actually say
he says... I'm sorry.

All the, it's all... Are you OK?
Yeah, like, it's just all...

I don't think Ron Jeremy's
a bad person,

but at that moment there was
a monster that was there

and that was...

I knew that my options were done.

It was like, there's only
so many noes you can give

before you just run out of noes.

And, like, when he gave me that
look, that was when I froze,

that was when I had that,
that was when the switch flipped of

humanity's just not what
I think it is.

I mean, it just...it...

He knew what he was doing.

And it didn't put you off, erm,

getting into adult film,
did it, cos, basically,

the following year you went into it?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Sort of with both feet,
kind of thing. Oh, yeah, balls in.

SHE LAUGHS

It made me feel like
I was taking control

of my own sexuality
after it had been taken from me.

But it's about choice.

Yeah, yeah, it's about choice.

Like, I don't leave a gang bang
feeling like I've been traumatised

as long as everything
was consensual.

But if somebody's raping me

and they're doing something without
their consent,

then that's traumatising.

How important is it to you that
Ron Jeremy should get convicted?

I hope he does get convicted

because I think, honestly, that
for him to be in a medical facility

would be the best thing for him.

I think separating him from society
is necessary.

But as far as my healing goes,

what has happened already with
the system is what I needed.

Erm, and that was for...

That was for the DA to tell me
that he believed my story.

And that it was rape
and that I was raped

and that it mattered,
despite what I did for a living.

Jen's need to be believed spoke to
a common feeling among sex workers

that their accounts of abuse are
less likely to be taken seriously

than other people's,

simply because of what they do.

With Ron Jeremy now awaiting trial
for multiple counts of rape,

it seemed that might be changing.

Back in LA,

and I'd been thinking more about
power imbalances in the industry

and how young performers might be
influenced by older men

to take part in sex
they might not be OK with,

in private and on set.

I had an appointment at a shoot by
a female-run studio called Bellesa,

that was said to be giving its stars
more control.

Hi, Jacky? Yeah.

Louis.
Hi, Louis, it's nice to meet you.

May I come in?
Yeah, come on in. Thank you.

The director went by
the porn name Jacky St James.

Where do you need me?

In the middle of the bed, please.

The set-up for the scene drew on
something that had really happened

to the two performers, who'd been
friends but had fallen out.

You're going to talk directly
to me.

Directly to you?
Yes. OK.

They were Michael Vegas,

whom I'd met poolside in Pasadena...

Slide over slightly.

..and Bunny Colby.

What is your history
with Bunny Colby?

Well, we had done a scene together.

Everything went great.

And then we had
a tumultuous interaction

on the old social media.

You guys have never worked one
on one? We have not.

We've only done
a boy-boy girl-girl-girl together.

Any expectations for how it will go
when he walks through these doors?

Erm, I think it will be
a little awkward at first,

but I think it will be fine.

Ta-da!
Oh, my God. Nice 'tache!

Oh, thanks.

It's so I can smell you better.

I wish I had curly hair,
it's amazing.

Anything specific you want to do?

I love giving
and receiving oral sex.

But I really love giving it.

Yeah. Excellent,
I love communication like that.

So, what's going on
in the culture somewhat

is that there are new conversations
about consent.

In the college campus setting

they developed a concept
of "enthusiastic consent."

Like, consent on its own
isn't enough.

It has to be,
like, an enthusiastic yes.

You're not kind of tolerating
the sex.

Now, clearly, in the porn world
that's not always going to apply

because it's a job, right?
Yep.

You're not going to love every time
you go out and have sex for work.

And so, within that space,
it feels as though

there's the potential for bad sex
to take place,

or sex which you don't even know
if you're completely OK with.

The onus of responsibility lies
on pretty much everyone that's

involved, including the girl,
the guy, the producers,

when the girl is hired -
their agent.

So, everyone's communicating.

"It's going to be this long, this is
what you're going to dealing with.

"Are you comfortable with the
performer you're working with?"

These are all things that
should be taken care of prior

to the arrival on set.

Let's say the performer
signed off a scene,

and then it's just uncomfortable

and they're not enjoying it at all.

But they don't feel

they can speak out.

I mean, what do you then
do with that?

How we address that is, I guess,

creating an environment where people
feel safe to do so, but...

..I think a lot of times you'll see
performers just saying yes

to something they consented to,

but maybe they're uncomfortable,
maybe they're in pain

and just are gutting it out
until the scene's done.

I think that one of the reasons,

and it's one thing we always say
at Bellesa, is,

"No matter what,
if you don't do this scene,

"we are still paying you,"

whereas a lot of studios hold it
over the head of the person -

"Well, if you don't finish this
scene, you're not getting paid."

SOFT MOANING

You guys have fun?

Oh, yes. Yes.

I really appreciated it.
I like you. Yes.

Nice job, guys, I wasn't allowed to
talk to you before so, apologies...

I told them! ..if it seemed
like I was being rude.

Thank you. Nice to see you.
Much appreciated.

Got to stay in the zone.
Yeah.

Personally, it felt great for me.

I got to very much enjoy your body.
Thank you.

Your body language seemed like you
enjoyed it. I did enjoy it.

So, it's a win in my book.

Sometimes it is more work
and sometimes it is more enjoyable,

but I would never do something
that I didn't at least have

a good proportion of enjoyment at.

Can you reflect on changes
you've seen?

It's nice to see that there is
a bit more acceptance

of people speaking out

and that there are more options
that we have

even though they're not perfect.

But there is still a lot of places

where you need to be your
own advocate. Mm-hm.

And remembering that,
I think, is very important.

I think, Bunny,

you had an experience with someone
in the industry.

There was just one situation at,

not even a shoot,
it was like a party thing,

that I got paid to go to.

And, you know, my big problem
wasn't even what happened there.

I got assaulted,
but it was fairly minor,

somebody groped me,
which is still inappropriate -

don't do that. Mm-hm.

My problem was...how the people
I reached out to

afterwards reacted,
and that's really...

Can we say that it was your agent?

Yes. And that's somebody that you
need to protect you.

That's somebody you are reaching
out to,

to make sure that your work is safe.

The real, I think,
trauma of the situation

was being told that what happened
to me didn't happen. Mm-hm.

Like, being gaslighted and told,
"Oh, that didn't happen to you,

"and even if it did happen to you,
who cares?"

Like, that's essentially
what I was told.

And that's not allowing people
to be in a position in this industry

where they're able
to advocate for themselves

and able to make good choices
about what they want to do,

and feel fine at the end of
the day, coming away from it.

And what was his name?
Derek Hay.

For the best part of a decade,

Derek Hay was the most powerful
agent in porn.

But along with his power

came rumours that he was controlling
and vindictive.

Hey, you've got a busy day here,
today, haven't you? Mm-hm.

What have you got going on?

I'm not sure how many shoots
we're doing today

but there's today's schedule.

I'd met him on a visit to
the industry in 2011.

Two scenes was boy-girl scenes,
and one was anal.

Yeah.

Had you ever done anal before?

I, actually, like, in my real life

I really don't do much anal.

That would suggest maybe
you don't enjoy it that much?

I'm not sure that I agree
with your question.

I can think of a lot of things that
we don't do in our personal life

that we do at work.
Yeah.

Seven years later,
five performers he represented

brought a legal case,
suing to get out of their contracts,

alleging sexual misconduct by Derek.

They also said he'd steered them
into doing illegal escorting work

for a company called
The Luxury Companion.

In many ways,
Derek represented that old guard

of industry power brokers
I'd been hearing about.

Derek lives in Las Vegas.

He'd agreed to speak,
asking that we meet

at a tattoo parlour he owns
in the city.

Hello, hello. Can I come in?

You can. How are you doing?
Good. You must be Jamie?

I am Jamie, nice to meet you.
Louis. Nice to meet you.

Hi. Derek.

You've kindly arranged
for Jamie to be here.

Jamie, you're relatively new to
the business, would you say?

Yeah, about eight months.
About eight months.

Eight months of shooting, yeah.

So, tell me how you relate to
Derek - he's your agent?

He's my agent, yes.

I'm really grateful to Derek

for immediately making me feel
like a respected worker,

which is what every performer
can ask for, yeah.

You probably would have noticed

that Derek had some legal situations
he was dealing with?

I was familiar with the, you know,

legal trouble around this agency,

but so much of what you read about
porn is stigmatised

or sensationalised.

And I just thought I could be
a better judge myself.

So, one of the things you've been
dealing with is a labour commission.

And it found against you, correct?

That was last year.

Ah, not completely true, no.

In part they found against me, yeah.

But that's appealed to
superior court.

You've made an appeal.

And they have not renewed
you license in LA,

is that right?

Er, that's another, er, subject

that's being contested.

As it stands, could we say that,
right now,

right now do you have a licence
to be an agent in LA?

I have a licence in Nevada
and in Florida.

So does that put
a crimp in your ability

to represent young talent
like Jamie?

Er, no, cos I'm still
a licensed agent.

Actually, I don't think there's any
agent who's ever held licenses

in three states.

So, this is a little bit private,
maybe intrusive,

but I'll just try it out,
put it out there.

Say it ain't so!

DEREK LAUGHS

OK. So, are you and Derek
in any way involved?

No. No, we have a wonderful
professional relationship.

Because Derek has form
in dating clients,

models, he represents.
Correct, Derek?

I've dated a number of models
in the past,

but you won't find any recently.

No. Have you stopped doing that?

For many years, yes.

OK. Jamie, if it's all right with
you, I might have a sit down

with Derek now. Is that OK?

Yes, sounds great.

If I can just pause
for two minutes -

this is an artist
that's going to do a tattoo.

Let me just see if she wants to come
in and get set up. OK.

The five models suing Derek painted
a picture of a company

where Derek pressured performers
into sex.

Two also alleged he'd
assaulted them.

Among the women were three whose
porn names were Hadley Viscara,

Sofi Ryan, and Shay Evans.

Derek has always denied
any wrongdoing.

The customer's not coming till 12.

Great. The most serious stuff,

a lot of it is around the idea of
inappropriate sexual relationships

between you and artists that
you represented

in which they felt they were either
required or coerced,

or, in a couple of cases, assaulted.

Shay Evans says that you said,
"If you sleep with me,

"if you agree to a relationship,
I will make you a star."

Well, I have to correct you
on that -

I don't think Shay Evans
has said that.

I've got the Shay Evans quote
on my phone, if that would be...

Would that be helpful, if I gave you
the exact quote?

I don't mind.

OK.

"Derek asked me if I wanted
to come back to his hotel room.

"He asked me a few times,
and then I agreed,

"and then in the car ride
over there he kept telling me

"how I would get a lot of work
and that he'd make me a star.

"When Shay refused..."
This is the trip to Hawaii.

"..she alleged that all porn work
began to dry up for her

"on her return home.

"Then she was given a shoot with
Pierre Woodman as a punishment.

"Even though she rang Derek, crying
hysterically before the shoot,

"he insisted she could not cancel."

Really?

No woman in the adult film industry

is coerced to do
any particular shoot.

What's your position on
the idea that...

..you sexually assaulted, erm,

a couple of your models?

I did have sex with one of those
women on multiple occasions

cos we were dating, so...

Sofi Ryan? Correct.

Out of dozens of times
that we were intimate,

the allegation is that one
of those times was coercive.

Her version sounded dreadful, right?

I mean, it wasn't like,
"Oh, it was ambiguous."

I mean, she describes it as,
you pulled over in a car

where there was no phone coverage,

having kind of finagled her
into the car,

and said, "If you don't give me
a hand job,

"I'm going to leave you here
to die."

Right.

But she was happy to...come and
spend the night with me

just a couple of nights later?

Is there anything more you wanted
to say about that?

No. I need to pause.

I've got to let this tattoo
artist in. OK, do it.

Do you want to set up over here?

Right.
What do you...? Give me one second.

Can you give me five minutes?
Yeah. OK. Thanks.

Because it's one of the more
serious allegations,

we should deal with
Hadley Viscara's claim

that, you know, she was
sexually assaulted by you. Mm-hm.

She says twice, on two occasions.

And, erm... On two occasions...
One was... ..two days apart.

Four days apart. No.

We'll agree to disagree.
All right.

One was a coerced blow job,
I guess.

And the second was, I guess,
a more full-on assault

in which she says
she was very drunk.

Yeah, she made a police report on
that seven months after the fact.

And Las Vegas police made some
investigation on that

and then declined to...

..to pursue the case further.

What's your position on
what happened?

Both of those occasions
was entirely consensual, er...

..sex between us.

She's a lesbian.

She became a lesbian after the fact.

Since then - not at the time.

So she says.

So, I guess the crowning allegation
is the idea

that you made introductions
to an escort agency

and they began doing, I guess,
illegal sex work as a result
of that.

"Hay knowingly attempted
to help procure employment

"for petitioners with
The Luxury Companion,

"an escort service,

"and helped book
employment for Viscara..."

PHONE RINGS

"..helped broker relationship
with Sofi Ryan

"and Shay Evans so they could work
as escorts." One sec.

Prestige Tattoo and Blade.

Oh, yeah, she's here.

No, no, you can come in.

Where are you? Please come in.

OK, please come in.

Please come in. Thank you.

Did you get the last bit?

Yeah.

I think I did, anyway.
"Helped book employment for Viscara.

"Helped broker relationship
with Sofi Ryan,

"Shay Evans, Andi Rye,

"so they could work as escorts."

Come in.

It would be good to get just some
sort of a response.

OK, let me try one more time.

OK, I actually would prefer you not
read that again... OK. ..now. OK?

OK. Did you get any sort
of referral fee or finder's fee

or introduction fee

for steering your models to
The Luxury Companion?

I didn't steer our models
to The Luxury Companion

in the first place.

Got no referral fee

and no percentage
of their earnings at all.

I feel like we've taken up
a lot of your time. Are you OK?

Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Hm.

So, the big picture, I suppose,

is the feeling that artists

would enter relationships
with you,

sexual relationships,

and...if you were unhappy
with how they ended

or the way that they ended,

you'd intentionally destroy
their careers.

That's the allegation
that was made.

I contend that none of that is true.

Certainly,

the women have come up
with a narrative

and script that is
unbelievably similar.

In some cases, they are alleging
near criminal conduct.

So, I look forward to our day, or
days, in court in May of next year.

With all its interruptions,

it had ended up being
a slightly frustrating interview,

and I wondered if it said something
about Derek's personality,

a steely quality of control.

As it stands,

Derek is appealing the labour
commission ruling that upheld

the sexual assault allegations
against him.

He also awaits a criminal trial
on charges related

to the escorting business,
that could result in prison time.

Allez, mademoiselle,

these breasts look to be impressive.

We will see later.

One of the names that came up often
in Derek's labour commission hearing

was Pierre Woodman.

Two of Derek's performers said

they'd expressed concerns
about working with Pierre,

and a third, named Andi Rye,
said afterwards that aspects of

the scene had not been consensual.

Wow, Serenity Haze.

How old are you, Serenity?
22.

Another performer who worked
with Pierre in 2016,

in a deal brokered by Derek,

went by the porn name Serenity Haze,

which she has since changed.

Why you decide to come to porn?

I want to be in magazines
and movies and stuff like that.

More like exhibitionism stuff?

Yeah.

In a way, a worst-case scenario
for you is, well...

One of the cases where a woman
accused you of rape

was Serenity Haze, right?

When was your first blow job?

Oh, in porn? Back in...

No, no, no, no, no,
in your life, in your life.

In January, in porn.

No.
I don't suck dick in real life.

Never? No. If I'm not getting paid
for it, I'm not doing it.

You never have sucked anyone?
No.

It comes across that,
sex in general,

she gives the impression
of not enjoying.

You let him cum in your mouth?
No.

You like to try?
No.

Why not?
Because I said "no."

No, no.

During the scene,
she just is visibly uncomfortable

and she's becoming
increasingly annoyed.

It's burning.

No, no, don't do this, because it
will not go in - this is lubricant.

It's burning.
No, I'm not doing that.

Afterwards,
Serenity Haze took to Twitter,

complaining that she hadn't been
paid for her scene...

..and accusing Pierre
of serious sexual assault.

In return, Pierre released this

behind-the-scenes footage
of the incident.

What I saw was you attempting
to negotiate with her.

Yes, because I...

And she experiences that as
a kind of abuse, right?

I could see a case how that is a
result of your working practices

colliding with her needs.

Does that make sense?

Does it make sense

if, in five minutes, I go to
the internet and I write,

"Oh, my God, today Louis was here
and I feel so bad now

"because he harassed me
with his questions, coming back,

"coming back all the time
that I'm a bad guy,

"I'm a rapist and everything.

"My God, now I have trouble

"and I need to go maybe
for one week out of my world

"because my head is broken
and I feel so bad now,

"all this crazy discussion,

"and this pressure he put on me,
I don't know if I can..."?

Come on.

What will you think? You will smile.

If I speak just about money part,

I lost money, because I lost my
morning or my afternoon of job.

Number two, if I said,
"Oh, I send her back home,"

then she will write on
the internet

that I am a motherfucker because
I didn't give her the job.

I just tried to make this girl
feel good.

She was a stupid idiot.

Things didn't go well.

I didn't push,
I let her go home, and that's it.

Do you accept
the characterisation of you

that you use high-pressure tactics?

Yes. He start again...

HE LAUGHS

OK, what is a high-pressure tactic?

Tell me something concrete.

Well, you use the example
of having sex

with a woman on camera,

and then during the sex act saying,
"Why don't we do a DP?"

One in the front, one in the back.

The more accepted practice would be
to decide all of that beforehand.

Why? Well, so that...
Who says that?

..you're not moving the goalposts.
Louis, who says that?

Well, all the performers
that I've spoken to.

They say that before you start...
No. Stop.

It's not in the middle of
the sex, you don't say,

"Oh, you know what..." No.
"..I'm going to cum inside you,

"even though that's not what
you've agreed.

Stop. It's not true.

I am a guy who will discuss
with the girl,

and decide with the girls.

I understand that you
want absolutely to show me

like a bad person.

I don't know why, but it's probably
a necessity for you.

It's easy to say bad things
about everybody, you know.

So easy. I don't know you...

I can just, tomorrow or
tonight when I will go home,

"Oh, today this British presenter
came and,

"oh, I'm sure he's this
or he's that."

Given everything that's going on,
right... What do you mean?

MeToo, specifically.

There's more questions asked,

people demand more clarity
about what is being agreed to.

Have you changed your practices?

Will you change your practices?

Do you want me to change something
that I do since 30 years, works?

I consider that if
a girl is 18 years old,

adult, and I speak to her,

she answer what she want to answer

and she do what she want to do.

I don't put a gun on her head
to take my dick in the mouth,

in the ass or the pussy,
she do whatever she want.

The encounter with Serenity Haze

and everything
that went wrong with it,

encapsulated the issue
with Pierre's working practices,

but it was also symptomatic of

a more pervasive tension
in the adult industry -

a world where the questionable
behaviours

that exist in all walks of life

coincide with a workplace
involving extreme sex,

and where an unjustified stigma
has meant that

the voices of its workers haven't
always been heard.

Booty to me a little bit more.

I was back with Mia Malkova
in her castle.

Right there, perfect, freeze.

Can you open the knees
a little bit? Yeah.

Right there, right there, perfect.

SHUTTER CLICKS

It feels as though
the industry is changing.

Yes, cos I just think back
to when I came into the industry

and I was 19 and I didn't
know a lot.

And I was just very eager to please
and not make a fuss.

I've honestly been in situations

where the scenes have gotten more
aggressive than I would like

but I'm still revved up,
telling them, "Yes, more,"

and I think a big part of it is
you're just eager to please

everybody on set,

and once the camera starts
it's really, really hard.

You have to be brave
to muster up that courage

to, like, say, "Stop, no -
I don't think like that."

But now we have these large
followings

so with that comes a lot of power.

It's hard to ignore us any more,

especially when everyone's
saying the same thing.

It's just, er...

It's empowering.