James Deen -- the porn industry’s boy next door, the toast of Tumblr, the international sexual sensation who earned plaudits from Bret Easton Ellis and Lorde -- built his career on the back of a thousand naughty GIFs. It only took a couple of tweets to tear it all down.
Stoya is a porn actress, a performance artist, an essayist, and Deen’s ex-girlfriend; she was just the first woman to publicly accuse Deen of sexual assault, in the pair of tweets posted on Saturday. On Monday morning, two more porn performers -- Ashley Fires and the since-retired Tori Lux -- joined her in telling their own stories of being abused by Deen. Both alleged incidents occurred at work, both just behind the scenes of major porn studio sets, both to women who barely knew Deen when he approached them unexpectedly as they dressed (in one case) or showered (in another) after a shoot. That afternoon, a writer identifying herself only by her initials, T.M., told LAist that she, too, had been assaulted by Deen, at a hotel party in 2009. Deen has countered the accusations with some tweets of his own: “There have been some egregious claims made against me on social media,” he wrote on Sunday. “I want to assure my friends, fans and colleagues that these allegations are both false and defamatory. … I respect women and I know and respect limits both professionally and privately.” Through his lawyer, Deen declined to comment further.