I’d already done everything—double this, triple that—all with a giggle and a smile. I made it look easy and fun. That was my job as an adult actress but staying at the top in porn means being ready to level up. BDSM was the new trend and the next boundary to push. If you were in porn and wanted to keep working you didn’t say no to these companies.
Before the #MeToo movement, consent was rarely discussed on porn sets—it was assumed. I’d show up with a fresh HIV/STD test less than 14 days old, a suitcase full of lingerie, lube and stilettos, and that was it. My presence implied consent. Signing a model release, giving up all rights to future profits for a flat day rate (also not optional), further proved it.
BDSM sets were different. Consent wasn’t an assumption; it was a discussion. That went doubly for people like me—outsiders hired to act in this niche erotic hemisphere to film the kind of exchanges that actually happened between kinky people in real life (unlike porn sex—all stunts and acrobatics). The objects and methods of torture were discussed, in some cases before the scene was booked, and again before the consent was explicitly established.
As progressive and thoughtful as that sounds, I soon learned it wasn’t altruistic. I guess when a company wants to string you up, immobilize your arms and cane your backside before the fucking starts, they obviously need an auditable paper trail to circle back to for consent. Unlike porn sex, where in theory (if not in practice) directors could demand to know why a performer did not just stop, toss on clothes and leave, no pretense was available when the performer finds herself bound and gagged. BDSM left no room for ambiguity. It is as if the paperwork—the more of it, the better—exonerates them. Yes, the paperwork said, we are paying to do bodily harm or to physically restrict you and you have agreed to do this. It’s an abstract form of consent that, again, is meant to exonerate them for whatever happens on set.
I learned the hard way, staring at that piece of paper with words that I’d consented to—words that had a very different meaning to me than they did to the company. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was manipulation.
I was a bankable, award-winning porn star dipping my toe into this segment of the market. That’s what the director wanted—my ignorance, and my genuine shock when I was hit for real. I thought the BDSM would be more visual than visceral; that I’d act like it hurt more than it did. I was in over my head and didn’t know it. I was no newbie. I’d done hundreds of scenes, though the things that I was agreeing to do were mostly things I’d done before on other sets. I was an experienced performer and arguably harder to trick. The director wanted to capture that edge of terror that comes with the unfamiliar, but I realized it too late. I’d already consented.
Extras? Sure, I agreed to have extras on set. Porn uses extras just like real movies do—they dance silently, fake drink or hang by the pool in the background. My BDSM nightmare was a bar scene—a speakeasy—and I had no objection to background actors. This was the part that seemed totally familiar. I’d filmed scenes in fake clubs before. Of course, extras do not have STD tests, and in porn scenes they do not touch performers. That is not what happened this time. And this time I was tied up.
Oh, but the consent? Pre-scene, the producer went over all the paperwork. It was as we discussed. I signed off on the verbal humiliation, the slapping, spanking, flogging, whipping, and use of a light electric wand on the condition that the settings were low, and it was used for visuals not stunts.
What I was consenting to, this harm I was subjecting myself to, was a performance. I couldn’t do these things with just anyone. I trusted my co-worker whom I’d worked with countless times prior. He knew how to make it look brutal for the camera without inflicting the damage he appeared to be. Still, it was going to sting. And I knew it. And knowing all that, having consented to all that, I was not prepared.
With the cameras rolling, I was led like a chained dog into the speakeasy set. It was crowded! The background actors really played up the fan part—over-the-top excited, chatty, and energetic. It was a big difference from extras I’d encountered prior, fully aware their function was as b-roll. I remember being surprised to see so many extras. Porn directors didn’t often waste their budget on non-sex roles; after all, that standard $50 background rate per extra adds up. These guys in this scene were really in character—or so I thought. Some went too far, acting like the sort of aggressive fans large bouncer-types kept away when I did public appearances. The kind who sent weird letters that professed love and hatred in bizarre and scary combinations.
As the scene progressed, the extras became alarmingly unprofessional—and handsy. I was stunned and distracted and virtually defenseless, precariously balanced on a table, then a chair, or leaning carefully against the bar. My limbs were in various states of rope binds, and my every movement was thoughtfully executed to keep from toppling over. Of course, I was in these agreed-upon constraints, but unlike the hundreds of scenes I’d done previously, a helpless anxiety mounted as I began to realize that this was not a controlled set. The background actors were getting drunk. Strangers were slapping my bare ass—and hitting it hard. Hands that shouldn’t have been there groped my body. I yelled and screamed for it to stop, twisting and turning to and fro. But I was stuck.
Stopping was not part of the plan. Someone grabbed my hips and tried to force anal play with one of the approved devices I’d consented to—but he wasn’t my scene partner and that consent I’d given didn’t extend to the extras. Luckily, the guy wasn’t very coordinated. I arched my hips in time, avoiding potential injury by inches.
I yelled at the guy, but it was pointless. It all happened in seconds. He was laughing like I was a joke, saying things like, “But you’re Aurora Snow, you can take it.” But I could not take it. I was shattered—my nerves so frayed I was entirely unable to explain how what I consented to turned into something I never imagined.
None of this felt like the scene I’d agreed to, and no one was listening to me as I tried like hell to stop it. Screaming “No!” or demanding to be untied or howling for it to stop—nothing helped. Did they think this was all part of the scene?
For the first time in my successful, lengthy career I could do nothing but get tortured on camera. I was powerless.
Later on I learned that the background actors hired to play my fans were in fact my fans—people who had seen the carefully orchestrated stunts and camera-angle sex in my porn scenes. The company had advertised/recruited intentionally for fans, not actors. Come see Porn Star Aurora Snow perform a scene, and be a part of it! Free alcohol was also mentioned. The fans had to be over 21 if they wanted to drink.
When did I consent to being tied up and helpless among a horde of untested non-performers hopped up on free-flowing booze?
I’d consented to having extras in the scene, to being tied up and compromised with them in close quarters, but the reality of what happened was nothing like I’d expected. Of course, before you get your check there is one more video to make: the one where you say you consented to everything as the company writes out the check you just went through hell to earn.
I’m not alone in my experience. These blurred lines of consent are as prevalent now as they were then, but it’s usually the inexperienced newbies who face these situations.
Twelve years ago, Carmen Valentina was new to the world of porn and booking her own work, making her an easy target for predatory directors. There was no boyfriend (or “suitcase pimp”) shadowing her, lugging the customary lingerie-stuffed suitcase and providing a bit of muscle. There was no agent to call if something went wrong. (I had both of these for most of my career.)
Valentina recalls one particular scene from those early days where what she thought she was agreeing to was wildly different than what transpired. “I showed up to set thinking I would only have sex with one man, but I was wrong. More men showed up.” It seemed odd, and Valentina began to wonder what they’d be doing. Perhaps they were part of the production crew? “The scene starts but only one guy is holding a camera. The others start getting naked,” she remembers. “I was too nervous to say no.”
All alone and surrounded by five naked men thrusting themselves in her face, Valentina felt trapped. Though it was never discussed that she’d be doing a scene with more than one guy, she felt pressured to go through with it. She was afraid to say no, but also worried that if she spoke up it would hurt her fledgling career.
“I had no one else in the industry to call and help me. I was so new. I finished the scene and left. I never contacted them again. I felt bamboozled and preyed-upon,” says Valentina. Now, well-known and successful, she shares that story with new women she meets as a warning, hoping to guide them away from predators. “If a company won’t respect your boundaries or tries to take advantage of you, you don’t need to work for them. There are plenty of wonderful companies to work for that will respect you and not do that.”
With hundreds of scenes in her catalogue and nearly half a million fans following her on social media, these days Valentina can pick and choose who she works with. But it’s still just as rough for the brand-new girls coming in as it once was a decade ago for Valentina. And despite the #MeToo movement, the consent problem is still a big one.
Earlier this year, Alicia Reign began working in porn—joining countless other young women looking for pandemic-resistant work. While filming a scene for a niche website, Reign was faced with that awkward moment when the director starts pushing for more than she agreed to.
She was pressed to do things she wasn’t comfortable with mid-scene, even though beforehand she was told by the director, “If I wasn’t okay with things I could say no or use a safe word. But when the time came and I said no, they didn’t listen.” Instead, she was told it was part of the scene, and indeed, it was what she’d been hired to do. Who could she argue with about it?
“I felt like I had to do that to get paid. I didn’t realize I could’ve walked off. It’s my fault for not knowing that,” insists Reign, who blames her lack of experience for going through with the overly aggressive scene. Yet, once you are halfway through the scene, do you risk not getting paid anything if you walk away? That is where many performers just get to the end and deal with the trauma later. “I’ve heard that other girls will do scenes like that and quit porn,” offers Reign. She hasn’t yet—and maintains that the people on set were very nice but the work was not what she had expected.
“They asked me to do a second scene and I said no, it was too aggressive and too much. I didn’t tell [the company] what happened. I just said it was too much and I didn’t want to do that again,” she explains. That is often how it works. A performer accepts the bad day at work, then never works for the company again. Others use words like assault and rape. When the work is sex, one bad day on the job can often lead to blurred lines, traumatic experiences, and a quick exit from the industry. Women like Reign, Valentina and, I guess, like me, too often accepted it as a rite of passage. I am only unique in that my worst day on set came near the end of my career, not the beginning.
