PREAMBLE

Academic publishing can be a slow process and situations change in the period between writing a chapter and its publication; such is the case here. On 28 November 2015, the Twitter-sphere was set alight by two tweets from porn performer Stoya in which she accused her one-time boyfriend and regular professional partner, James Deen, of having raped her. More corroborating revelations from female performers surfaced over the following weeks. On Twitter and in the blogospheres – the platforms on which his stardom was staged and framed – Deen's reputation as a ‘feminist porn star’ and playful boy-next- door was trashed and debated. As this book goes to press, the fallout from these revelations is still not settled and the effects of the accusations on Deen, on his career and stardom, are neither clear nor inevitable. In the immediate aftermath, Deen was remarkably silent; a prolific contributor to social media (as this chapter discusses), he has yet to attempt to rehabilitate his reputation – there has been none of the ‘abject contrition’ that often accompanies the mainstream star/celebrity's fall from grace. Perhaps porn stardom and its commercial outcomes will not require the usual rehabilitation through confession, ‘self inspection and public reparation’ (Nunn and Biressi 2010: 53). All that remains to be seen and, while it is tempting to rush in with analysis and prognoses, we leave our original discussion here untouched, not least in the expectation that it will form the backdrop to subsequent analyses of the accusers, the accused, the industry and the culture of porn production.

Most commentators insist on particular forms of ‘talent’ as crucial to ‘stardom’ and, since the physical and acting skills involved in doing sex for camera are rarely acknowledged (Smith 2012), place performers in pornography at the lowest end of the star hierarchy. Porn stars are not accorded the deference given to real stars – they are positioned as lacking the class, authenticity, agency and luminosity of the true star. While pornography studies have burgeoned in recent years, relatively little attention has been paid to individual performers, with the notable exceptions of Hoang 2004, King 2005, Mercer 2006, Nikunen and Paasonen 2007 and Shelton 2002, whose accounts bring into view the complexities of establishing a marketable persona within this uniquely stigmatised entertainment sector.