Recently, an investigative journalist by the name of Paul Mulholland released an article exposing a prominent porn studio, called D&E Media, for possible acts of sexual assault. The New Jersey-based studio is most well-known for its brand Facial Abuse. We highlighted Facial Abuse in our documentary mini-series Beyond Fantasy to expose the violence and abuse rife within the porn industry.
What Paul found was even more horrific than he had anticipated.
Mulholland reached out to numerous news outlets with this evidence, but none replied. He also brought evidence to Derek Smith Law Group who specializes in cases of rape, sexual harassment and sexual assault to provide legal counsel. Even they struggled with the horrific nature of the content.
Since then, he has compiled all of his research and evidence into an article called “Porn Studio Accused of Ignoring Consent and Inflicting Injuries on Models.” We will warn you, this article is extremely graphic and hard to read.
Below is a summarized version of his research. While this is of a less graphic nature than its original, it does still contain disturbing written testimony of sexual abuse as well as written descriptions of sexual acts that regularly occur in Facial Abuse videos. Reader discretion is advised.
In the words of Paul Mulholland: “..what is difficult to read is even harder to experience yourself. The women who told me their stories did not have the privilege of looking away.”
Background on Facial Abuse
It could be argued that Facial Abuse doesn’t make videos for the sake of male arousal but rather the complete degradation, humiliation, and destruction of women.
The scenario in each of their videos is the same, “a female model, and one or two male models perform a scene in which the woman is subjected to forceful oral sex, sometimes called face f***ing, normally in three different positions. The scene then moves to vaginal and/or anal penetrative sex. Changes in position are often punctuated with the female model being urinated on and sometimes drinking the urine.
It is not uncommon at all for the women to vomit repeatedly as a consequence of being gagged with a penis. And, in more recent years, it is even encouraged and expected, to an extent that it is unusual when the woman does not vomit. As confirmed by one former model, female models are fed protein shakes or other food prior to filming to ensure repeated vomiting.
At the end, a dog bowl filled with the vomit and urine that resulted from the scene is poured on the model’s head.”
The sexual violence in these videos is unlike anything you have ever seen before. It’s hard to imagine this is arousing to any man unless they have a deep-seated hatred for women.
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Kink is another studio that specializes in violent BDSM porn videos and has received similar criticism from performers. But according to Mulholland, even they have better policies than D&E. He says, “the standards of D&E fall grossly short of what is required elsewhere in the adult industry.”
Facial Abuse & Sexual Violence
19-year-old Anna performed for Facial Abuse (FA) in late 2021. During her scene, “Anna is slapped, urinated on, verbally taunted and ridiculed, and forcefully gagged with penises until she pukes on set and all over her face and body. She said she had a black eye from being slapped in the face and extensive and very dark bruising on her buttocks from spanking…” She contemplated suicide for a long time following this scene.
Another young woman with the stage name Clayra Beau shot with Facial Abuse in December 2010. “She says that she struggled to breathe at many points and that the scene “got so rough so fast.”
Like Anna, she endured physical injuries for days afterward. She told me “I couldn’t swallow. The blood vessels in my eyes had burst to the point that I couldn’t see straight.” These injuries were endured as a result of direct slaps to her face from the two male performers.
She explained that, “With them, it wasn’t that they don’t stop, it’s that they legit push it further, and they want to hurt you.”
I asked Donald Vollenweider, an owner and occasional director at D&E, in 2021 about injuries sustained on set. He answered “Injuries? This is starting to sound more like a fairy tale than fact.” He then added ‘There is no reason for concern. We are not in the business of hurting people. We pay well, everyone leaves happy.’”
Performer testimony says otherwise.
Deception, Manipulation, and Unknown Consequences
“Sometime around February 2013, Bailey Rae (stage name), then 22, says she traveled from
Florida to New York to film a scene with FA. Her scene was most likely shot in New Jersey.
Rae explained that “they don’t tell you anything realistically about what you’re getting yourself into beforehand…they didn’t tell me anything about the scene or what was expected of me or anything…I didn’t know at all that it was going to be that aggressive.”
She added “I never even knew that it was called Facial Abuse” and “There was NEVER, there was NEVER a point in time that they even mentioned the name of the studio to me.” (Emphasis original)
She says she was never warned of the potential for injury, but endured many injuries all the same: “my throat was hurt and swollen” and “my cheeks were sore, my throat was sore, I had bruises on my butt cheeks.”
The emotional pain lasted longer. She told me that this scene is her “deepest darkest secret of my life.” While holding back tears, she told me “the whole thing is still very heartbreaking for me.” After the scene, she began to cut herself and tried to take her own life.”
While Rae asserts that this was not rape, she was under the influence of heroin that had been purchased for her by the director of the scene earlier that day. She says she “did not and could not read the contract,” “I kept nodding off while signing the paperwork and I remember they had to keep waking me up.”
RELATED: These Performers are Exposing Violent Abuse on Porn Sets
Rae says choosing to do the scene with D&E was “a decision that was made under the influence of drugs and with very little information of what I was getting myself into.”
She later informed Mulholland that “the heroin impaired her ability to withdraw consent. She had been offered $1500 plus expenses for the scene but if she “tapped out”, meaning to end the scene early, she would not be paid at all. This included her exit expenses, and as a result she would have had difficulty funding her way back home.”
“Rae had to complete a scene whose contents she felt misled about, in which she was provided mind-altering drugs immediately beforehand, and injured during, just to make enough money to get home and avoid being stranded in another state indefinitely.“
Derek Smith, owner and founder of Derek Smith Law Group, explains that “anytime someone has sex with another person or engages in sexual acts with another person who is objectively speaking incapable of consent, such as they’re incredibly intoxicated, or as you said ‘high on heroin’, […] there is no consent.” He adds that one cannot give a voluntary and knowing signature while intoxicated and that he sees “possible rape” and “a voidable contract” in this case.
Smith adds that this could be a case under the Sex Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
“Early in 2020, Rachel (neither her stage nor legal name) shot a scene with FA. She described her scene as “a very traumatic experience.”
Like Rae, Rachel says she was not adequately warned beforehand, “I had no idea what I would be doing until I got there and when I realized what I was gonna be doing I was too scared to say no because I was the only female there surrounded by 5 men, so I was afraid of what they would do if I didn’t follow through with my word.”
Rachel’s comment that she did not feel safe withdrawing consent is one that is consistent with what is observable in her scene. In several cases, she says she does not want to perform a specific sex act but eventually complies upon repeated urges to do so… This pattern of initial denial, followed by pestering and/or shouting from multiple men more than twice her age, before her eventual acquiescence is repeated throughout the scene. Rachel’s assertion that she did so because she felt unsafe to say no is consistent with this pattern.
Vollenweider once told me that “nothing happens that isn’t discussed.” Frankly, I don’t see how this is possible in Rachel’s scene.”
Rachel was raped as a minor. “During the shoot, Vollenweider, who directed the scene, repeatedly presses her to divulge more details on the sexual abuse she survived as a child… He asks her what was worse, the scene they were still filming or having been raped as a minor, and what she would say to her rapist if he saw this video.”
Rachel was 18 at the time of filming.
Withdrawal of Consent
Withdrawal of consent occurs when a performer reaches a point in the scene where she is no longer comfortable with the acts perpetrated against her. This is often discussed prior to filming and includes hand motions, tapping or a verbal cue that a performer can give to signal withdrawal of consent and for the act or scene to stop.
RELATED: I Was Trafficked into the Porn Industry as a Desperate Single Mom
In addition to the horrific violence these women experience, their withdrawal of consent is flagrantly ignored by Facial Abuse, its male performers and its directors, resulting in injuries so severe that the women have limited physical function for days afterwards.
Anna says that “[Facial Abuse] provided no alternative method of consent withdrawal, such as shaking her head or blinking her eyes.”
She asserts “that they did a pre-shoot interview in which they discussed her “do’s and don’ts” or the sex acts she is okay with and those she is not. Despite this interview taking place, she says “then when the video started, they didn’t care about anything that I had to say in the consent video. They did not give a sh*t. They pretty much do everything I said no to.”
She explains that she was kept in positions in which she was anatomically unable to withdraw consent.”
Clayra Beau says that “one model did not stop when she signaled for him to stop, “I tapped his thighs because I couldn’t breathe anymore and he didn’t care. He actually grabbed the back of my head and pulled me closer and I had to, from kneeling, push on his thighs, get my feet underneath me, and literally launch my entire body weight backward to get off of him.”
…
Beau emphasized that they agreed before the shoot that a tap on the leg was a signal to stop immediately, and she is certain about this. She says that this signal was not respected at all. Clayra also said that they told her to make a “timeout” gesture with her hands if she needed to withdraw consent while unable to speak. This gesture however, and Beau noted this too, is anatomically impossible to make while in certain positions that Beau and others have been held in. Anna made a similar observation.”
Derek Smith, an attorney specializing in sexual harassment and assault, says that [Anna and Beau’s] scene[s] “definitely sound like sexual assault.” He continued, “When you withdraw consent, anything after is sexual assault or rape.” He added that this concept applies just as surely to [porn performers] as it would to anybody else.”
Severe Backlash, Retaliation, and Intimidation
Paul Mulholland says, “D&E’s alleged abusive behavior is in part protected by a deliberate strategy of intimidation, surveillance, and harassment of their former models and anyone who criticizes them publicly.”
Since reporting on the subject and drawing attention to their more than suspect methods of recruiting, shooting and coercion, Mulholland has received messages meant to intimate and silence him.
“Over the course of my reporting, Vollenweider and/or agents of D&E published the street address of my mother at least twice, published two defamatory blogs about me, bought the rights to my domain name, changed Vollenweider’s profile picture on Twitter to a picture of me for weeks, and extended multiple bribe attempts of varying subtlety to me.
Vollenweider published my mom’s street address along with the first names of my mom and older sister on a forum for adult content.
…
D&E has purchased the rights to paulmulholland.com and published a fake blog about me there.
The blog is entitled “Pseudo Journo Has His Cover Blown” and reads: “Fake Journalist befriending models claiming to ‘help’ them but it seems like he’s really trying to pull a “Girls Do Porn” with their personal info. Sex workers should use caution when talking with him, especially relating to any past / present work.”
The purpose of this fake blog is to discredit me and make it harder to earn the trust of my sources. It explicitly warns models against speaking with me. A former porn director for an unrelated studio who I spoke with said paulmulholland.com was the first site that came up when he googled “Paul Mulholland journalist porn.”
…
Among other things, they say I am a “porn addict” and that I am ‘an employee of facial abuse with nefarious purposes.’”
Similar retaliation occurred to a performer by the name of Felicity Feline who details her experience with Facial Abuse in several YouTube videos. She shot with Facial Abuse twice in 2015.
“Felicity says that after her second shoot with FA, Vollenweider offered to make her a pay-site because her videos had been very successful. This site would be a subscription site oriented around Felicity and they would share the profits 50/50.
RELATED: How Porn and Trafficking Are Undeniably Connected
Felicity signaled initial interest in this deal, but later backed out of it. Felicity said that Vollenweider was offended by this and “I can’t believe how aggressive he got about it.”
Felicity then explained that Vollenweider bought and kept the rights to felicityfeline.com anyway, and made a fake blog about her there too.
…
Felicity once summed up D&E’s content: They present “women as disgusting creatures that we should step on.”
She went on to explain that Vollenweider tried to blackmail her using the site.”
Mulholland identified several other fake blogs “maintained by D&E which are designed to confuse and distract investigations.”
Mulholland asserts that “Vollenweider explained to me on May 1, 2022 “You have to ask yourself how much information is out there that I’ve purposefully seeded in the hopes that someone cites it as fact.” … The purpose of this disinformation, as Vollenweider suggests, is to blend real information with fake, in the hope that a reporter “cites it as fact.” This would have the effect of discrediting everything in that reporter’s work, and not just some of it.”
Conclusion
The testimonies provided by former models and industry insiders expose the prevalence of exploitation and mistreatment within an industry that often operates behind closed doors. We applaud their courage to come forward and share their experiences despite the risk of retaliation.
This is not a one-off situation, nor can it be excused as “kink.” Facial Abuse and D&E have a pattern of misconduct that consists of not only a clear hatred toward women, but a desire to utterly break them.
It is clear that D&E is operating in a devious manner, horribly abusing the women who shoot scenes for their brands, and truly believe they can get away with it. And currently, they are. We strongly believe that D&E needs to be brought to justice. We cannot ignore or turn a blind eye to the very obvious abuse and dehumanization of these women.
The impact of these allegations extends beyond the accused studio, highlighting the broader concerns within the adult entertainment industry. Paul Mulholland’s investigation should serve as a wake-up call, demanding a closer examination of the treatment of performers and the need for comprehensive reforms. And it should convict porn consumers everywhere with the realization that what they’re consuming, and perpetuating, might be actual rape.
To read Paul’s full article, click here [strong trigger warning!]
Here at Exodus Cry, we actively serve women who have been sexually exploited in porn, providing them with life-changing trauma therapy and support so they can build beautiful new lives. We also mobilize large-scale campaigns to hold exploitative porn companies accountable and create films that expose the injustice of sexual exploitation for millions of viewers around the world.
It’s only through generous activists like you that this work is made possible! Join us on the front lines by giving so that, together, we can create a world free from trafficking and sexual exploitation.
