Amber Rayne, an adult film actress who specialized in BDSM usually as a victim, died over the weekend at the age of 31, cause unknown. She and three other women have charged male adult film star James Dean with raping and abusing them during filming. They had agreed to certain acts, but not others and he was supposed to "force them" to do the agreed upon acts. During the filming and with the film crews often cheering in the mistaken belief that it was part of the show, the women charged he raped them by forcing them to do unwanted acts. Rayne said after she cursed him out, he punched her in the face ---definitely not in the script.
The question is certainly important for providers: Are you protected by law from being forced to go further than you wish. If in BDSM play I do more than you were willing to have done, can I be charged with rape? It is important because neither you nor an actress gives up her humanity or her rights by agreeing to a sex act even a"perverted" one.
To be clear, Dean denies the charges and has not been charged with any crime. and the details are foggier than I have time to explain. The question of rape in the setting of sex work is a clear one.
Any non-consensual assault of a sexual nature would be rape or sexual assault.
Now, getting a DA to attempt to prosecute and finding a jury to convict is another matter.
(still not a lawyer)
PS: Amber didn't die over the weekend but on April 2.
During a BDSM play scene (in your professional and/or personal life) if you use your safe word and are ignored anything that the happens after that would be considered sexual assault/rape.
Like others have mentioned is yes they can. If you have a safety word or you go beyond what someone wants or you force them to do something. that is assault. That is the thin line of BDSM. Some people who are not involved in that type of play will think that the people were asking for it. Which is never the case. Just like some people think providers and pornstars... "ask for it". But NO THEY DONT.
We are all humans and deserve not to be physically, sexually, mentally, verbally abused. We all should be treated with respect.
Now on with Mr. Dean and the allegations against him. I am not in anyway saying yes Mr. Dean did this or No he didn't.
But I have read that he was bragging about getting anal scenes for regular price. People on set high fiving him and congratulating him. The only people who know the truth are the people in the room at the time of this happening.
I have also read others saying he was nothing but professional with them during the time he worked with them. So who knows
From a legal perspective, any non-consensual touching is assault (States vary on definitions of what is assault vs. what is battery, but let's use the phrase "assault" as a generic term). Thus, even an act which starts as consensual can be terminated by the withdrawal of consent. There is no defense of "I was too far into it to stop" or "it was paid for". If someone says "no", even if it started as "yes", play stops and the scene ends or something different and consensual is negotiated. This applies whether it is a movie set, a dungeon or a bedroom.
I have also seen many of the on-set pre-action "interviews" with the off-camera male voice that go, "Me? My name is Starlet-Name. What am I going to do today? Suck a lot of cock and drink a lot of cum! [Or, "Get cum all over my face, 'cause I love cum on my face."] Six guys? Sure!" which pretty much rules out fuck scenes and anal scenes.
Anything that hits the publicly viewable pages could be completely staged, of course, but I would still think that the directors or producers or lawyers would get those 2257 statements on video and not just a photocopy of a birth certificate (and no statement of what will going on)