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With the “Jacquie et Michel” and “French Bukkake” cases, named after the websites involved, the French porn industry has been in the spotlight for two years now.
The two court cases come in the wake of multiple abuse allegations. 42 women have filed civil suits, while 16 men, including producers and actors, are under investigation for offences including aggravated rape, complicity in rape, aggravated pimping, human trafficking for the purpose of rape, and distribution of rape images.
How did all this come to pass? The women appearing in the videos at the centre of the trials were recruited online by an employee of one of the sites, who was a man posing as a woman. After befriending these potential “actresses” (apparently selected for their vulnerability, both financial and psychological), the man offered them an initial contract for paid sex.
The plaintiffs claim to have been subjected to “recruitment rape” (viol de rabattage), an expression that refers to a traumatic experience intended to reduce the victim’s reluctance to participate in future shoots. The calculation is that the woman in question will internalize the fact of having already endured the worst experience, and will therefore perceive a porn shoot as something less extreme.
During filming, the victims were intimidated and verbally abused. This came in the context of generalized physical abuse. Some reported being drugged, while others recalled being forced to drink alcohol before they were asked to give their verbal consent on camera at the outset of filming. None were informed in advance of the acts or positions they were agreeing to, or of the number of partners planned for a scene.
Several women reported that they had explicitly expressed their lack of consent to certain requests, and had been ignored or physically abused as a result.
The videos were then published on freely accessible public websites, rather than on exclusive Canadian platforms, as they had been assured. Those who appeared in them were often subsequently recognized in their private or professional lives.
Some of the testimonies of these women’s experiences were gathered by a collective of female authors and published in a book entitled Sous Nos Regards : Récits de la violence pornographique ("Before Our Eyes: tales of porn violence", Seuil). “These are women that everyone looks at but no one wants to see, let alone hear”, announces the book.
Should a whole industry be banned?
In the book's preface, historian and feminist Christelle Taraud describes the scale of the issue: “Today, pornography is a multinational industry that generates huge profits, estimated at several billion dollars a year worldwide. In France, it is mainly distributed through four platforms: Pornhub, xHamster, XVideos, and XNXX. [...] Looking at the figures – a total of 35.63 million individuals watched a porn video online in France alone on these platforms in a single year; at the same time, 136 billion videos were viewed worldwide – it is no exaggeration to say that porn has invaded our lives and that almost everyone watches it.”
In 2024, France was the European country with the most users of PornHub, the world's most popular adult website. This ranked it second in the world behind the United States. Of the other European countries in the top 10, the UK, Germany and Italy ranked 5th, 6th and 8th respectively.
According to a 2023 study published by the Hungarian National Media and Communications Authority, nearly 620,000 Hungarians visit one of the country's ten most popular adult websites in a single day. That figure rises to 1.7 million for a week.
Since the late 1990s there has been a rise in “gonzo” pornography, i.e. productions with no proper budget or script. Over the years, this genre has become increasingly hardcore. The advent of such porn went hand in hand with the collapse of the traditional business model, in which production companies would finance the filming of movies that were then sold or rented on DVDs. The coming of the internet opened the door to a flood of amateur or amateur-style videos distributed online free of charge, which led to a sharp decline in paid content.
Production studios are therefore closing down or being bought out by large platforms known as “tube sites” (such as PornHub), which stream a huge amount of videos purchased from many different sources.
‘These are women that everyone looks at but no one wants to see, let alone hear’ - Christelle Taraud, historian
The excesses of this business model made headlines in 2023 when PornHub was sued for broadcasting videos featuring very young women who had been victims of practices similar to those alleged in the Jacquie et Michel and French Bukkake cases.
In the United States, as in Europe, there is a glaring lack of legal constraints to ensure that content creators whose work is redistributed by tube sites adhere to best practices.
In 2010, 90% of the 50 most widely distributed pornographic videos worldwide featured one or more forms of violence against the female protagonist(s), according to a study published in the American academic journal Violence Against Women.
The preface to Sous Nos Regards backs up those figures: “It is indeed the most misogynistic, heteronormative, and racist pornography that fuels most of the French, European, and global markets today. [...] Light years away from the ‘sexual revolution’ it is supposed to promote, pornographic film production today is marked by a very strong emphasis on violence against women.”
Flimsy EU legislation
Europe lacks a robust legal framework for the adult entertainment industry. In December 2023, as part of the Digital Services Act, Brussels imposed stricter rules on three platforms (Pornhub, Stripchat, and XVideos) which claim to have over 40 million monthly users.
The laws of individual European countries tend to focus on access to adult content by minors, as well as the production and distribution of porn featuring minors.
Spain has announced the introduction of an age-verification system for users wishing to access porn websites. In France, the law requires sites to develop their own anonymous age-verification system by 11 April 2025.
Similar measures have been taken in Italy. The Independent reports that since 2019 Rome also has specific laws to fight the spread of pornography involving minors, as well as for “revenge porn” and other non-consensual sharing of images or videos. Comparable legislation has been in place in France since 2016.
However, no laws have yet been introduced at EU level to protect porn actors and actresses.
OTRAS in Spain, SZEXE in Hungary and STRASS in France: there exist trade unions of sex workers who campaign locally to raise awareness and defend their rights. Porn actors are included, but there is no specific union for X-rated audiovisual productions.
Ethical porn?
It would be unfair to say that the whole porn industry follows the same patterns. The leading figure in so-called “ethical” porn is Erika Lust. This producer of erotic films is campaigning for a change in the culture of mainstream porn, away from its typical racist and misogynistic slant.
Erika Lust’s productions feature alternative and inclusive storylines. The work ethic she imposes on all her teams is based on consent, pleasure, and sexual health. Her charter is signed by a representative of the production company, Lust Films, as well as by each new actor.
She explained the ethic to Voxeurop: “Our sets are designed to be collaborative, grounded in care: every performer deserves a respectful and safe environment just like in any other profession. That includes having transparent contracts, fair pay, regular STI testing, check-ins around boundaries and comfort, and a complete rejection of last-minute changes that compromise consent. [...] Ethical porn begins before the cameras roll. It lives in how we treat people, not just what we show on screen.”
Lust Films is not the only production company committed to providing decent working conditions for all its employees.
In the wake of the Jacquie et Michel and French Bukkake cases, some major French players are taking steps to salvage their image. The industry giant Dorcel, for example, has published a “Code of Ethics for X-rated Production”. It highlights basic principles such as informed consent, respect for image rights, and transparency in contracts.
But will this be enough to guarantee the safety of all porn actors?
The main question in the Jacquie et Michel case is that of responsibility. The site presents itself as a distribution platform and not a content-production platform, and its managers maintain that they therefore have no control over the filming conditions.
A crime of condoning rape?
As early as 1979, American author and feminist activist Andrea Dworkin advocated for the criminalization of pornography as a whole. In “Pornography: Men Appropriate Women”, she argued that “the power of men in pornography is imperial power, the power of cruel and arrogant rulers who continue to take and conquer for the pleasure of power and the power of pleasure.”
In France and Spain, the offence of glorifying terrorism has existed since 2001. In the UK, the Terrorism Act of 2006 does the same. An offence of glorifying rape does not yet exist, but such a measure might serve as an appropriate response to the many abuses of the porn industry.
This article was produced as part of the PULSE project, a European initiative supporting cross-border journalistic collaborations. Silvia Martelli (Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy), Lola García-Ajofrín (El Confidencial, Spain) and Gyorgy Folk (EUrologus/HVG, Hungary) contributed to this article.
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