XBIZ ‘Race in Adult’ Town Hall Provides Action Items for Change

On Wednesday, XBIZ hosted a virtual town hall on the state of race in the adult industry. The panel, which included performers Sean Zevran and Wolf Hudson, came up with many action items for the adult production community.

The 85-minute panel was held online on June 10 and led by Lotus Lain, performer and talent relations advocate for the Free Speech Coalition; Micky Mod, performer and creative director for Kink.com; and Shine Louise Houston, filmmaker and founder of Pink & White Productions. The panelists included Sean Zevran, 2017 XBIZ Gay Performer of the Year and 2018 GayVN Performer of the Year; and Wolf Hudson, who has performed in many gay and bi scenes throughout his career.

Also on the panel were representatives from the straight side of the industry: performer-directors Ricky Johnson and Lexington Steele (who produced a few gay-friendly DVDs under the Mercenary Pictures label over a decade ago); and performers Natassia Dreams, Ana Foxxx, Isiah Maxwell, Kira Noir and Misty Stone.

Shared Zevran: “What I’ve noticed with some of the studios, it often feels like they’ll allow me a little more opportunity just because they feel that I’m black enough, but not too black…I’ve seen a lot of that happen. In a way, it is tokenism. They’ll try to emphasize the fact that I am a person of color, so they’ll very much highlight that. It’s never spoken but you can always tell there’s something going on as far as their marketing is concerned. I think it’s producers and directors being a little bit tone-deaf about these things.”

As further shared in XBIZ’s report, he later questioned whether studios were committed to change.

“I don’t think any of us here should apologize for tone,” said Zevran. “I’m very appreciative to be a part of this discussion, but is this just for show? Or is anything really going to be done here? Is this just a PR stunt? Everybody wants a word about something; what are they doing other than giving themselves a headline? I don’t know the answer to this question. I’m not going to apologize for my tone. I’ve got nothing to lose, I’ve got nothing to gain.”

Zevran later added that it was not the job for people of color to educate.

“We’ve been educating for years. They know. Like Misty was saying, we need to be in people’s faces. It’s nice to have these panels, it’s easy to speak up on Twitter…we can say the agents will hold agents accountable, but that’s like saying the police will hold police accountable. Companies aren’t going to hold themselves accountable; that’s one thing I learned. Within companies there are certain producers and directors who want to see change, I’ve worked with a lot of them. So the only way to get past that is more organization as performers.”

Zevran said that peaceful protests only get the movement so far: “The powers-that-be like ‘peaceful’ because they can ignore ‘peaceful.’ It’s not until you get in somebody’s face and say, ‘Look, this is what’s going to happen if you do not heed these demands.’ We don’t have enough power to do it in panels or individually until we start laying down some repercussions.”

Hudson noted that the coronavirus pandemic was providing a unique opportunity for performers to set the tone: “You have studios literally on their knees, begging for content. That to me is demonstrating the true value of performers. ‘Please give us what you have.’ That is true power,” he said. “This is a moment when performers of color can really set the tone. I’m tired of waiting for studios to do their part…right now, we have a voice and people are listening. This is an opportunity that cannot be wasted.”

In its report, XBIZ provided the following action items for the adult production community:

• No more mockery of people of color, religion, ethnicity, body types, or age
• “Complete reform” of booking agents and managers to mitigate talent rate disparities
• Increasing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) behind the scenes through an industry- funded career pipeline
• Intimacy coordinators on set to avoid racialized scenarios
• Paid diversity consultants at every company, including pleasure products and camming, to avoid racialized business practices, including in marketing and advertising
• Diversification of staffing at all companies from the top down to increase BIPOC behind the scenes
• The elimination of derogatory terms in all media, including blocking racially charged language on all digital media where performers engage
• First notification of changes to movie titles for subsequent releases to avoid the use of racialized and derogatory titles
• Ask performers how they would like to be described to avoid racialized descriptives
• Increased representation of BIPOC in adult industry media including online, in print and at events

You can read the full report here. What do you think needs to happen for meaningful change?