Separately, 22 women who appeared in the films took the company to civil court in San Diego , and say they were lied to about the nature of the films, how much they would be paid, and how the videos would be distributed. That trial has been going on for months. When the films were uploaded to huge porn websites, people identified the women to their communities and families. Many say the trauma ruined their lives.

Last week, the owners and key employees of adult film production company Girls Do Porn were charged with federal counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion.

The plaintiffs were victimized twice, Boden noted: first by the owners of Girls Do Porn and then by their own communities and strangers on the internet who stalked, harassed, and doxxed them.

"No legitimate porn company operates the way that GirlsDoPorn allegedly did. This isn't an outlier in porn industry operating procedure, it's a series of despicable crimes that were filmed and exploited for profit," Alison Boden, CEO of Kink.com, told Motherboard, highlighting that GDP isn’t a porn company, it’s a criminal operation. "I think the GirlsDoPorn case says a lot more about our society than it does about the porn industry."

What Girls Do Porn is not, however, is representative of how the porn industry works, according to a wide variety of people I’ve spoken to over the course of years of reporting about sex work. But anti-porn groups, sex worker-exclusionary feminists, and misogynists would like the rest of the world to believe otherwise. Many people who read about this case say that the women involved should have known better, or that they should feel shame for filming to begin with.

"None of us were 'porn stars,' we were all just young girls that needed money."

Girls Do Porn is, allegedly, a criminal operation masterminded by a group of people willing to exploit young women for the sake of financial gain. Owner Michael Pratt is a wanted fugitive, and one cameraman has testified to lying to the women who came to shoot what they thought was a quick-cash modeling gig. The women’s lawyers have talked to more than 100 people who have had similar experiences with the company, and more come forward to Motherboard every time we publish new coverage on the case. The scope of what they're accused of is overwhelming.

As more and more women come forward to say that through the coverage of this case, they've realized they're not alone—and people within the adult industry continue to speak out about how this is not normal.

I spoke with directors, performers, and harm reductionist activists about how this case, and the indictment of sex trafficking, is reverberating across the industry.

"Porn isn't the problem, its exploitation"

"I’m glad so many girls are coming forward with this," one woman, who appeared in Girls Do Porn videos, told me anonymously. After the videos were spread online and she was identified, she became suicidal and depressed, and ended up moving across the country to a place where no one knew her.

"I felt so alone, and in a sort of messed up way none of us are [alone] anymore," she said. "It was a traumatizing event. None of us were 'porn stars,' we were all just young girls that needed money. None of us thought we were going to be exploited and none of us thought of this as a career."

Chilly, an independent porn performer, told Motherboard that she believes cases like what happened at Girls Do Porn are not unheard-of in the adult industry, but they're not openly discussed—mostly because of the shame and stigma society still places on sex work.

"[Companies like GDP] target this demographic because it is more vulnerable and generally unfamiliar with specific rights and industry standards," she said. Those standards include things like regular STD testing, a focus on and respect for consent, and clear expectations of how the content will be used.