The main government agency responsible for workplace safety has not received or investigated a single complaint regarding sexual assault in California’s adult film industry in the last decade, and a regional manager says the agency does not consider sexual assault a recognized workplace hazard in the porn business.

“I don’t know that in adult film we would expect someone to be assaulted any more than in any other work environment,” Peter Riley, regional manager for the California Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Cal/OSHA) Santa Ana region, told BuzzFeed News. “In convenience stores, schools, and hospitals, often the client, student, or patient does hit or strike an employee, and we expect employers to have protocols in place and conduct regular inspections there.”

The stance of the regulator reflects a dynamic that some compare to the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses: Victims, for any number of reasons, are reluctant to report incidents to the authorities, and the lack of reported incidents may lead to authorities underestimating their prevalence.

Sexual assault on porn sets has received widespread attention this week after six women made serious allegations against high-profile actor James Deen. Those in the industry say concerns about sexual violence — and about the challenges of reporting incidents to management and authorities — have been long-standing among workers.

Tori Lux, an adult performer who has said Deen assaulted her, wrote in the Daily Beast that “people — including the police — tend to believe that sex workers have placed themselves in harm’s way, and therefore can’t be assaulted.” Workers point to a 2007 case in Philadelphia, where Judge Teresa Carr Deni called gang-rape of a sex worker at gunpoint “theft of services” and dismissed aggravated sexual assault charges.



Asked about whether structures existed for performers to report sexual assault, adult performer Bonnie Rotten told BuzzFeed News: "Not so much of a structure — it’s more of a social structure. Word gets around, it’s like high school."

Another former performer compared the culture in the porn business to that on college campuses.

“There are strange similarities, where theoretically the assault allegation is going to be handled without going to the police — either because people are hesitant to go to the police or because they don’t think the police will take the situation seriously," said Carol Queen, a former adult film performer and founding director of the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, which provides resources for sex workers.

"And the entity, the college or porn company, might be hesitant about having the police involved and so emphasize the possibility of it being handled in-house,” she told BuzzFeed News.