Warning: This story accommodates graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

When OnlyFans model and aspiring singer Romi Chase attended EXXXOTICA, one of many adult industry’s largest conventions, she anticipated it to be a enjoyable alternative to meet and greet her followers. And it was-at the least, thepornfans.com initially.

"I was there for the fans," Chase advised The Daily Beast of her December 2021 look at the expo in Chantilly, Virginia. "I was accessible for photograph alternatives… [and] every thing was going pretty nicely." But her experience turned sour, she recalled, when one fan-who, she stated, had been following her throughout the event-approached her for a photo.

"I instructed him ‘tips for pics,’" Chase recounted. The unidentified man despatched her some cash via Cash App, she stated, and so her photographer-who’d also accompanied her as an unofficial bodyguard-took the fan’s smartphone to snap the pic.

Dressed in a mini-skirt and fishnet stockings, Chase stood for greater than a number of photographs with the fan. "And sooner or later we did this pose where he is dealing with the digicam and he put his palms round my waist," recalled the adult performer, whose legal name The Daily Beast is withholding out of privacy issues. "My back was turned toward the digicam, sort of like a butt shot, after which out of nowhere he proceeded to put his palms in my butt, like, beneath my skirt."

The 30-year-previous grownup performer described having "froze" with concern. "I didn’t know what was happening. I flinched. He took his palms off, and then he did it once more."

Her photographer pal was unaware of the alleged groping, Chase stated, as a result of "I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t act like I wanted assist." The unidentified assailant, she said, may have been "trying to finger" her. "He noticed nothing improper with it. He was having enjoyable with it," Chase remarked.

"Once this complete thing was over, I left to smoke a cigarette-and I do not even smoke," she continued. "It was very traumatic."

Chase’s photographer, who spoke to The Daily Beast beneath the condition of anonymity, corroborated the grownup performer having told him what occurred instantly following the alleged assault.

"It is a horrible state of affairs," he mentioned. "I was by no means certain what occurred, but I instantly knew something was flawed, and that i had to look at [her] jump by the psychological hurdles to attempt to moderately react to something that’s horrible." If Chase had openly rebuffed the fan, the photographer stated, "she would have been seen as a villain." He added: "I really feel like she was targeted for exploitation because she is in such a difficult place to obtain justice."

Adult expos like EXXXOTICA serve mainly as venues for grownup stars of all stripes-hardcore porn performers, cam ladies, impartial content creators, and so forth.-to satisfy their followers in person, take images, sell merchandise, and introduce their work to new viewers. The conventions are sometimes a supply of profitable new opportunities for grownup performers.

"Hearing anything about alleged incidents from anybody who has attended EXXXOTICA corresponding to these encounters is obviously alarming to us, and it's something we take very severely," said Dan Davis, director of operations of Three Expo Events, which produces EXXXOTICA, in an announcement to The Daily Beast. "The alarming habits of the few definitely casts a dark shadow on the business as a whole. These ‘fans’ have to understand that these women are folks. They are someone’s daughter, spouse, girlfriend and human beings who deserve respect."

Davis continued: "We have been one among the primary, if not the first, occasions within the business to adapt a Code of Conduct. This is posted in multiple places on the events corresponding to in our show packages, with placards around the venues, handouts, and on our website. We even have posted and printed a devoted security textual content alert the place anybody in attendance for EXXXOTICA that goes direct to our security group and administration 24 hours a day during our reveals regardless of where they are if they are experiencing any kind of concern that makes them feel uncomfortable or in hazard or they witness somebody in that situation."

Indeed, in response to its official code of conduct, EXXXOTICA "has a zero tolerance coverage for… physical and sexual assault and/or battery, unwelcome physical contact of any kind, harassment of any variety." And yet a number of adult performers who spoke with The Daily Beast relayed harrowing experiences at expos-and how they typically don’t at all times feel comfortable speaking up about groping from fans.

"Fans get a little bit too touchy," mentioned adult-film actress Gigi Dior about her expertise at adult expos. She alleged that an unidentified man groped her at the same 2021 EXXXOTICA convention where Chase stated she was assaulted.

"There was this one man, who kept coming again," she recounted. "He would come up and choose you up and whereas he was holding you he would attain his fingers in between your buttcheeks or seize your leg." She added: "I’ve had guys walk up behind me and grab my boobs with their palms."

Dior, whose authorized title The Daily Beast is also withholding out of privateness concerns, said she as soon as had to physically struggle off a fan at a 2022 convention in Los Angeles.

"I was simply strolling round and a fan needed a photograph," she recalled. "He grabbed the back of my head and began pulling me in to kiss him, and that i stored combating back, and preventing back, and I was pulling my head again and he would pull me in." Dior continued: "A lot of those times we’re by ourselves, and safety was nowhere to be discovered. I finally elbowed him in his ribs and pulled away. By the time I found security he was lengthy gone."

Overly aggressive fans are a standard experience at adult-trade expos, said Kendra Sunderland, a 27-yr-old porn actress who rose to fame after her beginner video from a college library went viral online. "I have been doing conventions since the beginning of my profession, and there’s always somebody at every convention," she explained. "It’s at all times an issue." Sunderland stated that at various conventions she’s had men put their hands underneath her skirt and inappropriately touch her with out her consent.

Sunderland’s experience with alleged assault at porn expos has been made public before. In 2017, she told Rolling Stone about how disgraced ex-porn star Ron Jeremy pulled out her breast and sucked on it with out her consent at a Dallas convention two years prior. "It was brushed off… as a result of he's who he's," she instructed The Daily Beast. "At the top of the day, it wasn’t acceptable habits." (Jeremy was later charged greater than 30 counts of sexual assault but the trial is being scrapped owing to his "severe dementia.")

In addition to outlining clear codes of conduct, most expos do present security guards. Adult content material creator Marcela Alonso advised The Daily Beast that at the identical Chantilly-primarily based EXXXOTICA occasion in 2022, a fan came into her sales space and began to bodily assault her. "I had to scream and yell," she stated. "EXXXOTICA safety kicked him out."

As Davis added in EXXXOTICA’s assertion: "Our top precedence with EXXXOTICA or any events we produce is at all times to supply a secure and pleasant atmosphere for everybody who attends-from the talent to exhibitors to attendees. Now we have devoted security professionals on our staff which are accustomed to the trade and journey with us from city to metropolis, as nicely because the subcontracting of licensed security corporations at every event. Because the reveals have grown in measurement, so have our wants and size of those contracted professionals. If we're alerted to an issue we'll quickly respond to it, and remove any particular person(s) who've broken our Code of Conduct and alert native authorities if obligatory."

But safety personnel cannot be in all places suddenly. And so, in some cases, the adult performers are pressured to take issues into their very own palms.

Porn actress September Reign, who asked to keep her authorized title private, recalled threatening a handsy fan on the 2017 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. "If you contact me again in that method, I’m going to interrupt your finger so I don’t assume you wish to continue to do this," she stated she informed one man who’d groped her at her booth. "Obviously that made him mad and he walked away." (Soon after that incident, Reign claimed, she was roofied at the expo when she took a sip of a drink she believes was spiked with gamma hydroxybutyrate, a typical date-rape drug.)

While the entire grownup business workers who spoke with The Daily Beast agreed that expos could be a hotbed of inappropriate behavior from fans, they don’t essentially blame the organizers or the safety guards provided by them. The actual problem, the girls agreed, is the misguided method some male followers view grownup performers, typically assuming that because they interact in sexual activity for a residing they must welcome unwanted advances elsewhere.

"‘How do you assault a porn star or an grownup creator?’" Chase stated some people have asked her previously. "People actually think that it’s not possible because we sexualize things on camera, and we seem to get pleasure from them, and they can’t tell the fantasy from the reality a variety of times." However, she continued, "The reply is the same approach you would assault any other lady: By violating the consent… They assume because we twerk on Twitter they will just come up on it, contact it, or spank folks."

Appearing at public occasions, Sunderland stated, may be "taxing" enough as it is, and so when attendees "make you're feeling like a chunk of meat, just an object to them, that’s only a crappy feeling." She added: "No one likes to really feel like that. It’s not good to your psychological well being to really feel like an object or piece of meat."

Dior agreed. "You have to be cute and flirty, and but you’re attempting to keep a agency boundary between you and the rest of the convention," she mentioned. "It’s an armor, it’s a facade. It’s wanting them to buy your merchandise, and observe your social media, and buy your merchandise, and wanting them to turn out to be a loyal social-media fan, and come to these conventions to buy things and see you. So you want that attainability to be there sufficient, but you need to also keep it simply far sufficient they need it." She lamented that being an adult performer in public could be a "psychological game" during which "you’re taking part in with everybody" whereas having to have the ability to think and react quickly if somebody turns into aggressive. "One false move and it can be the difference between another trauma in my life, versus with the ability to sleep that night time."

Ultimately, Chase has determined to not attend EXXXOTICA conventions since her alleged assault and is hesitant about public appearances basically. She worries that till some men better understand consent, particularly as it applies to grownup entertainment staff, such occasions may by no means be absolutely safe for performers.

"I’ll all the time be a ‘ho’ no matter what. I have loads of achievements outdoors of this. I’ll still be a ‘ho’ the remainder of my life, and that label won't ever ever be corrected. It’s arduous to deal with it," Chase concluded.