
This Adult Entertainer Left Her Industry Twice Due To Ongoing Racism And Lack Of Protection

There was a moment before adult performer Demi Sutra reentered the industry for what would be her second of three separate times in under a decade when she realized that her profession was in desperate need of change. “I didn’t love everything that I saw,” Sutra tells xoNecole. “[But] I still wanted to be there.” This realization came to her after she reached out to several Black performers through Twitter to ask about their experience dealing with the racism that plagues adult entertainment. “It was just incredibly obvious that it needed help.”
Sutra first entered adult entertainment when she was 23 which she describes as being “not a good time” for her. “I found it to be problematic and really hurtful,” she says about her experience of being pigeonholed to sites specifically meant for Black female performers.
In 2018, she would move to Los Angeles from Florida to relaunch her career only to leave again in 2019. The second time she would leave she cited being overworked and blatant racism. “I didn’t like my agency. [There was] a lack of protection for me when it came to racism,” she says.
The inaction by her then agency (the famed Spiegler Girls) led to Sutra becoming vocal on her own social media. “When you do those callouts you risk being blacklisted,” Sutra says. “But I was really just tired of it and I started saying shit about companies online.” Despite the slow change, she said she saw from her being vocal online, Sutra was still frustrated with the industry’s racism.
“I had so many directors for multiple companies say to my face: ‘Oh man, you’re really talented. I really wish I could book you for more scenes but we met our Black girl quota.'” Sutra was taken aback when told this. “So your boss is racist and you’re okay with that?”
That experience would echo that of another Black female performer xoNecole spoke with. Wanting to remain anonymous, she says that “for Black girls, they don’t want to have us on there too much, even if we’re doing well because they don’t want to be seen as a ‘Black girl site.' It makes it so our trajectory in the industry is slower.”
Misogynoir in adult entertainment is a systemic issue that has manifested itself in many different ways for Black women performers.
Newcomer Elsie’s short-lived mainstream career came to an end towards the close of 2022 after the constant struggle to have Black scene partners. “They told me Black on Black doesn’t sell.” She says the difficulty in selling these kinds of scenes is due to the kind of viewers that mainstream adult entertainment caters to. “The audience they have created is not Black,” Elsie says. “It's catered to white people. A lot of the tropes, like the stepsister stuff, that’s not catered to us.”
Blacked, a popular adult entertainment production company that produces content with Black men and white women has come under scrutiny in particular for some of the racist stereotypes they perpetuate. “Blacked symbolizes something so dirty,” Sutra says as she recounts her discovery of the website. She says that performers who have worked with Blacked have reached out to her telling her that the company makes the white female scene partners look as if they’re uncomfortable and in pain. “In this evangelical fucking white America that we live in, [white women] were put on a pedestal and Black men were killed.”
Despite Sutra’s vocal objections to the website on her Twitter account, she says that she gets the most pushback from Black male performers and Black male fans. “[Blacked] did have a convo with all of their Black male talent and two of the Black female talent they were shooting at the time … and asked the Black men – they didn’t even ask the women – if the title bothered them,” Sutra says. “All of them said no.”
Sutra says following her criticism of Blacked, that she was harassed and received death threats on social media. “It was really insane that I was trying to stand up for something that I know to be right and it’s not a positive thing.”
Sutra’s hope for a better industry isn’t lost despite all the backlash she’s faced. After the country-wide racial reckoning in 2020, Sutra said she saw the most dramatic change in the industry since she’s been there. She points to programs like BiPoc started by Sinnamon Love that addresses the racial inequality within the industry that would later receive funding from Adult Video Network or AVN. “That program which does enable Black pornstars to be able to get therapy, get testing — because some people can’t afford it, especially being that there’s so few places for Black talent in pornography.”
Moreover, Sutra is looking toward her own future in the industry. In 2021, she signed with Brazzers, marking her third official time with the industry. She is most excited however for the future generation of Black female stars. “I’ve fully stepped into the phase of uplifting younger Black women in the industry and that is what I’ll continue to do.”
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Feature image by @demisutra/ Instagram
Eva Marcille On Starring In 'Jason’s Lyric Live' & Being An Audacious Black Woman
Eva Marcille has taken her talents to the stage. The model-turned-actress is starring in her first play, Jason’s Lyric Live alongside Allen Payne, K. Michelle, Treach, and others.
The play, produced by Je’Caryous Johnson, is an adaptation of the film, which starred Allen Payne as Jason and Jada Pinkett Smith as Lyric. Allen reprised his role as Jason for the play and Eva plays Lyric.
While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Feature image by Leon Bennett/WireImage
Tracee Ellis Ross Is Still Living A 'Robust' Life Despite Sometimes Grieving Not Being Partnered
Tracee Ellis Ross sat down with former first lady Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson for their IMO podcast to have a candid discussion about dating, marriage, and family. At 52, the beloved actress is single, but is still open to finding her person. However, she realizes that she has to navigate dating differently, describing herself as a "unicorn."
“I’m a very unique sort of unicorn of a woman, so it's gonna take a unique person,” she explained. "And in the meantime, I've really learned how to live my life and enjoy it and not sit around waiting."
Calling herself a "choiceful woman," she has had to push against culture norms and found that many of her experiences with men around her age were challenging due to the toxic masculinity they had been raised in. Many of their views about relationships conflicts with how she lives her life, so she tends to date younger.
“It's not just that I'm older. I’m also very embodied. I am a full, very whole person who knows myself, who is in charge of my life and who lives a very full, just robust life," she said.
Regardless if they're younger or older, Tracee has made it clear that she isn't settling and won't be in a relationship for the sake of having a partner. Even when loneliness creeps.
“As much as grief does surface for me around not having children and not having a partner, I still wouldn’t want the wrong partner. At all, I’m not interested in that. You have to make my life better, it can’t just be ‘I’m in a relationship just to be in a relationship,” she said.
Fans have watched pieces of Tracee's life played out on social media and TV. Just one look at her Instagram, you see that the black-ish star lives her life to fullest and it's filled with fashion, family, and all-round fabulousness.
"Even though the grief does emerge, and that comes, and I hold that, I think of what I’ve done. I think I woke up every morning trying to do my best. I didn’t wake up one morning and be like I’m gonna mess this day up. So I must be where I’m supposed to be.”
She added, “And sometimes I think of all of the things I’ve done—the courage that I’ve had to have, what I had to learn to how to navigate as a single person with no one to hide behind. It's built a really beautiful experience around me and I have incredible friends."
The Black Mirror actress has spoken about dating before and has always stated that she doesn't allow singleness stop her from living her best life.
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Feature image by Raymond Hall/GC Images