Evil Angel is pleased to announce the release of Consent, which will street on September 23, 2019.

Categorized as both a documentary and a feature film, Consent asks the question: Is society trying to “protect” porn performers by vilifying content producers and trying to restrict the ability of those performers to freely express their sexualities?

In response, Consent presumably provides a platform for performers and producers to speak for themselves. In turn, seeing porn performers talk about what they like with regard to stronger, rougher sex — and then seeing them do those very acts — is slated as uniquely powerful and speaks to the importance of consent and what that means to them as individuals.

Consent begins with director Dana Vespoli and executive producer/cameraperson John Stagliano explaining in frank language why this film needed to happen. Vespoli and Stagliano explore timely questions of sexual freedom and responsibility in a unique blend of documentary-style investigation and hardcore action. Each successive scene then features a revealing look at its stars’ erotic desires and insights, followed by a hardcore scene wherein those desires are explored.

The film features scenes between Ivy Lebelle and Manuel Ferrara; London River, Vespoli and Markus Dupree; Emily Willis and Bill Bailey, who passed away in March of this year; and Whitney Wright with Mick Blue, Michael Vegas and John Strong.

Interestingly, the scene shot for this film between Casey Calvert and James Deen appears not to have been included.

Back in January, Tracy Clark-Flory wrote a piece for Jezebel titled “‘Three Years Was Enough Time’: Evil Angel Decides to Welcome Back James Deen in Film Titled Consent.”

In addition to discussing performer Lily LaBeau’s decision to speak out against Evil Angel’s decision to lift their ban on shooting Deen, who was accused of abuse in 2015, Clark-Flory also discussed others’ participation in the scene-making process. She wrote:

As part of Consent, Evil Angel wanted to feature a segment about rough sex with Casey Calvert, an experienced BDSM performer. According to Stagliano, she only wanted to do the scene with Deen. “I believe in consent,” said Stagliano. “I believe that a girl should be able to choose who she works with.” Later, he added, “Casey Calvert wants to work with James Deen. She trusts him to do a somewhat stronger scene,” he said. “I’m going to respect that.”

Of course, Calvert could shoot with Deen for any of the many other companies that have been working with him over the last three years. In fact, Calvert has worked with Deen many times since the allegations surfaced. But, says Stagliano, it was Calvert’s request that prompted him to reconsider the company’s ban more broadly. “This whole thing of ‘brand somebody for life, he’s always a bad person,’ that’s just wrong,” said Stagliano. “That is flat out wrong.”

“I figured three years was enough time,” Stagliano continued. “He’s proven that he’s able to be very polite and very fair and very asking of permission from all girls all the time. That’s what he said to me, that’s what people who work with him have said to me.” He went on: “I didn’t know how long the sentence should be, seriously, number one. Number two, I didn’t have all the information. Number three, all my competitors are shooting him anyway. Number four, he’s admitted that he did some bad stuff.”

Evil Angel cast Deen in Consent and lifted the company’s ban. Consent, which is expected to be released in a few months, will have several different distinct sections, and in one of them, Deen will be featured in a sex scene with Calvert, which has already been shot. Before that scene, Stagliano said, there will be footage from the interview with LaBeau about her own experience with Deen, as well as Evil Angel’s decision to work with him again.

Clark-Flory quoted Calvert saying “the goal of the film was to honestly and earnestly educate viewers about consent,” so she [Calvert] wanted to work with “the person I felt most comfortable with,” and that person was James Deen.

“As a performer, I have the right to control who I work with, especially for rough scenes, because it directly impacts my body,” Jezebel quoted Calvert stating. “We haven’t figured out as an industry what to do about allegations of misconduct on set, and until we have those systems in place, my priority is my own safety and well-being.”

And yet, this controversial scene is strangely absent from what will apparently be released next week.