Arabelle Raphael
{{short description|California-based pornographic film actress and artist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Arabelle Raphael
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|birth_date = {{Birth month and age|1989|2}}
|occupation = {{flatlist|
- Pornographic actress
- sex worker
- activist}}
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Arabelle Raphael (born February 1989) is a pornographic film actress, sex worker, and activist based in California.{{cite news |last1=McCombs |first1=Emily |title='This Bill Is Killing Us': 9 Sex Workers On Their Lives In The Wake Of FOSTA |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-workers-sesta-fosta_n_5ad0d7d0e4b0edca2cb964d9 |access-date=28 May 2025 |work=HuffPost |date=11 May 2018 |language=en}}{{r|Hotchkiss 2018|Zimmerman 2018}}
Early life
Raphael was born in Paris, France to a French and Tunisian mother and an Iranian Jewish father.{{cite news |author1=ottimo-massimo |title=A Field Guide To Arabelle Raphael |url=https://fleshbot.com/31574/a-field-guide-to-arabelle-raphael/ |access-date=30 May 2025 |work=Fleshbot |date=28 March 2018 |language=en}} Her family immigrated to Oakland, California from France when Raphael was five years old.{{cite web |url=https://www.kqed.org/arts/13827641/the-hustle-an-artist-and-sex-worker-taking-charge-of-her-business |title=An Artist and Sex Worker Taking Charge of Her Business |publisher=KQED |date=March 22, 2018 |last=Hotchkiss |first=Sarah}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
Pornographic film career
Raphael began working in the sex industry in 2010 and would go on to perform "almost every form" of sex work, including performing at The Lusty Lady, a worker-owned strip club in San Francisco, as well as working as a prostitute.{{cite news |last1=López |first1=Quispe |title=People are turning to OnlyFans to earn money after losing their jobs during the pandemic |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-creating-onlyfans-accounts-after-losing-jobs-during-pandemic-2020-6 |access-date=May 28, 2025 |work=Business Insider |date=June 17, 2020}} Her first pornographic film role was for Kink.com, also in San Francisco. She co-directed the film All My Mother's Lovers (2017) for Grooby Productions, which was awarded "Most Tantalizing Trans Film" at the Toronto International Porn Festival.{{cite news |author1= |title=Grooby's 'All My Mother's Lovers' Wins Toronto Porn Festival Award |url=https://www.xbiz.com/news/219270/groobys-all-my-mothers-lovers-wins-toronto-porn-festival-award |access-date=May 29, 2025 |publisher=XBIZ |date=April 26, 2017 |language=en}}
Raphael has said she has had difficulty finding work because of her extensive tattoos, a relatively uncommon feature in mainstream pornography. As a result, she built her initial following on Tumblr, a popular site for hosting alternative porn.{{cite news |last1=Iovine |first1=Anna |title=The death of Tumblr porn left a void no other site can fill |url=https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-adult-content-ban |access-date=May 28, 2025 |work=Mashable |date=February 17, 2022 |language=en}} She has said mainstream porn producers either fetishized her ethnic appearance or attempted to make her appear more white early in her career.{{cite news |last1=Nasaw |first1=Daniel |title=In Toronto with the world’s feminist pornographers |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27192724 |access-date=May 28, 2025 |work=BBC News Magazine |date=May 8, 2014}}
Raphael would see her income from content produced for OnlyFans increase sixfold during the COVID-19 pandemic.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/magazine/onlyfans-porn.html |title=OnlyFans Isn't Just Porn ;) |work=The New York Times Magazine |date=May 18, 2021 |last=Shane |first=Charlotte |access-date=May 28, 2025 |url-access=limited}} She eventually began using the website as a full-time occupation. In 2022, she appeared in Manuel Ferrara's Raw 44, part of his Raw series that depicts him and a fellow porn star in an intimate space rather than the typical pornographic film set.{{cite web |url=https://avn.com/movies/255152/raw-44 |title=Raw 44 |date=April 26, 2022 |work=AVN}}
Activism
Following the passage of FOSTA-SESTA in 2018, Raphael organized a meeting covering cybersecurity, closures of websites formerly offering sex work advertising, and plans for sharing resources among Bay Area sex workers.{{cite news |last1=Zimmerman |first1=Amy |title=Sex Workers Fear for Their Future: How SESTA Is Putting Many Prostitutes in Peril |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/sex-workers-fear-for-their-future-how-sesta-is-putting-many-prostitutes-in-peril/ |access-date=28 May 2025 |work=The Daily Beast |date=4 April 2018 |url-access=subscription |language=en}} Raphael and Maxine Holloway also founded the organization Bay Pros Support, with the goal of calling attention to the difficulty sex workers encountered maintaining their safety and business relationships in the wake of the law's passage.{{cite news |last1=Horn |first1=Tina |title=Sex Workers Begin New Push for Decriminalization |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/sex-workers-begin-push-for-decriminalization-711645/ |access-date=28 May 2025 |work=Rolling Stone |date=16 August 2018 |url-access=limited}}
Awards
References
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Category:French pornographic film actresses
Category:French emigrants to the United States
Category:People from Oakland, California
Category:Women pornographic film directors
Category:French people of Iranian descent