“The Duke University freshman working her way through college as a porn star has revealed her face and stage name.
“My name is Belle Knox, and I wear my Scarlet Letter with pride,” writes the student in a strong defence of her choice to enter the adult industry on XOJane.com.
Knox says she “didn’t expect today to happen” but was forced to make her decision to reveal her porn name after being “harassed.””* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break it down.
*Read more here from David Harding / NY Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/duke-freshman-pron-work-college-reveals-article-1.1711103
Comments
People are quick to call names but they are also quick to watch the videos.
The thing is, even though all of her stuff is out in public – porn is still considered “private” in this society. There are a TON of people who do it and live their lives and the people they’re around have NO idea. And it’s still looked down upon so if it gets out it could cause – not only things to happen that did happen, but it could lead to her getting kicked out of school. Rules are bent in frakked up ways all the time to hurt the people being harassed because they blame them for being harassed. “Hey, you’re causing a distraction by making people harass you” – you know?
And people in the industry – not just hardcore porn but the softcore, and pinup models, know this and they take the idea of “stage names” very seriously.
You could make it through college and no one will know or at least keep it to themselves, then you graduate, get a job – but if it gets out you may get drummed out of school – or if you make it through, you might have trouble getting jobs because people care about stupid dren that really says nothing about your work ethic.
I don’t think she’s playing the victim at all. I think she’s trying to take control of a situation that’s hard to take control of. In a world (/movie trailer voice) where Anita Sarkeesian gets death threats and games made where the player beats her up and causes her face to bruise and bleed just because she wants to make a video series on the portrayal of women in video games – what chance does someone who, in your words – literally exposes herself – have?
We live in a society that accepts the consumers of sex work and porn, but shames the producers of the content and what she’s doing is using this opportunity to raise awareness and show people she’s a normal person.
I’m a nobody so this doesn’t really mean jack, but it’s how I feel… I’m personally very proud of her, because I feel like she’s doing the opposite of what you’re saying. She is pointing out abuse, but she’s not playing the victim. She’s putting a human face on sex work and showing everyone that people who do sex work are human beings and nothing less.
And as far as the content of the videos – it should not matter. You’re right. People will say, “oh, that’s what they do in the videos. it’s okay for me to call her those names.” But that doesn’t make it her fault. That’s on idiots who don’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Everything that happens in those videos is (hopefully) consensual. What dicks on the internet and at her college are doing —- that is NOT.
Does the fact that someone is naked on the internet mean that it’s suddenly okay from someone to take an upskirt pic of them without their knowledge (no matter what some stupid frakking court says)? No, it doesn’t. Decent people ask first.
If you walked up to Johnny Knoxville and kicked him in the balls (without asking) you could get arrested. But he does it in the movies! He’s asking for it!
I love you guys and gals, but this is important. Not just for sex workers, but because there is still a LOT of casual sexism in the world and quite a bit of it revolves around expectations of sexual desires between men and women (Not to mention that we still expect things to be 1-0 binary in the first place.)
Men want sex – have lots of sex. Women should not want sex. If want sex they sluts. Unga. Caveman logic.
That doesn’t even make sense mathematically.
I’m hoping her doing all this will open some people’s eyes. It might not… but one can dream…..