For some consumers and performers, the fantasy of porn can cover up the reality of its harms, but only for a little while. The real story will always rise to the surface.
To teens and young people in today’s society, doing porn may seem like an easy way to make money fast and become sexually “empowered,” but they quickly find that the porn industry is filled with drugs, disease, abuse, and degradation. Countless former porn performers have spoken out on the harsh reality of the porn industry, exposing it for taking advantage of young girls and coercing them into doing things they never wanted to do.
Take the 2015 documentary, Hot Girls Wanted, for example. This raw look at the underbelly of the amateur porn industry revealed that many young women first get into porn because of our society’s fame-obsessed culture; they see porn as a way to be desirable, empowered, and rich. Many of them turn to doing porn for the easy money, while not fully realizing or understanding the very serious effects on their health and personal lives.
Recently, BuzzFeed released an article that further showed this dark reality of those directly involved in the world of porn. These short personal accounts shared through Whisper, a social media app that allows users to anonymously share secrets, are telling examples of what these girls go through.
The following Whispers are authentic posts that reflect the often desperate and depressing nature of those in the porn industry.
Why This Matters
To the outside world, porn performers have to appear as no-boundaries, sex-loving entertainers that make everything sound so sexually exciting. But as you can tell from these stories above, the reality is far different than what is seen on camera, and different than what performers say in interviews.
Too many performers don’t know or truly understand the extent of what they’re signing up for—the extent on their personal lives, the exent on their relationships, on their bodies, or on their future career prospects. And even if they read on paper that they’ll be having rough sex on camera and the footage will be distributed and uploaded to the internet, they still might not have the full details of what that entails. There is a difference between consent, and fully-informed consent—and either of those can be revoked at any time for any reason. If these things aren’t truly able to be revoked, it’s not consent.
When performers sign on to work in the industry, many of them don’t fully know or understand what it will lead to—sexual abuse, physical abuse, coercion, injuries, disease, difficulty finding a different job after they leave the industry, among many other challenges.
And why would they know any of this terrifying information about the supposedly cool, fun job they’re signing up for? Don’t forget that we live in a world that glamorizes and celebrates the porn industry. It’s sold as an exciting lifestyle where you can be the sex god/goddess that you’ve always wanted to be, and get quick cash for it.
That’s why we share stories like the ones above and interview former porn performers. Because we know that consumers deserve to know the realities of what they’re supporting with their clicks, views, and downloads—and it’s not as glamorous as the industry makes it out to be.
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