In this Salon article former porn star Bree Olson says if people know you were a porn star you will be shunned and ostracized from polite society and never let back in. She also speaks to the dichotomy of how ex-male porn stars are regarded vs female porn stars where the men face much less overt prejudice and to some extent are even admired for their abilities by other men.
Re this issue would you be bothered if one of the ladies invited by one of your friends to your girls night out was an ex porn star? Would you be OK with a former porn star baby sitting for you? Teaching your son or daughter in high school? Being part of your book club? Working directly with your girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband on a project at work?
Personally, as a father my main issue with a former porn star would not be the sex for pay aspect, I’m old enough to understand life is hard and if things were desperate possibly porn was the fastest and easiest money they could make if they did not have some other well paying skillset, but my prejudiced notion that making the decision to do commercial porn would have to involve (in some way) lots of casual use of fairly hard drugs. Whether this assumption is accurate or not I’m not sure I would completely trust someone who came from that world to be a completely responsible person. Socialize sure, baby sitting probably not.
Where do you stand on this. Are you inviting the neighborly ex-porn star next door to your pool party and backyard barbeque? If they offer to babysit will you take them up on it?
Friends, neighbors, and baby sitter would pose no problem at all. My only objection to having one as a teacher would be the distraction to the class if/when their past became common knowledge.
My impression, justified or not, is that porn stars are often (not always, but more often than the “general population”) damaged people: they have substance abuse problems; they have a history of being abused or molested; they have mental health issues, etc. I would have to know more about whether this was true, in general and/or about the particular individual, before I could answer the OP’s question.
I had a good friend who was a stripper for about ten years (and was still a stripper during the time I was good friends with her). Being friends with a stripper made me feel SO COOL. I would sneak-brag about it. She came to a party once at my house and I had to coach myself NOT to brag to everyone (…do not mention that she’s a stripper, do NOT mention that she’s a stripper, it makes you seem weird and pathetic and bragging-don’t mention it!)- but once I was drunk enough I started bragging again. It was a personal facepalm moment, even though it didn’t seem to embarrass or upset my friend.
I’m female, by the way.
If I had a friend who is/was a porn star, I’m sure I would be even more excited and feel even more cool over it.
I had a teacher in high school (Biology = irony?) that posed in Playboy about 20 years beforehand. It was common rumor (but true as it was verified by a friend of mine that went through his Dad’s old stocks).
It was never really a problem as the age gap was so significant, and she was kind of a bitch (at least in my high-school mind, which probably meant she was a tough teacher that actually required you do some work and be accountable for it).
Sure, why not? It’s not like they’re Unclean just from doing porn and must be shunned by all us proper ladies and gentlemen. If they had a history of hard drug use or mental health issues, then I’d want to be assured that the drug use was long over and the mental health problems were in check before turning my hypothetical kids over to their care, but I’d feel the same way about anyone else with that baggage.
You are not going to get a good sample of what they deal with by polling the SD population. A lot of this girls retire and go back to their rural midwestern bible belt towns and then wonder why they get treated like pariahs in a conservative shithole.
I would consider the choice to become a porn star a questionable one that would make me question their overall morals and/or decision-making capabilities. While I might be a little envious of a male star, I’d still consider it a bad choice on his part. On my personal scale of bad decision-making, porn stars are just above criminals and just below chronic bankruptcy filers.
Some people are in porn against their choice. I have more sympathy for them, but a history of being coerced into the sex industry suggests a fairly damaging past. I’m not sure I’d trust them to be a stable person until they could prove it.
None of this wouldn’t bother me in a neighbor or casual friend, but I’m not likely to put them in charge of my kids.
I’d be fine with being friends or colleagues or neighbors with a former porn star.
I could not name you more than 4 porn stars, and I consider myself a well-informed person. If someone around knows about their past, then they’re the porn afficianado and that is more skeevy to me (I don’t mind people watching porn but knowing the actors is a bit too detailed for me).
I don’t have kids so I can’t speak to the idea of them being my kids’ teacher or sitter but in the hypothetical I can’t imagine what might befall my kids by being watched over by a former porn star.
The sheer volume of porn that now exists would lead me to suspect that a lot of women have done some kind of porn - probably enough of them that almost everyone under 40 knows co-workers, relatives, friends et al. who’ve done some porn. That doesn’t make them porn STARS, I guess, but they’ve done some porn.
Given the vast number of women who have shot at least a cheap porn video or two I also have trouble accepting that they’re all broken. Heck, I knew a woman in a professional capacity once who, with a few drinks in her, told me she’d been an escort. She was a pretty with it woman, didn’t seem broken at all, but for a couple of years was an escort? Why? “It was an exciting way to make a lot of money in university.”
Is Mr/Ms Porn Star high while watching my kids? No? Then I don’t think that’s such an issue.
But is having a porn star in your group worse than having a right-wing political flack, an opinionated fundamentalist, or a wrestling enthusiast?
You just have to educate your kids that different people have different attitudes, and they aren’t necessarily bad people, but they aren’t necessarily great role models, and they can be wrong about things. Pretty much what goes for their fundamentalist grandma or their drunkard granddad, yeah?
The majority of the few porn actors I have known I would not want in my house period because of drug abuse. However I played scrabble with a small group and Tracy Lorde would sit in on occassion and she was delightful to be around. She would have been more than welcome around my children.
The main thing I know about Bree Olson (the porn star mentioned in the OP) is that she’s been romantically (if that’s the right word) linked with Charlie Sheen. Not sure I’d want Charlie for a neighbor or babysitter…