In my view, it doesn’t help when one of the industry’s greatest “success stories” ends up (allegedly) strung out on oxy, arrested for DUI and battery, losing two homes to foreclosure, and returning to porn (for the sake of her kids) five years after quitting the business forever (for the sake of her kids).
I like porn as much as the next guy, but commercial porn remains a sleazy and exploitative industry that I wouldn’t want anyone I care about being a part of.
I’m sorry but if you enjoy watching porn but you find it sleazy, terrible, and wouldn’t want anyone you care about being a part of it, then you’re kind of a hypocrit. Empathy/sympathy demands that you care about those folks even if you aren’t related to them by blood (and we are all related by blood if you go back far enough).
Either you support porn, enjoy it, and support people’s right to engage in it (including your family), or you don’t.
I’d be much more upset if my child became a tarot card reader, a televangelist, or a republican, and wonder where I went wrong.
Fine, I’m a hypocrite. I’d also be kinda sad if a relative or close friend got a job collecting garbage, despite hypocritically putting my own trash out to the curb every week.
Anyway, I prefer amateur porn. The porn studios could all disappear tomorrow for all I care.
I wonder if all of these people replying actually have daughters, anyway if your daughter enters the porn industry and you are ok with that or if you even passively accept it there is something very wrong with you and you are not a good parent.
There could be studies that find out the reasons why people go into the porn industry, and people can see whether those reasons only include ones that they think are unhealthy.
Now I know why I haven’t been able to enjoy porn in the past few years, because they look like kids and all I can think of is their parents.
I’m so old.
I’m not saying that all porn performers or other sex workers are coming from an unhealthy place. However, I do know how my daughters were brought up, and I know from talking to them as adults that they’ve internalized the ideas that sex is something very personal, that sex is “special” because it involves physically and emotionally sharing yourself with someone else, and that they value themselves enough that they wouldn’t want to sell that. They also grew up with the idea that men and women are equals and that it demeans both of them to value the sexuality of one over that of another. I realize that not everyone shares these beliefs, but I know that my own daughters do, and if they were to discard them for money, I believe that would be damaging to them.
I hope that both of my daughters have self-confidence and comfort with their sexuality, too. I don’t think that the willingness to entertain the general public by having sex (either with them directly or on film) is necessarily the measure of how comfortable a person is with his or her sexuality.
I know that my children would find it soul-killing because we’ve had discussions (again, as adults) in which they’ve expressed those feelings. And I’ve never been authoritarian enough as a parent that they would feel compelled to tell me what they think I want to hear.
I’ve never been able to really enjoy porn because somewhere in the middle, I can’t help thinking about what the performers are thinking. I have yet to see a non-amateur porn movie that looks like the people are all having the great good time they’re supposedly having. However, I support the right of anyone, as long as they’re adults and not under undue pressure, to engage in porn or prostitution. Or Republicanism, tarot card reading, or any religious activity that’s distasteful to me. That doesn’t mean I’d be happy about my daughters choosing to do it.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that I’d disown one of my children for making a choice I disagree with, however strongly. They’re mine, and I love them and support them, no matter what. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be really, really sad if they made choices that I find repugnant.
