Ex-Porn Star Tells the Truth

Ex-Porn Star Tells the Truth (Part 2)

 Wednesday, October 29, 2008 |

The following is a guest post by Shelley Lubben. Shelley, an ex-porn star, is the founder and president of The Pink Cross Foundation. Through the Pink Cross, Shelley is a missionary to the sex industry, reaching out to  adult industry workers offering emotional, financial and transitional support for those who want out of porn. She also helps those struggling with pornography and victims of pornography. Her heart is to share the truth about porn and expose the darkness of it.

As I said in my previous post, Chatsworth, California produces 85% of the world’s adult content. All of the top female talent agencies are located in or within the Chatsworth local radius. Female performers are flown to Chatsworth to work in the adult industry. All of the world’s top male talents live or travel to Chatsworth for work. Every major and minor adult DVD Company is located in the local Chatsworth radius.

The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry which causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public.

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Drug Abuse

Another secondary negative effect of the adult industry includes exposure to drugs and drug addiction. Porn actress Erin Moore admits, “the drugs we binged on were Ecstasy, Cocaine, Marijuana, Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and alcohol.” Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, says, “Guys are punching you in the face. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. You’re viewed as an object—not as a human with a spirit. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.”
One male porn star says on his blog on January 28, 2008:
“Drugs are a major, major problem in my business. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you. I can’t tell you the number of girls who have disappeared and dropped out of the business because of their drug problems. It is unbelievably sad to think about, and seeing some of them fall into a downward spiral hurts me more than others. But I think we all can agree that a huge majority of drug users will never change unless they get professional help. I have seen all manner of drugs on set, at parties, in cars, everywhere. If I had to guess, I would put marijuana use at 90 percent of ALL people involved in the industry (performers, directors, crew, agents, drivers, owners, office workers, etc.). I have been on a set where a girl has passed out during a sex scene with me (she was abusing oxycontin). Just recently a girl overdosed on GHB (a party drug that is a clear odorless drug that doesn’t mix well with alcohol) on set. I have seen a girl win a prestigious AVN Award, not show up to accept the award, and then fall into the throes of drug use that caused her to lose at least 50 pounds and drop off the face of the earth. Why is drug use so prevalent in our business? Well, let’s figure that out. First of all, remember that the business is populated largely with girls aged 18-21. And the majority of those girls are uneducated (many haven’t graduated high school). Add to that the fact that many come into the business because they have no money and are working at menial jobs like fast food places. So you have young girls who are uneducated with very little money entering the business.
“Once they are in the business, they are now making ten thousand dollars a month and working maybe 5 hours a day 10-15 days a month. There are predators out there that can smell these girls and prey on them like sharks. Young, uneducated girls with lots of money, lots of free time, and very little supervision. This is a really bad equation (unless you are a drug dealer of course).”

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Physical and Verbal Abuse

In addition to prevalent drug use, degradation and abuse is rampant in the pornography industry. In one study 100% of the strippers reported some kind of physical or verbal abuse on their jobs. Verbal abuse by customers is extremely common with 91% reporting incidents. They were routinely called degrading names. Besides the verbal abuse, all endured some type of physical abuse on the job. Despite the fact that it is illegal to touch a stripper, strippers reported that customers grabbed them by the arm (88%), grabbed their breast (73%), or their buttock (91%). Customers at strip clubs often assault the women. Customers pulled their hair (27%), pinched them (58%), slapped them (24%), or bit them (36%). They are often attacked in the strip club in front of bodyguards and other audience members.
Former pornographic performer Alex Devine shares her violent experience and writes:
“Donkey Punch was the most brutal, depressing, scary scene that I have ever done. I have tried to block it out of my memory due to the severe abuse I received during the filming. The guy, Steve French, has a natural hatred towards women in the sense that he has always been known to be more brutal than EVER needed. I agreed to do the scene thinking it was less beating, except the ‘punch’ in the head. If you noticed, Steve had worn his solid gold ring the entire time, and continued to punch me with it. I actually stopped the scene while it was being filmed because I was in too much pain.”
There is a very heavy emphasis on rougher, more sadistic sex, with slapping, spitting, violent hair-pulling and scenes of extremely abusive hardcore sex acts. In one film, the man forces the woman’s head into a toilet during the final scene, a technique that seems to help him achieve climax.

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Porn and State Law

In California, every employer is required to ensure that employees have a safe working environment. In 1973, the California Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted to assure safe and healthful working conditions for all California working men and women by authorizing the enforcement of effective standards, assisting and encouraging employers to maintain safe and healthful working conditions, and by providing research, information, education, training, and enforcement in the field of occupational safety and health.
Employers in the California pornography industry are required to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees, even pay the costs of a health and safety program, and yet this is not the standard in the adult industry. The accurate standard at present in the California pornography industry is that employers are completely ignoring the laws of the State of California to protect adult industry workers and are causing severe secondary negative effects on workers by subjecting them to physical and emotional abuse, major degradation and violence, illegal drugs, sexually transmitted diseases and entrapment into prostitution. This is the standard of the California pornography industry; any adult industry employer or worker who tells you differently is blatantly lying and does not value human life, but is rather destroying human life for the gluttonous love of money.

http://www.covenanteyes.com/2008/10/29/ex-porn-star-tells-the-truth-part-2/