A guy finds out a college peer is a porn star. He tells his fraternity; the news goes viral. Within a couple days, the entire campus knows; a month later, multiple newspaper articles, some national, about her have cropped up. The young woman’s life is changed. She’s glared at and talked about. She’s no longer just another student at Duke University, she is defined by her work as a porn star.
This was the reality for Belle Knox, the actress who first revealed her story anonymously and recently revealed her stage name.
Beyond insulting her, peers of Knox demanded she drop out, or that the university expel her. They equated a person’s profession with their right to attain education.
Civilization has not progressed as much as we would like to think if a culture as enlightened as students at a prestigious American university can, and have, reduced themselves to hate-filled, trash-talking animals at the idea of a porn star studying towards a degree. This isn’t far from using racism or sexism to justify denying the right to an education.
To pay for their education, a person can do whatever they want. Many might be tempted to say that Knox has no one else to blame but herself, but this woman is being shamed for an inherently wrong sexual paradigm that our culture as a whole is responsible for perpetuating.
Millions of people buy into the porn industry, supplying the demand for porn sites and videos. So, why does one’s recreational voyeurism inspire no sense of guilt or depravity, while knowing someone who actually works in the industry provokes an onslaught of acrid name-calling and belligerent threats? Why are the performers criminalized while the ardent customers walk free?
People think they know Knox or “her kind” because they hastily flatten her into just another faceless stereotype. There is a good chance that the vast majority of her insulters have never had a conversation with the woman. There is a difference between prejudice and immorality, and one’s personal moral compass should not dictate another person’s decisions and actions.
Knox is not, as she alleges her peers called her, “a slut who needs to learn the consequences of her actions,” or “a little girl who does not understand her actions.” She’s not stupid, crazy, sick, or naive.
She’s simply an individual with a life, hopes and dreams. She’s an undergraduate of women’s studies and sociology, with aspirations to be a lawyer. No matter how much her peers want it to, working as a porn star does not define her as a person.
