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.
. . . .
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 or fly to Chatsworth to work in the adult industry. All of
the world’s top male talents live or travel to Chatsworth California for work.
Every major and minor adult DVD Company is 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. I am confident of the above because not only was I a stripper,
pornographic performer and escort in the California pornography industry from 1986
to 1994, but I have also counseled with or spoken to over 300 female and male
workers in the pornography industry as well as those struggling with
pornography addiction.
. . . .
General
Statistics
I
have been working with adult industry workers since 2002, when I began
volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in
the State of California. I have worked at Madera Rescue Mission, Bakersfield
Rescue Mission, Central California Women’s Facility Prison, and Valley State Prison
for Women and have traveled throughout the United States as a speaker and
counselor on the negative effects of pornography at various churches, recovery
programs and secular organizations. My team and I currently work with hundreds
of people struggling with pornography addiction in the Pink Cross Foundation
Help Forums.
In
my daily work of assisting women and men recovering from the pornography
industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction and gathering
research over a period of several years, I have learned significant facts to
prove that indeed the California pornography industry is causing severe
secondary negative effects on adult industry workers as well as the general
public, which is involuntarily exposed to pornography, especially
children, whose average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is eleven years old.
- It
is estimated that there are 4.2 million porn Web sites—12%
of the total amount of sites—allowing access to 72 million worldwide
visitors monthly.
- One-quarter
of the total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for
pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.
- According
to comScore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult sites in
August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the
Internet audience.
- The
United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films a year and
earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually.
- An
estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers.
Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated
based on distribution or sales.
- Lobbyist
Bill Lyon told 60 Minutes that the porn industry employs 12,000
people in California and pays the state $36 million in taxes per year.
When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech
coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn
business.
. . . .
Porn
and STDs
Adult
film performers engage in prolonged and repeated sexual acts with multiple
sexual partners over short periods of time, creating ideal conditions for
transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). All the
more concerning, high-risk sex acts are on the rise. At the same time, condom
use is reportedly low in heterosexual adult films—approximately 17% for adult
performers. In 2004, only two of the 200 adult film companies required the use
of condoms. Performers report that they are required to work without condoms
to maintain employment.
These
practices lead to high transmission rates of STDs and occasionally HIV among
performers. After four performers contracted HIV in 1998, Sharon Mitchell, a
former adult film performer, founded Adult Industry Medical, a clinic to
counsel and screen performers monthly for HIV.
The
current practice of periodic HIV and STD testing may detect some disease early,
but often fails to prevent transmission. The most recent HIV outbreak occurred
when three performers who had been compliant with monthly screening contracted
HIV in April of 2004. At that time, a male performer who had tested HIV
negative only three days earlier infected three of 14 female performers.
In
statements I have received from females and males working in the pornography
industry and those who previously worked in the industry, at least 80% admit to
catching an STD while working in the California pornography industry. I
personally caught the non-curable disease Genital Herpes in 1994 and was not
given any information or help from porn producers or the adult industry.
Recently, Jan Meza, a former porn actress who left the pornography industry in
October 2007, publicly shared of late that she discovered she has
Herpes. She is totally devastated in that she caught a non-curable disease.
Belladonna, a well known pornographic performer states: “99% of the porn
industry has Herpes.” One male pornographic performer, Rocco, 600 films and
3,000 women later says: “Every professional in the porn-world has herpes, male
or female.” Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, caught Chlamydia
her first year working. She exclaimed, while speaking with me, “I don’t believe
I worked with one person who didn’t at one time have an STD.” Tanya made over
200 movies in her three year career. She also says, “Performers have to pay for
their own testing, their medicine and lose at least eight days of work every
time they catch a sexually transmitted disease.”
Sexually
transmitted diseases are highly prevalent in the pornography industry. Among
825 porn performers screened in 2000–2001, 7.7% of females and 5.5% of males
had Chlamydia and 2% overall had gonorrhea. Dr. Sharon Mitchell confirms the
STD prevalence in an interview with Court TV, in which she states: “66% of porn performers have
Herpes, 12-28% have sexually transmitted diseases and 7% have HIV.”
. . . .
Escort
Services
Pornographic
performers and adult industry workers also engage in prostitution through
escort agencies such as Body Miracle, Dreamgirls, and Porno Star Escorts, where
they not only risk sexually transmitted disease but also HIV and hepatitis C
infection.
Pornographic
performers usually prefer escorting because the pay is much higher and sex acts
are not as degrading or physically demanding. They receive approximately $100
an hour for working in pornographic films or $1500 an hour for escorting. Adult
industry workers who are also pornographic performers get paid higher than
other adult escorts due to their celebrity status and can book 2-3 hour
appointments and make approximately $3000 a day. Agents also lie to women in
the adult industry and lure them into prostitution. Porn Star Erin Moore says,
“some agents lie to the girls and tell them they are shooting a scene when
instead they set up prostitution acts for them.”
While
I was a pornographic performer in 1993-94 I was flown to different parts of the
United States by porn companies where consumers of pornography sometimes paid
me thousands of dollars to spend a weekend with them where we engaged in
unprotected sex. During one appointment with a man and his wife, we engaged in
unprotected sex and I passed the disease to both of them. Pornographic
performers and adult industry workers definitely spread sexually transmitted
diseases to the general public.
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.
. . . .
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).”
. . . .
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.
. . . .
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.
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