Belle Knox is a student at Duke University that does porn videos to help fund her tuition.
The Young Turks focuses on the fact that a lot of her personal information is shared online such as her Facebook, her e-mail and her whereabouts so people know where they can go to harass her. The news anchors state that they understand not agreeing with her decisions to do porn, but posting information like that is crossing the line. They also point out that people are bullying her and for no real reason. Calling her a whore or slut is just going out of your way to put someone down when it doesn't effect you. Why are the bullying her? Watch it and be done with it. Guys are bitter that they didn't have sex with her and girls were jealous. People were being unreasonably cruel. It's also said that if she wanted to keep it a secret, she simply shouldn't have been in the videos. I think they focus on these points because people so often feel the need to comment on what other people are doing. With constant access to the internet, there's no privacy anymore. And she knew this when she made the films, but with that people also have the constant access to post their opinions.
The people of The View focus on many different aspects of the situation. Isn't there other ways you can make money? What changed after highschool to make you do porn? How bad has the bullying gotten? "My heart breaks for you." They seem to be concerned for her safety and well-being. Then Knox herself says that it's freeing and liberating to make choices and decisions about sex and her body. I think they bring up these points to show all consequences, good or bad, of her choices. She may feel liberated and empowered, but not all of her peers are supporting her.
These arguments show that we have very strong opinions about sex and pornography. The comments that were posted about her calling her horrible names and showing no empathy for the bullying she's receiving shows just harsh people can be. It is very much frowned upon to be paid for sex, obviously. But if she's doing what she wants, what she loves, what makes her feel good, why not let her without putting your two cents in? Clearly we all have our opinions but we don't need to voice them at someone else's expense. Porn and sex are seen as dirty, impure and trashy. Like making a sex tape says more about you than just the fact that you made a tape.
I agree that pornography isn't seen as a way to live your life and make a living off it. I would never do that and I don't support that kind of thing. But also there are more people in the world than we think that don't care about who does porn. There are people who don't think it's trashy. But then again I don't understand how it can make you feel good about yourself, I wouldn't feel in control of my body.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you are saying like how they are giving about personal information about her whereabouts. I feel that making porn is just as bad as a sex tape or maybe even worse but everyone can see it or search for it. Yes she makes her own decisions but she said she didn't expect this much attention, but clearly she had to know this was going to be popular especially because she is in college.
ReplyDelete