She was forced into porn as a last resort to pay for school.

It's really difficult to set yourself up as an independent student. If you're under 24 years old you either have to be married, have at least one child, or have served in the military. Otherwise your parents' income and assets will be taken into account.

I can't hear this "as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult"! The particpating people might be consenting, and still it does damage to women, it does present women as you say as objects to be starred at, gazed at. And yes, we all like to see attractive people, but why would we - men or women - want to anyone…

I think in a truly equal society no one would feel entitled to use people for sex. Sex wouldn't be used as a weapon or a bargaining chip or in exchange for something else. If people valued enthusiastic consent they would understand implicitly that someone you pay for sex has given the very definition of unenthusiastic…

at 4 grand a month you can either get fucked now or get fucked in a couple years.

Eesh, I'm not sure I could take the inevitable criticism, but thanks. Also sorry for my completely self absorbed response to you before. I'm so sorry about your family members. It must be hard to hear all the sex positive right-on empowering chat about sex work when you have seen people you love endure the other (and…

She was forced into porn as a last resort to pay for school.

Well, yes. But there's not much point in having principles if one doesn't try and live according to them. I don't feel bad about what I have done in the past, but I know I don't want to work in that industry again, which I was considering.

This comment should absolutely not be grey. Brilliant summary of everything that's fucked about this story.

I think the economics of it are VERY important— it's nothing new that women (and men) have long turned to modelling/pornography to pay for school. But there's a willful blindness/ignorance to this tradition in re prestigious schools like Duke; i.e., "surely smart white girls don't DO such things". It's that…

I really appreciate you sharing your experience here. There are so many layers to the issue. The human body is beautiful and to be celebrated, but in the context of rape culture, which exists everywhere, and capitalism that turns the body into a commodity, it gets all twisted. I've had a couple women in my extended…

I have now seen this question posed in several comments and not a single response to it. I am wondering the same. I don't think Belle Knox is a bad person, nor do I think she is a whore, but I don't like that this is who we are lauding as the new feminist voice of a generation. It seems like a bunch of crap.

I wish this were out of the greys, because I think it's a great point that sums up a lot of the arguments going on further upthread.

Everything you have mentioned is what I have been struggling with. Having pondered this overnight, I think the answer to my question is no, it's not possible to be a feminist living by feminist principles and be a stripper. The fact that it can be a really fun and profitable job is kind of irrelevant, akin to having a…

So, when it comes to Bell Knox, part of the problem is that Jezebel and other outlets that take a distinctly pro-porn stance give white, privileged sex workers who have the luxury of choice the spotlight while insisting that the countless nameless, faceless sex workers who are working under violent pimps, trafficked…

Like the idiot I am, I watched it and I felt physically sick. And of course there are thousands of men who get off to that fecal matter.

I'm sure the people who actually own the business men are making more money than these women.

Awfully telling about our society that the two professions where women routinely make more money than men are modeling and pornography.

I'm sorry, but has anyone seen the first video that Belle made for Facial Abuse? I was shown about 45 seconds of it and was repulsed. The guy beat her in the face. She was holding her arms up to shield herself and crying, and so he hit her arms and pulled them away. It was horrifying. I wish I'd never seen it.

I'd say it's much sadder that porn is one of the few industries in which women out-earn men. I mean, damn.