Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
When I first heard of the Duke freshman who is making a go of it in porn, I thought about her courage. Negotiating an adult film career and getting a college education is not easy. It can be done, of course, just ask sex-positive feminist Tasha Reign who is finishing her degree at UCLA this spring.
But the West Coast is not North Carolina, home to Duke University where the elite can gossip within the halls of a Southern school that claims it is Ivy through and through.
The first year student was “outed” on campus and the message boards took off. Her Facebook account exploded with friend requests. Inevitably, the girl’s “nom de porn,” Belle Knox, followed.
Nevertheless, Belle defends Duke, telling AVN’s Peter Warren the University’s administration is “‘completely supportive’” of her.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of Belle’s peers. The teenager trusted, got revealed, and now is left to pick up the pieces of her college life.
But, she is undeterred, explaining her side of the story in an online article for xojane.com.
Proclaiming porn to be her “artistic outlet: my love, my happiness, my home,” Belle reports “unimaginable joy” in shooting a porn scene.
Sound like a rationalization? Maybe, but I’ve heard similar words from other performers.
The Duke frosh explains she is not coerced or harmed by her work, everything is consensual and she is in control of her choices.
Can’t be true? It is, and many adult film models gladly will tell you that.
Of course, the porn road is never smooth. Everyone knows that stepping outside the adult community means criticism and haters are a mouse click away. This apparently astonished Belle and is a lesson she is unlikely to forget. She talks about how the “private details” of her life are on “college gossip boards.” The name-calling from those who hide behind their keyboards flows like a mudslide in an LA rainstorm, clogging up all rational thought.
As a feminist, Belle is concerned about how women are treated in our society and calls out the old anti-porn fems for ignoring the sexual voices of “minority communities” (adult film is one), a habit they have long displayed. She asks why female sexuality is regarded with “disdain,” shaming those subjected to rape and labeling women who are sexually assertive as “sluts and whores.”
For the record, this 95-pound dynamo does understand what all women come to realize. If a girl is sexually conservative, she will be labelled a “prude.” Should she act on her sexual feelings, condemnation follows. Either way, women lose because their physical and emotional desires are secondary to what society thinks they deserve or what kind of women they should be. Instead of treating all women with “dignity and respect,” Belle says, our male-dominated culture defines their sexual feelings and actions for them in ways that hide the fear men have of assertive women.
In other words, society has reduced the status of women by holding their sexuality hostage. It’s ugly, and as Belle puts it, “insane.”
In its own way, pornography frees a woman sexually and girls like Belle prove this happens. That’s the pleasant turn in this story.
Yet, a question remains. Will Belle survive at Duke? Bullies and haters can be relentless and ostracism is never far away in a closed college community. If she decides the storm is too much, a switch to the West Coast might be in the offing. UCLA is a definite possibility.
At any rate, adult film welcomes Belle. As she matures in the business, she just may become a feminist force, achieving true stardom along the way while following the footprint of other pro-porn fems like Nina Hartley, Bobbi Starr, and a host of others.
