Jessica Mendes entered the porn industry at the age of eighteen and adopted the porn name of "Jessie Rogers." She left one and a half years later after many abusive and harmful experiences, including suffering a severe injury and contracting herpes. Jessica then spoke out and testified in favor of mandatory use of condoms in pornography. (With the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.)

Jessica helps to educate the public about the harms of pornography through her work as a volunteer for AntiPornography.org -- via YouTube videos, her written story, and in interviews and speeches. (Scroll down to check out examples of all of these, available on this page.)

Jessica is also rebuilding her life and health: she is currently a straight-A college student studying nutrition, and is considering going on to medical school when she graduates. In the meantime, Jessica will soon be getting her Personal Trainer's Certificate, so she can earn income and help others get fit. Jessica is also a proud vegan and animal lover who loves her sweet dog Brownie, and she promotes living a positive and healthy lifestyle.

NOTE: If you'd like to leave positive feedback for Jessica, please do so in the comments sections of her anti-porn videos at YouTube on our channels. (The videos are embedded below, and we have provided their URLs so you can easily go to YouTube and comment.) Or you can leave feedback anonymously on our Positive Feedback page below. Thanks! :-)

http://www.antipornography.org/positive_feedback.html

If you'd like to read some very moving and heartfelt positive feedback for Jessica that has been shared by others, that describes how Jessica's anti-porn work with us has informed and inspired them, including getting some people to quit using porn, or has changed their lives for the better in other ways, please feel free to check out our page with that content below.

http://www.antipornography.org/Jessica-Mendes-positive-feedback-and-results.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

***   JESSICA AND HER ADORABLE DOG BROWNIE  ***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PLEASE SUPPORT JESSICA AND HER IMPORTANT WORK OF SPEAKING OUT ABOUT HER EXPERIENCES AND THE HARMS OF PORNOGRAPHY -- IN ORDER PREVENT OTHER YOUNG WOMEN FROM ENDING UP ABUSED AND EXPLOITED IN THE DANGEROUS AND TOXIC SEX INDUSTRY.

ALL DONATIONS ARE MUCH NEEDED, APPRECIATED, AND ARE FULLY TAX-DEDUCTIBLE. THANKS!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JESSICA AT THE CALIFORNIA SENATE, TESTIFYING ABOUT UNSAFE CONDITIONS IN THE PORN INDUSTRY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VIDEO AND AUDIO SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jessica Mendes Exposes Shocking Abuses of the Porn Industry & Tells Her Story (Ex Porn Star "Jessie Rogers.")

 

 

VIDEO URL: http://youtu.be/ymWVWHOgDFM

TEXT OF THE ABOVE SPEECH: 

http://www.antipornography.org/ex-porn-star-jessie-rogers-exposes-shocking-abuse.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2 Ex Porn Stars' Message to Women Considering Doing Porn:
Jessica Mendes & Vanessa Belmond Expose All

 

 

VIDEO URL:  http://youtu.be/LxICDTw1CmM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Ex Porn Stars Say Working In Porn Is a Dead End Trip to Nowhere. Jessica Mendes & Vanessa Belmond

 

 

VIDEO URL:  http://youtu.be/AIvj2ib6Qs0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interview with Jessica Mendes (Formerly known as porn performer "Jessie Rogers.") - With Craig Perra, Founder of The Mindful Habit

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interview of Jessica Mendes by David Swanson of SwanSong Radio - Aired May 2014 -- (Ex Porn Performer "Jessie Rogers")

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interview of Jessica Mendes by Lana Reid, for Lana's TalkZone.com Radio Show, Don't Box Me In -- (Ex Porn Star "Jessie Rogers")

April 30, 2014

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JESSICA AS A CHILD

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Story of How I Got Into Porn, Why I Left, and Why No One Else Should Ever Do Porn

- By Jessica Mendes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I got into porn the day after my 18th birthday. Here's how it happened...

A week before I turned 18, I was just scanning around the "jobs" section on Craigslist, not even looking for porn. I found an ad in the TV/film/video section that said "MAKE $20,000 - $30,000 A MONTH MODELING." In the description it said nothing about porn or video work, they simply asked people to e-mail them a photo. Once I sent the agency a photo of myself, they got back to me instantly, asking when I could go see them. All they mentioned at the time was that they were looking for people to do "Playboy-style nudes."

Once I got to the office to speak to them in person, we talked for hours, and the woman working there finally told me that she "basically booked girls for porn." Then she handed me a sheet to circle the things that I was okay with doing. The only thing I circled was "solo." She looked at it and said, "Well, the problem with this is that you won't be able to make as much money as I proposed to you." So I went on and circled "b/g" and "g/g," which means boy/girl (me and a boy), and girl/girl (me and another girl). I didn't circle anything else because I never intended to do anything else. 

Every time I got interviewed by a company in the porn industry, my answers to the question "Why porn?" stayed relatively the same: "I love sex, so why not?" or "Getting paid for something I do anyway sounded like a dream job." Etc. etc. The truth is that what draws people in is the quick money, especially for young girls coming out of high school. They may have some vague idea of what porn is like from having seen some of it, but in reality they have no clue what it actually is like to do it, until they get too deep into it. 

That's what happened to me. As embarrassed as I am to admit this now, I will humble myself and say that I was very naive when I first started in porn, and I believed all the things that people in the industry told me were true. I was so drawn to the money that I let myself believe all the lies that people fed me. I even believed my own lies that I told myself. 

I am 20 years old now, and I retired from porn just a few months after I turned 19, so I didn't do it for very long. However, it was long enough for me to finally see through all of the lies, and for the true colors of the "adult industry" to be exposed to me. Porn is not empowering, neither is it safe. But it did take quite a lot for me to face this and accept it. All of my plans to only do what I first agreed to changed after just a few months in the industry, after which I ended up jaded, disassociated, and brainwashed.

I did get several "warnings" at the very beginning of my career, through some bad experiences I had, and some scenes I did were so brutal that they made me cry really hard. But it seemed that crying on sets was "normal," as I found out after several other performers told me about their own experiences. So I still persisted in doing porn. 

Even having to go to urgent care over 10 times, the emergency room twice, and constantly getting sick with strep throat, bacterial vaginosis, urinary tract infections, yeast infections, and colds, from dealing with performers' bacteria, was sadly not enough to make me quit porn. This is because all of this that happened to me was and still is "normal" within the industry. I was fortunate to have never caught chlamydia or gonorrhea, but the performers that did catch it -- which were many, as these STDs were and are very common -- treated these diseases as though they were just a common cold. 

What finally really got through to me, and pushed me to eventually leave porn, was actually hanging out with people in the industry off camera -- seeing what they were really like, and learning how much they actually hated their jobs and hated themselves. I realized that I didn't want to end up like them.

At the point and time when I was weighing whether or not I should quit porn, there was a syphilis outbreak with a veteran performer in the industry. This clearly made my decision-making process a lot easier, and I finally decided to leave. And if I had not done any more scenes at that point, I would have been able to retire from the industry with just a few "scars," but nothing too serious. 

But I still had a few scenes to finish up that I had committed to, once I got back from a vacation, so I went ahead with them. It was then that a really horrible incident happened to me. I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened to me right before I quit porn. I think it was so I could really tell the public the truth about what a dangerous and harmful industry porn is.

A female performer on a porn set, using her own "toy"  on me in a very rough manner, brutally injured my rectum during a sex scene, causing my rectum to bleed heavily for several days. Then I found out that I had contracted herpes from that performer. 

Why would a porn actress be performing with herpes, you ask? Aren't they supposed to be tested? Even though I had already decided to quit porn because of all of the downsides, it wasn't until this point that all of the pieces really started to fit together. 

Porn performers don't get tested for herpes, and they don't get tested for every other sexually transmitted disease either, only a few of them. Also, if a porn performer does get sick or injured, like I did, they are required to pay out of their own pocket for all of their own medical bills. There are currently only three companies in the porn industry that require condom use, and aside from these companies, none of other the companies want to use condoms. These other companies also will not usually hire someone who insists on using condoms. So it leaves performers with very little choice but to work in an unsafe environment if they want to get any work in the industry.

I also began to realize that the $20,000 - $30,000 a month that I was making from working in the industry was absolutely nothing compared to what the companies were making. The money performers make is literally pennies compared to what the person who owns the company makes. Performers never get royalties, so these companies will forever be making money off of my films, even though I'm retired, and as a performer, I will never see any of that income, because performers only get a one-time check. 

I should also mention that porn isn't the only route to make money without a college degree, which was what I mistakenly thought at first. I wanted to make more money than my minimum wage job at Hooters, and I also wanted to eventually go to college. But like most teens, I couldn't afford it. I honestly thought that porn was my only option to make enough money to pay for everything I needed and wanted. 

But after quitting porn I quickly decided to go to school, and I also started adopting skills outside of school. I met so many different people, and I realized that I and my peers could make the kind of money we needed and wanted in lots of other ways -- like stocks, internet marketing, video game live streaming, managing businesses, etc. The list goes on. 

This is what actual college students do whose parents cannot pay for their tuition. They figure out many different ways to make money to pay their own way through college. Ways of making money, that -- unlike porn -- don't include harming themselves or society. 

All that people in porn want is to have a normal life. So if you have a normal life now, why jeopardize your health, your future, your relationships, your dignity, your reputation, and ultimately your true self, for an industry that is designed to set you up for failure, no matter what route you take once you're in it?

It still baffles me that people still have the desire to get into an industry that shut down three times in 2013 with cases of about five porn performers infected with HIV. Is that not a red flag? I honestly would not have gotten into porn if any of these cases had occurred around the time I decided to do it, and I am very fortunate to have left before these outbreaks started to happen. 

The reality is that there is simply nothing glamorous or good about doing pornography. I am happier than ever now living my life, and as busy as I am, I will continue to tell people about the harms of pornography -- because I kind of wish that a young woman like me existed before I got into porn, to tell the past me the harsh truth I needed to hear. Then I wouldn't have done porn.

If I can save just one person from harming themselves and others by doing porn, it will all be worth it!

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~