• Does Porn Dehumanize Females, and Are We an Easier Target for Violence? By Devyn Devine
• When Did Extreme Become Sexy and Where Do We Draw the Line? By Devyn Devine
• The Harsh Truth about the Harms, Dangers and Negative Consequences of Stripping. By Raina

Hi gang! Devyn Devine here with another provocative column to get you thinking. So I am taking Sociology of Sex and Gender class this quarter, and I am learning a lot. My instructor is a mentor to me, but she doesn't know I do porn.

While sitting in class this week, we were learning about the role the media plays in society and the effect it has on us because of its ubiquitousness. We watched a video containing a lecture series on several of the common advertisements we see today. There were the normal advertisements we see everyday pushing skin cleanser and clothing, but shockingly, it was made more than clear how mainstream advertisers are using sex to sell everything!

There was an ad I saw recently on television, which had a popular tennis player selling a digital camera by pulling it out of her skirt (which was the shortest skirt I ever saw a tennis player in!) and looking seductively at the video camera. And this is what tells me to buy this particular digital camera? Yet, when I use my body to sell myself so that I could achieve my goals, all of a sudden I become less then human.

Now maybe you haven't experienced any negative actions and you are thinking that I am way off base here, but am I? One of the ads shown in the lecture series had a woman naked on all fours while the man used her as a coffee table. Another ad, which was selling shoes, had a picture of, again, a naked woman who appeared to be dead in a trash bag in a garbage can with this very classy shoe covering half of her face.

Men, is that the image needed to sell you a pair of high-end shoes? And why do these women need to be naked? Do we even realize the images that we are being fed everyday and the implicit messages that are behind the ads? Sure, one ad here are there doesn't mean anything, but what we fail to see is that these messages are accumulative and they are everywhere we turn.

Ok, so what does this have to do with porn?

There is a correlation between mass media and violence. Using my last column as a springboard, if mainstream is doing it, then the porn industry takes it to the next level.

Think about it. We see nudity in mainstream movies, but see full-fledged, over exaggerated (Really, honey, do the implants NEED to be that big?) full frontals in porn. We see simulated sex in mainstream, and we see full on, get down and dirty, give it to me baby harder and harder sex in porn. Now we see ads that promote female violence and portray us like we are nothing more then a piece of trash to be walked on. What desensitizes us to things is the recurring image and message over and over again. So when we see these ads in normal life, it may take someone awhile to get the message and act on it.

The way this is all connected is because the advertisers are using sex to sell, and these sexually implicit ads are promoting the message that women are trash. So someone can make the connection in his (or her) mind when watching porn. This is a sexual act, these women are just fantasies and not real, and its ok to hurt them because they are less human than me. If you don't think there aren't crazies running around saying that, then you are seriously mistaken! We work in an industry, which promotes hyper femininity in a world the embraces hyper masculinity, and eventually the two are going to clash.

So are we as women in this industry more prone to violence than other women? Or does our status as porn stars give us immunity from violence because of our popularity? While behavioral scientist can show a link in violent images and aggression, where does porn fit in?

Currently, sociologists have two theories regarding porn. The first is the Safety Value Theory that says viewing porn protects people by providing an outlet for sexual fantasy. The second (and complete opposite) is the Trigger Theory which says the viewing of pornography triggers sexual offenses by stimulating the sexual appetite.

Clearly, it is in my best interests to advocate for the first theory because if I didn't, I would be out of a job. But can we step outside of the pornographic box and perhaps see if the second theory has any merit? Unfortunately, the research has been inconclusive, and we don't know if porn stimulates the aggressive person or if the aggressive person just likes to watch porn. However, there have been reports of what pornography has done in our society. The following are just a few:

* A letter was sent to the United States Attorney General's Commission on Pornography reporting that: "A mother and father in South Oklahoma City forced their four daughters, ages ten to seventeen, to engage in family sex while pornographic pictures were being filmed" (1986, p. 780).

* In one case, a man who said he had participated in over a hundred pornographic movies testified at the Commission hearings in Los Angeles as follows: "I, myself, have been on a couple of sets where the young ladies have been forced to do even anal sex scenes with a guy which [sic] is rather large and I have seen them crying in pain" (1986, p. 773).

* Natalie King, 23, was last heard from during a bondage photo shoot on Feb. 29. She was found dead in a remote Norristown, PA ravine on Tuesday. She had been repeatedly stabbed in the chest and neck. King was found dressed in the fetish gear that she wore in the photos. Photographer Anthony Frederick, 46, has been charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and possession of a knife.

Clearly, porn has a place in our society for the release of sexual pleasure, but does it do more harm then good? My mind isn't made up and I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject! Email me at Devyn (at) AINews.com.

SOURCE: Adult Industry News (dot) com.

Originally posted on November 20, 2005 at the above website. Posted here with permission of Devyn Devine. Thank you Devyn!

I remember watching my first porn movie when I was eight years old. [Devyn should have waited untill she was of age. -Ed.] My uncle had this stash of videos and magazines in his room in my grandmother's house. I use to go in there and I was amazed at the things I would see. The first porn I ever watched was Educating Nina starring none other than the amazing Nina Hartley.

I guess you could say Nina gave me my sex education early on. The thing about porn in the 80s was that it was raw and natural and human. It wasn't about super glamazons fulfilling your every sexual fantasy. The great thing about porn in the 80s was that the average Joe could watch it and picture himself in the scene. Sex was sex, and it was sexy.

So the thing that gets me in my little "porn adventure" is when I am asked if I do extreme. "You'd be good for extreme!" producers tell me. At first I was like, "What is extreme?" Then I found out. Throat gagging until puking, water sports - which is the nice was of saying either you are going to piss on someone or they are going to piss on you, hard sports - this is popular in England - think water sports, but think number 2! While I respect a person's right to privacy, come on! When did these things become sexy? It was Reece Witherspoon who said in her movie Legally Blond, "Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed." and it is me who is saying whoever thinks drinking piss is the new blowjob has some issues!

Now I don't mean to sound judgmental. It is one thing if you walk into a scene fully knowing what you are expected to do, but it is quite another if you do not. Many reputable sites will tell you everything they fully intend on putting you through. As talent, if you are ok with that, then do the scene, get your money and immediately have your head checked. In my second week of doing porn, I walked into a scene in New Jersey where apparently I was going to be throat gagged until I puked, and then expected to brush my teeth with cum. Yeah, you might say I had a bit of a problem with that considering I have a really bad gag reflex and I don't swallow cum. The problem was, this guy didn't tell me a thing. Even as I was puking, he was still filming.

The same week I had the privilege of meeting two guys from another East Coast extreme site who kept telling me I would do their site. Well, I didn't, and mainly because this guy while appeared to be normal, really got off on the fact that I was molested as a child. Sorry, when I am sucking your dick, the last thing I want to talk about is daddy.

I really don't have a problem with girls who engage in this type of extreme behavior. In fact, I really respect them. What I do have a problem with are girls who are exploited in this business. While I won't publicly give the name of the web site I shot for who did this, I will warn any girl whom asks me directly about these sites.

Now, this also goes deeper than personal preference. There is the underlying question I wonder if producers of these sites ask themselves. The question is where do we draw the line?

With the onset of the technological revolution, web sites are popping up in mass numbers. Porn has moved away from the natural "let's all have sex" to "supermodel fantasy sex," and even now to what I call "Reality Porn." Porn is accessible on ever media outlet which as a porn starlet is great for me, but when we think about extreme sites, is this really a good thing? Where do we draw the line from entertainment and fantasy to motivating deviant behavior from seriously disturbed individuals?

The question I am challenging you with this column is this: Do extreme sites contribute to the misogynistic behaviors of hateful men in our society? If it does, what is the affect on non-porn women who are compared to us actresses and actors? Who really holds the power - the actresses who voluntarily use their bodies to advance their lives or the producers paying us for these acts? The next time you are watching some beautiful girl puke from a blowjob and then drink it up, think about these questions.

What do you think? I'd love to hear some feedback. I haven't done extreme, so if you have, please give me some perspective! Email your thoughts and comments to Devyn (at) AINews.com.

SOURCE: Adult Industry News (dot) com.

Originally posted on November 5, 2005 at the above website. Posted here with permission of Devyn Devine. Thank you Devyn!

I would like to share my experience in the adult industry here so that people might have a better idea of what it is really like to do this type of work, not what the distributors/managers want people to think its like. I've been an exotic dancer (read stripper) for several years now. I started dancing soon after getting a job as a cocktail waitress in a strip club. (The old joke about the difference between a waitress and a stripper being 3 months). I thought it would be easier -- less days worked, able to drink on the job, no running around with a tray. Given the choice again I would never have started.

You go in thinking it will be lots of quick easy money and realize you're spending more on outfits, makeup, hair, nails, house fees (most clubs charge the dancers to work there), tip outs (required), club merchandise (required to sell or pay for it yourself -- I have a lot of dust rags that say" _____ CLUB"), and drugs (that you may not need to do your job at first but probably will turn to eventually to dull the emotional pain this path will inevitably bring).

First: the girls will most likely be catty and awful to you because you're new. They will not help you and may be openly hostile. I've had girls burn holes in my clothes while I was giving a dance, trip me, break glass on my stage, and even slip various things into my drinks (including acid - no fun).

It takes an enormous emotional and physical toll on you. It's exhausting (especially at clubs where pole work is encouraged), the shoes mess your feet up, your knees crack every time you kneel down on stage to get a tip, I've thrown my back out twice. I've worked at clubs with old chipped stages that scratched you up when you rolled around on them and poles that were flaking big chunks of sharp, rusty metal into your skin. (Hope you got your tetanus shot.) You will break out from all the filth on everything. (NOTHING IS EVER CLEANED, EVER.) You get zits between your boobs from rubbing them on greasy guys' stubble covered faces all night, you get chafed from grinding (starched jeans and huge belt buckles - OUCH!). You get staph infections from the nasty chairs that have been puked on god only knows how many times. If you work where you always wear panties you get yeast infections from sweating in what amounts to bathing suit bottoms all night. If you work full nude you are exposed to far worse. (Do you know what that nasty girl has? I hope so, cause you just sat your bare coochie on the same chair/lap/stage that she did five minutes before.) Guys will come in their pants and you may not realize it till it has soaked through your t-back. (Do you know what he has? You may have it now too...)

The customers are awful. They will scream obscenities at you, ask you to do awful things (especially if you also do web cam work, which is like being on a pornographic lazy Susan for hours - "show your ass, show your tits, open your mouth, take your shoes off, bend over, spread your pussy", and on and on and on.... I did this for two weeks and couldn't handle it anymore. Imagine using your dildo vigorously and in strange positions for 4-6 hours straight). Female customers will treat you like shit and call you fat, even if they look like Shamu. Many customers are extremely abusive -- I've been slapped, choked, bitten, burned with cigarettes, spit on, puked on, my hair pulled, clothes ripped, things thrown at me. Many managers turn a blind eye to these abuses, as they do to the use of illicit drugs and prostitution. Can you say VIP room?)

Managers are abusive, corrupt, or just plain incompetent. I was raped by a customer when I was black out drunk and the manager let him "take me home safely" and I woke up naked and bleeding in a strange house. Many other girls have been raped inside and outside the club, many times more than once, especially in badly monitored VIP rooms, but few report this because cops will just say that we were turning tricks and are just crying because we didn't get the money we wanted. In some cases managers will take pictures of drunk girls with them (and yes, I mean that in the worst sense) and use it to blackmail them into doing whatever they want. You will have customers follow you home almost every night (most of have learned to carry something a lot stronger that pepper spray). I've had some weirdo knock on my door at 3 a.m. as a "surprise" more than once. (But only once was said weirdo bearing flowers. Can you say delusional and desperate?)

Speaking of delusional and depressing there is the strange breed of the strip club addict who is often lonely and clingy (and not entirely stable). Many of these men are married or have children but spend far more time/effort (buying diamonds, spending hours at the club), devoted to women who take all their money and would at the same time happily take a cheese grater to their face. (Yes, we hate all the customers -- ALL of them). I've seen men run through years of savings and run up huge credit card debts trying to win over the girl they are obsessed with only to learn that they will never get anything more than a lap dance out of the relationship. (The last one pretty much paid for my house). This can obviously destroy families along with the men stupid enough to do this. And, yes there are sugar-daddy arrangements that go on but they NEVER end well.

No matter how many times a night you're told that you're hot/beautiful/have nice tits this job trashes your self-esteem. You're always wondering "if my boobs were bigger/if I'd worn a different lipstick/if I was thinner would I have made more tonight?" Consequently I've seen some really badly botched boob jobs (think cross-eyed). Eating disorders are rampant. (I've seen girls pass toothbrushes over the sad half-wall stalls in the bathroom in order to make themselves throw up.) Most girls do drugs of some kind. (You always wonder if a girl started stripping to support her habit -- it's the only job most addicts can hold down -- or if, like me, she started taking drugs in order to be able to go in to work and face the customers.)

Many girls are also supporting abusive boyfriends/pimps that they just cant seem to get away from. (I've seen more than one girl's "boyfriend" wait for her outside the club to take her money as soon as she gets off and maybe knock her around a bit if its not enough -- although the girl who had enough and pulled out a taser on the jerk who had been abusing her for months was priceless to watch. He cried. If you're lucky enough to avoid the pimp Jr.s you have a hell of a time finding and keeping a real relationship. Most good guys will drop you the instant they find out what you do and if by some miracle they don't, believe me they will get tired of it soon enough. They will get jealous of your money, or think you're cheating, or insist that you stop because they see the toll it takes on you. (Read: you WILL NOT want to have sex after work. Maybe curl up with a teddy bear and cry, but not screw around.)

Oh yes, let's not leave out the fact that you will be ostracized FOREVER for this job. People don't understand (or they understand all too well) what we really do and go through. When you go to get a real job there is that big gap on your job history with the ambiguous label of "independent contractor." What kind of contractor? Can you verify that lie, dear?

Well, I hope this has enlightened any readers to the real stripper lifestyle. Not all the glitz and glamour it's cracked up to be, is it?

(Original story submitted by Raina to AntiPornography.org June 7, 2010. Thank you Raina!)