Porn stars and parents

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f8k54IY4kg&feature=player_embedded#!

Sashagrey is a woman who has starred in several adult films and is now making a career for herself acting in movies and television. She identifies herself as an ex-porn star, as a model and actress, and has since turned to modeling and acting. Recently, she was berated by parents and the media after making an appearance at a school through a reading program to read to first and third grade children. She was so criticized because of her former career and its inappropriateness for the children she was reading to. She did not say anything about these adult films to the children, and did nothing more than read them a story. The women on The View question her personal choices in this video clip, and her answers as to why she decided to become a porn star made me realize how very closed off people have become when it comes to sexuality, and how our culture has built up a stigma around sex to make it seem like a dirty thing.

Parents have long been the source of complaints when it comes to sex and education. Many public schools have faced problems when providing sex and health education, which in my belief is something that everyone should learn in order to make good life decisions. Sigmund Freud’s entire discipline is partially based on the repression of sexual desires and their effect on a person’s every action. Sashagrey is now only an actress and does not feature in adult films any longer, yet thinking seems to be so sex-oriented that the people enraged by her acts can only think of her connection with the porn industry. Porn does not directly correlate with sex education, but sex is involved in both, and both are surrounded by the same negative stigma.

While I agree that sex is a very personal thing that happens between two people, I don’t think it is this awful thing that sends parents running and leads the media to harass a girl who simply embraced her sexuality. Sashagrey did not prostitute herself yet she gets angry calls and mail from parents who did not like that she was reading to their children. People are entitled to their opinions but when it comes to something as harmless as reading a book to children I do not fully understand the negativity focused on the act. I, myself would never join such an industry but that doesn’t mean that I think she has done something wrong. She does not regret her career decisions and I applaud her for her embracing of something that is normal, natural and harmless.