I’m not normally one to repeatedly focus my attention on any one person for very long, but jesus christ this one just won’t quit. I was sitting at a table outside the cafeteria at LA erotica and I noticed a stack of flyers placed in the middle of the table. “Porn Industry Facts”. I looked around. They were in the middle of every single table. “Hmm…”, I thought to myself, “this should provide for some comic relief.” I was not to be disappointed.
Let me veer off for a moment into the small bit of horse rescue work I’ve done. When I got my mare from a reputable horse rescue four years ago I dealt with a group of people who genuinely believed in their work and made it a point to have the most honest dealings they possibly could with all volunteers, sponsors, donors, and adoptive families. My mare was nine months pregnant and nearly 200 lbs. underweight. Her feet and teeth needed a lot of work. She was past due on worming and shots. No one knew how much training she’d had, but they did know that she couldn’t stand tied. She was from a racetrack in the bay area and was 12 years old. There was a whole slew of things that could go wrong with the foal she was carrying because she had been malnourished for her entire pregnancy. And she had a tipped vulva. Every single one of these things was disclosed to me in great detail, as well as an educated guess of the dollar amount she could potentially cost me. In another case, I had a thoroughbred gelding off of another race track who would never be sound. He had suspensory issues and bone spurs. He had been raced for five years. When I found a home for him the new owners were told all of this, even though he appeared sound at the time. Why is this relevant? Because I needed an example of how an ethical charity program should be run. Horse rescues won’t lie and tell a potential adoptive owner that the horse is safe when he isn’t or healthy when he’s not. They feel that the only way to deal with anyone needing the services of their charity or willing to offer services to the charity is with eyes wide open. Pornstar rescues apparently do not abide by the same principles.
….and here are the facts the Pink Cross foundation is desperately trying to make everyone aware of:
PORN INDUSTRY FACTS
-9 performers died from HIV, suicide and drugs overdoses in 2007
-66% of porn performers have Herpes, 12-28% have other STDs
-26 porn performers have committed suicide since 1990
-45 porn performers have died from drug overdoses since 1990
-out of about 90 HIV positive porn performers, about 25 are living
-between 2003 to 2005, 976 performers were reported with 1,153 positive STD test results
PORN IS NOT GLAMOROUS. GET THE FACTS. GET HELP.
Oh god. Where to start….
Lets get the stupid one out of the way first. I can’t speak for others but I did not get into this industry for the glamour. It would take a serious lack of brain function to associate getting splooge on the face with glamour. Getting splooge on the face is fun, it’s profitible… it’s often a good blooper…. it is not glamourous. Same goes for splooge on the butt, titties, stomach and splooge sucked from someone else’s mouth (special nod to cumswapping). On the flip side, splooge on the face is not the cause of mental woes and drug addiction either. Its just really not the big deal Ms. Lubben is making it into. And don’t tell me girls think the awards shows are glamourous. All they talk about at the awards shows are splooge on the face while they distribute trophies for the girls who took the most splooge to the face. There. I’ve exhausted it.
Ok now here is my real problem with this flyer: It is not a fact sheet. It’s propoganda. Fact sheets are unbiased. Propoganda is worded to sound as good or as bad as it possibly can. Facts appeal to reason. Propoganda appeals to emotion. What if all of these numbers were converted to a percentage? I had a hard time when I was trying to figure out what numbers to use when converting this over. I don’t honestly know how many performers enter the industry every year and I don’t know where to find that information. I don’t know how many performers are in the industry right now. I couldn’t even ballpark it. Conveniently though, Charles Calderon knows. He says 5,000 new performers enter the industry every year. And I’m going to use that figure for this case, because it is a felony to lie to the committee and he said it to them. So it must be true (;
Ok, so nine performers died from HIV, suicide, and drug overdoses in 2007. Nine divided by 5000= .0018. Move the decimal over two spaces we’ve got 0.18%. Less than one fifth of one percent of the performers in our industry died from drugs, aids, and suicide combined in 2007.
Next point: “66% of porn performers have Herpes, 12-28% have other STDs”– I know as I’m typing this that it’s not making our industry look very good, but we don’t test for Herpes. It’s not required so we don’t get it done monthly at the local AIM clinic. Where is she getting this number? I’m not saying there isn’t a porn database out there tracking our every herpetic move, but by god I’ve never heard of it and I doubt if a performer found out he or she was positive for herpes through a private doctor that information would be available to the public. Where is this information listed? I want to know who not to work with. Anyhoo, Lubben testified to the committee that 90% of us had STDs. This fact sheet states otherwise. If 66% of us have herpes, then 34% of us do not. If she were stupid (she is), she could get her calculation by subtracting the 12-28% of “other STDs” from the healthy and vibrant 34%, giving her a guestimate that 90% of us have STDs (what are “other STDs” anyway, if she’s counting bladder infections she’s really reaching). But, there is bound to be overlap. Some of the herpes victims will be among the unfortunate 12-28% of vague “other STD” victims. So 90% of us do not have STDs. I knew it all along. But wait! jump down to the last bullet point: Between 2003 to 2005 (does that just sound grammatically off? I’m copying it as it’s written), 976 performers were reported with 1,153 positive STD test results. Okay… 2003, 2004, 2005. 3 years multiplied by Calderon’s 5,000… 15,000 people (yes I know…. I don’t honestly believe that we can go with the nice even number of 15,000. I just needed a figure for the argument). 976 divided by 15,000= 0.065. So 6.5% of us tested postive for STDs between 2003 and 2005, some of us had more than one. What the Fuck? That is a direct contradiction to bullet point number two, and bullet number two was proof that her 90% testimony was a lie. Oh the webs we weave.
Bullet point number three: “26 porn performers have committed suicide since 1990”. Assuming that this is true, that would mean that in 18 years we’ve lost 26 performers to suicide. We have 1.4 suicides per year on average. 1.4 divided by 5,000= .00028. 0.028% is the industry suicide rate. Or, to make it very clear (5,000 x 18 years= 90,000), 26 out of 90,000 people have committed suicide. I hate to be callous, but it doesn’t seem so high when given a reference point.
“45 performers have died from drug overdoses since 1990”- You’ve seen the math above I won’t go through it again. 45 people out of 90,000.
“Out of about 90 HIV positive porn performers, about 25 are living”- First, I’m very uneasy with “about 25 are living”. There should be a concrete number here. How do you ballpark how many people are alive with a number this low? All that tells me is that someone didn’t do all the research. It is not hard to verify whether 25 people are alive or not. It doesn’t matter though. I’m just surprised that it seems somehow relevant to mention that some people have died from a fatal disease. Numbers game! About 90 minus about 25 equals about 65. I’m assuming these numbers are from 1990 onwards (everything else is), so about 0.07% of porn performers are living with HIV and about 0.02% have died from it. Looks like we’ve got our aids under control!
A few last words before I sum it up. The first point talked about STDs, suicide, and drugs. Then the next point talked about STDs. Then the next point talked about suicide. Then the next point talked about drugs. Then the next point talked about STDs. Then the next point talked about STDs. I realize that by filling the paper it looks like there are copious amounts of problems in our industry, but that first bullet point pretty much did it. She’s wasting trees.
Goddammit Shelley! I could respect a foundation that was just there for the victims who truly needed it, but quit trying to scare us into thinking we’re victims. I like getting splooge on me and I hope I someday win a splooge-related award (Goddammit Bree Olson! Stop winning everything! Congratulations by the way), and I’m at peace with the odds I’ve calculated here. I think I’ll make it out of this industry alive.
23 Responses
Kayden: I take off my hat to you. Your posts are always on the mark, and it’s my pleasure to be able to share this forum with you. I look forward to meeting you in person when you come to Columbus in July.
If Mike South was smart he’d pay you.
Um, I want to point out something to you Kayden because, while I think your approach at countering this woman is besides the point, I do respect the spirit of scientific inquiry within you which caused it.
Your methodology makes no sense. There’s no way to know how many active performers there are in a given year soley from knowing the number of new performers annually. It also depends upon the rate which performers leave the industry, and, more importantly, how many are sticking around from before the point at which you started keeping track. If there are 5,000 new performers annually, this doesn’t necessarily mean that over a three year period there are 15,000 people exposed to the risks of doing porn. Yes, it could be 15,000. It could just as easily be 50,000; or 5 million. Those numbers would strengthen your point. But realize, it could also just be 5,000 – thereby tripling your conclusion from 1/5 of a percentage point to 3/5ths. You have to know the turn over rate.
Now, agreed, 3/5ths of a percent still isn’t worth worrying about, but my point is amplified when we apply it to your other attempt to refute Lubben’s stats. If there have been 5,000 new performers every year since 1900, this means that, yes, there could be 90,000 people in the data set. But, it could also be 900,000. 9 billion. Porn existed before 1990, and some of those people continued to work. However, and this is where your methodology really falls apart, it could (and, given that old chicks are generally ugly, most likely is) the case that the number is much, much lower. Porn stars have relatively short careers. Say, for the sake of argument, 5 years. So at any one time, there’s 25,000 performers. 5,000 rookies in, 5,000 veterans out. But again, I’m assuming I know the turn over rate, which I don’t. Also, before the internet exploded, say, 10 years ago, porn was a much smaller business. So the number of annual newbies had to have been considerably smaller aswell. I’m sure it’s grown steadily between 1990 and now, but the average rate of newbies is not today’s rate. It’s the average of all of the annual rates – probably something like 2,500 per year. 2,500 x 18 years = 45,000. 1/2 of what you came up with.
Then again, the turn over rate could have been as low as 1 new actor a year against 7 zillion retirements for all I know. There could have been just 15 porn stars from 1990 up until when Chuck Calderon started paying attention to 1/2 of the picture. When did Chuck start counting? Is around 2006 a responsible guess? If so, 15 + 5,000 + 5,000. 10,015. Twenty-six suicides out of ten thousand. Of course, I’m intentionally grossly underestimating, but see my point: There is no point in arguing like this.
Don’t draw any ethical conclusions from that, or feel compelled to dig deeper into the history in order compare porn stats to general population stats. Just realize that math is a delicate thing and move on to the real issue.
Like I said, I don’t think that any of this matters. The costs and benefits of doing porn are not, primarily, a matter of life and death. Even if death, decades later, as a result of AIDS or a self-inflicted gun shot wound, were a foregone conclusion. It’s not a rational basis on which to decide to take a risk. It’s because living life – every day life – and being happy with oneself is what matters in life. The universe is not a house of horrors and there’s no reason to engage in, or refrain from, an activity based upon it’s risk. The avoidance of death is not the same as the attainment of life. Being at peace with survival is not the same as being as peace with living. The real reason to do something – even risking one’s life – is the chance of achieving some value from it, provided, of course, that that value is actually greater than the costs to EVERY DAY life.
Shelly is including stats from gay porn as well which tend to skew the numbers because gays are not tested and they have a higher rate of suicide, statistically, in porn or not.
But lets face it mostly Shelly’s numbers are made up.
But then we tell people we are a 12 to 14 billion dollar a year business…..
Mike you have yourself a real find with Grant Hardcore here. Can you hook him up with Paul?
Oh, now I see Gonzo. I understand why you’re willing to turn your back on a fellow exercisor of the 1st Ammendment when he needs you most. Or at least when he needs for you to not sympathize with the sentiments of the fascists who hate his content and wish to persecute him.
It’s because you’re not actually opposed to censorship. Not on principle. Sure, you’re an advocate of free speech when you think it’s safe to do so. You’re perfectly willing to denounce the victim when you sense that it’s your own head that might be next; we’ve established that. But now I’ve learned something entirely new. Just as you’ll rail against it – if you think you can get away with it – you’ll actually use it – if you think you can get away with that just as well.
If I say something about you which you don’t like, instead of continuing to refute it, or politely saying you don’t wish to discuss it further, you insinuate to the owner of this blog that I am a threat. That he should look into my activities on MikeSouth.com and consider silencing me. Of course, he had a right to – it’s a private blog – but shouldn’t reason, and not your nuggings, dictate the decision?
No wonder our government gets away with such flagrant violations of individual rights so easily. But then again, that’s what I said in my original post on the issue. Thank you for taking the first step in proving me right.
You’ll probably get away with it. I’ve been kicked out of many things in my life for having too much integrity.
What’s this persons problem! Probably some dried up old fart never been able to enjoy the most of live due to some fundamental holy lord of the rings like book? Shelley sure needs a good gangbang I presume!
Great job Kayden! Get her ass! ^_^
They start to act foolish in the Neths as well though. For example: They want to close down the Red Light District in Amsterdam; get the girls out of the ‘criminal’ circuit. What criminal circuit? If they continue with their plans the girls will go underground and end up in a probable mess! Amsterdam’s RLD has the lowest criminal statistics in The Netherlands. It’s the one place where people can walk safely with their families.
Not to even mention the economical wellfare and tourism.
All started since the christian political party’s found the base of our current government. Yuck!
What could you threaten in my life?
I ask again…how much are you sending the great American Max Hardcore?
Shelley only helps people that want to be helped. If she scares someone away from porn with those fliers, then good. That person should never have been in porn to begin with. Then you won’t see them in two years crying how they were forced into porn or whatever story they come up with.
Go to her Myspace and see her slide show of many that have died. Those are facts. But every industry has it’s victims and horror stories. Heath Ledger and Brad Renfro both overdosed the same week! But Shelley gets calls from many women asking for help or some assistance. She’s helped many find new jobs or raise money to buy a ticket to go back home. They approached Shelley and she helped them. I’ve said many times I think she can be crazy. But handing out fliers and helping those who want help is not a crime.
I can run down a list now of the top women in porn today that have STDs. I used to think you can not work in porn if you have any STD. But someone told me that’s completely false and the only STDs that will force you out of porn are HIV and AIDS and that having STDs is very common in porn. How can it not be? Condoms are rarely used with only Wicked (last I heard) still being condom mandatory. So you’re having sex with all these people on set without condoms and also everyone else off set without condoms.
When dealing with sex, all the emotions can either make someone more stronger or completely destroy them. Jon Dough killed himself and one quote I heard he said once was he rather masterbate than have sex with a woman. Savannah killed herself after a car crash. I heard she was already “too old” when she wasn’t even 25 yet and her reputation in porn as a top star was ruined when she did a 10+ gangbang, which she did for the money. She gets into the car crash and breaks her nose and probably thinks she can never work again. Shauna Grant killed herself and she was a huge star back then. I don’t know too much about her and I don’t remember her movie that well now.
Jenna Jameson already hates porn and that’s obvious after her AVN Award speech. If that golddigging whore tells the industry, that made her a very wealthy superstar for doing vanilla porn, to fuck off – what makes you think you won’t hate the industry in a few years? You haven’t been in porn long enough to know any of the facts. So it seems to me that someone hands you a piece of paper and you willingly read it thinking it will get you bonus points from the powers that be in the industry.
I have never said I’m in the know. The first porn blog I started commenting at was at LIB and I always said I’m not a porn insider and I don’t get press releases and that’s why I post sources to stories on my blog. And that’s why most of the pictures I post are from mainstream celebrity blogs because the mainstream blogs and forums are where I find most porn star pictures. But everything I say is from years of reading about porn, watching anything I can on television about porn from documentaries to specials, etc. And I read many porn blogs of people who are porn insiders.
Of which women have STDs, I’ve read this on porn blogs. And one video of a current well known female star saying she herself has STDs. I believe that video was with other videos from the ABC porn debate on the ABC website.
I would love to be in the know so I wouldn’t have to link back to the original source. But you make it seem like I just make up stuff. If someone isn’t an insider or in the know, they only know what they’ve read and heard.
You don’t think Jenna’s speech and how she said it implies that she hates the industry? And I’m not the only one whose said it either. I was shocked when I saw that video and it was like a big fuck you to porn. She went because the award she was giving Stormy was named after her for the first time, which is a joke but I won’t go into that now. And it was like also a way for Jenna to show Tito, sitting in the audience, that she wasn’t associating herself with porn anymore though she still makes millions from her share in ClubJenna. Tito’s new book even says he would never have dated Jenna if she still did porn. And then she suddenly is no longer bisexual but now is completely straight. Though she lived with Nikki Tyler for years and did mostly girl/girl scenes throughout the bulk of her career.
Slam dunk for Kayden Kross. Not only was it on the mark it was very cogent. My hat’s off to this classy lady, I’m now heading to IAFD to see her titles, I think I’ve got a Vivid title that she did an anal in somewhere…
Sexy + classy + smart = new favorite!
And if it’s not true what the porn blogs and porn forums say where I read others saying who has STDs, then don’t blame me. Blame the industry insiders or the ones “in the know” that put out this information for all the public to see.
Someone has industry envy.
Emvy? I’m not a male porn blogger who blogs so to meet porn girls hoping to have sex with them. I’m a porn fan and admire from a far and like talking about the industry and posting articles and pictures. I’m suck a cunt, right?
I meant to say ‘such a cunt’.
NIMH reports the national suicide rate in 2004 as 10.9 suicide deaths per 100,000 people, or .0109 percent. Even if only three of the deaths cited on this flier were suicides, that’s still a pretty astronomical rate of suicide in a sample population. Suicide is, on the whole, quite rare.
Not to pick a fight with Ms. Kross — I hope you make it out alive of the business, too, and lord knows I wish I ranked in the professional splooger category, glamour or no. But it does seem that porn has some unusually high risk factors, and that somebody ought to undertake the process of benchmarking them. Why not AIM? It may not test everybody, but it certainly could anonymously benchmark the folks it tests.
“I’m suck a cunt, right?”
Freudian slip there, Darrah.
Please keep posting. I don’t think anyone who frequents Mike’s site is going to be afraid of a little open dialogue.
Open dialogue? That’d be something new to Darrah. Nothing personal Darrah, but you simply sound bitter and angry to me. But what do I know?
Bitter and angry? Really? I didn’t think I was coming across like that. I just don’t like Max Hardcore, Jenna Jameson, people in porn who refuse to say someone in porn has been victimized, and people who attack Shelley Lubben for as far as I can see only helps people that want to be helped. The people who many times call her for help themselves.
Which part didn’t you understand?
Should I go back to school and retake English 101 dealing with sentence structure and run-on sentences?
>>> you don’t like any people in the biz unless they speak up everytime someone feels they have been victimized
I love porn. I just don’t like the bitches in it that ruin it for everyone else.
16 – I rest my case. You keep admiring them from afar … wondering what their hair smells like.
Maybe one day you will save all your nickels from picking up cans and venture out to Vegas so you can buy one a hot meal and rub their tired feet.
We all still love you. You do have a credit card dont you?
In your first pst on this blog you state that the industry herpes rate was ‘exactly’ the same as the general public.
Now you write, “…its not making our industry look goood, but we dont test for herpes.”
The second statement about not testing is absolutely false. AIM offers herpes tests to anyone who wants them, and they do tons of them every month…
And it is YOU THE PERFORMER who decides what tests are to be done, not this mythical INDUSTRY. There are no laws whatsoever regarding testing. It is completely voluntary. You can get tested for herpes or anything else anytime you want. NOBODY is stoping YOU from doing that.
Kaden, you’re very good at repeating the standard industry line on these subjects, as inaccurate as they are. Just ask MIke what he thinks about this 12 BILLION dollar industry(lol), and the stds in porn. Mike wrote in one of the comment threads that people who believe that are, and i’m using Mikes own word, IDIOTS.
And then ask him why he deleted the first response I worte here where I stated the FACTS about the std problem. And then in the same thread he wrote, “I appreciate all contributions here.”
Kaden, if you want to be an industry spokesperson on these subjects, at least try to get close to the truth.
12 billion a year…5000 new performers a year..herpes rate equal to general public..and seven suicide an drug od’s out of 5000 is astronomically higher than the genereal public.
“I love porn. I just don’t like the bitches in it that ruin it for everyone else.”
Darrah, what do you think Shelley Lubben is trying to do? She’s the first to admit her long-term goal is to destroy the porn industry. For hell’s sake, she bat her false eyelashes at the court and tried to get a bill passed that would put an end to the porn industry. And don’t think she isn’t a threat, poor saps listen to her sob story and think it’s their mission to save the poor porn girls. There’s your bitch who’s trying to ruin things for everyone else.