We Only Care About The Duke Porn Star Because She’s A White Girl At A Private University

I originally began writing a piece that wasn’t as favorable towards the Duke Porn Star out of my own jealousy. I was jealous because she was getting very fair and positive press regarding her involvement in pornography all without the general public knowing her real identity. The comments on the internet are brutal, but the press hasn’t really mocked her in the same way as they did to me, so I was envious. I had rants about how she isn’t brave because she hasn’t had pictures of her family and home address plastered across the internet. I wrote that she doesn’t believe in her cause because she won’t reveal her true identity. I said that she wasn’t a feminist. I realized I wasn’t being very pro women by ragging on someone and letting some jealousy out. That’s not what feminism should be about. If she is so insistent on the fact that she is trying to break down norms, I would be playing into stereotypes about women by acting in a jealous manner. I decided to do more research and scrapped my entire first draft. Then I read the piece about her from the Duke Chronicle and ended up having more questions about her, than declarative bitchy statements.

I wondered how her parents didn’t know how she was paying for college? I assumed she’d begun working while underage to save up. Then I realized she would be working NOW to pay off loans eventually, and I felt really ignorant. Then it described her wearing $96 Lululemon yoga pants, and a North Face jacket. After I called her a basic bitch in my mind, I wondered how much she’d have to work to pay for school and then clothes like that? There must be some parental support still, I’m assuming. The average porn scene as the Chronicle said pays about $800. Tuition at Duke is about $60,000 a year. I feel very lucky that I had to google “How do student loans work?” because I don’t need them. It is very rarely the case anymore and I am very fortunate that my parents support me still. But I wonder how are her parents not suspicious of all the designer purses and outfits she has now? How have they not sat her down and asked her how she plans to figure out paying off her loans? There is definitely the possibility that her real name will get out and they would be completely blindsided. Also how has she not cried to them about people? It’s very stressful dealing with public criticism and parents can sometimes be the best people to ask for guidance and lean on for support? If she has a difficult relationship with them, she supports the porn stereotype of girls with daddy issues.

This isn’t new territory, women stripping or being in pornographic films to pay for college has been discussed before. I can name two rap songs off of the top of my head that mention this: “Badd” by the Ying Yang Twins and “Novacane” by Frank Ocean. “She’s a girl who knows what she want in life, she a schoolgirl by day and a stripper by night” and “She’s in school paying/for tuition/doing porn in the valley/at least you working”. These songs both most likely refer to black women, so it makes me wonder, is the only reason we care about Belle Knox or Lauren because she’s a white girl doing porn to get through College? She’s not a remarkable case. There are plenty of other secret porn stars and strippers everywhere. We only care about her because she’s a white girl at Duke. If she went to some community college we wouldn’t care. There was also another student porn star rumored to go to LSU. For some reason, because it was LSU people decided to call her trashy. Because Lauren goes to Duke we automatically give her all of this privilege and cut her some slack. But we also are more intrigued. Why would such a smart girl get into pornography? There still exists the slutty dumb girl versus smart virgin complex so we’re confused when they meet and it becomes a national story.

My advice to “Lauren” is, it would be much better for your own personal sake to release your real name rather than live with crippling anxiety about the American public (who doesn’t even matter) knowing your real name. Everyone at Duke already knows it and you’re surviving. Just don’t do reality TV or a documentary film. I know that our generation craves fame and the limelight, but just don’t do it. Fade gracefully into obscurity. Don’t answer anymore interviews. Do all that you can to make yourself irrelevant. For the love of god don’t write a tacky memoir “My Life as a Freshman Porn Star”. You’d be pimping yourself out even more than when you do porn.

With any of those things, you would never be able to be a real person ever again. Isn’t that a point of why you’re doing porn? To be able to go off into the real world and get a real life job and be successful? As for your parents it really is easier to inform them yourself rather than let them find out. My parents survived my house ending up on the internet as well as my father’s work info being spread internationally. Yours will survive too.

There is a lot more hatred for someone talking about money than someone doing porn, trust me. People are extremely fucked up and will use anything they can dig up to try and make you feel bad. I’ve received death threats, threats to my family, and have had slurs about my ethnicity tweeted at me multiple times. You ignore it, realize people don’t matter and people in your life know you’re a good person. You have the angle of trying to get through school and hustling and living the American Dream. I have complaining about the class system and how people are judgmental dicks. You will be fine. Just talk to your parents and focus on school, fade into obscurity, and you can use your real name again.