This article is a guest post by Shelley Lubben. Shelley, an ex-porn star, was the founder and president of The Pink Cross Foundation from 2008-2016.Through the Pink Cross, Shelley was a missionary to the sex industry, reaching out to adult industry workers offering emotional, financial, and transitional support for those who want out of porn. Her heart was to share the truth about porn and expose the darkness of it.
Chatsworth, California produces 85% of the world’s adult content. All of the top female talent agencies are located in or within the Chatsworth local radius. Female performers are flown or fly to Chatsworth to work in the adult industry. All of the world’s top male talents live or travel to Chatsworth California for work. Every major and minor adult DVD Company is in the local Chatsworth radius.
The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug-infested, abusive, and sexually diseased industry that causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public. I am confident of the above because not only was I a stripper, pornographic performer, and escort in the California pornography industry from 1986 to 1994, but I have also counseled with or spoken to over 300 female and male workers in the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction.
I have been working with adult industry workers since 2002, when I began volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in the State of California. I have worked at Madera Rescue Mission, Bakersfield Rescue Mission, Central California Women’s Facility Prison, and Valley State Prison for Women and have traveled throughout the United States as a speaker and counselor on the negative effects of pornography at various churches, recovery programs, and secular organizations.
General Statistics on the Porn Industry
In my daily work of assisting women and men recovering from the pornography industry, as well as those struggling with pornography addiction and gathering research over a period of several years, I have learned significant facts to prove that indeed the California pornography industry is causing severe secondary negative effects on adult industry workers as well as the general public, which is involuntarily exposed to pornography, especially children, whose average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old.
According to pornography statistics:
- It is estimated that there are 4.2 million porn websites—12% of the total amount of sites—allowing access to 72 million worldwide visitors monthly.
- One-quarter of the total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.
- According to comScore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult sites in August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the internet audience.
- The United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films a year and earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually.
- An estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers. Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated based on distribution or sales.
- Lobbyist Bill Lyon told 60 Minutes that the porn industry employs 12,000 people in California and pays the state $36 million in taxes per year. When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn business.
Porn Workers Frequently Receive STDs
Adult film performers engage in prolonged and repeated sexual acts with multiple sexual partners over short periods of time, creating ideal conditions for transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). All the more concerning, high-risk sex acts are on the rise.
At the same time, condom use is reportedly low in heterosexual adult films—approximately 17% for adult performers. In 2004, only two of the 200 adult film companies required the use of condoms. Performers report that they are required to work without condoms to maintain employment.
These practices lead to high transmission rates of STDs and occasionally HIV among performers. After four performers contracted HIV in 1998, Sharon Mitchell, a former adult film performer, founded Adult Industry Medical, a clinic to counsel and screen performers monthly for HIV.
The current practice of periodic HIV and STD testing may detect some diseases early but often fails to prevent transmission. In April 0f 2004, three performers who had been compliant with monthly screening contracted HIV. At that time, a male performer who had tested HIV negative only three days earlier infected three of 14 female performers.
What the Performers Say About STDs
In statements I have received from females and males working in the pornography industry and those who previously worked in the industry, at least 80% admit to catching an STD while working in the California pornography industry.
- I personally caught the non-curable disease Genital Herpes in 1994 and was not given any information or help from porn producers or the adult industry.
- Jan Meza, a former porn actress who left the porn industry in October 2007, publicly shared of late that she discovered she has Herpes. She is totally devastated in that she caught a non-curable disease.
- Belladonna, a well-known pornographic performer states: “99% of the porn industry has herpes.”
- One male pornographic performer, Rocco, 600 films and 3,000 women later, says: “Every professional in the porn-world has herpes, male or female.”
- Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, caught Chlamydia her first year working. She exclaimed, while speaking with me, “I don’t believe I worked with one person who didn’t at one time have an STD.” Tanya made over 200 movies in her three-year career. She also says, “Performers have to pay for their own testing, their medicine, and lose at least eight days of work every time they catch a sexually transmitted disease.”
Sexually transmitted diseases are highly prevalent in the pornography industry. Among 825 porn performers screened in 2000–2001, 7.7% of females and 5.5% of males had Chlamydia and 2% overall had gonorrhea. Dr. Sharon Mitchell confirms the STD prevalence in an interview with Court TV, in which she states: “66% of porn performers have herpes, 12-28% have sexually transmitted diseases and 7% have HIV.”
Why Some Porn Stars Also Work at Escort Services
Pornographic performers and adult industry workers also often engage in prostitution through escort agencies such as Body Miracle, Dreamgirls, and Porno Star Escorts, where they not only risk sexually transmitted disease but also HIV and hepatitis C infection.
Pornographic performers usually prefer escorting because the pay is much higher and sex acts are not as degrading or physically demanding. They receive approximately $100 an hour for working in pornographic films or $1500 an hour for escorting. Adult industry workers who are also pornographic performers get paid higher than other adult escorts due to their celebrity status and can book 2-3 hour appointments and make approximately $3000 a day. Agents also lie to women in the adult industry and lure them into prostitution. Porn performer Erin Moore says, “Some agents lie to the girls and tell them they are shooting a scene when instead they set up prostitution acts for them.”
While I was a pornographic performer in 1993-94, I was flown to different parts of the United States by porn companies where consumers of pornography sometimes paid me thousands of dollars to spend a weekend with them where we engaged in unprotected sex. During one appointment with a man and his wife, we engaged in unprotected sex and I passed the disease to both of them. Pornographic performers and adult industry workers definitely spread sexually transmitted diseases to the general public.
The Prevalence of Drug Abuse in the Porn Industry
Another secondary negative effect of the adult industry is the exposure to drugs and drug addiction. Porn actress Erin Moore admits, “The drugs we binged on were Ecstasy, Cocaine, Marijuana, Xanax, Valium, Vicodin, and alcohol.”
Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, says, “Guys are punching you in the face. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never-ending. You’re viewed as an object—not as a human with a spirit. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.”
One male porn star says on his blog on January 28, 2008:
“Drugs are a major, major problem in my business. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you. I can’t tell you the number of girls who have disappeared and dropped out of the business because of their drug problems. It is unbelievably sad to think about, and seeing some of them fall into a downward spiral hurts me more than others. But I think we all can agree that a huge majority of drug users will never change unless they get professional help.
I have seen all manner of drugs on set, at parties, in cars, everywhere. If I had to guess, I would put marijuana use at 90% of ALL people involved in the industry (performers, directors, crew, agents, drivers, owners, office workers, etc.).
I have been on a set where a girl has passed out during a sex scene with me (she was abusing oxycontin). Just recently a girl overdosed on GHB (a party drug that is a clear odorless drug that doesn’t mix well with alcohol) on set. I have seen a girl win a prestigious AVN Award, not show up to accept the award, and then fall into the throes of drug use that caused her to lose at least 50 pounds and drop off the face of the earth.
Why is drug use so prevalent in our business? Well, let’s figure that out.
First of all, remember that the business is populated largely with girls aged 18-21. And the majority of those girls are uneducated (many haven’t graduated high school). Add to that the fact that many come into the business because they have no money and are working at menial jobs like fast food places. So you have young girls who are uneducated with very little money entering the business.
Once they are in the business, they are now making ten thousand dollars a month and working maybe five hours a day 10-15 days a month. There are predators out there that can smell these girls and prey on them like sharks. Young, uneducated girls with lots of money, lots of free time, and very little supervision. This is a really bad equation (unless you are a drug dealer of course).”
All Porn Industry Workers Experience Abuse
In addition to prevalent drug use, degradation and abuse are rampant in the pornography industry. In one study, 100% of the strippers reported some kind of verbal or physical abuse on their jobs.
Verbal abuse by customers is extremely common with 91% reporting incidents. They were routinely called degrading names.
Besides the verbal abuse, all endured some type of physical abuse on the job. Despite the fact that it is illegal to touch a stripper, strippers reported that customers:
- Grabbed them by the arm (88%)
- Grabbed their breast (73%)
- Grabbed their buttock (91%)
- Pulled their hair (27%)
- Pinched them (58%)
- Slapped them (24%)
- Bit them (36%)
The strippers are often attacked in front of the strip club bodyguards and other audience members.
Former pornographic performer Alex Devine shares her violent experience and writes:
“Donkey Punch was the most brutal, depressing, scary scene that I have ever done. I have tried to block it out of my memory due to the severe abuse I received during the filming. The guy, Steve French, has a natural hatred towards women in the sense that he has always been known to be more brutal than EVER needed. I agreed to do the scene thinking it was less beating, except the ‘punch’ in the head. If you noticed, Steve had worn his solid gold ring the entire time and continued to punch me with it. I actually stopped the scene while it was being filmed because I was in too much pain.”
There is a very heavy emphasis on rougher, more sadistic sex, with slapping, spitting, violent hair-pulling, and scenes of extremely abusive hardcore sex acts. In one film, the man forces the woman’s head into a toilet during the final scene, a technique that seems to help him achieve climax.
See Porn and Sexual Violence: 7 Important Facts.
Safe Workplace Laws Aren’t Enforced in California
In California, every employer is required to ensure that employees have a safe working environment. In 1973, the California Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted to assure safe and healthful working conditions for all California working men and women by authorizing the enforcement of effective standards, assisting and encouraging employers to maintain safe and healthful working conditions, and by providing research, information, education, training, and enforcement in the field of occupational safety and health.
Employers in the California porn industry are required to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees, even pay the costs of a health and safety program, and yet this is not the standard in the adult industry.
Currently, employers in the California pornography industry completely ignore the laws of the State of California to protect adult industry workers. This causes severe secondary negative effects on workers by subjecting them to physical and emotional abuse, major degradation and violence, illegal drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, and entrapment into prostitution. This is the standard of the California pornography industry. Any adult industry employer or worker who tells you differently is blatantly lying and does not value human life, but is rather destroying human life for the gluttonous love of money.
Get More Facts About the Porn Industry and Its Impact on Consumers
The porn industry has a dark side for porn workers, but porn has some strong negative effects on consumers too. Learn more about the harms of porn and get the latest statistics on the porn industry in our free ebook Porn Stats.
Your website has detailed information about the porn industry. You have done a great job. Keep Updating your site.
Thanks
I was a stripper who got into it by choice. At the time I thought it would be fun to be admired by members of the opposite sex. Looking back I only did it because I grew up (according to a psychologist) emotionally neglected. I was also bullied. (mainly by boys). I was looking for approval, acceptance etc. I wanted to feel wanted. And I temporarily felt that, but In the long run, I got addicted to alcohol and my self esteem plummeted even further. As you think it would after dealing with drunk guys for a living who treat you like a piece of meat. Even the nice ones, and though there were plenty of them, liked me for my physical attributes. They didn’t know the real me, as a dancer it’s all an act. So soon you start believing that this is now what your worth is. I would say that the number of emotionally healthy dancers I met over the years is about 5%. I mean the amount that didn’t suffer sexual or other forms of abuse and enjoyed the job, and used the money to further their studies, pay off property etc. It could only be worse in the adult film industry. An emotionally healthy individual would not allow themselves to be degraded like that.Can you imagine how much worse it would all be in the adult film industry? Clearly you would have to have some serious emotional scarring to be able to turn up to your 1st shoot, and justify to yourself that it’s ok. To have degrading sex on camera!! These girls are real people with real feelings and they mostly would have had a pretty sad life to choose this line of work. Than the drugs, and alcohol and lifestyle kick in and before they know it they are stuck. HAVE SOME COMPASSION. If they want to get out there should be help there for them, and the people who do help should get a bit of respect. These are people’s daughters, sisters etc.
It is quite refreshing to read that someone was able to quit this spiritually and physically dangerous job by the grace ofGOD and is now helping others in similar circumstances. I see her as a woman of exemplary courage and others still in this sordid industry should emulate her good example. Let no self righteous fellow judge the csw’s because if Jesus should defy them to cast the first stone if they had no sin, they, like the pharisees wouldn’t have the courage to do it. Sin is that inborn propensity to do wrong which manifests differently in different people and commercial sex work is just one of these manifestations. It should be understood that anyone who has tasted of sex outside marriage without being raped is as guilty before God as the porn workers.
So I’m as guilty as the porn workers because I had sex before marriage! What a load of bull and you forget their all man made rules! Religion causes most the wars in the world and most religious ppl are hypocrites makes me fume!
don’t judge people as lazy sluts, u dont know why anyone does what they do. only they know. fyi: people w/ criminal records have less job choices so mind ur own biz. lastly i dont see anything in here about men just how women are hurting………women want equal rights yett we still live in a society that cares nothing about men and overly concerned and worshipping women.
Lazy is an observation.just as something is black or blue. Saying one is good or bad for it is judgement. Just sayin.
They have less job choices because they’ve proven themselves to be a detriment to society. The way it should be.
While I agree that girls should be highly respected by guys you never hear the men jumping up and down screaming that the lady’s aren’t paying them any attention.interesting that.
to hard worker, if you are working SO HARD as you claim you sure have plenty of time to degrade women as ‘lazy sluts’ on this site. The lady can’t be a ‘lazy slut’ -if men are involved so what is he? Is she being lazy by having to perform sexual acts that are degrading to her heart and soul? Whether she makes the choice or not to be involved with porn, does not mean she enjoys this emotionally. Yes some jobs are more degrading than others, I work doing cleaning jobs while going through University which is expensive. Most women I know who turn to Jesus and give their lives over to God end up out of the porn industry because Jesus helps to put a clear pure conscious in their hearts. Maybe if Jesus was Lord of your life you would not judge these women so harshly, the way Jesus treated women was considered revolutionary for the time period, women are human beings, not just sex objects to be degraded
i like the “lazy slut” comment. it really is true that most of them do not want minimum wage jobs and would rather prostitute themselves. almost all these women are able bodied and can hold 1 or 2 jobs easily. i would sypathize with prostitutes who are deaf, mute or disabled but not these physically able women.
ask any sex worker why they dont want regular job. they will elude the question and give excuses, always.
do not believe the lies these sex workers people tell you. they would rather be “degraded” as long as it pays. most of their complaints are related to MONEY (not being paid enough) not the sexual acts itself.
@devski – I have no doubt some sex workers do not want a regular job. But most porn actresses don’t last more than a year and a half in the sex-for-pay industry. The point Shelley is making here is that these women, though they have chosen an awful line of work, are also victims of many injustices while they are working. I think she is trying to show the love Jesus showed to prostitutes in his own day, that although they had chosen degrading lifestyles, he still did not call them “lazy sluts” and look down on them. He befriended them and helped them to leave their lives of sin.
It’s wasn’t that Jesus didn’t judge. He forgave the things that could be judged. And I do believe sloth is in there somewhere too.
Are you kidding me? The women in porn ask for it. You think they go into it thinking “oh… Its going to be cherries and apples. What a great life?” They’re degraded because they want it!! Do I respect a woman that wants to sleep with me in the first night i met her? No… She doesn’t deserve any respect. Just like these nasty women who go into porn asking to get it. They want it!!! Why feel sorry for women who walk into the belly of the beast?! Do you feel bad for a guy that drinks a 5th of whiskey and drives drunk, gets in a car accident and loses a leg? No… They DESERVE everything they get. I have no sympathy for action and reaction from stupid decisions.
@Rocky – Wow. I suppose because these women deserve it they are thereby not due any sympathy. Of course: we all deserve the wages of wrongdoings. But Shelley is demonstrating compassion by ministering to these women. Why in the world would you ever look down on this?
The porn industry is not exacly honest, it has influence from crime lords and othrs wt tht kind of talent. Some people join it willingly and others d not have a choice in th matter.. u occassionally hear abt people havin sex wt minors in their movies, i honestly doubt tht a 15 yr old gal wants to be slut… Anyway my point is a billion dollar company based on sex has to hve alot of crooks involved… and wts wt all this talk abt woman being degraded, porn has bth male and female actors
So a girl who was abused as a child by perverted men and decides she might as well get paid for it deserves no sympathy? There’s decisions and then there are compulsive decisions which are what alot of these actors make due to unknown history people such as yourself don’t even bother to look into. Not knocking you for being unsympathetic(probably due to your own history) just trying to point out not everything is as it seems
It’s very simple. Lotta money for little effort. No more no less. I’m gonna have to take door no. three on this one. It doesn’t matter what happened I. Their past to bring them there but what can be done about it now. Only the willing will change.
And yes I’ve known many who say to hell with a job. Up until the botched surgery and now they can’t be the door man at Walmart.
Options people. You can’t bank on one thing your whole life. Think about it please if just for a minute.
Where’s the porn 401k? Retirement? And after you’re sagging to low to pay the bills. Do you have enough time to make it back up? Hell no. Sex for money is a job just as McDonald’s is. A dead end. So wise up and start your future now. With a career. Not an hour long car payment.
I don’t respect men who sleep with women on the first date. It shows they are easy and have no self respect/esteem. And no respect for other human beings as well.
OK. So your argument boils down to, stupid people are stupid. now what. What did you expect from stupid people? to not be stupid? So why rage at stupid people for being stupid? It’s like raging at a blind person because he can’t seen. Stupid people do stupid things, because they are stupid. The next question is, how to treat stupid people? Answer is, with compassion, awareness and insight. Why?Coz, you’re (supposedly, although i have doubts) not stupid, and they are.
Dude,seriously? A lot of people on here shows the heart breaking truth about us as a whole,ignorant. Acting on impulse will make a lot of us men sleep with women without getting to know them , but are they any more to blame than ourselves? I understand these women (pornstars) chose to be in adult entertainment but whether they had been abused (mentally, physically or emotionally) as a child or had a misconception of the industry , do they not deserve a helping hand. These are humans,just like you and I. P.s. The post about how god cured someone of herpes, what if he freed her emotionally? Maybe, he just helped her accept it. Or maybe, the lady repented , she did a 180 and god knew she would so he helped. How nuts would it be if people caught diseases and viruses , asked to be cured and went back to having unprotected sex, we would probably never learn. Tough love is sometimes necessary…. @luke, dude , god bless you. You go hard and that’s amazing.
Thanks, Joshua.
I have a friend of mine who was a former female pornstar. She is a sweetheart in a half and a dear dear friend. I have heard much of the things that go on in the industry myself and I can back up this article 100%. But with a few other things added. The women of the industry are being harmed, its not right and its not something I like to look at. These women need to be helped for the better. Its things like whats happening in the porn industry that the men portray as an image to be “the man” is what kills it for us good guys. I would like to help and or give my support in anyway that I am capable for these women who are abused and degraded in the industry. Women are to be loved and protected, not harmed and degraded.
Ah, the pink cross, kind of like the red cross except instead of helping the needy she helps the lazy sluts that didn’t want to work a regular job so they spread their legs and opened their wallets, I’m truly touched.
@Drew – I assume by your expression “lazy sluts” you believe nobody should try to help them. Interesting perspective.
Drew you are a coldhearted insensitive person that is blind to the fact many of these women are trapped into this industry. You are definitely touched but not with real vision.
Being degraded is something that happens in any job. Just depends on whose letting it happen. It is hard to stand up for what you want in a career. How do you think the union started. Lotta hungry mouths went in to standing up for what we believed was fair.
Whore’s know that the money out weighs the commitments so they don’t do anything about it. Nor do they think ” Hay. I’m gonna need a back up plan.” .
You have to pick up a book AND a line of coke if you want something different.
Lazy. Absolutely. Dumb? I think yes. So go work towards a real long term job instead of that $500 hand bag that will eventually be full of so many cum stains you’ll have to toss it out anyway.
And by ” lazy sluts” means don’t help?
I don’t see an interpreting job in your future guy.
Lazy people need help not to be lazy. Just as the biggest looser helps fat asses not be so fat. The way it works is if you realty want to do or be something different. IT WILL HAPPEN. And the general public loves changing peoples lives who deserve it. A little leg work and a bit of determination will show results.
So please offer a hand to that lazy person. But do not hand out a two year plan that comes with leather and ac. We reap what we sew.
this is so pathetic,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Ya obviously didn’t read the article. She’s not only helping the performers; she’s educating the public about the industry, as well as people who are addicted to porn.