Former Adult Actress Says Slut Shaming Ruined Her Future
Bree Olson used to work in adult entertainment and now she can’t get a job in any other fields. But it’s not because of the fact that she had sex on camera — it’s because of what people think about her for doing that.
Bree wrote an essay for the Daily Dot today all about the stigma she’s faced after leaving her career in adult entertainment behind. She got into it at 19, she explains. It was a sexually adventurous time in her life. She was living in Illinois, studying pre-med biology, and periodically flying to LA to rake in that dough. Her friends and family were totally cool with it.
Then, at 25, she quit and realized that society would forever judge her for her status as a sex worker. She mentions she got sucked into a “media frenzy” which we can assume partially resulted from her relationship with Charlie Sheen, but the fact is people would have judged Bree for doing adult films whether or not she was dating Charlie.
Here’s the sad truth about how society sees her, according to Bree:
I left a career where I made millions to try and gain respect. I pushed and struggled for years. People look at me as if I am the same as a sex offender. They look at me as though I am less than in every way, and they assume the absolute worst in every way. I had never realized how progressive my mind was and how scared people were of sexuality until this. I also realized I could never go back and be a nurse or a teacher, or work for any company really that can fire me under morality clauses for making customers feel “uncomfortable” because of who I am.
She also mentions that unlike other onscreen work, adult film doesn’t offer royalties. So even though her videos are still enjoyed by the masses online every day and her image is even used in ads, she is “shunned from society and broke.”
In fact, she now wishes she stayed in the industry for a few years to make more money and save it. She now advises young girls to “be careful” about getting involved in sex work — not because the actual work will hurt you, but because “you become a segregated part of society that has no civil rights group behind it.”
Of course a few adult stars do go on to have long-lasting careers and don’t mind the stigma that can come with it, but Bree is one of the many who decided to leave the industry in her 20s, and she now apparently wishes she never started in the first place. She can’t get a job now, and even new friends will refuse to be associated with her when they find out she once did porn.
“Life is already hard enough,” she continues. “Don’t do this to yourself… [Adult films] didn’t hurt me. The way society treats me for having done it does.”
It all just goes to show you that we haven’t progressed much past the days of “The Scarlet Letter,” when women who had sex outside marriage literally had to wear a giant A on their chests broadcasting their “adulterer” status so that people knew not to treat them with respect.
And if you think that because you’re not an adult film star these attitudes will never affect you, you’re wrong. All it takes is one passed-around nude photo or one rumor spread through your town for you to be slut-shamed in the same way Bree is.
This is the exact same issue we were talking about two weeks ago when everyone flipped out about Kim Kardashian’s nude photo leak. Until people can get over their own sexual hang-ups and stop judging women for their sexuality, this kind of stigma will unfortunately continue.