If Porn Is Not Shameful, Why Doesn’t Miriam Weeks Use Her Real Name?

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A Duke University freshman is offering the world a textbook lesson in what not to do if your college classmates find out you’re doing porn. Miriam Weeks attempted to “un-out” herself, giving an interview to the Duke Chronicle, which agreed to protect her anonymity despite the fact that word was out all over campus that she was getting boned on camera as “Belle Knox.” Then she wrote a confessional piece (as “Lauren A.”) for a feminist Web site that included this:

I am not ashamed of porn. On the contrary, doing pornography fulfills me. That said, I vehemently want to have my privacy respected — and I ask that anyone who knows my real name respect the fact that I am only discussing this publicly because it was made a public matter when I was confronted by a fraternity member who chose to tell hundreds of other men in the Greek scene.

Do you want to have your cake or eat it, Ms. Weeks? Because you cannot be “famous” as the Duke University porn star, claiming that you are unashamed to do what you do, and then demand that the world never mention your real name which — as you yourself say — is already known to hundreds of your fellow Duke University students, to say nothing of Google: Miriam Weeks is “Belle Knox.”

One cannot impose amnesia on the Internet by force of will.

The feminist sisterhood, however, has never cared much for facts or logic, and so Emily Shire at the Daily Beast stubbornly pretends that nobody knows who “Lauren” actually is:

Lauren’s challenge against her harassment as a porn actress reveals how pointless and shameful our stigmatization of adult film performers are. It hurts sex workers who love their careers and want to enjoy full lives outside of pornography. Worse, it may further hurt the sex workers who are subjugated and are too afraid to ask for help.
Lauren’s openness with her porn career raises many questions, but I fear people will only think to ask the wrong ones. We shouldn’t be wondering why a smart young woman with her whole life ahead of her would choose a career in porn. Instead, we should be wondering why it should preclude her from doing anything else she so chooses.

You see? It is not pornography which is “shameful,” Emily Shire tells us, rather it is “our stigmatization of adult film performers.” But what would Emily Shire (or, for that matter, Miriam Weeks) say about the “adult film” consumers? Shouldn’t we stigmatize guys who wank to porn? Does Emily Shire have any respect for those on the demand side of the porn industry’s supply-and-demand equation?

What about the commercial producers of pornography, who profit by commodifying sex on a worldwide scale?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not advocating censorship, but I am advocating honesty about what manner of commerce is being transacted by Miriam Weeks. Legal though it may be, it is shameful from start to finish, and we ought not pretend otherwise.

You don’t see guys publicly declaring that they wank to porn. As shameless as he was, Anthony Weiner never claimed to be waging a courageous fight against the “stigmatization” of wanking. And you didn’t see anyone praise his “openness,” did you?

So, Duke University freshman Miriam Weeks from Spokane, Washington, is unashamed to be a “sex worker,” and evidently expects to be praised for this by her feminist comrades, because getting boned on camera is so empowering, you see:

 I am a women’s studies major. I hope to be a lawyer — my dream is to be a women’s rights, civil rights lawyer. I’m really into writing, journalism. I’m kind of a creative person, which is a lot of the reason I like doing porn. I really am a person who values my family and my friends, and I am also really into spirituality. I like astrology, Zen, all of that.

I’m sure her fellow alumni of Gonzaga Prep are proud of how Miriam Weeks is representing her “spirituality.” And how else is a prep school girl supposed to afford $58,00 a year tuition at Duke?

The porn-star-student was outed by fellow freshman Thomas Bagley . . .
Bagley told The Daily Caller that the starlet divulged her secret to him . . .
Bagley said she swore him to secrecy. Naturally, then, he went and told a bunch of people at a fraternity rush event almost immediately.

Stupid is as stupid does. Why are “smart” kids so stupid these days?

“I feel like girls at Duke have to hide their sexuality
. . . We’re caught in this virgin-whore dichotomy.”

Eh, you’re not “caught” anymore. That “dichotomy” is over for you.

 

151 comments

  3. I didn’t suggest restricting anything. I fully realize that placing oneself in the public eye can lead to unintended consequences. Some of those consequences, though unintended, are nonetheless foreseeable. I would suggest, they are doubly so in an industry which sole purpose is to create a reality where every woman is instantly available to every man for every purpose. This is not a young lady delivering the weather forecast or playing hits on the radio.

  4. That’s true.

    But in this case, when your standard is telling a Frat Brother at a drunken party because he promised to keep it a secret… You’re not _really_ that interested in secrecy.

  5. “But using an alias? Not an issue for me. And not, I think, the issue at hand here.”

    Exactly.

    Not that she was trying to keep it a secret – she obviously wanted to be famous, obviously wanted to get the attention, and obviously wanted to have the victimization of being outed. That’s what’s at hand here, IMO.

  10. William J. Bennett was the director of the National Humanities Center, then the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities, then the Secretary of Education, then the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He did not have any position with anything to do with the enforcement of vice laws.

  13. That’s actually a pretty fair description of many workplace environments. Do you know what the local emergency room in Procter & Gamble’s home town calls heart attacks? P&G’s.

    And some rightwinger named Mamet wrote a pretty good play on that theme…

  14. If I’m mistaken I stand corrected. But I seem to recall him being associated with the porn reduction effort in the 80’s. Certainly, there was a Federal push for it at that time.

  15. There’s nothing inherently degrading to the human spirit in working for Proctor & Gamble to support one’s family. The fact that work may be unpleasant or dangerous does not destroy the the soul, again used in the Humanistic sense. Porn, however, degrades the soul by reducing the foundation of human society–marriage and the family–to nothing more than a set of base, animal impulses without reason or any emotion other than lust, assuming that’s an emotion as opposed to a mere instinct. As such, it demeans and destroys those whom it entangles. The “it’s just a job like any other” bromides do not wash.

  21. If you’re open minded all Catholic school does is make you rebel. Only an idiot, and a sheep, would believe such horseshit, and follow such mindless dictates. I say this as a graduated of a catholic high school too.

  22. “Threat” isn’t what’s happening here. The term she’s looking for is ‘used’, in every sense of the word. And she has no clue how high the price for this ‘choice’ will be. Sad.

  24. Procter & Gamble is notorious for its high-stress, cutthroat, backstabbing corporate culture, hence the prevalence of “P&G”‘s in the ER. You couldn’t RUN a film set with an environment that toxic. One or two such people is enough to poison a shoot.

  28. That’s what *I* wondered but Stacy insists that the lack of silicone and tattoos, combined with her willingness to do threesomes, outweighs her lack of prettiness.

  30. The question in the article is an idiotic one. I can immediately think of 3 reasons not to use your real name – assholes, creeps, and stalkers.

  33. Ah, the Society of Jesus. They gave up Marxism (“liberation theology”) and are now devoted to the cause of single-malt scotch and sodomy.

  38. Having viewed her porn audition tape on the Internet, I can assure you that it’s like Antartica….everyone knows where it is, but who in the hell wants to go there. She clearly degraded herself and knew it! Her future in the law will be one of always looking up.

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