This is the thing. There is a line. The line is when you accept money for having sex. It changes what sex is. So if I sleep with 80 guys to explore myself and my sexuality and enjoy it, that's one thing. It's an entirely different thing to have sex with 80 guys for a porn company because porn is no longer about me personally fulfilling my personal sexual desires and exploring my sexuality. It is about delivering what the people who pay me want me to deliver. Of course the girls think they are in control in porn and they get pleasure from it. If they didn't have that, they would be unable to perform because that would be rape. The reality is, porn's only goal is to get a good scene to be sold to make money. Porn doesn't care how sexually turned on she is or whether or not she wants to do it. But, porn will let her believe she wants to do it because that's going to help accomplish the goal (and not be rape). So when she say things like "porn empowers me" and "I enjoy it" it's a big pile of manipulated bullshit. Let's see her try to change the direction of the scene or walk off set. What do you think is going to happen? That's when she'll be empowered. But she also will no longer creating porn or getting paid.
I can't escape this dichotomy: this girl has two options -- a) let the stigma keep her from ever thinking about porn as a way to get out of debt, or b) make a profit while subverting society's expectations and being a voice for change in how we treat porn actresses. Would it be different in your opinion if she was doing "porn for women" softcore sets?
I think the only thing that would make it different is if she didn't write this article and state that "it's empowering." Like I said before, I like and watch porn. I don't typically think or have an opinion on the girls who perform in porn, until something like this occurs and I'm forced to examine the subject. If she had wrote an article saying "I perform in porn and I go to Duke and I accept that I'm going to be called a whore for doing so" then I would have zero problem with her and probably think pretty highly of her. Instead she (I like KB's wording of it) did a bunch of "mental gymnastics" to try to prove to herself/the audience that she is an innocent person who is 100% certain in the choice she made, and that choice shouldn't be stigmatized. Also, I would like to say that I do not look forward to the day where we don't look at porn starts any differently than any one else. That means that the stigma from sex as a private act has been removed and that a girl selling herself and her sex is just as normal as any other sex. If that happens, then the new "normal" sex will be so far removed from the sex I love to have today. It also means there won't be a market for pornography because part of what makes pornography, pornography is the taboo and stigma that comes with it.