Sasha Grey is finally getting the mainstream-media attention she craved. After all, nothing says you’ve arrived these days quite like being invited to appear on The View, which she reportedly did yesterday.
Except that she was invited only to react to the national outrage she incited when word got out that she was the “Read Across America” guest reader at an elementary school in Compton, California this month.
Sasha insists that she was only passing on the joy of reading to the kids. But even if she were reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit, it’s hardly surprising that her work in porn would cause most parents to react as if she were reading the Joy of Sex and only passing on STDs. Such is the stigma that attaches to porn stars.
She retired only a few months ago at the young-but-worn-out age of 23 – having made over 200 films, won industry awards for Best Oral Sex Scene and Best Anal Sex Scene, and been hailed by Rolling Stone as “The Dirtiest Girl in the World”.
But it is naïve to the point of pathetic for any young girl to think, especially in this internet age, that she can get herself all turned out in this industry and still attain the kind of respectability that allows her to serve as a role model or even to read to kids. So if you’re considering porn as a way to make a quick buck, you might want to think long and hard about having to carry this stigma – like a veritable scarlet letter P inscribed on your forehead – for the rest of your life.
Meanwhile, the irony is that what little respectability Sasha has garnered by appearing in cable shows like Entourage and Indie films like The Girlfriend Experience is probably going to get lost in this outrage over her public-spirited attempt to help promote reading. Which is really too bad; but there’s something to be said for a society that still regards sex as such a private matter that the idea of those who trade in it becoming respectable public figures is anathema.
Porn stars delude themselves into thinking that they are kindred spirits with actors who appear in R-rated films with heavy sexual content. Because no matter how real the “act” appears when Sharon Stone or Halle Berry is doing it, there’s never any doubt in the viewer’s mind that she’s just acting. Whereas, the whole point of porno films is that stars like Sasha are literally getting fucked – every which way but loose!
Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I fully support the right of consenting adults to do porn for whatever reason. Hell, I’m even on record calling for the decriminalization of prostitution. It’s just that I find most porn tedious, if not repulsive.
In fact, the only porno scenes I find mildly titillating are lesbian ones, and that’s only because of what seems to be a natural impulse to fantasize about joining in to make those scenes complete. Ahhh, but enough about me.
NOTE: Even though I refer to girls throughout this piece I am equally concerned about boys who are seduced into the porn industry without fully appreciating the long-term ramifications.