OUT THE REVOLVING DOOR: LEAVING THE PORN BIZ
by Erik Jay
The adult entertainment industry has a huge revolving door, with thousands of people entering every month, for a single low-rent photo shoot or a long career.
They leave in similar numbers. A few might hit the mass culture radar and show up on VH-1's "Where Are They Now?" but the question remains: Where, exactly, do all these folks go?They aren't aliens, so they go where other humans go: back to school; to Indiana; to Hollywood for a shot at "regular" acting gigs.
And they start health clinics for their former colleagues.
Former starlet Sharon Mitchell, according to a Washington Post story in 2004, "was so alarmed by HIV rates" in adult entertainment that she lobbied for a California law to require monthly testing. She runs the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation and, according to its website, goes by "Dr. Sharon Mitchell, PhD in Human Sexuality." Mitchell didn't merely make a career change; she turned her compassion into a crusade.
Trinity James made over 200 adult films, and claimed to have worked in a Las Vegas brothel. Now she wants to go to cosmetology school in Indiana. James, 24, decided to quit after meeting Craig Gross, co-founder of Los Angeles-based XXXchurch, a ministry that "targets those in the pornography trade" and helps them "get out of the industry," according to the December 2005 Christian Examiner. Gross started the Trinity Project, whose first fundraising goal is $14,000 to send James and her 5-year-old son to the new life she has decided to start in the Midwest.
Traci Lords turned infamy into a brief acting career ("Married ... with Children," "Serial Mom"), and Ashyln Gere, according to urban legends website Tafkac.org, proved in some "X-Files" to be "one of the few porn stars who can actually act." Ginger Lynn, Charlie Sheen's "girlfriend" when the Heidi Fleiss scandal broke, made the movie "Whore" and some episodes of "NYPD Blue."
And, of course, they die: Linda Lovelace in an accident, director Alex deRenzy by stroke, John Holmes of AIDS. For a sobering reminder of the all-too-human nature of the "stars," visit the web's "Dead Porn Star" page (http://www.rame.net/faq/deadporn). Scrolling through the long list of deaths by accident, murder, overdose and AIDS is a humbling exercise, stark testimony to the frail human condition.
Anyone who wants to leave this business can; anyone who wants to enter can do that too. They all deserve our compassion and respect as fellow humans, doing their best to get along in a sometimes joyful, often tragic world.
Originally published in XBizVideo magazine in May 2006.
