Porn stars: NO more damaged than the rest of us

[Cerridwen]

5. Or "the rest of us" are just as damaged as "porn stars"

Porn star has a problematic definition in this study; as noted in this study. It sure would be nice to talk about this with nuance for a change. I don't see that happening. I'll just include a snip from the conclusions the researchers made:

Although this study provides valuable information on porn actresses, several limitations should be pointed out. First, random sampling was not used in recruiting porn actresses or the matched sample, which reduces the generalizability of the findings. Pornography actress participation rate is unknown because the size of the population is largely unknown. AIM tested approximately 1,200 performers a month, and it was estimated that there are 1,200 to 1,500 performers working in Los Angeles County (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 2004), but these numbers fluctuate and there was no way to distinguish between actresses working for major production companies, cyberporn sites, or both. Essentially, actresses working for production companies must be tested once every 28 days to legally work in Los Angeles County. Others working for cyberporn sites are not required to get tested but may choose to do so for different reasons. AIM was one of dozens of facilities where individuals could go for testing. AIM had a large number of clients from the adult entertainment industry because the organization had many employees who had worked in the pornography industry or had extensive experience with it. There is not a registry where performers have to be licensed, so there is no accurate way to calculate exactly how many performers there are at a given time. It is certainly possible that there was a self-selection bias such that those who chose to participate were different from those who chose not to participate. This is an important methodological issue, but it should be pointed out that although there has been interest in the characteristics of pornography actresses for decades, there has been a lack of studies because of the difficulty in accessing this population (Abramovich, 2005). With regard to the matched sample, university and community samples were combined to gather a comparison group to control for age, ethnicity, and marital status. Although the matched group may not represent the typical woman because of the sampling procedures that were used, their responses were similar to other studies with regard to measures of sexual behaviors and attitudes (e.g., Breyer et al., 2010; Lindley, Barnett, Brandt, Hardin, & Burcin, 2008; Wells & Twenge, 2005), self-esteem (e.g., Baranik et al., 2008), quality of life measures (e.g., The WHOQOL Group, 1998), and alcohol and drug use (Johnston et al., 2011). Thus, the matched sample does appear to be a representative sample of typical responses of women found in national-level studies.


A second issue has to do with the definition of a porn actress. The Internet has greatly changed the scope of pornography in terms of how it is produced, presented, and viewed. These are all important factors that have changed since the advent of the widespread availability of pornography on the Internet. Today, it is possible to use a camcorder to film oneself having sex, upload it to the Web, and charge users to view it. Podlas (2000) suggested that a gender power shift has occurred because of the Internet such that women who emigrated from the traditional sex industry now operate successful cyberporn sites where they have gained more control of salary, work environment, and flexibility in scheduling. The Internet has created more opportunities for entrepreneurial women interested in a career in pornography and may represent an economically rational career choice for some women (Podlas, 2000; Strossen, 1995). The characteristics of women who run their own cyberporn sites may be different from actresses who are hired by production companies. Thus, the findings from this study should not be extrapolated to all female sex industry performers.


Third, some of the measures were problematic. Some measures used for sexual behaviors and attitudes were single-item indicators with unknown validities and reliabilities. As an example, participants were asked if they were victims of CSA without further clarifications or definitions. Thus, it is quite possible that a given behavior in a particular situation may have been perceived as CSA by one individual but not by another. Another issue with regard to measures is that education was not examined. Education has been found to be related to a variety of sex-related constructs and would have been a sound matching variable, and its inclusion should be strongly considered in future studies.


This study represented a systematic investigation that reported responses of porn actresses across a variety of domains and compared them to a matched sample. The characteristics of porn actresses have been largely assumptive, although much debate has surrounded the issue. Perhaps this study can provide some information that can be used to make informed decisions regarding porn actresses, rather than rely on stereotypes from sources lacking empirical data. Assumed stereotypes concerning this group of individuals were not found, as the damaged goods hypothesis was not supported. The majority of indicators of recent functioning suggested that porn actresses are not impaired compared to the matched sample with regard to CSA rates, quality of life, self-esteem, and recent drug use, and that they appear more similar to women not employed as porn actresses than previously thought.

(emphasis added since the paragraphs were such walls of words; I tried to get the thesis of each paragraph)

eta: to add one piece of emphasis