The deaths of Jesse Jane and Masuimi Max have brought out the ugly moralisers who are quick to blame it all on ‘immoral lifestyles’.
The untimely deaths of Jesse Jane and Masuimi Max in the last couple of days sure have got the judgemental tongues wagging. That both women died under mysterious circumstances aged 43 and 45 respectively is grist to the mill of the moral tutters who are keen to make assumptions about just what those ‘mysterious circumstances’ might be. They might be right, they might be wrong – until the full facts about the causes of death become clear, it might be sensible to avoid leaping to conclusions. But that won’t do for the holier-than-thou bigrade who are already placing the blame on their connection to the adult entertainment industry (and tattoos, body piercings and – of course – vaccines).
Now, the two women were at very different ends of the adult industry – Jane was one of the last porn stars from the movie era, Max was a fetish, burlesque and glamour model (and I’m reducing the breadth of both women’s careers a little here) but to the moralising outsiders, it was all the same – Playboy and Pirates, there is little difference to the sort of people who immediately line up to place the blame – explicitly or through snide innuendo – for their deaths on ‘porn’. Every time an adult entertainer, a sex worker or a glamour model dies at a young age, we are told that it must be connected to their work – that ‘porn’ has caused it. After all, they are quick to tell us, the adult industry attracts damaged people – women especially, who are seen as inherently unsexual and lacking in personal agency, and therefore must be doing this out of desperation or instability or most likely against their will. I wouldn’t choose to make porn, the argument goes, so how could anyone else? The women who defend taking their clothes off or having sex on camera must be suffering from cognitive dissonance and false consciousness. Why else would they do it? Because they want to? Impossible.
There is indeed a long list of porn stars who have died young, and if you look around the internet you can probably find places where it is presented as evidence of the damaging nature of adult entertainment. These lists include people who have died in car crashes or of terminal illnesses, which might be a warning sign not to take any of the claims too seriously. But yes, a lot of adult stars have died at their own hand or the hands of others, through drug overdoses or after contracting AIDS. It’s easy to look at this and think that there is something very wrong in the adult entertainment world, that maybe these people really are all vulnerable, damaged people who need help and that porn simply exploited them and threw them aside when done with them.
There’s only one thing wrong with that idea: it’s complete bullshit.
We might look at how many pop and rock stars, actors, sportspeople and other entertainers have died young under similar circumstances. Are the numbers proportionally very different? I think not. I don’t have figures here but a few moments of thought or a bit of research can bring up countless numbers of people in those industries who have lost their lives prematurely and unnaturally. Porn might have the edge on AIDS-related deaths, but even that seems doubtful. “Aha”, you might say, “but the people outside porn didn’t contract AIDS through their jobs”. Very true. But all the evidence suggests that most of the porn stars who have contracted the disease did so off-set – there is little evidence of a widespread infection during filming. The very fact that so few porn stars have tested HIV positive despite the years of multiple partners – up until the 1990s without any testing of condom use – might even suggest that the industry was and is curiously safer than the outside world. I wouldn’t go that far but it’s worth noting that performers were not exactly dropping like flies in the 1980s.
It’s also worth pointing out that other careers, much more respectable careers, have inherent dangers built in. Motor racing for one… boxing for another. Boxing involves being punched repeatedly in the head but no amount of fatal injury and brain damage seems to dull its appeal. In fact, apologists will go out of their way to point out that such cases are the exception rather than the rule. We might also look at professional wrestling, a much more controlled and organised affair than boxing, but one that still puts a major toll on the body. The list of wrestlers who don’t make it to fifty is sobering. Wrestling is not seen as a ‘real’ sport and so faces more criticism than boxing – but the deaths of wrestlers still don’t attract the same moral tutting and smugness that awaits those in the sex industry. It’s not just that these people believe that adult entertainment caused the deaths of these women and others – it’s the rather repulsive suggestion – or, all too often, and outright statement – that they somehow deserved it. That living outside the moral boundaries of some of the most awful and hypocritical people in the world made them inherently evil.
While the nose-holding and moralising that comes with any report (and the comments – oh God, the comments…) into the death of an adult entertainer are bad enough, I think what is most unpleasant are the crocodile tears. This isn’t just when a performer dies. It’s when we are told that they are struggling financially after leaving the industry, unable to find work elsewhere, and fired from jobs when their past comes out. When an adult performer takes their own life, the suggestion is that it is down to their shame at what they had done, their frustration at how their past can never be forgotten and hangs over them forever. We are told that the misery of their lives is because of ‘porn’ (which, again, can be anything from topless modelling to gang bang videos to these people) because that thing they did in their younger, more carefree days now hangs over them in eternal shame. But who says that it is shameful? Not the industry. Not the fans. No, it’s the eternal finger-waggers, the witch hunters who demand that you repent but never offer forgiveness, the ones who tell you again and again that what you did was bad, bad, bad. If taking your clothes off for the camera or on stage was accepted as a legitimate activity, if active sex lives were seen as healthy rather than disgusting and if we stopped having the double standards that allow people to lose their jobs because someone saw them on a porn film that they were wanking to and was disgusted by it, then perhaps we might have less mental anguish within the industry. As it is, it often feels as though the critics of the porn industry are like the bully asking “Why are you hitting yourself?” as they bash performers as immoral and condemn the business that they work in as corrupt and evil, then wonder why those involved struggle to move on from it successfully and are often riddled with shame and guilt.
If anyone is to blame for the premature deaths of people in the sex industry, it is surely the people who have taken the moral high ground and condemned them – often, as we have seen again and again, while either doing much worse things themselves or turning a blind eye to the activity of others. Politicians, clergymen and newspaper hacks are in no position to preach morality to others and the world would be a much better place if they stopped doing so. Similarly, people who watch porn – and people who make it – need to stop having those feelings of shame and disgust that the aforementioned groups of people have instilled in them. You’re not doing anything wrong. The performers are not doing anything wrong. Be out and proud, and share your love for people who probably need to hear it more than Hollywood celebrities, pop idols or sporting heroes.
The sex industry is just like every other entertainment industry in the world. In all walks of life, there will always be people who are unhappy, suffering with mental health issues or simply desperate and who take the only way out that they can see. There will be those in terrible relationships or who have deranged stalkers and who lose their lives in moments of awful violence. There will be lovely people and absolute monsters, exploiters and exploited, thrill seekers and careerists. We can demand all the checks and balances, health and safety support and regulation in the world, but just like every other business in the world, it is ultimately made up of individuals with all their frailties. We can never prevent people from dying before their time because that, sadly, is a part of life. But if society genuinely cares about how many people in the sex industry struggle with their lives both during and after porn, it might be a step forward to stop telling them that they are monsters and victims.
As it is, we are saddened by the loss of both women, whose work we have enjoyed over the years and who both seemed cool in a way that their critics will never understand.
DAVID FLINT
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