Ex-Porn Star Tells the Truth About the Porn Industry
[The following is a guest post by Shelley Lubben. Shelley, an ex-porn star, is the founder and president of The Pink Cross Foundation. Through the Pink Cross, Shelley is a missionary to the sex industry, reaching out to adult industry workers offering emotional, financial, and transitional support for those who want out of porn. She also provides help for those struggling with pornography and victims of pornography. Her heart is to share the truth about porn and expose the darkness of it.
Chatsworth, California produces 85% of the world’s adult content. All of the top female talent agencies are located in or within the Chatsworth local radius. Female performers are flown or fly to Chatsworth to work in the adult industry. All of the world’s top male talents live or travel to Chatsworth California for work. Every major and minor adult DVD Company is in the local Chatsworth radius.
The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry which causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public. I am confident of the above because not only was I a stripper, pornographic performer and escort in the California pornography industry from 1986 to 1994, but I have also counseled with or spoken to over 300 female and male workers in the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction.
I have been working with adult industry workers since 2002, when I began volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in the State of California. I have worked at Madera Rescue Mission, Bakersfield Rescue Mission, Central California Women’s Facility Prison, and Valley State Prison for Women and have traveled throughout the United States as a speaker and counselor on the negative effects of pornography at various churches, recovery programs and secular organizations. My team and I currently work with hundreds of people struggling with pornography addiction in the Pink Cross Foundation Help Forums.
General Statistics on the Porn Industry
In my daily work of assisting women and men recovering from the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction and gathering research over a period of several years, I have learned significant facts to prove that indeed the California pornography industry is causing severe secondary negative effects on adult industry workers as well as the general public, which is involuntarily exposed to pornography, especially children, whose average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is eleven years old.
According to recent pornography stats:
It is estimated that there are 4.2 million porn Web sites—12% of the total amount of sites—allowing access to 72 million worldwide visitors monthly.
One-quarter of the total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.
According to comScore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult sites in August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the Internet audience.
The United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films a year and earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually.
An estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers. Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated based on distribution or sales.
Lobbyist Bill Lyon told 60 Minutes that the porn industry employs 12,000 people in California and pays the state $36 million in taxes per year. When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn business.
Porn Workers Frequently Receive STDs
Adult film performers engage in prolonged and repeated sexual acts with multiple sexual partners over short perio