E-Mail to a Friend: Are We Being Too Judgmental About the Duke Porn Star?

Posted on | March 12, 2014 | 115 Comments

@Belle_Knox is Duke freshman Women’s Studies major Miriam Weeks.

If nothing else, the controversy over Miriam Weeks, a/k/a “Belle Knox,” is proving the truth of Rule 5 (“Everybody Loves a Pretty Girl“), as the most popular posts here in recent days have been the ones about the Duke University freshman’s pornography career. And the second-most popular story Tuesday at the New York Daily News had this headline:

Duke University porn star
Belle Knox denies report that
her parents are heartbroken
The Duke University coed who turned to porn to pay tuition claimed Monday that her parents are not upset with her X-rated off-campus activities.
Miriam Weeks, 18, denied a report that her dad, an Army doctor, was heartbroken when he learned of her moonlighting gig upon returning from deployment in Afghanistan.
“My parents aren’t upset,” Weeks told the Daily News Monday in between filming scenes for an upcoming adult film.
“I want my family left out of it. If people criticize me that’s one thing, but leave my family alone,” Weeks said.
She said she was “really, really upset” over an online article Monday in The Daily Mail that identified her parents as Dr. Kevin and Harcharan Weeks, devout Catholics from Spokane, Wash.

Except, of course, that in earlier interviews conducted behind a pseudonym, she conveyed the idea that her parents’ inability (or unwillingness) to pay her tuition at prestigious Duke was responsible for her decision to do porn. In other words, her family was relevant, as long as Miriam Weeks could tell stories about them without anybody being able to fact-check her. However, once journalists started doing some actual reporting — rather than just acting as stenographers for the privileged prep-school graduate — suddenly her family is off-limits, because their version of the story doesn’t exactly match her version.

Considering that Miriam Weeks told Real Clear Education that she started watching porn when she was 11, maybe there is something about the story between her and her family worth examining, but I rather doubt her Catholic parents are overjoyed that their daughter was the No. 1 most-viewed video on PornHub Sunday. “Oh, look! Our daughter’s bisexual female co-star described Miriam as ‘quite the little freak.’ Isn’t it wonderful? Her teachers at Gonzaga Prep will be so proud.”

Controversy requires disagreement and conflict, and one friendly reader e-mailed to say I was “out of line” using the plain English word “whore” to describe Miriam Weeks. But why play word games? You can call her a “sex worker” or “adult entertainer,” and your preference for politically correct language doesn’t change the reality of what she does. So I sent my friend the following e-mail reply:

We can agree to disagree on porn and sluts. Remember: I’m a father of six, including two daughters. My oldest daughter graduated high school at 16, worked her way through community college and state university, and graduated summa cum laude, debt-free.
What we are being asked to believe in the case of Miriam Weeks, the youngest daughter of an affluent doctor — his reported income is $200,000 a year, and his home is valued at nearly $500,000 — is that it was so important for her to attend Duke (ranked #7 nationally) that she turned down a full scholarship to Vanderbilt (ranked #17) and, poor pitiful thing, she was practically compelled to do porn to pay the bills.
What originally irritated me about this (as with so many stories I report about) was the way the media handled the story, trying to tell us what to think, and just flat-out lying:

First, the Duke Chronicle and other outlets tried to pretend that “Lauren”/”Aurora” was still anonymous, when (a) evidently everybody on campus at Duke had known for weeks that her name is Miriam Weeks and that her porn name is “Belle Knox”; and (b) anybody with Google could find this out.
Second, tasteful euphemism was deployed to disguise what Miriam Weeks actually gets paid for — e.g., sucking c**k on camera — and we were told that her career was “empowering,” so that Belle Knox was presented as a sort of feminist hero role-model. Would you want that message conveyed to your daughters? I think not.
Third, the media tried to sneak a sort of clever reversal of morality past us, telling us that while (a) there was nothing shameful about an 18-year-old girl getting paid for sucking c**k on camera, on the other hand (b) there is something deeply shameful about disapproving of Miriam Weeks’s choice of careers.

While I am a social conservative, I am not a prude, nor am I ignorant of the ways of the world. Remember, I used to be a Democrat, and in my hedonistic hellbound youth, I worked briefly as a strip-club DJ and dated a few dancers. However, as a DJ, it was my job to remind patrons of the club’s “touch-and-go” rule:

“Gentlemen, all of our lovely Kelly’s Girls are here for your viewing pleasure, but let me call your attention to the large man beside the door. Say hello to Bruno. You can look all you want, but if you decide to touch, our friend Bruno is in charge of enforcing our touch-and-go policy here at Kelly’s and, trust me, you don’t want to argue with Bruno. All right, now, guys, put your hands together for the beautiful Shondra, coming up on the main stage!”

Dancers are not hookers, in other words. There is a difference between being nude — live on stage, or posing on camera — and getting paid to have sex. The admiration of beauty is one thing, and hired fornication is another. Perhaps many people, whether they generally approve of porn or not, don’t see the real distinction between the two, but it is important to keep it in mind.
Would I approve of my daughter posing in Playboy? No, of course not. But merely posing nude would not be as so objectionably sinful and morally corrupting as being paid to have sex on camera (or off-camera, for that matter).
If you would disapprove of your daughter or sister doing porn — as I think most men would — isn’t it in some sense hypocritical to say that it’s OK for other women and girls to do it? Let’s grant that there have always been prostitutes in the world, and some women are going to do it, no matter how much anyone may disapprove. But what the enthusiastic admirers of Miriam Weeks are trying to tell us is that we do not have the right to disapprove, that anyone who disapproves is somehow less “enlightened” than those who approve of porn, so that in effect we are being bullied into the “enlightened” view that there is nothing wrong with an 18-year-old girl getting paid to do bisexual three-ways on camera.
And hey, what about the bondage-and-rape scenes Miriam Weeks was doing? Are you telling me that having this petite, innocent-looking teenager enact the sadistic rape fantasies of perverts is harmless? Is it really “empowering” to send a message to weirdos that young girls enjoy having sex imposed on them violently? Excuse my skepticism.
The story of Miriam Weeks isn’t really about Miriam Weeks. I have no personal animosity toward her. How could I? I don’t even know her. And I wish her no harm. No, this is a story about the elite intelligentsia and their enlightened friends in the liberal media trying to tell us what to think, trying to impose their nihilistic amoral secularism on allegedly benighted Americans who, in Our President’s memorable phrase, are clinging to their guns and Bibles. But I’d rather my daughter go to a state college and maintain her dignity, than to have her go to some elite university and become an “empowered” feminist whore.
Ultimately, I believe, dignity and honor are more valuable than any prestigious credential. And I hope most Americans agree.
Respectfully yours,
— RSM

The elite are free to enjoy their prestige, but they have no right to tell us how to think. We are still free to disagree with them. We are doomed, if we lose our liberty to call sin by its right name.

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Category: Education, Feminism, Sex

Comments

115 Responses to “E-Mail to a Friend: Are We Being Too Judgmental About the Duke Porn Star?”

Dana
March 13th, 2014 @ 5:52 am

Great! I can use those to help me pay for the fee I have to send to Nigeria to get the rest of my money back.
Quartermaster
March 13th, 2014 @ 6:06 am

Let’s start a petition and get Belvedere banned for that crime against humanity!
Quartermaster
March 13th, 2014 @ 6:07 am

That wouldn’t be Cougars you have in mind, would it?
K-Bob
March 13th, 2014 @ 6:36 am

Takin’ It To The Sheets
K-Bob
March 13th, 2014 @ 6:37 am

Too soon for the denunciations?
K-Bob
March 13th, 2014 @ 6:41 am

Old joke:

If you don’t have to lean on the fast forward button, it’s porn.
rmnixondeceased
March 13th, 2014 @ 8:11 am

Heh. Iconoclasts walk among us.
The Supreme Court has been unable to define obscenity or pornography leaving such definitions to the individual and their morality. Folks with non-prurient desires (or even those with prurient desires) can view the type of, at best, soft-core imagery posted on this site with an appreciation of the beauty of God’s creation. There will always be perverts (as we’ve been amply informed), some of whom who find Barbie dolls, statues of Grecian origin or even lawn gnomes sexually exciting. Jump on the bandwagon! Douse yourself with ashes of burned painting and books, don the sackcloth and rage about destroying everything that depicts the human form or words that describe it.
Utter fools. They would ban everything that doesn’t fit into their narrow and puritanical mindset.
rmnixondeceased
March 13th, 2014 @ 8:19 am

Yep. He self identified as a censorious SOB (and your remark about ??????????? is apropos).
Bozikek
March 13th, 2014 @ 10:40 am

For a lot of them it seems like a Munchhausen by proxy type of deal. All of the oppression points, none of the AIDS!
Quartermaster
March 13th, 2014 @ 11:31 am

Belvedere desperately needs to be denounced. His depraved reposting is deserving of something far stronger, however.
I’d suggest a BBQ with plenty of Bourbon, but with Belvedere confined to stocks with nothing but a Happy Meal and milk while we enjoy the BBQ.
K-Bob
March 13th, 2014 @ 12:04 pm

Heh. He should be punished with a baby.

*Note to self* do not cross the Quartermaster.
Animal
March 13th, 2014 @ 2:50 pm

Belaboring the obvious:
bridget
March 13th, 2014 @ 3:19 pm

Ironically, all we are doing is telling people how to behave in limited contexts and that certain behaviours are more likely than others to have bad consequence.

The Left tells us how to think, speak, act, and practise our religion.
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