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on February 25, 2014 at 7:54 AM, updated February 25, 2014 at 2:44 PM
A freshman "porn star" at Duke?
Given our addiction to porn and the overwrought disdain for Duke, we've clearly arrived at Internet Nirvana.
And yes, I, too, have a few thoughts for the misguided freshman involved.
Not Lauren/Aurora, the earnest, 18-year-old Libertarian who jets to Los Angeles during college breaks to work in the adult-film industry.
No, I'm much more worried about Thomas Bagley, the first-year Dukie who outed his classmate to his frat brothers and the world.
"She told me that I ruined her life," Bagley would eventually confide to the university's student paper. As if someone smart enough to get into Duke couldn't see that coming.
There are a lot of cliches, and too many echoes of"The Girl Next Door," in this story, but the young woman at the hard-core heart of it claims she turned to porn as "a way to graduate from my dream school free of debt, doing something I absolutely love."
The experience, she says, including the rough-sex videos, is "nothing but supportive, exciting, thrilling and empowering ... For me, shooting pornography brings me unimaginable joy. When I finish a scene, I know that I have ... completed an honest day's work. It is my artistic outlet: my love, my happiness, my home."
Do I buy that? Of course not. She also gets more than a little carried away when she argues, "The threat I pose to the patriarchy is enormous. That a woman could be intelligent, educated and CHOOSE to be a sex worker is almost unfathomable." As savvy entrepreneurs like Jenna Jameson and Sasha Grey will tell you, that hasn't been true for years.
But I understand why the Duke freshman -- who plans a double-major in sociology and women's studies -- argues that the greasy waitress job she had in high school was more degrading than anything she has experienced at porn shoots.
And it's clear she had no interest in going public with any of this until young Bagley came along. Her parents don't know about her porn work, she told The Duke Chronicle, and there was no reason to share her sex tapes with the Cameron Crazies.
According to the Chronicle, "Lauren" -- a pseudonym, as is the stage name, "Aurora" -- said Bagley recognized her while watching porn.
Bagley has a slightly different story, reporter Katie Fernelius writes: "Bagley said Lauren was walking with him to a pre-game and admitted her secret. She begged him to keep it private and he agreed, but he broke his promise at a rush event that evening."
There's a man's word ... and there's that sacred fraternity rush. Lauren was suddenly bombarded with Facebook friend requests and new Twitter followers. Hell Week was right around the corner.
"What I did not expect," Lauren writes at xoJane, "was that I would be brutally bullied and harassed online. I did not expect that every private detail about my life would be dissected. I did not expect that my intelligence and work ethic would be questioned and criticized. And I certainly did not expect that extremely personal information concerning my identity and whereabouts would be so carelessly transmitted through college gossip boards."
She's young. The time will come when she's no longer surprised by such ugliness, all of which was unleashed because a fellow freshman couldn't resist his BMOC moment. He couldn't wait to expose the porn star to his empathetic brothers at the frat house.
"She told me that I ruined her life," Bagley told the Chronicle. "I certainly would take it back. I would take pretty much that whole night back."
Whether Lauren confided in him, or he confronted her, give Bagley a little credit for owning the damage here ... but only a little. Whatever you think of Lauren's career path -- and she doesn't care what you think -- there is no malice in it, no casual cruelty, no thoughtless betrayal.
And rather than another double-entendre laced conversation about the virgin-whore dichotomy and the "unique narratives" of sex workers, that's the discussion I wish we were having at the moment:
When one Duke freshman begged another for help, so that she could enjoy, unmolested, the shelter of her college years, why did Thomas Bagley do the indecent thing?
-- Steve Duin
Given our addiction to porn and the overwrought disdain for Duke, we've clearly arrived at Internet Nirvana.
And yes, I, too, have a few thoughts for the misguided freshman involved.
Not Lauren/Aurora, the earnest, 18-year-old Libertarian who jets to Los Angeles during college breaks to work in the adult-film industry.
No, I'm much more worried about Thomas Bagley, the first-year Dukie who outed his classmate to his frat brothers and the world.
"She told me that I ruined her life," Bagley would eventually confide to the university's student paper. As if someone smart enough to get into Duke couldn't see that coming.
There are a lot of cliches, and too many echoes of"The Girl Next Door," in this story, but the young woman at the hard-core heart of it claims she turned to porn as "a way to graduate from my dream school free of debt, doing something I absolutely love."
The experience, she says, including the rough-sex videos, is "nothing but supportive, exciting, thrilling and empowering ... For me, shooting pornography brings me unimaginable joy. When I finish a scene, I know that I have ... completed an honest day's work. It is my artistic outlet: my love, my happiness, my home."
Do I buy that? Of course not. She also gets more than a little carried away when she argues, "The threat I pose to the patriarchy is enormous. That a woman could be intelligent, educated and CHOOSE to be a sex worker is almost unfathomable." As savvy entrepreneurs like Jenna Jameson and Sasha Grey will tell you, that hasn't been true for years.
But I understand why the Duke freshman -- who plans a double-major in sociology and women's studies -- argues that the greasy waitress job she had in high school was more degrading than anything she has experienced at porn shoots.
And it's clear she had no interest in going public with any of this until young Bagley came along. Her parents don't know about her porn work, she told The Duke Chronicle, and there was no reason to share her sex tapes with the Cameron Crazies.
According to the Chronicle, "Lauren" -- a pseudonym, as is the stage name, "Aurora" -- said Bagley recognized her while watching porn.
Bagley has a slightly different story, reporter Katie Fernelius writes: "Bagley said Lauren was walking with him to a pre-game and admitted her secret. She begged him to keep it private and he agreed, but he broke his promise at a rush event that evening."
There's a man's word ... and there's that sacred fraternity rush. Lauren was suddenly bombarded with Facebook friend requests and new Twitter followers. Hell Week was right around the corner.
"What I did not expect," Lauren writes at xoJane, "was that I would be brutally bullied and harassed online. I did not expect that every private detail about my life would be dissected. I did not expect that my intelligence and work ethic would be questioned and criticized. And I certainly did not expect that extremely personal information concerning my identity and whereabouts would be so carelessly transmitted through college gossip boards."
She's young. The time will come when she's no longer surprised by such ugliness, all of which was unleashed because a fellow freshman couldn't resist his BMOC moment. He couldn't wait to expose the porn star to his empathetic brothers at the frat house.
"She told me that I ruined her life," Bagley told the Chronicle. "I certainly would take it back. I would take pretty much that whole night back."
Whether Lauren confided in him, or he confronted her, give Bagley a little credit for owning the damage here ... but only a little. Whatever you think of Lauren's career path -- and she doesn't care what you think -- there is no malice in it, no casual cruelty, no thoughtless betrayal.
And rather than another double-entendre laced conversation about the virgin-whore dichotomy and the "unique narratives" of sex workers, that's the discussion I wish we were having at the moment:
When one Duke freshman begged another for help, so that she could enjoy, unmolested, the shelter of her college years, why did Thomas Bagley do the indecent thing?
-- Steve Duin
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