Bullying that leads to suicide is pretty much the most horrible thing ever. Whether it’s kids in high school or an internet trolls and a recently outed porn star. The most famous of recently outed porn stars, Belle Knox, has now opened up on the subject on xojane:
Dear Alyssa,
When I first heard your story, my eyes immediately filled with tears. A rush of emotions overwhelmed me: outrage, anger, shock and then, a sort of humming dread and disgust. Inside my chest, I felt a gnawing sensation. My body shivered.
That could’ve been how it all ended for me, too, I thought to myself.
As several news outlets have pointed out, your story is my story is your story — is every young porn girl’s story. The same tragedy, the same parents’ nightmare, the same slut-shaming following an impulsive decision to make an X-rated video for the Internet that captures our sexuality — for pay no less — forever.
The similarities between us are indeed chilling.
We were both straight A students. Like you, I have battled depression for years. I too was a freshman in college when I was outed as a porn performer. We even shot for the same website, where I had an experience that traumatized me to this day. And, just like you, I was bullied relentlessly by my fellow students for my actions as a porn performer. I was threatened with death, rape, and heinous acts of violence. I was called every derogatory name in the book — every horrible epithet that society slings at sexual women.
I am not sure why you chose to perform in a porn scene. Perhaps it was for economic necessity, or perhaps it was merely a fun adventure for you. The reasons are irrelevant. You made a choice, to do what you wished with your body, of your own free will, and for that I will never judge you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you did, and quite frankly, I admire your courage and your confidence.
I have read the criticism that because I have said I feel “empowered” by porn that I am somehow encouraging other young women to go down this same path. Absolutely not. Your story is proof of that. Until our society’s first inclination is not to verbally stone and shame a woman to death for participating in pornography, it will always be a deadly business.
And I feel as if we are bonded forever by the deep scars we bore as the unwitting recipients of society’s anger and shame.
All I wish now is that I could have known you — that I could have really known you — to tell you how much I understand that special kind of hell.
But I learned yesterday, our forever bond has been tragically broken. I learned that the pain and the sadness finally became too much for you.
You are gone. But what you taught me will never go away.
You have shown me the other side of the tunnel, an ending I must never forget I could have just as easily taken.
I have not talked about this much, but I will tell you, Alyssa, that soon after I was outed, when the bullying and the harassment was at its worse, after being so strong for so long, I broke down, laid in bed, and I cried. I thought about the look on my parents’ faces when they would inevitably discover my profession. I thought about how I would forever be the porn star, and my college experience would never be the same. I felt stained as forever “less than.” My world was imploding. I felt the most depressed I have ever felt in my whole life. I felt so very overwhelmed, isolated, and helpless. My mind ventured to its darkest corners.
I wanted to just die. I fantasized of what this would do to my bullies and tormenters. I went to the most morbid places I ever thought possible.
You can read the entire letter from Belle Knox to Alyssa Funke. It really is heartfelt.