Just when you thought Duke University was in the clear from their 2006 men’s lacrosse scandal – BAM! ‘Belle Knox’, as she calls herself, hit the scene. Sans clothes and having sex for money. Not a prostitute, though. She does porn. Two totally different things.
For those of you unfamiliar, Knox is 18 years old, currently enrolled at Duke and a self-proclaimed “Nymphomaniac/Rising Porn Starlet” on Twitter. A women’s studies and sociology major with the hopes of becoming a lawyer, this girl is a true trendsetter – forgoing the usual, boring, predictable student loans and combatting a hefty Duke degree price tag by, well, getting busy.
Knox was publicly outed by fellow Duke student and FacialAbuse.com subscriber, Thomas Bagley. Soon after Bagley recognized Knox on the site he told some of his twerp bros during a fraternity rush in an attempt to prove something. While also becoming the face of regular porn consumption:
Since, Bagley has been the recipient of some not-so-nice comments. Including a very public shaming from one of Knox’s, er, employers, Mike Kulich, head of Monarchy Distribution, a pornography distribution company.
In an open letter to Bagley, Kulich, who has a vast body of work including such hits as ‘Asses for the Masses’ and ‘Cray Cray Vajayjay’, thanked Bagley for subscribing to the site, offered the kid $10,000 to live out his ‘fantasy‘ and asserts that Bagley’s parents must be proud of his good grades when he’s not spending their money to get off. The letter is pretty aggressive and more than a little vulgar at times.
Soon after Bagley disabled his Twitter account due to over-stimulation and told The Duke Chronicle he regretted his actions.
Now in a position she’s not so familiar with, Knox is coming to her own defense. She appeared on CNN in an interview with Piers Morgan last week in which she explains that being in porn is “so incredibly freeing” and suggests that this is the happiest she’s ever going to be. (Insert blank stare here).
Knox attempted to parlay this into a statement about women’s rights and how sex is taboo in our culture and it’s an expression of freedom, blah, blah, blah.
Let’s just call a spade a spade – girl, you makin’ that money, honey! And why the hell not.
Granted she doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed and I’m not saying what she’s doing is ideal. She may be better off working at Starbucks, but F! – higher education is expensive. And if she’s found a “talent” that affords her a financially stress-free four years of school (probably more like six to seven in her case) – good for her.
That being said I do have a few concerns:
1. Her dad! According to the NY Post the guy is a devout Catholic, Army doctor who just got back from Afghanistan. Geesh! No head’s up, no warning. He lands back in the states to find out his daughter is the most famous lay – I mean student! – in the country.
2. Is she a 1099 or a W2 employee? For whatever reason I’m concerned about her tax preparation and really hope she gets all of her write-offs.
3. And finally I’m just left to wonder where she goes from here. Let’s say she graduates, passes the bar, trades in the crotchless panties for a smart suit – her biggest credits to date are still ‘Lick My Lips’ and ‘How Do You Like It?’.
What else is on her resume? Cunnilingus does not qualify as a study-abroad program and, please believe, people will find out the ‘Deep Throat’ she studied has nothing to do with Watergate.
Bottom line – we all make mistakes in college. Some of us get a bad tattoo (me). Some of us almost failed college algebra (me). Some of us had both of our fake ID’s confiscated because we didn’t know what our astrology sign was supposed to be (me). Some of us did porn (not me).
And as a reminder, porn doesn’t just magically appear as much as we’d like to think the little porn fairies grace us with new material – a select group of people make it, a lot more people watch it. So, instead of chastising little Miss Knox, perhaps we should cut her some slack because she has to learn from her mistakes just like everyone else. And when I say ‘everyone else’, I mean Justin Bieber.
