A Duke University freshman going by the name “Lauren,” has been making headlines this week after she was outed as a porn performer. “Lauren” started performing in porn videos, so she says, because her family was faced with a crushing $60,000-per-year in tuition and fees at Duke that she had no ability to pay.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt is not something I want to carry around and it’s absolutely ridiculous that that’s what the state of our nation is,” she told Real Clear Education.
What a sob story, right? I mean, she was practically forced into the porn industry–the way she tells it.
Not so fast. Lauren isn’t exactly the financially destitute victim she made herself out to be. In fact, she turned down a full ride scholarship to Vanderbilt University.
That’s right–a full scholarship at one of the nation’s top-ranked schools.
Something doesn’t add up here.
18-year-old “Lauren” told Real Clear Education that she felt “empowered” by taking money for sex on screen. If that’s true, why does she feel the need to misrepresent her decision to do porn as something she was forced to do in order to pay for college?
Looks like what we are actually dealing with here is a young woman from a privileged background (Her parents must be wealthy enough that she didn’t qualify for Duke’s generous need-based financial aid.) who wants to cloak her decision to sell her body in the language of destitution and victimhood. And the absurdity of this story doesn’t end there.
“Lauren” even went so far as to say that her decision to do porn was something she did to combat “rape culture” on campus. You know–because nothing strengthens respect for women like the hideous epithets hurled at women and the brutal physical treatment of women in modern porn.
It won’t surprise you to learn that “Lauren” is a Women’s Studies major at Duke.