When Bree Olson chose to go into the porn industry at 19, she never realized how much the decision would shape the course of her life. But it has. Though she left the industry at 25, she soon realized that she would never be able to teach, as working with children is verboten after such a job and that, for the rest of her life, people would look at her differently.
"I wish people would treat me like a married, registered nurse with 2.5 kids in Indiana," she tells The Daily Dot. It's disgusting and terrible, but it's also true. People in this country simply cannot deal with a sexual woman. See below:
Bree Olson
It's terribly sad and depressing, but while Olson's case is extreme, it's not unusual. The words "slut" and "loose" and "whore" are thrown around with wild abandon by people who really ought to know better. It is assumed that any woman who makes money in the sex industry, or chooses to have a number of partners outside of it, is somehow damaged goods.
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"Oh her father must have molested her." Yes. That is what people say. As women, we are expected to be good girls and not have sexual thoughts and act, like Olson says, like Midwestern family women who have chosen careers in helping others. Although, don't even get me started on the disdain women who work in nursing or teaching or staying home with their children get from society at large. We can't win.
Olson is just a public face for what many women already experience. Somehow we find it impossible to believe that a woman might be empowered by her sexuality. She is either treated with pity, as a victim or treated with disdain, as a tainted person. None of this is correct. None of this is right. What if she were simply just a woman who was exploring her sexuality? Why can't women have the same freedom to explore and learn and grow and fail and thrive as men?
As a mom, I wouldn't want my daughters to go into porn necessarily. It is not the life I would choose for them. But if they did, and they made the choice free of drugs or coercion, I would support them. When they left, I would expect them to be able to do whatever they want with their lives. Why should anyone look at them differently?
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We really need to get over our prudishness in this country and open up to the reality that women are sexual, too, and that just because someone has had a lot of partners doesn't mean they aren't a quality person worth knowing.