In May 2009, I wrote an article for The Curator, “The Dehumanization of Sasah Grey,” in response to an article I read in Rolling Stone about the reigning princess of porn (April, 2009). Some of you may recall that I reposted that article here on Ferry Dust recently. Part of what prompted me to repost it here was that, because of Google alerts, the article was getting some attention from people who came across it while researching the porn industry and, more specifically, Sasha Grey.

Some of the feedback I got was hostile (“I think the article was very narrow minded...” and “if a person is fine doing it, what's bad about it?” and, my favorite, “it seems many of these people who are acting as critics are of the type who are not able to do it themselves.”)

But one email, from a psychiatrist and university professor in Connecticut, was encouraging. He wrote:

I got interested in Sasha Grey from a patient. I was supervising a psychiatric resident who had a patient with an adolescent daughter who was having all kinds of problems. The mother was a 35 yo professional who had worked in the porn industry as a young adult. Someone emailed all the porn stuff to the daugther's friends, teachers, mom's employer, etc. We felt this was a factor in the child's decompensation.

Then, I see Sasha Grey, the most famous porn star, was at Yale, spreading her message at Sex Week there. She is now planning a family. I wrote a paper about the internet and how what you do is now recorded forever... It was accepted for presentation in May in Toronto at a scientific meeting, entitled “Eros...”

When I did research on Sasha, yours was the only sane article, everyone else fawns over this lady. There are consequences of your actions, and one of those is on your children.

Dr. Bozzuto presented his findings at “EROS 2010” conference in Ontario, Canada, and has given me permission to post his paper here as well. It is long for a blog post, but I wanted to share it with you in its entirety.

This paper presents a side of the porn industry that is not often addressed: the affect a porn star's career has on his or her children.

Today, I'll post the abstract of the paper. Next week, I'll post it in its entirety.

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 THE PRIMAL SCENE REVISITED: SASHA GREY, SIGMUND FREUD, AND JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOERTE

 (A CASE REPORT)

3rd Biennial International, Multidisciplinary Conference, “EROS 2010”
Nipissing University, Muskoka Campus
Braceland, Ontario, Canada
May 21-22, 2010

James Bozzuto M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor
University of Connecticut, Department Of Psychiatry

Nandini Lee M.D., Fourth Year Psychiatry Resident
University of Connecticut, Department of Psychiatry

              After all, the best of what you know may not be told

              to boys.

              Mephistopheles (Goethe)

ABSTRACT:

There is a vast number of studies and a plethora of scholarly literature on various aspects of pornography and particularly internet pornography.  Most have focused on the negative outcomes related to individual functioning.  There are few that examine the consequences for the offspring of internet pornography performers.

Freud postulated that children who become “witnesses of sexual intercourse between their parents”, The Primal Scene, “arrive in every case at the same conclusion.  They adopt what might be called a sadistic view of coition”. (Freud)  One hundred years later, these observations and conclusions need to be reconsidered.

In our current social media climate, more and more of our lives are being recorded in perpetuity.  The internet is everywhere and forever. (Paul) U-Tube, Twitter, Flicker, cell phone cameras, etc. provided the technology for recording and storing our everyday lives in ways that were unimaginable 20 years ago.  Our private sexual lives can be recorded and viewed by adults and children.  Individuals who work in pornography are creating a lasting legacy that will be viewed by their children and will have lasting effects on those children.  These children will certainly be exposed to the Primal Scene and the lasting psychological sequela will be profound.  A single case report will be presented, and an actual performer will be profiled.