I Left Porn So People Would Like Me. I Regret It

Bree Olson worked in the porn industry from age 19 to 25, then left to pursue more mainstream pursuits. It's been a painful bust. "People look at me as if I am the same as a sex offender," she writes at the Daily Dot. "They look at me as though I am less than in (every) way and they assume the absolute worst in every way." Companies outside the industry don't want to hire her, illustrating what she sees is one of the sad ironies of porn: It's the "one industry where the more successful a woman is, the more she will suffer for the rest of her life." Yes, she made good money while in the business, but she's the victim of another of the industry's norms: She gets no royalties from her old videos.

Knowing what she knows now, she'd have stuck it out for a few more years to build up her personal savings, because not only is she "shunned," she's "broke." She left the money behind to try "to get the world to like me. They still don't, and they never will." Still she doesn't blame the porn industry itself for hurting her, but rather "the way society treats me for having done it." And to young girls thinking of entering the industry, she advises caution: "Don't do this to yourself," she writes. "The money isn't worth the pain of what society will put you through forever." Click to read her full column. (More Bree Olson stories.)