Not everyone is going to love what I'm about to say.

Let’s start with what this post isn’t. I’m not here to argue for or against Anderson’s newly-found anti-porn stance. I don’t care for the pungency of her position—the black-and-white language calling porn consumers “losers,” or even more disturbingly, their offspring “crack babies. ” The call to moral panic, the all-or-nothing thinking.

This article isn’t taking aim at anyone who attacks her message or her inconsistencies — after all, she is a celebrity, and her megaphone is loud. Pushing back on her fact-free claims is correct.

At the same time, it’s hard for me to believe her essay will sway many minds. Is there someone out who’ll be influenced by her story, some aspiring porn actor who thinks twice? The people who hate porn will welcome her home, the Prodigal Daughter. The rest of us will carry on with our relationship to porn unchanged.

As far as I’m concerned, the text and tone of Anderson’s anti-porn editorial is beside the point.

What I’m writing about is the tone of the backlash. Her treatment sends a message, a clear one: once you’ve made your fame in the sex industry, think twice about criticizing it. The sex positive community will crucify you as a traitor, and the broader press will jeer you as a bimbo. Turn against the engine that made you rich? Your ideas and intelligence will be belittled, your point of view obliterated as hypocrisy, your ideas dismissed as out of touch. Because once you’re too old to be a sex kitten, does anyone really care what you think anymore?

When I read Anderson’s essay, I didn’t think, The porn-police are coming to take my smut away. I thought, Oh, dear. Something went horribly wrong here. No one speaks out like this if they’re happy with their choices. I hope she’s coming through to the other side.

Read the resulting thought pieces, and I’m alone in that reaction, apparently. They’re characterized by an utter lack of curiosity as to how she arrived at her worldview. What might cause her to change her mind so completely; I can’t imagine it was good.

We can’t know what caused her to speak out in this way. But I do know it’s common for extremely attractive young people to be prematurely sexualized. For their sense of self to become synonymous with their sexual power. Young people often get caught up making trade-offs they regret later.

Pamela Anderson’s delivery makes her an imperfect ambassador for her message. But beneath her Baywatch persona and celebrity status beats the heart of a human being. It seems clear that however she came to fame, whatever she gained from it over the years, now she has regrets.

And while I’m not happy with what she said and certainly not happy with how she said it, I find it disturbing to watch her be hooted down.

I want to be part of a pro-sex/pro-sex work community that respects other people’s choices and limits. That means tolerance for other people’s mistakes. Leaving room for them to criticize the industry.

After all, sex positivity doesn’t mean we have to view every tattoo, every relationship, every scene or shoot with equal equanimity. Surely each of us has gotten lost at times, said “yes” when we should have said “no.” Or said “no” and been ignored.

Pamela Anderson shouldn’t be the forward face of the anti-porn movement. But how we talk about her matters. Because her treatment sends a message to the rest of us.

One of slut-shaming’s most potent weapons is the rule: Sluts Don’t Get To Regret. Whether they wanted it, whether they chose it, whether they said yes to one thing, but that led to something else they didn’t want, sluts don’t get to wish things had gone otherwise. Sluts get what they deserve.

Enforcement is what I hear when I hear the word “hypocrisy”: Anderson has no right to criticize an industry she profited from. If she’s unhappy with the choices she made back then, she should just shut the fuck up now.

To which I say: leave the black-and-white thinking to the fundamentalists who claim if others don’t live life exactly as they approve, they’re entitled to scorn, judge, and regulate.

A pro-porn, pro-slut, pro-smut world is a whole lot better place than the alternative. At the same time, sex positivity doesn’t mean all things sexy are swell. Coercion happens. Betrayal happens. Exploitation happens. What once felt fine can turn rancid years later. Accepting that reality means allowing our proudest sluts to have limits. To hold complexities, to have remorse. To be able to admit that for everything gained from their adventures, precious things can be lost as well.

Otherwise, once you stand up to be counted as a sex bomb, a porn star, a sex worker, you’re signing up to be judged by slut rules. The Catch-22 is clear and the punishment swift and certain:

Rule #1: Do nothing you’ll ever regret.

Rule #2: Regret nothing you’ve ever done. 

Until next time, be sweet to yourself-- Lola D.

Want more juicy Lola goodness? Sign up to get notified of my next blog posting.