Who came up with porn star as a profession?

Actually, there is a difference between being just a porn actress or model and being a porn star. And while domzilla is correct that there have unfortunately been women and men who were willing to allow themselves to be photographed while nude or engaged in sexual acts, since the art was invented,the first true porn “star” is generally acknowledged to be a woman by the name of Linda Susan Boreman, better known as Linda Lovelace.

Linda Lovelace came to prominence during the early 70s at a time that is referred to as “the golden age of porn”. At that time, while the United States and the Western World in general was still learning to deal with the results of the 60’s sexual revolution, porn was openly tolerated in most large cities for the first time, and there were actual “adult” theaters where one could view pornographic movies. However, the majority of porn at that time was mild compared to todays standard. Along came Linda Lovelace and the 1972 release of “Deep Throat” to change all that.

“Deep Throat” pushed the boundaries of porn in the early 70s for both it’s depiction of various sex acts and the explicit way in which those acts were presented and as such, it quickly became famous and notorious. (To illustrate just how popular and widespread the “Deep Throat” movie was, it is estimated to have grossed between 100 to 600 million dollars worldwide.) For the first time, everyday people from all walks of life became aware of a porn film and by association, it’s main actress, Linda Lovelace, became a star. Thus the first “Porn” star was born.

Despite the notoriety Ms. Boreman received for her performance in “Deep Throat”, as Linda Lovelace, it brought her no happiness. Her life was punctuated by two failed marriages, an a arrest for cocaine use, and a car crash that ended up in her contracting hepatitis from a required blood transfusion.

Linda in fact later joined the group Women Against Pornography to denounce porn and revealed that she had been forced to film pornographic movies such as “Deep Throat”, a bestiality film in which she had sex with a dog, and a few other short stag films under the threat of violence and/or death by her then husband, Chuck Traynor.

Ever since that so called “golden age of porn”, and the widespread public acceptance of porn that grew out of it, pornographic films and the sex industry in general, have progressed further and further into more explicit sex acts and exponentially more graphic depictions of those acts. It is thanks to the often violent coercion of women in those early days of porn that we now have the plethora of pornographic films, magazines, and sites on the internet which bombard us and our children on a daily basis plus a number of strips clubs in every major city of America.

It is a sad fact that the porn industry of today has it’s roots in the fetid soil of years of degradation and coercion of women to do these sad acts… and if anything is learned from the story of Linda Lovelace, the first “Porn Star”, it should be that the sex industry can be horribly dangerous and damaging to women, and we need to teach our young girls the truth about the industry instead if glorifying Porn stars and their pop counterparts, such as Paris and Britney.