By MAMAMIA TEAM
What would you do if your children had easy access to thousands of videos and photos of you having sex?
Literally – thousands?
With everybody’s online footprint now just as much a part of their identity as their DNA, this question is actually a genuine dilemma for the many people who have made careers in the porn industry.
Aurora Snow is one of those people.
Snow is an established porn star who’s been making a living off her successful films since her early 20’s. Now, 31, Snow has retired from the porn industry and is pregnant with her first child; a boy.
It’s only now, thinking about her future as a mother, that Snow has begun to consider how she’ll explain her X-rated past to her unborn son.
After all, we’re no longer living in the days where a nude photoshoot ends up in one issue of Playboy hidden under a few mattresses. If you strip off for a camera in 2013, your boobs/penis/vulva/bellybutton will live online in perpetuity.
You can’t just shred a website and forget it ever happened.
So, realising that it’s likely her future child will one day come across her adult films on the Internet, Snow decided to write him a letter. Here are some excerpts from her post on The Daily Beast:
On why Snow entered the porn industry:
I had no shame and needed the money. I knew for certain that I never wanted a family of my own. It was an age before everyone and everything was online, and I truly felt I could hide it from my mom, dad, and brothers. What did I have to lose? I planned to be in it for one year, pay back my student debt, and walk away without ever looking back. It didn’t quite work out that way.
On the kind of things Snow’s done in her career:
By this point in your life, I hope I’ve taught you the importance of honesty, and so I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve done just about everything imaginable in my adult career and if you dig deep enough you will find things you might think are pretty awful… Sometimes doing my job well meant doing pretty gross things. Hopefully you never see that stuff.
On why Snow decided to retire
Even though I wanted out, it’s hard to change after committing a decade of your life to a career, regardless of what that career is. Your Dad recognized the cycle I was caught in and said, “Just push the eject button.” It was advice I was finally ready to hear. For the first time I had both the motivation and courage to leave the business.
Her advice for him (and what she’d like him to do if he comes across her work):
When you’re 18 it’s so easy to see the future and know exactly what you do and don’t want, but just 10 years later hindsight sneaks up. So remember when you’re making big choices in life, think far into the future and ask yourself, “can I live with that?” My answer is in this letter, which I hope speaks for itself.
Do you think an open letter is a good idea? What would you do if you were in Aurora Snow’s position?
Top Comments
Smart girl. I think she did the right thing. It's not like she started a war, or was responsible for millions of deaths by invading the wrong country or anything... or used the fearful and awesome power of the Imperial Federal Government to just Hijack 17% of the nations economy based on some warped vision of "fairness". She simply made a few choices based on her limited life experience at the time and dealt with it the best way she knew how.
Early on in life we all hear: "Do your best - if you're going to be a ditch digger then be the very best ditch digger you can be." In an industry where many young people start out with high hopes of stardom only to get chewed up and spat out.. or end up with fatal diseases or eventually taking their own lives, Ms. Snow went on to become a phenomenal success.
Eventually she outgrew it and rather than jump off a high rise or take a bottle of pills... she chose to avoid the 'victim' route and set some new life goals... No doubt she'll make those happen as well. Good for her.
I really can't help but feel that this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Check out her website (aurorasnow.com) with posts as recent as February 4, 2014. Retired, eh?