Mia Khalifa: Why I’m speaking out about the porn industry - BBC News — Transcript

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1. 0:00let's go through this step-by-step how
2. 0:02did a girl who was brought by her
3. 0:04parents the United States from Lebanon
4. 0:07your home country schooled in the United
5. 0:10States clearly smart went to university
6. 0:12in Texas read history how did you get
7. 0:15involved with the sex porn industry
8. 0:19I don't think low self-esteem
9. 0:21discriminates against anyone it doesn't
10. 0:23matter if you come from a great family
11. 0:24or if you come from a not-so-great
12. 0:27background I struggled my entire
13. 0:30childhood with weight and I never felt
14. 0:33attractive or worthy of male attention
15. 0:36and suddenly my first year of college I
16. 0:39start losing all this weight from making
17. 0:42small changes and by the time I
18. 0:43graduated I was ready to make a bigger
19. 0:47difference I felt extremely
20. 0:48self-conscious about my breasts because
21. 0:50that was the first thing to go when I
22. 0:51lost all the weight I lost about 50
23. 0:53pounds I don't know how many kilos that
24. 0:55is or stones well it's a considerable
25. 0:58amount of weight yeah changed yeah
26. 1:00changed your physic completely so my
27. 1:02biggest insecurity was my breast so I
28. 1:04wanted to more or less go back to what
29. 1:07they normally were and once I did that I
30. 1:10started garnering all of this attention
31. 1:11from men and I was never used to it and
32. 1:14I felt like unless I held onto it and
33. 1:18kind of did what was asked of me or what
34. 1:21was expected of me it would go away and
35. 1:24after feeling what it was like that
36. 1:26validation and you know the compliments
37. 1:29for the first time I did not want that
38. 1:31to go away hmm you were spotted
39. 1:35I think honest Rittman there you were
40. 1:36you were a young graduate wanting to
41. 1:38sort of find a job and and you were
42. 1:40spotted on the street by a guy who said
43. 1:42I I can work with you and clearly he
44. 1:46opened up and said it's the porn
45. 1:49business
46. 1:50what was it in you that
47. 1:53from far from running away we was drawn
48. 1:55into it I it wasn't that's not how it
49. 1:59was it wasn't just hey do you want to
50. 2:00come to porn it was more so oh you're
51. 2:02beautiful like would you like to do some
52. 2:04modeling oh you know you have a great
53. 2:06body like I think you'd be great nude
54. 2:08modeling things like that and after I
55. 2:10came in toward the studio you know it
56. 2:12was very respectable it was a gorgeous
57. 2:14location it was in Miami in Doral
58. 2:18Florida it was clean everyone who worked
59. 2:21there was nice all of their cubicles
60. 2:23were decorated with family photos like
61. 2:26it was nothing dodgy or mid that made me
62. 2:29uncomfortable and after do I get the
63. 2:32first time I went in wasn't the first
64. 2:33time I I filmed a porn movie it was the
65. 2:40second time the first time was more so
66. 2:42do you want to do this like sign the
67. 2:44paperwork etc etc so these guys they
68. 2:47just saw you frankly as a money machine
69. 2:49absolutely but you still had no advisors
70. 2:53you had no lawyer
71. 2:54you had no nothing so I was what 21 year
72. 2:56old has a lawyer on retainer I'm just
73. 3:00trying to get my head around how
74. 3:02stressful this must have been and
75. 3:04whether even now because you sit here so
76. 3:06poised and obviously a lot of time has
77. 3:08passed and you've moved on but do you
78. 3:10think there is some sort of
79. 3:12post-traumatic stress that is in you
80. 3:15from this experience yes and I think it
81. 3:19kicks in
82. 3:19mostly when I go out in public because
83. 3:22the stairs I get I feel like people can
84. 3:25see through my clothes and it brings me
85. 3:27deep shame it makes me feel like it
86. 3:30makes me feel like I lost all right to
87. 3:34my privacy which I did because then I'm
88. 3:36one Google search away yeah and those
89. 3:40images
90. 3:40you cannot expunge you have no right
91. 3:43even though it is deeply personal to you
92. 3:45you have no right to remove them from
93. 3:49anybody's view around the world it is
94. 3:55very hard and I'm just thinking this
95. 3:57isn't I mean this story is your story
96. 3:59but frankly it's also the story of other
97. 4:03porn actors and actresses I honestly
98. 4:07started seeing that recently after the
99. 4:09interview came out and people started
100. 4:11reaching out and all of the emails go
101. 4:14my manager checks them and when he gets
102. 4:17stuff like that he filters them and
103. 4:19sends them to me and reading the words
104. 4:21of some of these girls who have been sex
105. 4:24trafficked and forced into porn and then
106. 4:26all of these stories of girls whose
107. 4:28lives have been ruined by owed and by
108. 4:30men who have taken advantage of them and
109. 4:32by contracts that they didn't even
110. 4:34didn't even understand the jargon of it
111. 4:37makes me feel like okay maybe maybe it
112. 4:40was good that I started talking and that
113. 4:42I posted this interview and that I'm
114. 4:43speaking out now because other people
115. 4:46feel the same way and even if they don't
116. 4:49relate on as deep a level as you know
117. 4:53doing porn they can relate on the level
118. 4:55of being insecure and being pressured
119. 4:57into doing something I didn't want to do
120. 4:58you were wearing the Islamic headscarf
121. 5:02often known as her job and of course
122. 5:05then it developed into a sex scene you
123. 5:09must have known how provocative that was
124. 5:12a verbatim told them you guys are gonna
125. 5:15get me killed and they said they just
126. 5:20laughed why didn't you then say I'm not
127. 5:24doing it
128. 5:25intimidation I was scared right I knew
129. 5:30that if I said no it would it would you
130. 5:33know they're not you keep thinking
131. 5:34they're not gonna force you to do it
132. 5:36that's at that point that's rape no
133. 5:39one's going to force you to have sex but
134. 5:41I was still scared I mean I have you
135. 5:45ever felt scared - not scared but
136. 5:48nervous to speak up and say something at
137. 5:51a restaurant when your foods not right
138. 5:52and the waiter comes by and says how is
139. 5:54everything I I was intimidated I was
140. 5:56nervous
141. 5:56we need to view a lot of people and many
142. 5:58of them are middle-aged or older it's
143. 6:00great to have somebody in the studio's
144. 6:01only 26 years old there is a school of
145. 6:04thought which says that that our culture
146. 6:07as a whole I want just talking about the
147. 6:08United States or the UK but in many many
148. 6:10countries is being pornified
149. 6:12and that young people in particular are
150. 6:14so exposed to
151. 6:15pornography so young in their lives that
152. 6:18it's it's materially changing the way
153. 6:20males and females relate to each other
154. 6:23the way they think about relationships
155. 6:24in a potentially very corrosive damaging
156. 6:29way what's your take on that
157. 6:31of course it affects relationships and
158. 6:33porn addiction is very prevalent in
159. 6:36America and I'm sure here too the things
160. 6:39that men see in videos they expect from
161. 6:42the women in their lives and that's just
162. 6:44not reality no one is going to be that
163. 6:47perfect no one is going to do those acts
164. 6:50on a Wednesday night with the person
165. 6:52they love
166. 7:01you