College Porn Actress Commits Suicide after Cyber-bullying
College students who are contemplating a temporary career in the adult film industry to pay the bills need to understand that the decision may have deep consequences that those who want to glorify the “pornification” of campuses wish to ignore.
Alyssa Funke, a straight-A student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, committed suicide last month after being bullied and harassed online over her choice to appear in pornography. Local police have said they don’t plan to press charges against anyone who taunted Funke.
Funke, 19, had recently appeared in a porn film at the website CastingCouch-X. According to KMSP, after former classmates from her high school in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, discovered the video, they began sending her abusive messages through Twitter and Facebook.
…On April 16, Funke completed suicide at a boat landing on Big Carnelia Lake, 26 miles from River Falls and 9 miles from Oak Park Heights.
KMSP reports Funke’s family did not want to speak on camera, but said they believe the cyberbullying played a significant role in her decision to end her life. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office told the station that it does not think the taunts rise to the level of criminal harassment. The investigation is still ongoing.
The Daily Dot reports that her family launched The Alyssa Stop Bullying Fund, which raised $165 in the 19 days it was active.
Funke’s death follows the widely covered harassment of Belle Knox, a Duke University freshman who appeared in pornographic films and was harassed by students on campus after she was publicly identified. Knox had even appeared on the same couch for the same website. But she became very open about her porn career in spite of what Knox has referred to as “a culture of slut-shaming and rape apology.”
Many porn actresses say they struggle to protect their privacy. One former college student who was outed several years ago on her campus for an amateur porn even asked The Huffington Post not to identify the school she attended, out of concern it would lead to further harassment online.
Funke was a first-year biology student at UW-River Falls.
College Student Alyssa Funke Commits Suicide Following Cyberbullying Over Porn (Huffington Post)
Comments
Such a pity. The child made wrong choices all the way along.
The irony is that porn is the most public of activities likely to be seen by people of her generation. Thus, the idea of retaining privacy whilst doing it is a bit unrealistic.
May God have mercy on her soul and comfort her family. RIP, child.
Another good reason to avoid Twitter and Facebook, besides how hanging out in either will destroy grades.
Why is this industry tolerated at all? Please don’t tell me about “freedom of speech”; when the founders wrote that, they had no intention of it being used to permit this sort of thing, or anything even approaching it, and the Supreme Court knows what it can do with its legal fantasies.
And why isn’t it sexual harassment?