Intrepid reporter Justin Juul hits the streets each week for our Meet Your Neighbors series, interviewing the Bay Area folks you’d like to know most.
Remember that anti-drug commercial from the mid-eighties where the college kid is running in slow-motion as dark, ominous music plays in the background? “When I grow up, I want to be a track star,” says an invisible toddler. Then the scene starts to change. The camera zooms out to show that the kid isn’t running toward victory at the finish line like it seemed; he’s running from a cop. At this point, a deep and serious voice says “Nobody ever says, ‘I want to be a junkie when I grow up.’” The message is obvious: kids don’t choose to do drugs; they just fall into it because nobody ever told them that jogging is better. That’s the kind of thing porn stars have to deal with all the time: not the cop-chase stuff, but the idea that whoever participates in “deviant” behavior must be the victim of bad parenting or psychological malfunctioning. These commercials suggest that to shun societal norms is to doom yourself to a life of addiction and incarceration. But that’s not always the case.
I mean, my grandmother has been smoking weed for thirty years and she’s healthy and kind-hearted and free. In fact, I know lots of people who sell, do, and talk about drugs on a daily basis, and you know what? They’re awesome too. Some of them have good jobs, kids, nice houses — all that shit. Well, it’s the same with porn stars.
