LOS ANGELES—Local news reports about the April 14 suicide of a 19-year-old female college student whose death was apparently connected to her appearance on porn sites operated by adult affiliate program Fuck You Cash have caught the attention of national media. Today, the Washington Post published a piece under the headline, "The tragic suicide of a teenager harassed for an amateur porn video," which takes note of the contemporary issues raised by this tragedy, including young people dipping their toes in porn, depression, a troubled upbringing and, especially, bullying.
But another theme that has arisen from this horrible story is the way in which some media (as well as the local police) have allegedly used it as an opportunity to place blame on porn for the young woman's suicide, a development that forced the girl's family to issue a statement asserting their belief that while their daughter suffered from depression, it was taunts directed at her by former high school classmates that they believe significantly influenced her decision to kill herself.
The bare facts of this case are not in dispute. The young woman, Alyssa Finke, was a first year student at the University of Wisconsin's River Falls campus after having graduated last year from Stillwater High School in Stillwater, Minnesota as a straight-A student. Finke had accomplished those achievements despite having a rough time of it growing up.
According to local news outlet KMSP-TV, "Alyssa had more than her share of challenges growing up. Her biological father has a rap sheet for theft and swindling; her mother and a boyfriend were busted for dealing drugs and neglecting Alyssa's younger siblings. Alyssa had moved in with her grandmother when she was just a young teen, and she struggled with money—transferring from St. Catherine's to UW-River Falls last year."
Reportedly unbeknownst to her family, Finke had also at some point in time made the decision to do porn, and somehow connected up with Las Vegas-based Fuck You Cash for that purpose. In March, she apparently traveled to Las Vegas to shoot scenes for the program under the name Stella Ann. While most reports reference a scene posted to CastingCouch-x.com, a typical interview-leading-to-sex scene popular with the genre, she also shot at least one other scene posted to another Fuck You Cash site, Passions-HD, as well as to at least one tube site by the affiliate program.
"Just a few days after that video was posted online," reported KMSP, "Alyssa began getting taunting messages on Twitter and Facebook—mostly from old classmates at Stillwater High School, where students were abuzz and they were not kind."
Nasty comments followed, but Finke remained outwardly unfazed, tweeting in response, "famous for dayzzz" and "pornstar status, a-okay."
"But everything was not okay," the news station added. "Two weeks after the video was posted online, on April 14, Alyssa bought a 12-gauge shotgun, drove to a picturesque boat landing on Big Carnelia Lake and killed herself. She was only 19 years old."
For some reason, the Twin Cities station also decided to seek comment from a social worker who had never met the young woman but who nonetheless offered some strong opinions on her state of mind. The fact that the social worker, Joy Friedman, works for Breaking Free—"a non-profit that helps women get out of the sex industry"—and had volunteered to the news station that, "She sees young women like Alyssa and [Belle Knox] all the time and sees little difference between pornography and prostitution—especially when she hears the man behind the camera," did not help matters. In the few days since that article was published, reactions have been swift and numerous, with most painting Friedman's comments and the KMSP article as "slut shaming" in action.
However, when asked, Friedman also opined that the former classmates who taunted Finke are not off the hook, telling the station, "I mean, I blame them 'cause everybody plays a role here. You can be a part—positive or negative. Why did no one go talk to her and say, 'Girl, why did you do that? What can I do to help you?' Instead, we jump on the bandwagon and it's her fault 'cause she got in a video."
AVN has sent emails to Fuck You Cash seeking comment, but received no reply. While most articles note that the CastingCouch-x.com video featuring Alyssa as Stella Ann, that video appears to have been very recently removed from its page on the site, though we do not know if it remains elsewhere on it. A different video featuring "Stella Ann" that was posted to another FYC site and also to at least one tube site and a number of Torrents remains in place as of this morning.
