A 19-year old, straight-A chemistry student Alyssa Funke took her own life weeks after she she shot a scene in Las Vegas for an amateur porn site.
Miss Funke, who wanted to be an anesthesiologist, decided to take part in a sex video with a stranger in Las Vegas for an amateur website using the name ‘Stella Ann’.
When fellow students found out about it she was mercilessly harassed for it.
Speaking only for myself I try very hard to weed out girls like this in my interview process, it would end up reflecting badly on me and I’m not interested in being a party to fucking up someones life.
I can’t help but wonder if she had some sort of performer resource, if she might have decided not to do the scene or if she might have found a support network that would help her through the troubling times.
It’s sad when something like this happens.
38 Responses
Straight A Student Commits Suicide After Doing Porn http://t.co/veUHQ8sZJm
very sad
@MikeSouth1226 Sad news Mike.
It is sad and i know a lot of people dont like Shelly Lubben but if she had prevented this girl from going into porn she’d have done EVERYONE a favor.
@MikeSouth1226 there are such services, lets talk sometime.
Very sad situation from this. She probably had done a scene for that amateur site with somebody like Sean Tompkins and or Michael Whiteacre there in Vegas and went home in discuss and killed herself afterwards. Let me tell you, I would have.
We are always trying to educate women before going into porn. I can’t tell you how many women and even men write to us asking us about the risks and if porn is right for them. So, yes, there is a resource out there. http://www.thepinkcross.org So sad about that precious girl. I wrote a blog about her at https://www.thepinkcross.org/pinkcross-blogs/stillwater-graduate-kills-herslf-after-making-one-porn-video if anyone would like to read it. I give some insight to her death.
It was the bullying from all the judgmental pieces of shit out there! Sometimes I feel like we are taking so many steps backwards from going forward.
agreed
RT @MikeSouth1226: Straight A Student Commits Suicide After Doing Porn:
A 19-year old, straight-A chemistry student Alyssa Funke t… htt…
Actually, the news article says she killed herself because she was outted as an amateur porn star and harassed online, not because of anything with the shoot itself. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t educate people about what it means to actually shoot a video, but it also means that we should be responsible about personal information we put and expose online.
This happened with Tyler Clementi, the gay kid whose roommate recorded him making out with another guy with a webcam, it happened with Sunil Tripathi, the kid who was falsely accused online of being the Boston bomber. Both killed themselves. It bears remembering that accusations we make online have real world consequences.
Online bullying can be just as bad, if not worse, than real life bullying. It’s become a rather large epidemic lately which is obvious from the amount of anti-bullying campaigns currently taking place.
Suicide is such an irrational decision. It’s never a good idea to blame it on “one” specific circumstance.. it’s generally a variety of events, hopelessness that it will never end and delusions that lead someone to the desperate action of actually killing themselves.
It’s a well-known statement, but 100% true:
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
There are sooo many resources out there to help… some good youtube videos as well…
Many of the people who work suicide hotlines, etc. Are volunteers who actually really do CARE and have probably been in the same place… and it’s 100% anonymous.
Mental illness is no different than cancer. It’s a biological “brain disease” that affects certain neurotransmitters in the brain. It’s VERY real and nothing to take lightly.
Most mental disorders have absolutely nothing to do with being “crazy” or “insane.”
It is a biological disorder, not always just an emotional one.
There are many disorders that can actually kill you by stopping the transmittal of brain activity to other parts of the body… I’ve watched someone die from dementia at the age of 50. Once your brain stops communicating with other organs it’s bad news… your brain then fails to give signals in order to eat, walk, reason, sleep and a variety of other things. In the end, your own brain actually kills you. Never underestimate the undeniable power that is the human brain.
It controls EVERYTHING.
Must not have had much confidence in her talent.
Another reminder that depression and inadequate coping skills often look pretty till they show how ugly they really are.
The girl had depression and felt unloved at home but still managed to excel academically. As a freshman she didn’t have much time to build a supportive network to offset critical hometown response to her amateur video.
Social media has definitely exacerbated the effects of school yard bullies. Making it home isn’t the reprieve it used to be and avoiding social media to get away from the bullies often cuts off essential support. It’s sad to know another life ended before it’s time.
@lacey
Damn fine PSA!
@Mikesouth
All for performer resources but not sure what type of performer resource would have provided a one time amateur with the means to cope with the hometown reaction that was too much for her.
A hotline? There are many open minded and supportive hotlines already.
A site, video or after school special that tells the risks and dangers of not being able to cope and importance of reaching out for support while making a rough patch look pretty…
In this case posting the video was the event but no more a cause than any other regrettable choice and the rough patch it creates.
@LR Theres no catch all but in 20+ years I have learned the right questions to ask when I am interviewing a girl who has never done porn before, I consider her age and I try to get a feel for how she would react if everyone she knew suddenly found out about it and I point out that that is a real possibility. Sometimes mentally unstable people like Jessica Greico/Chase slip through anyway but I chalk it up to learning and try to do better the next time.
Could I have caught this girl…who knows but I would have tried, which is probably a lot more than the guy who shot her did. Personally i wouldnt want to be in the situation right now that he is, I would feel horrible.
I have shot or shot with girls who have passed away and it always makes me uncomfy…I shot Anna Malles first scene and even though her death wasn’t industry related it bothers me a little. I also shot Anastasia Blues first scene and hers does bother me even though she was in the biz a long time after that and nobody knows if her suicide was related or not.
Its why I dont come down on people like Shelly Lubben because I think Shelly actually is doing a good thing. If Shelly prevents a girl from shooting then that is probably a girl that should never have been in porn to begin with so in the long view Shelly did us a favor. Some girls (and guys) can do porn and have no problems with it (Like Kayden Kross or Kristina Rose or Lisa Ann) and Shelly wouldnt be able to dissuade one of those people. Result being everyone wins….we arent necessarily enemies.
I remember a group called JC’s Girls years ago and JimmyD taking a lot of flack because he supported them….but I always maintained that JimmyD was smart, playing the long game and realizing that JC’s girls might be a better choice for the industry by providing an alternative to a girl that prolly shouldnt have gotten into the biz to begin with.
But Shelley hides the truth in smoke and mirrors. In the article she said “Alyssa sadly joins over 200 porn stars that died from premature deaths due to AIDS, Drugs, Homicide and Suicide. Alyssa bought a 12-gauge shotgun and took her own life”. She then says “Please stop viewing porn and stop contributing to over 400 premature deaths since the 1980’s. No other industry kills more people prematurely than the multi-billion dollar porn slave trade”.
Its hard to blame the entire industry for some deaths when they are not directly linked to the industry. People die all the time. Thats like saying Aaron Hernandez murdered someone so the NFL must be full of murderers and should be banned.
Jay Mckenney liked this on Facebook.
O. F U. This is on the assholes who harassed her not porn as an entity. Yeah, don’t stop the bullies just the behavior that not everyone finds correct. Bullshit.
I am not saying it wasn’t a big mistake for her to shoot the scene, but the main blame is to the bullies not the industry as a whole.
A bit harsh by me, but I think you are trying to slide responsibility a little.
she bears some responsibility as do the people that harassed her but if it had been me so would I, reason being…she is 18 years old I am 56 she has NO experience in this biz I have 20 years worth. I have a responsibility at the very least to myself to explain to her the many ways this decision can impact her life, to act otherwise is to behave in a predatory manner that I wouldnt be comfortable with.
Mike: When I saw your headline, I half expected to see the name Belle Knox, or whatever name the Duke student is going by. Blaming this on the 20 year old herself is a little bit of blaming the victim. At the same time, saying, well, its the bullies and not porn misses an important point, which is this: Once that 20-something filmed a porn scene that was going to be posted on the Internet, any hope she’d had of a career as an anesthesiologist went out the window. In fact, any dreams she’d had of any career in the professions (medicine, law, finance, banking, consulting, management), went out the window. A scene on the Internet lives forever. Meanwhile, no responsible professional organization or corporation is going to hire a young woman who can be viewed by its clients with cum on her face or a cock in her vagina or butt.
I know there are regular posters on this site who are going to push back at this, but, anyone pushing back does not live and work in corporate America or deal with the professions. There are kids not getting job offers today from corporate America because of the bong and beer photos on their Facebook pages. In an incredibly competitive environment like we have today, there are plenty of really talented kids to choose from – from this country and abroad – who didn’t star in Fresh Off The Bus or Jizz-Covered Amateurs.
Sure, she was bullied by online jerks now while in college, but getting found out was inevitable. And the consequences were predictable. This is something Belle Knox will discover, if she stays around Duke 3 more years and graduates.
To the extent that too many of these young kids have no idea that their porn pasts will last forever, no matter how brief the encounter, I agree with Shelly Lubben entirely. As the father of a 20-something young woman who is a few years out of college and beginning to make her way in the world, I don’t know very many of her friends who can see that far in the future to understand the far reaching consequences of their actions today. Especially when kids that age pretend to be non-judgmental in person while being incredibly judgmental online.
At the same time, I don’t know what responsibility porn has to weed people out, unless they show up for the shoot obviously strung out or with obvious psychological issues. In hindsight, you can make the argument that no one should have shot Jenna Jameson, Janine, Savannah, Sharon Mitchell, who was an admitted junkie if I’m not mistaken, or Ginger Lynn, who was an admitted coke addict. If stability were a criteria for being in porn, some of our favorite and most beautiful performers would never have been filmed. That’s the sad truth.
@BT & MikeSouth
Still think she didn’t have adequate coping skills to overcome hometown reaction and hope that isn’t seen as blaming her for that unfortunate reality.
Was initially under the impression that she posted a “self produced amateur video” to a site but now know she took a trip to Vegas from her Wisconsin college to perform in her debut porn production for CastingXcouch who’s niche is amateur porn which adds new depth to both of your comments.
As for CastingXcouch I have no issue with them shooting debut performances and w/o details have no opinion on whether she should have been allowed to perform or better vetted because the all too ugly truth is that hindsight often shows how well people with suicidal intentions are able to mask those ideas from even their closest companions…..but do have some serious questions…
1. Where is the outrage over their decision to keep the content up after notification of her death by suicide?
2. When they were contacted by media over a month ago (w/I days of her death) did they celebrate anticipated revenue they’d get when this hit the news?
3. How much traffic and revenue has this story generated for them?
4. Where are the calls to have them donate the revenue her death created to a suitable charity?
5. Where the fuck are the viral tweets calling for CastingXcouch to replace her content with a message of condolence? (linking to a page with points to consider before you debut in porn especially since this their niche)
This big mouth is tempered with open mindedness, tolerance and acceptance but some shit is just too outrageous to not jump up and down over.
@erik2690
What’s harsh is the reality of suicide! Regardless of the tactics or methods used by porn critics and anti-porn organizations they offer a flip side to the pro-porn message and can be a valuable vetting tool.
We’ll never know but if a visit to one of those site could have opened her eyes to the reality of hometown reaction and cyber bullies …she may have made a different choice and still be in school working toward her dreams.
@erik
OFU right back…if you want to assign blame then dole it out proportionately …otherwise you’re no different than the most fanatical anti-porn spokesperson out there.
Okay then, here we go… this is a post and a bunch of replies that actually sort of gets my goat. It’s an ugly situation that certainly exposes one of the uglier parts of life (and death).
Sex is nothing to be ashamed of, and getting fucked on camera is just that, sex. For all of those people in her school and whatever who teased the girl and bullied her about it, I wish you nothing but the worst. Clearly you are more than willing to enjoy porn, but with a weird sort of NIMBY about the people who appear in it. Next time you are flogging the dolphin to some anon girl, just remember she went to someone else’s school. Not so enjoyable anymore, is it?
For the industry, I have to say it’s a bit of a black eye when you don’t pull down content of someone who has died in such a tragic way, and in relationship to doing that particular video on top of it. Money isn’t everything, and for what it’s worth, if you managed it a bit better you could have actually come out smelling like a rose and getting GOOD press coverage instead of what you are getting. HINT: TMZ would love to hear your side of the story and how compassionate you are in taking down the content and so on. Oh, you didn’t? Harvey won’t want to know you.
Shelly Lubben appears, not shockingly, looking for another porn sob story to add to the roster. Honestly Shelly, it’s not about porn or the girl not liking porn or not wanting to do it, it’s about having model regret because of the bullies and assholes who can’t allow someone to have free choice in life. This one ain’t anti-porn, it’s porn neutral and anti-bully. It’s a bright girl who got killed by uncaring people outside of the porn world.
It’s a sad situation made sadder by those who try to benefit from the horror. Morton Downey would love ya.
LurkingReader – I don’t know what CastingXCouch did immediately following her death. He clip is not on their site as of last night. However, with a simple google search I found it pretty easily on one of the free tube sites. I only watched the opening interview portion, while she was still clothed – has nothing to do with her being dead, but more to do with the fact that I’m old enough to be her father and have a 20-something daughter – watching young kids get naked is just creepy to me. Anyway, watching the video, here’s what struck me.
In the Behind The Scenes videos, or almost every interview you read with a porn star, they tell you that they were the high school nerd or captain of the soccer team who never had sex until they got into porn and discovered their bodies. And, they all say they want to be anesthesiologists or veterinarians. In her interview, this gal said she was interested in a career in porn – she wanted to come out and shoot scenes during her school breaks, as she had time, to make extra money. She goes on to say she’s considering a career in porn. I have no idea how much of this was scripted out by the CastingXCouch guy, but she sounds like she’s sober as a judge and making a perfectly rational decision that she has thought through. She also says that she’s only 18 years old and just graduated from high school the previous spring.
At the same time, I read news accounts that say she comes from a troubled background – Dad is incarcerated, etc.
I guess what I’m getting at – and maybe I don’t know what I’m getting at – is that this looks to be a lot more complicated than: A student commits suicide after online bullying – which is the easy news story to write. It appears to be a troubled but smart kid from a small town with a tough family background who, like a lot of kids, is pulled between trying to escape where she came from while still being a part of it.
Her family life was probably not ideal … I believe this article refers to her mom : http://twincities.com/washington/ci_18196452
Her Fb tribute page : https://facebook.com/restinparadisealyssa
This is a very misleading post. She had quite a bit of content out there, not just this one video. You also omitted the information about her god awful childhood and her previous history of depression. I don’t think porn drove her to suicide.
@BT
As of May 19, myfoxtwincities reports that CastingXcouch still had the video up and that a fox9 contacted them nearly a month before…also saw other news accounts that ask for comment w/o mentioning when they reached out for comment…
The first I heard about this was from pro-porn excoriating the Breaking-free rep for her post game body language analysis. Discounting her agenda as well as pro-porn agenda is where you’ll still find my stance.
As for the other sites this video is easily found, If any revenue tracks back to CastingXcouch via affiliate linking where the footage can be found, or can’t be attributed to out and out piracy…I got an issue with it.
I haven’t even watched the clip…I’m not a behavioral sciences pro, nor would anything she did/said on that clip discount the other more relevant and precipitating factors at play here….
With her natural father in jail for fraud and her mother/bf drug charge arrest this girl had probably wasn’t a stranger to bullies. In fact she managed to maintain her GPA despite being moved to her grandmothers and a senior year school change from private to public ….
Having moved a girl in her junior year of highschool I’ll be the first to say…even with a stable family and continued prior hometown support she struggled in ways we never anticipated..
I’m not blaming her choice to pursue a porn paycheck, nor CastingXcouch for making that check available. I am saying that people with depression who ultimately commit suicide didn’t have adequate coping skills for the issues in their life.
Blame lots to go around …her father who chose fraud despite the disruption it caused his family, her mother for choosing a lifestyle that didn’t protect her child from further disruption, mounting fiscal and social pressures that take too many lives before their time.
Bullies are a an unfortunate fact of life…blaming the hometown reaction or trying to balance it with her social media defenses is equally fruitless.
Second saddest part of this story..pro/anti porn folks using her suicide to further their agendas in more offensive and bullying mannerisms than the hometown reaction to her choice to earn a porn paycheck.
Well, last time I check it looked like the ex porn star Charlie Angel is a Doctor (Osteopathic Medicine) or about to become one in the east cost. Her picture appears in the website and everything, so maybe her career was not over. But if you are a female, and you go into porn (or even film an amateur porn film or something), good chances that is going to come out at some point
Unless you have another link, it appears that Charlie Angel was once on a list of 19 porn stars with college degrees. She’s been removed from the list. Also, her undergraduate degree, if true, was an arts degree from Parsons School of Design in NYC. That’s not a path to Med school, which means, she went back to school somewhere else to get a bachelor of sciences degree after she did her last scene in 2005.
Call me skeptical.
More importantly, she has to get a job dealing with the trust of the public with a porn star past. No hospital or medical practice is going to hire an ex porn star to treat patients knowing that the local TV station could at any day run a feature called Porn Star Doc on the nightly news.
People keeping saying she shot a mountain of content. Dont think thats true because none of it besides the one video is coming up.
“Easter Egg Hunt” on Passion-HD.com.
RT @MikeSouth1226: It is sad and i know a lot of people dont like Shelly Lubben but if she had prevented this girl from… http://t.co/BZNv…
http://medicine.uchc.edu/%5C/prospective/profiles/index.html
Let me know if you can’t find her…
so that means she shot for only one company. Both those sites are owned by the same company.