Student doing porn to pay tuition ('n luvin it)?

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Piers Morgan Show (CNN US-version controlled by CIA) UPDATED

I love it, Piers, I just love it, and I got to pick my own name, "Belle Knox," after a cartoon character and an American killer from Italy who's like totally innocent!

Don't judge me. I'm (in)famous, and isn't that all that really matters in what sex therapist, addiction medicine specialist, and radio/TV host Dr. Drew calls the new Age of Narcissism?

 
Porn-prostitution: new tricks in an old trade

Who you tryin to look at, man?

(March 6, 2014) Duke University student tells Piers Morgan: My porn career is "freeing." The British born Morgan -- soon to be fired host of In The Piers Morgan Show -- talks to pornography actress (but not yet porn "star") "Belle Knox" about her career, women's empowerment [to degrade us all for money], social norms, and society's scorn. More (plus video)

Piers, do you think maybe I'm making a big mistake I'll regret after I graduate from Duke and can't get a job doing anything else because I'm totally typecast, or will I still love it?

Oddly, Hypocrisy is rooted in High Morals

Jeanna Bryner (LiveScience.com)

Good or hypocritical?

Morally upstanding people are the do-gooders of society, right? Actually, a new study finds that a sense of moral superiority can lead to unethical acts, such as cheating. In fact, some of the best do-gooders can become the worst cheats.

 

Stop us if this sounds familiar.

 

When asked to describe themselves, most people typically will rattle off a list of physical features and activities (for example, "I do yoga" or "I'm a paralegal"). But some people have what scientists call a moral identity, in which the answer to the question would include phrases like "I am honest" and "I am a caring person."

 

Shame, you want me to be ashamed? (Mai)

Past research has suggested that people who describe themselves with words such as honest and generous are also more likely to engage in volunteer work and other socially responsible acts. But often in life, the line between right and wrong becomes blurry... More
 

Moral shame [conscience] and moral dread
Wisdom Quarterly (eds.); Ven. Nyanatiloka (COMMENTARY)

"Moral shame and moral dread" are associated with all karmically wholesome consciousness (see Table II). "To be ashamed [or circumspect, conscientious, mindful] of what one ought to be abashed or hesitant about -- ashamed of performing harmful and unwholesome actions (akusala karma): this is called "moral shame" (hiri).

Mara's three daughters tempt Siddhartha*

To be in dread of [averse to, afraid of, put off by] what one ought to be in dread of -- dread of performing harmful and unwholesome deeds (karma): this is called moral dread" (Puggalapaññatti , 79, 80).
 
"Two lucid things, O meditators, protect the world -- moral shame and moral dread. If these two things were not to protect the world then one would respect neither one's mother, nor one's mother's sister, nor one's brother's wife, nor one's teacher's wife...." (AN II, 7). Compare with "lack of moral shame and dread" (ahirika). See Atthasālini Tr. I. pp. 164ff.

• *Mara's "three daughters" are Craving (obsession), Discontentment (ennui), and Lust (passion, addiction).

Is porn bad karma?

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly (OPINION)

What if I just do it to pay my tuition...then it's skillful karma, right? Right? I could just do anything and say my intention was "good," right? Right? - Ugh, I already told you, read Wisdom Quarterly to figure it out.

 

I didn't think about karma, just rationalizing

Is helping create pornography "right livelihood," a kind of prostitution (exchanging sex for money), or human trafficking?

It seems it is. The Buddha defined the Noble Eightfold Path factor of "right livelihood" (sammā-ājīva) as not engaging in trades or occupations that, whether directly or indirectly, result in harm to ourselves and others. In both the Chinese and Pali language canons, it is said:

What is right livelihood? A disciple of the noble ones, having abandoned a dishonest means of maintaining oneself, keeps life going by some right livelihood. [This kind of tautological definition, which seems to say nothing, is common because all of the pertinent terms are detailed in the discourses.]

Before buddhahood, Siddhartha indulged in sensuality and found it disappointing and leading to harm rather than enlightenment and leading to liberation. The Buddha understood its lure, having experienced it firsthand, but also realized the escape from its alluring trap.

  

Rahula, Bimba, and Siddhartha

More concretely today interpretations include work "integrated into life as a Buddhist" (TheBuddhistCentre.com), something ethical, "wealth obtained through rightful means" (Ven. Basnagoda Rahula) -- honesty and ethics in business dealings, not cheating, defrauding, or stealing (Lewis Richmond). As people now spend most of their time at work, it is important to assess how our work affects our minds and hearts. So important questions include, How can work become meaningful? How can it be a support, rather than a hindrance, to spiritual practice -- a place to deepen our awareness and kindness? (Richmond)

The Buddha defined right livelihood, at a minimum, as avoiding five types of business:

1. trade in weapons and instruments of killing,
2. trade in human beings: slave trading, prostitution, or human trafficking (the buying and selling of children or adults most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor, or commercial sexual exploitation [such as the production and dissemination of Internet porn] for the trafficker or others,
3. trade in flesh: "flesh" referring to the bodies of beings, which includes breeding animals for slaughter,
4. trade in intoxicants: manufacturing or selling intoxicating drinks or drugs,
5. trade in poisons: producing or trading in any kind of poison or a toxic product designed to harm.

Can sex work ever be free of exploitation and therefore something worth advocating?

 

Could I take it back or get more money?

So is acting in, creating, or promoting porn "bad," "wrong," harmful, unwholesome, unskillful, unprofitable when such karma (deeds) finally ripen? Who really cares? Belle Knox is partly right -- we watch porn. We don't act in it, film it, promote it, profit from it, or encourage exploitation.

 

It seems she will regret it and probably already does. Western mores encourage us to feel shame, guilt, regret, remorse, worry, misgivings, and even panic about SEX. Let's not. Let's be sex positive. Sex is fine; sexual misconduct is not.

 

Sex and sensuality (kama) themselves are not "sexual misconduct" (kamesu micchacara). Knox is talking about the two as if they were the same thing. Go naked, be free, look beautiful, enjoy sensual pleasures, make love (not war).

 

This whore was suspended for doing porn

Let's go even further and decriminalize sex work because "shaming and blaming" are part of how we exert social control on each other (in our species and our pets) and how it was done to us by our elders. This all goes far beyond "sex" to what we think is offensive, acceptable, discomfiting, and decent. Judging makes us hypocrites. So rather than judge, let's be mindful of our own actions. The world will be the world, and we don't have to be the world.

Obama: War begins on 9/11; Twerking (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; D-Now

Mainstream media mogul Babs Walters interviews despotic dictator Assad (ABC News)

Puppet dictator, useful tool for US/MIC

With the focus on the US/MIC's newest war, there is a global failure to meet Syria’s humanitarian crisis. And even as the U.S. and its massive military industrial complex (MIC) push for attack on Syria, questions loom over Obama and Kerry's claims about Assad's chemical attack, which was actually another false flag operation meant to serve as yet another pretext for war.
 
America is the great moral actor in the world: We go in to kill, control, and loot. Why? Because we will not stand for the immoral use of military force and corporate greed. But could this foreign military action turn Syria's civil conflict into a "widespread regional war"?
 

Recent interviews with Bassam Haddad, Phyllis Bennis, Razan Zaitouneh, a lawyer and human rights activist in Syria who says "I haven’t seen such death in my whole life," and Patrick Cockburn, are available. Alert to Iran

 

Let's enslave another country and reduce it to rubble (democracynow.org)

Life During Wartime: Twerk

Jimmy Kimmel reveals conspiracy: "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches on Fire" prank

• Representative Alan Grayson on Syria: congress should reject "warmongering" and focus on problems at home

• "Make the Economy Scream": Secret documents show Nixon, Kissinger backing illegal coup
• VIDEO: Mass UFO sighting at football game in Canada
• As Assad regime accepts Russian plan on chemical weapons, a debate on Syria’s path forward 
• Documents in David House case reveal how U.S. seizes LAPTOPS at airports to avoid need for warrant
• Assad criticizes U.S. and Israeli use of chemical weapons
• India: 4 convicted in fatal gang RAPE that sparked mass protests

Don't Attack Syria

(DontAttackSyria.com)

(DN) American Warlord Obama’s efforts, as the face of the US/MIC, to win legislative backing for military strikes against Syria passed. It was its first hurdle last Wednesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10 to 7 in favor of bombing. Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson (DontAttackSyria.com), a leading opponent of the resolution in the House, is gathering signatures for a petition calling on Congress to deny permission to attack Syria. "I am very disturbed by this general idea that every time we see something bad in the world, we should bomb it," Grayson says. "The president has criticized that mindset, and now he has adopted it. It’s simply not our responsibility to act alone and punish this."