Ex-adult content creator and trans woman Jolene Dawson regrets ever making porn

An ex-adult content creator is warning young people to be more informed about lasting impacts of featuring in X-rated scenes after she started doing nudes at 19.

A transsexual ex-adult content creator is warning young people to be more informed about lasting impacts of featuring in X-rated scenes, listing multiple ongoing negative effects.

Gold Coast resident Jolene Dawson, now 28 - who started out doing nudes at 19 before actual videos - said she regretted ever making explicit content and wants others to know of damaging and everlasting effects she lives with daily.

“Just because you’re old enough to drink doesn’t mean you’re old enough to do that,” she said. “I regret it and I regret the influence I’ve had on people.”

Under Australian law a person is legally able to film and upload sexually explicit content online at the age of 18.

Jolene Dawson. Picture: Glenn Hampson

The ex-adult performer said she was motivated to speak out after national outrage sparked by multiple OnlyFans creators targeting 18-year-old graduates to film explicit content with them for profit during Schoolies celebrations in Surfers Paradise.

Critics deemed it “sick” and “exploitative”, with one creator promoting themselves on a Surfers billboard, whilst authorities cancelled another British creator’s Australian visa.

“People are now pushing things way too far and going for (18-year-old) Schoolies – it’s a matter where legality and morality doesn’t always line up,” Ms Dawson said.

The now business and law student said there was a “valid place” for the adult industry but people shouldn’t be able to make the choice to participate in filming explicit content until the frontal lobe – part of the brain controlling decision making – was fully developed by around 25.

“It’s a lasting decision,” she said. “I started out as just doing nudes at 19. I’ve maybe made a handful of videos involving other people and I haven’t even put in as much work as a lot of these other people – and I’m still feeling the weight and the regret of all of this.”

Ms Dawson said her mental health, family and dating life plus career had all been heavily impacted.

“I’ve spent the last couple of years in therapy,” she said. “I started to realise I had been groomed into it and how much that had impacted me and my decision making. For me ever making that kind of content was a symptom of trauma as well as mental illness and instability that I didn’t realise was there.”

Jolene Dawson. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Ms Dawson said she regretted not only doing it, but how many people know she did, prompting her to step away from social media and relationships.

“When I think about a younger me, it just makes me so sad to think I grew up to then go and do that,” she said.

“I had such high aspirations of being an architect or geologist – and I settled for sex work.”

Ms Dawson who said she was getting back in touch with her relationship with God said society had made it “very easy” to be comfortable with the sex industry.

“It’s such a strange thing to say when you’re trans and have a history of adult entertainment and trying to come back to religiosity,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want other people to slip into it like I did. It brought a lot of shame on me and probably my family. As hard as it was to say no to the money I just really had to decide what was best for me, regardless of how easy it was.”