Posing nude is bad for your health: Kate Moss and the porn industry

When Kate Moss posed nude with Mark Wahlberg at the age of 18, it had a positive effect on her career. She was adult and she was consenting. So what's the harm?

Well according to a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the event led to a 'nervous breakdown' and a prescription for valium from her doctor.

'There's a massive pressure to do what you have to do. I was really little,' Moss said. 'But it was work and I had to do it... they were like, "If you don't do it, then we're not going to book you again".

'So I'd lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it. I never felt very comfortable about it."

If this is the effect of nude modelling on an adult in the mainstream modelling industry, what kind of effect does posing for pornography have on a young woman?

There are some who argue that whatever is consensual is OK. Some even say that acting in porn 'empowers' women, like the actress at the beginning of a BBC Big Questions debate last year. Yet we rarely hear public talk about the harmful effects that this 'consensual activity' can have. Some of those who have come out of the adult industry describe dreadful experiences. 'I sold what was left of my heart, mind and femininity to the porn industry and the woman and person in me died completely on the porn set,' says Shelley Lubben on her website.

We live in a strange society that considers smoking and fatty food as so dangerous that they should have health warnings and increased restrictions – yet criticises opposition to potentially harmful sexual behaviour as moralistic and prudish.

I think we need to be unafraid of talking about sex and the effects it can have if misused. We can start with the recent campaign to ban page 3 in The Sun. We don't need to oppose this stuff out of old-fashioned morals or religious fundamentalism - we need to oppose it out of love for the people involved.