Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Mia Khalifa, a porn meteor that became a legend

A brief but intense career. Within a few months it has become one of the most known pornstars in the world despite being largely ignored by the big productions. All this thanks to the Internet and to her arab origins. We are talking about Mia Khalifa. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon and moved with her family to the United States in 2000. She has claimed that her family is Catholic and that she was raised in that religion, although is no longer practicing. She lived in Montgomery County, Maryland as a teenager and played lacrosse at high school. A few years later she graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. In February 2011, shortly after she turned 18, Mia married an American man. This pretty and busty american-lebanese girl entered the porn industry in October 2014. She had been working at a Whataburger when she was approached by a customer who asked if she had ever considered appearing in pornographic films. With more than 1.5 million views, the 22-year-old Mia Khalifa became the most searched-for star on adult movie site Pornhub. On December 28 that year, Pornhub revealed that she was the #1 ranked porn star on their website. 
Perhaps better known as "The hijab porn star", Mia hit the headlines in 2014 when she infamously humped on camera wearing the traditional Muslim garb. The BangBros film initially sparked outrage in her home country of Lebanon with haters claiming she had brought disgrace to the nation and insulted Islam. Mia stated in an interview with Loaded that she felt she is being made a scapegoat for internet censorship in her native land, and many others there have since demonstrated against the government, showing support for the American porn star. They claim that although she may have sex, "She is still more decent than they are". Mia Khalifa's newfound notoriety quickly drew strong criticism from many in the Middle East, who branded her career choice as shameful and Mia herself a disgrace to her country, especially for one of her videos filmed by Bang Bros, in which she is seen wearing a hijab. She received online death threats, including a manipulated image of a Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant executioner preparing to behead her, and a message warning her that she would go to Hell, to which she replied "I've been meaning to get a little tan recently". Lebanese newspapers wrote articles critical of Mia, which she considered trivial due to other events in the region. In an interview with The Washington Post, Mia said the controversial scene was satirical and should be taken as such, claiming that Hollywood movies depicted Muslims in a far more negative light than any pornographer could. 
Among those who publicly spoke out to defend her decision to become an adult performer was British-Lebanese author Nasri Atallah, who stated, "The moral indignation ... is wrong for two reasons. First and foremost, as a woman, she is free to do as she pleases with her body. As a sentient human being with agency, who lives halfway across the world, she is in charge of her own life and owes absolutely nothing to the country where she happened to be born." Mia Khalifa herself said of the controversy: "Women's rights in Lebanon are a long way from being taken seriously if a Lebanese-American porn star that no longer resides there can cause such an uproar. What I once boasted to people as being the most Westernized nation in the Middle East, I now see as devastatingly archaic and oppressed." According to data from PornHub, from January 3 to 6, 2015, searches for Mia Khalifa increased five-fold. Around a quarter of those searches came from Lebanon, with substantial searches also from nearby countries Syria and Jordan. Because of the hijab-related controversy, she was ranked #5 in a list of "The world's 10 most notorious porn stars" by British men's magazine Loaded in July 2016. Almaza, a Lebanese brewery, ran an advertisement showing an bottle of their beer next to Mia Khalifa's signature glasses, with the slogan: "We are both rated 18+." In January 2015, electronic music duo Timeflies released a song titled "Mia Khalifa" in homage to her. In response, she posted a video to YouTube featuring herself twerking to the song. In a July 2016 interview with The Washington Post, Mia revealed she had only performed in porn for three months and had left the industry over a year before, changing to a "more normal job". She said "I guess it was my rebellious phase. It wasn’t really for me. I kind of smartened up and tried to distance myself from that." We can see now these compilations dedicated to her…

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