Male athletes and adult actresses have been making headlines of late for hooking up. At first glance this might seem like a game of bragging rights, but professional athletes and porn stars have more in common than you think.
Laugh it up, but porn stars are sometimes described as sexual athletes—a description that might sound ridiculous until you find yourself in gravity-defying positions doing things Newton never intended for hours on end. To make it to the top, both athletes and porn stars often begin as young adults in peak physical condition with excellent stamina, and yet the career itself is often hard on the body and short-lived. Both genres create niche celebrities, some of whom become recognizable only when attached to something outside of their genre of origin (endorsements, mainstream appearances, etc).
Common ground aside, athletes must live up to societal pressures in a way porn stars don’t, which makes an athlete’s interest in porn stars risky in regards to future potential endorsement deals—not to mention league rules. Since ESPN is controlled by Disney, that alone creates additional challenges for athletes publicly associated with porn stars. Back in 2012, when porn star BiBi Jones posted photos of her and New England Patriots star Rob Gronkowski looking chummy, and followed them up with the message, “Gronk told me he dropped those balls bc he was thinking of me!”, the Internet erupted. So this type of fraternizing is best kept hush-hush, unless you’re a porn star. In which case you have only publicity to gain.
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Lebanese porn star Mia Khalifa, 22, is no stranger to controversy—and by some accounts has built a lucrative career around it—with her hijab-donning XXX performances. Earlier this year, Khalifa was in the spotlight for receiving death threats after earning a No. 1 ranking on Pornhub, as well as insinuating that the rapper Drake was hitting her up via DM. More recently the outspoken porn star made news by “outing” an enamored athlete on social media, sharing private Twitter DMs with her 688,000 followers.
Maybe the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety, Duke Williams, thought he was playing by the unspoken rules of social conduct, and naïve to his undesirable advances—though Williams could have gauged Khalifa’s non-interest from her lack of responset. Perhaps Khalifa felt harassed by his almost once-a-month propositions and didn’t know how to ask him to stop. However, the quickest way to end an unwanted Twitter DM is to unfollow that person. No need to endure unwelcome attention. (Khalifa could not be reached for comment.)
“Maybe he misunderstood and DM’d her and she just blasted him,” says Lisa Ann. “When you allow someone that direct communication with you, even when it’s a fan they often misunderstand it. Some fans might send a hundred DM’s in a day, when you were just following him to be nice because you met him at an event. That’s when you have to unfollow him, you have to regulate your own Twitter feed.”
Before Khalifa, Pornhub’s most searched-for star was the now-retired Lisa Ann, who hosts the fantasy football radio show Lisa Ann Does Fantasy on Sirius XM. Lisa Ann is as well-known for her sports knowledge as she is for her taste in men—preferably professional athletes, many of which she uses social media to get in touch with. “If I want to be with an athlete I’ll follow him on Twitter, if he wants to be with me he’ll follow me back and then DM me. It’s that simple,” says Lisa Ann. Afterwards, numbers are exchanged to move the game away from social media, an essential tactic for any professional athlete who doesn’t want to publicly proclaim an interest in porn stars.
Professional sports and the adult entertainment industry are built primarily on the backs of young adults. These are high-risk careers designed for and flooded with “kids” making money and blowing it, competing for the biggest ego prize, and at times fornicating as often as humanly possible.
Though publicly linked to several athletes, Lisa Ann can recall one incident of harassment. Despite changing her numbers, Ann claims Philadelphia Flyers hockey player Michael Del Zotto continued to contact her after she gave him clear directives. “I blasted him last year for harassing me,” says Lisa Ann. “I gave him three strikes and I said on the third strike I’m going to blast you.”
And she did, all over social media.
“The best thing to remember when dating an athlete is to be realistic,” says Lisa Ann. “I look at athletes the way guys look at Victoria’s Secret models. They’re young, beautiful, in incredibly great shape, and I get to watch them play sports, which I love. And they get to be with their favorites porn star so it’s an all around win,” says Ann. “I don’t think they search it out for serious long-term relationships. You can’t have those expectations. Have we seen an athlete take a porn star seriously? Sure, there was Tito and Jenna Jameson… but that’s not a good example.”
