For the past few days I've become increasingly interested in the bizarre and profoundly disturbing story of Emily Sander aka Zoey Zane. Emily was an 18 year old college student from Kansas who was disappeared on November 23rd after seen leaving a bar in El Dorado, KS with a man named Isreal Mireles. Her body was found brutally murdered November 29th by the side of the highway some 50 miles east of where she disappeared. Investigators found a large amount of blood in a hotel room that had been used by Israel Mireles, and he remains the primary suspect, last seen fleeing for his native Mexico with his 16 year old pregnant girlfriend.
This sad story would never have made national headlines were it not for the fact Emily Sander was also an internet porn star who went by the name of Zoey Zane. The national media reported this like she was the next Jenna Jameson, when the reality is she did some nude modeling on her website, nothing beyond what you would see on HBO or Cinemax late night. Her website has been taken down and its creators have taken the media to task for dragging this girl's name through he mud. Good for them. The media sensationalized this story just to try and boost ratings. Scum. Now I don't endorse or condone a woman baring her nude body for money on the world wide web, but I support a woman's right to choose what she wants to do with herself, and to me this whole story seems like the climax of the whole Paris Hilton/Britney Spears/Girls Gone Wild sexual revolution of the early 21st Century.
Young woman are constantly bombarded with sexual images: Victoria's Secret ads on TV, Britney Spears nude on the cover of Esquire, the myriad Girls Gone Wild DVDs they've produced that get advertised every night on your local cable TV. And whereas male sexuality is something to brag about, we call these young women whores or sluts or tramps or a host of other derogatory terms when they embrace their own sexuality and seek to express it in public. The end result is we have a nation of oversexed but sexually repressed teenagers who want to flaunt their sexuality but can't do it in public. Enter the internet. Suddenly these young women have an outlet where they can post sexually explicit pictures under anonymous pseudonyms without fear of being discovered by anyone who would put them down. Just look at the pictures these same girls post on MySpace if you don't believe me. I don't know if Emily's website had anything to do with her murder, but I do know why this small town girl would be drawn to the attention the website would provide, and I think it's absolutely horrible the media would drag her reputation through the mud just because of some nude photographs she took in college.
Emily Sander will be missed. A pretty young girl who was by all accounts one of the most friendly people you could ever hope to meet, and my heart goes out to her family and friends. Emily Sander didn't want to want to be the next Jenna Jameson. She was just a girl from a small town who wanted to be beautiful, have some fun, and make some money in the process. I hope they find Israel Mireles and put him away for life for taking this sweet girl away from all of us.
This sad story would never have made national headlines were it not for the fact Emily Sander was also an internet porn star who went by the name of Zoey Zane. The national media reported this like she was the next Jenna Jameson, when the reality is she did some nude modeling on her website, nothing beyond what you would see on HBO or Cinemax late night. Her website has been taken down and its creators have taken the media to task for dragging this girl's name through he mud. Good for them. The media sensationalized this story just to try and boost ratings. Scum. Now I don't endorse or condone a woman baring her nude body for money on the world wide web, but I support a woman's right to choose what she wants to do with herself, and to me this whole story seems like the climax of the whole Paris Hilton/Britney Spears/Girls Gone Wild sexual revolution of the early 21st Century.
Young woman are constantly bombarded with sexual images: Victoria's Secret ads on TV, Britney Spears nude on the cover of Esquire, the myriad Girls Gone Wild DVDs they've produced that get advertised every night on your local cable TV. And whereas male sexuality is something to brag about, we call these young women whores or sluts or tramps or a host of other derogatory terms when they embrace their own sexuality and seek to express it in public. The end result is we have a nation of oversexed but sexually repressed teenagers who want to flaunt their sexuality but can't do it in public. Enter the internet. Suddenly these young women have an outlet where they can post sexually explicit pictures under anonymous pseudonyms without fear of being discovered by anyone who would put them down. Just look at the pictures these same girls post on MySpace if you don't believe me. I don't know if Emily's website had anything to do with her murder, but I do know why this small town girl would be drawn to the attention the website would provide, and I think it's absolutely horrible the media would drag her reputation through the mud just because of some nude photographs she took in college.
Emily Sander will be missed. A pretty young girl who was by all accounts one of the most friendly people you could ever hope to meet, and my heart goes out to her family and friends. Emily Sander didn't want to want to be the next Jenna Jameson. She was just a girl from a small town who wanted to be beautiful, have some fun, and make some money in the process. I hope they find Israel Mireles and put him away for life for taking this sweet girl away from all of us.