#BlackTwitter erupted this past Monday when news broke that Love & Hip Hop Atlanta‘s Mimi Faust and her boyfriend Nikko had a sex tape that would be made available to the public.
The preview trailer of the hardcore sex romp is already online and has caused a significant uproar.
Reactions so far have been varied. Some believe this is a desperate attempt for Faust to extend her 15 minutes of reality television fame, while others have argued that she’s an adult who has the right to make money any way she sees fit. As her Love & Hip-Hop co-star Benzino put it, “Only God can judge.”
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In the world of Love & Hip Hop, Faust had been considered relatively conservative. She’s the mother of a 3-year-old baby girl, and the perfect rival to former stripper and aspiring singer Joseline Hernandez, who’s known for being extremely brash, and at times foulmouthed.
Faust’s ex Stevie J is now married to Hernandez and the majority of the drama on the show involves the trio. Faust’s recent endeavor into porn has raised some questions about how she could possibly raise a daughter who could one day Google her adult activities.
“The people who assume that you can’t raise kids while still working in the sex industry are baffling to me,” said retired porn actress Sinnamon Love. “It’s not like you’re bringing your work home with you and you’re hanging from the chandeliers with porn laying the house around for your kids to see.”
The former adult film actress left the business 3 years ago and is now is an author, graduate of the University of Southern California, and mother of three (ages 21, 20, and 16). She has raised her kids in a field where people know her and recognize her immediately in public for her work. Still, her biggest concern was never explaining to her family what she did for a living.
“The biggest challenge isn’t raising the children, but its other’s peoples ignorance, and their social morality that they wanna place on other people,” said Love.
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“When you’re a parent, you are the template for what it means to be a healthy adult for your child,” said psychiatrist Dr. Janet Taylor. “As Mimi’s child grows up, she may run into direct and indirect impact from the choices that her mother made in front of the camera.”
One direct way Faust’s daughter may be effected would be if she were ridiculed by her peers or classmates.
“If her classmates would tell her that they saw her mom having sex on camera and were to taunt and tease, it could be detrimental to the child’s development,” Dr. Taylor continued. “Mimi’s daughter could experience guilt about something that had nothing to do with her.”
“My oldest daughter was a year and a half when I started in the business,” recalls Love. “When my kids were really little, I’d tell them ‘Mommy takes pretty pictures.’ As they got older it became, ‘Sometimes Mommy takes pretty pictures in her underwear and sometimes I’m naked.’ It transitioned into ‘Sometimes they’ll be other people in the pictures with Mommy.’
“Once they understood the concept of sex, then I could explain to them that’s one of the things that I do when I’m working. You don’t tell a four year old you have sex, period. They can’t comprehend that, and by the time I did start having those conversations, it was a conversation about choices,” she added.
In an era where cyber-bullying is a hot-button topic, Faust’s child could become the brunt of abuse because of her decision to make a sex tape.
“Unfortunately, when I got into the business, I didn’t have social media checking my every move. Even when the internet and porn married each other in the late ’90s, people were still on dial-up. Because technology is so advanced now, Mimi’s will have to explain to her daughter the choices that she made,” Love predicted.
“Mimi should be aware as she gets older of people contacting her daughter on social media, and sending her links to her Vivid tape. Be aware that people may not have her best interests at heart, due to social media. Social media plus porn in general is a problem, because people believe they have the right to have access to you at all times. They could leak her daughter’s real name and address. These are things that people believe they have a sense of entitlement to because you do porn.”
As grave at is sounds, Love believes the blowback from Mimi’s sextape still won’t be as devastating as the general public believes.
“The fallout may not be that bad because she comes from the reality TV world. You get paid to drink, argue and fight on camera. It’s sad to say, but you don’t expect that much from reality television stars in the first place.”
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