“Last Days of August” a Portrait of Porn Industry – Complicated, Messy, Human

Barely over a year after her death, and just in time for the adult industry’s yearly gathering at the AVN awards in January, a new podcast series digs deep into the suicide of porn star August Ames in early December of 2017.

The Last Days of August, created by Jon Ronson and Lina Misitzis, was released exclusively on Audible late last week. But the nearly four-hour-long series has already caused a stir, as listeners are led on a rambling yet tightly curated journey.

Starting with the media narrative around Ames’s disturbing truths that lay beneath it all. As Michael Blaustein at the New York Post put it, the series is “a portrait of Ames that is harrowing, heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time.”

Part true-crime podcast and part investigation into an industry that exists both nakedly on camera and behind a heavy veil of secrecy and social media curation, The Last Days of August won’t leave listeners with “the truth” behind the suicide of a rising star in the adult industry. Rather, said Miranda Sawyer at The Guardian, “It wants us to understand that everyone is complicated, that we all have a life behind the social media facade, and that 120 characters, or an Instagram smile, can never give us the fully rounded human.”

After looking into the much-discussed idea that Ames’s suicide was due to social media bullying after she announced she would not work with a gay-to-straight “crossover” male performer, Ronson and Misitzis concluded that, while social media bullying may have been “the icing on the cake,” it was only a small part of a much bigger picture. One that included a history of trauma, depression, a complicated relationship with an emotionally unavailable and perhaps controlling husband, and a day on one particularly brutal porn set that pushed Ames over the edge.

Along the way, Ronson spoke with Ames’s husband, Kevin Moore; Ames’s brother; friends and colleagues from the adult industry; social media and real-life bullies; and even Moore’s ex-wife. The result is a portrait not just of a troubled young woman who took her life, but of a larger and more nuanced life as part of an industry in which mental health can be pushed aside far too easily. And, while Ronson told Rolling Stone that he didn’t want anyone to take August’s story as representative of the entire industry, it makes the need for mental health services that are inclusive of adult performers and other workers all the clearer.

Efforts like Pineapple Support are stepping up to the plate for this year’s awards season, and with the world watching in the wake of The Last Days of August, that’s very good news.

Jon Ronson photo by Gage Skidmore, via Wikipedia/Creative Commons Share Alike