I Got 500 Emails From Men Who Wanted To Be Porn Stars. You'll Never Believe What Happened Next

My latest on Forbes explores why I keep getting emails from men in India who want to become porn stars:

According to Harjant Gill, a documentary filmmaker and anthropology professor at Towson University who focuses on masculinity in India, the Internet’s swift delivery of pornography across India has transformed the perception of masculinity in India. “I suspect that before internet became so readily available, most men aspired to be like Bollywood superstars because they consumed a lot more Bollywood/Hollywood films,” Gill emailed me. “Now their desires (and sense of masculine achievement) is driven by the form of media they consume most frequently, which is free porn on the internet.” The problem for these men, as Gill sees it, isn’t porn: It’s that “there’s a complete lack of discussion or sex-positive sex-education being offered in families and educational institutions” in India.

FROM PORN VALLEY TO BOLLYWOOD

W Magazine has an interesting profile of Sunny Leone, who used to be a porn star and is now an actress in Bollywood: "Sunny Leone: Star of India."

Given her day job, there was a good chance that Leone could have become an instant pariah. Instead, she was offered roles in Bollywood films, an industry so prim by Western standards that for decades it discouraged onscreen kissing. Leone was baffled by this mainstream media embrace, but she went with it. She has since wrapped two feature movies and, with the exception of the occasional adult film she produces in Southern California, has left her porn stardom behind.

[W]