The Belle Knox story, which began when a Duke student was discovered to be doing and have done porn as a side job, has taken some interesting and confusing turns over the last few weeks. Originally, news outlets didn't know what to call her other than "Duke student" or "Lauren/Aurora" as she'd been referring to herself) when a classmate of hers (whom she confided in) first broke the news.

Though Knox has kept her actual name a secret (because of numerous threats; Bell Knox is her stage name), she's relegated that precaution basically useless as she's gradually entered the public sphere to defend her profession. It started as a statement to the press and has since turned into numerous live interviews with, among others, Piers Morgan and Huff Post Live. She was on Huff Post live recently in response to her interview with Piers Morgan on March 6.

The Huff Post interviewer and Knox agreed that Morgan made undue assumptions about the porn industry when Morgan asked Knox why she was surprised her secret career was drawing so much attention - given she attends one of the most prestigious universities in the country and is presumably an intelligent person. Knox and the Huff Post Live host took Morgan's statement to also mean the reverse - that if she didn't attend Duke or a college like it she wouldn't be judged as an intelligent person.

"We're really caught in this catch-22: if I was a girl who was doing porn and I was not going to school, he would've said to me, 'You're doing nothing with your life, you have no future plans,'" Knox said. "I'm in school, I'm getting my education, I'm doing things with my life, and I'm getting criticized too. There's really no way for women to win in this patriarchal society."

Really, Morgan meant to say (or, more accurately, did say) that her Duke education was proof of her intelligence, and not to mean that its absence was proof of her lack of intelligence.

Putting Knox in a tough spot is her stated reasons for doing porn (to pay for college) and the way she's defended the profession. Rather than emphasizing the financial gains or even raising points for her work as legitimate, she's called porn her "love," "home," and an artistic outlet. In light of those statements, it's difficult to gauge her true feelings on the industry: for love, money, or both? Probably, to continue in such an extreme industry, one has to at least enjoy it a little bit.

On top of everything, "Knox's" newfound fame has generated for her a significant amount of money. Undoubtedly, she's getting paid for her numerous talk show apperances. Also without question, the number of hits her videos and pictures have gotten around the internet have risen substantially.