The stereotype of the troubled porn star is as well-entrenched as the sad clown, or the insufferable Will Smith offspring, augmented by the long list of infamous porn star suicides, like Savannah, who killed herself after she cut her face in a car accident, or Alex Jordan, who famously addressed her suicide note to her pet parrot. But Laurence Fishburne can sleep a little easier tonight (a little) thinking about his daughter, because, according to a new study, porn actresses are actually psychologically healthier than the rest of these prude chicks who won’t even pretend to love the taste of semen. So next time you see a shaved blonde with big naturals, maybe don’t be so quick to judge.

The latest edition of the Journal of Sex Research has challenged the stereotype that porn actresses have poor self-images and a history of sexual abuse. A report suggests that porn stars have higher self-esteem, a better quality of life and body image, and are more spiritual than their non-adult entertainment counterparts.

“More spiritual?” Hmmm, how do you test for that one, by counting religious quote tattoos?

Researchers at Pennsylvania’s Shippensburg University, Texas Woman’s University and the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation compared 177 porn actresses to a sample of women matched on age, ethnicity, and marital status. Comparisons were based on sexual behaviors and attitudes, self-esteem, quality of life and drug use. Sun News reports that the actresses in the study had all been paid to work on at least one X-rated movie and ranged in age from 18 to 50. Their average career in the industry was 3.5 years.

Shippensburg? Texas Woman’s University? Come on, those aren’t real colleges, are they? Those are fake porn schools where all the students are petite 30-year-old chicks in pigtails calling themselves “barely legal.”

Results showed that the X-Rated stars were more likely to say they enjoyed sex — no surprise there — but perhaps contrary to popular notions, porn stars weren’t any more likely to have had endured sexual abuse than those in the control group. However, some of the results confirmed popular stereotypes. For example, the actresses reported using more drugs than the control group while they also reported having sex for the first time at a younger age (15) than the control group (17). [NYPost]

The increased levels of sex and drug use probably account for the higher scores on quality of life. Anyway, you can hear all about the study and the ins and outs of the researchers’ particularly methodology in the upcoming documentary version of the report, “Broads Gettin’ Pol’ed.”