Last week was anti-porn week here at Ironstrikes.  I hope that you were able to read about the five topics:

1.  Porn and sexual satisfaction
2.  Porn and fake relationships
3.  Porn and women
4.  Porn and cruelty
5.  Porn is insidious

Readers have asked about the Zillman-Bryant study from which these five posts were taken.  In the early 1980s, Dr. Doll Zillmann of Indiana University and Dr. Jennings Bryant of the University of Alabama wondered whether continued exposure to video pornography had any impact on people's sexual beliefs and their attitudes towards women.  For their experiment, 80 male and 80 female college-age participants were divided into three subgroups, and each group was shown 4 hours and 48 minutes of media.  

1.  The first group, the “Massive Exposure Group,” was shown 36 non-violent pornographic films over a six-week period. 

2.  The second group, the “Intermediate Exposure Group,” was exposed to 18 pornographic films and 18 regular films over a six-week period. 

3.  The third (control) group, the “No Exposure Group,” was shown 36 non-pornographic movies over a six--week period

You may be saying, "that is an old study, what relevance does it have to today?"

At a 2011 conference, Dr. Mary Anne Layden commented about Zillmann and Bryant’s 25-year-old research. “When this study was done, what was called the ‘Massive Exposure Group" -- seeing five hours of porn over  a six-week period -- "I now call that the Friday Afternoon Group."

Her statement is far from an exaggeration.  A recent survey of 29,000 people at North American universities, shows 51% of men and 16% of women spend up to five hours per week online for sexual purposes, and another 11% of men spend anywhere from five to twenty  hours per week. What used to be “massive” exposure is now common practice.

Furthermore, the Internet has not only increased the public’s exposure to porn, but has also changed the way it is consumed. Dr. Jill Manning believes Zillmann and Bryant’s findings have greater applicability in the modern age because Internet porn tends to be more interactive and consumer-driven. Viewers can select exactly who and what they want to see, custom-tailored to their greatest specifications.

This week, I will be giving four solid tips in helping to curb your vulnerability to porn.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

The following is a post by Shelley Lubben. Shelley, a former porn actress, is the founder and president of The Pink Cross Foundation. Through the Pink Cross, Shelley is a missionary to the sex industry, reaching out to adult industry workers offering emotional, financial and transitional support for those who want out of porn. She also helps those struggling with pornography and victims of pornography. Her heart is to share the truth about porn and expose the darkness of it.

Chatsworth, California produces 85% of the world’s adult content. All of the top female talent agencies are located in or within the Chatsworth local radius. Female performers are flown or fly to Chatsworth to work in the adult industry. All of the world’s top male talents live or travel to Chatsworth California for work. Every major and minor adult DVD Company is in the local Chatsworth radius.

The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry which causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public. I am confident of the above because not only was I a stripper, pornographic performer and escort in the California pornography industry from 1986 to 1994, but I have also counseled with or spoken to over 300 female and male workers in the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction.

I have been working with adult industry workers since 2002, when I began volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in the State of California. I have worked at Madera Rescue Mission, Bakersfield Rescue Mission, Central California Women’s Facility Prison, and Valley State Prison for Women and have traveled throughout the United States as a speaker and counselor on the negative effects of pornography at various churches, recovery programs and secular organizations. My team and I currently work with hundreds of people struggling with pornography addiction in the Pink Cross Foundation Help Forums.

In my daily work of assisting women and men recovering from the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction and gathering research over a period of several years, I have learned significant facts to prove that indeed the California pornography industry is causing severe secondary negative effects on adult industry workers as well as the general public, which is involuntarily exposed to pornography, especially children, whose average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is eleven years old.

• It is estimated that there are 4.2 million porn Web sites—12% of the total amount of sites—allowing access to 72 million worldwide visitors monthly.
• One-quarter of the total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.
• According to comScore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult sites in August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the Internet audience.
• The United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films a year and earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually.
• An estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers. Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated based on distribution or sales.
• Lobbyist Bill Lyon told 60 Minutes that the porn industry employs 12,000 people in California and pays the state $36 million in taxes per year. When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn business.

.
Adult film performers engage in prolonged and repeated sexual acts with multiple sexual partners over short periods of time, creating ideal conditions for transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). All the more concerning, high-risk sex acts are on the rise. At the same time, condom use is reportedly low in heterosexual adult films—approximately 17% for adult performers. In 2004, only two of the 200 adult film companies required the use of condoms. Performers report that they are required to work without condoms to maintain employment.

These practices lead to high transmission rates of STDs and occasionally HIV among performers. After four performers contracted HIV in 1998, Sharon Mitchell, a former adult film performer, founded Adult Industry Medical, a clinic to counsel and screen performers monthly for HIV.

The current practice of periodic HIV and STD testing may detect some disease early, but often fails to prevent transmission. The most recent HIV outbreak occurred when three performers who had been compliant with monthly screening contracted HIV in April of 2004. At that time, a male performer who had tested HIV negative only three days earlier infected three of 14 female performers.

In statements I have received from females and males working in the pornography industry and those who previously worked in the industry, at least 80% admit to catching an STD while working in the California pornography industry. I personally caught the non-curable disease Genital Herpes in 1994 and was not given any information or help from porn producers or the adult industry. Recently, Jan Meza, a former porn actress who left the pornography industry in October 2007, publicly shared of late that she discovered she has Herpes. She is totally devastated in that she caught a non-curable disease. Belladonna, a well known pornographic performer states: “99% of the porn industry has Herpes.” One male pornographic performer, Rocco, 600 films and 3,000 women later says: “Every professional in the porn-world has herpes, male or female.” Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, caught Chlamydia her first year working. She exclaimed, while speaking with me, “I don’t believe I worked with one person who didn’t at one time have an STD.” Tanya made over 200 movies in her three year career. She also says, “Performers have to pay for their own testing, their medicine and lose at least eight days of work every time they catch a sexually transmitted disease.”

Sexually transmitted diseases are highly prevalent in the pornography industry. Among 825 porn performers screened in 2000–2001, 7.7% of females and 5.5% of males had Chlamydia and 2% overall had gonorrhea. Dr. Sharon Mitchell confirms the STD prevalence in an interview with Court TV, in which she states: “66% of porn performers have Herpes, 12-28% have sexually transmitted diseases and 7% have HIV.”

.Escort ServicesPornographic performers and adult industry workers also engage in prostitution through escort agencies such as Body Miracle, Dreamgirls, and Porno Star Escorts, where they not only risk sexually transmitted disease but also HIV and hepatitis C infection.

Pornographic performers usually prefer escorting because the pay is much higher and sex acts are not as degrading or physically demanding. They receive approximately $100 an hour for working in pornographic films or $1500 an hour for escorting. Adult industry workers who are also pornographic performers get paid higher than other adult escorts due to their celebrity status and can book 2-3 hour appointments and make approximately $3000 a day. Agents also lie to women in the adult industry and lure them into prostitution. Porn Star Erin Moore says, “some agents lie to the girls and tell them they are shooting a scene when instead they set up prostitution acts for them.”

While I was a pornographic performer in 1993-94 I was flown to different parts of the United States by porn companies where consumers of pornography sometimes paid me thousands of dollars to spend a weekend with them where we engaged in unprotected sex. During one appointment with a man and his wife, we engaged in unprotected sex and I passed the disease to both of them. Pornographic performers and adult industry workers definitely spread sexually transmitted diseases to the general public.

(We will continue with part two of Ms. Lubben's post tomorrow)

The anti-social bad boy places high value on being tough, thick-skinned and powerful.  He wants people to fear him.  You may look at that statement and ask, "come on, we could spot this guy a mile away, there's no way he could be a church leader!"  

You could be surprised.  Who wouldn't admire a church leader who plunged himself into opposing anti-Christian causes that many would rather ignore? A pastor who regularly speaks against the ills of our society with a militant vigilantism?  A leader who fears nothing and no one?  He is always on the news, internet and/or local paper as the man to go to for a Christian opinion, drawing headlines and attention?  This man is attractive, manly and assertive.  He draws people thru his strength, his ability to gain followers.

What is he like behind the scenes?  Thinly veiled as Christ-like behavior, he is self-reliant, full of energy and hardheaded.  Intimidation is his first tool of choice in relationships.  The anti-social bad boy uses his  powers of debate, exclusion and inclusion,  and theological name-calling to express toughness.  He loves a good fight (in Christian circles, this is called deep theological discussions).  He is very good at thinking on his feet, flying by the seat of his pants.  

This bad boy lives by the motto, "I don't get angry, I get even."  In church settings this vindictiveness appears under a social mask.  He may appear to be very suave, sincere and adult.  However, his inner circle (the boards, committees and staff that he intimidates), his confidants, carry out his vendetta.  These people don't want to cross him.  He claims that most people are devious and punitive and this justifies his own mistrustful, hostile and vengeful attitudes by ascribing them to others.  People are not to be trusted until they have proven thru repeated testing that they are loyal.  

Manipulation and coercion become his tools of conquest.  If acting gracious, cheerful and charming will maneuver and subjugate, he will do so.  He may have the motto, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission" and just does what he wants.   If such behavior fails, frustration of his will to power easily turns into furious, vindictive attacks.  The people & institutions around him become tools of power.  Christianity and its pieties are subordinated to the iron necessities of his personal need to control.  

He will kiss those above him and kick those below him.  When he arrives at his temporary pinnacle (he always wants a more powerful pinnacle) the people beneath him are there to minister to him.  He spends his time, energy and attention in feathering his nest and maintaining his position of power.

How can the church deal with the anti-social religious bad boy?

The anti-social Bad Boy assumes he is clever and you are stupid.  A frank, direct, unequivocal "no" tells him that you will not be manipulated, maneuvered, or used.  Jesus reminded us to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves in the face of such men.  A refusal to be frightened by threats and resistance with gentleness and evenhanded good humor destabilizes him.  He needs to learn what Paul Tillich says, "faith in God's love means that we can accept being accepted though we know we are unacceptable."  He needs to learn the discipline of considerateness.  Gentleness can be learned.  Gentleness and self-control are two hallmarks of a person who has God's Holy Spirit indwelling.

He needs to learn a childhood lesson that he obviously missed.  In anger we are to be as children.  Children don't let the sun go down on their wrath.  It's only from older people that that children learn how to carry a grudge, how to plan to get even, and how to be vindictive.  In our interactions with the anti-social bad boy, gentleness is our greatest strength.  It confuses and ministers to him because it is a different pattern of living.  Living the adage, "He who is genuinely strong has no fear of being gentle" will eventually, with his willingness to let God work in him, bring about the needed change.

Many thanks to the deceased Dr. Oates from whom much of this information is taken.  His seminal work Behind the Masks should be read by those in positions of leadership in the church.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

"Of all bad men, religious bad    
          men are the worst."  

This quote from C.S. Lewis in his book, Reflections on the Psalms, addresses an issue in the church that is frequently overlooked by Christians.  People who are not Christians have no trouble with this quote and believe it wholeheartedly.  However, in the church we tend to overlook bad behavior from our brothers.  Are our churches just some sort of fraternity where we overlook these "imperfections"?  God's Word states that individuals that wink,  to signal that one is in the club, to get away with something are dirty, rotten scoundrels.   Unfortunately, these men have crept into the church.  God's Word describes them as waterless springs and twice dead.

This week and next we will be discussing different personalities that are in positions of authority in the church.  Remember that the individuals in these posts are fictitious.  However, as we go thru some of the behaviors, you will recognize them as actual people that you have encountered in the church.  I know.  I have met each of these men.  You may even recognize yourself in some of these men. I know that I recognize elements of these men in my own personality and it concerns me.  If they are you, ask God to change you.  Only HE can give true, lasting change.

Here are some of the men we will be discussing:  The Histrionic Religious Bad Boy, The Narcissistic Religious Bad Boy,  The Anti-Social Religious Bad Boy, The Passive-Aggressive Religious Bad Boy, The Avoidant Religious Bad Boy, The Overscrupulous Religious Bad Boy and The Chaotic Religious Bad Boy.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

"We're gonna put our money into a computer rather than marriage counseling."  This was a statement from a man with a rather troubled marriage.  "I don't think counseling is going to help us any.  We can spend time together in front of the computer and find good resources there."  I looked at his wife and she, in a rather pie-eyed fashion, gave her tacit permission towards her husband's solution to their many marriage troubles.  He proceeded with a rather lengthy story about how a new, more powerful computer, would be the solution not only to their family woes but also the difficulties in his marriage.  "We will gather around the computer as a family and make our computer a place of bonding, we'll become stronger if we invest in that rather than counseling."  I attempted to protest but he had won his wife over to his point of view.  They cancelled their remaining sessions and I never saw them again.

Do you think the computer helped this marriage?  A computer is amoral.  It is neither evil nor good.  It is what is done with the computer that brings in the morality.

I have been able to watch this man's behavior from a distance and unfortunately, his life has fallen apart.  His wife divorced him.  Several things transpired that she could not live with:  1) he used the computer for watching porn, 2) he used the computer to develop relationships with numerous women with whom he had affairs, 3) he was arrested for having sex with a patient, 4) he was also arrested for domestic violence and 5) he lost his medical license.  

The computer also affected his children.  One of his children became addicted to pornography (from the same computer), another was charged with sexual molestation and must now register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, the rest of his children have completely cut him off, wanting nothing to do with him.

I'm not saying that if they had continued in counseling that everything would have been perfect and these problems would not have occurred but I think it is ironic that the very thing he convinced his wife would solve all of their problems seriously contributed to his moral failure and the subsequent behavior of his family.  I'm also not saying that the computer was his main problem.  His main problem (in spite of claiming the name of Christian) was old-fashioned selfishness.  He was not allowing God to transform him.

I'm writing this to you to ask you a few questions:  

Into what are you pouring your time, energy and money?  
Have you convinced yourself that possessions will bring your happiness?  

Or have you invested your life into accountability, honest relationships and seeking God's will for your life?

God is very clear about His will:   It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.  Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

I have heard that this man is now trying to repair the damage he has done and is trying again to live a life that is pleasing to God.  I find that encouraging.

Please pray for him.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.