Home

Back to Essays

Porn Stars Tell All About Their Relationship With God

Nyomi Banxxx told me Feb. 11, 2007: "I have mixed feelings about religion. I have my own relationship with God. I have some things with the Bible that I don't agree with.... There are so many Bibles... I just know the miracles He's done with me and my family... When the day I die I go up to the Pearly Gates and he says, 'You're not getting in,' I'll say OK, I know why, and walk away."

Tiana Lynn told me August 22, 2004: "I know that fornication is a sin but I know that I am a good person. Believe it or not, this has gotten me off the streets. This has got me going for my goals. I still have my relationship with God and that is all I need. He will always be in my heart and I will always believe in my Savior. He did die for my sins. Yes, I do sin.

"I believe my church is within me. I like to go to church on occasion. I don't think going to church should be a chore. It should be something you want to do. I don't think people should be forced to go. They should have their own relationship with their God."

Estella Leon told me Jan. 17, 2006: "My mother is a Pentacostal pastor and a nurse. She's very strict in her religion. I'm still very Christian. I still believe in God. I have my own relationship with God. I was so secluded from the world."

Luke to porner Barrett Blade on March 29, 2003: "Do you ever worry that God will make you pay for each sperm that you waste?"

Barrett: "Do you believe that you have to go to God to prove your faith? Do you believe in organized religion?"

Luke: "Yes."

Barrett: "Do you believe that you do not have a one-on-one personal relationship with God?"

Luke: "I believe we can have a personal relationship with God but that's not the main purpose of organized religion. To get a task done, you have to organize. The purpose of religion is to make this world a better place. To do that, you must organize."

Barrett: "Then why does it have to be organized? Why do you have to go to church? Only if you're a follower. You can organize within yourself."

Blade was raised a Roman Catholic, along with about half of the porn industry.

Holly Randall IMs me Feb. 21, 2006: "All I have is my dog."

Luke: "Huh? What about your relationship with God?"

HollyRandall: "I don't have one."

Journalist Ashley Kennedy writes June 25, 2001: "Luke, with your rasta yamika (Sp?), and your insatiable attraction to your own, and society's dark side, I knew... you will walk your own path. Jewish, pagan, Baptist, it does not matter to God. There is one God, and he wears many different faces for many different people. But he is not confined to some building or group of people. He is all of us, inside of us, everything around us, and so much more. Look inside yourself, honey. Your personal relationship with God is what is crucial here, Luke, and I certainly hope you realize this, and see your expulsion from the shul as part of his will. You see things linearally, but the creator does not. There is a blessing here, and it may not become evident for some time to you, but God knows best. And you are a spiritual person, albeit torn at times, on many issues. your Judaism.... eh.... not important. Your heart? The way you treat others? Being the change you want to see in the world? Your faith in the fact that God will always give you what you need, and often what you want.... these are the things, Luke, that matter. If you need to talk, or you need a hug, or someone to vent to because you feel down on yourself, or angry, or lonely.... call me, OK? I mean it... I'm here for you if this whole expulsion from the narrow-minded shul thing gets you down. And your spiritual journey has not ended... it is merely taking a twist in a bend. Peace dude.... blessed be..."

Chaim Amalek writes on my Feb. 24, 2005 update: "Why don't you write a book about Jews in porn and their relationship with God? Something more than ten people might want to read. People like both porn and religion, so a book of interviews of the iconic porno-Juden of the seventies and eighties (Annie Sprinkle/Steinberg, Harry Reems, all the rest) would garner lots of readers. And you could include Christians, too."

From the translation of an August 8, 2005 article in a European newspaper on Martin Del Torro: "The author of the collection called ‘Read between the lines, you muck, I will kill you anyway’ has already replaced it with a new one, in which he is talking about his troubled relationship with God, but that is not so interesting so will not publish that."

Hustler photographer Anneli Adolfsson, after giving her life to Christ, wrote on MySpace January 6, 2007: "Please understand that my relationship with God is not to judge or change thing that has no effect on the eternal outcome. All I want to do is educate whomever is hungry for facts, salvation and knowledge."

I chat with director David Aaron Clark January 31, 2006.

Luke: "Asian women from Asia enjoy being female and enjoy making a man feel manly."

David: "It's not about ego for them. It's about practicality. That goes to the Buddhism Vs. Christianity thing. These martyr religions are ego-centric and narcissistic. There's a martyr figure who represents us so each of us walks around feeling special and like a martyr as opposed to religions based on our outward actions rather than our relationship with [God]."

Towards the end of 2005, Sky Lopez told Indiestreetlatino.com: "From that point on I quit the Adult Industry, moved into a Ministry Home for six months, studied Bible theology and did some soul searching. Where I worked on my relationship with God and Myself. Getting back to who I really was, a Break-dancing Hip-Hop Artist Raised in Oakland CA and been rapping since the age twelve."

Porn Stars Finding God

I hear conflicting stories about porn stars supposedly finding God and leaving porn. I heard that Aria found God in early 2005 ago and left the business. Some other porn stars have found God in the past year (porn stars I know and have interviewed such as Stephanie Swift, Sky Lopez) and also left porn (I haven't been able to interview them and tell their stories yet).

The problem of reporting on porn is that it is hard to tell this story, and the story of any sex performer who leaves porn, because once these people leave, they don't want to be identified with their porn pasts.

I interview porners day-in and day-out. I'm constantly hearing the stories of people who were raised religious and are now in porn. But there's a large stream flowing in the other direction as well. It's just hard to tell that story, and most people in porn don't want to hear it anyway.

Another story that is hard to tell is the honest truth of how people in porn feel about porn. My estimate is that a majority of people who work in porn like the industry, but about a quarter hate it. They just don't want to say so because it would make their lives in porn more difficult.

Kevin writes:

Keep in mind that "porn" is a "job" and that a lot of people, whatever their job, hate it. Why do you think lotteries and get-rich- quick-schemes are so popular? The fact that only 1/4 of the folks working in porn hate working in the industy is pretty good when compared to the percentage of people who must hate their jobs in other industries such as fast-food service, janitorial, general labourer, farm worker, or whatever other sh---y jobs are out there. And then of course there are those who just plain, flat-out hate to work - at anything.

Atheist Roy Hattersley writes:

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.

Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin.

Sky Lopez Finds God

I first talked to her in January 2000. She was a wild child, hanging out with Chuck Martino at the time. She became a Vivid girl and then had a falling out with Marci Hirsch.

Sky writes on MySpace:

Aloha, some call me Sky Lopez, "but you can call me Springbreak!" You might know me from the adult industry. You may have seen me in Playboy Magazine, Penthouse, Club, XXL, Revolver, Playboy TV, E-Channel, VH1 or many other places. I am no longer in the Adult Industry because I found the Lord last May and have been on a Christian walk. I am by no means perfect or sinless (who is but God?) but I do try everyday to build my relationship with him and to be a better person.

On her blog, Sky writes:

SAY THIS SLOWLY: Jesus----I----Love-----You-----and------Need-----You---- Repost this within 5 minutes and a miracle will happen tonight.

A Porn Star Remembers

Shelley Lubben (what was her stage name?) writes on her website:

As my painful journey progressed, I became involved in the adult film industry. I learned I could make easy money and it was more legal than prostitution. I went with the idea that I'd only do a movie or two but the producer saw I had powerful appeal in front of the camera and suddenly I was doing professional adult films. The moment I was in front of the camera I felt I had finally found my stage to perform. I could hear the devil say, "See Shelley, I will make you famous and THEN everyone will love you." A powerful dark force enabled me to perform at intense levels only to come off the high and find myself shattered from the shame and degradation. I risked my life almost becoming infected with the AIDS virus like other porn stars did. I played a crazy and deadly game of Russian roulette with my life. The industry did not and still does NOT enforce condom usage so STD's and HIV were and are still a risk among porn actors and actresses. Last year in May, 2004, The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIMHCF), which does monthly voluntary testing of porn performers for HIV, announced that five pornography “actors” had tested positive for the AIDS virus. I was luckier than those actors. God had spared me from contracting HIV. I did however catch herpes, a non-curable sexually transmitted disease. God used herpes to wake me up. But I wanted to end my my life. At the time I caught herpes, I had no help and no one to help me deal with the disease. But since AIM came on the scene, the organization has lowered some of the spread of HIV in the adult industry, and has certainly increased awareness among performers. But the truth remains, porn actors continue to risk their lives and the lives of others. Nothing is more devastating than to receive a positive test for a sexually transmitted disease. For me, it was the final blow.

I tried to kill myself. I swallowed several bottles of prescription pills and sliced my wrists but it seemed no matter what I did, I couldn't die. So I turned off the pain and became a lifeless zombie. Then there were times the pain and trauma would surface and I'd throw fits of rage, yelling and breaking things. I was mad at God, hated myself and hated my parents. Only alcohol and drugs could soothe my pain. I cried out to Jesus to help me and tried to give up my lifestyle but within a week I'd be back in the vicious cycle again. I lost all hope and hated my life.

Shelley Lubben Was A Porn Star

In 1993-94, Shelley made about 30 porn movies (she was 25, 26).

We speak by phone Wednesday afternoon.

Luke: "What was your stage name?"

Shelley: "I've never revealed that. But I looked on your website today and saw Sky Lopez, Aria and them [porn stars who've found God], and I thought, 'They've got to live with their crap,' so maybe I should say my name. I'm not going to put it on my website because I have a lot of sex addicts I'm helping. A lot of them are Christian and there's a chance that they'd go and view that.

"I went by the name Roxy. The problem is there are so many [porn stars by that name] online. I've researched it and I know which movies are mine."

After our conversation, Shelley writes me about this list:

Not all of them are my old movies, but about 7 of them are plus some others that aren’t listed there. "Used and Abused 2." "Roxy, A Gang Bang Fantasy." For some reason they have it under Roxy Rider. Some of my movies are under other Roxy’s. Should of picked a more unique name like – Hot Lava. Just wanted you to know I’m for real. It’s gross to put it out there but if it helps others to see I’m for real in order for them to get help, I’ll do it.

Shelley: "I was more of a rising starlet. I worked with Ron Jeremy, Peter North, Nikki Sinn, Bionca, Max Hardcore... They re-released two of my movies last year. The Lord is leading me back into the world to reach people.

"I'd say I did about 30 movies.

"I knew Rodney Moore when he was in the movies. One of our movies won an award at AVN. Someone else called me in 1993-94. AVN wanted to nominate me for Best Newcummer. I freaked out and left.

"I knew Bobby Hollander well. I loved him so much. He was wonderful to me. I'm not mad at these people. I used to hang out with Peter North. He was a really nice guy. He was sweet. Most of the men were sweet. I'm not saying there wasn't abuse going on, because there was. But I have a big heart for them.

"It was mostly the women who were bitchy, although there were some nice ones like Bionca, who was very kind to me."

Luke: "Do people recognize you from your work?"

Shelley: "No. I don't look anything like I used to."

Luke: "Did you stay in touch with anyone from the industry?"

Shelley: "No. Just recently, I contacted a few people. I wanted to reach out with the love of God. Keep it real. Keep it simple. Rodney Moore told me it was ok if I wanted to believe in Santa Claus."

I send Shelley to JCsgirls.com.

Shelley: "Oh, how cool! They're so cute! I just think it's cool that it's not some frumpy Bible-thumpers. It's hot chicks. I'm putting together a team of girls like Charlie's Angels. We're thinking about calling it God's Angels."

Luke: "You wrote that porn actors and actresses are desperately unhappy. Do you hold by that?"

Shelley: "I hung out with them. They were so desperate for company. They were always saying, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I was a prostitute at the same time. I'd been doing that for years before porn. I ran a prostitution house. I was really into the money. If we weren't making money, I didn't want to party.

"[Porners] would be [desperate]: 'We're going to have a party and we're all going to be here. Can you come?' Geez, these people must have no friends, no life.

"I've seen girls vomiting in a bathroom after a scene. I see 'em getting drunk and smoking Marlboros around the corner from the set. It's nasty. It's gross when there's catered food and rags full of you-know-what on just around the corner from the catered food. It's really disgusting."

Luke: "For some people, porn has helped them get straight. I've known people who were drug addicts [such as Chloe] and they came into the industry and found a substitute family and it helped them kick their drug addiction."

Shelley: "I totally agree with that. If they didn't have anyone, and you can see why I don't like religion a whole lot, they had to go find another family. The porn industry is one big family. Camraderie. Because they're outcasts.

"I was so new, I was also working as an LA Mermaid. We got to do the Oscar party one year at Chasens. We were hostesses. They didn't know I did porn. Some [porners] wanted to get into the Oscar party and they wouldn't let 'em. I said, 'I'll try to get you in.' I was leading these triple lives. They were outcasts. Hollywood was like, no, no, no.

"I had clients who were Hollywood producers. I don't know what it is like now, but back then [porners] were not welcome into the Hollywood community. So [porners] are like this little family. They're always having barbecues. It's like a church barbecue only people are naked and playing volleyball.

"Not everyone could be trusted in the family. We all said that we were going to stay faithful. 'I'll just sleep with you. I'll just work with you.' And we'd all go sleep with a bunch of other people. It's a sick, twisted family.

"A lot of that time I was intoxicated. I'd have to see the movie to remember. I'm looking at some of the movie covers to see if that helps me remember so that way I can validate... I care about helping people. If this helps me help people, then I'll do it. I'm at the point where you could send me an anal shot, and I'd say, it's no big deal. I'm totally healed.

"The church I go to, Valley Bible Fellowship, is really cool. The Christian community has been very supportive. Sexindustrysurvivors.com just asked me to revise their 12-step program. I'm going to try to hold workshops in the San Fernando Valley helping women recover [from sex work].

"My husband totally supports me. We're a really strong family. I have three daughters. That was my main reason I didn't want to come out but God told me, 'Either you trust me or you don't.' They go to Christian schools. I let the schools know who I am and what I'm about. If they don't like it, my kids don't need to go there, but they all support me."

Luke: "I know some porn stars [such as Papillon and Robert Lombard sends his kid to a Jewish school] who send their kids to a Christian school."

Shelley: "I think that's cool. Everybody thinks they know God so well, but I think people can even come to Jesus through porn stars.

"God hung out with me when I did those movies. He drove me nuts. I was like, 'Leave me alone.' I can't tell you how many times he saved me from murder and things like that. My ten near-deaths were no coincidental. He raised me up for such a time as this.

"I slept with someone who slept with Marc Wallice. I came so close to AIDS.

"I saw you were into Jewish theology. I'm a theology geek. I don't even know if I'm Christian or Jewish or what. We celebrate some of the Jewish holidays. My oldest daughter is really into Judaism. She wears a Star of David in a Christian school. Some of the kids make fun of her because it's a conservative community that we live in. My daughter just loves Jewish people. Her whole room, Jewish stuff everywhere. I love studying the Old Testament, the Tanach. I'm studying Hebrew.

"You don't know the crazy strange way that God is going to use you. The XXXChurch. That's not what we grew up in Sunday school learning."

Luke: "I think porn girls are in it for the attention."

Shelley: "Money is number one. Then attention. A lot of these [Adult] entertainers I met had a lot of talent, a lot of gifts. Some of our parents said, 'We don't see anything in you.' So when the porn industry said, 'Wow! You're somebody!' We think, 'That feels so good.' All of a sudden, we're somebody. Recognition.

"I tell my girls every day how awesome they are."

Shelley has not seen the movie Boogie Nights. "I have not looked at anything like that in 13 years."

Luke: For a lot of porners, porn is the first time they've succeeded at something.

Shelley: "That was me. Now I'm succeeding at everything. No one developed me so I became my own parent with the help of God. I'm also a computer programmer and designer.

"I always knew as a kid that I was intelligent but nobody saw this in me. And the porn industry saw it. I was always very dramatic as a child. I'm very competitive. Unfortunately, I did some hardcore stuff because the other girls couldn't handle it. I said, I'll do it. I'm Italian.

"I was so angry.

"I totally believe in the Devil and he empowered me to do a lot of things that I currently can not do. I was definitely on a weird high back then.

"I only wanted to do one or two movies, but right away I just had to be the best."

Luke: "It seems that for a lot of these girls, they don't have a good relationship with their father."

Shelley: "Big time. That's the number one reason. I'm very careful how I bring that out on my website. I want to honor my parents. I want to live a long life. You know that law. But that is the number one reason -- my dad spent no time with me. He was into his hobbies in the garage. He would rarely say, 'I love you,' or hug me. So I went crazy for boys at a young age."

Luke: "This porn star I interviewed the other day said something shocking -- Joanna Angel said, 'I wish my dad would've molested me. I wish my dad would've paid attention to me.'"

Shelley: "Ohmigosh, that's so right on. That's hardcore. She needs to write that down. I've got to tell my husband what you said. He said damn. He said he'd die if his girl said that.

"A lot of us do stuff to shock our parents. I used to call my mom drunk and say, 'I'm a lesbian.'

"I couldn't clean and cook, so I never washed clothes. I had to constantly buy clothes. I had few life skills."

Luke: "Some of the porn stars do it for years. Nina Hartley has been doing it for over 20 years. She loves it and she's an intelligent woman."

Shelley: "Isn't that crazy? Once you do it, you become so jaded. It means nothing any longer. It took me about six years to get any kind of sexual feeling back in my body. I couldn't even feel penetration. They can say they had all these orgasms on a porn set. I never had one.

"Porn is harder than prostitution, where you are treated nice if you are in the luxurious side of it. Porn was totally degrading and shattering. None of the men in prostitution treated me sexually like the men in porn did.

"The men in porn were nice after the sex, but during the sex, we had to do things that I've never done in prostitution. I'd go out with Jewish men who'd take me to concerts and offered to take me to Israel. I didn't go to Israel. I regret that now because I'm a theology student.

"There are so many interesting bizarre people [in porn]. I'm so non-judgmental. I see God in all of it because they are his creation.

"I was thinking of going down to AIM and just saying hi. I've written Sharon Mitchell. People usually think that if you're Christian, you are against them. Not true. Nowhere on my website do I call myself a Christian because I don't want to be associated with religious people who judge. Jesus didn’t judge. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ and God. I'm a lover. I'm really embarrassed about the Christian church as a whole. When I go down there, I just want to love them. I just want to be their friend. I just want to take them to lunch and hear their story."

Chaim Amalek writes: "Given the preponderance of Jews in porn (at least behind the scenes) why do you never write about people leaving porn to return to a Torah lifestyle?"

Because it doesn't happen. Why is that? Because Judaism doesn't embrace sinners as much as Christianity does.

Chaim writes: "Why are Christians always returning to the Church and leaving porn behind, but not so with Jews? I guess if you are a sinner trying to turn things around and in need of help, it is better to be Christian than Jewish."

I asked pornographer Rodney Moore about Shelley. He replies:

Shelley sent me an email which said nothing but that she was someone from my past, and I responded just asking her why she emailed me and I did say I was glad she had found happiness living a fairy tale. This was her reply email:

Just wanted to say hi. I've been living the fairytale for 10 years now and it's better than the "fantasy" life I was living. Sex is better that's for sure. I didn't want to offend you or anything. I'm actually very cool and LOVE the porn people lots. Not here to preach religion. Just here to say, hey I'm here if someone needs a friend. I care. Be blessed and happy. You're a very special man Rodney. Your life means more to me than you'll ever know. Shelley

Anyway, I have little memory of her, other than she looked very "street hookerish" the one time I shot her, way too much eye makeup, and way too nasty looking for my taste. She came from an agency, I shot her one time only, and really don't remember very much about her other than that she looked very "hardened" compared to most of the girls I shoot, which tend to be more natural and "girl-next-door" types.

I have no problem in people doing whatever it takes to make them happy, provided they don't infringe on anyone else's rights. I did do a quick scan of her "story" on her website, and I will say two things about it. I would guess she has grossly overplayed the bad aspects of her life in the sex industry, though I didn't know anything about her when I shot her. The other thing is that there seems to be an attitude on her part that because this was her life, than every woman who does porn has the same experience. I'm sure that you would be the first to admit that this is totally not true, as there are many happy and mentally stable female adult sex film stars. That is not to say there are no hard luck stories out there. However, I feel the miserable life that Shelley claims to have had has much more to do with her childhood, her parents, her background and certainly herself, far more so than the adult film industry which she had absolutely no contact with until she was 18, a time in her life when her thoughts, her choices and her life path were already well formed. If she has truly found happiness, I wish her well.

James DiGiorgio On XXXChurch Radio Show

I met these guys a year ago.

The XXXChurch: Jerry Falwell in a hip package?

AVN Editor in Chief Mike Ramone (well-read in the writings of famous agnostics and atheists) wrote a critical opinion piece about the XXXChurch back in September 2004. There’s no link to it on AVN.com, but here’s an excerpt:

There’s a cancer on our industry.
O.K., maybe just a polyp.
It’s called the XXXChurch and perhaps like me, you’ve noticed them quietly hanging around the sidelines of our industry the last few years, taking booths at conventions and trade shows, and not quite knowing what they’re all about. XXXChurch? What’s that? Some kind of sacrilegious adult website? Or some porn-lovin’ — as absurd as it sounds — Christian group?
Wrong on both counts. While Mike Foster and Craig Gross, the two youngish fundamentalists who run the XXXChurch aren’t on the surface your traditional in-your-face-fire-and-brimstone-porn=sin=Hell types, that’s exactly who they are underneath. They’re essentially Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell/Lou Shelton wrapped in a young, “hip” disguise, ministering to us here in Porn Valley uninvited, peddling the same old, same old. Needless to say, they are not our friends, even though they undoubtedly think otherwise.
Check out their website, XXXChurch.com on which they rail against the glue, uh, make that the goo, which binds together this industry — masturbation.
After stating, “OF COURSE WE’RE NOT PRO-PORN (sic),” their FAQ page posits, “What is your stand on masturbation?”
“Here’s the truth,” they answer. “You want to live a life that is honoring to God, then start pleasing him and stop pleasing yourself.”