“Porn is the hate literature of our time!”  I read from Think Before You Look—a book regarding America’s porn addiction and how it can be cured through, yes of course, Jesus. As I page through the publication, I remark, to the large, highly repressed woman with glasses in matching tweed suit jacket and skirt, who is manning the table, “Today’s sermon was nothing short of, how do I say, powerful!”

“So it hit home,” she says with un-blinking eye-contact

“Yeah,” I remark with an ultra-solemn face, adding a jerking hand-motion as if I were gripping my Thomas Jefferson. “I used to work it about a dozen times a day. {Pause} “Sometimes two dozen.”  I add with a guttural moan, continuing to page through Think Before You Look.

“My husband’s testimony is in that book,” she points out matter-of-factly, almost proud.

I read, “Internet porn soon made me sexually disinterested in my wife…..”

How surprising. Who would have thought that her husband would become sexually disinterested in this piece of work? Welcome to Porn Sunday. Created by a Christian ministry named the XXX Church, Porn Sunday is designated to warn church-goers about the evils of porn.

I decide to spend my Porn Sunday at the Arcade Church in Sacramento (where did you spend yours?). Outside, the parking lot spills over with cars as a big pink Porn Sunday banner waves proudly in the wind.

Inside, the pews are sweltering with the hottest churchgoers who are whiter than white, facing towards the pulpit (especially the churchwomen with their supple, heaving breasts). Wait! Must-not-think-like-that!

The words “Dirty Little Secret” are projected on a large screen.

“Welcome…Many of you who haven’t been here before,” proclaims the cool pastor, Pastor Jake, casually dressed in jeans and un-tucked shirt. He leads the Porn Sunday festivities from the pulpit, as I take my place next to a guy sweating from the brow and a military jarhead sunk deep into his bible.

“Take some time to self-reflect,” the cool pastor addresses the congregation, comprised of old people, couples, and a few rows of smirking teens—all of whom put hands on their foreheads and close their eyes as a guy on stage softly plays guitar.

Dirty Little Secret.

Then a skit (who doesn’t love amateur dramatics?). Executed with the wooden acting finesse of a driver’s safety video, a husband and wife sit at a kitchen table on the pulpit along with a prop refrigerator and some children’s toys.

“How was your lunch today,” woodenly asks the wife character in the skit.

“Great,” replies the husband, telling of overseeing a new building project and leading bible study.

Excellent skit if it ends there……….but there’s more. The wife fumes about an incident at work.

“Jeff, that sleazy computer tech that sits next me, you know what he said when he gave me the new computer? ‘Don’t let your husband visit any dirty websites.’”

“Hey, will you slow down for a second,” barks the husband, shifting uncomfortably. “You said you took the computer in?” There’s a dramatic pause.  “I have something to tell you.  I visited a porn site.”

The wife gasps along with the congregation. “You used my work computer to look at naked pictures.”

Bad already, it gets a whole heck of a lot worse.

“If I have to be brutally honest, it’s not just naked women I look at,” says the husband, not saying exactly what (my guess, either Brazilian monkey porn, guy-on-guy action, or German schizer movies).

“You prepare bible study on that computer!” cries the wife.

More crying. Curtain. The skit ends in pure shame. Surely their stage marriage is now over (there might even be an off-stage theatrical suicide?). To think it was all because of porn.

Dirty Little Secret!

It gets real quiet after the skit with the confronted married couple at the kitchen table, as a low murmur runs through the church and sweat runs down the brow of the sweaty guy’s brow.

“This is just a glimpse of the many stories impacting our community,” remarks the cool pastor as those around us shake their heads. “What you don’t see in this story is the children.”

“Uh-huh. Yes,” spontaneously blurts members of the church, as a cellphone rings with a gospel music ring tone.

“And it’s coming to a home near you!” he sternly warns. “I’m not talking about a little bit of porn. I’m talking about a lot of porn.” (Really?! When?)

An old guy with cane gets up with a big hurumph, assisted by a blond uptight woman, and makes a big, drawn-out exit.

The cool pastor tells of an email he claims to have received from a 12-year-old girl who’s struggling against porn. It was written while crying with alcohol and a bottle of sleeping pills in front of her, because Satan now gives her nightmares.  Another email from man in his50’s who claims to have spent $500 per month on porn, went to jail because of porn and now asks, “Please pray for me and keep me from porn and fornication.”

“Sexual impurity is the #1 thing keeping us from following Jesus!”

A big-haired lady gets up and walks from the church shaking her big-haired head.  The cool pastor’s voice quivers, “Porn gives an image of sexuality which isn’t what God created. It’s an unfair image of woman that you can’t live up to.” (I’ve said it before, what about amateur porn? That makes even the Bank of America receptionist seem sexy.)

Clapping and  “Amen.”

“A little porn’s ok,” the cool pastor says this twice with distaste, almost sounding like he’s about to cry. “Porn is destroying. Porn is destroying.”  He explains of the clear trajectory from glancing at a Victoria Secret catalog to directly becoming a child porn addict. He then proposes a McCarthy-era solution to parents, “When you get home, say ‘Let’s look at you’re My Space account together. When you think your kids are sharing music, it’s porn,” he confirms (apparently pirating music is okay). “Wives, it’s time to talk to your husbands. And husbands, it’s time to talk to your wives. If you don’t go public now, I’ll speak to you 20 years in the future when it’s ruined your lives. Go public!” he says four times, telling how one wife found out her husband was looking at porn, not because she looked on his computer; because God told her. “Go public!”

Step should be taken.  Accountability Software should be installed on all computers, which will email a friend if you look at questionable websites. Also appoint one person in your house to erase the history on your computer, thus checking what webstites are looked at. Of course the obvious solution, “Get rid of your computer. You can check your email elsewhere…….Or ruin your life,” the cool pastor stresses. He continues on, warning to also block TV shows being pornography is now on basic TV (Will Wild on E! and everything on MTV now be considered pornography?) “Spend more time with God’s word, less time on TV,” he offers as an alternative. The cool pastor turns to the row of giggling, slightly disinterested teens, “I’m really messing you guys up today, but I’m saving your life.”

-clapping-

“Today is a great day because the secret you kept so long is rising to the surface,” the cool pastor says with a glowing smile.

Here comes Jack! Jack-a large, goateed man wearing shorts and a red picnic table patterned shirt-is brought up to the pulpit of the Arcade Church. Jack is a former porn addict (‘Hi Jack!). Jack uses today’s hip-hop language to make an impact; yes using the language of today here in church, in order to get through to the kids.

“Yo! Pornography went into my home and destroyed my marriage,” the goatee man says, telling it like it is—with today’s language. “Satan is pimpin’ this generation and the first stop is the church,” says Jack—the hip former porn addict. “We’ve chosen the role of the ho. The devil’s a pimp. Don’t be his ho.”

“That dawg is not talkin’ shizzle about porn,” I share with sweaty brow who fails to acknowledge me.

“Parents think 50 Cent is talking about Snicker’s bars when he’s talking to you about taking your daughter to the candy shop.”

This is true. The rapper 50 Cent (whose real name is Curtis Jackson) has no Snicker bar intentions at the candy shop (but why is a good Christian and ex-porn addict listening to 50 Cent?). He then spouts his new mantra.

“Let Jesus be your pimp. Will you continue to be used by the devil and be his ho?” Adding, “Say no to porn. No porn.”

Nonplussed, Tthe row of dudes with baseball caps nod their heads. With all this religious guilt laid on them today, these people will be way too scared to ever masturbate. And if they do they will live in shame because it’s WRONG!

“ I know whole families who didn’t come to church today because of this,” shares a tense mom in a sparkly church outfit, after the sermon, as a line of people wait to thank Pastor Jake. “They thought that porn should not be talked about in the church on Sunday.”

“Well, what did you think of the service?’ I ask.

“His language was pretty harsh,” she says.

“What language do you speak of?” I ask in order to hear her repeat it.

“You know all the pimp and ho stuff.”

I get defensive, “Hey! He’s speaking today’s language and that’s what the kids respond to,” adding, That b-yotch Satan needed a little smack talkin’” I confirm using more of today’s language.

Moving on, I approach a table where a large, smiley manly man is giving out pamphlets for a weekend Men’s Prayer Encounter Camping Retreat, which is geared towards those with porn addiction. The manly man shoves a pamphlet into my paw

“Today’s sermon was, how do I say it, powerful!” I exclaim. “I could tell you firsthand how porn has affected my life.

“Has it been something you’ve been struggling with,” the manly man asks, making creepy eye-contact that shifts as I explain my faux porn addiction.

“Yes,” I say, licking my dry lips, explaining that I was addicted to gay porn, most specifically photos of men in the outdoors doing very compromising things. His creepy eye-contact becomes stronger. I wave his brochure. “Yeah, I’ll have to check out this Men’s Prayer retreat. (Pause.) We’ll be camping, right?”

FOR PART 2 OF THE PORN SUNDAY SAGA CLICK HERE

Harmon Leon is