The heart inside a porn star and me is not very different. Porn stars know, unless it is so hidden by the darkness, that somewhere inside of them something is missing. Underneath the parties, the mess, the drugs, the sex, the attention, the “glamour”?they want to be loved, truly loved, for who they are.
Donny Pauling worked with many girls throughout his nine years as a porn producer. “They may start out enjoying it,” he says. “But soon I see the light in their eyes go out.” My friend, Stephanie Taylor, who is a former stripper, said to me, “It felt like a prison. I knew somewhere inside I was made for so much more than what I was living in, but I didn’t know how to get out. It appealed to me at first. The money, the attention, all that. Then, it quickly began to kill my heart and all my childhood dreams. But I still hoped for something better.”
The heart of The Other Woman is no different than ours. We’re all women who want freedom to be who we are, instead of striving for an unattainable perfection. The only difference between porn stars and me (besides our occupations, of course) is that they often don’t believe they are broken or in need of the freedom and love only God can bring them.
I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare. (Ecclesiastes 7:25:27)
And the sinners she ensnares, some of them, only care about themselves, not her. A man who embraces porn, the more depraved the better, wrote this about women. (I’ve changed the language to be less offensive.)
Women are most beautiful when fulfilling their natural role as sluts and toilets. They’re also happiest when being most ruthlessly used, slapped, beaten, and urinated on. Don’t believe me? Ask Emily* – a girl who has experienced more ecstasy in being savagely handled than gently caressed. A girl who has rejected any kind of pity, or dignity, or shame, or love, because she’s found that joy and ecstasy, the most extraordinary bliss, comes from being utterly ravaged and debased. Emily’s an invincible victim. What’s been done to her has been demeaning and humiliating and disgusting. And she deserves more. More and worse.
Obviously all men who view porn are not this way, but many of them say things like the above paragraph. Or worse. These types of things are typed to porn stars on their MySpace comments, Facebook walls, and personal blogs. Men who participate in porn spoke to porn stars as though they were nothing more than an object. And most of the girls pretend to enjoy it. But we know that woman is the crown of God’s creation. They are the beauty and relational love of God. Yet, men desire porn stars no more than a cigarette. Light it, smoke it, feel good, then step on it and walk away.
How could the light in their eyes stay bright while being treated like a cigarette? Too many people, too many times, stomp their lights out. The only thing left to do is learn to live in the darkness or find a way to leave, and most have no idea how to go about the latter. So, they forget the desires of their heart and they hope, like Stephanie, for something better … until the darkness swallows their hope and the devil laughs.
But we (women) can do something for them. We can stop looking inward so much and realize that porn isn’t harming just our marriage. Porn is breaking hearts and turning women into trash. It’s killing souls. Men can do something for these women/girls, too. They can choose to stop seeking a momentary pleasure in what appears to be a nice fantasy, but is really a video showing the further beating of a woman’s (and the men, too, can’t forget male “performers”) soul.
Porn is a dark world that tries to lure people in with its many lies. And sadly, it succeeds often. Let’s stop looking inward and look out. Let’s start praying for the heart of The Other Woman as much as we pray for our marriage. Porn is a nasty cycle … let’s do something to break the cycle!
You can actually reach out and help the porn industry by contributing to the following organizations: Pink Cross and XXXChurch.
