aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Porn star to preacher

In the Style Section, of all places, the NYTimes looks at a semiretired hetero porn star who is bringing spiritual comfort to those marginalized by the sex industry:

From his work in the rented villas of the San Fernando Valley, where hard-core sex films are shot, he has moved just a short distance west, to the Church of the Epiphany, which is guiding his transformation from pornography star to preacher.

The psychic distance, however, has been vast. In January, the lumbering 6-foot-3 performer was greeting fans on the red carpet of the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, along with the superstars of pornography like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy.

In June, he was carrying the Holy Bible and a text titled “Gospel Light” to a live Internet show where he preached on the relative evils of pornography. “Is pornography a sin?” he asked on the show, which is aimed at people in the sex industry. “Probably. Definitely,” he answered, a response that reflected his own ambivalence as much as a desire not to alienate his audience. “So is eating carrot cake until you’re sick to your stomach,” he continued. “And so is punching somebody in the face. That’s a sin.”

He grew up a Southern Baptist in South Carolina (surprised?) and quit making hard-core movies because “I don’t enjoy it anymore” (though he had sex at an adult video convention in January).

A Viet Nam vet and former NYC cop, he renewed his private investigator’s license to make money as he pursues his religious avocation. About his years in the sex trade he says, “Not one time did Jesus refer to pornography, or homosexuality.”

Oh swell. I wish him luck - it’s a hard process - and he makes a valid point, but with friends like that we’ll never get the global Anglicans to accept gay clergy or gay marriage! I can only thank God he’s straight!