Ex-porn Stars and Addicts Bring Hope: A look at CBN’s “Unhooked” Event
CBN and Campus Ministries partnered this past Friday, January 17th, to host a panel discussion on pornography. The event, titled “Unhooked: Purity in a pornified world,” introduced attendees to panelists with deep personal insight on pornography’s detrimental effects through personal experiences.
As an ex-porn star, panelist Brittni De La Mora has experience with the side of pornography many people never see. She explained her past involvement in the porn industry and revealed it was not as glamorous or harmless like she had initially thought. It was the women with beautiful hair and makeup that originally made her interested in the industry. On the other side of the camera, she realized what really happened. She told the audience that women were often in tears at the end of a shoot, head aching from hair-pulling, bruised all over their bodies. De La Mora emphasized there is a victim in pornography, and it’s not just viewers harming their minds and sexual purity. She turned to hard drugs, like heroin and meth in order to numb the pain of being involved in such a dehumanizing industry.
Today, De La Mora is a firm believer in God’s power to save, happily married to husband Richard, who also attended the panel. The couple is involved with XXX Church, reaching out to porn addicts and helping them find freedom.
As a pastor and director at XXX Church, Richard De La Mora sees the devastation pornography causes in the lives of countless people, especially Christians. Speaking to the predominantly Christian audience that sat in the Dede Robertson Theatre, Pastor De La Mora pointed out that those who confess Jesus as their Savior still struggle. He explained that Christians can be very good at getting accountability from others and walking through ten-step programs, but they often forget to focus on Christ as the only source of freedom. He shared that Jesus and a relationship with Him needs to be the starting point in getting free from pornography, not a surface-level acknowledgment that it is wrong.
Chaz Smith, famous on YouTube for pronouncing things incorrectly, shared his experience battling porn addiction. While declared that God had freed him, he bravely admitted that the struggle never goes away and he has not necessarily reached the “other side.” Even the hosts, Ashley and Roberto, seemed unprepared for such a vulnerable admission. However, Smith’s confession set a more intimate tone for the night, as Ashley was quick to point out. He also shared that turning to Jesus to find his identity, realizing that he was a follower of Christ and should live out of that truth, has really helped him in his struggle, getting at pornography’s root issue: identity.
Author Jessica Harris, the fourth panelist, spoke to the lies pornography introduces, especially for women. As an ex-porn addict, Harris revealed the false idea that she had been told time and again: girls don’t struggle with pornography. Because of her personal experience, Jessica travels across the country speaking about her testimony and informing parents and churches that porn is not just a “guy issue.” She told the audience that one of the negative impacts porn has on girls is making them believe in order to have worth they need to be sexually desired. It causes girls to forget their true identity and objectify themselves. Harris shared her personal story about giving nudes to an older man she had never met before. She was seventeen. Women can believe the lie that this sort of behavior is empowering, but Harris contradicted such a mindset, explaining that the man, whoever he was, had control of her seventeen-year-old body forever. She could do nothing about it. The twisted identity pornography gives women is far from empowering.
Last on the line up was counselor and author Frank Meadows, who had been introduced to pornography at a young age by a neighbor, whose father hid the scandalous pictures inside the family Bible. He explained that with the Internet today, people are exposed to porn at younger ages and everyone with a smartphone has access at their fingertips. Meadows spoke to the addictive nature of porn. As a former drug addict and alcoholic, he explained that a simple desire to stop is not enough. “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed,” he insisted, quoting John 8:36. Getting free from porn addiction is a matter of surrendering to Christ completely, over and over again, every day. Meadows did not claim this to be an easy task, but a necessary one for deliverance.
Following the panel discussion, Frank Meadows lead the audience in a closing prayer. Then the cameras were turned off, men and women were separated for a time of ministry began with worship and prayer, an attestation to the firm belief that true freedom from any sin is found through Jesus Christ.
If you are struggling with an addiction to pornography, know that there is freedom. Reach out to Campus Ministries or any Regent University staff member to receive resources and help in battling addiction.
