JESUSLAND—According to Morality in Media's PornHarms.com website, the current Halloween-adjacent "White Ribbon Against Pornography" campaign to stamp out sexual material started in western Pennsylvania, in the town of Butler, a conservative area northeast of Pittsburgh—and for anyone who may have been wondering if the campaign had a religious base, one only need read PornHarms' recap of those founding events from 1987.
"Norma Norris heard a sermon against pornography delivered by the pastor of her Catholic parish," the story begins. "Msgr. Francis Glenn lamented that local prosecutors and law enforcement had been deluded into thinking that people didn't care about the hardcore porn being sold in her community... Norma then worked with Msgr. Glenn, the Butler County Citizens for Decency, and the Butler Fellowship of Churches to organize the first White Ribbon campaign... The highlight of the campaign was the bulldozing of a closed porn bookstore. The Butler County Citizens for Decency had bought the property especially for the purpose. A judge signed an eviction notice against the store, and on a sunny day in fall, in front of a large crowd of citizens and cameras from local TV stations, the 'dozer smashed the porn shop to smithereens."
And that, of course, is the quintessential religio-conservative approach to adult content: Doesn't matter if it's got a story, doesn't matter if it's couples-friendly, doesn't matter if the only thing you can see are bare tits—BULLDOZE IT! (Fortunately, that's a little tougher to do on the internet, but we're fairly certain that their campaign to force all adult content onto filterable .xxx websites will be commencing soon.)
But as Morality in Media announced today, the pro-censorship organization has more than 20 "events" planned for "White Ribbon" week, which runs from October 30 to November 6—and some of them are real doozies.
"This year's WRAP week campaign will include collaboration with ex-porn stars, a neurosurgeon, the LDS church, filtering companies, scholars, therapists, Internet safety experts, feminist leaders and many more," said Dawn Hawkins, executive director at MIM. "We are even providing a Spanish language event and Spanish handouts this year."
The dumb-show kicks off, according to PornHarms' downloadable calendar, with a giveaway of copies of Pink Cross Foundation founder Shelley Lubben's largely fictional work, "The Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn." While AVN has not received a review copy of the work, the accuracy of Lubben's many statements about her brief experience in the adult industry in the early '90s has been thoroughly debunked by filmmaker Michael Whiteacre here, here, here and here.
Many of the other "events" seem to be advertisements for PornHarms' main sponsor, the spyware program "Covenant Eyes," which is explicitly involved as being involved in five of the events. And of course, there are the "experts": "Mental health specialist" Dan Oakes, who'll lead an online discussion, "Parenting in a World of Pornography," on Wednesday at 11:30 am; anti-human-trafficking activist Laura Lederer, who'll lead a discussion of "What are the links between porn and sex trafficking" at 1:30 pm that same day; "neurosurgeon" Dr. Donald Hilton, who'll give a talk on "Brain Science Behind Porn Addiction" on Saturday at 11 am; the LDS (Mormon) Church Family Services will give a presentation, "Hope, Healing and Dealing with Addiction," an introduction to their 12-step program, on Thursday at 1 pm; and iKeepSafe, "a 501(c)3 nonprofit international alliance of more than 100 policy leaders, educators, law enforcement members, technology experts, public health experts and advocates," which will mount an event titled, "Creating a Healthy Digital Climate for Schools" at 9 pm on Thursday.
And then there are the online movies: A "documentary" from Shared Hope International titled "Demand," probably on sex trafficking, on Monday at 11:30 am and again Tuesday at 10 pm, and another pseudo-documentary starring Lubben and her current mentor, Dr. Judith Reisman, titled "Out of the Darkness," which will be webcast on Thursday at 11:30 am.
And speaking of Lubben, the final event of the week will be an online presentation by Pink Cross titled "Porn Stars Speak Out—Here's the Truth About the Porn Industry," at 10:30 Sunday night, Nov. 7. Of course, it's unclear who'll be speaking besides Lubben herself, since recent acolyte Madelyne ("Michelle Avanti") has revealed how she was screwed over by Lubben's broken promises, and Jenni "Veronica Lain" Case has been shown to have lied about whether she had had an HIV/STD test before performing.
But clearly, the big anti-porn day will be Saturday when, beginning at noon, PornHarms will provide live streaming of a series of public conferences, all titled, "Pornography—Private Problem, Public Solutions: Using Political Involvement, Education and Accountability," that will take place first in Rexberg, Idaho, then Idaho Falls, ID, and finally in Pocatello, ID.
Along the way, PornHarms is sponsoring a "cash prize video contest" based on the theme "Be Aware: Porn Harms!"—winners will be webcast at 9:30 pm on Sunday, Nov. 7— and will be tweeting furiously all week at hashtag #pornaddict.
Hmmm... we wonder what sort of video a good adult director could make using "Be Aware: Porn Harms!" as its theme?
Pictured: Shelley "Roxy" Lubben and the former Michelle Avanti
