Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn

by Shelley Lubben

  When the dead leaves needed to be cut off, God would speak to me about dead areas in my life. I was never without cutting shears when I was in the garden. We had planted so much that God could literally ask me to cut off dead things every day!

  Then of course, there were the weeds, the things in life that choked me that needed to be removed. God opened my eyes to show me these areas which were very difficult to understand at the time. But I obeyed the Lord. I started to remove unholy things in my life, even unholy relationships. That was very hard for someone who wanted to be “loved” so much. But I wanted God’s Presence more than anything else. I remembered my Grandfather’s last words he said to me, “Practice the Presence of God, Shelley.”

  Between 2002 and 2004 it was a powerful time of consecration for me. I practically became a monk. I didn’t listen to secular music. Actually, I hadn’t listened to it in eight years. I never watched television. I didn’t speak one vulgar word or practice any worldly ways. I could even go a whole day without sinning. Of course, anyone could do that if they spent all day with God for several years in a paradise.

  I was spoiled absolutely rotten with God’s Presence. Between the nature in Washington State and the paradise in my back yard, I grew to treasure God’s Voice and it was the MOST beautiful thing I had ever heard or experienced. I loved God’s Voice so much that I diligently spent three years studying His Voice through my schoolwork, prophetic workshops and on the Internet. I wanted to read everything and learn everything I could about God’s Voice.

  I fell madly in love with the God of Creation and all I ever wanted was to be with Him. I called Him, “Abba”, the affectionate Hebrew term that Jesus also used meaning, “Daddy”.

  Abba was my Daddy.

  Gradually, I stopped wanting to be around people very much. I wasn’t interested in the normal things other people were interested in. I didn’t want to attend tea parties at women’s Bible studies. I didn’t want to listen to some preacher talk about the Super Bowl from the pulpit. I especially couldn’t tolerate it when I heard Christians share their eternal joy over their favorite TV shows. How easily their faces lit up over those things rather than the things of God.

  Ugh!

  I just couldn’t tolerate the outside world in any shape, form or fashion so I stayed inside or in my garden all day listening to God share His secrets with me. It even became a little difficult at times to have a healthy marital relationship with Garrett. There I was in the Presence of God Almighty listening to the profound mysteries of Christ and Garrett wanted romance. I suddenly understood why Paul said about single people that it was “a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do.”

  But Garrett understood. Even he couldn’t deny that God Almighty was TALKING to me on a regular basis like He did with Moses or Abraham. Awakened often in the night with God’s Spirit hovering over our bedside, Garrett knew I had tapped into the “other” side in a literal and profound way. Plainly, I had become God’s friend and God wanted to talk to me. All He ever truly wanted from the beginning was a friend, He told me. I vowed to Him I would always be His friend no matter what.

  “No matter what, Shelley?” He asked me.

  “No matter what!” the zealous Peter in me promised.

  Then out of the green garden fall in late 2004, God whispered into my ear, “Tell your story.” I knew what He meant. God wanted me to put up a web site and tell my whole story.

  “Uh, no I can’t do that,” my heart quickly responded. I had already shared my story enough with hundreds of women in the prisons and rescue missions. Besides, I already had a ministry. Preaching and teaching the Word once a week to women in recovery, I was happy where I was at. Anyway, I wasn’t going to ruin my perfect holy life and go public about my “porn” past.

  Are you kidding?

  I can’t do that, I told God and then I argued a million good reasons why not.

  First of all, I didn’t want to deal with ugly mean people. I knew the porn industry would attempt to crucify me if I ever came out publicly with my story. I imagined all the vulgar words and things they would do if I exposed their evil deeds. Besides, I definitely did not want to die with the ex porn star label imprinted on my gravestone. No way.

  Secondly, I was the cupcake queen and field trip Mom at my children’s Christian school. The teachers all knew and loved me and I had made wonderful friends with the other prestigious mothers.

  Thirdly, I enrolled my teenager into a private elite Christian high school and did not want the kids to mess with her at all. It was also her first time to have a chance to use her drum skills and she became a percussionist in the elite school’s band.

  Fourthly, my husband worked with doctors and professionals who we definitely did not want to know my past.

  Fifthly, I may lose the family relationships I worked so hard to build.

  And that was only the beginning of the dozens of excuses I gave God as to why I could not and would not put my “story” up on the web.

  I took a last stroll into my evening garden paradise for a final breath of the fragrant fall air and then I went in for the night. It was time to snuggle up with Garrett in my big comfy warm bed and study my Complete Jewish Bible along with my Wycliffe Bible Commentary.

  I couldn’t wait to see what God would show me tonight!

  XXVII

  Admit One

  To hell with paradise

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  The Spirit of God abruptly woke me at 3:30 a.m.

  “Put up a web site with your story.”

  I finally agreed. “Okay, God.”

  One thing about me, I don’t argue with God at 3:30 in the morning, especially when His Spirit prompts me, comes upon me and empowers me to put up a web site in three hours.

  I was a web designer. I also knew how to do search engine optimization and so of course, I conveniently neglected to do that part. I figured, nobody would find the web site and if they did, maybe it would help some women leave the sex industry. So, I purposely left the Meta tags blank.

  Smile.

  Of course, none of that in the slightest way affected God. He could do whatever He wanted and He did. Within a couple of months, “stragglers” began to find me. I know because I used a stat counter to keep an eye on how many people visited my new web site.

  I was naughty, I admit it. I really was not ready to share my story with the entire world.

  I got away with it at first. But soon I started receiving emails with requests to do online interviews.

  “Okay, God, I guess it’s time to talk to my kids and schools about Your plan,” I told God.

  “Yes,” He lovingly replied.

  So, after having a discussion with my family about God’s intentions, I ended up at the principal’s office of my children’s Christian school. To get it over with, I blurted out what God told me to do and that I was a former porn actress and that God saved me from everything under the sun. To my great surprise, the principal smiled and told me that he was an ex heroin user and his mother had been a prostitute!

  Thank you, Jesus, I thought.

  Soon the entire school knew about my story. Moms and teachers began to come up and say they were touched. The librarian was especially heartfelt and cried tears over what God had done with my life.

  I began to truly understand that my story was touching many different lives. I already knew my story helped women who were wrecked from drugs and alcohol, but to positively affect the lives of good Christian women, this was a surprise to me.

  God continued to astonish me until one day the organization, “Morality in Media”, asked me to do my first online interview. I thought I had hit it big time. Finally, I would share my story with the world and everyone would come to know and love my Jesus! So, I did the interview very naively and honestly had no idea what I was getting into.

  During that interview I was asked about my feelings on porn addiction. “Porn addiction?” I asked her. “What’s that?” I had no idea what she w
as talking about. I had been locked inside of a Christian bubble since 1995 when I started attending the Champion Centre. I had no idea what porn addiction was.

  Although I did web design, I never hung out at social networking places. I only hung out at web design forums with other web designers. No one ever talked about a porn addiction. We talked about coding.

  So, I was completely hidden from pornography and most of the world for over 10 years. The closest I ever got to the contemporary world was when I went to the grocery store after we left the military in 2002 or when I worked with a customer on their e-commerce web site. I didn’t watch TV, except children’s shows like Barney. I didn’t listen to secular music or the radio. I raised my kids, studied God’s Word and Theology, taught Bible classes at the rescue mission and designed web sites.

  I lived a quiet and comfortable Christian life and suddenly the lady on the other end of the phone was interrupting it.

  She explained to me that pornography addiction was the number one mental health problem and proceeded to share horrific pornography statistics with me. I sat back in my chair and gasped. I was stunned to hear that millions of pages of porn were up on the Internet. I was horrified to learn that the porn industry released 11,000 movies versus Hollywood’s 400 per year. I was even more traumatized to learn that 54% of the pastors had viewed Internet pornography within the last year.29

  “Pastors?” I asked, appalled. I truly had been reformed into a nice Christian lady who had completely forgotten her past. I assumed anyone who was a Christian leader lived a good and holy life. How a man of God could ever view porn, was beyond my limited holy thinking. God would surely zap me if I ever did a thing like that!

  After the interview I was upset. In fact, I was downright angry. How could the Church and the government allow the porn industry to get away with so much murder? Didn’t they know the truth about pornography and that the women in porn didn’t enjoy making porn?

  I sat there and fumed and God spoke clearly to me and said, “Shelley, you should write an article about the truth behind the fantasy of porn.”

  Suddenly, Holy indignation filled me and I was scribbling down a mildly graphic article about the truth behind the fantasy of porn.

  The article frightened me. I had never written an article in my life except research papers. It definitely was my first “graphic” article. Woe, unto me, I thought. I have lost my mind. But God assured me that HE wrote the article through me.

  Then He did something crazy that I shall never forget. Suddenly, the lyrics, “You make a grown man cry” played in my mind and it frightened me so much that I shoved the explicit article away from me. Why was a secular song playing in my mind? Surely I hadn’t heard the song, “Start Me Up” in many years. But God assured me He had His reasons for using a Rolling Stones song to speak to me. Then a Scripture came to mind when Jesus spoke in Luke 19:40:

  “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

  Wow, I pondered in my heart. God Almighty just used a rock-n-roll song to speak to me. Surely, my Theology was completely crushed by now.

  But I obeyed God, put the article up online and almost overnight my “Truth” article began to circulate throughout the world. My web visitors went from hundreds to thousands by the end of 2005. Suddenly, churches, organizations and porn-affected people all over the world began to contact me. The porn industry also contacted me.

  Now, they wanted an interview. I actually was excited because I truly believed I would get them all saved in one interview. I was so excited to show them the love of Jesus and offer them hope and healing.

  Luke Ford, nice guy and porn journalist, began the interview by asking me what my stage name was.

  I shyly answered back, “Well, I’ve never revealed that.”

  I actually hadn’t put up my “porn” name on my web site because I didn’t want people who visited my web site to be tempted to look at old movies. But I figured that since Luke’s web site was an “adult” blog that nobody from the Christian world would ever read it. Plus, I had received emails from pornographers by now that told me I was a liar. So, I figured it was the perfect time and place to divulge my former work name and “shut the mouths” of the naysayers.

  “I went by the name Roxy,” I confessed. Then I shared the PG version of my experience in porn, not wanting to “offend” anyone in the porn industry. I was very new to the modern world of porn in 2005.

  I thanked Luke for the interview and excitedly waited to hear the warm responses from the porn industry. Here’s a small sampling of what I received:

  “You stupid bitch. Nobody cares what a washed up whore has to say.”

  “F—king liar. You’re still an attention whore.”

  “You’re nothing but a Jesus f—king whore!”

  I freaked out. I couldn’t believe the evil comments that jumped out and attacked me through my computer screen. Then the vicious emails came. Pornographers and pro-porn promoters began to threaten me flavored by every evil vulgarity from the pit of hell. I became totally overwhelmed.

  I wept on and off the entire year during my crude awakening in 2005. I didn’t understand how people in the porn industry couldn’t see the beauty of what God had done in my life. To make things worse, so-called Christians and “religious” people sent brutal emails of rebuke and an endless chain of suggestions about what I should or shouldn’t do in my new “porn” ministry.

  To add injury to insult, I sent my parents and family my testimony right after I put up my web site in hopes they would glorify God with me and even celebrate how He was using me. I was rudely awakened when my mother told me I was probably listening to the voice of the devil.

  “WHAT?” I couldn’t believe it. My own mother turned on me after all the recovery I had done. Then, she began to share with other family members the horrible “attack” I had launched on her and my father. Furthermore, she got my brother and sister involved and certainly, I was privileged to read their emails of rebuke along with all the others I received.

  Of course, I wrote back and defended myself and suddenly I was in email hell. There went all that wisdom I gained from the Champion’s Centre.

  In the same year that Satan launched a brutal attack on our family, my husband’s dad died on April 1, 2005, in a freak bike accident. Everything around us completely fell apart and our perfect paradise was entirely ripped away from us.

  We were literally living out the Book of Job in the Bible.

  Undone and completely broken, I cried out to God for answers. Out of the blue on the internet, a kind woman instant messaged me and said God told her to give me Isaiah 26:3:

  You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

  I was greatly comforted. I held fast to that Scripture and applied it to every foul and ugly thing that came my way.

  That’s when the devil paid me a visit.

  The night was dark and cold. All of my children and husband were tucked in bed while I was, of course, reading through emails. A terrible heaviness came over me and suddenly I felt my body trying to faint.

  Faint, I thought. I never fainted before. What’s wrong with me?

  When I got up out of my chair, I realized some THING was on top of me and was squeezing my head. I realized what “it” was and rebuked it in the name of Jesus while I tried to walk to my bedroom to get my husband to pray for me. Thrashed around by an evil entity from wall to wall, the wicked force wrestled me to the floor where I passed out near my five year old daughter’s bedroom.

  We don’t know how it happened, but someone dragged me into my room and placed me under my ironing board. Suddenly, I heard Garrett’s voice calling my name and I woke up and turned my head to see a pair of eyes looking back at me. My picture of Jesus had somehow fallen from the wall and now it was staring straight at me. In shock from everything, I tried to get up but the heaviness was still on top of me and I felt like I was being strangled. Garrett, an ex comba
t medic, thought I had some type of physical ailment but when I barely squeezed out the words “Satan” while pointing to my throat, he started to figure out that maybe it might have been demonic. I gave him a crazy look like, WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE, IDIOT??

  Garrett rebuked the evil thing off of me and finally, I was able to breathe. I was so terribly frightened that I grabbed every different version of the Bible I could find and hurriedly hid under my covers where I repented for every sin I had ever done since three years old.

  I was TERRIFIED!

  I fearfully cried out to God, “Abba, God, please save me!” But God assured me there was nothing to be afraid of and that He was right there with me. He reminded me that Satan had no authority over our family and to use the name of His Son Jesus and rebuke him. Suddenly I remembered spiritual warfare Scriptures and began to recite them out loud where EVERYONE including the devil, could hear me. Scripture after scripture I declared in the name of Jesus until I finally became tired and fell asleep.

  That is, until Satan woke me up. My eyes shot open when I somehow felt a huge ball of floating black enter my room and hover over the edge of my bedside. Then I heard a voice speak the literal and forceful words, “This is my world system and you’re not going to f—k with my system.”

  Those were the devil’s exact words. I immediately looked up at God and felt His great Presence over me. Full of the Holy Spirit I turned my head toward the devil and boldly replied, “Talk to Jehovah,” and poof, he was gone.

  That first year of battling Satan would be the first of many years of warfare ahead for our family. Untrained in the strategies of the adversary of the Saints, little did we know that the battle against Satan’s Kingdom and for millions of precious souls, had only just begun.

  XXVIII