Of porn, Ron Jeremy and…Jesus? Part II

In his second and final installment, Craig Gross tells the story of someone who was rescued from the

With over one million people visiting our website every year, we have seen that the issue of pornography reaches far and wide. Our organization aims to help those who consume porn and help those in the porn industry.
As an outreach to the porn industry for the past six years, we have attended many pornography conventions. There we hang out with people who call porn their vocations. We met porn producer Donny Pauling in the first couple years of our ministry at the Las Vegas show. He gave us a hard time for being at porn shows and for the faith we represented. Donny even went as far to post porn on blogs of the XXXchurch website, which we promptly deleted. Through this love-hate relationship, we became friends with Donny.
Donny had left the Church in his early twenties to become a photographer. He later found himself in the lucrative business of shooting porn. He rose to make a half million dollars a year producing porn.
Donny had a pretty normal upbringing. He was raised in a Christian home, and his father was a pastor. He never planned to be in the porn industry; it kind of just happened, and the money came next. Soon he was working with two of the largest companies in the industry, recruiting the girls, ushering them through the contract process, editing and finally selling the material.
It was in this process that he saw the dark side of porn. Girls would knock on the door of his home late at night and beg for their photos to be taken off the internet. Donny saw girls strung out on drugs and alcohol, and depressed because of porn. Their family or friends had found out about their secret careers and the stark emotional reality sunk in. Girl after girl would come to Donny, and all he could say was “You signed a contract, I am sorry.”
Experiences like these were overwhelming to Donny. One day he pulled over to the side of the road and prayed, “God I done, I do not know what it means to follow you but I am ready.” Later that day Donny called XXXchurch, with whom he had become friends at porn conventions. Two days later, a pastor was on a plane to help Donny in this major life transition.
It has been two years since Donny quit the porn industry. Since then, he has taken some flak from old friends, traded in his old salary for a more modest wage, and struggled in his faith. Regardless, Donny will smile at you and say his life is best it has ever been. Donny is trying to figure out what following Jesus means for him. He is currently studying to be a pastor and regularly shares his story on tour with XXXchurch.