Former addict discusses threat of pornographic images
Published on Wednesday, February 6, 2002

Ryan Donahue
Kansas State Collegian

Clad in K-State colors, and armed with a dazzling multi-media presentation, Gene McConnell entertained and educated a nearly full McCain Auditorium on the "Power of Porn" Tuesday night.
"We live in a sex-saturated society; we use sex to sell everything," McConnell said.

Images of sex are everywhere. We look in today's society and the images are more risque and graphic than ever before, McConnell said.

McConnell compared the images of 1957 Playboy centerfolds to the covers of today's Cosmopolitan. The comparison of the somewhat-elegant images of the 1957 Playboy centerfolds were compared to the barely dressed women on the Cosmopolitan cover.

"I am not here to tell you how to think about porno, but to inform you. I promote personal responsibility," McConnell said.

McConnell opened his presentation with clips of K-State students expressing their views about the subject of porno.

"It's the American way."

"It is destroying the American society."

"I like porno, in the proper place, of course."

The student's responses represented a wide range of opinions. But the messages were all similar. Sex and pornography are both issues ingrained in our society.

"Porn is not a sideshow, it is a part of our society," McConnell said. "It is bigger than baseball and football together. There are more strip clubs in the U.S. than there are McDonald's."

Porn has become a main part of American society, McConnell said, and it used to be a main part of his life.

His addiction drove him into a life consumed by pornography.

"The excitement and arousal was like an injection. I was using porno as a way to cope with my rejection and my hurts," McConnell said.

His addiction eventually drove his fantasies into his life. McConnell's fantasy of rape eventually became an attempt one evening in a dark parking lot.

"I followed her to her car, forced my way in with the intentions of rapping her. I looked into her eyes and saw the fear in them and it hit me like a bat. Hello, wake up. You're about to destroy another person's life. What are you doing?" McConnell said.

He now speaks across the country to inform his audiences about the dangers of pornography addiction, so they can make intelligent decisions for themselves.

McConnell served his time in jail, and the incident brought his addiction to light. McConnell stressed that he doesn't blame pornography for his actions. Rather, he promotes accepting responsibility for all of one's actions.

He thinks the greatest harm of pornography is that it acts like a measuring stick for all of our society's physical worth. The images of the perfect woman and man are ingrained in our culture through media, he said. The idea of having to possess the perfect body has driven one in five women to develop eating disorders, McConnell said.

Among those women suffering from these disorders are McConnell's wife and daughter, both of whom developed their disorders from their father's addiction to porn and the resulting affects of the addiction.

The presentation also included the story of Kimberly Drake, a former stripper and cocaine addict. Drake's feelings of never being good enough for those in her life drove her to mimic the women her husband obsessed about in his pornography.

"I thought that if I became the image of my husband's obsession I would become my husband's one and only. I would finally be the apple of his eye," Drake said.

Instead of gaining the acceptance she sought from her husband, she drove them farther apart.

"I had become what I originally hated," Drake said. "I had become one of the women that caused my feelings of imperfection."

During the two-hour presentation, McConnell and Drake tried to present and explain the impact of sex in society. They wanted to show the audience that pornography is more than extreme images. It is in the media, music, television, radio, movies and magazines. Pornography has become a part of our life, McConnell said.

"Not everyone who is going to consume is going to become a rapist," McConnell said. "But everyone is affected, in our belief system, and our way of viewing the world around us."