MISSOURI UNIVERSITY ( MIZZOU)
A new look at porn

Web-posted March 8, 2002

Alissa Singer
Staff Writer

A former pornography addict and an ex-stripper spoke about the influence of pornography in their lives Thursday night at Jesse Auditorium.

Kimberly Drake worked for 2 1/2 years in a strip club.

She said she became a stripper because she wanted to please her husband.

When he watched porn, she said, “I felt like I wasn’t enough.”

She won an amateur strip contest and was employed.

“I was so empty, it was so dirty,” she said. “I felt like a piece of meat.”

She began using drugs shortly after.

“I became what it was that I hated,” she said.

With the help of a friend, she managed to get out of the industry and rebuild her life. She founded Citizens for Community Values, an assistance and awareness group, to help women similar to her.

Gene McConnell discovered pornographic magazines in his uncle’s shed at the age of 12 and was hooked.

At 16, he molested his 14-year-old sister after reading the book “Playing With Little Sis.”

McConnell said he realized his actions were wrong and swore he’d never touch porn again.

But when his wife, struggling with the molestation she experienced as a child, began to push him away, he again turned to porn.

He began frequenting strip clubs, massage parlors and brothels. He spent $300 to $500 a week on his addiction.

One evening in a deserted parking lot, he saw a woman and forced himself into her car and threatened to rape her.

The fear he saw in her eyes made him stop and realize his mistake, he said.

But she reported his license plate to the police.

McConnell was arrested and spent time in jail and in therapy.

McConnell said his friend helped him recover from his addiction.

“He gave me a taste about what it means to be authentically loved by God,” McConnell said.

“I’m not here to make porn the whipping post,” he said. “It was not porn’s fault, it was mine, but it did play a part.”

McConnell founded Authentic Relationships International. and now spends his time traveling the country to communicate the power of pornography.

“We live in a sex-saturated community,” McConnell said. “There are more strip clubs than McDonald’s restaurants in America.”

McConnell also explained how pornography harms personal body image.

“One of the greatest harms porn brings is it places the value of a person on the size and shape of their body,” he said.

Freshman James Peppers also expressed concern about the influence of pornography.

“It gives a misinterpreted image about what love and a relationship should be like,” Peppers said. “It materializes the act of sex and turns it into a commodity.”

McConnell does not advocate censorship or banning of porn. He said he just wants to educate people on the influence porn can have.

“We have a right to consume it, but should we?” he said.

McConnell and Drake are speaking again at 7 p.m. tonight in Middlebush Auditorium.

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