 "Photo: Jacinta Chen")
Students gathered in the Russell House on Sunday to learn about xxxchurch.com and gather resources about porn addiction.
Students attended out of curiosity, personal interest and response to PornSunday's advertisements on campus.
"I came because of the shock value of everything," said fourth-year religious studies student Dan Knott. "And I have heard of the ministry and their perspective."
University chaplain and Shack Campus Ministry pastor Garret Curry headlined PornSunday, which was organized by ten student organizations. Curry learned of PornSunday through the work of Mike Foster and Craig Gross, the creators of xxxchurch.com.
Curry emphasized the addictive nature in the role of pornography in everyday life.
"Porn can be addictive," Curry said. "... that addiction can be destructive.'
Curry made his point clear by using a multimedia presentation composed of student interviews, in-depth testimonials and statistics.
USC students polled about porn on film had varying opinions, ranging from "it degrades women" to "I love porn." Most students took a more middle ground opinion of "it can be OK in moderation."
Curry also made it clear that porn is not an uncommon issue that occurs rarely in society or only in seedy locations. Mainstream rap artist Kayne West recently confessed to a pornography addiction in a Rolling Stone interview.
At a 2002 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of lawyers stated that excessive porn use was a factor in over half of the cases they handled and that porn played almost no role in the cases eight years earlier.
Curry also provided students with three primary ways in which porn can adversely affect those who use it: porn can lead to a serious addiction, porn can endorse the degradation of females and porn can motivate relational dysfunction. Once involved with porn, however, there is a clear method of escape, Curry said.
"Talk to God about it," Curry said. "Second, talk to someone else about it, and three get rid of it."
Curry said networking and support groups are key to overcoming porn addiction.
'The most important thing someone can get from this is help and direction," Curry said. "Getting people resources and connecting them to recovery groups is the most important part of this event."
To achieve that goal, students attending PornSunday received an anonymous questionnaire inviting them to sign up for a mailing list and provide feedback on their experience at PornSunday. The presentation presented facts and revealed an issue most students knew little about.
"[The experience] brought to the light something that was hidden in the darkness in everyday life," Knott said.
For further research, Curry pointed students to xxxchurch.com, which provides access to groups, facts and resources for battling porn addiction. One of those resources he highlighted was x3watch.com, a free program developed by xxxchurch.com to place accountability and transparency on a personal battle with porn.
The program monitors Web sites visited on a user's computer and every month emails a list of questionable sites to someone of the user's choice.
X3watch.com and other resources are available to interested students at the Web site, and other local organizations are available to talk with interested students, as well.
First Presbyterian Counseling Center was on hand at the event as were other individuals offering help with porn addiction. Students can seek local help through the ministry or counselors, as well as a mailing list of information available from Curry.
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