"Porn destroys human lives and is destroying our nation," Shelley Lubben told lawmakers at a June 15 briefing on Capitol Hill. Shelley Lubben experienced years of horrors of the adult-film industry. As a porn star, she contracted two sexually transmitted diseases - herpes and the human papillomavirus - and later had to have half of her cervix removed because of cervical cancer. She also suffered from severe anemia, drug addiction and alcoholism.

Then, after many years, "God woke me up and told me to put my story on a website," Mrs. Lubben recently told The Washington Times.

Mrs. Lubben, now a wife, a mother of three and an ordained chaplain, wants to help others escape what she calls "modern-day slavery," and she's using her ministry - the Pink Cross Foundation - to reach out to those who need emotional and financial help getting out of the sex industry.

"I have suffered much at the hands of the porn industry," she said. "But after eight long, hard years of recovery, and by the grace of God Almighty, I escaped that hell and am here, a mom of three beautiful daughters and married to a loving, warm and godly man, who stood by me in my horrible recovery."

Mrs. Lubben, 42, of Bakersfield, Calif., has been working with adult-entertainment industry workers since 2002, when she began volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in California.

In 2008, Mrs. Lubben and her husband, Garrett, founded the nonprofit Pink Cross Foundation. She and her team have worked with thousands of people struggling with porn addiction in her foundation's help forums and reached out to porn stars and sex workers through outreach.

"I built up a reputation as someone who loved and accepted them and they made demands on me, saying they needed me," Mrs. Lubben told The Times. "There was a lot more demand than supply - even my husband was giving out of his own pockets."

Members of the Pink Cross Foundation attend porn conventions and nightclubs, where every so often Mrs. Lubben will sing karaoke.

She said she was so overwhelmed by what was going on behind the scenes in the porn industry that she went back to help people who were being harmed.

In doing so, Mrs. Lubben said, she learned something: "They have the same stories that I do. Some of them far worse; some of the acts of violence and abuse in the porn industry include verbal and physical abuse on the set."

Jan Meza Merritt, a divorced mother of three, was one of those people who needed help getting out of the business. She said she was suicidal and had lost track of who she was. At the "end of the rope," she searched the Internet for "porn help." Mrs. Lubben's name appeared.

Ms. Meza Merritt said she was on the phone with Mrs. Lubben every day and often received care packages, as well as financial aid, for her and her children.

"I was scared because I felt [the porn industry was] trying to kill me internally," Ms. Meza Merritt told The Times.

Today, Mrs. Meza Merritt works for the Pink Cross Foundation and said she can proudly tell those attending porn conventions, "My name is Jan, and I'm out of the industry and into the ministry."

Mrs. Lubben spoke about porn addiction at a June 15 briefing in Washington, D.C., where she urged lawmakers to enforce obscenity laws so that children are not exposed to pornography on the Internet.

She said she wants people to realize that porn is not glamorous.

"Porn destroys human lives and is destroying our nation, but we can change; there's hope," she said at the briefing.

In her research, Mrs. Lubben found that 66 percent of porn actors have herpes. The rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases among performers is 10 times higher than among the 20- to 24-year-olds in Los Angeles County. Twenty-five cases of HIV have been reported among porn performers since 2004, she said.

Since 2000, 23 suicides and 30 drug-related deaths have been reported in the porn industry. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recently reported that 70 percent of STD cases in the porn industry are among women.

Mrs. Lubben said porn actresses endure violence during the taping sessions.

"Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It's never-ending," former porn star Jersey Jaxin said on the Pink Cross Foundation's website (www.thepinkcross.org).

"I did over 100 XXX hard-core movies where I was slapped, hit, choked and forced [do] to sex scenes I never agreed to," said former porn star Michelle Avanti.

Women also are forced into prostitution. In some cases, a woman can earn $2,500 an hour, Mrs. Lubben said. "They hate making porn," she said. "At least with prostitution we get a dinner sometimes."

Mrs. Lubben's foundation also reaches out to pornographers. She said she has heard pornographers brag about abuse toward women in the industry.

Pornographers offer performers drugs and alcohol and often conspire with some doctors, Mrs. Lubben said. The doctors, she said, prescribe antidepressants, painkillers and anti-anxiety medication to young men and women, who soon become addicted.

In a book Mrs. Lubben is writing, she said, she exposes the abuses in the industry.

"What a fine line to walk to expose the truth and love these people," she said.

For Mrs. Lubben, the road to recovery was long.

Her parents, who she says were "at their wits' end" with her dating life and drug problems, kicked her out of the house when she was 18. She worked as a stripper and a prostitute for several years until she became a porn star. She also became addicted to drugs and alcohol.

In 1994, when she was 26, she met and married her husband. After years of counseling and with God's help, Mrs. Lubben said, she has been sober since April 9, 2000.

"God restored me from drugs, alcohol addiction, painful memories, mental illness, sexual addiction, sexual trauma, and the guilt and shame from my past," she said.

By Rachel B. Duke -The Washington Times
7:27 p.m., Thursday, August 12, 2010

From http://www.cbsnews.com

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (CBS/AP) Amanda Logue was a married, bleach-blond Georgia woman who dabbled in prostitution and starred in several X-rated videos under the name "Sunny Dae." Jason Andrews was a bisexual Chicago DJ with a British accent, whose chiseled jaw and good looks landed him roles in countless gay porn videos.

Together, according to Florida detectives, they stabbed and bludgeoned 41-year-old tattoo shop owner Dennis "Scooter" Abrahamsen to death with a sledgehammer.

Nearly two months after Abrahamsen was found dead in his Tampa-area home, Logue and Andrews were indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder charges. Logue is being held without bail at a Florida jail and Andrews was arrested Thursday in Tennessee.

Andrews was arrested by U.S. Marshals and the Chattanooga Police Department after working for several weeks as a manager at the Chattanooga Billiard Club, an upscale pool hall and cigar lounge. He is jailed in Tennessee until he can be extradited to Florida.

Police in Florida say the pair killed Abrahamsen in the early morning of May 15 and swiped $6,000 cash, his credit cards and a video camera. Abrahamsen had hired Logue to work at a sex party at his house, and police said that’s when Logue and Andrews set him up. They traded dozens of text messages about their homicidal plan, police said.

According to an affidavit, Logue would later deny that she had anything to do with the killing and claim Andrews was the one who bludgeoned Abrahamsen.

"Logue told (police) that Andrews grabbed the back of her hair then twisted her arm behind her back. Andrews forced her to view Abrahamsen’s crushed skull and told her that’s what would happen to her if she told anyone."

Logue and Andrews met on the set of a porn video late last year and fell in love – even though Logue was married to a man in Georgia, authorities and friends said.

The 27-year-old Andrews was known in Chicago as DJ Veritas, and his Facebook and MySpace pages feature several video clips of him playing techno music in large clubs.

The 28-year-old Logue seemed like a decent person, said Kristen Cameron, a Florida-based model who met her last year. According to several profiles on modeling websites, Logue did bikini and fetish modeling.

The adult film industry was in a for a rude awakening at Tuesday’s downtown Los Angeles Cal/OSHA Advisory Meeting on Bloodborne Pathogens in the Adult Film Industry when Cal/OSHA inspector Deborah Gold firmly stated that Cal/OSHA bloodborne pathogens regulations already require condom use in adult films and that any filming without condoms is a direct violation of the law.

Gold said, “Let me be clear: we’re not creating a new rule, we’re talking about modifying an existing rule. Right now, the standard mandates the use of condoms, so people who have come here and think that we're arguing about whether we're going to mandate the use of condoms need to understand that the current status quo is that if there's blood or other potentially infectious material, you need to prevent contact with that and the employee's eyes, skin, so people just need to understand that—I know people keep talking about it as though we're thinking about newly mandating condoms and people have to understand that what we're trying to do is talk about whether something new can be worked out in the standards that would protect employees as well as what's currently the present.” Those in opposition to condoms on set, including directors, producers, and some current well-known performers, ricocheted between showing a total ignorance of the law and a clear and blatant disregard for it, even after Gold’s clarifying statement.

Veteran adult film actress Nina Hartley who admitted she caught Gonorrhea 4 times during her career stated, “I don’t feel any safer with condoms.”

Performer Jeremy Steele, current male porn actor, “There is no way to make the industry risk-free. Making things safer does not make it safe.”

Perhaps that is because the porn industry is unsafe in the first place.

Robert Kim-Farley, MD, MPH, Director, Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, reprted that LA County health officials have linked 8 of as many as 22 possible HIV infections between 2004 and 2008 to the porn industry.

Pink Cross executive director and former porn actress, Shelley Lubben, proposed forming an alliance between Cal/OSHA and Pink Cross Foundation in order to educate performers on STDs and other health related issues, as well as the rights of performers – both of which the foundation already does – and to assist in enforcing OSHA’s already existing laws concerning safety in the workplace.

Former adult film actresses and members of Pink Cross Foundation shared personal testimony as to the many STDs and other detrimental health issues they endured throughout their time in the porn industry, the lack of education performers receive, and the hazardous and violent scenarios often encountered on set.

Sadly, many porn stars could not personally speak out and share their stories due to their untimely deaths.

Despite the testimonies, pro-industry representatives continued to argue that the industry is self-regulated. They also expressed concern that condom-only porn would be unprofitable. In the 5 hour meeting, adult industry leaders voiced more opinion about “feasible economics” than the safety and health of workers.

After countless arguments, including those from the industry funded Free Speech Coalition, Whitney Engeran-Cordova from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said “It was important to hear a Cal/OSHA official so unequivocally say that existing state regulations already require the use of condoms on all adult film sets in California, something that is clearly not happening.”

The next advisory meeting is scheduled for October in San Francisco.

Ami Jordan, 1990-2010

19 year old porn star Ami Jordan passed away in her sleep last Friday, June 11.

Jordan’s time in porn was cut short in the industry after entering porn in 2008 and appearing in only about 20 movies. A memorial service for friends and family will be held Tuesday evening in her Tennesee hometown.

Jordan worked for adult companies including Hustler Video, Vivid Entertainment, Red Light District, Immoral Productions and Lethal Hardcore.

Did the lethal and toxic porn industry kill her?

Type 9 Models owner Kevin Kline, the agent who represented Ami throughout her time in the industry, says in AVN interview: "She had a problem with pills, and she asked me to help monitor that usage of pills and what she was taking."

Agents and pornographers acting as doctors? Isn’t that illegal? Did her agent knowingly send her to do scenes while she was under the influence of drugs?

Her agent Kline also admits that this pill addiction was likely to blame. "I can tell you that I have my suspicions of exactly what happened, and my guess is that she took too many of them," he said. "But that's just speculation, for sure.

"She was a super sweet girl. Always a good girl."

A super sweet girl who had no idea what she was getting into and that she would die at age 19 in the porn industry. This abuse must stop. Please do YOUR part and stop viewing pornography and contributing to deaths like Ami’s.

Please pray for Ami’s family. They are devastated.