Presentation reveals dangers of pornography

After beginning a two-hour long presentation called "The Power of Porn" by showing numerous Calvin Klein advertisements, Gene McConnell told more than 350 students his story of battle and victory with the pornography industry. \nCampus Crusade for Christ sponsored the presentation Tuesday night in Woodburn Hall by Authentic Relationships International. McConnell is founder of the company, "an organization dedicated to helping others overcome the power of porn," according to a company pamphlet. McConnell has been a guest on national talk shows such as Montel Williams, Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer with his message that pornography is much more than a light topic of controversy.\nThe presentation began with video footage of college students giving their opinion on pornography, followed by several facts about the industry. According to the presentation, Americans spend $8 billion annually on hardcore pornography, peep shows, live sex acts, adult cable programming, sexual devices, computer porn and sex magazines. This amount is more than Hollywood's box office receipts and larger than all the income of rock and country music recordings. \nAccording to the presentation, Americans spend more money on strip joints and clubs than Broadway musicals, rock concerts, the opera, ballet and jazz and classical music performances put together. \n"Our culture is saturated with these images," McConnell said. "Pornography will tell whatever lies attract and hold an audience."\nMcConnell stressed pornography's addictive nature and said that when soft porn is not enough anymore, a person will continually look for more hardcore information until even that is not enough. \nKimberly Drake, an ex-stripper and speaker for Authentic Relationships, spoke about the connection between the porn industry, stripping and the increasing desire for women to be thin and beautiful. Drake became involved with pornography and stripping after her husband introduced it to her.\n"I never felt like I was enough for my husband," Drake said. "I thought if I became what he wanted, it would fix our relationship but instead, it destroyed it."\nDrake said her self-esteem plummeted, and after a while she began to recognize she was in what she considered to be a dark, dirty place of humiliation. \nMcConnell also pointed out the amount of money advertisers pay to have their product appear in a money-making movie. After showing a clip from the movie "ET", in a scene where the alien is seen following a trail of Reeses Pieces, McConnell said the sale of Reeses Pieces tripled in the months after the movie came out. \nJunior Karen Kuo was on the outreach committee for the presentation and said she has concern for this issue on campus.\n"I think this is something people are often afraid to talk about and being able to bring it out into the open is important," Kuo said. "It's a big issue for men and women and especially at the college age, when many people are heavily involved in it"