Shelley Lubben: A Porn Star's Deliverance
I was born in Pasadena, CA, in 1968 the eldest of three children. “The first eight years of my childhood my family was involved in a good church where Sunday school teachers taught me about Jesus.” “As a little girl, I loved Jesus very much.”
When I turned nine, the family moved to Glendora, CA and stopped attending church and drifted away from God and each other. “God was no longer first in our home and our family began to suffer.”
I continued to attend the Baptist church down the corner with my younger brother and sister, but with no spiritual support or encouragement, by 14 I lost interest. I had been introduced to sexuality when I was nine by a girl and my teenage brother. Sex became confusing to me, as sex meant “love” to me, as it felt good to be wanted by someone and receive attention, but at the same time I felt dirty.
“I wanted my parents’ affection more than anything but it didn’t seem like I received what I needed.” “I started to feel resentment toward them and anger entered my heart.” I became more involved in the party scene and by age 16 I was sexually active, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.
“We fought constantly in our home.” “There was nothing but yelling and nagging during my teenage years.”
I felt my mother was mad at me most of the time and my father was too busy to have a relationship with his eldest child other than to yell at me for talking back to my mother. So I acted out to get their attention, but my parents preferred to maintain peace. So they allowed me to dress up as a Playboy bunny at 15, date boys they didn’t know, etc.
My parents went through much anguish because of me and, finally at their wits’ end, they kicked me out during my senior year of high school. With nowhere to go, I ended up staying with some guy I barely knew. “I had no money and there was almost no food in the place I was staying. For the first time in my life I knew what it meant to be really hungry. I became desperate for any help someone could give me.”
After a month I met a man who said he could “help” me. He told me he knew a man who would pay me to have sex with him. I was still so in shock and in such rage at my parents, that I accepted his offer. At 18 I sold myself for $35 and I began a life of prostitution.
PROSTITUTION
Soon I moved in with a madam and worked as a professional escort
making “very good money” (on and off for 8 years) while continuing to work
as a prostitute and exotic dancer.
At first it was exciting when men gave me money, jewelry and gifts but it soon became a life of slavery. I found herself having bizarre sex with strangers. Clients stalked me. One tried to kill me and hit me with his truck. I constantly had to lie to get out of very frightening situations.
“The whole time Jesus kept reaching out to me, but I ignored Him. I figured God wasn’t taking care of me, so I had to do whatever I could to survive.”
By 19 I was pregnant with a client’s baby and was devastated. “The reality hit me that I was pregnant from a prostitution act.” But I decided to keep my baby and at age 20, gave birth to my first daughter, Tiffany.
I maintained my lifestyle of prostitution and dancing, but the pressure was overwhelming. I turned to alcohol, cocaine and other drugs to cope. My young daughter suffered terribly.
“Tiffany grew up a sad little girl who was neglected and whose innocence was often violated.” “I even gave Tiffany a beeper and made her go to the park while I pulled tricks. She was only four years old.”
I cried out to God often, desperate for an answer to my wrecked life. I felt guilty for my lifestyle but just couldn’t break the cycle. “I began to look at myself as a total and complete failure. I lost all self worth and hated myself for being a horrible mother. “Many times I cried out to Jesus to help me, promising that if He did, I would serve Him. I sat in the ruins and ashes of my life wondering, where is my Jesus?”
But I was addicted to the money of my profession and my sin only got worse.
PORN ACTRESS
At 24 I was introduced to the adult film industry by friend promising “easy
money.” “I figured it was more legal than prostitution, so why not,” I said.
I went to the studio, did one amateur porn movie and was immediately promoted to professional films with some of the most famous porn stars.
Looking back, “There was a satanic anointing on me to do those films. It’s not something that the ‘average’ person could do without it.”
All the while a battle still raged in me and when I was nominated for the best new rising porn star in the adult film industry, I knew I had “gone too far.”
The last straw was when I caught herpes and I wanted to end me life. “I tried overdosing on pills, slicing my wrists and drinking myself to death, but it seemed no matter what I did, I couldn’t die. I was mad at God, mad at myself and hated my parents." “There never seemed to be any break from the pain or any help to come along. I would cry out to Jesus for hours and give up my whole lifestyle, only to find that within a week I would be right back in the vicious cycle of sin.”
I felt hopeless and was caught in the industry’s vicious and unforgiving claws. After I became infected with herpes, I quietly left the porn industry, but went back to prostitution to survive.
MARRIAGE
In 1994 I met Garrett at a bar. “We became best friends and hung out all the
time together. “We’d talk about life and one day we both
brought up Jesus.”
(Read more about our wonderful marriage click here.)
Garrett knew I was a prostitute and a drunk. “I never met any man like Garrett. He loved me and saw something in me despite my ugliness.” “He wanted to be a friend to a prostitute. He reminded me so much of Jesus.”
The whole time God was in their midst, working through each other’s pain (Garrett grew up in a Christian home and fell away from God due to his parents’ divorce).
On February 14, 1995, Garrett and I got married at city hall. “We knew God had put us together so we got married and turned back to Jesus.”
I quit prostituting, but after Garrett lost his job we had to go on welfare.
“Every-thing seemed to get worse and the temptation for me to go back to the old lifestyle in order to support us was over-whelming.”
Garrett joined the Army and returned from basic training a changed man with a new lease on life, no longer addicted to drugs. I was still a mess with years of healing ahead of her. I soon found out I was pregnant with my second child.
After Teresa was born I dove into a dark depression (post-partum) and reached to alcohol for help instead of God.
“I ended up visiting the Army mental health clinic regularly where I was prescribed Zoloft, sleeping pills and lithium for being bipolar, with impulse control disorder, alcohol dependence and PSTD.”
DELIVERANCE
I was involved with church and seriously working on my relationship with
God, but I just couldn’t break the cycle of addiction. “I still had to face
the demons of my past in order to step into my future.”
For the next two years I battled alcoholism and nothing I tried seemed to help. In 2000, I had a “divine intervention” with God and He spoke to me loud and clear, “The next time you drink, you will die.”
This revelation hit me so powerfully that to this day I has never touched another drink.
“We returned to Washington from Texas after six months and I was totally free from alcohol and cigarettes.”
Attending a powerful church in Tacoma, “I did have to go through several hard years of grieving and healing from the devastation of my past. I had to fight the good fight of faith by applying biblical principles in the Word of God to everything. When Satan would remind me of all the old porn movies, I would remind him that I was this new creature who never did porn movies. Whatever I had to overcome, I would read what God’s Word said about it and that settled it for me. He has completely restored me. I am totally free from drugs, alcohol, bad memories, mental illness, sexual trauma, guilt from the past and everything from the old life. He even healed me from the non-curable disease herpes.”
“Yes, God took a porn star and prostitute and made a champion out of her. He cleaned me up and taught me how to be a great mom, a loving wife and a minister. He restored my health, my mind and most of all He gave me a new heart.
PORN FILMS – LAST FRONTIER
I says that as a prostitute I could have gotten killed, gone to jail
or even prison, but I could choose my clients who would spend money on
me for meals, clothes, jewelry, etc. I says the porn industry is much
worse and I calls it the devil’s final frontier because it is only about
money and evil. I says it is all illusion like a magic show with the
audience never knowing what is going on behind the scenes. The scenes on the set of a hard core porn film often involve one woman
and six men, all of whom are doing degrading acts to the woman. And then the
director will call “freeze” and they have to hold those poses for five
minutes while the lights are adjusted. There is no intimacy and
it is all mechanical and beastly. Often the women are vomiting off the set
and most of the actors are doing drugs and alcohol.
I spent two years performing in hard core porn and was in 20 films.
When I did my first adult film something very “dark” came over her. And the devil told
me, “See I, I will make you famous and THEN
everyone will love you.”
PORN AFFECTS MARRIAGES
I wonder why you would want marriage advice from the “mentally
ill and physically diseased?” According to stats, over 66 percent of the
porn actors carry the herpes virus with many having Chlamydia and seven
percent being HIV positive. It is standard to have sexual diseases in the
porn industry.
HER WEB SITE MINISTRY
Eighteen months ago the Lord woke me up and told me to put
my testimony on line. At that time I had no idea of what I call the “porn
pandemic.” I am the only former porn actress that I know that
is publicly speaking out as a committed Christian. Now I gets thousands of
hits each month on my site – many from sex addicts and many from Christians
– even from ministers.
I am most concerned that the Church seems to be ignoring
the problem. The Church needs to wake up. Satan is smart, so he goes after
the next generation. I has recently ministered to 400 youth from ages
12 to 23. Even these kids in middle school have gone to church leaders, but
they are not prepared to minister to the deep needs. All they can say is,
“I’ll pray for you.” I says there is power available to fight satan.
CLICK HERE TO GET TO KNOW JESUS FOR YOURSELF He can change your life!
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