from www.theprovince.com – In an epic battle of bibles versus boobs, a Surrey mom is taking her anti-porn crusade into a notorious epicentre of sin: the Taboo sex show in Vancouver.
Amanda Carrasco [pictured left] is spreading the message of Jesus’s love for everyone — even porn stars and smut addicts.
Carrasco and three co-religionists from the U.S.-based XXX Church spent Thursday evening unboxing 2,700 copies of the Jesus Loves Porn Stars bible to distribute from their booth at the show, which runs through the weekend at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
“You come by on Sunday, they’ll be gone,” says Carrasco, 32, a married mother of three.
The porn-star bibles are in fact just an excerpt — the Book of John, chosen because it represents God’s love, Carrasco says.
Helping her share the word is Denise Hearn, 25, of Calgary [pictured right], who teaches kids in high school and junior high about healthy relationships.
“I think pornography basically provides a skewed understanding of relationships,” Hearn says. “It’s often sort of animalistic, devoid of care for the other person, and also generally subjugating to women and sometimes violent.”
To be sure, it’s more than boobs Carrasco and Hearn must contend with. All around the vast hall, female and male models vamp and cavort in outfits that may consist of only a thin coat of paint.
There are oceans of lube, vibrators in sizes and shapes that beggar belief, skateboards embossed with near-naked ladies. There’s a device advertised as “The Future of Male Masturbation,” which I’d describe, but believe me, you don’t want to know. As for the “Clone-A-Willy-Kit,” well, I was afraid to get too close.
But though Carrasco’s opposed to the sex industry, she says she’s not shocked by what’s on offer from more than 150 vendors at Taboo.
“I go to the mall and there’s floor-to-ceiling pictures of half-naked women,” she says. “The porn stuff’s not that different.”
Her goal? “We’re not trying to shut down the industry. We’re just trying to show people that there is something better. Porn is very destructive. It becomes like a drug. It can also lead to things like child porn.”
She offers to connect people in the sex industry with resources to help them get out, and to connect porn addicts with resources to get clean. And, she says, neither she nor the Lord are passing judgment on anyone.
“Jesus loves them regardless of their connection to pornography,” she says.
That message resonates with Kristin Gibson, a 19-year-old makeup student wearing little more than body paint, at a booth promoting the New Image College of Fine Arts.
“I like that it’s OK to sin, and sinning isn’t bad, sinning isn’t naughty and frowned upon by God,” says Gibson, whose interpretation may not fit exactly with Carrasco’s.
Show organizers welcome the presence of the XXX Church, says “Sarah Moanies,” the master of ceremonies.
“We’re trying to create a forum and a space where there’s a little bit of everything for everybody,” she declares through glittery scarlet lips.
“But if you’re into bestiality, you gotta go to the Agri-Comm.”