After that last blog entry I was feeling pretty down. I stepped back from the computer and said, “God, this is not going very well. I need help.”

I fixed myself two egg sandwiches and got back online. The second link I clicked on Craigslist sounded interesting. I made a phone call and talked at length to the owner of the company offering the position. He made me an offer on the spot and wants me there in a week to start.

I’ll be a finance manager for an auto dealership.

This is, of course, much less than I’m used to making. But it will allow me to take care of my son. Try telling me that God’s not helping me.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Craig’s List. Late last night and all of this morning has been spent reading through the jobs section. To be honest, it’s rather frustating. I’m willing to relocate, so I’ve been searching city by city, starting with places closer to my son.

I’m not stuck on being a photographer. My ideal job will include something that involves a bit of travel. That’s one of the things I liked about producing porn: we traveled all across the country.

I realize “my ideal job” may not be what I’ll find. The goal is to do something I can live with and still afford to pay my ex-wife enough child support to keep her going. Being able to make my car payments would be nice as well. They’re both due.

LINKS:

Someone made a comment to my last blog entry that said:

You said you would archive [this blog] with the old links so it wouldn’t hide your past…but what about people who go to the archive to read your story (because maybe they are struggling to break free too) and then they have those links staring them in the face? So, hey, its your blog, and God will lead you to the best decision for you, but I thought I would point out that counter point. God bless.

Here’s my thoughts on that: I think everyone should take responsibility for themselves. In the soon-to-be archived section of my blog, the links are no easier to click on than those found with a simple Google search. Anyone who uses a computer knows how to type any porn related term into any search engine and find millions of results. I may reverse my decision to leave the links up in the future. But for now I want my “history” to be readily available.

CHURCH TONIGHT:

Please don’t think I’m being negative. To be honest, I was very happy all day and was a bit excited at the prospect of going to church after asking God back into my life. I tried to remain so throughout tonight’s service. But, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, I made a promise to my father to remain true to myself and to sugar coat nothing while on this journey, so I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. Here goes…

Church tonight really annoyed me. It’s like I never left. The same songs are being sung. The same things are being said in sermons. It’s just one more person parroting what everyone before him has said in every church service since the beginning of time.

Why must we sing about how great God is, over and over? I know, I know. God wants to hear our praises. This doesn’t make all that much sense to me but I’ll accept your word for it. As one of God’s children, I think of my relationship to him a bit like my relationship with my own son. I want my son to think I’m great and all, but he doesn’t have to tell me over and over and over and over every day for the rest of his life. In fact, I’d think he was a bit weird if he did so…

Seriously, now. Churches wonder why so many “fall away”. I’ll let ya in on one big reason: most churches sing stupid songs that don’t “get to” a person. Know what I mean? One song tonight literally repeated “God is so good” over and over. Wow! That moves me about as much as watching paint dry and almost as much as watching a snail crawling a wall. I mean, what exactly is the point of repeating that phrase for 20 minutes? I don’t get it.

And why must the same rhetoric come out of every preacher’s mouth in every service in every church around the world? Most of the people in church have been there since they were very young. We’ve all heard the stories. 45 times or so. Why tell it again? And why use the exact same verbage as every other preacher? Does God demand only certain words be used when proclaiming his truth?

When the church was singing tonight I was thinking to myself, “I need to start writing songs that people actually enjoy singing!” When the preacher was preaching I was thinking, “Ya know, there’s a big need for interesting preachers in today’s churches! If I ever get up in front of people I’m going to try telling them something that actually helps them in real life situations. Or at least come up with something that INTERESTS them!”

To be fair, on a “challenge” from my ex-wife I went to this same church not too terribly long ago and was impressed. There was a different speaker and for some reason the music was pretty good. I don’t know what happened tonight, but I’ll give them another chance or two. After that I’ll start visiting other area churches to see if I can find one where I “fit”. So far I’m having much more success talking one on one with other Christians or just driving alone in my truck praying.

(this is being reposted from my old blog)

It’s now been almost a week since I’ve given up porn to surrender my life to God again. And what a week it’s been. Several people have been supportive. Others… not so much. To put it mildly.

Surprisingly, some of the biggest supporters of this decision have come from within the adult industry itself. At some point in the future I’ll make a blog entry that consists of nothing but reactions from others. I think you’ll find that one quite interesting.

Belinda and I have a lot of talking to do, that’s for sure. She thinks I’ve gone “temporarily insane”. But she loves me and is desperate to know what happens next. For now I’ll say no more about the two of us.

Each day I’ve run the range of emotions from being very happy to feeling very sad. What surprises me, however, is that I have no desire to go backwards.

Right now it’s after 3 am and I can’t sleep. My mind is racing. I had photo shoots scheduled last week and cancelled them all. Cancelling my source of income brings lots of scary thoughts to mind that aren’t conducive to sleeping well.

Of course, my dad was happy to hear that I’ve given up porn and am asking God to be a part of my life again. He had some surprising advice:

“Don’t let anyone talk you into becoming ‘religious’. God doesn’t ask that of you. Stay true to yourself. We need to get together soon and have some long talks.”

This blog will soon change. I’ll archive it in its current form, but the new template will have the porn links removed. On the archived version of the blog the links will remain. That, my friends, is part of “being true to myself”. I don’t want to feel like a hypocrite and I am not going to hide what I’ve done in my past.

(reposted from my old blog, where I used to discuss stories from my life as a porn producer)

Don’t you hate it when people politicize things and make grandiose speeches to get across even the most mundane topics of conversation? So do I. So let’s see if I can avoid that for you. I’ll really, truly make an honest effort and try to cut the crap and be straight forward with you. After all, my constant readers, you’ve stuck with me for so long. You deserve to hear what I have to say without the extra serving of bullshit.

I’m scared. I really, truly am. Terrified. Petrified. All of those things. Why is that? I’ll tell ya:

I’m quitting the adult business.

I’m weary. This has been a tough year. Mostly because I’ve been struggling with some “personal demons” (as Hollywood so artistically puts it) within myself. Perhaps, over time, I’ll reveal more of those details as the others involved in my life grow more comfortable with my apparent need to speak publicly of private matters.

I’ve always questioned the faith my father tried to teach me. There are so many things about Christianity that just make no sense to me. Right here in this blog you’ve seen me ridicule various aspects of it. But, like many of you probably do, I still pray from time to time. It just feels good once in awhile, doesn’t it? Even if you’re not entirely sure anyone’s listening. It’s a psychological thing, ya know?

This past week I finally decided to stop fighting some of the turmoils I’ve had inside. I prayed the following prayer, almost word-for-word:

“God, you know that I have trouble believing the sacrifice was ever truly made. But I want to accept it anyway and hope that you somehow help me reconcile those doubts. I’m inviting you back into my life.”

At that point I turned on K-Love (Christian radio station) in my car. This song was the very first song that played. I am not really sure why I mentioned that part of the story because, to be absolutely honest with you, I’m a bit embarrassed by so many parts of it. I’ve ranted against Christianity for so long now that it feels almost hypocritical to be talking about Donny praying and listening to Christian radio.

Part of the “blame” for me coming to this decision must be layed on the Pastors of XXXChurch.com. In fact, JR flew out from Michigan to spend a day at my house and is currently sleeping in my guest room as I type this (more on that in a future blog entry).

I feel a huge sense of relief and happiness for the first time in a LONG, LONG time. This blog’s not going anywhere. I’ll have to change the title to “Donny’s Ramblings: Diary of a FORMER Pornographer” or something similar, but I’ll still be blogging. And I don’t intend to remove any prior entries, as I think that would take away from my story.

There’s a lot more detail to share with you, but right now I’m dead tired and need to get some sleep. Earlier in this blog entry I mentioned being scared, and I still haven’t told you exactly why. Here it is:

At this point I don’t know where I’m going, what I’m doing, or what the future holds.

That terrifies me.