Porn Nation: Campus Crusade sponsors sex addiction talk at University of Chicago

Students seldom leave Campus Crusade for Christ outreaches wishing they'd heard more about transsexual porn.

But that's what University of Chicago sophomore Rosemary Powers thought Oct. 1 following "Porn Nation," an evening campus lecture by recovered sex addict Michael Leahy on the dangers of pornography.

While organizers felt the event, sponsored by several Christian ministries, succeeded in broadening students' view of what is and isn't pornographic, some students said they left "Porn Nation" feeling cold. Their thoughts highlight some of the obstacles that Christian outreach groups like Crusade face on elite campuses.

Having seen the "loud" posters for the event around campus, Powers, a 20-year-old English major, went to "Porn Nation" expecting an academic discussion of new, progressive forms of pornography.

Instead, she joined more than 80 students in listening while recovered sex addict and Christian convert Michael Leahy detailed pornography's negative impact on his life and explained his decision to take up religion.

"I thought it was going to be feminist theory," she said. "I didn't realize who organized it. I should have known."

Leahy spoke for 90 minutes. In addition to telling the story of how he lost his wife and sanity to sexual addiction, he used video clips to present pornography-use, statistics and comments from psychologists, media authorities and other former sex addicts. Leahy has spoken on over 75 college campuses in the last two years. He presented at seven other colleges in the Chicago area between Oct. 30 and Nov. 1.

During his talk, Leahy argued that the growing prevalence of sexual imagery in the media leads people into "sex syndrome,"a desensitization towards sexuality that poses a grave danger to Americans today, especially on college campuses where he said "porn is the norm."

Like many at the talk, Powers said she found Leahy's story compelling but was turned off by his old-fashioned values.

"Women probably are looking at more porn but I don't know how to think about that idea when it's coming from a regressive view of feminity," Powers said. "The talk seemed to be informed by a very regressive, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, perspective."

Meanwhile several others felt the talk spent too much time making claims about the danger of overexposure to pornography and not enough time backing them up.

Amr Gabber, 20, appreciated Leahy's willingness to discuss how sexual addiction led to the destruction of his marriage but was disappointed by the intensely personal focus of the event. He felt the speaker went too far with many of his claims. "He was giving facts but not context," he said. "Are there statistics, are there organizations working on this?"

Owen Aronson, 22, took issue with the very idea that sex can be addictive. "I know some people for whom it's a real problem but think this is a fairly extreme case," he said. "For our generation it's something we kind of normalize."

Aronson and Gabber also both disagreed with Leahy likening sex to drug use as an addictive activity. "To say that sex is as addictive as crack or meth is more or less hyperbole," Gabber said. "He kept saying, 'Sex is all around us. Sex is all around us.' But he didn't problematize it enough to get me interested."

Near the end of his presentation, before discussing his own Christian experiences and their role in his recovery from addiction, Leahy gave his audience a four-minute break. He invited people who didn't want to hear his religious views to leave if they liked. While Gabber, Aronson and a handful of others slipped out, Powers and about seventy others stayed to hear his invitation to faith.

"I stayed because I'd invested enough time already," said Powers. "I felt the Christianity had been so pervasive during the first part and wanted to hear what he actually had to say."

Andy Brandt is the Campus Crusade staff member who brought Leahy to Chicago at the cost of $8000. He felt the response to Leahy's talk was "pretty positive" though he acknowledged the event would have worked better had students been able to interact with the speaker. "We got one response card from a student that said "This is a Socratic school. Take questions," he said.

Despite the criticisms, Brandt felt the event succeeded in getting students to rethink their definitions of pornography and will now begin following up with students who filled out response cards. Those who requested more information at the event will receive an article written by Leahy and information on Bible studies on campus according to Brandt.

"The U of C student is different from any other college student in Chicago," Brandt said. "[Leahy] can't tailor his presentation to every student. Students at other campuses probably aren't as interested in that kind of content and that's one of the unique and really special things about all U of C students."