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Shelley Lubben Was A Porn Star I speak with her Wednesday afternoon, 9/14/05. Between 1993-94, Shelley made about 30 porn movies under the name Roxy. Now she's a born-again Christian. Shelley: "It was mostly the women who were bitchy, although there were some nice ones like Bionca, who was very kind to me." Luke: "Do people recognize you from your work?" Shelley: "No. I don't look anything like I used to." Luke: "Did you stay in touch with anyone from the industry?" Shelley: "No. Just recently, I contacted a few people. I wanted to reach out with the love of God. Keep it real. Keep it simple. Rodney Moore told me it was ok if I wanted to believe in Santa Claus." I send Shelley to JCsgirls.com. Shelley: "Oh, how cool! They're so cute! I just think it's cool that it's not some frumpy Bible-thumpers. It's hot chicks. I'm putting together a team of girls like Charlie's Angels. We're thinking about calling it God's Angels." Luke: "You wrote that porn actors and actresses are desperately unhappy. Do you hold by that?" Shelley: "I hung out with them. They were so desperate for company. They were always saying, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I was a prostitute at the same time. I'd been doing that for years before porn. I ran a prostitution house. I was really into the money. If we weren't making money, I didn't want to party. "[Porners] would be [desperate]: 'We're going to have a party and we're all going to be here. Can you come?' Geez, these people must have no friends, no life. "I've seen girls vomiting in a bathroom after a scene. I see 'em getting drunk and smoking Marlboros around the corner from the set. It's nasty. It's gross when there's catered food and rags full of you-know-what on just around the corner from the catered food. It's really disgusting." Luke: "For some people, porn has helped them get straight. I've known people who were drug addicts [such as Chloe] and they came into the industry and found a substitute family and it helped them kick their drug addiction." Shelley: "I totally agree with that. If they didn't have anyone, and you can see why I don't like religion a whole lot, they had to go find another family. The porn industry is one big family. Camraderie. Because they're outcasts. "I was so new, I was also working as an LA Mermaid. We got to do the Oscar party one year at Chasens. We were hostesses. They didn't know I did porn. Some [porners] wanted to get into the Oscar party and they wouldn't let 'em. I said, 'I'll try to get you in.' I was leading these triple lives. They were outcasts. Hollywood was like, no, no, no. "I had clients who were Hollywood producers. I don't know what it is like now, but back then [porners] were not welcome into the Hollywood community. So [porners] are like this little family. They're always having barbecues. It's like a church barbecue only people are naked and playing volleyball. "Not everyone could be trusted in the family. We all said that we were going to stay faithful. 'I'll just sleep with you. I'll just work with you.' And we'd all go sleep with a bunch of other people. It's a sick, twisted family. "A lot of that time I was intoxicated. I'd have to see the movie to remember. I'm looking at some of the movie covers to see if that helps me remember so that way I can validate... I care about helping people. If this helps me help people, then I'll do it. I'm at the point where you could send me an anal shot, and I'd say, it's no big deal. I'm totally healed. "The church I go to, Valley Bible Fellowship, is really cool. The Christian community has been very supportive. Sexindustrysurvivors.com just asked me to revise their 12-step program. I'm going to try to hold workshops in the San Fernando Valley helping women recover [from sex work]. "My husband totally supports me. We're a really strong family. I have three daughters. That was my main reason I didn't want to come out but God told me, 'Either you trust me or you don't.' They go to Christian schools. I let the schools know who I am and what I'm about. If they don't like it, my kids don't need to go there, but they all support me." Luke: "I know some porn stars [such as Papillon and Robert Lombard sends his kid to a Jewish school] who send their kids to a Christian school." Shelley: "I think that's cool. Everybody thinks they know God so well, but I think people can even come to Jesus through porn stars. "God hung out with me when I did those movies. He drove me nuts. I was like, 'Leave me alone.' I can't tell you how many times he saved me from murder and things like that. My ten near-deaths were no coincidental. He raised me up for such a time as this. "I slept with someone who slept with Marc Wallice. I came so close to AIDS. "I saw you were into Jewish theology. I'm a theology geek. I don't even know if I'm Christian or Jewish or what. We celebrate some of the Jewish holidays. My oldest daughter is really into Judaism. She wears a Star of David in a Christian school. Some of the kids make fun of her because it's a conservative community that we live in. My daughter just loves Jewish people. Her whole room, Jewish stuff everywhere. I love studying the Old Testament, the Tanach. I'm studying Hebrew. "You don't know the crazy strange way that God is going to use you. The XXXChurch. That's not what we grew up in Sunday school learning." Luke: "I think porn girls are in it for the attention." Shelley: "Money is number one. Then attention. A lot of these [Adult] entertainers I met had a lot of talent, a lot of gifts. Some of our parents said, 'We don't see anything in you.' So when the porn industry said, 'Wow! You're somebody!' We think, 'That feels so good.' All of a sudden, we're somebody. Recognition. "I tell my girls every day how awesome they are." Shelley has not seen the movie Boogie Nights. "I have not looked at anything like that in 13 years." Luke: For a lot of porners, porn is the first time they've succeeded at something. Shelley: "That was me. Now I'm succeeding at everything. No one developed me so I became my own parent with the help of God. I'm also a computer programmer and designer. "I always knew as a kid that I was intelligent but nobody saw this in me. And the porn industry saw it. I was always very dramatic as a child. I'm very competitive. Unfortunately, I did some hardcore stuff because the other girls couldn't handle it. I said, I'll do it. I'm Italian. "I was so angry. "I totally believe in the Devil and he empowered me to do a lot of things that I currently can not do. I was definitely on a weird high back then. "I only wanted to do one or two movies, but right away I just had to be the best." Luke: "It seems that for a lot of these girls, they don't have a good relationship with their father." Shelley: "Big time. That's the number one reason. I'm very careful how I bring that out on my website. I want to honor my parents. I want to live a long life. You know that law. But that is the number one reason -- my dad spent no time with me. He was into his hobbies in the garage. He would rarely say, 'I love you,' or hug me. So I went crazy for boys at a young age." Luke: "This [girl] I interviewed the other day said something shocking -- Joanna said, 'I wish my dad would've molested me. I wish my dad would've paid attention to me.'" Shelley: "Ohmigosh, that's so right on. That's hardcore. She needs to write that down. I've got to tell my husband what you said. He said damn. He said he'd die if his girl said that. "A lot of us do stuff to shock our parents. I used to call my mom drunk and say, 'I'm a lesbian.' "I couldn't clean and cook, so I never washed clothes. I had to constantly buy clothes. I had few life skills." Luke: "Some of the porn stars do it for years. Nina Hartley has been doing it for over 20 years. She loves it and she's an intelligent woman." Shelley: "Isn't that crazy? Once you do it, you become so jaded. It means nothing any longer. It took me about six years to get any kind of sexual feeling back in my body. I couldn't even feel penetration. They can say they had all these orgasms on a porn set. I never had one. "Porn is harder than prostitution, where you are treated nice if you are in the luxurious side of it. Porn was totally degrading and shattering. None of the men in prostitution treated me sexually like the men in porn did. "The men in porn were nice after the sex, but during the sex, we had to do things that I've never done in prostitution. I'd go out with Jewish men who'd take me to concerts and offered to take me to Israel. I didn't go to Israel. I regret that now because I'm a theology student. "There are so many interesting bizarre people [in porn]. I'm so non-judgmental. I see God in all of it because they are his creation. "I was thinking of going down to AIM (Adult Industry Medicine) and just saying hi. I've written Sharon Mitchell. People usually think that if you're Christian, you are against them. Not true. I don’t really like to call myself a Christian because I don't want to be associated with religious people who judge. Jesus didn’t judge. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ and God. I'm a lover. I'm really embarrassed about the Christian church as a whole. When I go down there, I just want to love them. I just want to be their friend. I just want to take them to lunch and hear their story." Chaim Amalek writes: "Given the preponderance of Jews in porn (at least behind the scenes) why do you never write about people leaving porn to return to a Torah lifestyle?" Because it doesn't happen. Why is that? Because Judaism doesn't embrace sinners as much as Christianity does. Chaim writes: "Why are Christians always returning to the Church and leaving porn behind, but not so with Jews? I guess if you are a sinner trying to turn things around and in need of help, it is better to be Christian than Jewish." I asked pornographer Rodney Moore about Shelley. He replies:
Porn Stars Finding God There's a rash of them lately: Sky Lopez. Stephanie Swift. Autumn Rayne. Aria. Aspen Brock and Anne Bissell and Sexindustrysurvivors.com. Then there's the XXXChurch (a couple of male Christian pastors who reach out) and JCsGirls.com (beautiful women who reach out). How come non-fundamentalists don't reach out? Because they don't believe enough in their religion.
Shelley Lubben (her stage name was Roxy in 1993-94) writes on her website:
Faith Does Breed Charity Atheist Roy Hattersley writes:
I got an acknowledgement in this book for my prodigious efforts on behalf of humanity. I emailed the author some questions. He replies:
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