News & Reporting

When filmmaker Sean Finnegan first considered doing a documentary on the problem of pornography, he knew he didn't want to merely cite facts and figures interwoven with sound bites from experts. He thought the best way to tell this story was to, well, tell a story – and in the case of Out of the Darkness, now available on DVD, he found a powerful one in former porn actress Shelley Lubben, who now runs a ministry helping others to escape the sex industry and find hope and healing in Christ.

"Stories matter," says Finnegan. "Most of the work done on pornography revolves around the issues of free speech and legislation, or the science behind addiction. But films are not essays or treatises. Films, like novels and poems and plays, are here to tell stories. And that is enough. If that is done well, we will, as Conrad said, gain a glimpse into the truth for which we forgot to ask.

"What stories can do for us is put faces on their topics. No matter how intense the debate around pornography becomes, the debate is really about human beings."

Finnegan aims his camera at four such humans, including two who have come out of the darkness themselves, Lubben (don't worry; this website is safe) and recovered sex addict Mark Houck. Finnegan also interviews family therapist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons and sexual revolution historian Dr. Judith Reisman, who are much more than mere "talking heads" here; Fitzgibbons and Reisman also tell stories, including one Reisman shares about a daughter who was raped. While Lubben and Houck focus more on their personal testimonies, the other two describe the culture and societal breakdown that got America into this mess – and yes, it's presented as chiefly an American problem. After all, almost 90 percent of all porn sites originate in the U.S.

Reisman gives some fascinating background about how Dr. Albert Kinsey's post-WWII sex research – including the infamous "Kinsey Reports" – sparked America's sexual revolution. She disputes Kinsey's "science" as fraudulent, ...

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