Soutch Carolina- A few brave souls ventured into the front few rows of the Aiken Community Playhouse Sunday evening, the rest taking refuge toward the back of the auditorium.
On stage was not your typical playhouse performance. Michael Leahy, a self-proclaimed “former sex addict,” stood ready to discuss the dangerous effects of pornography with the audience of nearly overwhelmed church-goers and parents.
“It is a sensitive topic,” said Pastor Darrell Morgan of Southwind Fellowship, who was the one who brought Leahy, and his “Porn Nation — The Naked Truth” presentation to Aiken.
Dressed in jeans and a dark sweater, Leahy shared with the audience countless statistics about the proliferation of pornography: The average person is exposed to pornography at the age of 12; they encounter 14,000 pornographic images each year; the porn industry makes more money than professional baseball, basketball and football combined.
In between video clips of interviews with sex addicts and psychologists, Leahy told his own “every-man story” of addiction.
He spoke of how his first experience with pornography was at the age of 11 and how his obsession with the “high that pornography provides” caused him to see women as “inanimate objects with the sole purpose of pleasing men.”
Ultimately, he said, that addiction is what cost him his marriage of 15 years and his job.
Leahy’s presentation was professional and engaging, a likely result of the past several years he has spent touring the country delivering it at more than 75 colleges and to a dozen communities.
While the majority of Sunday’s audience was decidedly older than his typical college-aged crowd, they seemed to grow more comfortable with the sensitive subject matter as the presentation progressed.
“There is worse out there,” said Jeff Moorehead, a member of the River For Life Church who was in attendance. Despite being “caught off-guard” by the suggestive nature of some of the video, Moorehead said he has seen worse while flipping through television channels. “I just wish more people would have come out; more people should see it.”
With around 40 people at the first presentation and another 20 at the second, attendance seemed to be a slight disappointment to organizers, who knew they were fighting an uphill battle.
“It’s a hard thing to invite people to,” said Bryon Hack, a member of Southwind Fellowship.
“We’re praying that those that need to be here will be here,” Morgan said.
There will be another presentation today at 7 p.m. for college students on the USC Aiken campus in the Business and Education Gymnasium .