An email I received this morning from Quasarman, the former Canadian musician, now U.S. citizen pornographer, and (quite possibly) the jizz biz's wittiest practitioner, observer, and commentator reads:

"JimmyD-- Now you're famous -- I know you've been in People and on CNN but the Toronto Sun? Now I'm impressed!"

Here's what the Quaze is talking about-- an article published today, in the Sunday, September 26, 2004, Toronto Sun:

Porn-Again Christians Go Online
By Thane Burnett -- For the Toronto Sun

Porn makes for strange bedfellows.

Ask young church pastors Craig Gross and Mike Foster. Their passion for the Christ comes with a triple-X rating.

In fact, they're becoming more notorious than even their good friend and accomplice, veteran pornographer James DiGiorgio -- who is better known in the business of flesh, as simply Jimmy D.

In an upside-down world stranger than the one most porn movies take place in, Jimmy D has polished an image from his collaboration with God, while the two pastors he's worked with have been damned for it.

Gross and Foster are a new breed of Gonzo missionaries, who have taken a crusade against pornography to places many Christians can only imagine.


If that's even allowed.

The pair run the California-based anti-porn concern, XXXchurch.com. It's an online edgy sermon that's as hip and urban as a rap video -- a God-fearing site that sells itself as the world's "#1 Christian Porn Site."

Hate Mail

The space includes hate mail they've gotten, counselling for those addicted to porn and a campaign called 'Save the Kittens' -- a cheeky suggestion that God kills a cat every time someone masturbates.

They also offer X3WATCH, a service which will monitor your Web surfing, and e-mail your partner every two weeks with questionable sites you've visited.

Christians have long battled the beasts of their religion from a raised pulpit. Gross and Foster aren't afraid to get down and sleep with the lions. To help get their anti-porn message across, they rent booths in the largest adult industry trade shows in the U.S. -- they have been invited to a Toronto sex show, but they've so far declined -- but instead of blue DVDs, they hand out stacks of Bibles.

They've even rounded the sex corners of Amsterdam.

Constantly, they rub shoulders with the flesh they're fighting. And the pair have been welcomed with open arms by porn producers from around the globe.

"It's amazing how nice a lot of these people are," Gross explained by phone this week -- a California-flavoured cellphone interview that was interrupted as he ordered a white-mocha, non-fat, iced coffee while at a drive-through. "It's not a den of lions."

In fact, the porn-again world has been more Christian than many of their fellow true believers.

"We think we're doing the work of the Lord -- what Jesus would do," Gross explained.

"But there's been a lack of church response."

They have been told there should be more crosses on their Web site. They're harassed when they go on Christian radio.

"I think you're associating pornography with the church is an abomination," wrote one woman.

"Sexual issues should be kept sacred," scolded another.

But Gross, 28, counters: "What the church is doing about pornography isn't cutting it. They don't even talk about it. It's the dirty little secret."

But Christians do look at it. Or want to.

Internet Temptations

A 2002 report in Christianity Today found 51% of pastors said Internet porn was their biggest temptation. Every day, as many as 30 million people are logging onto porn Web sites -- normal people who feed their kids, worry about the car's transmission and perhaps go to church on Sundays.

There are more monthly copies of Playboy and Penthouse scrutinized than Time and Newsweek.

Half of Promise Keepers polled had looked at porn recently.

It's growth has called for a radical approach from the pastors, who aren't ready to damn those who take a look -- only offer to redirect their wayward gaze.

The pair ran a controversial public service announcement (PSA) commercial on some U.S. cable networks which featured a dwarf. The line was "Porn stunts your growth". The Little People of America Association weren't amused by the link.

Then the pastors met Jimmy D, at one of the sex shows. Their booths faced one another.

Jimmy D, and his Sinamotion Pictures, has produced such classics as Boobwatch and Coed Carwash.

The former stand-up comic, and onetime practising Catholic, offered to make another PSA earlier this year. It was a puppet show to warn kids away from porn. Jimmy's initial motivation was less than pure.

"I thought I could translate (the publicity) into business," he explained to the Sunday Sun. "But I didn't get work from it. In fact, it may have cost me work."

A father of two, he began to see the commercial he directed for XXXchurch as noble -- like keeping cigarettes and booze away from children. It created what he boasts was "the largest positive media event in the entire history of the adult industry".

Others weren't so impressed. A few fellow porn producers stepped forward to call Jimmy D a traitor to their faith. It just made the attention sweeter.

It also shined the apple of Jimmy D's public image -- a pornographer saving kids. He's made People and CNN.

Missionary Positions

Next month, he'll appear with the pastors in the documentary Missionary Positions. It follows their triple-exploits over two years. It comes with an R rating. "We had a recent screening, and there I was sitting side by side with two pornographers," said Gross.

The documentary will be submitted to the Sundance film festival, then make the rounds.

This coming week, Jimmy D expects to be back shooting his raw films. The pastors, under fire, will be trying to make them go without an audience.

"From a distance, pornography looks great," said Gross. "But close up, it's not (pretty)."

Besides, the young pastor notes: "The Devil would like to see us get trapped."

Not Jimmy D. He's just thrilled with the positive exposure his bedfellows have delivered unto him.





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