When people leave porn for Jesus, as my former colleague Wayne Lewis (aka Wankus) did, it is a radical switch rather than a progression to a different way of thinking. For me, this casts doubt on both porn and Jesus.
Porn can be an extreme lifestyle if you let it be that way, and the only way to get out of such lifestyles once they stop working for you is to do an about face. Enter the In His Presence non-denominational church in Woodland Hills.
“Porn was beating me up,” Lewis says in an interview. “I was getting sick.”
Claiming that it wasn’t so much the performing that did him in but the producing (“I’m creating this – I’m saying ‘Hey, this is great‘”), Lewis accepted an invitation to attend a service of the not-your-father’s-Christian-church and was saved.
“It was a warm, oozing – something,” Lewis says as inspirational music (i.e. not “UnFAITHful Secrets“) played in the background.
I knew Wankus for five years. He was a kind, frenetic, drug-addled, ball-busting, often hilarious personality who was most at home when he had a forum to expend his energy. These forums included (the former) KSEXRadio, (the former) RudeTV, and Porn Star Karaoke, which he cofounded and hosted – expertly – for several years.
Wankus was born in New Jersey and worked at local radio and voiceover gigs before he found himself in porn, and the lifestyle suited him. Perhaps too much. After bouncing through several entertaining but failed adult projects – Wankus always worked for other people – and after breaking up with his fiancee, the performer Tyler Faith, Lewis indicates that he hit bottom.
My friend Alison Hart sent me the Youtube link right around the time I was wondering, “Whatever happened to Wankus?”
To watch him tweaking about Jesus in the same way he would about Mika Tan three years ago (of course this is high praise for Mika Tan), makes being born again look less like salvation than a more reputable box to put one’s craziness in.
Wankus did not immediately respond to these questions I sent him a few days ago:
When people are born again, or find God, or rediscover spirituality, the story is often reported as a 180 degree reaction, like “I was on crack but then I found God.” I imagine that people go (back) to church for all sorts of reasons. But I wanted to ask if your recent church activities could be characterized as a reaction to porn or your reaction to the lifestyle that you led while in porn, or if you see a difference there?
For example, I know a lot of cops who do a lot of bad things. Things that would make the crackiest crackster blush. And some got religion. But the story didn’t become “I was a cop but then I found God.”
I am not a porn apologist, and I believe porn can be harmful to certain personalities. Now that I have watched “The Wire,” I feel the same way about inner city schoolteachers. But I think to be “saved from porn” is an unfair characterization; I want to know if Wankus thought that porn itself was the problem.
To see the former Wankus capering through his In His Presence videos is to believe that the guy behind KSEX’s famous blowjob contests is still his old self, except sober and no longer a paid shill for (KSEX sponsor) CumWipes. We watch as he and a team of fellow evangelists preach to commuters at the North Hollywood Metro Station.
“People act like you’re invading their privacy when you’re offering them Eternity,” says Lewis. What is odd is that this is the same voice he used to chide KSEX listeners about jerking off over the phone.
One thing is clear: there’s a scarcity of jobs for people with Wankus’s talent and energy in porn, and Jesus looks much better on a resume.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: RudeTV sprouts from the grave of KSEX;
See also: Wayne Lewis’s YouTube channel
I watched the entire video and at the end Wankus says he is bringing porn stars to church, getting them saved and they are leaving the business. Let’s just hope for our sake that they were old porn stars that were ugly and we wanted them off camera anyway. The artist formerly known as Wankus must be stopped before he convinces someone like Jesse Jane or Eva Angelina to attend his church.
Interesting perspective Gram. You definitely always had great wit. However, in this case, it’s just a bunch of assumed mumbo jumbo based on a 90 second edited testimonial that doesn’t even closely describe what’s going on in my life.
And no. I wasn’t being rescued from porn (albeit most need to be), I was being rescued from myself. I take full responsibility, as I allowed myself to sink lower and lower into a lifestyle that goes completely against who I was designed to be.
And yes, radical is how Jesus works. When we’re at the lowest of our low, we’re finally not living in our own little 15 minutes of fame…there’s no one left to listen to, we finally hear is voice and then we realize that trying to do this “life thing” on our own just never truly works out. Completely joy, love and fulfillment is not achievable without GOD.
So I reached out to Jesus and asked Him to prove Himself real.
And HE did…big time. And continues to daily, so much that I now have a genuine interactive relationship with Him.
You’ll never understand this. You’ll mock it (as I used to day and night–even in scrips I wrote in movies)….but I’m here to tell you…HE is real. He loves you and if you seek Him, He will show Himself to you and become a true presence in your life.
And it’s the best high I ever had!
Love ya bro. Hope things are goin well for ya!
W
Wayne, it is great to hear you are happy. In the end, that is all that counts, no matter how you get there (unless you’re killing people). I remember you very fondly.
Wayne good for you brother, no matter what, you and Sam go down in history as being the best neighbors of my life! I am proud of you brother!
One more step and you’ll step into the truth. Islam.