Courtney Tillia is a Christian, and part of her worship is the porn she creates.
“I was raised in a Christian cult where the views on things like sex, shame, desire, and pleasure were diametrically opposed to my current understanding of and relationship with those things,” she says. “I’m on this planet to dissolve shame for myself and others. This isn’t just work, this is a calling—God told me to become a porn star!”
Such is the life of a Christian adult content creator—two identities that appear contradictory, but are much more common than you might think.
Christianity has long been a mechanism of control over sexuality, according to Dr. Angela Jones, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Stony Brook University. “Religion, in so many ways, has restricted who people are allowed to be sexually,” Jones says. “It places restrictions on every aspect of our sexualities, our desires, behaviors, identities, relationships, and communities. It has been a powerful source of social regulation, precisely because it uses systems of sanction and shame to control people.”
But Christianity’s relationship with sex is complicated by Christians themselves. While some traditions celebrate sex and desire during marriage, others long wielded shame, morality, and religious authority to regulate sex and people’s bodily autonomy. And while some Christians preach moral “purity,” others find the lines around religion and sexuality blurry. Today, those tensions are playing out in an increasingly politicized porn landscape, where Christian nationalist efforts to restrict sexuality collide with the complications of faith, lust, and pleasure.
No one is putting those ideas to the test more than Christian porn stars.
Griselda Venum is a professional dominatrix, BDSM artist, and an Orthodox Christian. In her view, she’s a “sexy clergywoman” — a devout woman who carries out her Christian mission via sex.
“I find that in my role as a sex worker, I actually [do] spend a large portion of my energy helping people deal with shame, guilt, subconscious desire, dealing with their negative qualities, training them to be more disciplined, chaste, and useful,” Venum says. “Many of the men who come to the dungeon come for the same things people go to church for: confession, repentance, personal development, or a higher power to look for guidance. I remind them sometimes [that] I’m not God.”
Venum believes she has personal permission from God to be whomever she wants to be, including doing sex work. Because it’s hard for some to reconcile her faith and her work, Venum often has to defend her religion—something she doesn’t find particularly difficult because of that permission.
“My character and how I interact with others, and the personal development I exhibit, speak for itself. The thing about us Christians is this: we are all humans, and we are all sinners,” she says. “That is why we need God, because how else are we gonna navigate the evil, nasty parts of humanity? ‘Griselda Venum,’ in a way, is my sin personified. And being ‘Griselda Venum’ has brought much healing to my life.”
Christy Love is an ordained Christian pastor at a church in San Diego, California, and an active adult performer nominated several times for several of the highest honors in the adult entertainment industry. She, too, challenges some of the contemporary talking points around sex and religion.
“My time in adult entertainment challenged many of my assumptions about people. What surprised me most was that the people I met were not stereotypes,” Love says. “They were regular human beings with families, dreams, struggles, and stories. That experience strengthened my faith because it forced me to look beyond labels and see people the way I believe Jesus saw people—with compassion and dignity.”
For Love, sex isn’t a dirty or shameful act, rather a natural part of humanity—a belief that’s shaped her understanding of adult performance.
“I think it’s important to acknowledge that sexuality can be a positive and meaningful part of human life while also recognizing that, like anything else, it can become unhealthy when it is used to avoid deeper issues or becomes controlling,” she says.
While attitudes around watching porn have relaxed among most people, Christians included, many Christian groups position any consumption of porn as sinful and, to Love’s point, unhealthy. Christian groups often refer to viewing porn as an “addiction,” using shaky science to shame people. Award-winning trans performer Zariah Aura says shame shouldn’t be the point—the Bible says so.
“Those who follow God in a true way—without judgment, with respect, leading with love—the way God had intended us to treat others, then sex work follows those rules as well,” Aura says. “Being Christian allows for acceptance of all of God’s children and includes sex workers. We are spreading love, comfort, and do so without judgement.”
These kinds of debates about religion and sexuality have been ongoing for decades, but the problem and the beauty is that no one is really right, according to Dr. Kelsy Burke, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“Christianity is a broad religious tradition,” Burke explained. “So often in political debates, we lump Christianity in with a very particular brand: conservative Protestant evangelicals. And that group themselves tries to claim [they] speak for all of Christianity. But the reality is that it has, since its emergence 2,000 years ago, been very broad with lots of different kinds of people who have had different interpretations of the Bible and different ways of practicing their faith.”
With that in mind, “it is not outside of the realm of possibility that people could identify as Christian and work in the [adult entertainment] industry,” according to Burke.
In fact, queer content creator Fuck Buck looks directly to the Bible to reconcile his understanding of his work and religion. “Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors, and not just the ones who are easy to love,” says Buck. “He urges us to love the leper, the homeless, and the whores. No kingdom in Heaven doesn’t include the many sex workers who share their beliefs.”
