Ex-porn star-turned-pastor reveals how God saved his life

Editor’s note: This article contains descriptions of sexual exploitation and abuse that some readers might find disturbing.

WASHINGTON — An ex-porn star who made over 1,000 sexually explicit films felt as if he wanted to die before surrendering his life to God, which led him down the path toward healing. 

Joshua Broome, an ex-porn star-turned-pastor and anti-sexual exploitation advocate, began starring in porn films in 2006 after headhunters in Hollywood invited him to meet with an agent. Broome says he made over 1,000 X-rated films during his six years working in the porn industry, a career that led to a painful internal battle.

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“I was struggling with suicidal ideation,” the ex-porn star told The Christian Post. “I tried to take my life multiple times. I just think it’s the reality of having been in the industry for so long,” he added.

“When you’re engaging in sex in a public setting in front of five to seven people, it becomes a commonality to you.” 

“Something that was intended to be sacred and intimate became normal, and things that should have been normal became intimate and scary to me,” Broome continued. “I could have sex in front of 10,000 people, but if you looked me in the eye and shook my hand, it was very uncomfortable for me.”

In 2013, Broome left the industry and dedicated himself to rebuilding his life, which included attending church with the woman who would eventually become his wife. The ex-porn star met his wife at the gym, and he started going to church with her after she asked him about his relationship with God. 

“I’m evidence that no matter what’s happened to you or what you’ve gone through, you can lead at a high level. There are passions and talents that you can cling to,” he said. “So whatever hope or passion that’s died because you felt like you’re disqualified because of what you did or what happened to you, God’s writing a better story.”

Broome opened up about his time working in the porn industry during a Tuesday event hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to announce the release of its latest report, “Not A Fantasy: How the Pornography Industry Exploits Image-Based Sexual Abuse in Real Life.” 

Lisa Thompson, NCOSE’s vice president of research and education, broke down how porn sites such as Pornhub, XVideos, XNXX and xHamster profit from and help fuel image-based sexual abuse. 

While this type of abuse takes many forms, NCOSE’s report defines IBSA as a “violation of persons that includes the theft, creation and distribution of sexually explicit material without the meaningful consent of the person(s) depicted, or the manipulation of non-explicit material for the purpose of making it pornographic.”

As NCOSE noted in its report, the pornography website XVideos returned 95,680 results related to the term “real voyeur.” The porn site XNXX not only returned 101,533 videos in relation to the term, but also over 18,000 “gold” videos, which users could only access with payment. 

Some of the video titles on XVideos related to the terms “voyeur” and “spying” included “Spy on women of all ages with spycam in public bathroom.” 

According to Thompson, the pornography industry typically uses terms such as “being unconscious” and “sexual assault” to categorize content, which she explained is intended to direct people’s “sexual appetites” to something non-consensual. 

“There’s tremendous power to sexually socialize the consumers of these sites, the users of this material, to look at image-based sexual abuse material as normal,” Thompson said. “It’s fetishizing abuse. That’s exactly what these pornography companies are doing.” 

The advocate also warned that the explosion of AI technology has resulted in “forged pornography,” another form of exploitation. One example of this form of exploitation involves taking a photo of someone who might have never appeared in porn before and manipulating the image into something pornographic. 

“It’s an invasion of people’s privacy, it’s fraud, it’s sexual violence, and it’s an obliteration of personal autonomy,” Thompson stated. 

The event also highlighted the impact of image-based sexual abuse on the survivors who have to live with the knowledge that an untold number of people have consumed sexually exploitative content featuring them.

Jewell Baraka, who started appearing in porn films over 30 years ago at the age of 14, told attendees that she was trafficked into doing porn. Baraka said that during the three years she made porn, she felt as if she couldn’t say no to anything. 

The survivor added that, because porn is often visual, many assume it works like a Hollywood movie, where none of the actors are actually harmed. 

“A lot of times there are real, actual human beings harmed in the making of porn,” Baraka said.

Reflecting on the first time one of her films was screened before an audience of men, Baraka said it was a “shattering moment.” The trafficking victim recalled that she ended up vomiting somewhere in the back corner during the screening. 

“It was hitting me on several levels. One, I had never seen my sexual trauma before, right? I had been abused and trafficked in prostitution, but I usually just pushed it out of my mind to survive,” Baraka stated. “But now it was recorded forever. It couldn’t be erased. It existed, and I could see it.” 

“And then on another level, I just didn’t know how broadly it would be distributed,” she added. So from then on, I knew that I didn’t know who would have seen it. And so, for the next decade, I would walk down the street looking down because I didn’t want to catch a man’s eye and wonder if he had seen it.” 

In spite of what she has endured, Baraka told attendees that she maintains hope that if she can heal from the trauma of her experience with porn and IBSA, then so can the rest of society. 

“Just seeing where I’ve come from, right? That I shouldn’t even be alive, let alone healing and free and enjoying my life,” the survivor said. “So that gives me hope for the culture that even though it’s messy, the culture can heal and get better as well.”