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- MONTGOMERYVILLE - Some church
members may have been surprised yesterday to
find the daughter of Hustler
magazine founder Larry Flynt at their
morning service.
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- They may have been even more surprised that Tonya Flynt-Vega
was the featured speaker.
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- But her words flew in the face of everything her famous
father stands for: She has started a foundation dedicated to stopping
pornography
and child abuse.
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- "My father says there are
no victims of pornography,"
Flynt-Vega told the congregation of
Crossroads Community Church. "I
say I'm living proof that there
is. . . . Pornography is an addiction.
I was addicted to it, my
father's addicted to it. It's just like a drug."
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- Flynt-Vega, 34, has said her
father's addiction to pornography
led to his sexually abusing her. She
formed the Tonya Flynt Foundation
under the belief that sexual abuse
and rape are directly linked to pornography.
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- Based in Jacksonville, Fla.,
the nonprofit foundation
will promote education on the subject. It has
a Web site (<http://www.tonyaflynt.orgwww.tonyaflynt.org)
and
advocates Internet blocking devices and research of pornography and
sexual abuse.
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- Flynt, who became even more well-known with the 1996
movie The
People vs. Larry Flynt, has denied abusing his daughter.
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- Church leaders
invited Flynt-Vega to speak to start off
their new support group for
addicts, called OASIS. They said pornography
was addictive, just like
drugs or alcohol and was becoming more destructive
to
communities.
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- "Right up the road is a topless bar. A couple of
minutes
from the bar is an adult bookstore. It's right here," said
Dan
LaValla, a church leader who invited Flynt-Vega to the church after
hearing her on a radio show. A therapist, he said he regularly sees
marriages
threatened because one spouse is getting hooked on
pornography.
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- "With the explosion of the Internet, it's becoming
more of
an issue," he said. "It's in corporate America, it's
in
communities. I think she'll have some tips on how we can deal with it
in our own community."
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- One goal of the new foundation is to prove a link
between
child abuse and pornography. Flynt-Vega cited research by Mary
Anne Layden
of the University of Pennsylvania that links sexual crimes
and pornography.
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- "For 15 years, I didn't have one case of sexual
violence
that didn't involve pornography," Layden told church members.
"The images are implanted in the brain permanently. It's a distorted
set of beliefs that miseducates people."
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- Flynt-Vega told the responsive
congregation of more than
100 people that she is living proof.
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- Growing up as the
daughter of a poor cocktail waitress
and a millionaire, most of the
year her bedroom was her mother's walk-in
closet, she said. But a few
times a year, she would be whisked into the
world of her father, where
private jets and naked women were the norm.
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- "He saw me infrequently.
He seduced me, manipulated
me and molested me. He taught me that was
love," Flynt said. "I
can't tell you the damage that these
experiences did to my body, to my
sexuality."
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- Later, she said, she turned to
drugs and became promiscuous
before finding faith in God. She now uses
her famous name to denounce her
father's actions and lifestyle.
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- "You know what's
happening to us?" she said.
"We're becoming desensitized as a
society, as a community. People's
values are twisted.
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- "I like to tell
people that pornography is not about
free speech. I'm using my First
Amendment right to speak out against pornography.
We have to stand up
as communities and say we're not going to tolerate
it."
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