In the last year I have witnessed a
trend that I find incredibly distressing – people voluntarily
entering nude photos of themselves on the Internet. They are saving
sex tapes, sending photos of their bodies, and in general adding to
the porn industry and sex market, a market that Heidi Fleiss, the
famous madam. said was a market that is never saturated. Why??? Are
you sure you want to do that??? You already have the story of a
former Congressman who learned the hard way that this isn't the best
idea, but let me take you back to a simpler time and a larger lesson.
I hope that this will help some of us to remember that you don't
know what God has in store for you – try and be careful out there.
About thirty years ago, I was getting
my first real job and across the country a woman of humble beginnings
named Vanessa Williams was about to blast into a superstardom she
could never have really anticipated. That summer, the word around
the campfire was that we were going to have our very first black Miss
America. During the contest it was clear that the two top contenders
were both African American – incredibly beautiful and talented and
role models for brown skinned women all over the world. At that
time, that had never happened. Everyone watched that contest and
heard Vanessa Williams belt out “Happy Days Are Here Again” and
win the swimsuit competition. She was great, it was amazing and when
she won, people all over the world were doing flips and popping
champagne bottles. She represented the community and the Miss
America Pageant with verve. She was the most popular person to hold
the title, unfortunately, she was also peppered with death threats
and her security was beefed up like the Presidents. Yes, the Devil is
always busy....
Years before Vanessa Williams was the
toast of the globe, she took some nude pictures with a photographer
who took advantage of her naivete and beauty. He saw a payday and
shopped the pictures around, even though he was asked to refrain, and
be a human being – no shot of that happening. The photographer
found a willing buyer in Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse
magazine. Guccione paid the photographer a few pennies for the
pictures, placed them in Penthouse over the course of two magazines,
and made $14 million exploiting this young woman. She made a
mistake, it wasn't fatal, she hadn't killed anyone. He purposefully
humiliated her, and she was pressured to relinquish the crown. The
magazine literally sold like hotcakes, they couldn't print enough
copies to meet the demand. It was a real take down, and it seemed
that she would never recover.
Thankfully, Vanessa's beauty, talent,
and charm eventually took her beyond that tragedy on to the
superstardom she had earned and so richly deserved. She didn't know
that she would be the first black Miss America, she had no idea what
God had in store for her. But God also restored everything that she
was meant to have and more. Her tale has a happy ending, but that
chapter of despair could have been avoided.
Don't let that happen to you. One day
when I'm collecting the Academy Award for writing the Best Screenplay
or Producing the Best Picture, made the head of the Department of
Labor of the United States of America, named Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, earn the Nobel Peace Prize, receive the Congressional
Medal of Honor or the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Ah, but a man's
reach should exceed his grasp,. Or what's a heaven for?) I want to
make sure I'm not caught up like that. You don't need to recreate
all of the mistakes – you can learn from the past and benefit from
this cautionary tale.
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