Can you picture the chairman of General Motors sitting at his desk, surfing the Web for "hot chicks," "lonely housewives" and other XXX porn sites? Me neither.

But picture this: GM is the only auto company in the world that peddles porn - and we're not talking about the Pontiac Aztek or the Chevy Vega I had that couldn't wait to shed its sheet metal.

GM owns Hughes Electronics, which owns DirecTV, which offers hard-core porn that could be prosecuted in court, according to the Religious Alliance Against Pornography and the National Coalition for the Protection of Families and Children.

AT&T surrenders

"In fact, they sell material that would not be allowed in corporate boardrooms and that would get employees fired if they were viewing it in the workplace," said founder and chairman Jerry Kirk of Cincinnati. "These corporations do not want their dirty little secret known by their customers and the public at large.

"They can keep their good name, or they can sell pornography, but they cannot do both."

His strategy: Drag GM and other Fortune 500 companies out of the billion-dollar porn closet.

It worked with AT&T. Kirk and his alliance pressured AT&T Chairman David Dorman to dump Liberty Media, which provided porn to hotels. "We worked with AT&T for 10 years," Kirk said. This month, Dorman surrendered: "They are out of the porn business," Kirk said.

One officer at AT&T told Kirk he was finally convinced that porn is not victimless.

The next target is GM. Sample letters intended for GM dealerships say:

"Despite numerous attempts, GM has stubbornly refused to eliminate its involvement in this harmful and exploitive industry. ... I also plan to use my sphere of influence to tell others in Cincinnati and across the nation about GM's corporate irresponsibility because pornography is addictive in nature and contributes to the destruction of young people and families."

Meanwhile, Cincinnati's Citizens for Community Values is attacking the retail side of the porn empire.

Hotels pull the plug

In less than a year, CCV and local prosecutors have persuaded 15 local hotels, including seven in Kentucky this month, to stop selling porn movies. Hotels in Warren County, Newport, Butler County and Kenton County have pulled the plug on porn. Hamilton County is next, said CCV leader Phil Burress.

"We're on the cutting edge," he said. "The leadership is all coming out of Cincinnati. Our goal is to get the white-collar pornographers out of the porn business, because if it ever becomes mainstream and acceptable, we've all lost the battle."

CCV is getting calls for help "non-stop" from all over the country, he said. "There are people who say get with it and leave it alone, but we believe the movement is coming back our way because of the harm this causes.

"This is a culture war if we've ever seen one."

And Cincinnati is leading the assault on the outskirts of porn Baghdad.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.