By Matt Nett
Special to YNOT

RICHMOND, Va. – As you might have read on the internet, a lot of people are calling on me to explain and apologize for a recent update to my Facebook page that included a screenshot from my computer. Two tabs of my browser are visible, displaying titles suggesting adult content is available on the pages being viewed in those open tabs.

To a lot of people, the fact my browser has two tabs dedicated to videos on SmutNucleus is ironclad proof I’m some sort of pervert — and even worse, as a conservative Christian and self-proclaimed “faith-based candidate,” I’m also a major hypocrite.

Offhand and without the full, crucial, explanatory context, I understand why people would believe this to be the case. Once I’ve explained how this all happened, however, I think you’ll all agree I’m being unfairly maligned by the liberal media.

First, I don’t deny those tabs are, in fact, reflective of the fact I was browsing the SmutNucleus website. My reasons for doing so, however, have nothing to do with self-stimulation or sexual arousal. No, when I set out to click around SmutNucleus this morning, I was doing it for science — and because of my faith, as well.

You see, not long ago I had a conversation with a young member of my IT staff who told me SmutNucleus was a hotbed of computer viruses, some of which may have been written by the Devil himself.

Now, I might be a Christian, but I’m also a skeptic when it comes to supernatural claims of this sort. All kinds of questions come to mind when I hear something like this. When and how did Satan develop programmer skills, for example? Did he take classes at a community college in Detroit? Did he learn by summoning Steve Jobs to Hell and torturing him with a pitchfork until the former Apple honcho gave up a couple of lesser-known vulnerabilities in iOS?

Ever the curious truth-seeker, I decided to give SmutNucleus a whirl on my laptop, just to see what happened — and I’m delighted to report that after seven hours of diligent clicking, I have yet to contract anything more threatening than a seemingly close-proof popup window encouraging me to “live Jasmin,” whatever that means.

Another aspect of this is that I recently tried to calculate the odds of my friend Rev. James Wilbur Handy and I independently coming up with the same Christian rock workout playlist on our iPhones — an occurrence I reasoned to have roughly the same likelihood as he and I randomly landing on the same SmutNucleus video of a troubled Latina girl with a large, bulbous bottom.

Wouldn’t you know it, no sooner had I started to run my SmutNucleus virus-test on a page featuring a lovely Hispanic girl named Landa Suelto did I get a phone call from Rev. Handy. Turns out he had just been watching the same video, trying to think of ways he could save this poor young girl’s soul — and the souls of the 47 other poor, young, big-bottomed girls whose videos he had researched earlier the same evening.

After figuring the odds of these strange coincidences to be about one in a billion, I wasn’t too worried about the Devil using porn websites to exploit the computers of select conservatives in order to infect Federal Election Commission data files, which is the whole reason I started looking into SmutNucleus in the first place.

Also, around 7 p.m. last night, my right foot started to itch quite intensely, which I know from experience is a clear sign from the Lord there’s something on the internet that requires my attention. (It’s like the Bat Signal, but more localized in the feet and generally not initiated by Gary Oldman.) I knew immediately what the Lord wanted me to do: go to SmutNucleus and begin my socio-religious statistical research, forthwith.

At any rate, as you can clearly see, my quite scientific perusing of SmutNucleus had nothing to do with watching pornographic filth, and everything to do with God, probability, Christian rock, securing data and saving souls.

The other thing you should know is while I’m the son of a preacher and therefor a bit uncomfortable with the whole subject of pornography, I’m also libertarian in my conservatism, which means I think the government simply has no business telling people what they can and can’t watch.

It just so happens I especially believe the government has no business telling someone what they can or can’t watch when the someone in question is only watching porn as part of statistical research in the name of the Lord. And especially when the someone in question is absolutely not finding themselves drawn in by the sensuous curves, coy glances at the camera and loin-stirring dance moves performed by a poor, exploited young Latina girl whose contact information they can’t seem to get their hands on no matter how many phone calls they make to the producer while pretending to be law enforcement interested in her 2257 documentation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill, enjoying the devotional strains of Kutless. To my various critics in the media and on social media, I have one final message: As they say in the sports world, Bring It On!

Matt Nett is a Republican candidate seeking Virginia’s 7^th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His passions include reading the Bible, extolling the virtues of fiscal conservatism, computer science, statistical analysis and tight booties.