Odd couplings don’t get much odder than that of online dating community BigChurch and porn-mill Penthouse Media Group. Via its acquisition of the FriendFinder Network of dating sites, PMG finds itself to be the corporate parent of BigChurch.

Business is business, but try telling that to the BigChurch members looking for good, clean Christian lovin’. Actually, don’t bother, as competing Church-mate services and other Bible-thumpers have already put the alert out.

Strange bedfellows for sure, as BigChurch is under the same tent (and, presumably, server-space) as sites like AdultFriendFinder and Bondage.com. And turning the outrage inside-out: Who’s to say that the pervs on those sites wouldn’t take offense if they knew BigChurch was a sister site?

As invisible as these shared financial underpinnings may be, you can bet that marketing synergies will, inevitably, lead to inappropriate cross-promotion:

[Penthouse CEO Marc] Bell promised that no adult content would appear on the site. Nonetheless, BigChurch users may have had their suspicious [sic] aroused by an offer to become an affiliate member with large bonuses on offer for signing people up to other FriendFinder sites. Another reward was a trip to Las Vegas, promoted as “a whirlwind weekend in Sin City with gorgeous Penthouse Pets at your side”. It is a far cry from the traditional Sunday School outing.