Jan. 10, 2025
Breaking the Chains: Overcoming Porn Addiction Through Faith and Psychology with Jake Kastleman
Could an addiction that starts from curiosity lead to a profound spiritual transformation? Join us as Jake Kastleman, the founder of No More Desire, opens up about his journey overcoming pornography addiction, beginning as a teenager in a home already familiar with addiction’s shadows due to his father's work. Jake's story is one of struggle, revelation, and redemption, offering invaluable insights into the societal and personal impacts of pornography, including its ties to human trafficking and its emotional toll on men. His experience illustrates the stark realities of addiction and serves as a beacon of hope for those navigating similar paths.
Our conversation doesn't stop at personal stories; it extends to the healing power of integrating psychological tools and faith-based practices. Discover how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and parts work, when combined with spiritual practices, can become powerful allies in the journey to recovery. By fostering self-awareness and compassion and seeking strength from a higher power, individuals can forge a resilient path towards healing. The key, we find, lies in open communication and the support of trusted relationships, providing a foundation for lasting change.
The episode crescendos with a deep dive into the intensive recovery programs that Jake champions, breaking down the illusions of quick fixes and highlighting the importance of a committed, holistic approach. Jake sheds light on how these programs address both the emotional roots and lifestyle changes necessary for overcoming addiction, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's motivations and emotional needs. We also reveal an exciting shift in our podcast format, promising more engaging content and opportunities for connection. Listen in for a compelling journey of understanding, empathy, and empowerment, as we explore these vital topics and invite you to take part in the conversation.
You can connect with Tony and Laura at
thewalkpodcastministries@gmail.com
Twitter (X) @TonySmith4520
https://www.thewalkfm.com/
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You can support Tony and Laura https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tonysmith
Thanks for listening and supporting our show!
Chapters
00:01 - Struggles With Porn Addiction and Recovery
15:08 - Healing Through Psychological and Faith-Based Approaches
22:07 - Impact of Porn Addiction on Men
30:38 - Healing Through Personalized Recovery Program
39:22 - Intensive Porn Addiction Recovery Program
47:20 - New Serial Format for Show
Transcript
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00:00:01.241 --> 00:00:05.493
Hey everybody, it's Tony and welcome back to the Walk Family Podcast.
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I am bringing you a series titled Seasons of Despair, which focuses on different experiences of life, such as marriage, raising kids and loss of loved ones, and how people navigate those hardships.
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Laura and I bring to the table conversations from our own home, as well as introduce some guests sharing their stories.
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Everybody goes through trials and tribulations in life.
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Sometimes it feels we can't ever escape the pain that that brings.
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James 1, 2, and 3 says Consider it pure joy.
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My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, this is easier said than done.
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Despair, by definition, is the loss or absence of hope.
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As a believer in Jesus, there is always that eternal hope we have, but sometimes we don't always feel like it exists.
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It's an incredibly challenging thing when we feel despair in this life, when we think there is no hope and all we experience is hurt and pain.
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My hope and my prayer is that this series will show that you are not alone in your moments of despair.
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I think what some people understand, but what many other people don't know, is that a vast majority of the porn that's online is from human and sex trafficking.
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Or, if they're not being trafficked, it's people who have been there.
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They're either on drugs, right, and so they're being told in order to get the drugs that you want, you need to do this for me.
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Or there are people who have been coerced or manipulated or told that they need to do this in order to be accepted by their boyfriend or what have you right, and then they're being used, right.
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And is that every bit of porn?
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No, right?
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Obviously, there are those who are choosing to participate in that without this coercion or being trapped in trafficking and things like that, but I would argue that the people who are doing that voluntarily a vast majority of them carry a history of abuse and sexual trauma which is driving them to do what they're doing, and that's that gets pretty complex from a psychological perspective.
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Hey everybody, that was Jake Castleman, and Jake is the owner of the company called no More Desire, and I tell you what.
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It was such a privilege talking with Jake about the true struggle of pornography in this country and around the world, as many of you guys know I'm sure that are listening how rampant that struggle is and how invasive pornography can be, especially nowadays when everybody has access to it iPads and cell phones just the technology just makes it super easy.
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And what Jake does in this conversation is just talks about his company and how he goes out of his way to help people, specifically men, who want to experience victory over porn addiction.
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And it all starts with his own journey, his own story and experiencing victory over it and the recovery process.
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And we know that the struggle is real.
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There are many different strategies and tactics that say, yep, you can experience victory, and people who struggle with addiction they relapse, they fall back into it over and over and over again.
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They relapse, they fall back into it over and over and over again, and stats say that about 99% of men have viewed pornography at least once in their lifetime, and so I hope this episode is a blessing to everybody who listens.
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Nonetheless, here we go, jake Castleman.
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Jake, I'm very glad that you got to join me and just have this conversation, and I really want to start off with just understanding the origin of no More Desire and how it all started.
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Yeah.
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So for me it starts from a personal standpoint.
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When I was in my teenage years, I was 13 years old.
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That's where porn addiction these days for so many men starts.
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And for the men that I work with as as clients in my program, you know, at 13.
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And I think this is the case for a lot of people I've worked with, I was very undereducated when it came to sex or anything to do with it.
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I was very ignorant to all of that and there's complex reasons for that.
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And I've gained a real understanding from my parents and kind of what they came from and they were doing their best.
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But we had the internet right.
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I grew up I'm a millennial and at 13, I gained access to that and started to get curious and explore and by about 14, so a year later, I was pretty well addicted looking, you know, watching porn every day.
00:05:15.011 --> 00:05:35.302
And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things about my story, is that my father has been in the porn addiction recovery industry, helping people with porn addiction, since before that ever happened with me.
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So logically, I knew this is something that can cause problems in my life, but I really didn't understand the depth of what that meant.
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I heard the word addiction and it's like, yeah, something that like you really want and like you feel like you can't go without it.
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But I didn't understand all of the things that would do to me from the standpoint of insecurities, I would experience a loss of focus and motivation that I would experience from the dopamine drain experienced from all addictions.
00:06:01.836 --> 00:06:08.709
But porn addiction is a really really hard one in that way, and I had an addiction to video games, an addiction to food.
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It's not all just one thing.
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I think that's something we can talk more about if we want to.
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But I had all these addictions going on, and when I was in my late teenage years this is a Christian podcast, so I'd love to express this I had a spiritual experience where my father was talking to me about God.
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He was talking about God's plan for me and I I felt the spirit and at the time I was so removed from the gospel of Christ, from the church, from all of it, that I didn't know what that good feeling was Like.
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You'd think I'd knew it because I grew up in the church and in the gospel, but I just knew it felt really good and I knew I wanted to feel more of it.
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And so I see, kind of by the power of angels, christ, the Holy Ghost, I was inspired to start praying every day and reading of holy words every day, right Of scripture, and that started to improve my life.
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And as that began happening, my mind started to expand, my perspective started to expand and I started to notice when I would engage with porn or with a lot of other things I was caught up in at that time.
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It went into drugs, it went into alcohol in my teenage years because it just compounds and compounds.
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Right.
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If you keep going down that road, you'll just gain more and more addictions.
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And that's where I was at and I saw how miserable all of it was making me and I saw what I could.
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I started to gain a vision of who I could become right.
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I started to gain a glimpse of it and I was like man.
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If only I could get rid of these addictions.
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And so over a five-year period I worked very hard, with a lot of immaturity and a lot of messiness and a lot of back and forth and wishy-washy, but really working over five years to get out of my addictions and bear in mind, for a lot of people that looks like a lot longer journey.
00:08:15.622 --> 00:08:32.852
I was blessed enough to grow up in a family with a father who was teaching about addiction recovery, and I had opened up to him around that same time in my late teenage years and said this is an issue I have, and so I had that background to serve me and to help me.
00:08:32.852 --> 00:08:44.095
And then I had that help from God, and so I learned, I learned, I grew, I built these skills over that five-year period, and the journey really doesn't end there.
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That's finally when I was about 22,.
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I viewed porn for my last time my whole life and I've been sober 10 years now almost.
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And what automatically happens to, I think, all people who go through recovery is you then want to carry that to other people.
00:09:01.065 --> 00:09:06.198
And so once I then said I'm going to do something about this, and so I started building a plan which started with the.
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I then said I'm going to do something about this, and so I, you know, started building a plan which started with the curriculum for me, because I love to create content and I love to create, you know, methods and formulas, and I love psychology I'm a nerd for it and so I built out a lot of different concepts that have that have really evolved over the last few years and then built this business and I.
00:09:28.620 --> 00:10:01.341
That's a massive story, but I did the podcast and got in 12 step groups and just started getting involved in some of the addiction community and helping people and getting help myself too in my recovery, then started taking on clients and started coaching people and I can't say how much of a blessing it is to me that the joy of being able to help other people overcome this and at the same time, it's such a blessing to me to do it right and to be in that position to do it.
00:10:01.341 --> 00:10:04.208
Uh, so it's doing this work every day.
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It's a privilege for me.
00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:09.246
So you started the business side of.
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It really was about two, three years ago.
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You'd say yeah.
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So we kind of started about the same time.
00:10:13.946 --> 00:10:16.052
Yeah, exactly, that's kind of cool yeah.
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So I want to.
00:10:17.903 --> 00:10:21.980
So there's quite a lot there, so I want to kind of take it into chunks.
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So you struggled, you had this addiction that led to other addictions for about five years, right in the middle of your teenage years, and then 18.
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Do you mind if I go back a little bit further on that and clarify it?
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Yeah, and this is something a lot of people don't see I believe I was an addict from the time I was four years old and a lot of people feel surprised by that.
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But it started with video games and food.
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That's how I escaped and how I dealt with my hard emotions.
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I was a very intense child, loaded up with fiery emotions and anger and intensity and shame, feeling I'm not good enough.
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I didn't know what to do with all that, and so I went to video games and I went to food.
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That was how I that's where I found safety.
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It's where I found certainty and and peace quote unquote at least the best a little four-year-old kid can write using some of those things.
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And then eventually, you know, almost 10 years later, that led into the porn addiction and then other addictions after that.
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So I think a lot of people, especially in the church space or that are believers, are thinking, you know, I like, if I just I have a relationship with God, like he's going to take it away and it's just like snap of the fingers, that's that.
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But you and I both know, like that's that.
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But you and I both know, like that's not true.
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He's a huge piece, but he's not just, he's not a magical genie that's just going to take it away like this is right, I think.
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I think all of us would um, yeah, but the reality is, is you with the clients that you work with and the fact that you have your own experience with it?
00:12:02.942 --> 00:12:12.916
It's like it takes diligence and intentionality, with like steps, that kind of rewire your brain to overcome this.
00:12:12.916 --> 00:12:17.024
And you said you're experiencing, you know, a decade of soberness.
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Now that it's from the people that you've worked with, do you find that, yeah, it is just kind of like, yeah, snap of the fingers, you know cold turkey, and then they experience victory.
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Or do you find that you know they need to follow certain steps to overcome this over time?
00:12:39.340 --> 00:12:44.903
Yeah, I love that you bring this up, tony, because it's so true.
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I think in the Christian faith at least and you and I've studied other Eastern faiths and things and I don't know exactly what that looks like in other faiths, but I know in Christianity we can have this idea of well God, through the atonement of Christ and through God's power, he'll take your addiction from you and he'll take this desire from you.
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I've never had God take anything from me without a very substantial amount of work on my part to get there, and a lot of people will see that as well.
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Isn't God merciful, or doesn't he love me?
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He loves you so much that he's going to allow you to work through the steps, as you said right, to get to a place of progression where you've learned, you've grown, you've gone through a journey.
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How else would you appreciate sobriety if you didn't go through a journey?
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If someone just came up and said here I'll take that, now you're good, the level of growth and what I went through over the course of many years and what I still go through right, I'm still working my recovery every day.
00:13:43.721 --> 00:13:55.288
Now, you know, it's really rare for me to have a desire for porn or for anything like that to pop up, but you still have addictions that all us human beings have, like we have.
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So many of us have addictions in one form or another, to one degree or another, to work or productivity, or to anger, or to controlling people or, you know, judging people or gossip, or right media, tv video, whatever these things are.
00:14:12.807 --> 00:14:37.399
And so developing that recovery mindset and lifestyle For my clients, what I find most often so many men especially and I don't think that it's a coincidence that men are the ones who are who struggle with porn addiction the most and that are the most susceptible to this we are not taught how to process through our thoughts and emotions.
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So many of us are not taught that right, we're taught to stuff down difficult, right, we're taught to stuff down difficult, hard emotions, like you know sadness or anger, or loneliness, insecurity.
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Insecurity is a big one that can be like a swear word to a lot of men.
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It's like I don't feel insecure, I don't have insecurities, everybody has insecurities, everybody's got them.
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Charities, everybody's got them, and we all carry these burdens.
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And so I teach my clients.
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Well, two different frameworks for processing through and working through daily thoughts and emotions hard ones that we, that you experience and triggers, because they go right along together.
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I use the same two psychological frameworks to do that, which are based in CBT, and parts work to do that which are based in CBT and parts work.
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And so if you can work through your thoughts and emotions in a way that's effective, that will lead to success, and you practice that each day, then things like anger or loneliness or grief or sadness things we all experience as human beings won't overload you and overwhelm you behind the scenes without you being aware of it.
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We need to become deeply aware of what we're experiencing in our thoughts and our emotions psychologically and process through it, be aware of it, show acceptance and compassion to ourselves and that is so fundamental for people and compassion to ourselves, and that is so fundamental for people.
00:16:08.062 --> 00:16:12.431
And the interesting thing is much of it goes right along with Christ and his teachings.
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It goes right along with the gospel in a lot of ways, but so many people don't know how to integrate that into their own mindset and an inner dialogue that they're having inside, to treat themselves with that acceptance, that love, that compassion and how to truly forgive yourself.
00:16:36.173 --> 00:16:44.864
On a fundamental standpoint, the way I teach my clients to handle triggers and negative emotions is a process of forgiveness.
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It's my brand, it's my way to do it, based on psychological modalities, but to forgive yourself If you can forgive yourself, ongoing on a daily basis, and I recommend bringing God or your higher power or Christ into that to be your facilitator and your guide in doing that.
00:17:05.770 --> 00:17:10.163
Now you're doing the work of recovery from a mindset standpoint.
00:17:10.565 --> 00:17:28.074
So there's a huge faith element to, I mean essentially, like we call it a practice right To your practice, like there's a piece to that, would you say it is necessary to your journey to recovery, or is it just kind of like an extra?
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I think that nowadays and a lot of people aren happening in internal family systems that you can get in touch with in order to be a, be a leader to the different parts of you like the addict parts, right that can take over and take the lead and lead you down paths that are insane and crazy and delusional.
00:18:16.284 --> 00:18:37.711
If that light of God inside of you, or whatever you believe it to be right, but if that light of God inside of you can really take the lead over these parts of you and you can be a space of acceptance and compassion for yourself, then you can recover.
00:18:37.711 --> 00:18:47.960
Now what you asked is do you have to have a reliance on a higher power, or do you have to have a reliance on a higher power or do you have to have this reliance on God?
00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:56.987
I would say I've never seen someone this is me personally, I'm saying this I've never seen someone recover long-term without that.
00:18:57.888 --> 00:19:18.696
Now that can come in many forms, uh, and if it's more kind of like a spiritual thing for you, you you understand there's this essence, this peace, this light inside of you, or you understand it to be God or Christ, or you know Buddha nature right, or I believe you.
00:19:18.696 --> 00:19:31.141
You need to have a reliance on something greater than you that will inspire you and fill you with power to work through your personal problems we all have.
00:19:31.141 --> 00:19:39.025
There's similar themes for all of us in what drives us to addiction, with our internal psychological troubles that we experience.
00:19:39.025 --> 00:19:53.075
That essence, that light right, that light of Christ or that light of God can, can guide you in um understanding those things about what you go through personally, and I I see it as fundamental.
00:19:53.075 --> 00:20:00.877
Without that you're you're on your you're kind of on your own and you just have to have a greater power backing you.
00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:02.342
That's and that's.
00:20:02.342 --> 00:20:16.547
That's exactly what I was looking for, not not just one way or the other, but just like with somebody who has experienced victory over this that is leading other people to victory over this, and like it's a real.
00:20:16.547 --> 00:20:22.701
I mean essentially like this is a, this is a pandemic that's plaguing men everywhere.
00:20:22.701 --> 00:20:36.381
And if we're just, yeah, God is this magical genie that's just going to take it away, like that's just not true and but he's a, he's an essential piece to your practice is kind of what I was getting at.
00:20:36.381 --> 00:20:37.222
So, yeah, thank you.
00:20:37.222 --> 00:20:39.896
I'm going to go back to your own experience just for a minute.
00:20:39.896 --> 00:20:47.108
So you had mentioned that you confided with your dad around late teenage years.
00:20:47.108 --> 00:20:50.301
Yeah, how was that conversation?
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Because when you're talking about shame and addiction and men in general, like men are not typically like warm and fuzzy and want to have open conversations about something like this.
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Yet you took that step, talked to your dad about it.
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How did that go?
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I want to answer that in a kind of a broad way.
00:21:11.602 --> 00:21:29.144
So specific to my dad, it went well because he was in that space where he was already working with people who were struggling with addiction to porn specifically, which I came to him and I said I have this addiction to porn and I'll add in as well, this is something that many men like they don't want to talk specifically, which I came to and I said I have this addiction to porn and I'll add in as well, this is something that many men like they don't want to talk about.
00:21:29.144 --> 00:21:39.817
But I was struggling with an addiction to masturbation as well simultaneously and that word for so many guys there's don't say that word, it's a weird word and look like 99% of men are doing that.
00:21:39.817 --> 00:21:48.349
And there is a way to actually overcome the craving for it which we could go deep into.
00:21:48.349 --> 00:21:52.784
But that takes like an entire book to do that or joining my program to do that.
00:21:52.784 --> 00:22:04.022
But essentially, when I came to him and I told him that he was very open about it, he was very accepting, he was very supportive and understanding and that was good.
00:22:04.022 --> 00:22:06.248
I mean, that was a positive experience for me.
00:22:07.075 --> 00:22:26.028
He I think one of the biggest things we need to understand is that what drives us to the need for addiction in the first place is what we might term these little managers that we have inside of us, which are these judging and controlling parts of our minds that are really brutal and self-critical.
00:22:26.028 --> 00:22:37.584
And because they're so brutal and so self-critical, we then choose to go to escapes, right Like porn, and we may be completely unaware of that.
00:22:37.584 --> 00:22:42.842
I know I was when I was, you know, a kid and then in my early teens.
00:22:42.842 --> 00:22:50.804
But you don't need to approach someone who has just confessed to you that they have an addiction and say, well, you need to stop that.
00:22:50.804 --> 00:22:52.742
Like you, you shouldn't be doing that anymore.
00:22:52.742 --> 00:22:55.983
They are already fully aware.
00:22:55.983 --> 00:22:58.542
They don't want to be doing it.
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They have.
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They already have a manager quote unquote inside of them.
00:23:03.306 --> 00:23:05.963
That's really brutal and really self-critical.
00:23:06.234 --> 00:23:09.021
Whether they're aware of it or not, they don't need you to be that.
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What they need you to be is a is a witness and an open space of acceptance and support and compassion for them.
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Now don't mistake that with enablement, like, oh, that's fine that you have that, it's okay, like it's normal and like, if it happens sometimes, that's fine.
00:23:24.696 --> 00:23:36.923
It's important that we don't come from a standpoint of saying this is perfectly fine and you can keep doing it, or enable someone, but also not condemning them.
00:23:36.923 --> 00:23:47.356
There's this, what we might call that straight and narrow path right Of just really bearing witness to what they're experiencing and being that space of acceptance and compassion.
00:23:48.419 --> 00:23:56.396
And we so often think like we got to jump in as the ones who tell them you know, do this and do that and this is how you fix it and this, and tell them all the ways to fix it.
00:23:56.396 --> 00:23:57.563
They don't.
00:23:57.563 --> 00:23:59.191
They already have that voice inside their head.
00:23:59.191 --> 00:24:00.855
That's like telling them all the ways to fix it.
00:24:00.855 --> 00:24:02.038
Don't do that.
00:24:02.038 --> 00:24:11.380
Just open up the space and and be a witness for them and then allow them to take the action, to be, to step into again.
00:24:11.380 --> 00:24:20.468
That opens up a space for that self leadership, with the big S right For God to start to work inside of them, to start to bring them to answers and be open.
00:24:20.468 --> 00:24:23.540
If they have an open space, then they can be open to.
00:24:23.540 --> 00:24:26.307
You know, maybe I could actually do something about this.
00:24:26.307 --> 00:24:27.660
You know, maybe I could get better.
00:24:28.694 --> 00:24:29.517
Do you find?
00:24:29.517 --> 00:24:46.590
A lot of your clients or people that you've interacted with are married or single and moving into that realm, how does this, how does pornography addiction affect married men, or even men that are fathers and dads?
00:24:47.476 --> 00:24:54.703
I think one of the most fundamental things that we so to answer your first question married that's a vast majority of my clients.
00:24:54.703 --> 00:24:57.122
Now you might question why that is.
00:24:57.122 --> 00:25:10.907
That's because those are the ones who are the most motivated to actually get help, whereas single men, a lot of times there can be a vast array of excuses or I'm okay, I don't need help, or I don't want to pay for it, or this or that.
00:25:10.907 --> 00:25:25.347
But when you have another human being in the mix now who you deeply care for and you really want to make them happy, I think pretty much all men want to make their wives happy at a fundamental level inside them, right?
00:25:25.347 --> 00:25:28.720
All men want to make their wives happy at a fundamental level inside them, right.
00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:35.196
And if you're not doing that, we can genuinely feel like we are failing as a man at our deepest responsibility.
00:25:35.196 --> 00:25:37.461
I'm making my wife unhappy.
00:25:37.461 --> 00:25:39.403
That's what I see.
00:25:39.403 --> 00:26:19.406
The devastation it causes for the men, for husbands and fathers, is I am letting my wife down, I am destroying her, I am betraying her and I'm a bad person because of it and that's shame, right, and that just it cripples a man, his confidence and his ability to be there for his wife and his ability to show up selflessly and with love, because he's so overwhelmed with this feeling that I'm a bad person because I deal with this or I'm not good enough.
00:26:19.406 --> 00:26:23.846
If only I could get rid of this addiction, then I could finally be the man that I want to be.
00:26:24.535 --> 00:26:42.319
And what's a bit paradoxical is you need to make the changes as a man, in your lifestyle, in your mindset, in the ways that you approach yourself psychologically and in making steps, so that you eventually lose the need you have to escape using porn.
00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:43.622
That's your answer.
00:26:43.622 --> 00:26:48.837
It's not I'm going to just stop watching porn and then everything's going to be fixed.
00:26:48.837 --> 00:26:57.423
You got to start at the core, at the roots of why you're going to it and so that, yeah, that shame is very overwhelming for men.
00:26:57.423 --> 00:27:13.729
And then you tie that to how it impacts them as fathers and how much the addiction is draining your brain of dopamine, because it's really large spikes of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that occurs neurologically.
00:27:13.729 --> 00:27:29.761
You're spiking it really high when you watch porn because, frankly, what other way in history have men been able to look up hundreds of these perfect women in an instant that do whatever they want with no effort on their part?
00:27:29.761 --> 00:27:34.316
That's a lot of dopamine in a way that our brains aren't meant to handle.
00:27:35.057 --> 00:27:37.682
And when you spike it that high, then there's a drop.
00:27:37.682 --> 00:27:41.955
And this isn't just exclusive to porn, right?
00:27:41.955 --> 00:27:47.587
This is the same way with television or video games, or drugs or alcohol.
00:27:47.587 --> 00:27:52.064
These are all behaviors and substances that really spike our dopamine.
00:27:52.064 --> 00:28:04.121
I call them low effort, high intensity types of activities, in other words, a highly intense reward mentally, where it's going to drain you later.
00:28:04.121 --> 00:28:12.474
So your focus drops, your motivation drops, your ability to connect with people drops, and that's inhibiting men in the way they show up as fathers.
00:28:12.474 --> 00:28:19.615
They feel like they can't fully be there and it's hard enough to be a dad and a husband in and of itself.
00:28:19.615 --> 00:28:26.826
And you add in the addict the addiction component, and now it feels impossible to show up in the way that you want to.
00:28:27.476 --> 00:28:34.935
Yeah, just with your experience too, like, how, like, truly, how evil is the porn industry, like, how bad is it?
00:28:37.779 --> 00:28:45.871
Well, so my father has had some connections with Operation Underground Railroad.
00:28:45.871 --> 00:28:50.506
For those who've heard of that, it's an industry that well.
00:28:50.506 --> 00:28:57.982
A lot more people have probably heard of it now because of the film Sound of Freedom.
00:28:57.982 --> 00:29:03.340
Yes, yes, incredible, incredible film, very hard to watch.
00:29:03.340 --> 00:29:06.061
I was crying, I swear.
00:29:06.082 --> 00:29:18.401
I was bawling my eyes out from beginning to end there was, I mean phenomenal, phenomenal movie, but also like it brought a ton of things to the attention of everybody, like anybody that's seen it?
00:29:18.401 --> 00:29:26.742
Or even heard about it and like it's just absolutely crazy yeah, and so what people?
00:29:27.345 --> 00:29:36.107
I think what some people understand, but what many other people don't know, is that a vast majority of the porn that's online is from human and sex trafficking.
00:29:36.107 --> 00:29:41.152
Or, if they're not being trafficked, it's people who have been there.
00:29:41.152 --> 00:29:46.955
They're either they're on drugs, right, and so they're being told in order to get the drugs that you want, you need to do this for me.
00:29:46.955 --> 00:29:58.961
Or there are people who have been coerced or manipulated or told that they need to do this in order to be accepted by their boyfriend or what have you, right, and then they're being used, right.
00:29:58.961 --> 00:30:02.343
And is that every bit of porn?
00:30:02.343 --> 00:30:03.103
No, right.
00:30:03.103 --> 00:30:11.546
Obviously, there are those who are choosing to participate in that without this coercion or being trapped in trafficking and things like that.
00:30:11.546 --> 00:30:28.393
But I would argue that the people who are doing that voluntarily a vast majority of them carry a history of abuse and sexual trauma which is driving them to do what they're doing, and that's that gets pretty complex from a psychological perspective, but that's why they're doing it.
00:30:28.393 --> 00:30:38.181
And then, even those who don't have that history of abuse, they're doing it so they can, they can find acceptance and value as a human being and they're seeking in a place.
00:30:38.181 --> 00:30:38.401
That's.
00:30:38.401 --> 00:30:46.439
That's, I believe, tearing them apart, and so how that uses and really defiles human beings.
00:30:47.140 --> 00:30:48.260
It is ultimately evil.
00:30:48.260 --> 00:30:54.184
I think evil is that harm to human beings that isn't resulting in anything good.
00:30:54.184 --> 00:31:10.702
Obviously, it's only resulting in a great deal of pain and suffering and people making exorbitant amounts of cash off of that amounts of cash off of that and I know that the men who struggle with the addiction it's not like understanding that it's going to break you out of it.
00:31:10.702 --> 00:31:23.540
That can be part of your motivation for stopping, but unfortunately for some men, they know that and they continue to engage in it and it and it, just it adds even more shame on top of it for that man.
00:31:23.540 --> 00:31:24.040
What's wrong with?
00:31:24.040 --> 00:31:27.025
Why am I such a horrible person that I'd continue engaging in this?
00:31:27.025 --> 00:31:28.426
And it's.
00:31:28.426 --> 00:31:44.317
It's an again, it's it's an escape mechanism that your brain is using in order to cope and handle stress and suffering you're experiencing, and you need to go to the stress and suffering you're experiencing and work through it going into, like the industry itself.
00:31:45.078 --> 00:31:50.141
Um, I went to a conference a couple years ago and, uh, josh mcdowell was there and he was speaking on it.
00:31:50.141 --> 00:32:09.029
Um, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, um, but prominent speaker from you know 20 some years ago, but anyway, he did an extensive study on the porn industry and, uh, he had said that about 70 of new porn that is being created is actually geared towards women.
00:32:10.075 --> 00:32:25.048
I don't know if you've heard that stat or if that is even a factor, but there's a stigma that porn only affects men and obviously like no more desire that's geared towards men, and I think the vast majority of people are men that struggle with it.
00:32:25.048 --> 00:32:32.836
Desire that's geared towards men, and I think the vast majority of people are men that struggle with it, but what sorts of encouragement or value do you have to offer women, who also might be in the same boat?
00:32:34.520 --> 00:32:35.162
That's really important.
00:32:35.162 --> 00:32:41.664
You bring that up Because I think a lot of women I mean stories that I've read and they can feel like man, what is like, what is wrong with me?
00:32:41.664 --> 00:32:43.679
Yes, I get that men deal with this.
00:32:43.679 --> 00:32:48.278
That's bad enough, but why am I so screwed up inside that I would pursue this?
00:32:48.278 --> 00:32:54.750
And for women it often gets a bit more complex.
00:32:54.750 --> 00:33:03.429
Sex tends to be more emotional for them, whereas for men it can be more physically based.
00:33:03.429 --> 00:33:04.579
Now, I'll say without a caveat.
00:33:04.579 --> 00:33:05.587
I think for men it can be more physically based.
00:33:05.587 --> 00:33:06.192
Now, I'll say without a caveat.
00:33:06.192 --> 00:33:23.415
I think for men it should become much more emotionally and spiritually based and hopefully it becomes very whole and beautiful, um, for you with your wife, and in a context in which it's, it is, uh, it brings you guys together in a very special, powerful way, I think a sacred way, right.
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