How Can Christians Overcome Pornography: A Conversation with Sathiya Sam

Hey everybody, this is James Spencer. We're here for another episode of Thinking Christian and today we've got Sathiya Sam with us and you have an interesting ministry, bro. I mean, we've talked, we've actually been, you've actually been on our previous podcast, Faithful Unflawed with Maggie. And so I'm excited to actually have a real conversation with you about this topic, which has to do with pornography in the church. And so talk a little bit about your ministry. Just give us an intro to it, a little bit of an intro to yourself, and then we'll take the conversation from there. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's an honor to be here, James. Thanks so much for having me. And yeah, this is not the ministry that everybody grows up dreaming about having necessarily, helping people quit pornography, but really this starts with my own story. I'm technically a fourth generation pastor and so I grew up in the church, you know, dad was a pastor, Christian education, all that, and was exposed to pornography in the computer lab of my Christian school when I was 11 years old. Wow. Okay. So, you know, I had everything stacked in my favor and still got exposure. And this was like around the time of broadband internet and all that kind of stuff, but pre-smartphone and, you know, had a 15-year struggle. And I would say at one point, I was properly addicted. Like my life literally revolved around it and I couldn't get help. I couldn't find resources. And that is where all of this really began. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, if I could ever figure this out one day, I didn't have tons of hope at the time, but I remember thinking if I did ever figure this out, I will do everything in my power to help other guys get free and girls get free because it was so debilitating, not just to have a really shameful addiction, but then to not know where to turn, you know? And I think the church has definitely come a long way since then. There's definitely lots of room to improve, but at the time, I mean, the church was doing nothing about this stuff. And so I really felt let down in that regard as well and wanted to rectify that, you know, and not by throwing stones at the church. I love the local church, but thinking, how do we empower the local church and maybe what can I do to shine a light there? And so five years ago, I launched a ministry called Deep Clean. I've been clean since 2016. And so in 2018, I felt God kind of released me to start Deep Clean. And so we resource people around the globe with, you know, books. We have a daily podcast and then we have more premium coaching services for people who really want kind of an all-in experience to get fully free of pornography. Nice. So, man, I mean, you mentioned there's a couple of things there that I think we could probably touch on. One, we talked a little bit about before we actually started the interview, which is our age difference. You're 33, I'm 45. You know, you said you got exposed in your Christian school's computer lab. My comment sort of before the interview was, computers weren't even a thing when I was growing up. I mean, I had an Apple IIe as my first computer. I went to, you know, yeah, I had like the printer that has the holes along the side, you know, and it kind of rolled the paper out, right? You know, I mean, dial-up internet. I mean, I'm very familiar with that old AOL dial-up sound. I mean, that's how we got online. And so, you know, if you were going to view anything pornographic, it was going to be, you had to really plan for it. I mean, it would be an hour and a half before that thing would download. And so for me growing up, you know, it was mostly, you know, I can remember Playboys in my uncle's house, right? I mean, that's how I kind of got that exposure, but it's really ramped up with the internet. I mean, we're talking about massive frequency and freely accessible, anonymous content. And so maybe talk a little bit about that. Like, how does that play into the struggles that you see as you're trying to help people break the pornography addictions? Yeah, it's a really good point there. And there is a direct correlation with the development of technology and then the, you know, just rampant porn consumption that is now normal. And that's the point that we've reached at the time that we're recording this. You know, when I was growing up and getting exposed to pornography and, you know, accessing it, it was sort of the wild, wild west. Like, I think parents were even a little bit clueless. Like, they kind of knew it was out there, but like, never my kid, like, not my kid. And now it's kind of just understood, like, it's out there. Everybody's going to get exposed. It's just a matter of when. But it really is what we call it the three A's. It's the affordability, the accessibility, and the anonymity of pornography that all collectively work together to make it rampant. And porn has always had a degree of accessibility. Like you said, like even Playboys, like everybody's got that story, I think, in your generation of an uncle or an older brother or somebody who had a stash. So the accessibility was always there, but it's different when it's in the palm of your hand, right? The affordability of it, that's a huge one for sure. Because, you know, there was always those like seedy back rooms in the blockbuster, right? Or the video rental store locally. And so you're still paying a price, whether it's like even just a mental price to be in that video store, let alone an actual financial cost. Now it's free. All you have to do is, it's almost laughable. You just check a box that says, yeah, I'm 18 years old and you can watch whatever you want. And then the anonymity is the thing that seals this thing altogether. It's that you can watch it and literally nobody has to know about it. And the anonymity, again, has always been there, but it's just the exponential increase in all three realms with the development of technology that has made this stuff, yeah, I mean, widely accessible. But it's what's really allowed it to kind of dig its claws into people's lives almost without us realizing it. You know, I remember when I got exposed, there was a normalcy to it and there was kind of locker room talk and it was sort of a guy thing. But then when I always told myself, I can quit whenever I want, like a classic addict. And then when I wanted to quit, it was like, oh my gosh, my life is literally built around this. And I'm fighting, you know, at the time it was 10, 11 years of conditioning, right? And when you're getting conditioned at a young age, when you're just starting to develop sexually, that has real ramifications long-term, which I think we're just starting to understand a little bit better now. Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest. I think those three factors are really key. And just, you know, again, my experience with this, I can remember, even if I wanted to go in and rent pornography at a video store, let's say when I turned 18, you could go in back in those CD backrooms with the curtains, right? Yeah. But there wasn't an anonymity to it. Like there was always that sort of danger of, like, I mean, I grew up in a pretty small town, right? So you're talking 5,500 people. The odds of walking out of that curtained room and having somebody you know, either checking you out or just browsing the rest of the videos was pretty high. I mean, and so there was always that sort of stop gap, you know, where it's like, dude, is this really worth the risk? Like, what do you, you know, what do you do? And you're almost always trying to like, I can imagine seeking out that anonymity. Whereas now, yeah, I mean, you just, you know, pull it up on your mobile phone and it's there and it's accessible. And so it's a really interesting challenge, I think. Where do you see, you know, as we think about it, as you think about those three A's and you think particularly about the anonymity, do you find that people's relationships are impacted by this? Obviously, I would assume they're impacted adversely, but I'm wondering how their relationship to people changes as sex becomes something that is commodified. In other words, I can get it without any effort now. I can just sort of pull it up. Yeah. I mean, the answer to this is extensive. I'll try to make it relatively concise. I think the emotional impact is obvious. If you think about a married couple and, you know, maybe, maybe like actually very common when addictions start to ramp up is when a married couple has their first kid. Because you have kids, right, James? I do. Yeah. Yep. Three. So, so as we know, I just had my first. So I'm literally right in the middle of this right now, which is that there's not a lot of sexual activity that happens after birth, right? So you have a, you have a major life change. You have all this stress, you know, things that people are going through all the time, whether it's a birth or not. And then, you know, for whatever reason, if there's not a lot of sex in the marriage or something like that, porn becomes very easy. Very easy to get the dopamine hits. Very easy to get what we would call like fast

was about 5%, and that's exactly what you would expect. You know, we've all seen the Viagra commercials and whatever, you know, that's kind of like an old man's game. But in 2018, I think that's the last survey I've seen, at least, where they quantified this. It's estimated that one out of every four men under the age of 40 struggle with erectile dysfunction. Wow. So, like, we're talking about a dramatic increase here. And again, there's several factors. Like, it's not, I don't want to be the guy who's just like, porn is the cause of every single problem we have in our lives. It's not like that. However, we can kind of piece two things together. Like, if you are watching a highly produced, perfect video that gives you the exact sexual experience that you want, and you watch it regularly, it creates a threshold on your brain to experience arousal that no person could ever compete with. And that's what's happening is guys, they're getting exposed at a young age. That threshold gets higher and higher for what's required to experience arousal and something that's actually exciting. And then they go to have the real thing, and there's literally like no physiological response because it's just, it just can't compete with pornography. And so, obviously, again, that's an effect on the man's body in particular, but again, has tons of ripple effects into any relationship that they're gonna have. Yeah, and I mean, we, you know, at least I have generally thought about pornography as a male problem. I read A Billion Wicked Thoughts. I don't know whether you're familiar with that book. It was a study that they did on like pornography searching and watching habits amongst Google users, men and women. And, you know, they've basically talked about the differences between what men search out and what women search out. And so, you know, what women search out is sort of basically seemed like the plot of a romance novel versus what men seek out was increasingly aggressive, almost is the only way I could really describe it. And so, I mean, I hear what you're saying about that. You need that additional novelty, additional novelty, and things get stranger and stranger and stranger and stranger. But you have mentioned, you know, this isn't just a male issue. How does pornography really affect women? Does it affect them differently? Obviously, some of these relational dynamics would be common across, but are there different ways that women are impacted? Yeah, 100%. And I mean, you hit the nail on the head. The women are seeking it out for a different reason. But my personal conviction is male or female, there are issues of the heart that ultimately drive this kind of behavior. It is worth noting that, you know, the stats show now for every two men that are watching pornography, there's a woman watching. Like about 33% of viewers are female, and that number is on the rise. And I think it's because we are, we're more lonely, we're more disconnected. I think a lot of women, you know, even my age, we have a lot of women that have become career women and are having a hard time, you know, landing male partners, having a hard time experiencing that romance and that meaningful connection. And pornography can provide all those different kinds of things, whether you want the dopamine hit, whether you want something that's really super stimulating and novel, or you do want that sense of connection or whatever it might be, it can provide all those things in a very, again, a very superficial and artificial way, but provide it nonetheless. And so I think for women, my heart really goes out to them, to women that are struggling, because it's an additional layer of shame that you have to hurdle to actually get help. You know, for a guy that's struggling, it's kind of understood that this is a guy issue, at least to some extent. And that's not to reduce or to minimize the amount of shame that a guy does have to still hurdle and the courage that's required to get help in this area. But for a woman, it's that much more because women shouldn't struggle with this. There's not as many practitioners who can really service women in this area and give them the help that they need. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. So my heart goes out to them. It's not an easy battle. But I think to answer your question, it's always a matter. There's something fundamentally broken or fragmented at a heart level that's driving the behavior. Interesting. So let me ask a couple of different questions. We'll see if maybe have some info on this. We didn't rehearse this, everybody. So these are informal conversations. But I've done a fair amount of work in the technology space at this point. And so looking at artificial intelligence and even just social media interactions, those kind of things. And even just as we're talking now, we're both pretty set up so that our cameras have something in the background that looks relatively nice. And we're not, you know, we don't have crazy stuff going on. But I mean, if I spun my camera just this way, I mean, I've got some dirty dishes over there from lunch. I've got, you know, a pile of books that I've been reading through. Right. I mean, life is not pristine beyond these four digital walls, let's say. And so a lot of what I've looked at with technology is how it creates this illusion. And it essentially creates an image that isn't actually real. And it allows us to avoid the maybe the negative emotions that would come along with recognizing the consequences of something like pornography and people who participate in it and what they actually deal with sort of behind the scenes in making pornography. And do you deal with any of that? I mean, I know you're not you're not dealing with people necessarily come out of porn, but I mean, as as folks who are addicted to this, does that hit home for them at all? That kind of logic to it? Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. And I mean, I've made friends with people like I don't know if you know who Joshua Broom is, Brittany Delamora. These are, you know, people people who were very well known in their industry. I mean, Josh won, you know, adult performer of the year back in 2012 for the male category, who have now become pastors. They're now very adamant about the harmful effects of pornography. Um, and they they have fascinating stories about, you know, you you sign a contract and the contract says, you know, here's what the the scene is or here's what the video is for. But then when you're on set, they ask you to do something that's outside of the contract, something that you don't feel comfortable doing, and they basically will dangle the check in front of you. And it's like, well, either you perform it and we pay you or we don't, you know, the choice is yours. And those kinds of stories, that is not like a one off. That's not like we're taking the tip of the iceberg and, you know, making it something that that's blown out of proportion. That's like that's happening every day. Something that Josh gets commented on in his Instagram. You know, he's got a pretty big following online is like, hey, is he still getting royalties? You know, people trying to come up with these conspiracy theories like he's telling one story, but he's still like making bank behind the scenes from his videos. And like he's very, he's like, no, like the, the way, the way the industry is set up is that the creators of these companies profit. And, you know, with all the actors and actresses and whatever, they're one-time payouts. They're very underpaid. Those stories are numerous. So there is a very dark side to this. And the reality is this is a profit-driven business. Let me actually take this one step further. So what makes a company successful, just pure business terms, is having a lifetime value that outpaces any of the costs that they incur along the way to keep the business functional. And if the more you can increase the lifetime value of a client, the more profitable the company becomes. So porn companies in particular have actually become very adept at targeting kids because if they know that if a kid can get hooked earlier, their lifetime value is going to be a lot longer. There's just a much greater chance that they stay watching this stuff for longer, longer periods of time. And they don't do it in very overt and obvious ways. It's a little trail, but this, like they almost have it down to a science. They know that if they can, if they can bait a kid with, you know, something that's like a little bit curious and just gradually pique their curiosity, eventually they can get them hooked on the more intense stuff and that keeps them coming back and that drives ad revenue and all that kind of stuff. So those realities are there. Pornography additionally is the marketing department for sex trafficking. This is something that doesn't get discussed a lot, but those two go hand in hand

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Do you see, you know, you mentioned the human trafficking connection. Do you see a lot of people in your ministry who have sort of transcended pornography? It makes logical sense that as you do the novelty bit, right, eventually what's on screen just isn't going to do it anymore and you need physical contact of some sort. And so you do see that progression. That progression is almost inevitable. It's just that the time scale is different from one person to the next. But your brain becomes acclimated. You commented earlier that a lot of the male searches are very aggressive and violent-focused. That's a shift that's taken place in the last 10 years. That was not true 10 years ago, maybe not even 5 years ago. But what's happened is, because of the pornography consumption, the sheer volume, is that the vanilla stuff before is no longer interesting. And so your brain gets used to it. It's not getting the hit the same way. I mean, this is classic addiction kind of stuff. And so in seeking the hit, people start to seek something of greater intensity, something that is going to be stimulating to them. And we know that, again, there's lots of different directions this can go in, but the ultimate word that summarizes all of it is novelty. Novelty enhances pleasure. And so when you start to experience that novelty, eventually online, you reach a ceiling at some point. And so a lot of clients come to us because, you know, they slipped to a massage parlor. They watched some grotesque content that they thought they would never in a million years watch. Again, like the progression is just, this is like science, really. And it's scriptural as well. Like your brain evolves, your brain adapts. And if you continue to seek these things or if you continue to want that hit and you don't undergo any kind of heart change, it's really just a matter of time. No, I've read, and when I was in higher education, so this would have been maybe 2013, 2014, something like that. We had a speaker come in who talked a lot about the way pornography actually rewires the brain. Not so much just the dopamine hits. I mean, those are obvious, you know, and they're sort of, you know, that's your, like you said, the blocking and tackling of addiction, right? You're, you have novelty, you get dopamine hit, you get novelty, you get dopamine hit, and it just has to keep ratcheting up. But he actually talked about the way that it creates almost a pathology. And I don't think that's what he was, I don't think that's the word he said, but like a psychopathy, not a pathology, a psychopathy where you start to just not care at all about any of this stuff. Are you familiar with any of that? Is there new research that's come out since then? Like, what's the other effects other than just the normal dopamine hits that really affects the brain? Yeah, well, I'll insert my story in here a little bit because I think in 2013, 2014, porn addiction was like laughed at by academics, you know, like it was like, that's not a real thing. You can't, how could you be addicted to that stuff? Even now today, it's still controversial. There's still some people who are like, it's just, you know, it's just people who have a moral compass that feel convicted about it. That's what it is. It's not actually addicted, addicted rather. But if you do enough of the brain science research, it's very clear that it follows, you know, almost all of the tenants of the addiction model. And so the, you mentioned, you mentioned like that apathy, that sort of like not caring. And that was certainly my, my story. And I would say it's a, it's an interesting juxtaposition. You have, you have apathy where it's like, I don't care what's the point. Sometimes it's like, I'm just this far gone. There's no turning back. But what that leads to, the kind of double-edged sword of the other side of it is it leads to riskier behavior, right? Because when you're apathetic, you're more inclined to take risks because you don't care about the consequences or you don't think there are consequences. And so my, my worst moment of addiction, I still remember I was in my parents' basement. This was at the time where we didn't all have our own devices. And so there was a family computer. It was in, it was in my dad's office and that office had a bedroom. And my brother was sleeping in that bedroom during the summer because his, his room upstairs was too hot. And so, you know, the basement's colder, so he's sleeping there. And, um, you know, I get the urge. I've, I've gotten into this habit of watching pornography at night for years, probably at this point. And I remember just kind of the back and forth of like, am I going to go do this? Am I going to risk it? I'm pretty sure he's asleep. I could probably tilt the screen. Like, you know, like you're, you're mapping it out and I know it's risky, but there's kind of like this, ah, well, you know, if he, if he catches me, I'll deal with it. It's that kind of that, that numb apathy. Um, and you know, that, that didn't happen. I, like I, I did end up watching, but I didn't get caught. But the point is like, I took a really risky behavior. I totally abandoned my responsibility as an older brother and a protector. And that kind of behavior is very symptomatic of addiction. Um, we already talked about kind of the desensitization and the pursuit of, you know, greater intensity and whatever else it might be. Another thing that you often witness with people is it starts to, they start to shuffle their priorities. And so they start to bail on, you know, hanging out with friends or sometimes it's even professional commitments because they're busy watching pornography. So it's interfering with their day-to-day functioning. Um, those, those three are, are probably the most common and there's, there's others as well. But, um, but yeah, I mean, it, it really does start to impact the, the decisions you make pretty much every single day when it really becomes normal. Yeah. It's almost like everything just, you get tunnel vision and that's all you can think about anymore. It's just how I'm, how I'm managing. Uh, like when you say my whole life was arranged around it, what I envisioned is that sort of tunnel, like blinders on and everything else is just sort of going by, but I'm headed straight for this one particular thing. And yeah, when you describe it like that, it, it does sound very much like an addiction. I mean, um, and it's always been interesting to me, man. Uh, you know, again, sort of in the technology space, you know, one of the things that, um, I read about recently, China was doing a child sort of app on all the phones. They, they can kind of do that. They, they sort of mandate, Hey, we don't want this content on any of the kids' phones. And, um, you know, I was reading through it and then looking at what the U S legislation is doing with some of this stuff. And, you know, the U S is having a much harder time dealing with it than China. China's basically just got, you know, what I picture is like five guys in a room going, Nope, we're done. And the United States is going, well, but free speech and, uh, you know, you know, it's very troubling when you think about it in these terms, you know, we, at least in the U S we have like, um, USDA and the federal drug association and like all these different things that regulate chemicals that go into our bodies and brains that could potentially have a detrimental effect. But we aren't thinking about it in that way at all when it comes to any sort of technology, let alone pornography, which has, again, it seems like there should be really stronger legislation and responsibility for pornography companies to make sure that at least their users are of age. Yes. And it's like, um, you know, it's still at the click your 18 sort of bit is my understanding. And so how do you, how do you wrestle through some of those legislative aspects? Are there any of those? And I know, um, you know, your ministry focuses in on, like, it is a heart change and I agree with that, but there's so much, you know, when you look at your three A's that accessibility, um, man, it just feels like there should be some sort of regulation on that accessibility. Yeah, I agree. And I think, um, if we look long-term, like I pray that one day there's no need for my ministry. I think that would be, you know, in a perfect world because we've gotten ahead of this a little bit and you're probably always going to have these addictions, but ideally the prevalence would go down. because kids are not being exposed at such a young age. Um, there are actually three States in America that have legislated for identity verification. Um, and so that's at least a step in the right direction and it makes the barrier to entry higher. And I think that's, that's a good, um, it's a good template to at least kind of get the conversation rolling. Um, and then I think the other side of it that's really lacking right now is education. So when a kid gets handed a smartphone, you know, the parents aren't always having this conversation about, hey, you know, when you go online, you might see some content that is kind of disturbing or

how to handle this stuff and how to look at this stuff in a way that's helpful for them and has their best interests in mind. What, what sort of things would you say to parents? I mean, I, you know, I've got three kids. I have an 18 year old son and then I have twin 14 year old daughters. Um, we're also adopting a three year old. So I got, I guess I got one more shot at this, right? Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you know, three girls and so three girls, one boy, um, what advice would you give to parents? I mean, uh, to educate their kids as they sort of give them their first digital devices, which is virtually unavoidable at this point. I mean, my kids have them required for school and, you know, all that kind of good stuff. And so it, it's just getting more and more difficult to keep them off it completely. Um, so yeah, what sort of education would you suggest? I think there's two things for, for boys, there's two things. The first is exactly what I said earlier. I think having that conversation and just not being naive about it, you know, like I said, there could have been a time where it's like, oh, if my kids get exposed to pornography, you know, hopefully X, Y, Z happens. Um, unfortunately now it's actually when, it's when they get exposed. And so it's better to just assume it's going to happen and let's have a plan in place that actually protects them and has their best interests in mind. And what allows that, what allows you to be successful, because I can hear some parents rolling their eyes going like, yeah, right. Like, you know, my kid's not going to come to me. And the, that, that's totally fair. The other side of it is that, um, conversations around sex in general, they need to happen early and they need to happen often. And if, if your kids can detect that when we talked about sex, mom and dad are uncomfortable or mom and dad are not being fully transparent, they're not answering my questions honestly, they're giving me kind of, you know, skirting around the uh the questions sort of answers. They are not going to come back to you because you're not a safe person to talk about this kind of content. And so having conversations about sex that are just calm, casual, that actually goes a really long way to helping your children feel safe. Like, oh, I can actually ask dad about this and he's not going to make a big deal about it. He's not going to freak out. He's not gonna use weird language. Like he's just, he's just normal. And he's talked about it the way it's like anything else that goes a really long way. And I think the other part that can really be beneficial is, um, sharing your shortcomings, you know, and parents, that's very counterintuitive for parents. They feel like, no, if I tell them that I fell short, it's going to lower their bar. But I think what it actually does is it, it fosters that first point I was making, which is that they feel like they can relate to you. They understand that like, okay, I'm, um, like it's hard to be perfect in this area. It's impossible to be perfect in this area. And if you, if you can be, again, it's gotta be age appropriate, but if you can be transparent about where you fall in short, that can go a long way to building that trust and ensuring that you have their ear when they go through their latter stages of sexual development rather than pornography or something else. And I'll just add one more comment. Um, there's this principle of first standard and the, the whole, the whole concept is that, you know, whatever you hear first on a subject is kind of what you end up comparing everything else to afterwards. And so when you are not the first person to have these conversations, and maybe the internet is, or their friends at school, or, you know, the education system depending on where you are, that can be really problematic. And then you have to kind of fight against what's already been implanted to them. Now, again, if you have a lot of trust in the relationship, you can actually circumvent that pretty easily, but nonetheless, it's just better to get ahead of the curve as quickly as you can and to be the person who's, who's the loudest voice in their ear about the conversation so that when they do see stuff online or they do hear from their peers, they're comparing that stuff to what you said rather than the other way around. And when do you think, I mean, you know, I'd love to say like, you know, you sit your teenager down and you have this conversation with them, but I have a feeling that's way too late at this point. I mean, are we talking like five, six, seven? Like when, when do you think, um, is a, uh, maybe, maybe it'll vary, but you know, general advice on this. Where do you think you start having that conversation? I think whenever they start asking, you know, and kids start getting pretty curious about their body when they're fairly young and that's usually where it starts. They actually start to discover their body before they discover the opposite sex or whatever it might be. And so that's where it starts is having those conversations about their body when they're starting to ask about, you know, body parts and whatever else. That's where it all begins. That could be as young as like, you know, three, four years old. Um, and that's all the conversation has to be. But remember, you're trying to build a conversation that hopefully lasts at least until they're 18 to 21, somewhere in that area that's ongoing. So this is not about a one and done. We had the birds and the bees conversation. You know, that was sort of the classic language about it back in the day. That doesn't work. This has to be an ongoing talk on a regular basis and it, it evolves and it develops as time goes on. Yeah. I mean, dude, I remember the, the awkward, uh, gym class sex education moment in elementary school and then the VHS tape that my parents slide into the VCR. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was, it was one of those, you know, you almost, I think I laughed the whole way through it. I mean, it was just one of those, like, I feel like we're way behind here people. Yeah. And so you want to avoid those kind of situations. Um, but yeah, that's a good, that's a good word, man. The consistency across time and really matching it to where the kid is, right? You don't have to have a conversation about pornography with your three year old, but if they're asking about their body, you need to have that nice, comfortable, easy conversation with them and don't get like squeamish about, Oh my gosh, what, what's this leading to? You know, kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And there's actually a researcher in New Zealand. Her name is Joe Robertson and she talks about how as a parent in today's day and age, you actually get lots of opportunities to bring the conversation up about sex because, you know, you see a billboard or a commercial comes on or you're watching a movie and there's a scene and those are all great opportunities to have conversations about it as well. And rather than just fast forwarding through the scene and saying that's icky and we keep watching. Um, maybe explaining why you don't want them to see that scene or, you know, if you don't, if you don't get a chance to fast forward through the scene, then talking about it after, you know, what was that? What was that like for you guys as you understand what was going on again, it's going to be dependent on their age here, but those are opportunities for you to actually kind of initiate the discussion. And again, um, kids are going to be very skeptical and they may not actually say a lot, but it still just shows like, Hey, I'm, I'm open to having this conversation when you want to have it. And um, other kids actually might be very open about it and they would love to have those conversations with you. So either way, just do your part as a parent to keep that door open as much as you possibly can. I want to, I want to kind of shift gears and, and talk a little bit about maybe um your ministry just a little bit more because you did mention something kind of back a few topics ago where um people would find themselves, what I would call almost hitting rock bottom. You know, they slip and go to a massage parlor or maybe they pay a prostitute or they're watching, you know, really strange pornographic content that, that just sort of almost shocks them as they're watching it. Um, and then they have an openness to being transformed. And so I guess my question is, you know, as you work with folks on this, are you working exclusively with Christians or are you working with non-Christians as well? Yeah, yeah. Good question. So 90% of our client base are Christians. We have a very um loud message in, you know, the Christian spheres. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we've had people of other religions go through and be very successful also, but it is predominantly Christians. Okay. And I mean, your, you know, how does your ministry actually, without giving away the trade secrets, right? What is your, how does your ministry actually work? So you talked about some of the literature you send out, um, there's the daily podcast and then the coaching. Um, how do you usually see people start? Like, um, I would imagine, and don't let me put words in your mouth, but just if I'm guessing

if the IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Find a light on the dark things and part of that means that people know your name and people see your face and that's really scary, but for people who are serious about recovery because they know that God's got things on their life that they maybe can't attain right now with this problem, that's usually not a problem. It doesn't stop people from getting the help they need. That's a really fresh take on it, man. I mean, I love that. I think it's great. I don't know that it, I've always found it interesting and again, when I was working in higher education, there were certain sins that were almost considered more shameful than others. Now, amongst college students, the pornography sin wasn't actually one that we felt was, that I perceived to be particularly shameful. Yeah. Which was almost scary. But in our context, I was at a more conservative Christian college and so, homosexuality was the big shameful sin, but pornography was almost like, yeah, it's just something all guys struggle with. Like, do you get any of that sort of, I don't know, normalization? Like, how do you deal with some of that? It's fascinating. I think it's now more than ever before because it's so rampant and people are getting exposed at a young age. Barna did a study back in 2016, so that's a little bit outdated now, but in that study of teenagers, they actually ranked not recycling as more offensive than watching pornography. And so, just interesting, you know, just interesting some of the paradigms around this stuff. So we hear a lot of, you know, yes, I watch, but at least I'm not as bad as so-and-so. That's a very common one, sort of the comparative justification. Very prevalent. And then I think the other one is exactly what you said, like, it's not like I'm sleeping around or whatever. To give some scriptural context to this, you know, I mean, for starters, again, the same scripture, like Jesus said, you know, if you look at a woman with lustful intent, you've committed adultery in your heart. 1 Corinthians 6, it says that he who sins against his body commits like a, it's a greater sin, you know, like a lot of people say all sins are the same, but he who sins against his body, it's a worse sin. You know, those are the words of the Apostle Paul. Sorry, he who sins sexually sins against his body. Let me phrase that correctly. And so I think, I think there's huge implications. And a great example is the acceleration of erectile dysfunction among young men. Like, there's sexual sin that's literally leading to sin against their own body. Their body is not performing the way it's supposed to. Case in point. So yeah, there's a lot of those mentalities around. Obviously we're doing our best to kind of shine the truth. And we don't want to guilt people either because some people are actually just weren't taught any better. They didn't know. And so I don't think there's any guilt or shame for people who feel that way. But at the same time, you know, we want to be a voice of truth because when you live by these sort of compromised realities, you think that, you know, pornography is not that bad and at least I'm not sleeping around or, you know, at least I'm not engaging in homosexual activity. Yeah. It's kind of like, you know, yeah, sure. I'm 30 pounds overweight, but at least I'm not, you know, at least I'm not clinically obese or, you know, whatever it might be like. It doesn't matter what the context is. If we try to justify our dysfunction, we're doing ourselves a disservice. And so, you know, I'll circle back just a little bit. We talked earlier about Josh and Brittany, you know, two former performers and the awful conditions that these guys often are filming in. And somebody asked me one time, you know, well, what about ethical pornography? There's actually a whole branch called ethical pornography where they make sure that the actors are paid a fair wage and, you know, whatever, whatever. And I asked them, would you smoke ethical cocaine? You know, like that, like, I don't know, like does it really matter? Like if it's bad for you, it's bad for you. You know, that's the bottom line. And I think it doesn't matter how you slice it, whether it's not as bad as so-and-so or it's whatever else. It's ethical. At least it's ethical. The bottom line is like this stuff destroys your body. It destroys your soul. It destroys your relationships. And I don't think there's any way you can actually escape that truth. No, it's just so interesting. I mean, just as you talk through all those different concepts and just thinking through this idea, you know, pornography just starts to feel very transactional. And so when we can start talking about, well, we have this ethical pornography. So what we're doing is we're making it more fair for people to have sex for you on camera. And so that makes it better. And it's like, well, no, we should be really thinking about this more maybe covenantally and saying there's a common good that we should all be trying to preserve. And there's no way to make something like this sufficiently ethical that it serves the common good. It just doesn't. And so, unless we view it as just strictly transactional, this never works. Right? It's just such an interesting sort of logic to get into an ethical pornography conversation. I love, you know, ethical cocaine, right? Of course not. It's not for the common good, really, ever. Very few medical instances where you could use it, you know, or something like that. But that's a regulated environment. That's knowledgeable people. There is no ethical way to smoke cocaine on the street. Like, no. Yeah. Well, and you used a really important word, right? Like, covenantal. And I think our hyper-sexualization and rampant consumption of pornography is actually very symptomatic of our disregard for the institution of marriage and kind of the just overall breakdown of what a family unit should be, especially through a biblical lens. Because once you don't have a value for covenant, once you don't have a value for, you know, family and the family unit kind of staying together cohesively in more, I don't want to use the word traditional roles because that might give the wrong impression, but we'll just call it, we'll just say at least designated roles. I think once you kind of break that down, then pornography starts to become logical because it's like, yeah, who cares? You know, what's the point? Like, you know, it's just my marriage. Like, yeah, we signed a paper, you know, but what's the big deal? Whereas when you've made a covenant with God, like, that was a huge clinching piece for me. It was like, man, I want to get married one day. So am I gonna stand before God, I'm gonna commit myself to another person, and then I'm gonna do something that I know violates the covenant, not only with another person, but a covenant that I made with God. You know, that's a big deal if you take your relationship with him seriously. And I think that kind of language is actually very helpful to just understand the gravity of pornography and the way it can impact our lives. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the relational side of pornography, I think, is one that I know I've had conversations with my teenager about, teenagers about at this point. And it seems to be impactful. You know, I think there's a limitation, you know, of any of them really understanding it because they don't, you know, aside from their relationship with God, which I'm glad that all my kids are, you know, professing Christians, but they haven't had the sort of relationship like I've had with my wife for more than 20 years, right? Like they've not had those even dating relationships to this point. And so I think there is a limitation on helping them understand it from a relational perspective, but I agree with you. It seems to me just really crucial that we not view these things as transactional, but we view them as covenantal. And I think it's just really important. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, and I was just gonna add, and I think covenantal is actually, it's not just the romantic context. Like, exactly what you're saying, for your kids who have not had that, they still have a relationship with God that they need to protect. And that is, that's actually a better way to learn. It's better that you're motivated by your relationship with God first than your relationship with another person, another human being. Because marriage can fail. Like there's a, there's a more temporal element where that piece with God is eternal. And that, that's, you know, that's why it's the priority. Well, man, I know we're kind of coming up on time here. So I wanted to, I wanna ask just one more question at least and just get your take on it. So, you know, I've been in and out of a number of different churches over the years. I don't recall any of them having uh support groups or any sort of dedicated ministry for men that would be uh related to specifically pornography. You know, obviously men's ministries, obviously, you know, there were some support recovery kind of things, but those were mostly for substance abuse and those kind of things. Like pornography addiction, people struggling with pornography, and even some of the guys in my small group who have admitted it, it's like they don't

the local church pastor, you know, because I was in local church ministry for 10 years. And, you know, scripturally, pastors are often equated to being shepherds of a flock, right? And your job as a pastor is you guide them through the different pastures, the different areas. And there is a part of this pasture called sexual integrity that most pastors cannot take their flock to because they don't have access themselves. And so I think it's actually on leaders first because they're the gatekeepers. They decide what resources and what programs are available in the local church. And if we're being frank and we're being honest, the reason that most churches aren't comfortable bringing those resources in is because the pastor is not comfortable because he probably is struggling in this area himself. And I'll just say as a I was a pastor, I was a recording worship artist, I was a worship leader. I was front facing in ministry for years and struggling with porn behind closed doors. And I had almost nowhere to go. I had almost nowhere to turn to to get help. So it's very, very difficult. So I'm not trying to throw stones at local church pastors, but rather saying that I think there's a responsibility they carry to get there, this area of their lives cleaned up that they can then invite, you know, the right resources for other people to get clean and they can actually feel comfortable. Like I have some authority in this area. And I think that's to me, that's how this whole narrative starts to change. I think in the meantime, let's not kid ourselves, that doesn't happen overnight. And so I think there's room. There's room in the meantime for, you know, there are local church ministries. Peer Desire is a great one. They offer a lot to local churches. And I think the stat is something like 7% of local churches have something in this area. So it's very small. And so I think for people who are in the 93% of those churches and they're struggling and they want something, yeah, look, you know, you can look to other local ministries, organizations like ours, and hopefully get the help that you need. You know, we're seeing guys get set free in droves through our program. And most of them are plugged into local churches. And so I feel really good about that, knowing that, you know, for a lot of guys that come to us, they're like, I want to lead in my local church, but I don't feel like I'm ready for that yet. I don't feel like I can lead people when I have this. And so we'd like to feel like we're still serving the local church, even though we're not a local church, because if we can help people get set free and they can get clean and then they can go serve in their local churches and make a difference, then then it's totally worth it. And it's hopefully a way of giving back. Yeah, I think you are, man. I mean, I think this kind of ministry is really needed. And, you know, I think there's probably a... I agree with you on the leadership role of this. I think there's probably 150 other reasons that people don't want it in the local church or don't think about it in the local church or what have you. But I mean, I really do agree. I think it has to start with leadership. And for whatever reason, there's been a willingness to bring in something like... And again, I don't want to poo-poo this either, but like support and recovery ministries for substance abuse. And so you sit back and it's like, well, there's a willingness to bring that in, but my guess is a lot of pastors aren't struggling with substance abuse. You know, and so it has that sort of, yeah, let me help someone else kind of feel, but I don't then have to fix myself. It's an interesting dynamic that we're working with here. Well, I lied. I want to do one more question. So this is just a... I think this topic is like so important and it intersects with so many areas that I'm interested in, but one of them, and again, this is kind of a little bit of a technology question, but, you know, I think back in the day, probably when I first became a Christian, I was introduced to Covenant Eyes. It was a software platform or whatever that would sort of block everything or whatever. And I know nowadays we've got like things like DuckDuckGo that is supposed to help you protect your privacy online and those kind of things. As I've just read up on those and tried to understand them, we seem to be in almost a catch-22, right? Because number one, the software programs almost always have holes in them, right? And so, you know, as we increasingly go online and those software programs can't get the fine grain, let's say, to sift through just exactly what you need to lose and let through everything else, I think they're going to become really cumbersome for people. And on the other side of the spectrum, what I see is as we're building platforms to increase our privacy and protect our data, it only creates more anonymity online. Yeah, right. And so, you know, I think just intuitively, it's like maybe the technological solutions have a place, but I'm not sure what place they have. So I'm interested to hear kind of your thoughts on how you all deal with the technological solutions part of your ministry. Man, that's such a great point, such a good question. And then you throw AI in there as well. Right. Creating these like, you know, outrageous experiences online. Yeah, right. I mean, I think here's my ultimate stance on it. I believe that sexual issues are a matter of the heart. I've stated this before. And technology is amplifying those issues. And so I think regardless of how technology evolves and develops, the question will always be for people, how are you tending to your heart? You know, and I think when, you know, I did the Covenant Eyes things as well. And I, I know the founder of Covenant Eyes, Rhonda Hawes. He's a phenomenal guy and he's really changed a lot of people's lives. My personal experience with Covenant Eyes is it was like running over a weed in your garden with a lawnmower, you know? So like the lawn looks clean, but as long as the roots are there, it's going to grow back one way or another. Yeah. And so I think technological solutions in this, in this area can be valuable. They're kind of like putting up the bumpers, you know, in a bowling lane. Right. You still have to learn how to bowl the ball. They're not going to make you a better bowler. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's just going to, it's just going to ensure that maybe you don't fail really, really bad. But like you said, even in the heat of the moment, anybody can find a workaround. So I think technology is going to, I think what, if I'm being honest, I think in three to five years, there's going to be a huge revolt. And I think there's going to be a larger divide. This normalization, I think is going to disappear and you're going to have people way on one end who are into the AI experiences and the VR experiences and everything else. And like you said, like some of that anonymity is actually going to foster that. And I think you're gonna have a lot of people who are actually going to turn against this stuff and who are going to say, man, this is, this is terrible. This is like, I think it's the modern day cigarette, you know, I think at first it's cool. Yeah. Doctors are endorsing it. And then I think like, you know, 60 years later, we're going to be like, Oh my gosh, this stuff causes cancer. Uh, you know, porn doesn't cause cancer. That's not what I'm saying. But you know, it's going to be like, man, this is really, really bad for us. This is not what we thought it was. Well, I mean, we just had the U.S. surgeon general's report come out on, you know, social media health effects on um adolescent teens. And so it wasn't related to sex and pornography, but it was very much related to um you know, negative emotions, depression, those kind of things because they're essentially learning to covet really, really well. Um, you know, if we covet what we see every day, what we get to see every day has expanded. And so there's a whole lot more opportunities to find something to covet. And I just, you know, I, yeah, as I think through the technology of it, as I think through like even the AIs, you, as you talked a little bit about ethical porn, it's like, well, what if there's no people involved? Right. You know, I mean, it's just like it, it gets crazy real quick. And so, um, we need to have a tight argument that I think is strongly theologically based. And I think, you know, your, your key point here is listen, it's, it's a, it's a problem of the heart and, uh, and so we need Christ to solve it. Um, technology can help. All these other things can help, but ultimately it's a transformation and total renovation of who you are and what you think. And, um, and so yeah, a lot more we could dive into, man, but uh we need to, we need to end. Maybe, maybe you'll come back on and we can talk about this stuff a little bit more. Um, that'd be fun. And, uh, but it's been a great, it's been great just to get to know you and uh listen to you talk about your ministry. Um, where can people get in touch with you? Yeah. So we have a daily podcast called Unleash the Man Within. We

To make a habit of spending more time meditating on the truth of God's Word, you can listen to daily devotions with Pastor John at lifeaudio.com or on your favorite podcasting app.