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Your Brain on Porn: The Hidden Link Between Pornography & Human Trafficking | S6, E4
74 Plays1 month ago
In this powerful and eye-opening episode of the Trafficking Free America podcast, produced by the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking (USIAHT) and Kids Not For Sale, we dive deep into the psychological, emotional, and societal impacts of pornography—and its critical connection to sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Host Jeremy Hicks is joined by:
- Alan Teixeira, a former buyer and recovered sex addict
- David Hudson, counselor and president of the Sexual Integrity Project
- Christy Collins, advocate and counselor for betrayed women
Together, they confront taboo truths that will challenge what you think you know.
⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction to the Podcast & Guests
02:05 – Why Talk About Pornography?
05:02 – How Porn Impacts the Brain (Dopamine, Dependency, & Isolation)
07:35 – The "Perfect Drug": Secrecy, Accessibility & Impact on Real-Life Relationships
10:16 – Porn’s Impact on Marriages: Trust, Distance & Intimacy
12:12 – The Bonding Hormone Vasopressin & Why It Matters
15:09 – When Porn Addiction Starts in Childhood
18:24 – Binge-Purge Cycles: Is It Still Addiction?
22:01 – The Cycle of Addiction Explained
25:01 – Can Normalizing Sex Help or Harm?
27:40 – Porn’s Impact on Sexual Satisfaction with a Spouse
29:02 – The “Death Spiral” in Relationships
30:55 – Real vs. Synthetic Intimacy: The Long-Term Cost
32:08 – Dealing with Entitlement & Recovery Challenges
35:21 – Neuroplasticity & Healing the Brain from Addiction
38:14 – What’s the Difference Between Dependency & Addiction?
44:06 – Pure Desire Research: Why Sex with Your Spouse is 5x More Satisfying
45:12 – Porn as a Form of Sex Buying
46:05 – Does Infrequent Porn Use Still Matter to a Spouse?
48:07 – How Porn Use Affects Executive Function & Maturity
50:04 – Where Real Hope Begins: Repentance, Healing, & Identity in Christ
54:05 – Shame, God’s Love, and the Road to Recovery
55:06 – Preview: Resources to Break Free from Porn & Sex Addiction
This is more than a conversation about porn—it's a candid look at the spiritual, neurological, and relational fallout of a normalized addiction. Whether you're struggling yourself, know someone who is, or just want to understand the real cost behind "harmless" clicks, this episode is a must-listen.
👉 Stay tuned for Part 2, where we cover practical resources for recovery and freedom.
🔔 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to join the movement for a Trafficking Free America.
#TraffickingFreeAmerica #PornAddiction #HumanTrafficking #SexualIntegrity #KidsNotForSale #USIAHT #StopTheDemand #RecoveryIsPossible
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Transcript
Introduction to Trafficking Free America Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey everyone. And thanks for joining me on today's podcast of trafficking free America, where we have discussions around topics that causes abuse, trafficking, trauma, and sexual addiction in our country and how we can begin to stop it.
00:00:25
Speaker
In today's episode, we talk about pornography, a very large contributor toward the commercial sex industry. It sounds like a touchy subject, but if we're all being honest, the sensitivity of the subject is what often causes us not to deal with it as a society.
Meet the Experts: Addressing Sex Addiction
00:00:43
Speaker
In our episode, I'm joined by a sexual addiction therapist, a former and recovered buyer, and a woman counselor that primarily helps women deal with their spouse's sexual addiction.
00:00:55
Speaker
While the majority of our audience is likely of the opinion that pornography is bad, horrible, despicable, and always wrong, some may differ in their opinion or they won't admit that while they know it's wrong, they still engage with it.
00:01:13
Speaker
No matter which person you are in that scenario, I believe you'll find the discussion in this episode educational, eye-opening, and will help guide you to being more proactive to stop a possible addiction in someone's life or even your own.
00:01:40
Speaker
right, guys, thanks for joining me today. For our viewers, um let's introduce everybody. So we have Alan, we have Dave, and we have Christy. I'll let each of you introduce yourselves to the audience of who you are and um why you were asked to be here today.
00:01:54
Speaker
Hey. Good morning, everyone. I'm Alan Texara. I was featured in a video series that we did last year on Recovered Sex Buyer. I was proud to do that. very happy with how it turned out.
00:02:09
Speaker
um the Institute Against Human Trafficking and Jeremy have asked me to participate again this year with going just a little bit deeper on issues of sex addiction and how we can deal with that and the impact it's having and connection to the illicit sex market in our communities.
Pornography and Sex Trafficking: A Dangerous Liaison
00:02:28
Speaker
So thank you so much for having me. course. And Dave, you're a new one here. Yeah. Yes, thank you for having me. I'm David Hudson. i am the president of the Sexual Integrity Project with Alan. And I'm also a counselor who specializes in trauma and sex addiction.
00:02:43
Speaker
I'm excited to talk today about about our topics. And then we have Christy. Hi, good morning everybody. My name is Christy Collins. I am here this morning representing the women, the women who have been betrayed and their stories and their sorrows and how to get to the other side. So hopefully today i will bring you some hope.
00:03:05
Speaker
That's what we're looking looking for. So what we're going to be talking about today is pornography. It's lovely subject, isn't it, everybody? The reason why we're talking about pornography is because and between U.S. s Institute Against Human Trafficking and Kids Not For Sale, we've been talking about fighting the demand.
00:03:24
Speaker
And in fighting the demand is ultimately those who purchase sex. um And you cannot hide from pornography when you think about those who purchase sex.
00:03:37
Speaker
um It's literally like the the guidebook in many ways that they they They seem to be putting in front of everyone to say, hey, look, this is what people do and leads to many different things.
00:03:51
Speaker
um The view about pornography is I've seen it to be very broad. And, you know, some people view it as um terrible.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like if you watch porn, you you you are you're kind of sick, right? Like, I think that's sick to to to do anything like that with married or not. Or it's viewed as it's OK unless you're married.
00:04:15
Speaker
you know Otherwise, then it's unfaithful. Or um pornography is okay. it's it's It's actually a healthy thing. you know it can it's it's some It's entertainment, um a form of entertainment that we can do, but just just just don't take it out into the world. it's kind of like watching and an action movie. okay Just because you watch an action movie doesn't mean you kill somebody.
Is Pornography Just Entertainment?
00:04:39
Speaker
Right?
00:04:40
Speaker
um these are all the different kind of things we've we've heard um and but what we want to get into today is talk about um what opinion honestly you should have about pornography based upon the research based upon what happens into your brain when ah um when when you get involved with pornography and ultimately Who's watching it?
00:05:01
Speaker
um start I'll start off with one fact right now. It is illegal in the US s to present porn to anyone under 18. I'm glad we live in a country, everybody, that we make sure that no one under 18 watches pornography.
00:05:18
Speaker
That's interesting because yeah most of the consumers are between 14 and 17. Precisely. So for someone to say, oh we've taken a step forward to make this illegal,
00:05:31
Speaker
No, you're not. We haven't. We haven't done anything. So it's like outlawing sunrises. and So let's talk about what porn ultimately does to the brain.
00:05:43
Speaker
And let's let's let's kind of go down that that route. um Dave, I know that you gave kind of a presentation. You've talked about this many times. um If I were to ask you, simply put, what is pornography do to your brain?
00:05:58
Speaker
What would you what would you what would you say?
00:06:02
Speaker
I would categorize pornography use as a maladaptive behavior to some negative experiences. That would be the short version of it. So when someone doesn't want to feel, or specifically doesn't want to feel bad,
00:06:18
Speaker
They will use a substance to make them or a process to make them not feel. right They want to numb everything out. And porn is a really good way to do that.
00:06:30
Speaker
When you start to act out or go through that process, your brain is going to release a whole bunch of chemicals. Chief of those is going to be dopamine. ah So we sort of call it a dopamine addiction, but there's really a whole bunch of stuff involved with it.
00:06:42
Speaker
So all that dopamine gets released that you get from normal activities, like when you complete a load of laundry, when you complete a task at work, you get a reward for that. But by doing these types of behaviors, you get a big, giant surge of it.
00:06:56
Speaker
And so our brains are naturally going to seek after a way to get all that dopamine as easy as possible. And unfortunately, the way we've created the access to pornography, it's made it really easy.
00:07:10
Speaker
It's private. You can do it in a way and no one knows. you know, if you go into another room and get drunk and you come out, people are going to see it. But if you go into a room and view some porn, most of the time people are going to recognize it. So you can keep it very isolated and very private.
00:07:23
Speaker
You can get it anytime you want. Right now, I could pull up any of these devices we have in
Impact of Pornography on Relationships and Intimacy
00:07:27
Speaker
this room. and get any type of perversion we could ever possibly imagine instantaneously without any type of verification.
00:07:36
Speaker
It's easy to get it, and so your brain's going to be drawn to it immediately. So you develop sort of a dependency on getting all your dopamine that way. You don't need to do it other ways. You'd be very lethargic after that, wouldn't you?
00:07:48
Speaker
Well, okay. um Let's talk. let Let me play devil's advocate here for moment. Sure. um OK, so if if porn helps you relax, is that a bad thing? And if you're not, if you're able to do it in private and not bring it out to the public, like you said, what's the problem with it? Sounds like it's the best drug then in that situation. Well, what I said was that no one would see it. It didn't mean they wouldn't be affected.
00:08:14
Speaker
So anytime that you are numbed out from life, you're gonna lose one of the three basic components, which is relating. So you have achieving, being, and relating. And if you're numbed out and not connected,
00:08:26
Speaker
Everyone around you is going to notice it. We see it constantly. The men who come into, and I deal primarily with men, ah who come into my office, they're disconnected at work, they're disconnected at home. They really don't have any relationships.
00:08:38
Speaker
It is, in fact, we actually call all this an intimacy disorder. That's the inability to effectively connect spiritually, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. So I say that they don't see the effects, but the effects all are there, and everyone feels it.
00:08:54
Speaker
ah So when they are disconnected, they're going to be a apart from everybody else. What do you think the effects are, Christy, if you were to try to think about like.
00:09:06
Speaker
Is there any way to really know if someone's like addicted to porn, like by the way they live their life? Ooh, that's a really great question. um i think what we see is more and more distance between them and their other relationships because as they continue to move into that escape world, um being interactive with other human beings is is risky and there's challenge and there's conflict and that makes them uncomfortable.
00:09:35
Speaker
It's so much easier to have relationship with a screen and what's going on on that screen. So I think maybe that's what we would see is they would start to pull away and isolate. When you say relationships, are you talking about just, you know, intimate relationships like a man wife or boyfriend, girlfriend, whichever, like, or are you talking about just in general?
00:09:57
Speaker
I would think in general, because I know most of the women that I work with, they're completely unaware that their men are heavily engaged in porn.
00:10:07
Speaker
Like, they they didn't have a clue this was going on. Well, why? Why do you think that is? Hmm. I don't know. I'd have to throw that back over to Dave. I mean, i mean that it's a that's a tough question. I actually have some, I think, some insight. Yeah. um You know, Dave mentioned the primary chemical that's released with the male orgasm is dopamine.
00:10:32
Speaker
um There's another chemical, vasopressin. That's the hormone in men that serves as a bonding hormone. Most of us have heard about oxytocin with the ladies bonding them to their babies, and when they're skin to skin with a man, it bonds them to that man.
00:10:48
Speaker
So men have a chemical or a hormone that does this for them, vasopressin. So that's released um at the same time. And men are very visual, so what's happening is they're bonding to the image they're looking at at that moment.
00:11:06
Speaker
Now, God designed men to have this because we're supposed to be gazing into the eyes of our betrothed to our wife ah when we have those relations. And it is a mechanism to continuously bond the man to his spouse and strengthen that bond over time.
00:11:24
Speaker
um Lots of folks, we've all heard them say that porn's okay and it doesn't hurt anybody. But the reality is ah that just as vasopressin released with the male orgasm will bond them to their wife, it will also bond them to any other person or any other image that they're viewing at the moment of sexual release.
00:11:49
Speaker
So this um chemical that was meant to ah attract us to our wives and strengthen that attraction now gets perverted and diluted to attract us to a multitude of images that – reviewing online or, you know, back in the day on video tapes or magazines, and it dilutes that.
Normalizing Pornography: Harmful or Harmless?
00:12:15
Speaker
So I would push back and say, how can de-attracting men to their wives be good for society? And how exactly are they becoming de-attracted to their wives?
00:12:28
Speaker
ah because they're diluting their attention you know to all these other images. it's also It can unattract them to their wife, and that's destructive to the family. That that is how sex addiction is destroying families.
00:12:42
Speaker
And to the women who had no idea, i don't blame them. you know A fish doesn't know it's wet. If their husband is acting out with these behaviors in secret... ah her experience with him is not everything that it could be, and it just remains unchanged over the years, and she's quite obviously just going to assume that this is how things are in my marriage.
00:13:04
Speaker
So um I can give sort of an illustration to where I think maybe you wouldn't recognize if someone was addicted to sex or not. and and First of all, it is, i should say, addicted to porn, which is an addiction to sex. um But I...
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, there's a person in my life, when I met them, um i they were most times heavily drugged on painkillers. um i just viewed I just met them, viewed them as a very chill person.
00:13:38
Speaker
I didn't see that. my wife on the other hand knew them very well and she always knew when they were high so what if i met them at when they were high i didn't know that they were ultimately high on on something like painkillers you can usually know drunk you can usually know like the goofiness of maybe someone on marijuana or something like that right but when it comes to painkillers it's it's kind of that that subtle high that you really only know it if you know the person well um so my wife always knew but i didn't and then um then he got sober um and then i now i know or or there's signs of it like i know what you're like sober and i know what you're like high on
00:14:23
Speaker
um on uh uh this painkiller so now i understand i believe that if if if ah if a spouse were to be um hit with the fact that their that their spouse or something like that is addicted to pornography and that person were to stop doing pornography actually become sober from it and then go back into a relapse i think she would know the difference or he 100
Marital Strain and Pornography
00:14:50
Speaker
percent so yeah it's like you said it's a hidden thing it's harder to detect but it's creating hardship it's creating distance um... so for a second talking about the dynamic that the yes about which we the offended spouse and the offending spouse is a term that we might might use our partner sure
00:15:11
Speaker
so
00:15:13
Speaker
Most of these guys who are acting out into sexual acting out didn't start Tuesday, right? They started back 12, 13, sometimes earlier than that, 7, 8, often prepubescent, but very often pubescent.
00:15:28
Speaker
So as they've gone through the years, I won't say through maturation because they didn't mature, but as they've gone through aging, That's who they've been. So the partnership that develops with someone, in order for an addict to exist, there must be a codependent. In fact, the word we used to use was co-addict.
00:15:50
Speaker
ah We've changed that a little recently to codependent. So that they are seeking out a partner who is going to continue them and their dysfunction. I'm going to say something that is a little jarring at first, but if you hear me out, it'll make a little sense.
00:16:05
Speaker
The offending spouse or offending partner is 100% responsible for all the stupid choices they're making, without any question. Both partners are equally responsible for the condition of their marriage or relationship.
00:16:21
Speaker
So they are choosing a dynamic. Until that dynamic becomes untenable, until something happens to disrupt it, perhaps the spouse starts to go get well. Well, that changes the dynamic and they have to do something.
00:16:33
Speaker
If the one who's dealing with the addiction goes and gets well or starts that process, the dynamic changes. They have to do something or an event that brings all this to a head, which is most common. And then people can start to heal from it.
00:16:46
Speaker
So how do they not know what's going on? They don't want to know until they have to know. And once they reach that point, then women have this amazing intuition given them by God.
00:16:58
Speaker
They know something's up. They always know something's up. They might not have it. they They'll take this puzzle piece and they'll sometimes cram pieces that don't really fit in the puzzle. But they're going to solve this puzzle and they're going to figure it out.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I believe that's a gifting by God for these women to protect them from what men can do and what they're capable of, what we're capable of. So when you ask me how do they know or not know, sometimes they're in the relationship because they want it to be that way. They're comfortable in their maladaptive behavior until they're not comfortable anymore.
00:17:28
Speaker
And that's kind of what we want to do is disrupt that, make them uncomfortable to say, hey, this is not cool. We've got to cut this out. Let me help you. I would agree. However, i would question if you have a young lad who has started looking at porn at, you know, the numbers 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, and meets a young lady at 26, 24, 28, somewhere in that range, and they get married, isn't he just so good at his behavior and covering his tracks?
00:18:00
Speaker
She's not really meeting the real him. Correct. But what we're also learning is he's not really meeting the real her either. And so, you know, the young ladies have trauma. the The young men are also have usually some trauma in their background.
00:18:15
Speaker
And so we've got hurt peing hurt people meeting, hurt people getting married. And then, you know, six, eight, ten years down the road, we wonder why it crumbles. Right. What about the person, um because i want I want to make sure we're not just talking about the extreme here.
00:18:31
Speaker
What about the person introduced when they were 8, 9, 10, whichever, which is, let's just be real here. I don't know of anyone that wasn't, ah um I don't know of anyone that has not seen porn before the age of 8. I literally do do not know of any person that, anyone who admits to me that they've seen porn will admit like 8 years old, just yeah at least in my demographic of, in my 30s, right?
00:18:56
Speaker
I believe anyone who's had access to the internet since they were eight years old or movies since they were eight years old has seen it. Anyway, what about the person who's seen it? Sometimes has had moments, seasonal addictions, if you would.
00:19:10
Speaker
um And what I mean by that is there's a difference between someone who says, um I need alcohol every day. um alcohol every day or I need two drinks of alcohol every day to function versus the person who's like um drinking alcohol three or four times a week. So it's like they're not an alcoholic, but, you know, maybe they're going a little too strong on it or it sometimes affecting a few things here and there, right?
00:19:38
Speaker
or Or they have seasons of like heavy ah heavy dose, heavy not. Because I want to talk about the person who doesn't have a natural addiction per se, but they fall into it sometimes. Yeah. I think you're talking about a binge purge cycle. Sure.
00:19:50
Speaker
Usually that is still an addiction. It's driven by trauma, but for whatever reason, there's some seasonality to the trauma. So they can go months or even years appearing to be totally healthy, you know, long periods of sobriety. And then they they relapse for a period of time. And that's cyclical.
00:20:10
Speaker
and Dave could probably give us deeper insight on that. but well if Before we do that, is there would you say that there's a difference between that person like the person you just described as someone who's been addicted for that long and getting the marriage not really truly knowing each other and like someone who has ah purge a purge cycle? is that Is that what you just said, Alan? Binge purge. Binge purge. yeah Would you say that there's probably a difference there?
00:20:35
Speaker
um I'm gonna say yes, there's probably a difference from from the female perspective. If we don't know what's going on, it's yeah it's not gonna matter if it's full-time or if this is a purge-bent cycle. sure Do you see what I'm saying? there They're still not sharing that yeah with the women in the relationship. yeah although Although I am hearing from the younger women that the men are sharing their porn addiction with the younger dating you know age group, I should say.
00:21:02
Speaker
And the young women are like, oh, I guess this is just part of what I'm going to get. And the men are like, yeah, this is part of the deal. So that's an interesting new dynamic. The normalizing of it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:13
Speaker
Well, before before we get into that, yeah, let's talk about that cycle of addiction. So you brought up a great question about what about the casual user? I think is really the intent of the question. What about the people who just use it once or twice a week or something along those lines? First of all, Chrissy's 100 percent right that if anything is done secretly,
00:21:30
Speaker
there's a reason why you're trying to do it secretly. yeah If you're going to justify something, there's a reason you're trying to justify it. So that ought to tell you the first thing. But even the casual user ah is the beginning.
00:21:42
Speaker
it's It might not progress all the way to catastrophic behaviors that we might deal with. But it starts with an an initial use, and over time people start to abuse it. They find out that, hey, this is good for this purpose, this is something I enjoy, whatever it is, and they start to abuse it and use it inappropriately, which then moves to a level of tolerance.
00:22:02
Speaker
You become sort of desensitized to it. Whenever you use any type of substance or process, as you use it, your tolerance for it develops, and you have to use more of that substance, right?
00:22:13
Speaker
So someone acting out in sexual and a matter of sexual integrity or sexual acting out is going to seek novelty and newness, right? Well, that's going to develop ultimately into dependence, where are they're going to need that substance to be able to to feel that way.
00:22:28
Speaker
Ultimately, that could lead to addiction, and then we go through a whole process of relapsing. ah When they try to get sober back to initial use and that whole cycle goes up again and again. what The point I'm trying to get at is there may be people out there who use some type of sexual acting out pornography, strip clubs, whatever, and they never develop into an addiction.
00:22:50
Speaker
ah but the use in itself is a problem because it is an isolatory behavior. And frankly, it's an unholy behavior ah where that's not designed for us to
Can Normalizing Sex End Trafficking?
00:23:01
Speaker
do. you You said it's not that extreme, but let's really be honest for it for a second.
00:23:05
Speaker
When an eight-year-old sees adults having sex and then the perversions that go with that, that is extreme. Yeah, really comes yeah it's a realization that there's no, it's all extreme. Right. yeah So let's let's apply our culture to the addictive cycle just for a second, right?
00:23:22
Speaker
Initial use, sexual revolution brings it in. Abuse, things start to get out of hand. We use it inappropriately. We develop a tolerance to it where we might even have a conversation. Well, what about just the casual user of porn?
00:23:33
Speaker
Imagine that conversation 60 years ago. That would have never happened, right? ah Then we moved to a dependence and then to addiction. We are at a stage now where we have become so tolerant of sexualization that it's normalized.
00:23:47
Speaker
the Even the advertisement, the movies. Is that what needs to happen to help end human trafficking? i didn't yeah Yeah. I did an experiment. on my Well, hold on. Yeah, sure. The question I asked was, is it, I'm making sure I understood right, is normalizing sex what will help end human trafficking?
00:24:05
Speaker
Oh, the exact opposite. Yeah. Well, ha what what hold on. Let's think about this again. Normalizing healthy sex or unhealthy sex? i know advocate here um I want to know if if sex is just a normal thing, will it well can we make it to where it's not traumatic? Sex is a holy thing.
00:24:23
Speaker
And so if it's done in its appropriate context, absolutely. It's a wonderful thing to talk about and do and experience outside of its holy context is when it becomes perverse. Well, how do you talk? How do you? Okay, let's let's take faith out of it then.
00:24:36
Speaker
um If we were to normalize sex, would we take the trauma out of it? Is that possible? Are you talking about normalizing healthy sex?
00:24:48
Speaker
No, normalizing and just like, hey, you know, this stuff, this stuff happens. You can watch pornography online. um and You can you can you can purchase sex.
00:24:58
Speaker
It's to those who consent as long as there's consent. That's the lie, right, is the consent part. But um it's if it's normalized, because like you said, it was is it's more it was more extreme 60 years ago than it is now. So yeah did we normalize that way? understand you. I want to say no absolutely not.
00:25:18
Speaker
Okay, why? Because, okay, let's just use a drug ah allegory. What if we legalize heroin and opiates and just let everybody have a free-for-all? That is an argument, right? That will de-shame it.
00:25:29
Speaker
But ah you will end up hurting an awful lot of people because the truth is that those foreign substances are not good for us. They're just not.
00:25:40
Speaker
They're not healthy in any dose. The argument to doing it or allowing it, like someone who, as it was, it takes heroin. Like usually yes it's a shot. I don't know much about drugs. But I know that like there's a dangerous way to do it.
00:25:55
Speaker
And so they're like, hey, we can help deaths by doing it. You know, league like like in this space, you can do it without rep repercussions. You guys know what talking about? These centers that exist for taking heroin and stuff like that? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I think that is just not the right approach. Well, no, of course it's not. And I think the people who advocate that, while they may be very intelligent and intellectual, I think they maybe have a conflict.
00:26:21
Speaker
Like maybe it's their job to keep the prison population down because their state budget just can't handle it. Sure. oh or getting and a Or maybe they're addicted themselves and they're lazy and they don't want to see any expectation that they have to do the very hard work of overcoming their addictions. It's easier for them to advocate. hots yeah so you're going to die They want to de-shame it, de-consequence it so they can get what they want without any any reprisals. you know um
00:26:53
Speaker
But none of that is God's design. you know he He wants for the addicts that he loves for them to overcome that and step into his plan for their life.
00:27:07
Speaker
Normalizing I think what you're ultimately saying is normalizing. It is just Prolonging the inevitable. Yes and The inevitable is you're going to kill relationships You're going to take away the gift of sex which is i mean um We're gonna get more into the weeds about how it truly affects your brain, but I cannot imagine that enjoying sex with their spouse who is able to do it on demand with pornography.
00:27:42
Speaker
You know what Do you mean if their spouse...
00:27:46
Speaker
wants to have intimacy with a porn addicted partner. Yeah. The porn addicted partner is not able to respond to them in a healthy way. Is that what you're saying? mean, it's literally causing erectile dysfunction and stuff. Yeah. Because they're wasting their sexual energy. they They're attracted to a million images online, not necessarily their wife anymore. Absolutely.
00:28:06
Speaker
They're attracted to a fake a fake presentation. Right. And then the death spiral that presents in a marriage, is um I'm not going to say this with an absolute, but in my experience,
00:28:17
Speaker
um nobody likes to be rebuffed when they get up the mustard to ask their partner if we can have intimacy. um It can be very hurtful.
00:28:29
Speaker
And if a ah but a betrayed spouse, for example, or or the spouse who's married to porn-addicted partner is rebuffed a few times in a row,
00:28:42
Speaker
um I think we could all understand if she was no longer interested or felt wounded about that. So it makes it even harder for the couple to connect again. And it just gets worse and worse because the addicted partner, having not connected with his wife, there's a reason to keep self-medicating in the way that he's used to. And it it just, it's a death spiral in a marriage.
00:29:07
Speaker
So you you talked earlier about what happens to your brain when you're when you have an orgasm, when you're having sex. Right. So what is the difference? Maybe. And, you know, this day what the difference between what happens in your brain when you're watching porn versus what happens in your brain when you're having healthy sex?
00:29:26
Speaker
Is there is there a difference? And what is it?
00:29:30
Speaker
Yes and no. it is the same result, but perhaps with greater intensity. okay So, for instance, any drug is going to alter the way that you react and interact with reality.
00:29:49
Speaker
So you can either choose to bond with your spouse or you can choose to bond with a screen.
Addiction vs. Dependency in Relationships
00:29:57
Speaker
And, you know, Christy said something earlier that's a really important component of this is the illusion and delusion of safety.
00:30:07
Speaker
oh Interacting with people is dangerous. Alan was just talking about being rejected by your spouse. so That hurts, especially when we look at why someone develops into these behaviors.
00:30:18
Speaker
Generally speaking, they either come from abuse or abandonment. and that's really rejection. And so when they have to face the potential of being rejected by their spouse once or multiple times or indefinitely, that's really painful and terrifying.
00:30:35
Speaker
But when you turn on that screen, it does what it's supposed to do every single time. It delivers what it does. is supposed to deliver along with a whole lot more you didn't expect but there's not a chance of rejection at that point it becomes very safe in the moment ah the consequences are high the cost is high and there's no benefit but the the result is the same do you want to be bonded and connected with your spouse or do you want to have that bonding connection with an inanimate object but Jeremy porn never says no
00:31:15
Speaker
Let's talk about that. Porn never says no. Is there a healthiness to saying no? For a woman? Yeah. yeah Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's a it's a gift, but it's also a challenge in a marital relationship.
00:31:30
Speaker
But it it gives the addicted partner justification in their own mind on why they can go act out with the porn. Oh, my spouse said no or my partner said no. So and I don't like no. hmm. I want what I want, what I want, what I wanted, now.
00:31:48
Speaker
And so I just marched myself into my little isolated space. yeah And I say, find something that's gonna say yes. That is the number one thing we deal with on the men's side is dealing with the entitlement, that i deserve to have what I want right now regardless of requiring any type of effort or work to do it, that I deserve it.
00:32:09
Speaker
um Absolutely the number one barrier to get through in recovery first is entitlement, and then we move to some other issues, but absolutely 100%. How do you deal with or counsel someone who's been told it's unhealthy if you're used to having sex on a regular basis?
00:32:28
Speaker
Suddenly, because this is a story I hear all the time, um mostly among Christian men, their wife just had a baby. They're out for eight weeks, you know, that that six week, right? yeah um At best. that that That's usually when these thoughts come into play of like, all right,
00:32:48
Speaker
I need to release. What am I supposed to do? So how do you usually guide them through that? Well, the first is you don't. that's that's That's a lie. You don't. Not that you're lying, but what it says.
00:33:02
Speaker
Medical advice is coming out that it's literally healthy or or sorry i should say unhealthy to not Correct, over long periods of time.
00:33:13
Speaker
ah it There are natural um processes that will deal with that. The reality is that the lie that if I don't have sex every 72 hours, which is a number that keeps coming up, is is not true.
00:33:27
Speaker
In fact, one of the therapeutic things we do is to put the guys through 90 days' worth of of sobriety. and That includes if the spouse is willing to not even have sex with their spouse.
00:33:39
Speaker
ah I want you to imagine with me for a moment, if you have a large grass field and you were to walk through that field the exact same way every day, what's going to develop in that field?
00:33:51
Speaker
The grass is going to be down. Right. you going to develop a path. Exactly. Yeah. And so when these guys have these acting out behaviors, they're laying down a pathway in their brain that says, I know exactly how to get what I want.
00:34:02
Speaker
And they know to do it immediately. And it becomes very easy. There's no work you have to do to walk through it. So there's this compulsion of I can get to what I need instantaneously and I need it immediately, that entitlement we talked about.
00:34:18
Speaker
But what happens if you stop walking down that path every day? Over time, the grass is going to grow back. That's what we call neuroplasticity, that your brain is going to rewire itself back to a healthy state.
00:34:33
Speaker
We could get on a whole other topic of how we are losing the ability to remain focused over a long period of time because of the instantaneous ah reward of social media, of technology, ah microwaves. mean Everything that we want immediately we get rather than having to wait.
00:34:53
Speaker
And so we think, I want to have sex, therefore I can have it within 72 hours. That's not reality. And you're not going to die. You're going to be okay. And you will learn how to deal with this. We have guys who are going into two, five, seven years of sobriety because their marriages aren't together anymore.
00:35:11
Speaker
They're not acting out alone. They're not acting out with someone. They're very healthy. They're not dead. They're not dropping dead heart attacks. They're all right. In fact, they're doing fantastic. They get healthier than they've ever been.
00:35:23
Speaker
ah So i would I would argue the other side of that. the Yes, there are, they of course, natural, healthy benefits of of those types of releases, but it needs to be done within a holy context to make it healthy. If it's unholy, it's not going to be healthy.
00:35:35
Speaker
You bring up an interesting segue into this. Would you say that even if a man is not watching porn, but feels like he must every 72 hours have sex or have a release of some kind?
00:35:48
Speaker
Is he addicted to sex? No. Okay, what's the difference? Probably not. I wouldn't say that. ah To answer your question, yeah I'm not saying he is not. i would I would not say that he is. Okay, so i know yeah, what's the difference here? So remember our our cycle of addiction, we still have initial use, abuse, tolerance, and dependence leading then to addiction.
00:36:07
Speaker
Just because someone uses with frequency and maybe even with compulsion does not necessarily equal addiction. Not every guy who has, if you'll imagine, remember ah in high school the old school Venn diagrams, little circles that overlap each other,
Shame, Trauma, and Addiction: Breaking the Cycle
00:36:23
Speaker
right? So what we want to imagine is in the first circle we have sexual integrity.
00:36:28
Speaker
That's acting outside the rules or the confines or definitions of a relationship. So, for instance, a ah Christian married couple would only have sexual, emotional, intellectual, all these intimacies to the highest levels just with each other.
00:36:44
Speaker
And anything outside of that's a violation, right? That's a sexual integrity issue. um I live in a ah part of Florida where we're the nudist capital of the world. And a lot of those the people who live there have ah different lifestyles, a phrase they might use, ah where they're open to a lot of different sexuality.
00:37:03
Speaker
They even have rules that exist, and you can violate those rules, right? So there's a sexual integrity issue, first of all. The second one would be dependency or addiction.
00:37:14
Speaker
They're not the same thing. You can develop dependency without going all the way into addiction. Addiction is sort of the end result. ah So we're not really there yet. We're talking about some of the dependency that develops to get to that.
00:37:25
Speaker
Last one, by the way, is the intimacy disorder. And we get in that middle tempest is where we have all the problems. but So we have three real different distinct categories. Intimacy disorders, sexual integrity issues, and then dependency and addiction.
00:37:40
Speaker
Help me. Christy, what would you say is the difference between dependency and addiction? and that's and Talking about so ah pornography or sex or anything like that. That's a really good question. i would love to have a deeper conversation with Dave over that be because I think it opens up maybe a potential can of worms. So are are we saying, I'm just going to say this out loud, from why are we saying self-gratification is okay for men?
00:38:07
Speaker
And if we are, then is it okay for women? Okay. So think we need to clarify. can offer on the difference. um And ah some definitions for addict addiction do mention this, but I think if a guy's stuck in dependence but not yet addicted, ah you know yes, he's been doing it, he has a tolerance for it, and even a dependency on it, but he's not gonna let the times and ways in which he acts out with this inappropriate sexual behavior to displace the things that are important in his life.
00:38:42
Speaker
Once he crosses into that area where he begins to sacrifice the things that are important to him in his life, his love relationships, his job,
00:38:55
Speaker
just to act out sexually, then I think we're squarely in addiction. So to to help draw the line, right? It's a dependency is ah dependency means you want it. you you You kind of desperately want it, but you're able to control your compulsions. Is that sort of the difference? Let's use a more classic definition. Sure. So we have dependency. We would put sort of in the physical category. Your body has become used to something. Yeah. Yeah. Addiction would have more of a mental component.
00:39:27
Speaker
And so a dependency of something that you want, let's say ah you're you're addicted. Well, you developed a dependency, excuse me, on caffeine. You don't need that.
00:39:37
Speaker
Yeah. You can stop drinking caffeine. The addiction component is when you override the healthy behaviors to get what your body wants. When you make self-harmful, destructive choices to get what your body has become accustomed to getting.
00:39:52
Speaker
So that would be ah a little more of a classic difference between a dependency, physical, and then addiction, mental. When it becomes self-destructive, that's when we've gone into a whole other category. let's yeah Let's talk about something basic like coffee.
00:40:06
Speaker
If I were to say to you, yeah, I stopped drinking coffee um two weeks ago, and i just um i've I've had a headache every day since. yeah Does that mean I was addicted coffee, or i had a dependency on coffee? like it's Probably dependency. So what's the difference between addiction to coffee and ah so But if I were to say – Did you spend your family's rent on coffee? Right, right. Okay. Did you sneak out of work to go use coffee in and the back room? That's fair. Yeah. So now – you hide your coffee? Yeah, do you hide your coffee? Okay. you sneak over in the closet and not tell your wife you got Starbucks? Right. now Well, no, no, no. that's There's a difference between shame yes and addiction.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yes. Shame it would be the root cause of almost all addictions. Because you know you're doing it too much. Is that kind of like though the shame you're talking about? Oh, such a great question. No.
00:40:56
Speaker
Okay. oh Yes, but no. I'm sorry. I give a lot of yes, but no. Yeah, that's okay. Please explain. That's what all this is, right? There is an excellent theory of all addiction that it's rooted in what we call a shame core.
00:41:08
Speaker
Guilt is I've done something wrong. Shame is there something wrong with me. And so at that point when someone at an early age, they're neglected, right? My my parents don't love me enough to care for me. or they are abused that I'm um'm worthless, I'm an object, right? They don't understand their own value and importance.
00:41:27
Speaker
They at that point develop a shame core that something is fundamentally broken or wrong with me. A child doesn't have the the ability to emote outside of themselves to understand, no, this is my caregiver's problem, not mine.
00:41:40
Speaker
The only way that they can physiologically process that information is neurotically and narcissistically, meaning inwardly. They can only determine that it's about them, so therefore something's wrong with them.
00:41:53
Speaker
They don't want to feel that way. So they can find a way to find some type of connection or some type of numbing effect, and then they develop that over time. That can be all sorts of things. That can be substances or all sorts of processes, even in the category of self-harm.
00:42:08
Speaker
But it all comes down to ah shame core that they don't want to feel anymore.
Understanding and Addressing Pornography Addiction
00:42:13
Speaker
That's the second thing. I talked about entitlement is the first thing we have to deal with. The second the path toward healing is dealing with the shame.
00:42:21
Speaker
The behaviors, yeah, that's the first step. We want to stop it. Stop doing stupid things. But if we don't go to the next step into recovery programs rather than just accountability programs, they never get the healing and they always go back.
00:42:36
Speaker
So until they get the healing from incredible wounding going through their life, they will never find a place of freedom from the things that are burdening them. What do you think? Amen, amen, and amen. Okay. that That is the root of where all of this needs to go is helping hurt people heal.
00:42:54
Speaker
And I would like to circle back to your original question. Is there a difference for men between the male orgasm that's resulting from watching pornography versus one with their wife or with a real human being?
00:43:08
Speaker
and according to this recovery workbook that is a pure desire product dr ted roberts and his wife wrote this it's designed for young men ages top gun yeah uh ages 15 to 25 and dr roberts was a um a navy pilot back in vietnam and he does a really an extraordinary job of drawing analogies and allegories from real scenarios that happened for him in battle and the battle of fighting sex addiction. It's really a very well written book.
00:43:41
Speaker
And in there he talks about your question, is there a difference? And according to Dr. Roberts, there absolutely is. So they have scientific evidence that an orgasm, the male orgasm from a man having sex with his wife is five times more satisfying than the orgasm that comes from acting out with a synthetic, like pornography.
00:44:06
Speaker
um And that's what makes pornography the perfect drug, because just like any other drug, it promises a certain high and can never deliver it. So, you know, the person who's acting out that way just chases it and chases it and chases it.
00:44:22
Speaker
And, you know, all the negative consequences that we've talked about so far, you know, are at play with that. um So, yeah, according to Pure Desire Ministries and Dr. Ted Roberts, there is an extreme difference between those two outlets where the healthier one that God designed is much more fulfilling, and they can prove that.
00:44:45
Speaker
So I think that kind of answers a question into does pornography can does or can, right? um There's kind of a big difference between between those questions.
00:44:59
Speaker
Does or can pornography lead to sex buying? And what you just said was,
00:45:06
Speaker
This high ain't getting it. I got to get the next high. Yeah. We talked about this a little bit in the product we did last year yeah on Recovered Sex Buyer.
00:45:17
Speaker
But there absolutely is a connection. And in that um video series, I point out that watching pornography is its own form of sex buying. you know the the The actresses that are in those video clips are oftentimes trafficked, they're compelled, and they don't get to keep the money that is being generated from their activities.
00:45:39
Speaker
um Even if you're viewing on a free site, your mouse clicks, engagement time, it's all justified by that pornographer for you know to garner advertising revenue, which is what keeps the women that you're watching in bondage. So there's there's really no way to argue that it's not, because it is.
00:46:00
Speaker
There's a lot to unpack with, I think, and which I think we will in our next episode when we talk about resources to help with pornography. But now want to start talking about real quick how to the direction of do you need help with pornography?
00:46:15
Speaker
Is someone who watches it once a year need help with pornography versus the person who watches it three times a day? What's the difference between those two people? and And I'm actually i want to ask this to Christy first.
00:46:27
Speaker
What is the difference to a spouse of someone? if If you're married to a spouse and then he watches porn once, maybe twice a year versus versus we already know what you feel about three times a day.
00:46:39
Speaker
What what would be is is there is there a difference to the wife? I don't think so. i i i think it leaves women confused. Well, if I'm here, why not choose me?
00:46:51
Speaker
what Why are you choosing the synthetic, the fake, the unreal? and And then if If the man were to actually share his screen and and show the woman what he actually is watching, now the woman says, oh, well, I can never be that.
00:47:08
Speaker
I can only be me. so and So then immediately the woman goes into her own shame cycle because I can never be all those different things and those nuances and those niches.
00:47:20
Speaker
When someone is acting out, they are in a different part of their brain known as the limbic system, which means they are disconnecting from the the frontal part of their brain where they're making the all the executive decisions.
00:47:34
Speaker
Right. When you disengage that on a regular basis, you lose all that executive function. That's why addicts act so irrationally, right? When any type of addict, when you are not engaging the frontal lobe of your brain, you're going to make stupid choices, irresponsible choices.
00:47:55
Speaker
it doesn't matter the category of the decision. So if you're constantly engaging a limbic response in what you're doing, then you're not going to have executive function in your work, in your family, in your life, in your decisions.
00:48:10
Speaker
Life just sort of happens to those who are in an addicted state. They don't take control of what's happening in their lives. So when these guys start using at eight or nine years old, they stop maturing and developing all the coping mechanisms that the rest of us adults actually have to use every day, like how to wait for something, just as an example.
00:48:34
Speaker
Could you imagine what it's like when these guys finally get well and all of a sudden this 8-year-old wakes up and he has a mortgage, he has a couple of car payments, he has a report due on Friday to his boss, his wife's mad at him, his kids are disobeying?
00:48:48
Speaker
Could you imagine that overwhelming sense of an 8-year-old waking up to that one day and having they have to learn very quickly? So I would say yes, 100%. They are completely not operating out of an executive function but out of a limbic response.
00:49:01
Speaker
And it causes chaos in every area of their lives. I want to help People who feel like they're not addicted to pornography. People who feel like they're not addicted to sex.
00:49:14
Speaker
People who feel like they are dependent upon it. Because I actually think that is the majority that would possibly even be listening to this podcast. that it is the person who, who doesn't watch it often, but has sometimes, and they know it's wrong, but how do I bring it up to my spouse?
00:49:36
Speaker
And if I say that I have this issue, i don't want them to think I'm addicted because I'm not that. So I'm caught in the middle and I cannot help, but feel like that's the majority of men.
00:49:51
Speaker
which means the majority of our churches, which these means the majority of our children, which means the majority of our marriages. So, Christy, one of the things you said was you you want to come in here to help bring hope.
00:50:07
Speaker
What hope does that person
Hope, Healing, and Open Conversations
00:50:09
Speaker
have? And as coming from a spouse's purpose perspective of how hard that is, what is their first step?
00:50:18
Speaker
Gosh, Jeremy, I'm gonna cry. ah really am. Women want their men to be all that God has purposed them to be, period.
00:50:34
Speaker
And I can't help but feel like repentance is the first part of that. Yeah, we if this is a stumbling block to you being all that God has for you to do and lead on this earth, the the women want to know and then the women want to help and the the women just, they want their men to be amazing, godly men.
00:51:02
Speaker
no matter the cost, that that it would cost us to know the deep, dirty, dark secrets. So men, tell your women.
00:51:14
Speaker
if i were to speak withhel If I were to speak to one of those guys now, I would say, ah love you. I'm sorry about whatever it is that's that's hurting in you.
00:51:25
Speaker
And I promise you there is a place of healing and there is so much more for you, man. So much more that you can't even imagine. There's going to be some consequences of some of your actions from the past. It's going to be difficult.
00:51:37
Speaker
But there are men out there who will stand with you, will accept you for all the stupidity that you've done, will love you, and will encourage you through it. And you can become the man of God that you were designed to be.
00:51:51
Speaker
You can become the husband you were designed to be. You can become the father you were designed to be. Where there is a place of hope, I know there's a place of healing, and it is out there for you. I want to just um add this to,
00:52:06
Speaker
you know, ah I don't think there's one man that could be listening to this who has, who can say like, I've never even had a thought of a struggle with porn. Maybe they haven't been addicted per your, ah per your definition, but there's been a struggle.
00:52:24
Speaker
And, um, It can be overcome and it can be stopped. And that doesn't define them. And that also doesn't define their marriage.
00:52:36
Speaker
It doesn't define the direction that they're going to lead their kids. And it doesn't mean that they can't lead their kids and a and ah in ah and ah and a healthy way. um i heard this recently, like, just because you have...
00:52:50
Speaker
damage in your life just because you make mistakes just because you're not perfect does not mean you can't lead someone else in the right way that's true um I think a lot of times we're like well I make mistakes so i gotta let my kids make mistakes no I know lots of high trauma people that have managed to raise secure children it's possible there's some work that they have to do it's a lot harder to achieve that by example yeah it ran in my family until it ran into me yeah it's ah it's a recovery phrase that we'll use a lot it can stop with you Yeah, i want to chime in on um Christie's initial response. I'm going to quote Dr. Ted Roberts again.
00:53:29
Speaker
He is at end of life with Parkinson's and chose to write another book. And this book is designed for leaders for Geyser that are like five years in and may still feel the pull.
00:53:43
Speaker
And it's outstanding. It's called Compassionate Warrior. And in that book, you know, he reiterates what we've said here, that addiction is driven by shame.
00:53:54
Speaker
And he goes on to say that shame comes from what we perceive other people are thinking and saying about us. And what other people think and say about us doesn't matter.
00:54:09
Speaker
Only what God says and thinks about us matters.
00:54:16
Speaker
The biggest and most important milestone in the road to recovery for guys who might be struggling with this, if they're in that dependent stage, is to strengthen their relationship with God.
00:54:30
Speaker
If they can come to the place where they just know they are absolute royalty, that they're a beloved son of the king,
00:54:40
Speaker
The shame goes away and that's the fuel that's been driving it all along. Right? So that's the best place to do the initial work. Just like Christie said, become everything God intended you to be. It's a hundred percent right.
00:54:57
Speaker
This will lead us into our next episode when we talk about resources to help out with sexual addiction, pornography addiction. um
00:55:07
Speaker
And I should say, kind of want to change it now to almost and dependencies, unhealthy dependencies. Pornography addiction should be done by a different type of professional, kind of what you're helping with, Dave. um And a pastor can talk about the dependencies.
00:55:24
Speaker
And if we can help that, I think that's the first place we can start by making sure pornography just stops affecting our children, stops affecting our marriages, and stops affecting the sexual a commercial sex industry that's literally what this organization is trying to help stop so if you want to stop the demand stop acting like we haven't or don't see this or don't struggle with it it's preposterous yeah we touched on this at a recent event we had a sexual integrity workshop on January 25th and we had an amazing presenter that zoomed in from Houston
00:56:04
Speaker
And he reminded all of us of the famous song by Simon and Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence. One of the lyrics in that song is, silence like a cancer grows.
00:56:17
Speaker
And it was so profound because we don't talk about this issue enough. There's so much shame and stigma around it that everything you said, Jeremy, is absolutely true.
00:56:29
Speaker
We need to start a conversation if we want to deal with it. Because if we don't, it will continue to grow like a cancer. It will continue to destroy men, families, churches, and really our society and nation at whole.