Welcome to Technically Short. This is Shawn and Thomas out here. This is going to be a very sensitive topic today.
So, um, let's get right into it. Thomas, what do you have for us?
Yeah, so like Shawn said, this is gonna be a sensitive topic.
So, use your own discretion with listening and
yeah, just wanted to throw that in there before we got too deep. But also, thank you for listening to this episode.
Thank you for tapping on it, whether this is your first time listening to us or your maybe this is the 15th or 16th time.
I don't honestly know, but
we want to say that we really appreciate you. We do. We definitely appreciate you guys.
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Give us a follow. Five star rating. Five stars if you really like our podcast.
And share it out on your social media so other people can hear what we have to say.
But on the topics that we're talking about, if you feel like it's something that can help them,
help them or is it interesting or if it just catches your interest and you think other people would benefit from it?
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Because we don't want this to be about us, about what we're, directly about us.
But it's about the people that, it's about the audience. Right. So that actually dives into the topic
we're going to be talking about. And today we're going to be talking about the struggles and temptations of pornography and the
kind of the atrocities of the pornography industry, which is why we said it was a sensitive topic.
Absolutely. But one that people need to hear. Right. And I believe this is something Shawn has been wanting to talk about for months.
For months. And I kept saying like, I'm like, not yet. I need it down. I need to prepare it even a little bit.
So I slowly over time and listen to podcasts, even I would listen to the podcast on the topic.
I would recently or earlier this morning, I was reading some articles just to get my mind ready for this episode.
And honestly, what really prompted me to come to terms with doing this episode, it was when we recorded with Dave Miller and him diving in to his past and be like, yeah, this, I want to be able to tell people about the stuff I struggled with.
So that and how I got through it so that people that are going through it now can hear what I have to say and gain that benefit and can overcome it as well.
I think because I think and Shawn and I will talk about this, if people like us can get through struggles with pornography, then I honestly believe anybody can.
Absolutely.
Obviously, there's people that everybody's story is different and there's people that have a harder time at it than others.
And we'll dive into that.
But I do believe God put us in a position right now with this podcast, with even the small platform that we have to be able to positively affect people's lives so they can more effectively live out their lives on the calling that he has on them.
Oh, that's so good.
I was just about to say that.
So, Shawn, I'll leave it to you.
Okay.
So I ask you, you can go wherever you want to go.
All right.
And but we'll focus.
Do you have a specific question you want to ask me or do you want me to just focus on it?
Very brief.
Okay.
A very brief introduction.
How do you found porn and stuff like that?
Like when was your first exposure to porn?
Whatever you want to do.
Yeah.
Okay, so for me, my first exposure to porn was when I was 11 years old and we were at a friend's sleepover.
It was about probably like 20 of us and my friend's parents were pretty wealthy and they didn't have like well, actually, they did have the code of like your kid can't watch this.
But the kids knew the code.
So we watched.
We were watching a movie at first, original movie, just a regular movie.
And then somebody had the idea of, hey, hey, let's watch this pornography.
And at the time, more kids were like, what is that?
Oh, yeah, this would be awesome.
And I still remember what it was called.
It was on.
You have to say the name.
Probably should believe that now.
Is that like a lawsuit thing?
No, we just don't need people like figuring out what that was.
Okay.
I guess I'm doing a little bit more editing for this episode.
I guess that should have been expected just in general.
Yeah, I just try to give them a brief synopsis of how you got exposed to it.
Right.
But we also don't want to put any actual.
Hopefully, it's not even on the air anymore.
Okay, we're going to move on to move on.
We're going to bleep it out and figure out how to do that.
I guess I'll go off of that.
So you threw me through a loop.
I've talked with other outlets of friends.
I never talked about this publicly.
So I'm going to be as vulnerable as I am comfortable with being.
My own struggle with pornography.
It started when I was in eighth grade and lasted until I was, I would say, about a little
over two years ago, maybe more, two or three years ago, I'll say.
And there were times when I was trying to quit and times that I wasn't.
And those weren't consecutive.
Like it could have been a time whenever I was like, yeah, I should stop doing this because
this is sin.
Or why would I stop?
Because it makes my mind, makes my body feel good.
So I, but the further I, the more I got, the more we got in, the more I tried to quit,
the more I tried to quit.
And this is just my own story.
And every time I failed, the angrier I would get.
And I don't think it was, I don't think it was a anger, out of place sort of anger.
I wasn't mad.
I was, I mean, some of it was, some of it was misplaced, but there was also times for
me that pinnacle point in my life was whenever I got so mad, I got so mad that I just started
breaking stuff.
Like, not like stuff that was causing me this sin.
And I got, I was like, God, I am done.
I'm done.
I am done.
That wasn't the end of the struggle, but that was the start of the end for me.
And that's not everybody's story.
I think my emotion got so powerful that it might, and like the spirit was coming so in
line with, and I was coming, I was coming so in line with what the spirit wanted for
me that it was angering me that I wasn't.
And it's, it says in God's word, like you learn to hate what God, you learn to hate
what God hates and love what God loves.
And I didn't, I didn't understand that yet at the time, but this is deep for me.
But man, it was, that was something that I believe that whenever you learn to hate these
things that God hates, that's when that pinnacle moment starts to, that's when you start to
change the most, especially when it comes to struggling with things like this.
Man, so I got a little emotional over here.
That's okay.
That's what we want.
Well, that's what people need to hear.
But yeah, before I dive into a couple other, a couple other things, do you have anything
you want to bring up Shawn?
Yeah.
I'd say I was addicted to pornography from 11 to like 28.
Yeah, about 28.
So what changed for me?
It's the first thing that like literally made me stop watching porn was the Holy Spirit.
When I got filled with the Holy Spirit, like I, I get a fresh refilling, it stopped and
made me stop watching porn.
And then secondly would be like, um, Christian inspirations.
So like I looked up to Thomas and I looked up to Brandon and Kendall, and these were
people who I like hold it to a high esteem.
So they let me know that like, it's okay to be a Christian and it's okay to be a cool
Christian.
Like you just became like, Christian became cool in my mind, where before it felt like
a task or like a behavior like, okay, I have to just obey God and whatever.
It became like our, I was so excited to be, to be know Jesus to like, it was so excited
to be a Christian.
Like it was different.
Like I had a different look on who I was, my identity, how I was changed.
So yeah, I've been clean from porn for three years and that was because of the Holy Spirit
and because of people who I hold it to a high esteem.
So looking at like Brandon and Kendall and Thomas and people like that, I was like, oh
man, there's no way that I can't be any different than my beloved brother and Christian, brother
and sisters in Christ.
Like so it made me feel like, okay, I can do this because they did this, you know what
I mean?
Like it was, it was, it wasn't like a comparison.
It was more of inspiration.
So like seeing Thomas and Brandon and Kendall and people like that when I first like first
got really, really a new relationship with God, a restoration with God, I would say,
restoring because I knew God my whole life, but that's where it was like, boom, it like
changed my trajectory.
That's good.
I think like even goes back to our Dave's episode of where you were talking, where we
were talking about community and this isn't something that you can do on your own.
And this is something that you can't just be like, oh, I'm going to quit.
Especially if you're in it as deep as both of us were at one point, it's something you
have to agree with God about.
And if you don't believe in God, I think there's still power in being surrounded by a community
that understands the dangers of pornography.
And that's one of the reasons why we want to put this out there because pornography
just isn't just another form of entertainment.
It destroys marriages, it destroys relationships, it destroys minds, it destroys people.
And some of the things I wanted to kind of touch on, I wanted to just lay out some statistics,
bring up some quotes, I put out some articles, which I'll leave all the links in the show
notes for you guys to go look at yourselves.
But one of the things I kind of, I already kind of knew this, but this is something I
read recently, but an addiction to porn creates habits that negatively affects relationships,
whether those are romantic relationships or friendships, it dulls the mind to the romantic.
It causes you to pull away from, it causes your mind to pull away from the present, especially
if you're deep enough in it.
Whenever you're with your thing, if you can other, your mind, if you've been watching
porn for such a long time, those sexual experiences that you've seen through a screen are now,
they've completely numbed you to anything that you could do with your wife or your husband
because of how derogatory and how explicit those scenes that you've seen online are.
You go with somebody else and I think there's a danger in it because the younger person
is, I don't mean to jump, but children are being exposed to pornography and even sexually
explicit content or just sexual content at younger and younger ages, which is causing
these addictions and these dangerous mindsets to be formed at such a young age while they're
still developing, while the mind is still developing.
So the younger you start, the harder it is to quit because the more ingrained it is in
your own psyche.
So true.
And that's something I really urge people to look out for is because there's sexually
explicit stuff on content on Disney Channel that's rated for kids that shouldn't have
ever been created in the first place.
And it's teaching kids essentially that sin is okay.
And it's teaching kids a lot of very dangerous understandings.
And I want to move on to another topic, but there was a quote I pulled from this website
I found called allprodad.com.
And it says, according to Homeland Security Investigations, child exploitation causes
cases continue to jump higher and higher.
Last year, the number one search term, this was back, I believe in 2006, I believe.
Last year, the number one search term among porn was teen.
That's T-E-E-N, teen.
That should shock our collective conscience, but I fear as a society, we may burn it away.
And I believe what they're saying there is that as a society, we may just ignore it when
we are ignoring it.
I think this whole thing is hard to think about because you don't, especially being
a person who used to watch porn a lot, I'm going to be honest, there was another part
of it, and this quote is from, who's it from?
Fight the new drug.
In the porn industry, there is virtually no way to guarantee that any piece of pornographic
content is truly consensual, ethical, or even legal.
The unfortunate truth is that the porn industry has an extensive history of profiting from
non-consensual content and abuse, even ignoring victims' pleas to remove abusive content.
And I was listening to, I'm sorry, I can't take this over, Shawn.
No, no problem.
I'm actually enjoying the statistics.
I was listening to a podcast, and I'm linking this podcast episode in the notes as well,
and I want you to listen to it.
It's called Change Agents.
And what they were finding, he interviews this woman who is the CEO of a company that
is literally suing the porn industry, and they're helping people fight to take videos
down of themselves being abused, or of some creep in a locker room hiding a camera in
the girl's locker room, and posting it online, posting it on the websites.
And there actually are people fighting for it, but not enough people know about it, so
not enough people are fighting it.
And virtually every major porn site has had issues with non-consensual content, abuse,
or child sexual abuse material, aka child porn.
Like pornography websites, they don't just promote things like rape, non-consensual sex,
and abuse.
They say that already.
But they also promote child trafficking because there is content out there that is child pornography.
And knowing that there's content out there, and that fuels, and they make money from that.
These industries, these websites make money from these videos.
And there's also industries, you'll learn from this if you listen to the podcast, there
are also industries like credit card companies that profit off of the industry because of
the transactions that are being done with their credit cards on those websites.
So there's a certain, I forget who it was, I won't say, but one particular credit card
company stopped the use of their cards because of them being outed.
So they stopped their use of their cards on those websites, so now you can only pay with
crypto or whatever, which is a good thing.
But they don't want to be involved.
Right, but they don't want to be involved.
But now it makes it harder to actually purchase pornography.
But that's not anywhere near where we need to be.
Honestly, we should just eradicate it from the internet, but that's not even possible,
sadly.
Shawn, I have another thing I'll bring up, but what's going through your mind right now?
Honestly, if people really understood what they're about to experience and watch and
bring into their lives, I think a lot of people would not do porn.
A lot of people would not watch porn.
But the issue is, as a society, we make it acceptable, right?
So it's like, oh, it's okay.
Teachers and school and people tell you that it's okay to do these type of behaviors and
they say it's normal.
By saying it's normal, we cause a whole creation of ungodliness, unjustliness, and destroy
people's lives.
Yeah, I think it's easy to watch porn.
It's an easy thing to do.
It's what our flesh wants to do.
All it takes is a few button strokes and we have a computer in our pocket all the time.
It's becoming more and more accessible as time goes on.
Things like you brought up before we started recording, OnlyFans, and how that's essentially
just prostitution.
It wasn't started as that.
That's what initially that site was made for, but that's what it turned into.
There are stories from women who, probably men do, but I've only seen those stories from
women who stopped OnlyFans because they were like, well, I'm going to have kids and now
this content is out there forever.
That affects their future, that affects their kids' future.
I think if I would have really thought about it more when I was watching porn, if I would
have thought about it more, I'm not just watching a movie of an actor.
I'm watching this honestly disgusting content and this is somebody's daughter.
This is somebody's daughter.
This is God's daughter.
Even though she's not following God's path, God still created her, so I should respect
her and right now what I'm doing is the complete opposite of that.
It's disrespecting every woman I ever saw on a pornography website.
The thing is though, what the enemy meant for evil, God can turn for good.
Even though Shawn and I both did an evil thing, we wanted God to use us to turn our sin into
something good.
Absolutely.
That's why we're doing this episode.
Man, this is harder than I thought for me to talk about.
It's just really a...
Very deep.
It's deep, man.
Definitely deep.
Here's another...I'm just going to drop another statistic for you because this is just insane.
We were talking before we recorded, Shawn, we were talking about...I told him, yeah,
the porn industry is the biggest industry.
If it's not at the very top, it's right up there, but I'm pretty sure it's at the very
top of legal industries, I'll say.
Legal which is disgusting.
And since the porn industry generates more income than the combined revenue of ABC, NBC,
and CBS, and more than combined revenues of NFL, NBA, and the MLB, in the USA, the porn
industry generates between $15 and $97 billion a year.
Billion.
Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on porn.
That quote was from what's called Lifespan.
The article was on the porn pandemic.
I'll link that as well.
That was 2021.
It's bigger now.
Yeah.
Way bigger.
Another reason I wanted to do this episode, because Shawn wanted to do it, but it had to
be both of us that were ready.
It's because people do not understand.
People know it as bad, but they don't understand how bad it is.
They're like, yeah, people shouldn't watch porn.
Great.
What are you going to do about it?
Words are cheap.
Action is what...
In this case, words, don't misquote me.
Don't mishear me.
In this case, words are cheap.
Action is what people need to be doing.
Sometimes all you can do is what Shawn and I are doing right now is putting out...
Speaking against it.
It would be fantastic to have the money to give to these organizations that are suing
the porn industry.
I would fight for anything that would make it illegal.
Yeah.
Shut it down.
It's our relationships, families, everything.
I know I've gone on a couple of rants, I feel like, during this episode, but I honestly
believe that...
Let me stop.
If you're struggling with porn right now, none of this was meant to condemn you.
I apologize if that's what you're feeling right now.
None of this was meant to condemn you.
What we're putting out there is for your benefit, just as much as it is for everybody else's.
Pornography, whether you believe in God or not.
Pornography affects you in so many negative ways.
In your mind, in your heart, and in your soul.
It also affects the people around you inadvertently.
The reason we're putting out this content is because we want to help you.
We want to help you get out of this valley that you're in.
This thought of constantly needing satisfaction from people that you don't even know.
You get those temporary dopamine hits, and then you just look forward to the next one.
Again, not saying that to condemn you, that was my own experience.
I know what my life was like during, and I know what my life is like now.
I guarantee you, I would choose now every time.
If you are struggling, reach out to a friend who you know has gone through it too.
If you don't know anybody who has gone through it too, find a good community.
You bring it up so much.
Find a good community, whether it's your local church, whether it is an online group
that is against pornography, those exist.
But there are so many ways and tools for people to overcome porn.
It doesn't make it easy, but just as porn has become more accessible, so has some of
the ways to fight it.
But they're not as prevalent as in our face, as they should be.
So, Shawn, if you wanted to talk to somebody right now that is struggling with porn, and
you wanted to help them get through it, what would you say?
I would say that porn attacks everybody.
So don't feel condemned that we're making this podcast for this specific topic.
Don't feel bad that what you've done, don't let all that shame get to you because I know
a lot of times after you're done watching porn, you feel instant shame.
It's an instant thing usually.
At least for me, it would be instant shame.
So if I could tell you what to do, my thing would be to give porn up.
And the reason why is because it destroys the outlook of women.
It's a sin.
There's plenty of reasons why, but it causes your body to react negatively when you're
in relationships, and it gives an unrealistic expectation for romantic involvement.
It does a lot of bad things to you.
So if you could give that up.
I know it's hard because we live in a society where some of your friends are only fan girls.
Some of your family is only fan girls.
So I would tell you to mute their stories.
You don't have to unfriend them because I do believe you can speak life into them.
But if you can just give it one step at a time.
Stop one day and then keep fighting.
Remember, you stopped that one day and then fight for the next day.
I think some of what Shawn was saying, I think, is if you are trying to quit, like we said,
it's not going to be easy.
In some practical ways for you to do that.
If you're sitting there and you're like, great, you told me to quit.
How the heck do I do that?
I tried and I failed so many times.
So and sorry about that.
That wasn't the end.
That was our outro song.
I don't know why that happened.
Good thing I put that on.
But some of the practical ways to be able to get through this, like we said, is with
the community.
But there's apps called Covenant Eyes.
There is that allows any other person that there is somebody monitoring your account
and somebody else monitoring your Covenant Eyes account, somebody else and then you on
your account and they'll get notifications if you ever look at porn essentially.
And that's kind of like an accountability system.
That works for some people, that doesn't work for other people.
There's also like Shawn was hinting at before, one of the easiest things, not easiest, but
like one of the best things that you can do is identify your triggers and identify for
me was there was some YouTube channels I would watch that were not fully explicit, sexually
explicit content, but there was always in their thumbnail and it's always the last thing
that they showed was something sexually explicit.
And so I identified that as a trigger to me then watching porn later.
So I eventually, so I forced myself.
I forced also kind of guided myself to stop watching that YouTube channel, even though
I really liked that YouTube channel and the YouTuber that was the content that they made.
They were feeding also some negative things.
There was, and like what Shawn said was Instagram, like you unfollow those people's accounts
that you know or you unfollow them not because of who they are, because of what they're doing
and whatnot and not necessarily because of what they're doing, but because of what they're
doing is doing to you in your mind.
And if you notice that as a trigger, then you do want to maybe just eliminate social
media from your phone.
I've known people, I know people who have struggled with porn and eliminate social media
because of it, because of how many triggers are out there on it.
And some people may feel like they can't get rid of porn or they can't get rid of Instagram,
which I think I get that would be hard because it's a, another thing that is considered,
people don't actually call it an addiction, but they generate it as an addiction to be
able to want to look at Instagram every day.
So I get that that would be hard to do, but even if you limit that time, and this is just
practical things to try, identify, identifying your triggers and the way they seem to work
is the more, maybe you don't watch porn right after watching the first, seeing the first
trigger, but the more they build up, eventually you give in.
And so you identify your triggers, eliminate the triggers, and then talk to, talk to friends,
be vulnerable with your friends and keep fighting the good fight.
There's other ways.
And if you want more, if you want more resources, if I find, I'd be honest, I don't have any
right now that I can think of that I would put below.
Maybe I'll even put down common eyes so you can look at that.
But as of right now, I think what we gave is honestly way more than I thought we were
going to.
And we're a lot deeper than I thought we were going to.
So I want to, I typically I would end this episode in a different way, but I feel like
this because of the direction this podcast went, I think we're just going to end it.
So guys, thank you for listening to this episode and we will see you next time.
Absolutely.
Thank you guys.