Sathya Sam has made a movement out of helping men overcome their pornography addictions. And on today s podcast, we talk about the crucial distinction between shame and guilt, and which one you can use to affect change. Why porn is considered a supernormal stimulant, why tracking abstinence streaks don t work, and the role of legislation in combating the pornography industry and the 4 most damaging factors to your health when consuming porn.
00:00:00.000Every man listening to this podcast has likely been exposed to pornography.
00:00:04.820I remember the first time I saw a Playboy.
00:00:07.720It was a certain Baywatch actress when I was just 12 years old.
00:00:12.200Changed my life and not in a good way at the time.
00:00:15.360I thought it did, but all the research suggests that the sooner a young man is introduced to pornography, the more challenges with it that he'll likely face.
00:00:25.180Your story is probably not so different than mine.
00:00:28.000My guest today, Sathya Sam, has made a movement out of helping men overcome their pornography addictions.
00:00:34.960And on today's podcast, we talk about the crucial distinction between shame and guilt and which one you can use to affect change.
00:00:42.620Why porn is considered a supernormal stimulant.
00:00:46.700Why tracking abstinence streaks don't work, but tracking trends do.
00:00:50.780The role of legislation in combating the pornography industry and the four most damaging factors to your health when consuming porn.
00:01:30.120We have been going strong for nine and three quarter years now.
00:01:34.440We're coming up on our 10 year anniversary, and I'm very, very excited to say that this is a business and a movement and an organization that has been flourishing and doing very well.
00:01:45.620And that's a testament to the fact that you are listening, tuning in, sharing, growing, developing, building, and being the kind of men that we all have a desire to be.
00:01:53.880So welcome here to the Order of Man podcast.
00:01:56.780I've got a great, really, really powerful, very important conversation on the damaging effects of pornography coming up today.
00:02:04.200Before I do, just want to make a mention of my friends and show sponsors that help make this possible.
00:02:10.100They're the people over at Montana Knife Company.
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00:03:40.060He specializes in helping men all over the world overcome pornography addiction through scientifically backed means of abstinence and healing.
00:03:49.360Sathya has been very vocal and forthright about his own personal struggles with pornography addiction and his own process of combating temptation.
00:03:58.780He's created a system that moves from sobriety to freedom.
00:04:03.640And there is a distinction we talk about in this podcast.
00:04:06.020He's also the author of The Last Relapse, Realize Your Potential, Reclaim Intimacy, and Resolve the Root Issues of Pornography Addiction.
00:04:47.360But I think it's a little bit more appropriate to talk about or maybe not so taboo.
00:04:52.740I think on one hand, the proliferation of pornography is probably greater than it's ever been.
00:05:00.360But on the other hand, I think there is a large and growing cohort of individuals like yourself who are really working against the pornography industry.
00:05:23.440You know, we have mutual friends in the Mind Pump guys.
00:05:27.800And when I interviewed with Mind Pump earlier this year, we were talking about how even fitness influencers now are like, don't eat sugar, lift weights, and don't watch porn.
00:05:37.220Like, all of a sudden, like, don't watch porn is just kind of understood to be a healthy behavior or something that you guys should be doing or that we should be doing.
00:05:55.360Yeah, we're still having people that come to us that are like, man, I was doing okay, COVID happened, and I still have not been able to really get back on track since.
00:06:04.440Well, yeah, I imagine, obviously, when you're home all day, every day, you know, by yourself, you know,
00:06:12.080boredom takes over, distraction, temptation, lust, all these things take over.
00:06:16.680And so there was probably a huge uptick in pornography use.
00:06:21.600I mean, if you were to look at the statistics from Pornhub or one of these other sites, I'm sure the amount of visitors just skyrocketed during that time.
00:06:32.640Pornhub, actually, they took it a step further.
00:06:34.360So they gave away their premium subscription for free because it was like, hey, we know you're on hard times and finances are tight and whatever.
00:06:42.100But meanwhile, they were making all that money back in ad revenue because traffic had gone up so much.
00:06:47.120And post-pandemic, the numbers have, like, lowered, but they didn't go back to where they were before.
00:08:17.380And so I think that's a really good first step for guys to do is just to start talking about it, whether they're talking about it in communities where there's trust.
00:08:24.760Maybe they have to go elsewhere because there's nobody in their close network that they can actually trust.
00:09:57.660I think sometimes we use those words interchangeably.
00:10:02.260And I'm glad you made that distinction because I would agree with that.
00:10:04.900But you do see these people, and you've even said it, I've said it, that person has no shame.
00:10:09.420Meaning they have no, I guess the way I would describe it is no awareness of how they're showing up, of cultural norms, of respectful boundaries towards other people.
00:10:23.780And that's an interesting, that's almost psychopathic to me.
00:10:29.240Yeah, like we, again, that's what I was saying.
00:10:31.520I think if we're actually shameless, if we actually don't experience it, there's probably something a little bit wrong with us.
00:10:37.000But the word I would use in those contexts is actually self-awareness.
00:10:41.400That's our first pillar of recovery, by the way, is building self-awareness.
00:10:44.880I think it's when people lack that awareness at a social level and an individual level, that's when they're the psychopath or they're the weirdo.
00:10:52.780But I think shame generally, when shame is actually at play, it's telling you to hide.
00:10:59.220Because if we talk about this, like the shame-fear control cycle.
00:11:03.500So shame tells you, hey, you might get me found out.
00:12:54.060I think as I said a minute ago, if we were to look at this five years ago, I think there'd be a larger amount of people who would say pornography is not all that bad.
00:13:04.500If you do it healthy, if you maybe you're watching it with your partner or you're not letting it rule your life and there's some, you know, entertainment or something behind it.
00:13:13.720Like it seems like that would have been more prevalent than probably it is today.
00:13:41.060Even a little bit is really, really lethal.
00:13:43.300And I think on the intimacy side of it, there's actually a lot of research now that has followed couples for longer periods of time and shown, sure, within maybe a couple of weeks, you can say that watching pornography spices things up in the bedroom.
00:13:57.260But over longer periods of time, those couples all report lower rates of marital satisfaction or relational satisfaction and sexual satisfaction.
00:14:05.880So I think we just needed a little bit more time on our side for people to realize how devastating it actually is.
00:14:11.840Well, you said something interesting, and I think we ought to define these couple of terms as well, because we said spice things up, and then almost interchangeably we said intimacy.
00:14:23.220And I don't think those two are synonymous.
00:14:26.320I don't think there's anything wrong with either of them, by the way.
00:14:39.880Okay, especially in this conversation.
00:14:41.840Because if you think about what pornography conveys, it conveys that intimacy is basically just getting your sexual desires and fantasies met.
00:14:55.180In fact, I would say pornography portrays that it's purely physical, which we know isn't true.
00:15:00.160I think real intimacy, even in the bedroom, we all know, anyone who's been married long enough or has been in a sexual relationship long enough knows that real intimacy doesn't actually start in the bedroom.
00:15:11.680It started three days ago when your wife was having a tough day, and instead of trying to give her a solution, you were just there and you listened to her.
00:15:24.160But I would say, especially our client base, when we're serving people who are struggling with pornography addiction, this is an area.
00:15:29.420That's why self-awareness is where we have to start.
00:15:31.100Because there's actually such a reduced capacity for empathy and some of those other things that really drive intimacy that, you know, they're clueless.
00:15:47.900I think the common knowledge is for nowadays, based on your work and everybody else who's in this field trying to, you know, rally against the pornography industry, is that it rewires the brain and it makes you, as you said earlier, less empathetic, less caring, less understanding.
00:16:07.640I think we all would agree with that, but I'm actually curious why that's the case.
00:16:14.340Obviously, you're objectifying a woman, so there's that.
00:16:17.980And then she becomes, I think Matt Walsh calls it, a human masturbatory tool, which is a, you know, a perfect description of it.
00:16:27.420But why does it make you less, how does that happen?
00:16:30.940If you're in a, let's say, a 10-year committed relationship, how is it that pornography is going to make you less empathetic or less able to connect with your partner?
00:16:42.420So I'm going to try not to geek out too hard on this, but I was a university researcher, so I love digging into the neuroscience of this a little bit.
00:17:13.800The second thing actually plays into what you were just describing, which is it reduces your prefrontal cortex activity.
00:17:21.000So the prefrontal cortex is where you make good decisions, executive decision maker.
00:17:25.960It also is where you house a lot of your capacity for meaningful connection and relationships.
00:17:32.160And literally, they can show that in the brain, you have less circulation to this part of your brain.
00:17:37.400And so you don't have the same capacity or function to relate to people human to human.
00:17:43.620They become a lot more object to object.
00:17:45.540In fact, there's some surveys or some studies that showed people who even masturbate chronically, when you engage in this kind of compulsive sexual behavior, the same part of your brain that is used when you're using a tool is the part that's active when you're engaging in these activities.
00:18:01.180So the idea is that the person on the screen or the act of masturbation is like a tool for your brain, but there's no personal connection.
00:19:18.380Or, I mean, there's like there's animal porn.
00:19:20.100There's all kinds of obscurity on there.
00:19:22.040And it'd be easy to judge and be like, well, who would ever do that?
00:19:24.480But honestly, everyday people do that because their brains are getting so desensitized that it's causing them to seek these things out just to get the same hit that they had when they first started watching.
00:19:35.080And then the fourth thing is interesting if I can say one thing on that is I've actually heard that.
00:19:40.000I don't know, obviously, to the degree that you do, but I have heard that there are men who would consider themselves homosexuals who will actually, I wouldn't say fault necessarily, but credit pornography use as a factor behind their sexual attraction.
00:20:02.420And it's literally exactly this dynamic.
00:20:04.860It's that they experience desensitization and they start to look for something new, something different.
00:20:10.200They find gay porn and then they experience arousal from it because all pornography has an arousing component and it doesn't necessarily say anything about your orientation.
00:20:19.920But if you don't know that and you say, well, I found this way more interesting than all that vanilla porn I used to watch.
00:20:25.860Like you start to go down this path and start to kind of draw some conclusions or try to reconcile why this is arousing for you when something else that should be normal and heterosexual isn't.
00:20:37.820And it's not just with same-sex attraction and being gay.
00:20:41.660It's actually with all kinds of things.
00:20:43.560The porn that we watch can cause us to draw a lot of conclusions about ourselves that play into the shame thing we were talking about earlier.
00:21:10.860So the idea is there's a little bit more violence and a little bit more aggression that's exerted.
00:21:15.580And I would say the same thing can happen here.
00:21:18.060So if you listen to someone like Billie Eilish's story, right, so she's a girl, different side of the experience.
00:21:24.140But she talked about how when she starts to have sexual relationships, she naturally starts to do things that she was watching in the pornography she saw when she was a kid.
00:21:33.380For her, pornography was sex ed like it is for most of us.
00:21:36.340And she didn't realize that it was S&M content.
00:21:39.040She just assumed that was normal pornography because that's kind of what mainstream has become today, to be honest.
00:21:43.020But the point is she starts to have normal sexual experiences, what she thought were normal.
00:21:48.220And then afterwards she was wondering, like, why do I feel so disgusted with myself?
00:21:51.400Like I thought sex was supposed to be good and da-da-da-da.
00:21:53.820And then as she starts to get more informed, she realized, oh, those are actually not normal sexual experiences.
00:21:59.600They're just reflective of what I saw in pornography, which is what I thought was normal.
00:22:03.520And so with dominant stuff, you get a lot of guys trying to do certain things or thinking that certain things are normal in the bedroom.
00:22:09.080When they're not, it's just that they're normal to them because it's become so mainstream in the pornography that they view.
00:22:15.420You know, I've even heard women who will say if they're intimate with somebody, they know if that person watches porn or not.
00:22:26.620Well, women especially can kind of feel – because we know like sex is not just a physical experience.
00:22:31.260It's spiritual and it's emotional and I think women can really feel that difference when they're engaged for the intent of, you know, making love as it were or connection and intimacy versus when this is a physical transaction and they're trying to just act out something that they've seen in pornography.
00:22:46.580And I'll raise my hand to this because when I started to have sex in my marriage, I mean, I really like my only experiences with sex prior were like I fooled around with a couple of girls and I had just watched years and years of pornography.
00:22:59.820So I came in with a lot of those mindsets as well and our sex life over the years has gone a lot better because I have slowly unlearned some of those things and started to really learn how to connect with my wife beyond just the physical interaction.
00:23:12.320But, I mean, yeah, porn had totally warped my brain and I really had to unwire a lot of that stuff.
00:23:17.860So, I mean, not to get too personal and you can answer this or not, were there conversations that she had about what she liked and what she didn't like or what she appreciated about the way you guys were intimate?
00:23:29.460Like how did you begin to unspool that without any – and I'm not saying you didn't have feedback.
00:23:35.780Yeah, so we both took time to have those conversations.
00:23:39.800I think we were feeling some of those things initially but it was probably about a year and a half that we finally had a conversation where we were talking about like do you enjoy this and like what has sex even just been like for you?
00:23:53.800And that was really eye-opening and my wife kind of told me, you know, like sometimes it feels like you're really present and it feels like this is really helping our connection and sometimes it does feel like there's something disjointed about it.
00:24:08.080It was really helpful for me to ask, well, what can I do that would maybe help it feel like I'm more present?
00:24:13.860And most of the stuff that she was looking for was not in the bedroom.
00:24:17.220Most of the stuff was actually beforehand and she was just talking about how there was times where it felt like I was kind of forcing us to have sex or I had the expectation and there wasn't really a lot of wiggle room for her to say no or to feel like she couldn't do it.
00:24:29.240And even that is like very much a porn thing.
00:24:31.820Nobody's ever watched a porno where the girl said no, right?
00:24:34.840Like it's just assumed it's an automatic yes if you get turned on and you have the drive.
00:24:38.560So those are some of the things that we've had to kind of just discuss and reconcile.
00:24:42.800And I would say that the big difference now for me when I reflect on how I approach sex when I first got married and had that porn brain versus now where I would say I have unlearned a lot of it is I'm just a lot more patient.
00:24:53.920You know, and I think that that was one of the big messages I took away from porn is, you know, you're supposed to do five different positions.
00:25:02.360And, you know, like it's all about getting to that climax.
00:25:05.600And I think for me, I've just learned to be patient, enjoy the process and be present in the moment.
00:25:10.400And that that's gone a long way to having a better sex life, a more enjoyable sex life, but also to just having a more fulfilling marriage.
00:25:17.860Well, yeah, I mean, there's obviously something that should be just intuitive about it.
00:25:21.600It's not it isn't meant to be performative.
00:25:24.400It's supposed to be intuitive and you're reading each other and there's feedback.
00:25:31.020The other side of this that I was thinking of is when you talk about desensitization, and this is probably something that that is for a lot of guys, is the proliferation of erectile dysfunction in younger and younger men.
00:25:51.960So this is where we can go to a different angle of the brain science.
00:25:55.060They call pornography pornography a super normal stimulus.
00:25:59.820And what they mean by that is the level of stimulation that pornography provides your brain and your body are unnatural, like they're unnaturally high.
00:26:09.700Now, we'll actually go another step further.
00:26:13.200We brought an expert into our community who specializes in sexual abuse because obviously, unfortunately, that's also becoming more prevalent.
00:26:19.660And it is in some of the stories of our clients.
00:26:21.760And he told me this stat that I really haven't been able to shake since I've heard it.
00:26:25.460He said that sexual stimulation is processed 20% faster in the brain and the body than any other form of stimulation.
00:26:50.620But if you get exposed at a young age, which most guys are, and then you watch with some regularity into adulthood, you have now conditioned your body to a very high level of stimulation just to experience arousal.
00:27:04.900And if you're starting to watch more hardcore stuff, you're starting to watch more frequently or more niche stuff like we were talking about just a few minutes ago, that kind of stuff is all designed for you to keep getting and keep matching that level of stimulation.
00:27:17.620You really think a real person with all their flaws and imperfections is going to match up to that?
00:27:37.640It's young exposure that really creates a lot of these dynamics.
00:27:42.040Man, I'm just going to step away from the conversation for a minute.
00:27:44.620So many men know that they want to improve their lives, but like mice on the wheel, they're working as hard as they possibly can and they're getting nowhere.
00:28:22.880And as one of the most influential and leading names in the men's self-development space, we created the processes that so many men and other organizations now have piggybacked off of.
00:28:35.300We need more people in this battle, but I'm going to encourage you to go to the source of the solution and invite you to join our free battle ready program.
00:28:44.520When you do, you're going to unlock access to the exact tools that tens of thousands of men have used to get their lives back on track.
00:28:52.640Again, this is a free program and we're going to give it all to you so you can improve your life in less time and less investment than I had to do 10 years ago.
00:29:02.620If you're interested, go to orderman.com slash battle ready to gain access right now.
00:29:12.540All right, guys, let me get back to it with Cynthia.
00:29:14.560Is there any sort of connection that has been made between not just a man's desire for more sexual encounters or more niche like you're talking about based on his pornography use?
00:29:27.920Can the same connection be made for ordinary everyday life type scenarios like watching one of your kids play a sports game or having the motivation to do work?
00:29:41.200You know, it is that desensitization spilling over not just into your sexual desires, but your everyday ordinary activities.
00:30:18.220And sensitization is when things that are seemingly ordinary remind you of pornography or increase your cues and your cravings for pornography.
00:30:27.660And I think this is actually probably the more notable everyday kind of impact that pornography has.
00:30:33.680You're at the mall and you see somebody that reminds you of a porn star that you watched, and now you're fantasizing, and now you're imagining those scenes, and now your brain has gone to that place.
00:30:44.280If it was another person who didn't have that same attachment or that same sensitization in their brain, that's just another woman walking down the mall.
00:30:52.680But because of the way your brain has been programmed by what you've watched, you have that sensitization.
00:30:57.160And now things that are just normal everyday things are actually triggers for you.
00:31:02.060There are points for you to get tempted and to have a slip or have a relapse.
00:31:06.660Yeah, and I'm sure there are little things.
00:31:07.720I've had that happen in the past, you know, when I did watch pornography where, like you said, it was the person or somebody told a story or, I mean, just some of the most random things.
00:31:16.580I'm like, why am I thinking about that right now?
00:31:19.500Is there an amount of time that it takes to begin to regulate your brain, for lack of a better term, where if you're not exposing yourself to pornography, then is it, you know,
00:31:34.420you have to do that for a month before you start to see the effects of this sensitization?
00:31:39.820Yeah, it's going to be different from one person to the next.
00:31:43.600Like for me personally, I would say the four things I just listed, most of them are basically gone.
00:31:49.080It's been, I think the last time I watched, well, the last time I watched pornography was February 2016.
00:32:11.740But I think some of the specifics around it, I can tell are definitely related to the years that I was watching pornography.
00:32:18.300But what I would say is as quickly as, honestly, as quickly as 30 days, your brain can begin to change if you're having a roots-based approach to your recovery.
00:32:28.040So just stopping the behavior is one thing.
00:32:51.660And to me, that's like one of the greatest discoveries of neuroscience in the last 30 years is that your brain can change.
00:32:56.740Even if you're 75 years old and you've been watching pornography for six decades, your brain can still change and you can still reverse the effects.
00:33:05.160And can you reverse the physical effects too, right?
00:33:08.580So let's say, for example, a young man has erectile dysfunction or I think you said delayed ejaculation.
00:33:14.340Do those things start to regulate with avoidance of pornography?
00:33:19.260So I wouldn't say they happen just because you avoid pornography.
00:33:22.400I think this is where the roots-based approach thing comes into play because typically when guys experience erectile dysfunction, a whole downward spiral happens after, right?
00:33:31.240They start to question their sexuality, they question their masculinity, they start to feel really insecure, they develop performance anxiety.
00:33:38.200There's a whole onslaught of issues that come with erectile dysfunction because it is so core to our sense of manliness and our sense of self.
00:33:46.200So I think if you stop watching pornography, that might help a little bit, but you really do have to get a little bit more underneath the surface, that roots-based approach I'm talking about.
00:33:54.920But that's what's going to ensure that not only does your body respond normally, but you're also relating to people on a more healthy level and having regular sexual experiences.
00:34:29.600I'm actually really curious about this roots-based approach because if I remember correctly, and please tell me if I'm wrong,
00:34:36.260things that we would generally think of like keeping track of the streaks, for example, is something that you're not an advocate for, I don't think.
00:34:45.380So yeah, explain that and then let's get into that roots-based system.
00:37:01.380To this day, he still hasn't looked back.
00:37:03.700So this is what I'm talking about when I say when you approach freedom, you still pay attention to something, but you track trends instead of counting streaks.
00:37:10.700And this inner focus is what leads us into the roots-based approach.
00:37:14.660So the whole premise, and I talked about this in the previous episode, so I won't be too redundant here, but if you had a weed that you were trying to get out of your lawn, you could run it over with a lawnmower and it would be clean for a couple days.
00:37:26.380But as long as the roots are there, it's going to come back.
00:37:28.600When we talk about a roots-based approach to recovery, what we're talking about is getting underneath the surface and try to identify the roots that are actually contributing to the porn addiction.
00:37:39.900And this is where people get really shocked because it turns out that most root issues for your typical man are not sexual in nature.
00:37:48.200Like we often reduce this conversation to, I just need to be more disciplined.
00:37:52.020I just need to control my sexual desires.
00:37:55.120But it turns out that most root issues fall into one of three categories, the eyes, the mind, or the heart.
00:38:02.200And what I specifically mean by the eyes is self-awareness.
00:38:06.500What I mean by the heart, we can dive into more of these if you want, is changing your history, trauma recovery, all that kind of stuff.
00:38:13.500And then when I'm talking about the mind, I'm talking really about shifting your identity, separating that self from, like we don't believe in like the once an addict, always an addict kind of stuff.
00:38:21.440We believe your identity can completely shift when you have a roots-based approach and you leave that old life and that old identity behind.
00:38:28.860And you said eyes was more along the lines of, what did you say, awareness or?
00:40:27.860It's one of my least favorite things about the messaging around trauma is just that people have actually used it as another excuse to be a victim.
00:40:34.360And they blame their trauma instead of really taking responsibility for their issues.
00:40:38.740I don't want to discount trauma either because I would say it's an important part of the process that we go through is we do want to explore.
00:40:46.040And I'll give my own story as a bit of an example.
00:40:51.800So I'm not the person that had sexual abuse and terrible trauma happen to me.
00:40:56.140But sometimes trauma is not about what happens to you.
00:40:58.200Sometimes it's about what doesn't happen to you.
00:41:00.460And so one of the things I realized in my recovery process is my parents and my mom in particular didn't really show love to me the way that I feel loved.
00:41:10.100And so I knew that my mom loved me because she provided for me.
00:41:43.020I'm not saying that my mom should have been a better mom and I never would have fallen into pornography.
00:41:46.200But it's helpful to piece these things together because sometimes there are dynamics that happened when we were growing up that we don't even realize contributed to some of these bad habits and these bad relationships that we formed with things like pornography.
00:41:58.920So that's what the heart component is really about.
00:42:01.760But I like to broaden it a little bit more than that.
00:42:04.000We can just call it changing your history.
00:42:06.100And that's a play on words because obviously anybody who's watched pornography has cleared their history.
00:42:11.380So the whole premise here is you change your history as in even if you did have something that happened in your past that's contributed to your addiction, you can reverse that.
00:42:20.840And we have different tools to do that.
00:42:24.500But then the deeper layer of it is whatever your history is of addiction, whatever your history is with pornography, we can change that as well.
00:42:32.080And usually most of that happens when people begin to dig into their hearts a little bit deeper and figure out what's really some of these causal elements.
00:42:40.120Well, what I appreciate it is, like I said, it's more robust.
00:42:44.700I just get so sick of hearing people say everything's traumatic.
00:42:49.560And I would – it's hard for me to say what is traumatic to another person.
00:43:22.000It probably wasn't a traumatic life experience.
00:43:24.300But it did cause you to look at life in a little bit of a different way and come to some conclusions even subconsciously that you're operating by now.
00:43:33.520Yeah, we have a tenant that we only look at our past long enough to learn.
00:43:37.460So I don't think there's anything wrong with going there.
00:43:40.080But we don't want to just dig for every single trauma or dig for every single bad thing that ever happened to you.
00:43:46.320In this context of addiction recovery, what we're trying to identify is what are the pieces that have made the biggest contribution?
00:43:53.440If we can tackle those, it's kind of like if you move the big rocks out of the way, then all the little pebbles don't really matter.
00:43:59.840You know, some people use language like capital T trauma versus little t trauma.
00:44:03.860There's different ways you can distinguish this stuff.
00:44:05.780But my personal thing is I would rather just focus on the things that we know were really impactful.
00:44:11.400Like if we can get those things moving and get those things resolved and dealt with, then I think all the other things start to take care of themselves.
00:44:18.880Well, I mean, I even see this with, you know, PTSD and again, traumatic, right?
00:44:24.320But it's, again, not everything is, and I've seen one definition where it's when you as a human being change your behavior or your thoughts on a circumstance.
00:44:37.220I'm like, that's a horrible definition because that's just being a human being.
00:44:41.960I'm going to change the way I view things, maybe even to the slightest degree because you and I are having this conversation.
00:44:53.560To me, what this plays into, and you're going to get me on a soapbox now because this really drives me crazy, is I think a lot of people are using mental illness as identities.
00:45:03.340And I think if I'm hearing you right, I think what it is is like it's bothersome when people start to form their identities around their trauma and what's happened to them.
00:45:12.940And that's the story that gets projected right away.
00:45:41.820I think I think we have to use a lot of wisdom and discernment because the pendulum can swing too far and it can end up doing more harm than good.
00:46:05.740But if you have any sort of self-awareness, you know what drives you, you know what motivates you, you know what you like, you know what you don't, you know what your attitude is.
00:46:14.020You know if you're a red or a yellow or a green or whatever the colors are, like, you know all of that.
00:46:19.040And it's good to know as long as you don't, to your point, make it your identity.
00:46:25.540You know, I hear people will say things like, well, I'm just bad at names.
00:46:46.660We're not falling into this victimhood trap.
00:46:49.720And I think part of that, too, comes from society today that rewards you and almost makes it seem as if you're virtuous just because you're a victim.
00:47:16.240Like it's the whole same kind of culture.
00:47:18.040It's it's like our whole concept of reward and victory and winning and all that kind of stuff has been very, very diluted.
00:47:25.700And I think I think I think it's making a lot of men powerless and irresponsible.
00:47:29.840Now, I know your audience is not like that.
00:47:32.220Obviously, if you listen to a show like this, you're about taking ownership.
00:47:35.220You're about taking control and gain responsibility for your life.
00:47:38.880I think that the thing that guys in this category need to be a lot more reticent of is making sure that they're taking responsibility for the right things.
00:47:47.160That that's one thing that we sometimes talk about in our community is there's there's kind of this fake responsibility or false responsibility where guys either take on too much.
00:47:55.760They become, you know, responsible for other people and their well-being and they get really concerned about what other people think.
00:48:01.620They try to control those situations or they just take responsibility for things that aren't their business.
00:48:07.160I think drawing those lines really clearly is that is the that's really the epitome of a man who's taking control of his life is when you've clearly defined what it is that you're responsible for and you're taking full responsibility for it.
00:48:19.880And in the addiction recovery process, I mean, this is literally this is step one.
00:48:23.880Like this is identifying, OK, I have a problem.
00:48:25.960OK, I understand that my problem has caused issues with me and with other people, but I'm going to own it.
00:48:30.800And I'm going to do something about the parts that I can change.
00:48:32.800And for married guys, I'll just comment on this really quickly, because married guys can sometimes have it really difficult with pornography addiction because their wives are hurt.
00:49:02.260We really try to get guys focused on their recovery.
00:49:05.180If their wives aren't going to do their own work or willing to kind of get some help for the stuff they're going through, that's their wife's decision.
00:49:14.280And again, those are just it's just an example of, you know, in this context, drawing clear lines on what you're responsible for and where you're really going to take ownership really, really goes a long way.
00:49:36.480You know, because if you look at the effects it has on a relationship, they're very, very similar.
00:49:42.300Now, I don't think pornography is the same as actually physically sleeping with another person.
00:49:47.240But I do think I do think they're in the same category, which is that I mean, if we think about what cheating is or infidelity, it's just choosing someone else to to get needs met or to get your sexual desires met in a way that was supposed to be met with the one person you're faithful to.
00:50:04.320So whether that's another person in real life or it's something virtually or digitally.
00:50:10.140Yeah, I think porn is a mistress, no matter how you slice it.
00:50:13.820I think this leads into a discussion I wanted to have.
00:50:17.100And it was kind of I was tossing around the ideas to whether or not I wanted to have it because I want to talk with you about the future of the pornography industry.
00:50:23.900And I hope it's not misconstrued as what we can look forward to, but what we ought to be able to prepare ourselves against.
00:50:32.400Because if you play out, let's let's play out the pornography is cheating thing.
00:50:37.520I think you could attempt to make the case that some sort of sex robot that will be available in the future isn't an actual other woman.
00:50:47.880And so that's not cheating the same way some sort of, you know, fleshlight or or vibrator that a woman might have.
00:51:13.820And I shudder to kind of think about maybe the extent of it.
00:51:17.200I mean, I talk about this in the book, not not about specifically my predictions on technology, but the the real danger of pornography as it has continued to advance is that it gives us exactly what we want, because we know that's not how things actually work in real life.
00:51:35.060You don't you don't just spit out a perfect tan and get whatever you want in life.
00:51:39.260And I think as we get more customizable experiences with AR and VR and bots and all that kind of stuff is guys are going to start to get what exactly what they want.
00:51:52.200And I think it's going to reinforce a lot of the things that are already making men very powerless and weak in our society.
00:52:26.200The attachment is going to be a lot stronger.
00:52:28.160And I think the second thing is it's going to it's going to make the loneliness thing a lot more pervasive.
00:52:33.280You know, like the addiction research really if there's anything I could do to summarize it, it would actually be a TED talk that came out about 10 years ago.
00:52:47.760And so even in our in our circles, like when guys are working with us, we have a community, we do group coaching, there's a very strong communal element, because we know guys need to form relationships with other guys on this journey to actually move to that place of freedom.
00:53:02.080And I think all of the technological advancements in this area in particular are going to isolate guys more and more, make them a lot more disconnected and and maybe even make them a lot more socially awkward and incapable of having normal connections, whether that's with another woman or even just with their buddies.
00:53:19.160So I kind of started to think about it.
00:53:24.640And I think it's something that we as men are going to have to be vigilant against.
00:53:29.180Otherwise, these types of things will creep in easily and will justify and rationalize and make excuses as to why it's OK.
00:53:35.860But that loneliness thing is is a great thing to consider, because you might be having your sexual needs met, but that's never going to replace the companionship of a woman or the way that she actually feels physically or what it feels like to be around her or what it might feel like when you have a woman with you who supports you and edifies you and uplifts you.
00:53:59.960Those things cannot be replaced and you will.
00:54:10.440And I do think that like this and this is where this whole conversation really takes like a broader perspective, because one of the things that I've realized in the last little bit and part of this is is in becoming a father, which I know is something maybe we'll get into a little bit in a little bit here.
00:54:25.980But one of the things I realized is my work the last six years that I've been helping guys quit is it's not actually about helping guys quit pornography.
00:54:34.740We start to just look at stories of our clients after they finish working with us.
00:54:38.800And what we realize is they're becoming better husbands.
00:54:50.880They're more active in their communities because they have nothing to hide.
00:54:53.280Like literally what I realize is the world is becoming a better place.
00:54:56.760So we've coined this phrase, change the man, change the world.
00:55:00.120And that's really what drives the work that we're doing.
00:55:03.020We want to make the world a better place.
00:55:04.920And I think when it comes to technology, technology is a great tool.
00:55:09.300And men will have the choice on whether or not technology is something that allows them to make this world a better place or whether it's something that actually ruins them and corrupts them and ends up making our world a worse place.
00:55:22.460And I think for guys who are struggling with pornography, there's an urgency right now.
00:55:26.840Because if you stay in this long enough, we all know this eventually goes into something darker, something different, or something that's more technologically advanced.
00:55:49.160So over the past, a little over a year now, has anything changed with the way that you approach this work or anything about the way that you view what it is you do now that you have a son?
00:56:03.000And the consequences of this are a little bit more tangible and real for you now.
00:56:09.000So what I just said, like the whole vision of change the men, change the world, and really dreaming about raising up a community of men who are leaders in society and modeling integrity, that whole vision came to me when my son was born.
00:56:24.880I actually took a little bit of time off work, and between changing diapers and bottle feeds and all that kind of stuff, I just started to think a little bit more about why I do what I do.
00:56:34.220And I was looking at him, and I was thinking, yeah, this kid, he's going to be exposed to, he's going to have technology way earlier than I did.
00:56:41.300He's likely going to get exposed to pornography earlier than I did.
00:56:44.420I'm going to do everything in my power to stop him, but, you know, it's everywhere.
00:56:47.880And I actually, I'm not that concerned about him getting exposed.
00:56:50.600My job is actually to prepare him for exposure.
00:56:54.440That's my real role so that he has a healthy response to it.
00:56:57.860But I think the thing I realized is because I've quit pornography, number one, I can talk to him about it openly.
00:57:05.000I can share my story, and there's a happy ending to it.
00:57:08.300And I can model to him that even if he does get wrapped up in pornography, which I pray to God does not happen, even if it did happen, he has a dad who is modeling what it could look like to break free of it.
00:57:38.740They're actually walking the walk, and I think kids can feel that difference.
00:57:42.040I mean, time will be the true tell of that, but that's kind of the theory that I'm working with so far up until this point.
00:57:47.000Well, and I think also you're a lot more credible if your son or my son or whoever is listening is dealing with pornography.
00:57:56.220It's a lot more credible for me to have a conversation with one of my boys, knowing that I know the desire, I know the temptation, I'm intimately familiar with all of the reasons why.
00:58:09.800Like, we can relate in that, and I can help you better overcome that because I was there.
00:58:17.660I think you end up with a lot more compassion for your kids as well, exactly what you're saying.
00:58:22.120You can relate with them because I think when we're struggling and then we see our kids doing the thing that we don't want them to do but we're struggling with it, we tend to be a lot more rigid.
00:58:36.860But when we lack that compassion, we're not relating with them or we're not even just showing them that it's okay to have these conversations with dad, then that ends up becoming a real problem, and they're much more likely to persist in the issue.
00:58:48.660So I think that credibility piece is massive for building that trust and to ensure that your son doesn't go to his peers and he doesn't go to the internet to learn everything about sex, that he actually comes to you.
00:59:00.000And that is possible if you're having these conversations early and in a healthy way.
00:59:04.160Yeah, I mean, I definitely have realized the level of empathy just going through my own battles with my divorce and alcohol abuse.
00:59:11.920I used to be a lot more judgmental about those two things than I am now.
00:59:16.600And when I see a man struggling in alcohol abuse or any other substance or I see him in a separation or divorce, man, I feel that.
00:59:24.100I can feel that in a way I did not feel it before.
00:59:27.080Yeah, and you can also help people in a way that you couldn't help them before.
00:59:30.520You could have given good advice about how to manage a divorce prior or any of those dynamics.
00:59:35.960But once you've gone through it, there's an authority there.
00:59:38.940The same advice you got might have been true because maybe you learned it from other people who had been there.
00:59:43.060But when you're sharing something with authority, people can feel the difference, man.
00:59:47.400I was going through some of your content getting ready for the second interview.
00:59:49.640And I could feel the shift in you from two years ago when I was preparing for my first interview.
00:59:54.160You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of maturity.
00:59:56.280There's a there's a wisdom there and there's a depth to to who you are and what you're providing your community here because of what you've gone through.
01:00:02.600And that that is a really beautiful thing.
01:00:06.060There is one other thing I wanted to hit on.
01:00:07.960Where do you see this going, the role of legislation?
01:00:12.200We've seen a lot more legislation being passed on pornography sites needing to have I think some states require very like photo identification and verification.
01:00:23.240Other states or I don't know if it's state based require just that you validate or prove that you're over 18 or something.
01:00:33.060So do you see that being a crucial and effective element in combating pornography?
01:00:41.200I think it's a good step in the right direction.
01:00:54.400I don't even ask that question anymore because I know that they probably got exposed 13 or younger.
01:00:59.560So I think if we're talking about really changing the conversation around the porn epidemic and all that kind of stuff, it has to start with protecting youth.
01:01:07.720I'm not of the opinion that pornography should be banned and outlawed altogether.
01:01:13.400Not because I think it's okay or like it's good media in the right context or whatever.
01:01:18.940I just think it's good for men to be exposed to the thing that they should avoid.
01:01:55.660But I think when it comes to legislation, my main point or at least what I think is the most important is that when people are making a choice on whether or not they want to indulge in it, that they're actually an adult.
01:02:07.080But they actually have like enough information and they've been educated to make that decision.
01:02:11.780So that's why I think the legislation is positive is because the age verification laws that have been passed in, I think at the time of this recording, I think it's nine states that have passed some degree of it.
01:02:22.440They're basically ensuring that you have to upload like a driver's license or something that proves you're 18.
01:02:26.640And I think that additional barrier to entry is really, really valuable.
01:02:31.280And it's not to say there aren't workarounds.
01:02:32.840I know it's not the perfect solution, but I think it's going in the right direction where we're at least setting things up so that kids get exposed later in life.
01:02:40.660And if they get exposed later in life, I think you see less of the addiction and less of those things developing.
01:03:19.760It's there's you have, but, but we don't do it to something that we know is just as destructive, if not more so than some of these other things that we place age restrictions on.
01:03:34.740I was going to say when it comes to sex, we tend to be a lot, a lot more lenient.
01:03:38.180Like sex is just a lot more personal, but I mean, you can't get into a brothel or that kind of thing without some sort of age verification either.
01:03:46.700Like there are some legalities that still protect those things.
01:03:49.400So, yeah, Internet pornography has kind of become the wild, wild west a little bit.
01:03:53.380And I, I think legislation is a good step.
01:03:57.380And then my, my second answer to this question is I would love to see just more education about it in general happening in the schools for sure, but also at home.
01:04:07.380I think the most powerful education happens at the home.
01:04:10.340And I would love to see parents get a little bit more equipped to have these conversations and really prepare their kids for whatever it is they may encounter that is damaging sexually, whether it's pornography, whether it's predators.
01:04:24.500There's, you know, there's a whole list of things that we need to be aware of when we're, when kids are growing up.
01:04:29.420And I think seeing more education around that would be the second step that's going to be a lot more long term.
01:04:34.760Like you can legislate alcohol, but I mean, I started drinking alcohol with my buddies when I was 14 years old.
01:04:40.220You still do it, but I actually didn't really get drunk a lot.
01:04:43.980Alcohol was not much of a vice for me because I had, I had learned, my parents actually taught me about the harmful effects of alcohol and drinking too much, even when you're a teenager.
01:05:26.580I think that the schools can be talking about sex as it's age appropriate and the things that are associated with it.
01:05:33.380And I think, I think schools should actually be warning kids about pornography and the dangers of it and what you might find online and teaching them how to respond.
01:05:55.860Well, I think, look, we've seen so much happen over the past several years about sexual identity, sexual perversion.
01:06:03.400You have some teachers believe this, other teachers believe that, indoctrination, grooming, all sorts of problems with allowing boys into girls' bathrooms and boys into girls' sports.
01:06:15.260And there's this whole perversion that's permeating the school system when it comes to sexuality.
01:06:22.400And now all of a sudden, you're going to, you're going to ask school teachers to start talking about it.
01:06:27.900Well, what if they don't mind pornography?
01:06:30.160What if they're personally engaged in pornography?
01:06:33.060Teach my kids math, teach them arithmetic, teach them to read, teach them about history.
01:06:56.960I think what I'm suggesting is that if teachers are, if they're going to talk about it in the education system, that they're warning about the harmful effects of pornography.
01:07:07.300So not that the teacher can have carte blanche and just share their experience about pornography and bring their own biases into it.
01:07:13.560I'm talking about, like, there's enough research about the harmful effects of pornography at this point that I do think the education system could put together a curriculum that actually warns about the adverse effects of it.
01:07:25.560And that it's, I think if you're bringing up that subject, especially in schools now where kids are on devices and whatnot anyway, you might as well warn them about the dangers that come with the advices, the devices rather.
01:08:05.120My wife and I talk about it like once a month, what we're going to do with our kids because we're, yeah, we're very torn right now.
01:08:10.920I live in Canada where some of these agendas have gone even further than they have in some of the states.
01:08:15.720So it's a big thing for us to figure out as well.
01:08:18.400Well, a lot to consider, a lot to think about.
01:08:21.480Obviously, we're just scratching the surface on this fight and trying to help men overcome some of these things that are not serving them at all in their lives.
01:08:56.200I mean, one of the things we're really trying to do is just get as many resources out as possible so people can access them.
01:09:01.720We have a podcast called The Man Within, over 800 episodes.
01:09:05.360So if we talked about something today or we didn't talk about something today that you want to find out more about, you can go to the podcast page.
01:09:11.060You can search it and you should be able to find just about anything on there.
01:09:14.080I do have a book called The Last Relapse and that's got my whole system for recovery.
01:09:17.940We've had over 10,000 people go through that system.
01:09:23.660And if you are struggling, you know, and maybe you have something on the line or you know it's time to quit pornography, then you can book a call with my team and see if Deep Clean and the system we have here is a good fit for you.
01:09:34.340So we'd love to provide all that to your audience and just resource them as much as we can.
01:09:46.760My good friend and advocate and man who's doing a lot of good work, Sathya Sam.
01:09:53.420He is impacting thousands and thousands of men's lives all over the country, all over the world.
01:09:58.540And if this is something that you're dealing with and confronted with, I would look no further than Sathya.
01:10:04.880I can give him my fully backed endorsement that this is a man who's qualified, he's helping people, he's well-researched, he's well-versed, and him and his team are doing incredible things.