Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 12, 2023


Ep 889 ｜ Why 'Ethical Porn' Doesn't Exist ｜ Guest： Benji Nolot (Part Two)

Topics
pornography trafficking connection pornography impact pornography impacts
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Guests
Benji Nolot (Part Two)
Mentioned
Dennis Prager Benjamin Neal Related Bells Relatable Allie Erica Benji
Ep 888 ｜ How Porn Drives Trafficking ｜ Guest： Benji Nolot (Part One) Ep 890 ｜ The Abortion Industry's Racist Roots ｜ Guests： Ryan & Bethany Bomberger

Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

155.15

Word count

5,188

Sentence count

299

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Benji Nolat is the founder of Exodus Cry, an international anti-trafficking organization, and the author of Raised on Porn. In this episode, Benji shares his thoughts on pornography and how it affects our children.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.600 Is viewing porn immoral? You might think the answer is obvious, but there are some very
00:00:06.660 prominent voices, including conservative voices, that would argue no. Today, my guest, Benji Nolat,
00:00:14.060 who is the founder of Exodus Cry, an international anti-trafficking organization, the author of
00:00:20.180 Raised on Porn, is going to give his take on that today and also talk about how pornography is
00:00:26.560 specifically affecting children, their view of themselves, their view of sex, and the long-term
00:00:32.900 consequences of how this is shaping their minds. This episode is part two of a two-part conversation.
00:00:42.580 Part one was yesterday, so go check that out. This episode is also brought to you by our friends
00:00:47.540 at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com. Code Allie.
00:00:56.560 I just want to read, just because I think it's important to actually go to God's Word
00:01:07.260 when we're looking at this, that the Bible makes very clear that it is a mutual submission when it
00:01:12.660 comes to sex between man and woman, husband and wife, 1 Corinthians 7, 4 through 5. And this would 0.79
00:01:20.900 have been radical at the time that this was being written. I mean, in a highly kind of patriarchal
00:01:26.520 society in which women were viewed at the time, and especially in secular culture, really, as just
00:01:32.340 kind of objects of pleasure, children too. This is what 1 Corinthians 7, 4 through 5 says,
00:01:38.540 for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. That sounds scandalous,
00:01:43.920 but it also says, likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body,
00:01:47.060 but the wife does. That's because the two have become one. You have a stake in your spouse's 0.78
00:01:54.720 body. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote
00:02:00.400 yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of
00:02:06.140 your lack of self-control. And so it's not a wife's exclusive responsibility to make sure that she is 1.00
00:02:16.120 always sexually available to her husband. It is a mutual submission that we are called to,
00:02:23.900 and we also are called to self-control. And so I think it's important to, despite any false teachings
00:02:31.640 that may be out there in or outside of the church about sex, that the Bible is really clear on the
00:02:37.280 role of the man and the woman when it comes to sex and sexuality. Okay. So can I just mention
00:02:43.780 something about that passage you just read? Sure. Okay. So I love that perspective that you're
00:02:52.180 sharing. And here's where I think some of this gets off is when one party of the other applies that in
00:03:03.620 such a way to say, you are required to be available to me because of this verse anytime I want. So I think
00:03:12.480 it's okay for somebody to read that passage and to posture themselves in a way in their relationship
00:03:17.860 to be available to their partner, to their spouse, to say, um, I, you know, I want to, um, I want to
00:03:26.900 have a, a connected, loving, um, sexual life with you. Um, but when one party or the other uses it as a way to
00:03:38.040 subjugate the other and impose an obligation on them is when it can become dangerous because at a
00:03:46.280 very basic level, we just know that there are so many times and examples where that sex would be off
00:03:54.040 the table for any number of reasons. Right. I'll just use an obvious one. Let's say somebody just had
00:04:00.400 a baby. Right. Right. We know that their, their body is not in a condition to engage in that. So
00:04:06.580 if the partner is using a Bible verse to tell that person, you must now do this. And then for the,
00:04:14.400 for the woman in that situation to internalize the, this passage as I'm obligated to now be sexually 1.00
00:04:23.860 available. My body has gone through this traumatic event. I'm emotionally depleted. I haven't slept in
00:04:31.940 however many days. And, but now I'm, I'm obligated. I mean, what? So this obligation based mentality
00:04:40.760 around sexuality is probably the quickest thing to actually shut down sexual arousal. It doesn't
00:04:47.400 create sexual arousal. And then again, now the woman is the sponge. She's the receptacle. So this isn't, 0.97
00:04:53.860 so when we, so this all comes back to the point of consent, there's something that we should be
00:04:59.960 talking about, which is much higher ethical standard to approach sexuality with than consent.
00:05:05.800 And that is empathy and mutuality. So the idea that I am trying to understand what is going on
00:05:15.300 in my partner's life, mentally, emotionally, physically, psychologically, I'm trying to
00:05:23.240 be sensitive towards where they're at. And then the mutuality component is what do you like? What do
00:05:30.320 you desire? What kind of things would enhance your experience of this sexual relationship?
00:05:36.300 So I do believe that each person's responsible to steward their own needs and boundaries in terms
00:05:41.060 of communicating those things. But then obviously empathy and mutuality are part of the communication
00:05:46.200 process to get on the same page about what we can enjoy and experience together as a mutually
00:05:51.700 enhancing experience. And, um, and so I think that when you look at sexuality through the lens of
00:05:59.220 mutuality and empathy, you end up in a place that can truly be life-giving that can truly be bonding,
00:06:05.980 um, as opposed to something that is, um, damaging or as opposed to something that is bringing pleasure
00:06:13.180 to one person at the other person's expense. Hmm. And pornography certainly ruins that. It doesn't
00:06:20.380 even offer that possibility. If you're masturbating to pornography, it can never be about mutuality.
00:06:25.160 It can never be about empathy. It can never be about connection. Right. Um, and so go ahead,
00:06:31.200 go ahead. You can respond. Well, I mean, just, just real quickly, just to say it's whenever I hear
00:06:36.960 somebody describe themselves as pro porn or, you know, promote porn at all, you'd think I'd be
00:06:44.560 used to this by now, but I, it always takes me aback a bit. And I'm like, man, what kind of mental
00:06:52.620 gymnastics have you been engaging in to get yourself and what kind of lies have you been believing to get 0.96
00:06:58.800 yourself to the point of actually thinking of pornography as something positive and promoting
00:07:06.080 it to others. So there's just so much to unpack and deconstruct there. And again, it's, it's one of
00:07:12.200 the main things I've been thinking about for the past 16 years. So obviously I have a lot to say about
00:07:16.520 it, but it's a lot to unpack. And it's, it just, on one hand, you know, of course I want to be
00:07:22.600 gracious in understanding, uh, where people are meeting where they're at. On another hand, it's
00:07:28.840 just like, I just, yeah, it's, I feel a lot of deep frustration, especially with my male brothers.
00:07:37.760 Um, when I hear things along these lines and it just, how much work we have left to do as men.
00:07:52.600 You know what? Someone with a whole lot of influence that I'm sure you and I both appreciate
00:08:02.000 a lot of ways. I really appreciate the work that Dennis Prager has done to help advance ideas that
00:08:07.580 I think are good for the country when it comes to economics, even when it comes to social and
00:08:12.900 cultural issues. I've worked with Prager many times. And so I really appreciate so much that
00:08:18.560 he has brought to the table over the years. Um, but he made a comment that I'm sure you saw
00:08:22.960 recently basically saying that porn isn't all that bad. So I'm going to play that clip and then I'm
00:08:29.400 going to get your reaction to it. I'm not even giving a religious answer. I'm giving what I think
00:08:33.900 is a moral and realistic answer. Men want variety. And, uh, if adultery is a substitute for, if pornography
00:08:42.640 is a substitute for one's wife, it's awful. If it's a substitute for adultery, it's not awful. 0.88
00:08:50.480 So what's your take on that?
00:08:53.460 Uh, that was actually my first time hearing that. Oh, okay.
00:08:57.980 Um, so, uh, yeah, so a couple of things. I mean, one is the idea that porn is going to satiate,
00:09:09.480 uh, men's need for variety is, uh, not real. That's not true. Um, porn is not a satiator. It is a
00:09:21.100 cultivator. So if it's pouring gasoline on a fire, it is not extinguishing something. So just
00:09:28.560 fundamentally that very concept is, is flawed. And then, uh, and then, um, again, this goes back to
00:09:37.060 the point that we talked about the idea of self-control. So where does that come in into
00:09:44.680 the equation? You know, again, the idea that, well, I may commit adultery, but since I have no
00:09:52.320 self-control, I'll go look at pornography instead. And then again, how does that play out? So we're in
00:09:59.400 the bedroom together and I tell you, Hey, I have an appetite for variety. You mind leaving the room for
00:10:06.880 a few minutes. I mean, and how does, so here, so this gets back to the point of empathy. So then
00:10:11.560 how does the, how does the woman, how does the wife experience that? So she's outside the room. 0.99
00:10:17.440 Now she hears her husband in there. There's another woman moaning on the screen. She hears him doing
00:10:22.080 what he's doing. How does she experience that? You know, betrayal trauma is something very real
00:10:26.800 and can absolutely be invoked through one partner or the other watching pornography. I mean,
00:10:33.860 engaging your sexuality in a voyeuristic way with somebody else in that act, again, a very special,
00:10:43.880 powerful, private, mysterious act can have a dramatic effect on the other partner.
00:10:53.320 Um, and so, um, so can experience betrayal trauma and fidelity trauma through that. And yes,
00:11:02.040 they're not physically with another person, but then you have to get, but, but there it's,
00:11:07.180 it's a form of technologized prostitution. You're actually engaging in digital prostitution and then 0.81
00:11:13.120 you're participating in fueling the coercion and often trafficking that's happening to create that
00:11:18.420 porn in the, in the first place. So it just, to me, that comment strikes me as a really thoughtless
00:11:24.340 and careless remark about a very significant issue that our world is currently facing. And that,
00:11:31.020 you know, I believe that the, the, the, the effort of the conservative Christian movement is to uphold
00:11:40.740 an ethical standard for society when it comes to matters of sexuality, fidelity, family, those kinds of
00:11:47.380 things. So it seems, it seems like an opportunity for a deeper education on what pornography is and
00:11:54.600 the way we interact with it. And I would just say that I'm fundamentally opposed to the comment that
00:11:58.660 I just heard. I think that's an awful, um, and careless depiction of, of how to interact with
00:12:03.460 pornography. Yeah. Pornography, because it's not just about, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not
00:12:09.580 even just about what that one person is experiencing in front of the computer screen. And as you just
00:12:15.080 described, that in of itself still has consequences and is still unethical and wrong, but it's part of
00:12:22.600 a whole system and part of that system, which I'm sure. And I think Dennis Prager has said this, that
00:12:27.580 yes, child sex abuse, the quote unquote child pornography that we see, that's awful. That's 0.75
00:12:32.400 terrible. Kids can't can say all, all that kind of stuff. I think he agrees with that, but I don't
00:12:36.860 think that you can disconnect as you guys have talked about so much. You can't disconnect child sex 0.94
00:12:42.000 trafficking from pornography, regular pornography, whatever you want to call it, adult pornography,
00:12:47.140 because it's all connected. The demand demands all of it. The demand buoys Pornhub. It buoys all of
00:12:55.340 these pornography sites that we know platform child sex trafficking, the rape of children. You can't 0.97
00:13:02.460 disconnect your consumption of pornography to adults from the demand for child pornography.
00:13:12.000 because they are connected. Very often it's the same people producing both kinds of videos,
00:13:17.280 right? Absolutely spot on. And the five areas that we saw that pornography was connected to and
00:13:26.420 overlapping with trafficking were first, when we were going into red light districts, we noticed that
00:13:31.220 they were handing out pornography to advertise the women who were being used in prostitution and the
00:13:38.780 trafficking victims. And so it was the marketing of trafficking and prostitution. And then the women
00:13:45.100 who were in the trafficked and prostitution positions were also being required to make pornography. So they
00:13:52.380 were in the videos. The third thing that we saw is that this was being used, pornography was being used to
00:13:59.940 groom child victims of sex trafficking. So they were shown pornography to, uh, to groom them, to condition
00:14:07.960 them, to show them what would be expected of them as they were required to, uh, engage in paid rape 0.83
00:14:17.920 from clients. And, um, and then, uh, and then we saw that it was fueling the appetite for illicit sex. So, 0.97
00:14:29.440 so the, we interviewed, uh, we, I'm touring a film right now called buying her. It's the first
00:14:36.900 documentary about male sex buyers. The one thing, these men come from all walks of life and background.
00:14:43.580 The one thing that, that is consistent among all of them is that they had a prior history of porn
00:14:49.940 consumption from childhood. And so porn was fueling the appetite for the demand side of human trafficking.
00:14:58.160 And then we investigated. The fifth thing is we investigated the mainstream porn industry and saw
00:15:05.040 the way in which coercion was used as the backdrop for the creation of the vast majority of, uh,
00:15:13.380 mainstream pornography that is online today. Um, so those were kind of the initial five overlapping
00:15:20.380 intersecting ways that we saw pornography connected to the larger sex industry and to sex trafficking.
00:15:26.120 Then when we went into the porn industry, um, and began to hear some of the stories of the individuals
00:15:32.540 who were being propped up as porn stars, that was a whole other level of heartbreak.
00:15:38.680 And so I, as a potential, let's say potential porn consumer, just as a, you know, as any person could
00:15:46.700 be in this world, um, would have to bypass my own knowledge that many of these people did not want to be
00:15:53.360 there experienced it as violating or coerced to get on set. I'd have to go through all these,
00:15:58.400 is it, is that really worth it? I mean, like, it's just, it's just recklessly irresponsible at
00:16:04.000 this point. Let me just make one last point. I'm going to turn it back to you. Just one last quick
00:16:07.920 point, because this is something that I've been thinking about recently is I've been hearing a lot
00:16:13.240 of arguments of people who would describe themselves as pro porn and all of this. Um,
00:16:19.400 there are no protections that exist online in any kind of effective way to prevent children from
00:16:28.060 having exposure to pornography currently. So the internet is a city without walls and, um,
00:16:33.880 virtually all children, uh, will be exposed to pornography, um, at some point in their life
00:16:42.060 growing up. Um, I mean, the numbers are so staggeringly high. Um, and most children will
00:16:48.840 experience as an inadvertent exposure to pornography that, that because of neural coupling and all of
00:16:54.560 these things, the way our brain works can experience that as a form of sexual abuse, prematurely
00:17:00.740 awakening their sexuality. It really, they don't have the cognitive, uh, biopsychosocial,
00:17:06.780 emotional capabilities to handle this potent toxic graphic, um, depiction of sexuality. And so it has
00:17:14.480 a devastating impact on them. So, so just think about this. Children are most vulnerable demographic
00:17:23.920 of people in this world that we should all be able to agree deserve to be protected, have their
00:17:29.960 innocence protected. There is, there are no effective measures currently on the internet to protect
00:17:35.880 children from having exposure to pornography. So even if you believe in theoretically the value of
00:17:44.220 pornography, um, in the like whatever best case scenario version of that, that a person can imagine,
00:17:52.940 well, now you put that out there in an environment in which there's no protection for children,
00:17:59.940 you're at the very least having to sign off with, I'm okay with children being exposed to this,
00:18:06.420 even though we know it has a dramatically devastating impact on hijacking and colonizing
00:18:11.740 their sexuality. Yeah. So that alone is enough for me. But then when you go down that thread of
00:18:17.100 looking at what, what people refer to as ethical porn, I mean, that, that's, that's just a whole other
00:18:21.720 thing. Like they, if you want, I can go down that path. I'm going to stop here because I'm going on and
00:18:27.240 on, but that, that piece really matters to me. And I know it matters to you about the protection of
00:18:31.600 children.
00:18:31.880 I want to talk explicitly about this documentary and this book that's recently come out raised on
00:18:49.900 porn. And so you are free to continue to go down that path and just talk about the ways pornography
00:18:55.860 has kind of become the new sex ed for kids. And I know we've seen these trends on Tik TOK where
00:19:02.460 girls, I mean, we're talking like 13, 14 year old girls talking about wanting to be choked,
00:19:08.200 wanting violence in the bedroom, because that's what they've been exposed to. That's what they
00:19:13.600 think sexuality is. That's really what they think their first sexual encounter should be.
00:19:17.940 That it's not something about commitment. It's not something within the bounds of marriage,
00:19:22.420 certainly, but it's something again, just for male pleasure, even if that includes violence
00:19:27.700 and objectification. So tell us a little bit more about what you wrote about, what you found when
00:19:32.440 you were researching for this documentary and book. Okay, for sure. No, thank you for the opportunity
00:19:38.740 to, to share on that. Um, so I just want to just real briefly hit the ethical porn piece because this
00:19:45.440 is the other direction that a lot of people go to. They say, well, I'll just watch the ethical
00:19:49.420 porn. And, um, you know, I don't know why it is that people are so obsessed with pornography that
00:19:55.800 they need to find some kind of justification for it. I mean, what does that say about us that we need
00:20:00.860 to, that we need to access our sexuality through a screen? So I think there's a deeper issue going on
00:20:06.020 there, um, of mental health and, uh, the, the kind of like addicted self-medicating consumers culture
00:20:15.060 that we live in and a lack of healthy outlets that people have in their lives to be so obsessed with
00:20:21.420 finding the version that will work so they can still have their pornography. But there, there was
00:20:27.920 a great example of ethical porn given through a documentary on Netflix called hot girls wanted.
00:20:35.040 And it was the second installment called turned on. And they did a whole episode on ethical porn and
00:20:40.180 starts off with this lady named Erica lost saying, I'm not giving a Ted talk saying, I'm not here to 0.74
00:20:47.140 get, uh, girls off of porn. I'm here to get girls into porn, something along those lines. So her, 0.99
00:20:52.600 she's her mission statement is to get people to participate in pornography. And then the idea is 1.00
00:20:58.680 she's going to do it in this really ethical manner. Well, by the end of the episode, we see that
00:21:03.880 they're on the set of the quote unquote ethical porn set. And there's a woman at the piano and it's
00:21:11.480 supposed to be this very romantic setting in which she begins to make love to the male counterpart in
00:21:17.160 the scene. And he approaches her from behind and as she's playing the piano, they stand up. And then
00:21:23.440 he begins to attempt to have sex with her. Well, she's experiencing as really painful. So she attempts 0.99
00:21:30.760 to stop the scene at which time the quote unquote ethical porn director tells her just fake it,
00:21:38.280 just fake it. So the whole episode is about how this is about women's pleasure and they're going 0.94
00:21:45.380 to do it in this ethical way. And it's all going to be romantic and consensual. And, you know,
00:21:51.180 surely if you throw a piano in there, it'll make everything better. But then when the woman is not 1.00
00:21:57.720 enjoying it, she's actually in pain, uh, doesn't want to continue is being cajoled and manipulated
00:22:05.180 and coerced and bribed into just keep going and fake it. So I think for those people who would build
00:22:15.680 their notion of acceptable pornography on the idea of ethical porn really have to go back and reconsider,
00:22:22.560 uh, their own cognitive dissonance about this and their own critical thinking about what,
00:22:29.560 what they actually believe they're participating in. So I just wanted to make that point to kind
00:22:34.680 of wrap up that thought on ethical porn, but I can jump into just a few thoughts on the book if that's
00:22:39.100 okay. Go for it. Okay. So during this eight, eight year plus investigation, um, I was approaching this
00:22:50.040 from a public health and human rights standpoint. So public health being porn's impact on consumers
00:22:56.980 really wanted to understand what is porn's impact on consumers and, um, relationships on children,
00:23:03.880 on adults, on men, on women. So we explored that part of it. And then the other part of it was
00:23:09.980 the human rights part. How is this being created? What is the impact on the performers that are being
00:23:18.340 used in the pornography? And so, um, so I spent the better part of eight plus years, uh, investigating
00:23:25.440 both of those things and then released a documentary last year, um, called raised on porn. And now just
00:23:32.800 released this book, which is a much more robust and in-depth resource on the subject. So there's a
00:23:39.440 question of, you know, how is porn impacting us? We, you know, we now know that this, that pornography
00:23:47.260 is, um, ubiquitous throughout our world, that most children are being exposed to it by the age of 11
00:23:55.020 or 12 years old. Um, so what impact is that having on us? And one of the examples that you brought up,
00:24:03.320 I thought was really interesting, the idea that a young woman who has virtually no sexual experience 1.00
00:24:10.320 desiring to be choked in one of, you know, maybe her first or early sexual activity. And where does
00:24:20.280 that come from? And so, um, so I do think that we really have to consider the social, the impact on
00:24:27.780 the socialization of children when it comes to porn. Here's the thing is that we don't do a great job
00:24:36.700 about discussing issues of gender identity and sexuality in the world. And in the absence of that
00:24:43.640 pornography becomes the way in which many, and I would say most people are getting their sexual
00:24:51.300 education and unintentionally oftentimes getting an education about what it means to be a
00:24:57.780 man or a woman. Now, pornography used to be thought of as just a male issue, but, uh, I'm actually,
00:25:04.740 um, in pre-production right now on a new documentary about porn's impact on females because about a third
00:25:13.160 of the people that visit porn sites now are women and so females. And so there is a much greater level
00:25:20.640 of exposure to females with pornography today. And what I see happening seems to be a fundamental
00:25:29.460 altering of female sexual DNA from the standpoint of maybe going with an initial curiosity about what
00:25:38.820 are, what are the males they're interested in looking at? What are the, why are they so into this?
00:25:44.640 But then through having that exposure, our sexuality is so fragile. It is so sensitive
00:25:51.200 and can begin to have their own sexual appetites affected by what it is that they're seeing. And so
00:25:59.540 that's why I say altering their natural sexual DNA. So maybe prior to any kind of porn exposure, 0.81
00:26:07.600 they would imagine some type of romantic scenario of lovemaking with the person that they're interested
00:26:14.460 in or in love with, uh, and in a relationship with, and, but after pornography, maybe they want to 0.98
00:26:22.040 be choked, um, maybe have sex with multiple men at once. And then, you know, I'm, I'm trying to be 0.96
00:26:30.920 conscious of not getting too graphic here, but, um, I'll, I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. So,
00:26:36.660 so yeah. So, you know, a girl's first sexual experience being choked out or having sex with multiple 0.96
00:26:43.420 men is very common today. And that is a direct result of widespread female exposure to pornography. 1.00
00:26:53.080 And to me, I mean, I just, I think that's, that's tragic again, just going back to the point that I
00:26:59.760 think sex has a purpose. I think it can be such a beautiful thing, but the way that it's glorified
00:27:05.020 and deified in our culture is that in a way it's almost like all sex is good sex. And no, we know
00:27:09.820 that anything that is really good and powerful and awesome can also be corrupted. It can also be
00:27:17.560 twisted. It can also be perverted. And to me, that is the very essence of evil is to take something
00:27:23.840 that's beautiful and pure and powerful and good, and to twist it into something else. And so I think
00:27:30.840 that is what we see happening with regards to how porn is affecting our sexuality and ultimately then
00:27:37.040 the relationships that we have.
00:27:51.120 There's so many different parts of pornography and the consequences of it that people just don't realize
00:27:55.320 are so incredibly far-reaching. I mean, I'm very thankful. I'm thankful for the work that y'all do
00:28:01.160 and especially, and also the work of people that expose specifically Pornhub and just what an awful,
00:28:08.300 smutty industry and business this all is totally based on people's pain and exploitation and trauma,
00:28:16.960 and they just don't care. And it really does stun me people who claim to have, you know, even some of
00:28:23.840 the same values maybe that you and I do try to justify it without thinking at all. Like you've
00:28:30.220 mentioned a lot in this episode, just think about it. Just like put a little bit of thought and a
00:28:35.040 little bit of consideration into what kind of thing you're fueling, what you're a part of just for that
00:28:40.200 fleeting momentary pleasure that's going to end up destroying your life and your relationship and
00:28:44.360 your sexuality anyway. There's just nothing, nothing redeeming about pornography. And I am so concerned
00:28:52.420 about the children who are exposed to this at even younger ages. It's so ubiquitous. They're seeing it on
00:28:57.680 TikTok, whether they're searching for it or not. They're seeing it on Instagram. They're comparing
00:29:01.980 their own bodies, their own sexuality to these fake depictions that they're seeing on social media.
00:29:07.500 I mean, I don't even think we fully know the long-term repercussions on a societal level
00:29:14.000 of kids being exposed and addicted to that kind of stuff early on. I mean, it's scary.
00:29:21.140 Yeah. We, we have to, I mean, it's, if we care about the protection of children, if we care about
00:29:28.900 the dignity of women, if we care about authentic, healthy masculinity, we have to begin to look at 1.00
00:29:34.840 the issue of pornography and how it's affecting us. And I don't mean to come across as, you know,
00:29:40.000 cynical or disillusioned when I talk about how this has affected, you know, the church and
00:29:45.900 secular world and, um, conservatives and liberals. I, it's just that I'm in this really unique space
00:29:53.520 where we get all the stories. So all the stories come to us of people who have been manipulated,
00:30:01.260 defrauded, sexually abused, um, trafficked in all these different contexts and by all these
00:30:09.160 different people. And so I think there's just this unique autonomy and objectivity that we feel
00:30:14.880 at Exodus cry as it pertains to this issue. And so, yeah, we want to, we want to just herald a
00:30:23.380 message that it is, um, it is an hour of crisis. It is an hour in which we really have to think about
00:30:30.340 what we are going to do as a society to protect future generations of children, to protect the
00:30:35.400 dignity of women, to, um, to produce healthy men and ultimately facilitate the ability for us to have 0.99
00:30:44.120 healthy relationships, to grow healthy families and a healthy society. And right now that is all in
00:30:49.340 the balances. It's all in the balances by virtue of the tsunami of pornography, graphic, often violent,
00:30:58.340 potent visual media that hasn't been invoked on us over these last few decades. Yes. Wow. Where can
00:31:05.740 people watch this documentary raised on porn? Um, we have it, um, it's just up on our magic lantern
00:31:12.680 pictures, YouTube channel. So, uh, they can go there, they can go to magic lantern pictures.com to
00:31:20.760 see all of our films. Um, and it's a 37 minute long, um, film has nearly 4 million views online. It's a very
00:31:30.840 consumable length. It's a palatable film. I think for my part, I think appropriate for teenagers and,
00:31:37.500 uh, but really tries to quantify porn's impact on the consumer. And we try to do all of our
00:31:42.300 productions with a really high standard for production quality. So I definitely encourage
00:31:46.360 people to give that a look. And then the book again is a much more robust and in-depth resource
00:31:51.840 and they can get that where anywhere books are sold. It's, uh, you know, Amazon or whatever.
00:31:56.780 It's just, the book is called raised on porn by myself, Benjamin Nolo. Thank you so much. I really,
00:32:02.740 I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Um, there are just a lot of stunning statistics
00:32:07.100 to studies that are included in this book. And so if you want to be equipped, not just for yourself,
00:32:12.160 but conversations. And I also like, I encourage people take this book, take this documentary to
00:32:17.520 your pastor, to the ministers in your church, to make sure that they understand what's going on.
00:32:22.520 I do think that this is something that's not talked about quite enough. Maybe we talk about
00:32:27.200 like lust in general, but specifically the danger that pornography poses. We just need to be, I think,
00:32:33.720 I mean, as Christians, we need to be leaders in that world of heralding the, one of the parts of
00:32:40.500 the good news, which is that we are made in the image of God. We're made for something so much more
00:32:44.660 and so much better than pornography. Um, thank you so much, Benji. I really appreciate you taking the
00:32:50.040 time to come on. Absolutely. Thank you. It's always an honor and I just appreciate you so much. So
00:32:55.680 yeah, thanks again. Thank you.
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