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0:39
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:50
Let's get into it. All right, guys, today we've got a very special interview for you,
0:53
and this is with John Fobert. The reason why I'm bringing John in today is because I've wanted
0:58
to cover the topic of pornography for a very long time on this podcast. I know I've made mention of
1:03
it here or there, but I wanted to do an entire episode on it, but I didn't feel that I could do
1:07
the subject matter justice because it is a massive, massive issue for men all over the world.
1:13
Christians, non-Christians, liberals, conservatives, it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from
1:18
or what your worldview is. This seems to be an issue for a lot of guys, and now I'm especially
1:22
concerned about this because I have a son. I have a son now, and he's going to be bombarded
1:27
with pornographic images and all types of things as he walks through his life. And so I wanted to
1:31
make sure that I was ready before that, but I just didn't feel like I was adequate enough
1:35
to be able to talk about that. So that's why I'm bringing in the big gun. So I want to
1:38
read to you from his bio, and then we'll talk a little bit about today's show.
1:41
Dr. John Fobert is an interdisciplinary scholar and thought leader who uses trauma-informed
1:48
database practices to write and speak about sexual assault prevention, bystander intervention,
1:53
and the harms of pornography. Dr. Fobert released his 10th book in 2017 titled
1:58
how pornography harms, what teens, young adults, parents, and pastors need to know.
2:02
How pornography harms is an indictment of the pornography industry and a complete resource
2:07
demonstrating why people should avoid porn and how parents can guide their children. Dr. Fobert
2:11
has been a guest several times on CNN and NPR. He has cited regularly in news outlets like The
2:16
New York Times, US News and World Report, and The Huffington Post. Dr. Fobert has testified
2:20
before Congress and has been called upon by the White House and the Pentagon about how to end
2:24
sexual violence. He travels nationwide to speak to colleges, military units, high schools,
2:29
conferences, and churches about sexual assault and the harms of pornography. So those are his
2:34
credentials. And this is a guy that I know personally, this is a guy that went to the same
2:37
church as me for a while. We didn't know each other supremely well, but we finally got together
2:42
to do this interview. And if the book that he wrote how pornography harms sounds familiar,
2:47
it's because it is on our list of the 100 books that every modern Christian man should read list.
2:52
That's just at undaunted dot life backslash book list, undaunted dot life backslash book list.
2:57
This is one of the books that made the cut of 100. And it's because I feel like it does
3:01
the best job of encapsulating the entirety of the pornography issue, because I've read other
3:07
Christian books about pornography. And they're making arguments based on scripture, which is
3:12
obviously a good thing about why you shouldn't watch porn and what Jesus would think. And, you know,
3:17
would you be looking at that if Jesus was in the room with you? And that might be effective to
3:20
some people, but it wasn't really effective for me because in my teenage years and maybe early
3:24
twenties, you know, pornography was an issue, masturbation was an issue. And it's something
3:27
that I've gotten control of now that I'm older, now that it's seemingly more,
3:33
I'm more at top of mind, I guess you could say, but those arguments didn't really stand up for me.
3:38
But when my foxhole read his book back in about 2018 or so, the arguments he was making were about
3:45
like how pornography and watching pornography weakens your brain and changes your brain chemistry,
3:50
what pornography can lead to in terms of actions in everyday life. And the thing I love about this
3:54
interview is I had enough questions to take us to, you know, an hour and a half or two hours
4:00
with some of the other types of guests I've had before. But John is very concise. He's very
4:05
cogent in his arguments and in his reactions to things. But however long this podcast ends up being,
4:11
it's incredibly dense. And it's on a very, very tough subject. I hope you guys enjoy it. So without
4:16
further ado, let's get into it. John Fobert, welcome to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
4:23
Thank you. It's great to be here. Well, man, I've been looking forward to this for a while now
4:27
because we had talked about this a couple of years ago, but then we finally kind of got this
4:31
going so that you could bring your message to our audience. But in terms of an introduction,
4:35
you write and speak about sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention and the harms of
4:42
pornography overall. And those aren't exactly light and fun topics in that category. But
4:48
what does your interest or maybe even your duty with those subjects? Where does that come from?
4:54
That's a good question. I'd like to get involved in controversial subjects where I don't see as
4:58
many Christians being involved and doing research or speaking or what have you. So I originally got
5:07
into sexual assault prevention, goodness, almost 30 years ago. And then I kind of transfer,
5:16
not transferred, but I got involved with researching pornography about 10 years ago. And it's just
5:24
something I've found very meaningful where I could make contributions. And so I don't know,
5:30
it's just it's a calling. Well, I feel like to a certain degree, I really like what you said about
5:35
getting into areas that Christians don't really get into a lot. On this podcast, we go into a lot
5:39
of subject matters that you would never hear spoken about from the pulpit or at least not spoken
5:44
about in such forceful ways, which is why I like your tactics, because you're very straightforward
5:48
in your approach, but you also bring the data in. Obviously, the big reason why I wanted to have
5:53
you on this podcast is because of your book, how pornography harms. And so that was a book that
5:57
you released. What was that? 2017? 2017. Okay. And the thing about it is we actually read that in
6:04
our foxhole. So we talk about our Sunday night group here on this podcast a lot. And we talk about
6:09
the different things we read, we read books about money, we read books about marriage. And we also
6:13
read books about how pornography can like rewire your brain. But basically with that book in chapter
6:18
one of that book, you say that porn is central in the American culture. What did you mean by that?
6:25
Well, pornography is so ubiquitous. I mean, it's it's all over the place, all over the internet. And
6:32
it is so often accessed that it's really become part of the culture of men and increasingly women
6:40
in the United States. I mean, you know, 94% of men and 87% of women have seen pornography at some
6:45
point in their lifetime. That's not, you know, a daily use rate, of course. But, you know, basically
6:51
all of all of adults and increasingly, certainly adolescents and even younger than that have seen
6:58
it. And it just becomes part of the culture, the more people who get involved with it, whether it's
7:05
watching it once a month or once a day. Well, and the thing about that is I think people don't
7:10
understand the ubiquity of it and how pervasive it is for a lot of folks. And I especially think
7:14
you'll find parents that just assume their kids aren't really getting it. And it's like, you know,
7:19
the way that I access porn as a kid is we went over to some random neighborhood and some kid,
7:25
you know, had a couple of pictures under his bed. And now we live in a world where, you know,
7:29
eight year olds have smartphones without any any blockers or locks on it. And the other thing
7:35
that I think is we don't really, we kind of give short shrift to the results of pornography use.
7:39
And so another thing you talk about in the book is how in your experience, all of the cases that
7:45
you've either consulted on or been a part of that involved sexual violence, also in some
7:50
wave shape or form 100% of the time involved pornography. Can you elaborate a little bit on that for us?
7:56
That was actually a quote by Marianne Layden, who is the head of the Counseling Center at
8:01
the University of Pennsylvania. And one of the things that she noted was that, you know, she'd been
8:06
a clinical psychologist for 25 years and about 10 years into it, she realized that she hadn't
8:12
talked to a single client who'd been sexually assaulted where pornography wasn't involved in
8:17
some way. And so, yeah, you mentioned earlier about the eight year old seeing pornography on
8:27
their iPhones and them being on block and stuff. I basically consider that to be
8:32
parental malpractice. I mean, you need to make sure that you lock down your kids' devices. So,
8:38
they at least have to work hard to access porn. I mean, it's very difficult to block it out entirely,
8:45
but eight year olds don't usually go looking for pornography. They usually happen upon it
8:51
just by accident. Yeah, and we'll certainly spend a little bit more time later on this podcast for
8:57
a lot of guys that are listening to this that maybe have overcome pornography and kind of the
9:01
changes that that brings for themselves, but they are worried about their kids. So, we'll spend a
9:04
little bit of time on that. But also, for me, even years after I had read that book for the first time
9:10
how pornography harms the most lasting bits of content from your book involve what viewing
9:16
pornography does to the human brain. So, can you give our listeners a little bit of a primer on
9:22
that as to kind of what effect that has? Yeah, I mean, one of the things I would preface it by is
9:28
that particularly adolescent brains are people who are under the age of 24. Their brains are
9:34
particularly malleable. And so, you don't fully form the prefrontal cortex until the age of 24,
9:40
25, which is the thinking part of the brain. And so, one of the things that pornography will do
9:48
now that we have high-speed internet and so many websites that have multiple pictures on them
9:56
is it provides what's called a super-normal stimulus. And essentially, what that is, is it's a stimulus
10:05
that's provided to the brain through so many pictures of so many different kinds of whatever
10:12
you're looking at in pornography that overwhelms the brain and it provides so much dopamine that it
10:19
almost you get an overdose of dopamine. And one of the things that happens then
10:27
is that you get to a point where you can only be sexually aroused by pornography and not by a
10:37
human body. And it's a steady gradual process, but the brain can become retrained to want
10:44
essentially two-dimensional images on an iPhone as opposed to three-dimensional images in front
10:51
of you. Yeah, and I know you get into that later on in the book and so we'll talk about that as well,
10:55
but I do want to read a quote about basically how this deals with the brain and it's from chapter
11:00
three of the book and it's from the chapter porn in the brain and I'll read the quote here.
11:03
"Professor Wilson reports that several studies examining brain scans of pornography users,
11:08
not addicts, but users, found that with increasing porn use comes a weaker brain,
11:13
a reduced sense of reward from everyday activities, and weaker willpower. Therein lies one of the
11:18
insidious elements of porn. It hooks a man in with more use, weakens his ability to leave it behind.
11:24
After prolonged pornography use, the reward system in the brain simply wears out." And so,
11:30
I guess to go even a little bit deeper, how is it even possible that that porn can be that
11:36
strong? Because growing up it's just not a big deal, right? And then even you hear people talk
11:40
about it, they talk about it like it's just like, you know, it's just like going to the bathroom,
11:44
it's just like eating a sandwich. It's just part of their daily routine is they watch porn and
11:49
masturbate or they just watch porn just to watch porn. So how is it possible that it could have
11:53
that strong of a grip on the human brain? Well, because it goes after the same reward centers
11:59
that are tapped into by heroin or cocaine or other behavioral addictions, alcohol, even gambling.
12:08
So it just provides such a strong stimulus because you have high-speed internet porn where you don't
12:18
have to wait a long time for a picture to download. You have, you know, thousands upon thousands of
12:23
pictures on different websites and you can click to one or another and another and another and just
12:28
it overwhelms the brain. When I was talking about a supernormal stimulus, it's essentially a stimulus
12:35
that the brain was not designed to handle. So it just creates a different kind of mechanism
12:43
within people's brains. Well, the other thing I feel like pornography does and if there is data
12:49
behind this, I'm sure you have something that's in that direction, it basically changes how men,
12:54
well, I'm specifically talking to my audience, which is overwhelmingly, but it changes how men
12:58
view themselves, but also how they view women. So what kind of your experience with that effect
13:06
on men's brains in terms of just how they view themselves or others? Well, there's a great study
13:11
that was done. What they did was they hooked men up to MRI machines where they could actually look
13:16
at their brains and then they showed them pornography because they wanted the neurologists who were
13:23
doing this study, wanted to see what parts of the brain kind of light up and fire when men look at
13:28
pornography and the parts of the brain that light up when men look at pornography are the parts that
13:34
refer to objects and not people. And so it's one of the things that we need to realize is that
13:42
you may have heard the phrase that a pornography objectifies women. It literally has men think of
13:49
women more and more as objects and not people. And one of the reasons that's so insidious is that
13:54
the more you think something's an object, the more you can hurt them. So that's a pretty dangerous
14:00
result. Well, and the thing about it is, is most of the time you've heard someone say, oh, this
14:04
objectifies women and it's not, it's seemingly not a real thing that is actually objectifying
14:10
women. So we're almost as sensitized to that statement. But the way you should think about it is when
14:15
people groups have been been labeled as less than humans, you think about Nazis or any other
14:22
type of thing that was done with the Nazis and the Jews, they basically turned people into thinking
14:27
that Jews were not humans. And what do you do with rats? You exterminate them.
14:33
And so all of your propaganda and all the things that you say after that, it lands a little bit
14:39
better on the user's ears. And so, but from from your perspective, why is it so hard for men that
14:47
maybe, maybe do care about women, they care about their sister, they care about their mom
14:51
to just see the women on the screen in a different way. Like, why the disconnect cognitively?
14:56
Hmm, that's a good question. I think because often they don't look at the women on the
15:04
screen as real women, they look at them as body parts. And they're focused on certain body parts
15:08
when they're consuming the pornography. And so they're not focusing on who this person is as an
15:14
individual that she happens to be a mother or a wife or a sister or a daughter. But they just think
15:21
of her as an object to masturbate to. Yeah. And I think that's something for a lot of men,
15:29
a lot of men that I've talked to that have kind of gotten their pornography use completely
15:32
under control is that they started thinking about that as like, wait a minute, that's someone's
15:36
sister, that's someone's daughter, maybe they have daughters themselves. And they're like,
15:40
I certainly wouldn't want another man looking at my daughter in that type of way.
15:44
Yeah. And that too, is that a lot of the pornography that's on pornography websites,
15:48
the women didn't agree to be in it. So you have lots of different kinds of pornography where people
15:54
have pictures and videos taken of them where they didn't even consent to have the pictures taken,
16:01
or they consented to have the pictures or the videos taken. But then they didn't consent to
16:07
being uploaded to a website. So there are lots of people who appear in porn and you don't really
16:14
have their permission to watch it. And that's something that I think is also a big problem.
16:19
Well, and one thing that I've even heard about recently is they have websites where
16:26
children, people below the age of 18 have had pictures or videos of them uploaded. Maybe these
16:32
pictures or videos were taken without their consent or knowledge. And they keep trying to find ways
16:36
to bring down the content. But then even if they can get the website to bring the content down,
16:40
that that video has already been redistributed or redownloaded. And that's kind of how you get
16:45
this link between pornography and pedophilia and you have another, you know, another quote from your
16:50
book that kind of goes into this a little bit more. And this is just absolutely shocking to know
16:55
some of the some of the statistics around it. So I'll read this quote here, quote, worldwide
17:00
pornography revenues from a variety of sources total approximately 100 billion annually, 100
17:05
billion dollars. Child pornography is 20 billion of that, bringing in 20% of the revenue to the
17:12
pornography industry. As with most any business, the pornography industry has a vested interest
17:17
in keeping 20% of its income intact. Research on male pornography users has found that 21%
17:23
view child pornography as part of what they consume. These men are more likely than other men to be
17:28
frequent viewers of pornography and to report that they enjoy new and exciting experiences.
17:32
Not surprisingly, child pornography viewers are more likely than other pornography viewers
17:37
to be interested in engaging in sexual behavior with underaged people. Related, when the sexual
17:43
interests of child pornography offenders are assessed, they show more sexual arousal to children
17:49
than adults, unquote. And so I don't even really have a question there, because even reading that
17:54
makes my skin crawl. But there's an obvious link between pornography and pedophilia, no?
17:59
Yes, there certainly is. And I think people, you know, think of pedophiles as, you know, creepy
18:07
old men who are trolling on the internet and looking for five year olds or something. But
18:13
and in some cases, that's absolutely the case. But a lot of, well, let me let me back up for a
18:20
second. A lot of pornography is in particularly more modern pornography is made with models that
18:27
are designed to look younger and younger and the average age of people who appear in porn has
18:32
gotten younger and younger. And then that kind of crosses over into teen porn and seeing people
18:41
who are even just pubescent. And a lot of times men who really didn't intend to get into child porn
18:49
end up getting there because they've sought out a bigger thrill or they it's more forbidden
18:56
fruit. And then they become more hooked on it. And then for some of those men, certainly not all,
19:01
but for some of those men, they'll actually seek out experiences to live out that fantasy, which
19:06
is terrible. When I think any of the high profile cases, I mean, Jared from Subway comes to mind
19:12
where this is the guy, this is the fat dude that isn't fat anymore. That's telling you, you know,
19:16
a chicken sandwich or something like that, all of a sudden, he's the guy that was looking at child
19:20
pornography. But whenever you listen to any interviews or when you hear any of the stuff from the court
19:24
cases, it's exactly what you said. These people didn't start out with child pornography. They
19:29
started out with, you know, playboys that they had buried in the woods. And then they kind of moved
19:33
to an old tape that they found at a garage sale or something like that. But then it just takes a
19:38
matter of years and maybe even months for some people to get to that point. And one thing that
19:43
I've seen is, you know, credit card companies are starting to get in on the action a little bit in
19:49
terms of trying to maybe bring some of the influence or some of the the pedophilic tendencies within
19:54
porn away. I believe even recently there was a major pornography site that I'll remain, I'll leave
19:59
nameless, that a big credit card company said, Hey, we're no longer going to allow our credit card
20:04
to process payments on this site because this site has child pornography as a part of their service.
20:12
And they can't seem to get it under control. Do you feel like that's a good thing that we're
20:16
going to see more of a trend of that? Because I'm very libertarian on a lot of things. But
20:20
something like that, I feel like is obvious that they should do that, right? Yeah, I think it is.
20:25
And it's both MasterCard and Visa that that no longer will pay for paid viewing on that particular
20:33
website. And so I hope that does happen. I mean, I think there's there's certainly a lot to be said
20:41
for being libertarian and for live and let live and make your own decisions and suffer the
20:46
consequences or reap the rewards. But when we're talking about seeing images of children or seeing
20:52
images of people who don't choose to be in the images that they're in, it seems to me that
21:00
the business community needs to figure out a way to be involved in the process of saying, Hey,
21:05
that crosses a line. So, and I certainly think that it does. And John, I do want to go back to
21:12
something that you brought up earlier where you're basically talking about how viewers of porn
21:16
are having sexual difficulties, you actually go into that in chapter 11 of your book,
21:20
how porn is changing the way people are having sex. And so this is the last quote I'll read
21:25
directly from the book, but it's here quote, one of the greatest impacts that increasing
21:29
pornography use is having on today's generation of teens and young adults is the sharp rise in
21:34
cases of erectile dysfunction, the inability to obtain or maintain an erection during a sexual
21:38
encounter. A study of heterosexual men addicted to pornography found that over 60% had erectile
21:44
dysfunction with a woman, but not when they used pornography. Clearly, this is a pervasive issue.
21:50
Thus, if a man is addicted to pornography, it is likely that he will be unable to function sexually
21:55
with the woman. Unquote. This is a big thing. And you have an entire huge section after this quote,
22:02
where you really get into the data about the percentages of reported erectile dysfunction
22:07
of maybe our grandfather's generation versus our generation. And it is absolutely staggering.
22:13
Can you kind of give us a little bit more more context there on that? Sure. The first initial
22:18
studies on erectile dysfunction were done in the 1940s. And when they took a look at men who
22:23
were under 30, they found that less than 1% of men had erectile dysfunction, which is what you
22:28
would expect. Not many guys under 30 have a difficult time getting it up. But in the 90s,
22:34
when more porn was available, there were 7% of men under 30 who had erectile dysfunction. And
22:40
urologists who kept seeing these men and couldn't figure out why are all these men under 30 coming
22:45
into my practice who had erectile dysfunction. And the 90s was pre-internet, but when there was
22:53
a lot more pornography available, well, once you get to the 2010s, then you have about 30% of men
23:01
who were under 30 reporting erectile dysfunction. And that's just a gigantic number. It's actually,
23:08
I guess, 33%. So what that tells you is that porn has a very powerful influence on the brain,
23:16
which then connects, obviously, to the penis. And you can actually have erectile dysfunction
23:23
from watching too much porn. It's a phenomenon of porn that I do like to talk about to people,
23:32
because a lot of times they'll say, "Oh, I love porn. It doesn't do any harm to me." And then
23:36
if you actually ask them questions that they were willing to answer honestly about, "Well, how has
23:42
your sex life with your wife?" They might hem and haw and say, "Well, you know, that isn't like
23:46
what it used to be. Well, they're not able to function sexually in a lot of cases." And that's
23:51
so it's sad. Well, it really goes to the overall point of your book, which is in the title is
23:58
how pornography harms, because again, I've had a lot of conversations with guys inside the church,
24:04
outside the church, secular, Christian, conservative, liberal, doesn't matter. And one of the big
24:09
consensus that I get from a lot of these people that either don't know any better or don't want
24:13
to know any better is that pornography is essentially harmless, and that there are no victims of
24:18
pornography, and there aren't any things like that. But as you know, and as a lot of people that
24:23
study the industry or have looked into the types of data, it is a conduit through which so many
24:28
depraved things happen. One of the things about human trafficking is a lot of it is it's trafficking
24:34
trafficking in people that will be used for some forms of sexual enslavement. And those are people
24:41
that are going to be unpaid prostitutes, or these are going to be people and or, you know, acting in
24:45
these films, and they're basically their pimps are off-screen or off-camera, basically saying you
24:51
have to do this or else type of a thing. Why do you feel like so many men, regardless of their
24:56
background or their standing of their worldview, feel like pornography is just this amoral thing
25:02
or I guess not amoral that would be appropriate, but they think it's just neutral. It's morally
25:07
neutral would probably be a better way of saying it. Well, because so many of those men are achieving
25:11
orgasm through pornography, and it's difficult to, I think, be an honest critic of a phenomenon
25:18
if you're getting off on it. So I think that creates problems for so many men that they want to
25:26
basically say, oh, it's no big deal or it's just this neutral thing because they don't want to
25:32
admit to themselves that, hey, some of the people in this pornography that I'm watching may have
25:38
been harmed or it could harm me in ways that I don't even know. I mean, we've only in this interview
25:44
scratched the surface of some of the harms of pornography. I mean, we have lots of other areas
25:50
that people might not connect to their pornography use depression, for example, anxiety, loneliness.
25:57
There are lots of areas where pornography use can affect parts of our lives that we wouldn't
26:04
necessarily think connect, but are actually quite harmful. Well, and the thing about the
26:10
pornography industry is it's never stagnant. It's always changing. And I mean, your book was released
26:14
in 2017. That was not very long ago, but I'm assuming, and it feels like that a lot has changed
26:20
in the pornography industry during that time. What can you tell us specifically about any trends
26:26
that maybe you've seen since the release of your book? One of the things I've noticed at the levels
26:32
of violence and pornography has gone up even more. And there's now a form of porn called gore porn,
26:39
which is mimicking a gory movie. Child porn, racist acts in porn, they've all increased exponentially.
26:48
And so it's something where the porn industry has sought to keep moving the envelope and pushing
26:56
it farther and farther and farther, because what they know is that men who see a certain kind of
27:02
pornography that might be kind of vanilla are going to look for something that's much more
27:07
extreme to keep themselves hooked on it and to keep themselves masturbating to it.
27:13
So those are those are some of the areas where I've seen some changes.
27:18
Well, certainly on this podcast, we've talked about a lot of subjects, not this particular
27:22
episode, but we've talked a lot about a lot of slippery slope types of arguments like, well,
27:26
you want this and you can allow that in terms of what you just said about the pornography industry
27:31
constantly pushing the envelope. Where does this end? Because there is a day and it's either
27:37
an actual ending of something in the industry or its rapture. And so there's something in there
27:42
where this goes, like, where is this headed? Like, what can we expect?
27:45
Well, I think what I've heard from people who study the industry closer than I do is that the
27:53
porn industry is looking for more interactive experiences. So not necessarily that the content
27:58
would be different, but that the experience of the porn user could be different in terms of virtual
28:03
reality, where you can move around a scene and wherever you want to go or look at whatever you
28:09
want to look at, different things you can strap to your body that can sink to a film
28:14
so that it becomes more interactive and more real. Those are the areas that the porn industry,
28:21
as I understand it, are getting involved in and looking to do because they've pushed the envelope
28:28
so much in terms of violence and other things. There's not much more they can do. They can't
28:33
shove more penises into a vagina than they already have or filled other holes. Or put several fists
28:43
inside a woman. They've maxed out there, so they're looking for more interactive experiences.
28:48
Well, and that's partially one of the things that is terrifying for me because I'm a father,
28:54
a new father of a son. We have our first child. He's about eight months old as of this recording.
28:58
And I am absolutely terrified of my son somehow becoming addicted to pornography. I remember even
29:07
before my wife and I got pregnant, when we were talking about what it would be like to maybe
29:10
have a boy or a girl, the big thing in her biggest fear about having a boy is that somehow he would
29:16
get caught up in the whole porn thing. Because I remember telling her just jokingly, it's like,
29:19
you know, if we have a boy, we have to worry about one penis and if we have a girl, we have to worry
29:22
about all of the penises. She didn't think that was nearly as funny as I did. But the thing about
29:28
her is all she could think about was if we have a boy, then we have to worry about this porn
29:32
problem, which, you know, gives not the same amount of attention to girls having the same struggles,
29:37
but as a parent, as someone who has a blocker on his phone, not because he feels temptation,
29:43
but just because it's the right thing to do. But as a parent, what can I actually do to
29:50
prevent my son from viewing pornography when all the stats tell us that every year, the average age
29:55
of the first viewing of pornography goes down and down and down? I think you have to come to terms
30:00
with the fact that you can't prevent your son from looking at pornography, but you can put some
30:05
blocks in place and hopefully educate them enough about what pornography is and what it can do to
30:11
them so that they make the choice not to. Because at some point or another, even if they decide not
30:17
to look at pornography, one of the things I found in writing my book was that looking at pornography
30:23
becomes a rite of passage. And so I interviewed this one guy who stayed away from pornography
30:29
until the age of 14 and all the other people on his sports team found out. And so, you know,
30:35
anytime any of them had a cell phone around, they would put pornography in his face so he would have
30:39
to see it and he ended up being addicted to pornography. So it's very difficult to prevent it entirely.
30:46
One of the things I've done with my son is I talk about it frequently, so it's not a subject that
30:51
surprises him when it comes up. And I talk about how it's harmful to both men and women and how
30:59
it can be harmful to him. And we go through some of those harms. He's not a sexual being yet. He's
31:06
only 11 years old. But he does understand some of the harms and he knows that the daddy doesn't
31:12
want him to do this. And I think that that's an important part of raising a son and not just having
31:18
the talk or one conversation, but have it to be an ongoing dialogue that you have about pornography
31:24
and the fact that, you know, people are probably going to try and show it to you. What can you do
31:28
if that happens? You may come across it online. It's okay to tell daddy that you did. But I have
31:34
coming in eyes on his on his devices and actually on his sister's devices too, because I just I think
31:41
that it's a it is at least an initial barrier so that you don't stumble into porn when you're not
31:48
expecting it. Well, and since you have an 11 year old boy, I was kind of wondering, you know,
31:52
tactically, what do you do and at what age? So when is maybe too early to have that type of
31:58
conversation as a contextual to the maturity level of the kid or whether or not they have bonehead
32:03
friends or, you know, when when would be a good time to start having those conversations to where
32:08
they actually have some level of understanding as to what you're even talking about? I actually
32:12
had a did a mini workshop for kids who were five years old and five and six and what we did is I
32:21
had a couple of them role play like, you know, one kid would go up to another and say, do you want
32:28
to see a picture of a naked girl? And you know, you would he would show his iPhone to the other
32:33
kid and the other kid's job was to say, no, I don't want that in my life. And just teaching them
32:40
that that should be their first instinct is to say no, and to look away, as much as they might be
32:47
drawn to the images, if they know that the harms that could have been done to the person in that
32:51
image, if they know the harms that can be done to them long term and that it affects their own
32:56
sexual development, it makes it more likely that they're not going to turn to porn when
33:02
when they get older. And so I think that's important for fathers, but obviously,
33:08
fathers themselves are just men that listen to this, we have some single guys, some young guys
33:12
that listen to this as well. We've talked about how the pornography industry is always evolving.
33:16
And you talked about, you know, with doing the virtual reality and different things like that,
33:21
it's only going to get crazier for for men. So how can men steer clear of porn when it's literally
33:28
getting easier and easier to access? Because grown men aren't accidentally finding porn.
33:33
That is a child's type of thing where they go from this video to that video, then all of a sudden,
33:38
they click the wrong link and they're seeing something that they can't unsee. But for grown
33:42
in that are finding it harder and harder to fight the urge because of the easier access,
33:47
what does that guy do? I think a couple of things. One is I would get something like
33:52
Covenant eyes on his phone, because that at least you have to work hard to get around it. And if
33:59
you set it up honestly, and you have a friend put a password in there that you don't know,
34:03
it makes it a whole lot less likely that you're going to access it on your phone.
34:07
The other thing I think is real important for guys is to have an accountability partner
34:12
who you can really just open up with and be honest with. And if you do look at porn,
34:18
say something, but to make a commitment together that, hey, we're going to be in this struggle
34:23
together and we're not going to look at porn. And it's because of the harms that it has to our lives
34:27
and to our to important women in our lives as well. And so I think both the accountability
34:36
piece and the blockers on on phones are both very important. Well, into that accountability,
34:43
like at different times in my life, I've had direct accountability partners. And I just got to tell
34:47
you guys, there's nothing worse for your boner than knowing you're going to have to report what
34:52
you did with it to a buddy the next day or later that day. I mean, it's kind of funny to say it that
34:57
way, but I'm dead serious. And I had other buddies tell me the same because I was their accountability
35:02
partner. And it's just like, you don't want to be thinking about me when you're when you're looking
35:06
at born, you know, like that's not really what you want going through your mind. But if that's
35:09
what it takes to get you to kind of stop and think a little bit extra because with any addiction,
35:14
it's not something that we trip and fall into. It is a series of decisions that we've made.
35:19
It's like, we knew we were going to be alone. We knew no one was going to be around. We didn't
35:23
tell anybody. And then we got bored. And then we stuck our hand down our pants. And then we
35:27
turned on the computer. It's so many different levels before you get to the actual act. And I
35:32
think both guys don't they don't look at it that way. They they get to the end. And I remember,
35:37
I'm going a little bit off subject, but I remember really early in my Christianity and in my young
35:42
life, I went to this accountability group with a bunch of men. There was probably 30 men in the
35:46
room. And we kind of gotten these little pods where we were discussing things. And every guy in this
35:51
little circle just kept saying how they failed that week. And here I am saying, there is a young
35:57
guy. And you know, everybody in the in the group is like, every time they would tell their little
36:01
story, they were like, Oh, man, I'm so sorry. And, you know, do better next week. And the
36:05
accountability was so weak that there was really no benefit to them coming in the next week,
36:10
having said that they had any types of success, because it would have been a similar kind of milk
36:15
toast reaction. So in my opinion, I'd like to get the opinion from you is in an accountability
36:20
relationship. I'm a fan of more direct, more forceful accountability while still having grace.
36:28
You know, Jesus came full of greats and truth. But I don't feel like more of the graceful,
36:33
it'll be okay types of accountability works for the long term. Like, what would you say,
36:38
where would you say you've fallen that? I would probably fall close to where you are. I think that
36:43
we need to, you know, we need to lead with grace to sweeten the pill that's hard to swallow to say
36:50
the law says you shouldn't do that. And so I think that partly we need to have conversations
36:57
with our accountability partners to be like, you know, well, to really unmask why it happened.
37:03
And to take a look at, you know, what were your triggers, what happened before, what happened,
37:09
you know, just prior to, and how can we work together to make sure you're not masturbating
37:15
to pornography again, and to use the terms masturbating to pornography, and to not let
37:20
him off the hook by just saying, oh, I just did the stupid thing or whatever. But, you know,
37:24
to make him say what it is that he did. And, and, and to really have a hard to our conversation about
37:30
why, and how we can prevent it from happening in the future, not just like, Oh, yeah, I messed
37:36
up again. Haha. I mean, that's not accountability. That's just a joke. Right. One thing that it's,
37:41
you know, I hate that you even have to ask a question like this, but pornography use is not
37:46
just a phenomenon of secular individuals or atheistic individuals. It is pervasive amongst
37:51
Christians. And the reason why the reason why escapes me, because it's kind of one of those
37:58
things where it's like, we're all human beings at the end of the day. But if you presume to have
38:03
some sort of insight into the true morality of the universe and where it comes from and where you go
38:08
when you die, you might act a little bit differently. But why is pornography use so prevalent amongst
38:13
Christians and, you know, basically similar to that of the rest of the populace? Well, I'd always
38:18
send and fall short of the glory of God. And I think that's part of it. And particularly with men,
38:24
I think pornography has such a strong pull that it's, well, let me let me let me back up even a
38:33
little bit more. There is some research out there that does show that the more religious a guy is,
38:38
the more intense church, the more he is in accountability relationships, all of that,
38:42
the less he looks at porn. So there is a relationship between Christianity and pornography that's
38:48
inverse. But a lot of Christian men are struggling with porn. A lot of Christian men are looking at
38:54
porn and even pastors are doing the same. So it's difficult to describe why do people sin.
39:02
And I think it's because, you know, for a moment, they think that they know better than God and they
39:07
can do what they it is that they want to do. But usually there's disappointment and self-loathing
39:12
that happens afterwards. And it's just, it's just a sad thing.
39:17
Here's one thing that I feel like is a interesting subject, especially since both of us kind of
39:23
admitted to some libertarian type tendencies. Do you honestly see a scenario where pornography
39:29
is regulated or outlawed in the United States in some way? And, you know, what would have to happen
39:36
in either in the industry or just in the morality of the United States to see something like that
39:42
happen? I think it's possible. Well, actually, a lot of pornography that's out there is illegal.
39:49
If it's obscene, it's illegal according to the Supreme Court. What we need to do is we need to
39:53
prove in court that it's obscene and we need more, we need federal prosecutors to actually take those
39:59
cases. And in a lot of situations, they're not willing to take those cases. And so there are other
40:05
groups out there that are nonprofits that are starting to gear up to sue the porn industry for
40:10
the obscene nature of their products and services. And that's one of the things that help lead to
40:20
one website not being able to take the credit cards that we talked about earlier in the podcast.
40:25
So I do think that it's possible that if we can actually get in front of a jury and show them
40:32
the extreme pornography that's out there, they will say, yes, that's obscene, it's illegal,
40:36
and the people who are making it need to go to prison. There are enough big porn companies that
40:43
you can do that too, that you can really cut a major blow to the porn industry. But will porn
40:49
ever go away entirely? No, not until Christ comes back. But I think we can still engage in the battle
40:56
and fight it. And I think there are legal ways of doing that. I mean, using the law, there are
41:01
ways of doing that. And I think that that's something that I see on the horizon happening more and more.
41:07
All right, John, we've covered a lot of ground here on this podcast. But I do have one more
41:12
segment left to go in this episode. This is something we do with all of our interviews.
41:16
It is a lightning round of sorts. It's called, what would you say to someone that said? And so
41:21
what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, what would you say to someone that said, I'm going to fill
41:25
in the blank there at the end, but you get 30 seconds maximum to give your response, even if
41:30
it's a big topic, even if you want to keep going on and on and you're a pretty concise guy, which
41:35
I appreciate, but you got 30 seconds and I'm going to keep you to it. So do you feel like you're up for
41:39
it? Sure. All right, first one here. What would you say to someone that said, the US government
41:45
should intervene and try to ban porn? Yes, I do believe that they should try to ban porn. And I
41:52
think you can do that through legal means. I think you need to be realistic about the fact that you're
41:56
not going to be able to get rid of all of it. But I think you can get rid of that, which is I've seen
42:00
in illegal. All right, next one here. What would you say to someone that said, porn helps me worship
42:06
God by worshiping his beautiful creation? I would say that you are diluted the excuse me delusional.
42:14
And that is not something that helps you worship God. It really helps you worship yourself and
42:22
perhaps an image. But no, if you think that that helps you worship God, you need to read God's word
42:29
a little bit more closely. And for anyone who thinks that I just made that up, I've actually
42:34
heard that argument before. So it like it's it is a diluted argument. But I've actually heard
42:39
someone give that as as a Christian argument for why we should watch porn. So anyway, we'll get back
42:44
into it here. What would you say to someone that said, as long as I don't masturbate, there's no big
42:49
deal with watching pornography? Well, that's that's not true. Because you you have people in porn who
42:57
don't choose to be there. And so you're essentially raping them with your eyes is one way of saying
43:03
it. And it can still harm you in terms of loneliness, depression, anxiety, short term memory, lots of
43:12
other things, whether or not you're masturbating, that just sounds like a technical argument that's
43:17
doesn't hold a lot of water. All right, next one here. What would you say to someone that said,
43:23
acting in porn films allows young people the ability to make a lot of money and establish
43:28
themselves financially? Complete baloney. They might make a little money for a while. But the
43:36
thing about porn stars is that you might have a few who make several movies. But what the male
43:43
appetite tends to rely on is novelty. And so the actors are cycled through rather quickly. And when
43:52
you look at the porn industry. All right, next one here. What would you say to someone that said,
43:57
it's a free country. If people want to watch porn, who cares? Well, it's a free country,
44:02
but you can't kill someone. It's a free country. You can't shoot someone who's not, you know,
44:07
entering your house or, you know, something like that. So I think there need to be legitimate limits
44:14
on the freedoms that we have. And if that's one of the things that makes a society that's coherent.
44:19
And one of the things that I think should be regulated much more is is the porn industry.
44:26
All right, next one. What would you say to someone that said, I can't stop watching porn?
44:31
I would say I can understand how you would say that you can't stop watching it and that you feel
44:38
like you can't. But I would have a little bit more faith in yourself and in God, if you have faith
44:43
in God, that he has the ultimate power in the universe. And when you kind of connect yourself
44:50
to that power, you have the power to defeat porn within you. And I think that's something that
44:56
the more you know God and the more you learn about them, the more you can understand it.
45:01
All right, a couple left. What would you say to someone that said, I don't want to stop watching
45:05
porn? I'd say that's your choice. But I think it's going to harm you in many ways that you might
45:13
not realize whether that's loneliness, depression, erectile dysfunction, or any other things. Do you
45:19
really want to have erectile dysfunction in your relationships? Is that what you're saying?
45:24
All right, last question of the day, John, what would you say to someone that said porn is harmless?
45:29
No, it's not. There are so many harms. I can't even get that into 30 seconds. But I think I've
45:39
said it a few different times. I mean, erectile dysfunction, loneliness, depression, limited
45:44
short term memory, looking at women as objects and not people. There are just many, many harms
45:51
that are there that you might not realize because you might be masturbating to it. But I think we
45:55
need to have a little bit more of a educated approach to it. Excellent. Well, John, we have
46:00
covered a lot of ground on this podcast. We've gone all over the place, but that is all for me.
46:05
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, I just, well, I would say one thing
46:10
that if they want to try out covenant eyes, which I've recommended a couple of times,
46:14
they can get it free for a month by putting my last name in the coupon code box. And so,
46:19
if you put forward F-O-U-B-E-R-T and the coupon code, they can get covenant eyes for free for a
46:24
month. And that might be a way of trying it out just to see if that's something that you want.
46:28
So that would be the only other thing I would add. All right, guys, I will make sure that is
46:32
in the show notes for you. But otherwise, John Fobert, thanks for coming on Undaunted Life,
46:37
a man's podcast. Thank you for having me. It's been my privilege and honor.
46:40
There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed that episode. I know it's kind of a heavier subject,
46:48
but I know that this is going to help a lot of you guys. So I appreciate you sticking with this
46:51
all the way till the end. Before we let you go, we are going to do a clear, resilience boost.
46:54
As you know, by now, we are immense ministry and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.
46:58
Specifically, we do that by providing content like this podcast that helps you forge spiritual,
47:02
mental and physical toughness. So the resources we've got for you today, I've got John's website.
47:07
I've also got a link to his Amazon page where you can buy how pornography harms. And then also,
47:13
I've got the link to Covenant Eyes where you can go and put in the code Fobert. That's F-O-U-B-E-R-T
47:18
to get a month off. And, guys, I'm a Covenant Eyes user. They do an incredible job. There are
47:23
some other filtering softwares out there that just aren't quite as good. That is the Ferrari of these
47:29
types of platforms and types of technologies. So you should definitely try that out if you have
47:34
not used it. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening to this podcast. I really do appreciate
47:37
it. If you would, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts,
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the content. I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the entirety of 2021. So if you
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48:13
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latest record entitled "Guardians." The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
48:27
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
48:33
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
49:03
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