0:00
(upbeat music)
0:02
- This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:23
Let's get into it.
0:24
Our guys today, we've got a special guest on the podcast.
0:26
His name is Benjamin Nolow.
0:27
Not to be confused with Nolot,
0:29
even though that's how his name is spelled,
0:30
but he is a French-American film producer,
0:32
director and writer.
0:33
He's known for his feature films
0:34
like Nefarious, Merchant of Souls,
0:36
liberated the next sexual revolution and raised on porn.
0:41
And he has been nominated for best director
0:42
at multiple film festivals.
0:44
So guys, his films and his videos
0:46
have received more than 40 million views worldwide.
0:49
So this guy has done a lot
0:50
and he's got the track record to prove it.
0:51
And he's been screened.
0:53
He's done screenings for legislators
0:54
at the highest levels of government here in the US,
0:56
but also in the UK, in Canada, Australia.
0:59
And he also directed a new three-part series,
1:01
which we're literally,
1:02
if you're listening to this on time,
1:03
we're in the middle of its release.
1:05
These three parts called Beyond Fantasy,
1:07
which exposes the dark, super dark underbelly
1:11
of the pornography industry.
1:12
Okay, so what he talks about in this three-part documentary
1:15
and we talk about it here in the show,
1:17
and obviously you can check it out in the show notes,
1:18
is these different types of pornography.
1:20
So where did hardcore pornography come from?
1:22
Who are the people that are purveying
1:23
that type of pornography, but also under age pornography?
1:26
Where 18 and 19-year-old girls
1:28
who look like they're 12 or 13
1:30
are being depicted in these horrifically terrible
1:32
hardcore films.
1:34
And in this interview, guys,
1:36
this is an interview where if you've struggled with porn
1:38
or if you're currently struggling with porn,
1:40
you might automatically walk into this
1:41
or be like, I'm gonna skip this one.
1:43
This is gonna kind of bring up some bad emotions
1:45
and maybe some shame and different things like that.
1:46
And he and I even talk about that in this interview,
1:48
the different kinds of shame and how this goes,
1:50
but my encouragement to everybody is this is a dark one.
1:53
Like this is a heavy one today.
1:54
It's not skip this.
1:55
Do not skip this.
1:56
Like literally lean into this content.
1:59
If not for your own sake,
2:01
for the sake of your children,
2:03
to the sake of the young people
2:04
that you might be mentoring,
2:05
that might struggle in this area
2:07
because this world of pornography,
2:09
it's not your grandpa's world of pornography
2:11
where you might watch one smut film in your entire life
2:14
or whenever you find a box of playboys in the woods
2:16
or something like that.
2:17
It isn't a various thing that is growing and expanding.
2:20
AI is becoming a part of it.
2:21
Augmented reality is becoming a part of it.
2:23
And it's only gonna keep going.
2:25
But it's when you understand the scaffolding
2:27
underneath this horribly dark and demonic industry
2:32
is where you can really look at it
2:34
in terms of the revulsion that it should cause.
2:36
And again, we go into all that in this interview.
2:38
I really, really do enjoy this interview.
2:41
Again, it was heavy.
2:42
It was rough.
2:43
There was one point where I was like literally fighting
2:44
back tears because I was just getting so unbelievably mad.
2:48
You guys will know exactly what I'm talking about.
2:50
And to be honest with you, just full transparency,
2:52
I have no idea how to transition effectively
2:55
into the sponsor of today's show.
2:56
So I'm just gonna do it.
2:57
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We really, really do appreciate them sponsoring the show
4:13
to get their products out to you guys.
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So guys, again, like I said, buckle up.
4:17
It's a heavy one today, but put on your big boy pants.
4:19
We got to get into it.
4:20
So without further ado, let's get into it.
4:23
Benjamin Nolo, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
4:27
- Thank you. It's great to be on.
4:29
- I mean, I've known you for all of five minutes.
4:31
So can I call you Benji yet?
4:32
Or should we just stick with the official Benjamin?
4:35
- Maybe in like another five, 10 minutes.
4:38
- Okay.
4:39
Well, then we can just pretend that I didn't say that.
4:42
Benjamin, I'll keep it as preferred.
4:44
What's your middle name?
4:45
I could use your entire name if you want to go that route.
4:48
- But the middle name is a little too French as well.
4:52
Okay. Yeah. I already told you off air.
4:53
Guys, when you look at his name, it's not Nolot.
4:56
It's not Nulu or anything like that.
4:58
It's Nolo.
4:59
Okay. So I was glad I asked off air,
5:01
but we do need to make sure,
5:02
'cause obviously I just did the introduction.
5:04
People have a little bit of a sense of who you are,
5:06
but I always like them to hear it from the horse's mouth.
5:08
So as a way of introduction,
5:09
you are a first generation American.
5:11
So my understanding is that your family immigrated from France.
5:14
So I guess the first thing is I need to break some news to you
5:17
is that did no one tell your parents
5:19
that we are the most racist, awful country,
5:23
like in the history of the planet that we hate foreigners
5:25
and that they need to just stay where they were
5:27
because we're Americans and whatever.
5:29
But you can address that if you want to.
5:31
But I guess what was it like growing up in America,
5:33
even though your parents didn't grow up here?
5:36
- Yeah. No.
5:37
My dad, once he got here,
5:41
he never had a desire to go back.
5:45
And so it's a great country.
5:49
I am so privileged to have grown up in the United States.
5:53
I've traveled the world.
5:54
There's no where I would rather live
5:56
than exactly where I live right now,
5:58
which is Southern California, mainly due to the weather,
6:02
but also because just the freedoms
6:04
that we enjoy in this country.
6:05
And so yeah.
6:08
- I will let you know that land is cheaper outside of Southern California
6:13
and we have way less taxation across the country.
6:15
So how about you pop around the country,
6:17
check us out in Oklahoma, go to Texas,
6:19
kind of see if anything else fits your fancy.
6:21
It gets a little hotter.
6:22
You know, the more central you get to the United States,
6:24
but just certainly keep that in mind.
6:26
But obviously, or go ahead.
6:28
- Believe me, I've looked around and, you know,
6:32
I don't love the politics in California.
6:34
I don't love the cost of living here.
6:36
It's mainly to do with the weather and the surf.
6:41
And those are things that eat just really hard
6:44
to find other places.
6:46
And I've lived in Hawaii for a season.
6:50
We had the surf,
6:51
but I just have extreme heat.
6:54
Yeah, it's not for me.
6:58
I lived in the mid,
6:59
so I grew up here in Southern California,
7:01
but I lived in the Midwest for 16 years.
7:04
And so I feel like I paid my dues,
7:06
living in Kansas City with terrible weather.
7:08
And at this stage of life, you know,
7:10
15 years into this anti-trafficking work,
7:13
I felt like I needed just a little bit higher quality
7:16
like get outside, decompress of it.
7:18
So it's been a great fit.
7:20
- Hey, but they've got the best barbecue on the planet.
7:22
So every different community has their claim to fame.
7:24
Y'all got the weather, they got the ribs.
7:27
But, you know, you've mentioned already, you know,
7:28
also being in Southern California
7:30
and doing what you do for a living,
7:31
making films is in making television.
7:34
Like that's obviously a great place to do that.
7:36
But I'm curious, like, what drew you to that?
7:38
Because from the outside looking in,
7:39
we've had people that have worked in that, you know,
7:42
documentarian space and all that on the show before.
7:44
It seems really sexy from the outside
7:46
because the finished product is so cool
7:48
and they can stream it.
7:49
And, you know, it seems like this big attractive thing.
7:51
But I'm just wondering for you,
7:52
what drew you to that line of work?
7:55
- Yeah, there's a couple of things
7:57
that I really love and appreciate
8:00
about documentary as a genre.
8:04
First, documentaries have really shaped
8:08
the way that I see the world.
8:11
So I feel like a lot of the world is,
8:16
a lot of the way we see the world
8:18
is informed through cover narratives
8:22
that are specifically constructed
8:25
to create an impression of something
8:27
based on a polarized, you know,
8:29
political ideological position.
8:32
And so there's this question that I often have,
8:34
which is, you know, what is influencing us?
8:38
And are we living under the influence
8:42
of what a certain political party is saying
8:45
under what certain news outlets are saying,
8:47
what social media is saying, what pornography is saying,
8:50
what alcohol might be telling us.
8:52
There's a lot of influences in our world.
8:56
What I love about documentary is that it,
8:59
documentary is take you below the level of consciousness
9:02
where we live our normal lives
9:04
and expose us to deeper truths that have the capacity
9:07
to create a transformational paradigm shifting experience in us
9:12
and cause us to live more deeply connected to truth.
9:16
So the way I see the world is not so much an issue
9:20
of good versus evil as it is truth versus deception.
9:23
And so I love the documentary genre
9:26
for the very reason that it pursues the deeper truth
9:30
as a way to connect with the real world.
9:35
It fundamentally alters our way of being in the world.
9:40
So that's first.
9:42
The second thing is that I really grew up deeply immersed
9:47
in the arts.
9:50
And so there's a creative aspect to filmmaking
9:53
as far as this multi-dimensional canvas
9:56
that is very satisfying to work in as an artist.
10:00
And then there's the kind of the justice chip
10:05
that I have, which has, you know,
10:09
the issue of human trafficking is really what compelled me
10:13
into a more deeper investigative journalistic
10:17
kind of dive into this whole world.
10:20
So documentary combines both the element
10:24
of investigative journalism with the creative aspects
10:29
of filmmaking, puts those two things together.
10:33
And then you get to be a part of bringing truth
10:37
into the world that helps free people
10:40
into, yeah, just powerful mindsets
10:45
that are connected to reality.
10:47
And so I think those are kind of three
10:50
of the main reasons why I've been really drawn
10:53
to documentary as a genre and committed to, you know,
10:58
helping to make these or committed to making these films
11:02
to help make the world a better place.
11:04
- Well, so something that you mentioned there
11:05
is you mentioned truth and obviously documentaries
11:08
should be bringing forth truth,
11:09
even though there's a lot of narrative with documentaries.
11:12
But in this era, and I said this on another interview,
11:15
at some point, like I get so frustrated with modern films,
11:19
like I think the Marvel films and like all those superhero films,
11:23
I think they're just brain dead.
11:24
It's the same storyline, Rinson repeated
11:27
with different characters and different CGI
11:29
and everything's like that.
11:30
Like I'm drawn to the gritty kind of those really dark
11:34
and heavy projects.
11:35
So I've kind of been pulled towards documentaries
11:37
and specifically with your work, which I'm so glad
11:39
I came across it, your film projects
11:42
and even some of your episodic docu-series type things,
11:46
they cover really heavy subjects, okay?
11:48
So we're talking human trafficking, pop culture's effect
11:51
on how people view sex and gender and violence
11:54
and the porn industry and how it affects children
11:56
and the realistic things behind the porn industry,
12:00
which we're gonna get a lot into here in a second.
12:02
And I find myself as I'm watching your work
12:06
and as I'm watching work from the other people
12:08
that I get around as I'm like, man,
12:10
I'm putting so much darkness into my brain
12:12
and I don't dance to life.
12:13
We're here to equip men to push back darkness.
12:16
So to a degree, I feel like I have to do that
12:18
in order to point men towards that.
12:20
But man, wouldn't it just be easier to make a documentary
12:22
about puppies or like snow cones or like something easier?
12:25
Like, I guess why do you go into these really,
12:28
really rough subjects?
12:29
- Oh, believe me, I've said those exact words numerous times.
12:33
At some point I'm gonna make a documentary about puppies.
12:36
- Yeah, right.
12:38
- So yeah, I mean, it's traumatizing.
12:41
There's a vicarious trauma that's invoked by virtue
12:44
of coming up against this behemoth system of injustice,
12:48
of human trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation,
12:51
all of that, and there's definitely a challenge to that.
12:56
I love something that John Eldridge said.
12:57
He said, every man needs a battle to fight an adventure
13:01
to live and a beauty to win.
13:03
And I think that we, as men, are most alive
13:07
when we're engaged in the battle that we were meant to fight.
13:11
And so for me, my canon, so to speak,
13:16
in this fight against human trafficking
13:19
really has been these documentaries.
13:21
And so while the subject matter is very disturbing,
13:26
I find a lot of purpose and a lot of value
13:29
in being able to create these documentaries
13:32
and to present them to the world.
13:35
So there's something also in the Old Testament book
13:39
of Daniel, it says that God sees what is in darkness
13:44
but light dwells with him.
13:46
So he's more keenly aware of the darkness
13:51
of every injustice in the world
13:53
than we could ever fathom than we could ever be.
13:57
And yet he's the father of lights
13:58
in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
14:00
He's full of virtue and purity and light altogether.
14:04
So I don't think that a journey into this
14:09
has to necessarily overwhelm one with darkness
14:15
to the point of being paralyzed.
14:16
I think there's a way to navigate this space
14:20
and to see what is in darkness
14:23
but to also be able to hold on to hope
14:28
and be able to hold on to truth as you're going through this.
14:33
So yeah, so we're navigating a really difficult dark space
14:39
but there's such a powerful, redemptive value in it.
14:42
I heard somebody said once,
14:45
I think it was, I can't remember who said this,
14:47
but it was this quote that there are two things
14:50
that pierce the human heart, tragedy and beauty.
14:53
And so with our films, we really tried to capture
14:58
both of those things in a palpable way.
15:01
And I think that's the one thing
15:03
that would characterize our documentaries
15:05
is that you don't walk away
15:07
not having felt something, not changed.
15:11
And yeah, we're gonna introduce you
15:13
to the reality of the tragedy of human trafficking
15:17
and sexual exploitation, all of that
15:19
in a very palpable, heartbreaking way.
15:22
But we're also gonna highlight the aspects
15:27
of hope and redemption that leave people feeling like,
15:32
I can really do something about this
15:34
and we can change our world.
15:36
- Well, and the thing about it,
15:37
well, and here we are 10 minutes in.
15:39
Can I call you Benji yet?
15:40
Just just outside of Mark?
15:41
- I think we're fast friends
15:43
and let's go.
15:44
Well, Benji, here's my follow-up question to that.
15:46
So covering your eyes and covering your ears
15:49
and pretending like evil and darkness doesn't exist
15:51
doesn't make it go away.
15:52
And one of my favorite scriptures is Ephesians 511.
15:55
I'm reading from an NASB.
15:56
Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness,
15:59
but instead even expose them.
16:02
Okay, and so that's the thing.
16:04
It's you're not participating in the darkness.
16:06
You're shining a light on it.
16:07
You're pointing at it.
16:08
And that's one of the ridiculous things
16:09
you mentioned the politics of California.
16:11
A lot of people that have a more leftist point of view,
16:14
they get real offended whenever you point
16:17
at what they're doing and say, yeah, you shouldn't do that.
16:19
That's wrong.
16:20
That's immoral.
16:21
You shouldn't cut the healthy breast tissue
16:23
off of a 14 year old girl.
16:24
You shouldn't marry that person.
16:25
Like any of those things, it's like,
16:26
if they're just aghast, that's some of these things.
16:29
Like, oh, you shouldn't judge sex workers.
16:31
They're just doing what they need to do,
16:32
like that type of an idea.
16:34
It's just very pompous and an arrogant thing.
16:36
And you also mentioned John Eldridge there.
16:38
He's been on the show more than anybody else.
16:40
We love John Eldridge, he's a mentor of mine.
16:42
And he wrote a book called "Resilient."
16:45
And in that book, that's one of his recent books,
16:47
he's talking about, we're all coming down off of this high
16:50
from the pandemic.
16:53
And people's rates of porn use have gone through the roof.
16:56
People's rates of all these other destructive things
16:58
that they would do to themselves
16:59
have gone absolutely through the roof.
17:01
And everyone's waiting for the reset button,
17:03
which may not come.
17:05
And it's our ability to basically hit the reset button
17:07
in our lives that makes it meaningful.
17:09
That is going to allow for that change
17:12
that a lot of these people need to get into.
17:14
So I'm gonna spend a lot of time today,
17:15
Benji, talking about the new project
17:17
that you're literally right in the middle.
17:19
Guys, when you hear this episode,
17:20
right in the middle of this release,
17:22
it's a new project called "Beyond Fantasy."
17:24
And so it's a three-part, three-episode series,
17:28
I believe, I don't know if it's gonna go beyond that.
17:30
I guess you can tell us.
17:31
But it's basically looking at the actual world
17:34
of pornography.
17:36
So it's giving you a peek behind the curtain
17:38
of what is actually happening.
17:40
And we'll get into the different episodes
17:42
and we'll break some stuff down.
17:43
And obviously, guys, it's in the show notes
17:45
so you guys can go and check that out for yourself.
17:47
But why do this, what is the overall goal
17:51
of the "Beyond Fantasy" docu-series?
17:54
- Well, when we were making our first documentary
17:57
called "Nefarious Merchant of Souls,"
18:01
that documentary is a global snapshot of sex trafficking.
18:05
And I traveled to 19 countries, 42 cities on four continents,
18:09
filming that.
18:10
And as we were investigating the issue of sex trafficking
18:13
and child trafficking and all of that,
18:15
I began to see these five overlapping areas
18:21
where pornography was intersecting with sex trafficking.
18:26
And so it was really the experience of seeing the way
18:30
that pornography was overlapping with sex trafficking
18:33
that drove me towards wanting to investigate that deeper.
18:37
And so in 2012, I whiteboarded a session
18:41
with our staff at Exodus Cry,
18:43
and we talked about going on that journey
18:46
to really uncover what's happening
18:47
in the realm of pornography.
18:50
And 10 years later, we're now at the point of releasing
18:54
both the documentary mini-series that we created
18:59
"Beyond Fantasy" that you mentioned,
19:00
as well as a book that I've spent the past 10 years
19:03
working on called "Raised on Porn."
19:06
And so, yeah, so it's been a deep dive
19:09
for literally a decade to go into this
19:13
and to uncover what's really going on.
19:15
I think that it will give people
19:18
a very different perspective and understanding of pornography.
19:22
So lots to say about that,
19:24
but that an introductory way,
19:25
that's sort of how we got involved in that.
19:27
- Ryan Reynolds here from "Mid Mobile."
19:29
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19:30
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19:33
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19:37
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19:40
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19:42
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19:47
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19:49
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19:51
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19:53
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19:55
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19:58
- Yeah, there certainly is a lot to say about that.
19:59
And before we dig even further into the project,
20:02
you brought something up there
20:03
that most guys don't think about.
20:05
And if they did think about about this,
20:07
it would probably give them a little pause,
20:09
but the link between pornography and sex trafficking.
20:12
Now we've had guys on this podcast
20:14
that have written entire books about it.
20:16
Dr. John Fobert is one guy that has been on the show
20:18
a couple of times about how porn rewires the brain,
20:21
but also there's not a crooked line
20:23
between pornography and sexual exploitation
20:25
and human trafficking.
20:26
It is a straight line.
20:27
It is a bold line.
20:28
Not a checker line, it is bold and it is one to one.
20:31
And most guys don't think about it that way.
20:34
Part of it, I think if I were to venture a guest,
20:36
Benji is that they don't know that,
20:38
they're just ignorant about it.
20:40
But then the people that do know that,
20:43
they just try not to think about it.
20:44
Because hey, either horny, they're bored,
20:46
they just want to look at porn and jerk off.
20:48
Why is that so pervasive?
20:50
And like even that one, I guess the ignorance to it,
20:52
but even the people that do know about it,
20:54
they just don't give a crap.
20:55
- Yeah.
20:56
- Well, let me first just say that, you know,
20:59
I, even as we talk about this subject,
21:02
there's, I think there's so much shame
21:04
around the issue of pornography and sexuality for men,
21:09
especially growing up in this culture.
21:13
Not only is pornography something that we grow up with
21:18
as sort of the wallpaper of our lives
21:20
and this pornographic culture,
21:23
but there's not really a healthy dialogue
21:25
going on around it.
21:26
And so I think a lot of men feel very isolated
21:29
within their struggle and alone and full of shame.
21:34
And I think there's a cry in a lot of men's hearts
21:37
of can I ever be whole?
21:40
And so I think even as we approach this,
21:42
I just want to take the shame out of this conversation
21:46
and just to normalize the idea that we all struggle
21:51
with our sexuality, throw on top of that, you know,
21:54
the fact that we are the first generation
21:56
to grow up into a planet that's been hardwired
21:59
with this highly potent visceral, visual medium
22:03
called graphic hardcore pornography.
22:06
So it's a struggle.
22:09
And, and so I think for me, it's really important
22:14
to distinguish between the idea of, you know,
22:18
how do I say this?
22:21
So shame is this idea that I am bad.
22:26
Conviction is the idea that I have done bad.
22:31
And there's a huge difference between the two.
22:34
And so I really at the outset of a conversation like this
22:38
want to just take shame out of the equation
22:40
because I think it's partly what keeps men
22:44
in the cycle of pornography consumption.
22:48
In other words, the behavior triggers the shame
22:50
and then the shame triggers the behavior.
22:52
So there's this ping pong relationship
22:54
that men have with shame.
22:55
And then we start off in a conversation like this,
22:57
immediately men begin to feel the shame of that.
23:01
So instead, I think it's helpful just to say,
23:05
hey, look, it's, we struggle.
23:08
That's normal.
23:08
Let's step away from that for a moment
23:11
and try to come up with an objective analysis
23:13
of what is this thing of pornography.
23:17
I think that the work that I've invested in
23:21
these past 10 years is extremely valuable
23:24
towards helping people who maybe have been trapped
23:27
in that cycle of pornography consumption
23:29
be able to come out of it.
23:31
And again, that's something that we can dive into deeper.
23:35
But I just wanted to say that at the outset
23:36
of this conversation because I'm just very aware
23:39
when we're inviting men to a conversation
23:42
and it immediately goes into sexuality and porn.
23:44
There's just a lot of guys out there that are struggling
23:46
and I just want to say, hey, it's okay.
23:49
Like, you know, the struggle is part of
23:53
what it means to be human.
23:54
And it's not the end of your story.
23:57
- Well, I think guys are pretty used to the heavy stuff
23:59
by this point, you know, we're several hundred episodes in.
24:02
But I appreciate that word.
24:03
And here's where I don't necessarily know
24:05
that I would capture this as pushback,
24:07
but I agree with you.
24:08
There is a problem with no dialogue here
24:12
where men feel like they're the only one
24:13
that struggles in this way.
24:14
They're the only one going down this path,
24:16
even though they really do intellectually know better.
24:18
But I do think it spans all the way out
24:20
to where the dialogue that is had is incredibly weak.
24:24
I remember I went to this, this was years ago.
24:26
So I used to struggle with pornography
24:27
has not really been a part of my life
24:28
for well over a decade at all.
24:30
And so there was this group that I went to in my early 20s
24:33
when I was trying to get a handle on this.
24:34
And there's all these guys that were older than me
24:36
and they sat in this circle
24:38
and they basically just went around the circle
24:39
and this guy's like, oh, I made it two days
24:41
without looking at porn.
24:41
And then all the guys are like, hey, man, it's okay.
24:43
Try to make it three days next time.
24:45
This one guy who was a pharmacist
24:46
who would meet up with random strangers
24:49
and have sex with him like in parking lots,
24:51
he got a venereal disease and gave it to his wife.
24:54
But instead of just telling her like he gave her the pills
24:57
she needed to get to get over this venereal disease,
24:59
he like snuck it into her food, right?
25:01
So like some crazy levels of the gravity,
25:03
but it was like, there was so much weakness around me
25:06
and I'm okay with weakness 'cause we all get weak,
25:08
but I was like, is anyone gonna say just stop doing this?
25:11
Like, 'cause for me, now this is very personality driven.
25:14
So and I want to give you a chance to kind of push back
25:17
if you wish to.
25:18
My personality and guys that are wired like me,
25:20
shame is a tremendous motivator.
25:23
When I was a kid, I was overweight.
25:24
I will never be overweight again
25:26
because I remember the shame of taking off my shirt
25:29
at the pool because I'm already a ginger.
25:31
So I'm like half like translucent skin.
25:33
So that's one problem.
25:34
But then being overweight adds another issue.
25:36
Same thing with me.
25:37
When I think about looking at porn,
25:39
when I'm bored by myself and all those different things,
25:42
I remember the shame I felt
25:44
when I had to tell my wife or when she found it,
25:46
when we were dating or any of those things.
25:48
So for me, shame is a tremendous motivator
25:51
as long as it is attached to the understanding
25:53
that we are fully depraved human beings
25:55
that have no pathway to the father,
25:57
except through his grace.
25:59
And we can't white knuckle our way into morality
26:02
or into heaven or those types of things.
26:04
But does that kind of make sense that like,
26:05
again, I don't want it to seem like pushback,
26:06
but there's kind of a spectrum here,
26:08
even though I hate using that word.
26:10
- Yeah, I think it has to do with healthy versus unhealthy shame.
26:15
- Okay.
26:17
- So healthy shame is, man, I did bad.
26:22
I acted out of outside of my core values.
26:27
And I feel the sting of that.
26:29
And faith, Christian terms,
26:31
we define that as the sting of sin.
26:34
Like I felt the sting of that.
26:36
That's healthy shame.
26:37
You should feel that sting.
26:40
- Unhealthy shame is, you know,
26:43
I have done bad therefore, I am bad.
26:46
- Right, that's that Satan whispering in your ear,
26:48
being the father of lies,
26:49
getting you to categorize yourself that way.
26:51
That makes perfect sense.
26:52
- Yeah, and so just,
26:53
I think that a lot of guys are just stuck
26:56
in that under that voice of condemnation.
27:00
There's something that they used to say
27:02
when I was in sales a long, long time ago for a short season.
27:09
They say when people say no,
27:11
it's not that they mean no,
27:13
it's that they don't have enough information.
27:15
- Sure.
27:16
- And so I feel that a lot of guys are stuck
27:20
in that place of maybe they've consciously decided,
27:24
I don't really want pornography to be a part of my life.
27:27
They still have enough information that's compelling
27:30
for them to fully overcome it.
27:32
So some of the feedback that I've gotten
27:34
from men that I've walked with is,
27:37
I wanted to be free.
27:39
I tried everything I could not get free
27:42
until this one that we've done together.
27:45
And so I have a lot of confidence
27:47
in kind of the work that we've done to address pornography
27:52
and how powerful that can be for men
27:53
who maybe are struggling and want to be free
27:55
and haven't been able to find that freedom yet.
27:57
And again, it might be a very small percentage
27:59
of your audience, but I think it's worth mentioning
28:01
just 'cause I'm just aware of that in a very keen way, so.
28:06
- Absolutely. I appreciate you giving us
28:08
a little bit more on that.
28:08
So let's get back to Beyond Fantasy.
28:10
And before we get into the exact episodes,
28:13
you made a, I don't know if this could be couches
28:16
of a stylistic decision or a cinematography decision.
28:19
You blurred out pretty much all the sex acts.
28:23
There's no nudity in this.
28:25
So for anyone that's looking for gratuitous nudity,
28:27
it's not there, but you, this is about as raw
28:32
and graphic of a documentary as I've ever seen
28:34
on the subject before that didn't actually show penetration.
28:38
Sorry, if anybody was offended by that word
28:40
or like didn't show titties or like whatever the thing is.
28:43
Things that you would expect,
28:44
because there are documentaries about the porn industry
28:46
that are, they're utilizing the porn industry
28:49
to keep you interested in the documentary,
28:51
but you blur out the minimum amount.
28:54
And there were other places in the film
28:55
where you use like almost cartoon renderings
28:58
of some of the things that were going on.
29:00
I guess why do that as a stylistic choice?
29:03
Why not try to sanitize it more?
29:05
Could you not get the point across
29:07
by being, you know, not even hinting
29:09
that you were gonna show some of those images?
29:11
- Yeah, so as we began to kind of uncover
29:16
what was happening in the porn industry,
29:19
there were three primary areas
29:22
that we felt like really stood out to us as areas
29:27
that we wanted to focus on, that we wanted to address.
29:30
So first was this genre of pornography
29:34
called Barely Legal Porn, which is a pornography
29:38
that depicts, you know, 18, 19 year old girls
29:41
as though they're prepubescent teens.
29:42
So there's that genre that is the most,
29:45
teen porn is the most searched genre in all of pornography.
29:49
And the pornography that's created around that
29:52
is really to promote the idea of sex with a child.
29:55
And so that became a major focus for us.
29:57
The other genre that we addressed was this genre
30:01
of violent pornography.
30:03
And again, that's one of the most popular genres
30:06
of all time, what would be classified as gonzo
30:08
or hardcore or rape porn or revenge porn.
30:11
And that is meant to show women being broken down
30:16
on camera and violently perpetrated against.
30:21
And that also was something that we were concerned
30:24
about the promotion of those fantasies in a world
30:26
that is already struggling with so much sexual violence.
30:29
And so, and then the third thing was the epidemic of STIs
30:34
that was happening in the porn industry
30:36
and STDs in the porn industry.
30:38
So those are kind of the three focuses of these,
30:41
of this mini series of these documentaries that we did.
30:45
As we were putting the stories together,
30:48
it was, first of all, important for us
30:50
just to be able to communicate, you know,
30:53
in a coherent way what's happening
30:55
in each of these three areas.
30:57
And then in terms of establishing a visual scape
31:01
for the films, we spent a lot of time trying,
31:05
'cause there's no reenactments in the film.
31:08
Everything is taken from actual archival assets
31:12
and then combined with the interview footage
31:15
and behind the scenes footage, veritate footage.
31:19
So we spent a lot of time trying to find
31:23
that the right kind of balance
31:26
of not sugar-coding things,
31:30
allowing people to kind of see for themselves
31:33
the reality of what was going on in porn,
31:36
but without crossing that line into the realm
31:40
of nudity and penetrative sex acts.
31:42
And so, I mean, I look at our editors as heroes
31:47
because they've spent countless hours sorting through
31:50
all those tribal assets for us to try to create something
31:53
that's palatable for a wide audience to come
31:56
and really find out what's happening in porn.
32:01
The feedback that we've gotten from people
32:03
is that this is the hardest hitting film
32:06
that they've ever seen.
32:06
That's basically the universal feedback we've gotten
32:08
in all the focus groups that we've done.
32:11
These people have told us this is the hardest hitting film
32:13
that I've ever seen.
32:14
So we don't pull punches, but we do try to, you know,
32:20
guard people from having to confront, you know,
32:22
the real graphic sexual stuff.
32:26
And, but yeah, so that's how we approach that.
32:29
- Well, I'm appreciative of what y'all have done
32:32
because probably not gonna be a shock to you at this point.
32:35
I don't really like pulling punches either.
32:37
I like coming right at it and like, hey,
32:38
let's just deal with it.
32:39
Like if we have to wait 'til the dust settles
32:41
to see what we're looking at, that's fine.
32:43
But, you know, that was one of those questions is like,
32:45
okay, you're not gonna be able to use your film
32:47
as a masturbatory aide.
32:48
So that's how you can know that this doesn't go over
32:51
into that area.
32:53
But I wanna dig into episode one, which is very illegal,
32:55
which you set up, which is where, yes, they, as they report,
32:59
take 18, 19 year old girls that look significantly younger
33:02
and they are with, you know, a very much older adult
33:05
and female sex actors and they kind of go out,
33:08
they go into it that way.
33:10
The thing about this with, that was the most disturbing
33:12
and don't worry, we'll get to max hardcore here in a second,
33:15
is the depictions of what's happening in these films,
33:18
and it reminds me of a concept I learned
33:19
from Dr. John Fobert, which is sexual scripting.
33:22
So when a child, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old
33:25
looks at pornography for the first time,
33:26
it's typically not the pornography that I saw
33:28
when I was a kid, it's not a playboy,
33:30
it's not, you know, tasteful if there is such a thing,
33:33
it is hardcore from the very, very beginning.
33:35
Anal sex, rape sex, you know, where the bodily fluids
33:39
are everywhere, it's just these horrific images,
33:43
if you know what real sex actually is
33:45
within the covenant of marriage.
33:47
But these kids are getting that as their sexual script, right?
33:50
And so that leads to them wanting to do some of those things
33:52
and we'll get more into that here in a second
33:54
when we talk about episode two.
33:55
But the most nefarious thing that I think you expose, Benji,
33:59
is that we are scripting pedophilia.
34:02
And I said this years ago when people thought I was crazy,
34:04
I was like, guys, the next battle front
34:08
in the sexual revolution in the LGBTQ wars or whatever
34:11
is going to be the normalization of pedophilia.
34:14
We already don't call them pedophiles anymore,
34:16
we call them minor attracted persons.
34:18
So we're sanitizing what we're seeing.
34:21
But when you're looking at porn like that,
34:22
the highest, you know, most searched porn category there is,
34:27
you're teaching these adult males to look at girls
34:31
that look like little girls as sexual objects.
34:35
And it goes way beyond objectification of women.
34:38
It goes to the scripting and teaching of pedophilia.
34:41
Do you feel the same way?
34:43
- Yeah, that's absolutely, I think for us, you know,
34:48
when we got into this, I don't,
34:49
we didn't fully understand the deviancy
34:55
of what barely legal porn was.
34:58
- Which, if you can hold your thought real quick,
35:00
sorry to interrupt you, I just have to get in here.
35:03
That's the one warning I would give to the audience,
35:06
aside from the fact that you have to watch these,
35:08
like it's almost a requirement it is in the show notes,
35:11
is it's so sticky and it's because of what you just said,
35:14
deviance, the level of depravity is so potent.
35:18
It's like it's in the air, it's like it's surrounding you
35:21
as you're watching this.
35:22
And that's not an excuse to get away from a,
35:24
it's an excuse to dive in.
35:26
But I'm sorry, go ahead, I just had to say that.
35:28
- Yeah, no for sure.
35:29
And I think it hit home for me in a really profound way
35:34
because of some of the experiences that I had
35:36
making a documentary on sex trafficking
35:40
and particularly with an emphasis on child sex trafficking.
35:44
So I had gone to this place called Swipehok
35:48
on the outskirts of Penn on Penn,
35:50
which has been considered to be the capital
35:54
of global child sex trafficking.
35:57
And after returning from that trip,
36:01
I reached out to our host there and said,
36:03
hey, we're putting together this awareness center,
36:06
sort of like a museum on modern day sex trafficking.
36:09
Are there any artifacts that you can send us from the film
36:11
that would help us tell the story of what's going on?
36:14
And he got back to me a couple of weeks later
36:16
and he said, yeah, we just did this raid
36:19
and he said, we recovered the pajamas
36:23
of a seven year old child that were still stained
36:25
with the blood for her abuse on the crotch.
36:28
And so they needed to recover those pajamas as evidence
36:33
in their case, but when they were done with that,
36:37
he sent them to me in the mail.
36:40
And I remember coming back from work one day,
36:42
this was weeks later, it's sort of forgotten
36:44
about this conversation and not forgotten about it,
36:49
but I wasn't on my radar, I get home, my wife.
36:52
It's like, hey, there was a package that came in the mail
36:56
and she goes, I'm not sure what it is,
36:59
like some dirty pajamas or something.
37:00
And I remember just taking those pajamas out,
37:02
I mean, they're the tiniest pajamas of a seven year old.
37:06
And seeing this stain on the crotch,
37:10
this blood stain on the crotch
37:11
and realizing what those were.
37:13
And I was just so impacted in that moment
37:18
by the reality of the injustice
37:23
that is suffered by children in our world
37:26
and the knowledge that this is the fullest extrapolation
37:31
of somebody whose life has been completely hijacked
37:34
by pornography.
37:35
These men that are flying out to Cambodia and, you know,
37:39
Thailand and Brazil and other parts of the world
37:43
to go on sex tourism trips and to seek out children.
37:46
It's not that they got up one day
37:48
and decided to go do that.
37:50
This is the evolution of a exposure to pornography
37:55
that began as children.
38:00
And so for me, I was able to make that connection
38:04
in such a clear way,
38:07
porn consumption with the abuse of a seven year old child.
38:12
And these children in Cambodia are also groomed
38:16
for the sex industry by being shown pornography.
38:18
So the traffickers use them to groom them.
38:20
So it's connected in all kinds of ways,
38:23
but this was one very direct way.
38:25
And so, you know, as I went into the porn industry,
38:29
I'm carrying that knowledge
38:31
and to see the cavalier way that pornographers were creating
38:36
that fantasy in their films.
38:42
Now their justification would be, yeah,
38:44
well, the girls are 18.
38:46
They're still promoting the fantasy of sex with a child.
38:48
Exactly.
38:49
Dakes were really high for me
38:52
in terms of understanding the impact of that on our world.
38:56
And so, yeah, I mean, I just, you know, confronting
39:01
that was really, really disturbing.
39:02
It was a revolting experience
39:06
and it was an enraging experience.
39:09
And I thought, I had this actual like very conscious thought
39:14
at the time that I know there are a lot of men out there
39:18
who are trapped in the cycle of pornography consumption.
39:21
There were men who said to me going into the porn industry,
39:25
I don't know how you could do that.
39:26
I'd be so tempted, yada, yada.
39:28
The experience of doing was so utterly revolting
39:32
that I thought if we can craft these documentaries in a way
39:37
to recreate that feeling in the audience,
39:42
and we will have succeeded.
39:43
And that is what we set out to do with Beyond Fantasy
39:46
is give them the vicarious experience
39:48
of having that revolting stomach-turning type of experience
39:53
around pornography as they begin to learn the deeper truth
39:58
or the deviancing, the reality of what's really going on
40:01
in the porn industry.
40:03
- Well, Benj, as you were describing that,
40:04
and I'm sure I'm not alone in this,
40:06
but maybe it's a little bit different
40:07
because I'm the one in the conversation hearing you describe
40:11
the seven-year-old girl and all those things therein,
40:14
like anger to the point of tears,
40:17
like being so mad that you could spit nails,
40:19
like I'm like just sitting here, like clenching my fist
40:23
because, you know, if you have any justice mindset
40:25
inside of you, if you have any hatred towards bullies
40:29
or towards people that overpower those weaker than them,
40:32
like it should create that visceral response in you
40:35
that brings anger and we'll get a lot more into that
40:37
here in just a second, but revulsion,
40:39
I think is exactly the case 'cause when you talk to anyone
40:42
I've read books and gone through documentaries
40:44
of what really is going on in the porn industry,
40:47
it's not sexy, because people always like to point
40:49
to the most famous ones that never regret doing it,
40:52
that are multi-millionaires and their cultural celebrities
40:56
in these types of folks, as being the examples of,
40:59
you see porn's not bad, but then you're not talking
41:01
about the 99% of people that were just chewed up
41:03
and spit out by the pornography industry.
41:05
I had a gal on the podcast earlier this year named
41:07
Jessica Midkiff, she was sexually trafficked
41:09
for over 10 years and now she's working to get girls
41:12
out of that livelihood and she just said straight up
41:16
on the show, like some of the girls that she worked with,
41:18
I guess you could call them her colleagues,
41:20
they don't exist anymore because they were chewed up
41:22
and spit out by their pimps, they were literally murdered
41:24
once they could no longer be profited off of
41:26
because they were so destroyed sexually or physically
41:29
or mentally to where they couldn't perform in the way
41:31
that the sex exploiter wanted to do
41:35
in those types of situations.
41:37
And a lot of the market for these sex workers
41:42
as they're called or for these people that are in that
41:45
industry where they're paying for sex is because of what
41:48
you cover in episode two of Beyond Fantasy
41:50
and that's hardcore pornography.
41:52
And so this episode, the first two episodes,
41:55
I can't give a medal to which one's more sticky
41:57
because they're equally awful in my brain
42:01
and in a good way because I'm glad to be reminded of it.
42:03
But this is kind of going back to what I talked about
42:05
with the first episode to where it's teaching
42:07
a sexual script, again, these hardcore violent acts
42:12
and portraying the woman as wanting it,
42:15
wanting it harder, wanting to be defiled,
42:17
wanting to be defloured, wanting to be debased
42:20
as a human.
42:21
And they're being taught that by violent pornography.
42:24
And then they take that into their normal life,
42:27
but then they can't do that with their wife
42:28
'cause their wife would never be down
42:30
with some of that sexual violence.
42:31
So then they move to prostitution
42:33
because they're like, well, I paid this woman 50 bucks.
42:36
I'm gonna do whatever I want.
42:37
So I'm gonna try the stuff that I've been watching
42:38
for all these years.
42:39
So talk to me a little bit about episode two
42:42
kind of going into the whole hardcore side of things.
42:45
- Sure, absolutely.
42:46
Before we jump into that, I wanna just mention something
42:50
that you point out, something that you said
42:52
that I thought was important.
42:53
And that's this idea that there are a lot of people out there
42:57
who justify and rationalize their porn use
43:00
by pointing to that person who didn't say,
43:03
oh, well, this person is sexually liberated and empowered
43:08
and making money off of this and wants this and all of that.
43:11
And I would just challenge that notion.
43:15
I think that, again, is part of the cover narrative.
43:20
It's the idea that there's this subclass
43:24
of human beings, women who exist for no other purpose
43:28
than to be sexually subjugated or dominated by a male.
43:31
And that pornography does a good job
43:33
of promoting that cover narrative.
43:35
There's very two-dimensional picture of women in porn.
43:39
And so for me, going into the porn industry
43:44
talking to some of these people was a revelation.
43:47
Because if you only took them at face value
43:50
based on what they were putting on their Twitter profile
43:53
or how you see them appearing in these movies,
43:56
there's the allure.
43:58
There's the come hither look.
44:00
There's the idea that I want this
44:05
and I'm this sexual being and this is really
44:07
the entirety of who I am.
44:09
And that lie is what seduces a lot of men
44:14
into, again, rationalizing and justifying
44:17
their porn consumption.
44:19
One of the things that John Eldridge told me
44:21
when we were talking about this idea of how do we,
44:25
like, what do men need?
44:27
How do we heal the relationship between men and women?
44:30
And what are some things that we as men can do?
44:32
And he made this very surprising statement to me
44:37
that I just hadn't really thought about in this way,
44:40
but he said men need to forgive women.
44:44
And, you know, part of me was like,
44:47
man, like, men need to forgive women.
44:50
I'm like, there's things like a lot of bad things
44:53
done to women on the part of men.
44:55
And, but he kind of like helped me see deeper into
44:59
this idea of, you know, men's experience
45:03
with women growing up in the world.
45:04
And for men, for people who are wired
45:09
to want to feel powerful in their world,
45:12
this is the one area, the relationship with women
45:15
where we are often destabilized.
45:17
We all have had the experience of being rejected
45:20
by a woman or being lured and not, you know,
45:23
having the opportunity to have that connection
45:26
or being betrayed or whatever it is.
45:29
And so I think that what men find in,
45:34
sometimes in pornography is this counterfeit form
45:38
of feeling desired, of feeling powerful,
45:42
being in a world where no, you know, no woman says no.
45:46
Every advances is met with more, you know, voracious,
45:50
you know, sexualized ravenous behavior.
45:55
And so part of the work that I feel that those,
46:01
part of the work that I feel like men who are struggling
46:06
with porn need to do is disrupting the fantasy
46:11
of what porn is.
46:12
And it could be, you know, boredom that triggers
46:16
the desire to escape into that fantasy
46:19
or could be anxiety or could be rejection
46:22
or could be stress at work.
46:23
Something's triggering men to want to escape
46:26
into this fantasy world.
46:28
So part of the work that men have to do
46:31
is to disrupt that fantasy with the deeper truth.
46:35
So to use the point that you mentioned,
46:38
there was this girl who was a,
46:41
one of the few contract stars in pornography
46:44
by all intensive purposes,
46:46
one of the most successful porn stars in the world.
46:49
She was a contract porn performer
46:52
for digital playground.
46:54
And we sat down for the interview
46:57
and before I even asked a question,
47:00
the first thing she said to me
47:01
is I've never said this to anybody before.
47:04
And I don't know why I'm going to tell you now,
47:06
but I want to tell you how I got into this.
47:08
And a manager is in a back room waiting for her.
47:12
So I'm aware of the risk that she's taking
47:15
to even open up at this level.
47:16
And she begins to unpack the story of the way in which
47:20
she was trafficked into pornography.
47:23
And so a lot of people,
47:26
so here's the thing is that what you don't know,
47:33
when you get into this,
47:35
is you actually don't know that person's story.
47:40
But what I can promise you is having interviewed
47:42
so many of these people, they all have a story.
47:45
They're all three dimensional people with histories
47:49
and preferences and unique experiences
47:51
and life crisis and tragedies.
47:54
And they're whole people.
47:58
And the second thing that people don't know
48:03
on the front end of this is where that's going to take you
48:08
when you push that button, when you click on that image,
48:12
when you get onto that website,
48:13
you do not know the ride that you're going to be taken on.
48:18
We talked with men who ended up in prison
48:22
for consuming child pornography,
48:25
who started out as with really vanilla sexual appetites,
48:32
heterosexual appetites.
48:34
So this person was taken on a ride into something
48:39
they never thought they would get into.
48:41
And all, to elicit the feeling of arousal
48:46
that started to wear off with just the vanilla thing
48:48
and it went on this path.
48:50
So if there's one area where we just don't wanna be taken
48:55
for a ride is in the realm of our sexuality.
48:58
So we don't know who that person is,
49:02
what their story is.
49:03
We know what they're saying on Twitter.
49:05
We know how they're being shown in the movie.
49:07
We don't actually know who that person is.
49:12
And then we don't know the ride
49:13
that we're gonna be taken on.
49:15
Maybe your vanilla sexual appetite never changes.
49:17
Maybe you become a pedophile.
49:19
Is that a risk you wanna take with your sexuality?
49:22
I'm like, so it's, you know,
49:25
Beyond Fantasy is a cautionary tale
49:28
of what can happen
49:32
and what is happening related to who these people are in porn
49:36
and where that might take you in your own appetites.
49:40
- So, yeah, absolutely.
49:42
I love that you got into that.
49:44
And so this is gonna seem a little crude for some people
49:47
and maybe it's because I'm a 12 year old boy at heart.
49:50
But when I know guys that have been struggling with porn
49:52
and they're like, how do I stop looking at porn?
49:53
I'm like, well, stop looking at porn.
49:55
It's like, it's the jocka-willing approach to pull ups.
49:57
If you wanna be able to do more pull ups,
49:59
you need to do more pull ups.
50:00
But if guys need to go a little further,
50:01
I will tell them, you need to look for opportunities
50:04
to make your boner run away.
50:06
And what I mean by that is so some guys, I'm like, okay,
50:09
their trigger is when they're home alone,
50:11
when their wife and kids are not there,
50:13
that's when they're triggered to look at porn
50:14
because they're bored and horny, okay.
50:16
Text me and tell me, hey, like before the family leaves,
50:20
hey Kyle, like you could even have a code word, like,
50:22
hey Kyle, I'm planning on watching basketball tonight,
50:25
but I'll be by myself, do you wanna come over?
50:27
That's my trigger.
50:28
I did actually have that conversation with the buddy,
50:30
just so nobody could look at the text messages
50:32
and think there was anything nefarious going on.
50:34
But there's nothing that makes your boner run away sooner
50:36
than when you think I'm gonna have to follow up
50:38
with this guy tomorrow and tell him whether or not
50:40
I looked at porn and masturbated.
50:42
And another thing is, is nothing should be able
50:44
to make your boner run away faster
50:46
than if you're thinking of that person
50:47
as being a trafficked individual,
50:50
a person that does not want to be there,
50:51
someone that was tricked into being there,
50:53
somebody and you go over this in your films,
50:55
somebody that was brought on set to contractually do this,
50:59
this and this, and then the moment they show up,
51:01
it's a whole myriad of other issues
51:03
and then they're threatened, hey, if you don't do this,
51:06
you're not only not gonna get paid,
51:07
we're never gonna hire you as a contractor again
51:10
to be in any of our films.
51:11
And so it's basically like enforced slave labor,
51:14
which we've spent about 45 minutes talking about all this.
51:17
Now we need to get to the thing
51:18
that makes me just about more angry than anything else.
51:21
And that is a person named Max Hardcourt.
51:23
So Max Hardcourt is basically the godfather
51:26
of hardcore pornography.
51:27
I can't remember when he started, I don't really care,
51:29
but he would basically convince these women
51:31
at restaurants or bars or whatever
51:33
to come with him to his trailer or his RV
51:36
or something like that and to do these incredibly,
51:39
incredibly hardcore sex scenes, pay them basically nothing.
51:43
And then he would also had the gall to like pretend
51:45
like he was a coach and different things like,
51:47
hey, let's give it our all and let's kind of come over.
51:50
And the thing that I was overwhelmed with, Benji,
51:52
is as I'm watching, especially 'cause he was featured
51:54
in the first episode about the underage stuff
51:57
and then in the hardcore episode, he was featured prominently,
52:00
is I was like, he needs to die.
52:02
I'm like, how is Max Hardcourt alive today?
52:05
Like I was finding myself just as you were describing
52:07
the seven year old girl in her blood stain
52:09
and semen stain panties.
52:11
I was the same way about Max Hardcourt.
52:13
I was like, he needs to die.
52:15
Someone needs to take this guy out.
52:16
And I was overwhelmed with this idea of like Benji,
52:19
how were you able to control yourself
52:21
during these interviews?
52:22
'Cause these are people that need to be torn
52:24
to pieces with people's bare hands.
52:27
And yet here you are calmly and politely
52:31
just sitting across from them, asking them questions
52:33
as if they're the CEO of a bank.
52:35
- I think yeah, the level of outrage
52:41
is very appropriate for the situation
52:46
that we found ourselves in and that you're reflecting on.
52:50
I think for us, it was really important
52:53
to allow these people to be who they were on camera.
52:58
And that I think for us was the goal
53:03
of trying to get them to not just give us
53:08
their pat answers or their own cover narrative
53:14
of how they like to talk about this,
53:17
but really getting into who they really are
53:22
and being that person on camera.
53:24
And so for Max Harcourt, I noticed that
53:29
when I started to ask him questions about
53:33
what do you like to see happen
53:35
in the context of a scene?
53:38
That it was almost like, I mean,
53:40
his eyes actually started to change.
53:42
He started to come alive
53:44
and describing what he wanted to see happen.
53:47
And so this is a man who has gone way over the edge
53:52
and who I would describe as a sociopath.
53:56
And I told him that.
53:57
I said, you sound like a sociopath.
53:59
And his response to me was, well,
54:01
I don't know what a sociopath is,
54:03
but I'm a hardcore pornographer
54:04
and I didn't get this way overnight.
54:07
I've been doing this for 25 years.
54:09
So this is a man whose own conscious has been so seared
54:13
in his journey of making pornography.
54:18
And, but when he begins to come alive
54:23
and describing what he wants to see happen on a set
54:26
and begin to illustrate that,
54:28
it allows for an audience to see straight into
54:31
the belly of the beast.
54:33
And to me, that is part of the purpose
54:37
of a documentary like this is for others
54:41
to decide for themselves.
54:43
What they think about this.
54:44
I could have just done a video sermon telling people,
54:49
hey, this is what I think about pornography
54:53
and you all should think the same way.
54:57
I don't think you would have the same effect
54:59
or be as powerful as people actually seeing
55:03
into the belly of the beast, having to wrestle with that.
55:06
And well, now what do I do with this?
55:09
There's no, when you sit with a person like Max Hardcore
55:14
as the viewers do vicariously through this documentary,
55:17
I just don't know that there's a way to walk away
55:20
and a good conscience think, well,
55:22
I'm gonna still continue to consume pornography.
55:28
I think it creates a huge moral conflict
55:30
for people out there who maybe are already struggling
55:33
with like, should I, shouldn't I?
55:35
You see what's really going on.
55:36
And it's, yeah, I think it's pretty convincing in that way.
55:41
- Yeah, I think the greatest compliment I could pay
55:43
to Max Hardcore is that he is a literal piece of human debris.
55:46
I've literally been sitting here for the last 20 minutes
55:48
wondering if I'm gonna break the cussing barrier
55:50
on my show by calling him what I wanna call him
55:52
but we'll go ahead and leave that for now.
55:54
But you mentioned something and I wrote this down.
55:56
It was one of the first things I wrote down
55:57
when I was preparing this podcast
56:00
and you said it right there.
56:01
So it's appropriate, seared consciousness.
56:03
Because you're interviewing a bunch of people
56:05
that are in the pornography industry,
56:07
everyone from actors to producers, directors,
56:10
the whole thing, and especially the producers and directors.
56:12
There was a lot of whistling past the graveyard.
56:15
There was a lot of, and you asked such great questions
56:19
to these people and you, I'm sure you were just deadpan.
56:21
You just asked them and you're sitting there
56:23
with your notepad, just waiting on them to answer.
56:25
And you would basically ask them like,
56:27
hey, do you think that this is maybe gonna encourage guys
56:30
to seek out sexual relationships with young girls?
56:33
And you could see that they would stop for a second
56:35
and then it was almost like they would reset and be like,
56:37
nah, you know, if that's what someone else does,
56:39
that's what they do.
56:40
I do what I do.
56:41
I make porn, this is how I make a living,
56:42
it is what it is.
56:44
There was so much of that through all three episodes of this,
56:47
of just the seared consciousness that couldn't have been there
56:51
when they were six or seven,
56:51
unless they are sociopath and literally can't feel emotions.
56:54
But there was so much of it.
56:57
I guess why is that so pervasive?
56:59
Does it kind of go to maybe the next thing I wanted
57:01
to talk about, which is the root of all evil being money,
57:04
the almighty dollar is what drives this entire industry.
57:07
Yes, power and domination and sexual exploitation
57:10
is a part of that.
57:11
But the reason why these people are doing is
57:13
because they get paid a lot of money,
57:14
especially the producers and directors
57:16
and some of the actors and actresses.
57:18
But talk a little bit more about that seared consciousness
57:21
concept because it is absolutely flummoxing
57:23
that that people can operate in that way.
57:26
- Yeah, especially when it comes to the issue of children.
57:29
I mean, it's so disturbing.
57:33
And so, yeah, a lot of our interviews
57:35
we're very confrontational from the standpoint of
57:39
really confronting the moral and ethical conflict
57:45
of promoting sex with a child.
57:49
And I wasn't sure-
57:50
- Which shouldn't be a conflict.
57:52
That's not a conflicting thing
57:53
that we should have to war with in our brains.
57:55
Like, the fact that they are even considering it
57:58
is astonishing.
57:59
- Conflicting from the standpoint that clearly
58:02
this is something that should be out of bounds.
58:05
- Sure.
58:05
- We have an interest as a society.
58:08
The idea of society is that we're better off
58:10
together than we all are alone.
58:12
And in the interest of the construction of society,
58:15
the most obvious thing,
58:18
I think to all of us is the need to protect children.
58:23
And so, the conflict from an obvious societal,
58:29
moral imperative to protect children,
58:32
but then you're over here promoting
58:34
the fantasy of sex with children.
58:36
So that's the conflict.
58:37
And just realizing that they really had no answer for that.
58:42
And so, how do I reconcile that?
58:48
I think that what I've observed happen
58:51
is that since the advent of the internet,
58:55
there was such an infusion of
59:01
images, sexually based images into our culture
59:06
that the main and the plane and the vanilla
59:10
weren't enough anymore to elicit
59:14
the same kind of feelings of arousal
59:17
that somebody had when maybe they first saw those things.
59:20
And so there was a need, if you will,
59:23
to keep pushing the boundary further and further and further.
59:26
Well, the gatekeepers,
59:29
those benefiting from pornography,
59:34
the pornography themselves began to push
59:38
the boundaries further and further,
59:40
to try and elicit and capture more attention,
59:43
more viewers, more clicks to their website.
59:46
And just kept pushing further and further
59:48
and further and further down that road.
59:50
And so, the sad phenomenon that we live in today
59:54
is the reality that there's a handful
59:57
of these individuals, you know,
1:00:00
mostly living in the San Fernando Valley
1:00:02
who are setting the sexual template for a whole generation.
1:00:05
Because while maybe they started off
1:00:07
being aroused by some vanilla sex image
1:00:10
and now can't get off unless they're choking somebody
1:00:12
or presenting an image of a child being,
1:00:14
you know, something like that.
1:00:17
Well, for an eight year old who's, you know,
1:00:20
now somebody who's now turning eight years old
1:00:23
gets onto the internet and discovers that
1:00:24
as their first sexual encounter.
1:00:28
What does that do to that?
1:00:29
What we know about neuro coupling
1:00:31
and just the way that we experience images online
1:00:36
is nothing short of digital rape.
1:00:41
It is of that child is digital sexual abuse.
1:00:46
The exposing of children to those images
1:00:50
is so detrimental to their own healthy sexual development.
1:00:55
And to me, that's part of the huge tragedy of this
1:00:59
is that they will start what took these pornographers
1:01:02
25 years to get to.
1:01:04
- Exactly.
1:01:05
- So, these handful of pornographers
1:01:06
are setting the sexual template for a generation of people
1:01:10
based on a totally abusive, exploitative,
1:01:13
sociopathic sexuality that is predicated
1:01:18
on either the abuse of children or the abuse of women.
1:01:21
And that's part of the alarm
1:01:25
that I think that beyond fantasy sounds
1:01:28
is, you know, the alarm of what are we doing?
1:01:33
What are we doing to our children?
1:01:34
What is happening in the world?
1:01:35
What are we doing to, you know,
1:01:38
even just the people that are being featured
1:01:40
in these videos, it's awful.
1:01:42
- One, you've seen the wisdom of, you know,
1:01:44
we always stand on the shoulders of giants.
1:01:46
We stand on the wisdom of the past
1:01:49
because think about the idea that popped in my head
1:01:53
is think about the language development
1:01:54
that William Shakespeare had to go through, right?
1:01:57
Well, now we just use a lot of his sentence structure
1:02:00
and words and all these different things.
1:02:03
It's literally old hat,
1:02:04
even though a guy several hundred years ago
1:02:06
was literally having to like figure out
1:02:08
how he was gonna communicate ideas
1:02:09
in a particular narrative structure.
1:02:11
And here we are, we're just building off of that.
1:02:13
And I agree with you, again, with where I started
1:02:15
with little images that, you know, a grainy image,
1:02:18
you know, whenever you're on channel two,
1:02:20
whenever back in the cable box days,
1:02:22
and you're like, oh, I think I saw a nipple,
1:02:23
like those days to where we are now,
1:02:26
and where parents are just handing unlocked smartphones,
1:02:29
like to their children to be able to look at literally
1:02:31
any violent sexual image on the planet with a click.
1:02:35
And some of those images and videos don't seek them out.
1:02:39
They seek the kid out, right?
1:02:41
Like the kid just literally stumbles upon it
1:02:43
because of two clicks and all of a sudden
1:02:44
he's on a hardcore porn site.
1:02:46
And the thing that was overwhelming for me, Benji,
1:02:48
is that I guess my throw my hands up
1:02:50
and not know what the hell to do moment was,
1:02:52
I was just like, man, these people need Jesus, so bad.
1:02:56
And, you know, I'm aware of some ministries
1:02:58
that would would minister to a pornography
1:03:01
and minister to that industry.
1:03:03
And some of those people are still around today.
1:03:06
A lot of them are not.
1:03:07
Maybe they couldn't handle the heat
1:03:09
or the level of darkness into poverty.
1:03:11
Some of those people got pulled into that world.
1:03:13
Like how many people do you know
1:03:14
or exposing sex rings in a particular community?
1:03:19
And then they get caught with a prostitute.
1:03:22
It's like, oh, okay.
1:03:23
But it's just like, I don't even have a question, Benji.
1:03:26
I need you to almost like cut me off here
1:03:28
because I was just like, man, these people need the gospel.
1:03:30
How can we get it to them?
1:03:32
How could a guy like Max Hardcore be saved?
1:03:35
Like, 'cause he can be.
1:03:36
'Cause the blood of Christ covers everything
1:03:38
you could possibly imagine.
1:03:40
But there is some sick satisfaction that I get
1:03:42
in that guy burning in hell forever.
1:03:44
So please save me from my own rant.
1:03:46
- Yeah, I mean, I think that when we think about faith
1:03:52
and the community of faith
1:03:54
and how our faith compels us in our way of being in the world,
1:03:59
we have lost that pillar of the ministry of rebuke.
1:04:10
And in Isaiah chapter one,
1:04:15
God acknowledges their prayer meetings,
1:04:18
their hyper-religious activity, all of these things.
1:04:21
But he says, but they're worship services.
1:04:25
He says, they're an abhorrence to me
1:04:28
because your heart is disconnected
1:04:31
from the plight of the vulnerable.
1:04:34
So he calls them to repentance.
1:04:38
But it's not, the repentance isn't,
1:04:41
oh, holy God, oh, sin for me.
1:04:44
It's, he actually instructs them what that looks like.
1:04:48
He says, repent, and then he goes, here's how?
1:04:53
Seek justice.
1:04:55
In seeking justice, number one, rebuke the oppressor.
1:05:00
So much of the injustice that we sit,
1:05:05
that we see perpetuated in our planet today
1:05:09
is a result of the lack of someone willing
1:05:14
to rebuke an oppressor.
1:05:15
We see it all the time,
1:05:16
the way in which these situations are covered up,
1:05:20
even in faith circles, right?
1:05:22
So we have to reconcile with our own culture
1:05:26
that we've created in the church as well,
1:05:28
things that we've seen covered up
1:05:30
in the Southern Baptist convention
1:05:32
in the Catholic church,
1:05:33
situations where somebody was guilty of something,
1:05:36
others knew about it,
1:05:37
and instead of exposing it, rebuking it,
1:05:40
they covered it up.
1:05:42
So in James, he says, a pure and undefiled religion
1:05:46
is it's ministry and orphans,
1:05:48
ministry to orphans and widows in their trouble.
1:05:50
So it's the idea of like, okay,
1:05:52
what is this really all about?
1:05:54
What is this really all about?
1:05:55
This thing of our faith and our way of being in the world.
1:05:58
He goes really at the end of the day,
1:06:00
it's about the fact that there are a demographic
1:06:04
of people out there in this predatory planet
1:06:06
who are uniquely vulnerable to being preyed upon.
1:06:11
And your authentic faith and authentic expression of faith
1:06:17
is having compassion for those one
1:06:20
who are in trouble and intervening in those situations.
1:06:25
The idea one gives us first and foremost, through a rebuke.
1:06:30
So the last story I'll mention on this
1:06:35
is the story of the Good Samaritan.
1:06:37
Again, same situations, a person comes to Jesus as,
1:06:39
what is really all about?
1:06:41
How do I really get saved?
1:06:42
He goes to love God, love people, yeah, that's it.
1:06:44
Well, what does that look like?
1:06:47
Okay, there's a person who's been beaten, stripped naked,
1:06:49
and left for dead.
1:06:50
And the two people, these religious leaders,
1:06:54
passed by on the other side of the road.
1:06:55
These were the people with the right title,
1:06:57
with the right doctrine and the right group
1:06:59
and the right theology.
1:07:01
They were the ones who had it on the back.
1:07:04
They had the big, the megachurch ministry,
1:07:07
all they had all the stuff.
1:07:09
They had the right worship team.
1:07:10
They passed by on the other side of the road.
1:07:13
And Jesus used them, the example,
1:07:15
in this story of the one whose faith is barren
1:07:18
by a lack of a virtue of their response to vulnerability.
1:07:23
Then a Samaritan comes along,
1:07:25
who's the equivalent to a Mormon in our context.
1:07:30
This is the Samaritan is the one who's in the wrong group
1:07:33
with the wrong title and the wrong doctrine
1:07:34
and the wrong everything, but who goes to that one
1:07:39
that was beaten, stripped naked, and left for dead
1:07:41
in compassion and ministry, and Jesus uses that person
1:07:45
as the person who's the hero of the story.
1:07:48
Now, a lot of us go, well, the person stripped naked,
1:07:51
I don't want to defile myself, like, beloved.
1:07:54
Like, we just have to consider the reality
1:07:59
of what is going on on a much greater scale.
1:08:01
Proverbs 2 says that God guards the paths of justice.
1:08:05
And the way he does that is through partnership
1:08:08
with human beings in real time and space.
1:08:10
So there are demographics of people
1:08:14
who are vulnerable in our society
1:08:15
that are being prayed against, being prayed upon.
1:08:18
For me, stepping into the porn industry
1:08:20
and seeing the way in which performers
1:08:23
were routinely coerced, exploited,
1:08:27
taken advantage of financially, sexually, in every way.
1:08:30
And then how the fantasies, the deviant fantasies
1:08:34
that were created were being promoted to the world,
1:08:39
oftentimes to children.
1:08:41
There's no barrier around children
1:08:44
having access to these images at all,
1:08:47
compelled me to create a documentary.
1:08:50
That would be a rebuke to the porn industry
1:08:55
and to the porn industry gatekeepers,
1:08:58
regardless of what that would cost me.
1:09:01
So, you know, we've gone into this very sober minded
1:09:04
about what is gonna be the ultimate cost of us doing this.
1:09:08
But that is what beyond fantasy is.
1:09:10
It is a rebuke of the porn industry
1:09:13
that has had no self-regulation, no accountability
1:09:17
is the largest multi-billion dollar industry to be
1:09:21
completely unregulated and justifies, rationalizes,
1:09:25
and validates everything that they're doing
1:09:30
under the guise of sexuality.
1:09:34
So, well, this is completely racist.
1:09:37
Well, it's, there are people having sex,
1:09:40
so we get a problem.
1:09:42
Like, so what other area of society
1:09:46
we would allow such violence against women
1:09:50
and children and racism and, you know,
1:09:52
all of this stuff except in the realm of porn
1:09:56
because of the past that they get because it's sexual.
1:10:01
And in this extremely woke culture that we're living in,
1:10:05
you know, we know that this is the sacred cow
1:10:08
that you just can't touch is the issue of sexuality.
1:10:10
It's the idea that we should be able to do whatever we want,
1:10:14
whenever we want, with whoever we want
1:10:17
and promote whatever we want.
1:10:18
And if you say something, how dare you?
1:10:20
You are immoral.
1:10:21
I mean, it is the literal definition of cult, you know,
1:10:28
it says in the last days they were called evil good evil.
1:10:34
It's a literal, fullest extrapolation of that reality
1:10:39
that we see happening now on a global scale
1:10:43
in every society of the world.
1:10:45
Since we live in this globalized,
1:10:47
technologized interconnected, hardwired planet
1:10:49
where pornography is pumping sewage
1:10:54
into the minds of an entire generation.
1:10:59
- Absolutely.
1:11:00
And I think that we have to, it is incumbent upon us
1:11:03
to push back against that darkness and to rebuke it.
1:11:06
And I think you've nailed it with Beyond Fantasy.
1:11:09
I think it is a rebuke.
1:11:10
So if that was the be all and all goal,
1:11:12
I feel like you've done so.
1:11:13
So we've gone a lot of places
1:11:15
and went over a lot of stuff in this conversation.
1:11:17
So as a means of wrapping up,
1:11:19
is it just gonna be the three episodes?
1:11:21
Because I think by the time this is released,
1:11:24
the second of the three parts will be out
1:11:26
and ready to go, the first part is definitely out,
1:11:28
but the all three episodes will definitely be out
1:11:30
within a month or so of each other.
1:11:32
So is it just gonna be those three episodes?
1:11:34
Will there be more?
1:11:35
Is there, you know, maybe a feature length film
1:11:37
that's gonna be a part of this?
1:11:38
Or are there other docuseries that you're working on now?
1:11:41
Kind of give us a sense what the near future holds.
1:11:44
- So Beyond Fantasy is the real tip of the Arrow docuseries
1:11:49
addressing the key issues facing the porn industry.
1:11:53
And so again, you know, we created these
1:11:57
as a means of accountability
1:12:00
and to hold up a mirror to the porn industry.
1:12:03
And also as a way to hopefully jolt people
1:12:07
out of that cycle of pornography consumption
1:12:09
when they see the reality of what it is.
1:12:11
So in this fall, we're also doing the premiere
1:12:15
of a feature length documentary called Buying Her,
1:12:19
which is a documentary about male sex buyers.
1:12:22
And that film also shows how childhood
1:12:25
exposure to pornography was a key factor
1:12:29
in the snowball effect of them reaching
1:12:32
these very disturbed places in their life,
1:12:37
not only going out and buying women,
1:12:40
but a lot more that went along with that.
1:12:42
That documentary is also very intense documentary,
1:12:46
but also aspirational for men
1:12:49
who may be struggling with some pretty dark stuff.
1:12:52
So that one's coming out later this fall.
1:12:53
And then next year we have another docuseries
1:12:56
coming out called Entering Porn Land,
1:12:59
which is the individual stories of people
1:13:01
who essentially went into porn, got chewed up and spit out.
1:13:05
And so it's more personal in that sense
1:13:07
of just tracking the individual stories.
1:13:09
So yeah, so and then my book Raised on Porn
1:13:12
is also coming out here in the next number of weeks.
1:13:14
And so we've got a lot of resources coming out on this.
1:13:17
And we hope that it will be really helpful for people
1:13:21
and reshaping their understanding and ideas
1:13:23
of what pornography is and its impact on the world.
1:13:27
- Well, as you continue to crank stuff out in this area,
1:13:29
we will make sure to have you back on
1:13:30
so you can talk about it with our audience.
1:13:32
But that's all for me.
1:13:32
Is there anything else you wanna get off your chest?
1:13:35
- Yeah, just thank you so much for the opportunity
1:13:37
just to share about what we're doing.
1:13:38
I really appreciate it.
1:13:39
- You got it, Benjamin Nolo.
1:13:41
Thank you for coming on Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:13:43
- Thank you so much.
1:13:45
- There you go, guys.
1:13:46
I hope you enjoyed my interview with Benjamin Nolo,
1:13:48
but before I let you go,
1:13:49
we are gonna do a quick resilience boost.
1:13:51
At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men
1:13:52
to push back darkness with content
1:13:54
that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:13:56
So I've got a link to everything that I know
1:13:58
that he's made.
1:13:59
So the docuseries beyond fantasy,
1:14:01
also a documentary called Raised on Porn,
1:14:03
a documentary called Nefarious,
1:14:04
and a documentary called Liberated,
1:14:06
the new sexual revolution.
1:14:07
Thank you guys so much for listening to the show.
1:14:08
We do appreciate it.
1:14:09
Wherever you're listening to this,
1:14:10
please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review.
1:14:13
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1:14:14
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1:14:15
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1:14:18
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1:14:20
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1:14:22
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1:14:23
including how to donate to keep more content
1:14:25
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1:14:26
Just go to www.undaunted.life.
1:14:28
And as always, we wanna thank the band,
1:14:30
August Burns Red, for allowing us to use
1:14:31
their music for our content.
1:14:33
The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Ties,"
1:14:35
which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording
1:14:37
of their album, "Leveler."
1:14:38
The links are in the description.
1:14:40
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:14:42
Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
1:14:45
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:14:49
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:14:51
♪ I know I live, there's no heart in life ♪
1:14:58
♪ I know you want, it's a sign ♪
1:15:02
♪ You make it, and you'll find it ♪
1:15:06
♪ You'll be revived ♪