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(upbeat music)
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- This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right guys, today we got a special guest
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on the podcast.
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His name is John Fobert.
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So he is a scholar and thought leader
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on the harms of pornography and sexual assault prevention.
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He has appeared on CNN and NPR
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in his work has been cited in The New York Times,
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US News and World Report and The Huffington Post.
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So he released his 10th book in 2017
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titled How Pornography Arms,
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What Teens Young Adults, Parents and Pastors Need to Know.
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So you've heard me talk about that before
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because he is on, like that is the porn book
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on our 100 books that every modern Christian man
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should read list.
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That is on our website.
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If you've not gotten that list yet,
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just go to our website.
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I think it's just Undaunted.life/bookless.
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But today we're going to be discussing his new book
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called Protecting Your Children from Internet Pornography,
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Understanding the Science, Risks and Ways to Protect Your Kids.
1:06
And we talked about the fact that the first book
1:09
on pornography and then this book,
1:11
there's a lot of similarities.
1:12
And I've had them on the show before on podcast 177.
1:15
That will be in the show notes so you guys can check that out.
1:17
So there's a lot of kind of carryover,
1:18
but this one is specifically equipping parents
1:21
to help push back against the darkness of pornography
1:23
for the sake of their children.
1:25
So in this episode, we're going to get into the tangible things
1:28
that parents can do to help prevent this.
1:30
They're going to, he also talks about the scripts.
1:32
He gives you like actual questions to ask your child
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based on the different ages that they're at
1:37
to kind of help you get into this conversation
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'cause as with most parents,
1:40
I'm sure the sex conversation is weird,
1:42
the porn conversation is weird,
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but he's trying to help parents make sure
1:45
that their kids would want to go to their parents first
1:48
when talking about these types of things.
1:49
But we get into tangible things about smartphones
1:51
and how dumb it is to give a kid a smartphone
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that is completely unlocked to the internet.
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It doesn't matter if they're going to seem
1:57
like the weird kid at school.
1:58
You want to protect them from the stuff
1:59
that they're going to be able to get on the internet.
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We talk about how pornography as evolves.
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We talk about how it affects the brains
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of fully formed adults versus how it affects a young child.
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We talk about sexual scripting.
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There's a lot of great tangible information on this,
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but guys, this is kind of a more mature subject matter.
2:14
So if you're listening to this with kids,
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we do get into some details here
2:17
and some of the language does get a little bit crass,
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you know, maybe for some of your tastes.
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So just be aware of that.
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But guys, I don't want to keep him from you any longer.
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So without further ado, let's get into it.
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- John Fover, welcome back to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
2:30
- Thank you.
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It's my honor to be here.
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- You know, I'm typically really excited
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to have people on for a second time,
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but I wish we didn't have to talk about this stuff, John.
2:39
It is a heavy subject matter today.
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I already talked about that in the intro.
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So guys, you have been thoroughly warned,
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but it has been a couple of years since you've been on the show,
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but you know, it's for good reason
2:48
and we'll get to that reason here in a second.
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But for those that missed the first opportunity
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to listen to us, you know, get in here in Jabra at one another,
2:56
how about you bring everybody up to speed
2:58
on how you got into the field that you're in today?
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- Well, I started doing research
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on sexual violence prevention in 1993.
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And around 2008, I started to notice
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that there was a connection between pornography
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and sexual violence.
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And so I began to do research in that area.
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I'm a college professor and it's an area of interest of mine
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and I'm of course a believer in Christ and thought
3:23
that it was important that believers be involved in this issue.
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So that's the quick and dirty.
3:28
- Yeah, absolutely.
3:29
And so that's obviously not something
3:32
that you probably grew up thinking,
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you know what, when I grow up,
3:34
I want to study sexual violence,
3:36
but it's incredibly important
3:37
because we have to have people like you
3:39
that are looking into these things.
3:40
But I don't really want to pause any further
3:43
in terms of what we're going to be talking about today.
3:44
Today, we're going to be discussing a new book
3:46
that you have out called "Protection" or sorry, "Protecting"
3:49
your children from internet pornography,
3:51
understanding the science risks
3:53
and ways to protect your kids.
3:55
Obviously very, very important, but heavy subject matter.
3:58
Now, in many ways, after I read this book,
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it felt like a follow-up to how pornography harms.
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And so how pornography harms is on our book list,
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on our website, the 100 books,
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every modern Christian man should read list.
4:11
Any time this subject matter comes up,
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I refer them to that book
4:14
because there were just some shocking revelations
4:16
for me personally reading through that book.
4:18
But was the goal for this book to kind of be a follow-up
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of sorts to how pornography harms?
4:23
- Yes, it was definitely intended to be a follow-up
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to how pornography harms and really to focus on specifics
4:29
that parents can do to protect their children.
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And also it's updated with a lot of the latest research
4:35
on the harms of pornography, which comes out every day.
4:38
- Yeah, absolutely.
4:39
And it really felt that way.
4:40
So I guess, again, we'll start 30,000 foot view
4:43
and then we're going to dive right
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into the granular side of things.
4:45
But what do you want parents to get out of this book
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specifically, like what's the main goal?
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What's the big takeaway?
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- What I want them to get out of this
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is they can't just hand their kids
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over to the pornography industry.
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They have to fight.
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And they have to do so when their children
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are of early ages.
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And I believe the fight begins around four years old
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when they can first really understand language.
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And so what I wanted to do was to give parents a guide
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in terms of here are the harms of pornography
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and here are specific questions you can ask your kids
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to educate them about this issue.
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So I thought that was very important
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to get into parents' hands.
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'Cause a lot of parents want to do something.
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A lot of dads really want to do something,
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but they're not exactly sure what to do.
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So I wanted to give them some specifics
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on here are questions to ask your kids.
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- Yeah, I appreciated that you gave us language
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'cause even my wife and I this morning,
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we're talking before this interview
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about what we were going to talk about.
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And we have a two year old and a three month old,
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both boys, and she was worried about this subject matter
5:46
before our first kid was born, right?
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Because, you know, and everyone on the podcast
5:51
knows about this, like I used to look at porn.
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I used to, you know, I was like the 80 something,
5:54
85% of adult males that looked at porn.
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And then that hasn't really been a part of my life
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for a very, very, very long time.
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But those scars and that hurt and all that angst
6:03
is still there to a degree in our relationship
6:05
and she sees it in other people
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and other people's relationships.
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She's seen, you know, pornography used lead to affairs
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and all these different things.
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She is just mortified at what to do.
6:15
And, you know, I just kind of told her I was like,
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just be happy that you've got a husband
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that is already thinking about this
6:21
before it's even close to being a problem for them.
6:23
And we're surrounded by people at the church that you and I,
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you know, both to attend together
6:27
that are definitely looking at this.
6:29
But kind of give us an idea.
6:30
We'll stay 30,000 feet for one more question.
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Tell us how the book is set up
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because you teed it up a little bit there
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in terms of the questions.
6:37
But there's, I think, seven or eight chapters.
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But how is it structured as a book?
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It's structured to go through various different kinds
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of harms of pornography.
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And then to list the topics that I think are important
6:50
to talk to your kids about.
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And then it ends each chapter with specific questions
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for kids who are eight to 11,
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and then kids who are 12 to 17
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so that you can kind of gauge the right questions
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for the right kids in your household.
7:08
- Okay, very good.
7:09
So that kind of gives everybody the lay of the land.
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But let's go ahead and dive in.
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The very first sentence of chapter one is this.
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You walk into your 11 year old son's bedroom.
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His back is to you.
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Over his shoulder, you can see that his phone.
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On his phone, he is watching a violent pornographic video clip.
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How you react then may well have a significant impact
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on the rest of his life.
7:30
Now, something similar to that quote
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was in a book by John Tyson called The Intentional Father.
7:36
And it's like how you react to that situation
7:38
is going to kind of set the groundwork
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for how your child is going to think about sex,
7:43
think about sexual violence,
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think about sexual morality and all those different things.
7:47
So I guess for you,
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and you talk about this a lot in the book,
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why start there?
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Why was it important for you to start with that mental image?
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Because I think that is a lot of parents nightmares.
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And then they don't pre-decide how they're going to react.
8:00
They just react and then they typically regret it later.
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- Well, 'cause I want to get to parents before that happens.
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And so I'm hoping that parents of kids who are younger
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than 11 will read the book and think about,
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oh yeah, what would I do in that situation?
8:15
I'd probably either ignore it or I'd freak out.
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And both of those reactions are just detrimental
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to both the relationship with the child
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and to his prospects of continuing to watch pornography.
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We really need to speak with our heads,
8:32
not so much with our hearts,
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with our kids on pornography
8:35
and really give them good information
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so that they will want to make the choice not to view it.
8:40
And if they do come upon it,
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or should I say when they come upon it,
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that they'll avoid it and say,
8:45
"This is not something I want in my life."
8:47
- Well, what's interesting about that
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when I was talking with my wife this morning,
8:51
my parents never sat me down like ever, John,
8:53
and said, "Hey, you're not going to do drugs.
8:56
"Hey, you're not going to have sex before you married.
8:58
"Hey, you're not going to drink."
9:00
I was just so terrified of being in trouble.
9:03
Because whenever I got in trouble, I really got in trouble.
9:06
I was in knucklehead.
9:06
I didn't do like, I wasn't knocking over liquor stores,
9:09
but I was just kind of a knucklehead.
9:10
And it was just that level of,
9:13
kind of fear of the retribution of my parents
9:16
that kept me from doing some of those things, right?
9:18
It kept me kind of on the moral straight and narrow path.
9:20
I can only imagine how much more narrow that path
9:23
would have been had they had these discussions with me,
9:25
because one thing they never talked to me about was sex.
9:28
They never talked to me about pornography.
9:30
They never talked to me about any of those things.
9:31
And to their credit, I guess, this was the 1990s
9:35
when I was growing up.
9:36
And so how much of that was there really?
9:38
It's like, you basically had to check and make sure
9:41
that your kid didn't have playboys
9:42
stuffed under their mattress.
9:44
That's all you had to do at that time.
9:46
And I think, John, and I don't know
9:48
if you would agree with this or not,
9:49
but I think some parents,
9:51
especially the parents that want to be the friends
9:53
of their kids, they want to be their kids' best friend
9:55
and confidant, they respond negatively to this scenario,
9:59
but not on the high horse moralistic freak outside.
10:02
It's okay, you know, it's perfectly natural.
10:06
Yeah, I understand that you would want to look at it,
10:08
but I think to a degree that that harms the child as well,
10:11
because he's just like, oh,
10:13
like looking at sexual violence is okay.
10:16
Why? Because mom and dad said so.
10:18
But then they told me that I shouldn't do it.
10:21
So there's this inner dissonance, does that make sense?
10:23
- It makes perfect sense.
10:25
And I think we need to be parents,
10:26
not friends of our children.
10:29
And that's just, that's a job that God gave us.
10:32
He didn't say, you know, go forth and multiply
10:34
and be friends with your children.
10:36
I mean, he said that we needed to raise our children
10:40
and train them up in the ways of the Lord.
10:42
And so I think it's important that parents treat their children
10:47
as children and have conversations with them
10:50
that are proactive and ongoing on this issue,
10:54
not just a one-time shot.
10:56
- Absolutely, so when we get into chapter two,
10:58
this is about porn and the brain.
11:00
And so chapter two really reminded me a lot
11:03
of how pornography harms,
11:04
because it was just shocking to me,
11:06
the data and the research that was in there
11:08
about how pornography deals with the brain.
11:11
So I guess, John, in a nutshell,
11:13
what does consistent use of pornography do
11:15
to a fully developed brain of an adult?
11:18
And what does it do to the not fully developed brain
11:22
of a child? There is an important distinction there.
11:25
There is an important distinction.
11:26
To an adult, they get a hit of dopamine
11:30
when they first see pornography
11:31
and then they tend to look out for more
11:35
and more extreme pornography to get that same dopamine rush
11:40
because they wanna kind of hit that high.
11:42
And it's difficult to obtain that same dopamine rush
11:46
and they're constantly in search of it.
11:47
So for adults, it does affect their behavior
11:52
and their expectations for what sex should be like.
11:56
It's just in a different way than with kids.
11:58
Kids have brains that are not yet very fully formed
12:02
and they're still developing their own sexual template.
12:05
And so when you're still developing a sexual template,
12:07
anything that you learn about sex gets thrown
12:11
into that template and you can basically see
12:14
that kids are gonna look towards the violent images
12:19
that are in mainstream pornography and think,
12:21
"Oh, well, I guess that's what sex is all about."
12:23
When it's certainly not what God designed it to be
12:26
and it's certainly not what I think most people
12:28
wanna engage in, particularly most women
12:30
because it tends to be demeaning towards women
12:32
and violent towards them.
12:34
- Well, and we'll get more into the,
12:37
you didn't, I don't think you used the word there,
12:38
but the sexual scripting that happens for children.
12:41
We'll get more into that because you get into that later
12:43
in all in the book, I believe in chapter seven.
12:45
But I wanna specifically get into chapter three as well
12:48
because in this chapter, you spend the entire time
12:50
linking porn use and sexual violence.
12:53
Now, there are a lot of people out there that poo poo,
12:56
this idea, saying that it's correlation, not causation,
12:59
it's very similar to me.
13:01
It feels the same as when people poo poo the idea
13:04
that violent video games leads to violent children.
13:06
And this is not a podcast about school shootings
13:09
or any of those types of things,
13:10
but it is interesting, the incredible increase
13:12
in violent video games and violent imagery
13:14
on screens and televisions.
13:16
And then we have this uptick in kids performing violence
13:20
on their classmates, but again, that's not what today's about.
13:22
But it feels the same, the argument feels the same.
13:24
People are like, oh, you know, that's not why
13:27
there's a uptick in sexual violence.
13:28
And then they don't actually give their reason
13:30
for why they think there's an uptick in sexual violence.
13:33
But I guess you argue the opposite in the book,
13:36
that porn use and sexual violence goes hand in hand, why?
13:40
- Right, because there are 50 studies,
13:42
in fact, over 50 studies that have directly connected
13:45
the two, some are correlational, some are even causal
13:47
in terms of pornography and sexual aggression.
13:50
And so when you do 50 studies all showing the same thing,
13:54
the odds that you're wrong is one in 88 to Cillian,
13:57
which is a pretty big number.
14:00
- I didn't even know that was a number,
14:01
so you just helped me learn something today.
14:03
- Yeah, it goes to Cillian, Onelian, Octelian,
14:05
Septilian, Sextilian, Quintillion, Quadrillion,
14:08
trillion, billion, millions, hundreds of thousands
14:11
in single digits.
14:12
- I've never felt dumber than in this exact moment.
14:14
I thought I knew how to math, but keep on going.
14:17
(laughing)
14:19
So it's actually obvious to any observer
14:23
that one would watch pornography and see violent acts in it
14:28
and see people obtain sexual pleasure from it,
14:31
and then wanna say, hey, well, maybe I can obtain
14:33
sexual pleasure from that as well.
14:35
And so, but the problem is what's shown
14:38
in mainstream pornography is so violent,
14:40
I mean, it's acts that lead women to vomit
14:42
are really now mainstream,
14:46
and scenes that degrade women by showing men's bodily fluids
14:49
on their faces now commonplace on the internet.
14:52
And so, this is not something that we want our kids seeing,
14:56
and especially repeating.
14:57
- Yeah, I think there's a desensitizing to everything,
15:02
and then that goes back to the violence thing
15:03
that we've seen, like, you know, I've seen personally,
15:06
because I'm kind of, for whatever reason, again,
15:08
with Undaunted Life, we equipment to push back darkness.
15:10
So I'm drawn to dark things to watch them
15:12
to know what's out there so that I can equipment
15:14
to push back against that.
15:15
But then I myself have realized, like,
15:17
there's not really a bloody or gory image
15:20
that you could show me even of a real person
15:22
that's really going to stick with me or bother me.
15:25
And to a degree, that's what I set out to do,
15:27
and also to a degree that's scary,
15:29
but the same exact thing is happening with children.
15:32
One thing before we move off of chapter three,
15:35
something I remember from the book
15:36
is there is an uptick of people,
15:39
especially young people, especially young women,
15:41
that are dealing with sexual injuries.
15:44
And what I don't mean without getting too incredibly graphic,
15:46
even though, you know, guys, this is a show,
15:48
we're gonna talk about it, how we talk about it.
15:49
We're not just talking about women that are being choked.
15:51
We're not just talking about women
15:52
that are having their hair pulled.
15:54
We're talking about women or young girls
15:56
that are being violently, anally raped, that are, you know,
15:59
and again, that is an exit-only hole
16:01
for any of you guys out there that didn't know that.
16:03
But like, there are injuries
16:04
that especially young girls are dealing with,
16:06
like, we are seeing an uptick in that, correct?
16:09
- We are seeing an uptick in that,
16:10
'cause it's interesting when you look at the medical journals,
16:12
a lot of the journals are saying
16:14
we're seeing a surprising uptick in anal fissures
16:19
and damage.
16:21
And so you don't really have to be a psychologist
16:23
or a PhD to realize that when you have much more anal sex
16:27
that's being shown in pornography
16:29
and then that's being acted out on women and girls,
16:32
that there's gonna be some damage
16:34
that's gonna be caused by that.
16:36
- Well, and also, like, I remember going through,
16:38
it was like Instagram or TikTok,
16:39
and I'm, you know, I try to find content for my audience
16:42
and so I can grab it over here and send it over there.
16:44
That's kind of how I do social media.
16:45
And I remember seeing this girl talking about,
16:48
there was a rapper that, you know,
16:50
whenever he would be in town,
16:52
he would send her a message that would tell her,
16:55
you know, in not so many words,
16:56
he would basically say, "Here, go ahead and take care of this.
16:59
"So whenever you come over, we can have butt sex."
17:01
Like that type of thing, like,
17:03
go through the preparatory process of doing this.
17:06
And as me as an adult, I'm like, what a frickin' loon.
17:10
Like you're telling this woman to basically, you know,
17:12
again, take care of her backside
17:15
to make sure that when they do that,
17:16
they can take care of things.
17:17
And it's like, wait a minute,
17:18
this guy has a ton of fans that are below the age of 18.
17:22
And so they're thinking, oh, well,
17:24
that's what my favorite rapper does.
17:26
He gets these women ready to go.
17:27
And so now they think that's part of courtship is,
17:30
hey, make sure you do this before we go on a date tonight
17:33
or before we hang out tonight.
17:35
It's just astonishing to me.
17:36
And I feel like that all goes into what you talked about
17:38
in chapter five, which is, you know,
17:40
a chapter that is surprising for most people,
17:42
I would think it's porn use with women and girls.
17:45
And because I think for most of us as men,
17:47
we know that we're biologically driven
17:49
to be sexually attracted to people with our eyes.
17:51
It's very, very different.
17:52
If you've ever gone through counseling,
17:54
you know, for pornography or something like that,
17:55
you know, hearing a male counselor try to explain
17:57
to your wife, you know, how a man views women
18:01
and how they categorize women and all that.
18:02
It's like trying to explain color to the blind.
18:05
But it's kind of the same thing here.
18:06
Most people just completely disregard women and girls
18:09
'cause they don't think it's happening.
18:11
But give us a little bit more information
18:12
about the pervasive use of pornography
18:15
by women and young girls.
18:17
- Well, it used to be the women and young girls
18:20
were not using pornography
18:21
that it was pretty much a male phenomenon.
18:23
But one of the things the porn industry realized is
18:26
they weren't hitting that market very well.
18:28
And you have to think about the porn industry as a business.
18:30
They want more markets and more people using their products.
18:33
And so they began to target women and girls
18:36
in their marketing and it worked.
18:38
And right now, roughly anywhere between one and two thirds
18:42
of women are watching pornography every month.
18:46
It's lower among Christian women, as you might expect.
18:51
But there's still a lot of women who are watching it.
18:53
And one of the sad things about it is it teaches them
18:57
that they should accept sexual violence
18:59
because that's what the images are showing.
19:01
And so it makes it more likely that they will be
19:03
sexually violated.
19:04
And that's something that we really don't want as a culture.
19:07
- And also, I think one of the things that they've done
19:11
is they've worked through popular culture
19:13
because look at the tremendous market success
19:16
of a book and then movie series, "50 Shades of Grey."
19:19
And people are like, oh, it's just innocent.
19:21
It's just, you know, people having sex
19:22
and it's just kind of a sexy film.
19:24
Don't be a prude.
19:24
It's like, no, it's a book and a film about sexual violence
19:28
about a woman that is being taken advantage of.
19:31
But that is just the most named brand
19:33
of an entire category of pornography
19:35
that a man's not gonna read porn
19:38
when they can just pick up her phone
19:40
and have it at their fingertips in four seconds.
19:43
But is that still as pervasive as it was?
19:46
'Cause I know that's always kind of been their romance novels
19:48
and they couch it as a romance novel.
19:50
But it's like, these books aren't about romance.
19:52
They're about, you know, the long-haired guy
19:54
that eventually takes you to Pound Town in the bed.
19:56
You know, it's that craziness that we kind of get to, right?
20:01
It is, and that's the more common type of pornography
20:03
that women will expose themselves to.
20:05
It would be the quote unquote romance novels.
20:08
But the, you know, things like "50 Shades of Stupid"
20:11
is just showing them, you know, different kinds of acts
20:14
that really demean women.
20:16
And that's not the loving relationship
20:19
that God intended to have between husband and wife, certainly.
20:23
- Yeah, absolutely.
20:23
And then I do wanna go ahead and hit chapter seven.
20:26
We talked about a little bit earlier,
20:28
because this takes a deep dive
20:29
into something that should literally scare every parent
20:32
that is listening to this right now.
20:34
And that is how pornography use
20:36
changes the sexual scripts that we have.
20:39
So it should scare you for yourself,
20:40
but it should also scare you for your children.
20:43
So give us an idea of what sexual scripts are,
20:46
kind of what that is and what pornography does,
20:49
specifically to children that use it
20:51
in terms of their sexual expectations.
20:54
- Well, sexual script is basically the idea
20:56
that you have in your mind
20:57
about how a sexual encounter should go.
20:59
And absent other information,
21:02
particularly children who watch pornography,
21:04
will see a porn scene and say,
21:06
"Oh, that's how I guess things are supposed to go,"
21:08
that the woman vomits and the man puts his seminal fluid
21:13
on her face and that that's what sex is all about.
21:16
And that's not at all what sex should be about.
21:18
But it tends to form this sexual script in the kids' minds
21:23
that this is what sex should be like.
21:25
And that's not at all the case.
21:28
- Now, you've talked about it a few times.
21:32
Well, let me actually just read a quote from the book
21:33
and we'll back into it.
21:34
So here's a quote from chapter seven.
21:36
In the 1970s, 45% of men viewed X-rated movies.
21:40
The next national study in the 1990s found that 61%
21:44
were viewing X-rated movies just before the internet boom.
21:47
After the internet made pornography readily available
21:49
in the first decade of the 21st century,
21:51
research showed that 86% of men were viewing pornography,
21:55
86% of men were viewing pornography.
21:59
Now, again, I kind of alluded to this earlier.
22:02
It's shocking to hear a stat like that,
22:04
but it's really not shocking.
22:05
Like I remember having a conversation with my wife years ago
22:08
because when you don't have conversations about pornography
22:12
out in the open, you assume that not very many people do it.
22:16
And I told her, I'm like, babe,
22:18
almost 100% of the men you know and love in your life
22:22
look at porn and jerk off, almost 100% of them.
22:25
And I could tell she didn't really believe me.
22:27
And I'm like, you don't get it.
22:28
You just don't understand it.
22:29
And so I know that's a little bit crude for people
22:32
to think about and they don't wanna think about,
22:34
you know, their passer or one of their male family members
22:37
or, you know, one of the people that they work with
22:39
as being a pornography user,
22:41
but they just don't fully understand how pervasive this is.
22:43
How important is it for wives and women to understand this?
22:47
Not just about their man potentially,
22:49
but just about men in general.
22:51
- Well, I think it's very important for women to understand
22:53
because it's setting this actual template
22:55
of the men in their lives.
22:56
And so, and the men that they're raising,
22:59
the young men that they're raising.
23:01
And so I think it's critically important
23:03
that women understand this.
23:04
And that women can also be a force to help men decide
23:09
not to wanna look at pornography anymore.
23:12
And just, you know, thinking about what would my wife think
23:15
if she knew I was doing this,
23:16
and if she actually does know I'm doing this,
23:19
that is something that hopefully would help keep some men
23:22
from going down that road,
23:24
at least as often as they're doing now.
23:26
- Well, also you talk about in the book, John,
23:28
about women that basically kind of throw their hands up
23:31
and say, well, my husband,
23:33
this is Christian women and non-Christian women, right?
23:35
They're like, well, my husband's gonna look at this.
23:39
You know, he's doing this for my benefit.
23:41
They're convinced of that.
23:42
Like he's trying to spice things up.
23:44
He's trying to keep things interesting
23:45
because, you know, I read on the cover of Cosmopolitan,
23:48
you know, 12 ways to keep your guy interested
23:50
in that type of thing and one of the suggestions
23:52
is typically pornography.
23:54
But just talk about how dangerous that is
23:57
'cause that not only changes the expectations for the woman,
24:01
but as the man's taste in pornography devolves
24:05
into more and more crazy types of porn,
24:08
obviously he's gonna wanna carry that
24:10
into his personal bedroom, right?
24:12
- Right, right, absolutely.
24:13
And women need to be concerned about that
24:15
from the perspective of what might be carried
24:17
into their own bedrooms.
24:18
It's something that men like to,
24:22
when men achieve sexual gratification
24:25
from a certain image, they often like to think,
24:27
well, what would that be like in real life?
24:29
And maybe they could try it in the bedroom.
24:31
And that is something that can be very,
24:34
both physically damaging to a woman
24:36
and psychologically damaging to a woman,
24:38
not to mention the men themselves
24:40
when they're engaging in behaviors
24:42
that's violent towards another person.
24:43
That's just not natural.
24:45
- Absolutely, and it leads to people
24:47
that are welcoming other people into the bedroom.
24:49
Again, it welcomes different forms of sexual violence.
24:52
Well, just this risky behavior
24:54
that can have real life physical consequences for people.
24:58
There's another quote in the book
24:59
I wanna get your feedback on.
25:01
And so, and then you can explain who these people are as well.
25:03
Dr. Bridges and her associates also found
25:05
that men who use pornography, this is crazy,
25:08
are more likely to watch pornography
25:11
with their partner during a sexual encounter, okay?
25:15
Also, another place in the book,
25:17
I don't have the quote here in front of you,
25:18
but another place in the book,
25:19
you talk about men who will sit there
25:22
and watch porn on their phone
25:25
as they're having sex with their wives,
25:27
and they're doing it in order to keep an erection.
25:30
Because the warm, loving body in front of them
25:33
is not enough to help them keep an erection.
25:36
And maybe they don't have pills or whatever.
25:37
So they're literally sitting there watching porn
25:39
and using their wife as a masturbatory aide,
25:43
as a cum doctor.
25:44
I know we're a little, that's how these people are thinking.
25:47
Get into that a little bit more.
25:49
- Well, I think you've done a good job
25:51
of getting into that with just quoting the book.
25:54
I mean, it's, it is something that,
25:57
yeah, the research has shown that the more men
25:59
will watch pornography, the more men will try
26:02
and get that into the bedroom.
26:03
And in fact, if you do studies of women,
26:05
the number one reason why they look at pornography
26:07
is they're shown it by their male partners.
26:09
And they're shown it as like an instruction manual
26:11
for what they want done.
26:13
So yeah, there was an interview I did
26:16
with a woman in her 30s.
26:17
And she said, yeah, you know, my husband,
26:19
he puts his his iPhone above my head.
26:21
Well, we're having sex so he can get it up.
26:24
And, and she didn't seem to think that that was a problem.
26:27
And, you know, it is, it is, it's absolutely insane.
26:32
And it's, it's, it just tells how low we've really gone.
26:36
- It's hard to know where to go from there, John.
26:41
And I don't just mean in this interview.
26:42
I mean, just in general, that we've gotten to this place
26:45
because I didn't even have,
26:47
I didn't even have the scripting in my brain,
26:49
you know, not sexual scripting for the thought
26:52
that someone would need to have a Playboy open
26:55
back in the 1980s in order to keep an erection
26:57
in order to have sex with their wife.
26:59
Like that, that wasn't happening.
27:01
I can't imagine that was happening.
27:03
- It wasn't happening as much
27:05
because high speed internet pornography
27:07
is a game changer for the brain.
27:08
So when you're watching, when you're looking
27:11
at a Playboy magazine, you're looking
27:12
at just one image.
27:13
High speed internet pornography is moving images
27:16
and it's as many images as you want
27:18
over and over switching from different kinds.
27:21
And so it's what's called a super normal stimulus.
27:24
It's a kind of stimulus that the brain was not designed
27:27
to take in.
27:29
And so it becomes more attractive to some men
27:33
for them to see pixels rather than their partners.
27:36
And that's just devastating.
27:38
- Yeah, I mean, again, it's hard for any of us that,
27:42
you know, were born before the year 2000
27:43
to really understand that because, you know,
27:45
we weren't digital natives necessarily.
27:47
Like we got our first computer when I was like in seventh grade.
27:49
I got my first phone when I was like a senior in high school
27:52
and it didn't have the internet.
27:53
It barely had buttons that worked, right?
27:54
And so it's just a completely, completely different world.
27:57
And that's where the rubber starts to meet the road
27:59
specifically in the book and specifically
28:01
with the work that you do.
28:02
This is where we get granular.
28:03
So to all the parents out there,
28:05
we've set this up for the last 25 minutes,
28:06
but let's hit it now.
28:08
How can parents protect their children
28:10
from internet pornography?
28:12
- I think it starts by establishing good relationships
28:16
with our children where they can talk to us about anything
28:19
because we want to be the default option they go to
28:22
instead of to Google when they have a question about something.
28:25
So that's part of it.
28:26
It's just establishing good relationships with our kids.
28:31
The other thing is at different ages,
28:33
I recommend different things to do.
28:35
So around age four, one of the things I recommend
28:37
is that you talk to kids about how we take pictures
28:41
in our family and that we would never take a picture
28:44
of someone who didn't have their clothes on
28:46
because that would be showing their private parts
28:48
and the private parts are supposed to remain private.
28:51
And so because we wouldn't do that,
28:53
we obviously wouldn't look at pictures
28:55
of people's private parts.
28:57
And so we wouldn't use the word pornography
28:59
with a 40-year-old but teach them at a young age
29:01
that you don't look at someone else's private parts
29:03
and you don't look at pictures of their private parts.
29:06
And then I think you can ask some kids
29:09
who are around the age of eight,
29:10
like have you heard your friends or other people
29:12
talking about something called pornography?
29:15
What are some of the things you remember them saying?
29:17
And if they haven't, give them a definition
29:21
so that they know what it is before they see it,
29:23
which I think is very important.
29:25
And then when you have older children,
29:29
you can talk about have any of your friends seen pornography?
29:32
Have you yourself seen anything
29:34
that you know made you feel uncomfortable?
29:38
What have you been looking at when your friends
29:40
are showing you videos on their phones,
29:43
those sorts of things?
29:44
So I think there's, and I have all these questions
29:47
in the book and it's designed so that you can have
29:50
graduated conversations with your children
29:53
based on their age and stage.
29:55
- So all that is in the book, it's great.
29:58
You know, for me, kind of for me, I'm kind of dumb.
30:02
I don't really remember things that well.
30:04
And so it's like, okay, I need to make sure I remember
30:06
that those questions are in this book
30:07
when my kids are more age appropriate
30:09
'cause I got a few years to go.
30:11
But the big thing that I want to talk about
30:12
and you talked about it in both of your books
30:14
on this subject is smartphones.
30:17
I have been vehement about how dumb parents are
30:21
by giving an unlocked smartphone to their child, right?
30:26
To a seven, eight, nine, 10 year old.
30:27
Now they think, oh, well, all their kids have it
30:31
or oh, they need it for school for check in
30:32
or they've got to have the laptops
30:34
so that they can get online to do their schoolwork
30:36
and they've got to have this and they've got to have that.
30:38
And they treat it as if they don't have a choice
30:40
in the matter.
30:41
But what they're actually saying is
30:43
I don't want my kid to be a weirdo.
30:45
All their friends have phones.
30:46
They have this little app that they message each other,
30:48
stickers and other kind of random crap on.
30:50
And I don't want my kid to be the weirdo, right?
30:53
And I feel like for me, it's like,
30:55
you're not just handing your kid porn, right?
30:58
You're handing them violence.
31:00
You're handing them murder.
31:01
You're handing them criminal acts or handing them dumb ideas.
31:05
Think about all the trends that have happened
31:06
on Instagram or Twitter or all those different things.
31:08
Remember the tide pod challenge?
31:10
Remember all these idiot kids that were eating tide pods
31:12
are getting really, really sick?
31:14
Some of them dying?
31:15
That came because they were trying to outdo one another
31:18
in trying to be funny online.
31:20
So talk about the smartphone thing
31:22
because I scream about everything.
31:24
So people are used to it.
31:25
So someone like you that's like very learned.
31:27
You have your PhD in glasses and you look wicked smart.
31:29
Please tell parents how dumb it is
31:32
to give their kids a smartphone.
31:34
- Well, I think you should only give your kids a smartphone
31:37
if it's for your convenience, not for theirs.
31:39
And I think every parent has to decide when that happens.
31:43
But you have to make sure that it's a lockdown phone too.
31:47
Every cell phone company has its own internet filtering
31:51
and accountability software that you can get with the phone
31:55
or you can go for one of the commercial products
31:56
like Covenant Eyes or something like that.
31:58
And frankly, kids can get around that,
32:01
but at least for a while, it tends to delay the process.
32:04
I think that before kids can drive,
32:07
it's important that they have a phone,
32:09
not necessarily a smartphone,
32:10
but just so that if they're out on the road
32:13
and they break down that they have something to call,
32:16
but you can get them a dumb phone, not a smartphone.
32:19
And a dumb phone doesn't display pictures
32:22
or those sorts of things.
32:24
And especially if they have gotten into pornography,
32:27
you don't wanna kind of help that habit
32:30
by giving them more access.
32:32
So yeah, I do think it's a bad idea
32:34
to give kids smartphones.
32:36
- I wanna get by the time my kids
32:37
are gonna be knocking on the door of driving,
32:39
like the entire world will be different by then,
32:41
like who knows what we'll be doing by then
32:44
considering what the last two years have looked like.
32:46
But yes, you don't wanna give your kid the keys to a car
32:48
and a new phone, like 'cause in the temptation
32:51
while they're driving is gonna be to use the damn thing.
32:53
And so there are things and some tactile things
32:55
that you need to kind of figure out.
32:57
But again, this idea and it goes beyond the phones.
33:00
And I talk about this too.
33:01
The fact that parents are like, oh, this is their phone.
33:04
Like I don't wanna invade their privacy.
33:05
It's like, what are you talking about?
33:07
They're a child, they live under your roof.
33:10
They own nothing.
33:11
Even if they have a job over the summer
33:13
and guess what?
33:14
It exists in your home, whatever they've bought, right?
33:17
And so the phone doesn't stay in the room with the kid
33:20
when the doors close or at night.
33:22
You have kids staying up all night
33:23
because they're on social media
33:24
which creates this horrible cycle,
33:27
especially for girls playing the comparison game.
33:29
But also parents, when you give your kids an iPad,
33:32
that's unlocked completely.
33:33
When you give your kids a laptop, that's unlocked.
33:35
When you give them a PlayStation or an Xbox
33:37
which connects to the internet and a television
33:39
in their room and you let them play with the door close,
33:42
you don't have any idea what they're doing.
33:44
And these parents are just terrified
33:46
that their kids are gonna get mad at them.
33:47
Again, I'm gonna make you talk about it even more
33:49
'cause I want us to double, triple, quadruple down on this.
33:53
I think we need to make sure that parents
33:55
or parents not children and parents should be parents
33:59
to their children, not friends of their children
34:01
because it's a tough job and I'm not saying it's always fun
34:05
but you have to be ready for the emotional outbursts
34:07
that your kids will have and sometimes you have to say no
34:11
and that's to protect them.
34:13
It's I think a mean thing to do to give kids unlimited access
34:18
to pornography through a cell phone
34:21
where they don't really even know what they're getting into.
34:23
So we need to be the parents that God has asked us to be
34:27
and to train them up in the ways of the Lord,
34:30
not necessarily give them over to the culture.
34:33
- Well, let's talk about this emphasis on God here
34:36
because there was something after I got done reading the book,
34:39
I was a little disappointed in.
34:41
One of the things that surprised me is that you neglected
34:44
to be overtly Christian in certain areas of the book.
34:48
So in chapter six, you were talking about the impact point
34:51
he was having on teens and tweens,
34:52
a very, very important chapter
34:53
but you spent time discussing how parents should talk
34:56
to their kids about contraception
34:58
but there was no mention in that section of abstinence only
35:01
as a viable, not just viable but God required option
35:05
and then also in the final chapter of the book,
35:07
you talk about non-religious programs
35:09
that can help people that use porn
35:12
but that's where a lot of the problems
35:14
with these secular addiction models are
35:16
is these people don't have an addiction problem,
35:17
they have a sin problem that is manifesting
35:20
as an addiction, some of them aren't even addicts,
35:22
they're just compulsive users of this or that thing
35:25
and sin, I'm sure that you would agree with this intellectually
35:28
is the root of the problem that we're dealing with here
35:31
but again, this came off more as kind of a social scientist
35:34
book as opposed to a resource for a godly parent.
35:37
So I'm being a little bit critical here,
35:39
tell me where I'm wrong, if I'm wrong.
35:41
- You're not wrong, we made a decision with Moody publishers
35:45
that this would be under their Northfield imprint
35:47
which basically is intended to get a broader audience
35:52
of people who are both Christians and non-Christians
35:54
reading books that could include a godly wisdom
35:58
but wouldn't necessarily include a gospel presentation
36:01
or something along those lines.
36:02
And so I made the decision along with Moody
36:05
to have it be more inclusive
36:09
so that more people would read it
36:11
and get this information to their kids.
36:13
I think how pornography harms was the version
36:16
it was strictly spiritual.
36:20
And I think this one, anyone who's a believer
36:22
is gonna know I'm a believer when they read the new book
36:25
but it just won't include as much direct spiritual content
36:30
because what we don't want is for a secular individual
36:34
to pick it up and say, oh, this is just Christian ideas,
36:37
we'll just throw that out.
36:39
We want them to benefit from godly wisdom
36:41
and I think there's godly wisdom in it
36:43
but it has to do with who the publisher is
36:44
and what their goals are and their goals
36:46
are to sell a lot of books.
36:48
And so I'm hoping that that's the case with this one.
36:51
- So here's things, is I can fundamentally disagree
36:55
with that as a tactic but I get it, I understand.
36:59
A similar thing came up, I don't know if you've seen
37:00
the documentary that the Daily Wire produced
37:02
called "What is a Woman?"
37:04
But there's no description of male and female
37:07
he created them or any of those types of things
37:09
and they got some negative feedback.
37:11
It's like, look, most of the people at this company
37:12
are Christians, Matt Walsh is a Catholic
37:14
so he's purportedly a Christian
37:16
and yet there's no mention of God in this documentary
37:18
but that's their explanation as well
37:20
as they didn't want the culture
37:22
to look past this documentary and just be like,
37:23
oh, that's just a Christian thing.
37:25
They're just using their Bible against us
37:27
and all those different things.
37:28
They wanted to attack the ideology
37:30
in the most basic way possible
37:32
which some people would argue the most basic way possible
37:34
is to use the biblical truths that we get.
37:36
So again, I understand why a publisher
37:38
or why a media producer would wanna do that.
37:41
But as we wrap up here, I wanna kind of end
37:42
with this question here, John.
37:44
And I believe I asked you about this whenever we talked
37:46
last time because in the last chapter of the book,
37:48
you talked about some approaches using
37:51
the public health approach, working to regulate
37:54
internet service providers, ISPs,
37:56
taking action through organizations and stuff like that.
37:58
But here we are right now as of the recording of this,
38:01
we haven't got the Dobbs decision yet from the Supreme Court.
38:03
Guys, by the time you hear this interview,
38:05
the Dobbs decision will have been handed down.
38:07
Roe may be overturned, Casey may be overturned.
38:09
The face of abortion in this country
38:11
and the fight of abortion may be on 50 fronts
38:13
as opposed to one front as we know it now.
38:16
I feel like we should also fight as Christians,
38:20
as conservatives to make pornography illegal.
38:24
And you can use the public health argument.
38:26
You can use the detriment to children argument
38:28
and all those different things.
38:29
But I really think that we need to open our eyes to this
38:32
because the argument over abortion didn't really even begin
38:37
until Roe v. Wade was legalized 50 years ago.
38:40
And even though the Supreme Court deciders,
38:42
you know, the people that made the decision,
38:43
they thought we just ended the debate.
38:45
It's like, no, no, no, you just kicked it off.
38:47
What are we gonna need to see
38:48
to where people can really start looking at this
38:50
as something that isn't just unfortunate,
38:52
but something that should be criminalized?
38:54
- Well, yeah, I think all of those techniques
38:56
can be very useful.
38:57
And in fact, right now, pornography,
39:00
a lot of pornography that out there is illegal.
39:03
What's illegal is what's obscene.
39:04
And the Supreme Court has decided that.
39:06
And what we need is people who have guts
39:09
within the US Department of Justice
39:11
to actually start prosecuting some of the major pornographers.
39:15
And we can see, hopefully, a lot of this go down.
39:19
Regulating ISPs, I think, is a very good idea
39:21
because they're transmitting, in a lot of cases, child porn.
39:25
And that's something that would be illegal to transmit.
39:28
And so, and more and more pornography out there is child porn.
39:31
So there's a lot that can be done,
39:33
I think, working with organizations like NCOSI,
39:36
the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
39:39
They're doing great work fighting the porn industry
39:42
on a shoestring budget.
39:43
And there's a lot going on out there
39:46
that's giving me hope that we can actually get to a point
39:49
where we really fight back against this industry
39:51
that really wants to destroy our children's lives.
39:55
- Yeah, and I think as technology becomes more pervasive,
39:58
as we start getting wearable technology and AI
40:01
and virtual reality and all these different things,
40:04
this problem, so just think about it in the 90s, John.
40:09
Think about, you would not have even been able to fathom.
40:12
In 1991, you would not have been able to fathom
40:14
how pornography is now.
40:16
And not just the types of pornography,
40:18
but people's access to it.
40:20
And now people that are getting sex robots
40:23
and they're getting these sensory suits
40:25
that'll kind of give them the wear, the oculus goggles,
40:28
and then kind of go the whole nine yards with that.
40:30
And we're still in the early stages of that technology.
40:32
And so we're already worried about young men in their 20s
40:35
that are having erectile dysfunction
40:37
because they can't get it up with a real person
40:39
like we've already talked about.
40:40
But this is only gonna become more and more pervasive.
40:42
So guys, if you're a legacy minded person,
40:45
this is my PSA to you.
40:47
Don't just worry about your sons and daughters right now.
40:49
Worry about their sons and daughters
40:51
because you're potentially setting up
40:53
a generational sin cycle or helping it continue
40:56
by not addressing this.
40:57
And I just gotta be honest, you gave parents
41:00
a very tangible resource here
41:02
because I know some people are like,
41:03
oh, I don't really, I wanna kind of figure it out on my own.
41:05
And my kids are different than just the generic kid.
41:08
It doesn't matter.
41:09
If you get this book and just go to the ends of the chapters,
41:12
I'm not suggesting you do this,
41:13
but you could skip the chapter reading,
41:15
even though I think that's a stupid idea,
41:16
skip the chapter reading.
41:17
You just go to the age appropriate questions
41:19
that you can ask your children
41:21
to kind of get into these conversations.
41:23
He's just, John's just giving you the words
41:26
to use in these scenarios.
41:28
And you could even put it in your own head
41:29
as a different thing.
41:30
If you've ever gone through sales training,
41:31
they're not saying say these exact 12 words
41:34
in this exact way.
41:34
They're just kind of giving you a basic idea.
41:36
So guys, it's a tremendous, tremendous resource.
41:39
It will be in the show notes for you
41:40
as I mentioned in the beginning and into the show.
41:42
But as of right now, that is all for me.
41:44
Is there anything else that you wanna get off your chest
41:46
before we let you get out of here?
41:48
- I just wanna thank everybody
41:49
who's willing to fight the porn industry
41:51
and to fight for the lives of their children.
41:52
And I encourage you to go for it.
41:55
- Absolutely.
41:56
John Fobert, thank you for coming back
41:57
on Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
41:59
- Anytime.
42:00
- There you go guys.
42:01
I hope you enjoyed the return appearance
42:02
of John Fobert on our show.
42:03
But before we let you go,
42:04
we are gonna do a quick resilience boost.
42:06
Add on Daunton Life, our mission is equipping men
42:07
to push back darkness with content
42:09
that for just spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
42:11
So I've got a link to John's website, johnfobert.com.
42:14
I got a link to both books we talked about,
42:15
protecting your children from internet pornography
42:17
and how pornography harms.
42:18
And also a link to episode 177 of this show
42:21
so you can check out John's first appearance.
42:23
All right guys, thanks so much for listening to the show.
42:24
We do appreciate it.
42:25
Wherever you're listening to this,
42:26
please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star review.
42:28
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42:29
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42:30
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42:32
That's i-n-f-o@ndonton.life.
42:34
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42:36
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42:37
including how to donate to keep more content
42:39
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42:40
Just go to www.ndonton.life.
42:43
And as always, we want to thank the band,
42:44
August Burns Red for allowing us
42:45
to use their music for our content.
42:47
The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Ties"
42:49
which is off their 10th anniversary
42:50
re-recording of their album, "Leveler."
42:52
The links are in the description.
42:54
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
42:55
Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
42:58
keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
43:01
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
43:04
♪ I know I'm dying ♪
43:08
♪ There's a heart in life ♪
43:11
♪ Where all you want ♪
43:12
♪ Is a sign ♪
43:14
♪ Ignition ♪
43:16
♪ Is a virtue ♪
43:19
♪ You will be revived ♪
43:28
(dramatic music)