So this whole season of therapy and theology, we’re talking about things people are experiencing behind closed doors. Often it’s relational dynamics that they’re experiencing. They don’t know what to do about it. And I felt it was really important to talk about this subject, pornography.
I found in so many conversations with other women that this is the topic that they’re either very afraid of because they don’t know what to do, what to say, how to talk about it, and certainly how do I confront it in a way that actually is going to make a difference or they don’t want to talk about it because they themselves are caught in the trap of pornography.
So there’s just a whole host of things happening around this topic and I felt like we have to we must at therapy and theology step into this conversation and better equip all of us to know how do we talk about it? What do we do about it and how it’s impacting us behind closed doors? So Jim, I’m going to look at you. I know last night you just did a 2hour seminar on this topic.
Mhm. And of course we don’t have two hours today. We do not, but I felt like the information you have is so valuable. And certainly Joel, we’re going to turn to you because we definitely need some theology around this topic as well. So Jim, I’m going to let you just take it away. Yeah, the lenses that uh I talk people to look through.
Uh this is very helpful globally about taking a look at the problem of porn, what I call the porn demic because we’re in that even at the point of recording this. We are uh in a global mental health pandemic coming out of a COVID pandemic even if we’re at the tail end of it or wherever.
So a lot of stuff going on and the porn demic which rose so high when we were back in that original COVID pandemic. People had nothing to do. at all this time and it’s stunning without boring with all the stats of how high porn use uh went. Um a thing at that time called Pornhub. Unbelievable. The way to look at this, this is with these lenses, the porn problem, it’s a multiaceted problem that requires a multifaceted solution.
If you’re a hammer, the whole world likes looks like a nail. Well, it’s just lust. I’ve had pastors tell me that. I understand that it is that and it’s more. Uh you just need God. You just need Jesus. or behavioral modification or whatever else.
Thinking in the terms it’s a multiaceted problem that requires a multiaceted treatment plan. So you never want to leave the brain out of it with neuroplasticity. That’s the part of the brain that if you send it down the porn trail, it’s going to have a rut in there. Back to Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do.
So that is going on and we want to in recovery or in healing lay use that neuroplasticity. It just means the brain is moldable and laying new neuropathways, let alone the word of God, that we’re transformed by the renewing of our mind. So the brain’s involved in that. Obviously, the body is involved in that.
Part of why that’s important is if you think if you gave someone, imagine 11 or 12 year old, you gave them cocaine, opiates or opioids or heroin at age 12. Most people when these 28 are not going to say go cold turkey. It’s unfair. We’ll say that around pornography, just come off of it cold turkey or just stop. It didn’t work with Nancy Reagan in the 80s. God bless her for trying. Just say no.
I mean, there’s a place to say no, but that’s not going to do. This has been longterm for a lot of guys. There’s chemicals involved. Dopamine, serotonin, catakolamines, pea, norepinephrine, adrenaline. And the one that’s missing when person is acting out to pornography by him or herself cuz women are involved in this too with a rising stat is oxytocin.
