Is Porn Addiction Grounds for Divorce?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Your co host Will Harrop, joined by Joe and Jack Wilkie. As always, really looking forward to today's episode. Just going to be some really interesting discussion, in my opinion. Before we get to that, briefly, we do want to make sure that everybody remains aware of the fact that all three of us, my dad Brad here included, we host seminars. And so if your congregation is looking to have any of the three of us out or multiple, if you would like, we've done, Joe and I have done godly Amen podcast seminars. All three of us have done Thing Deeper seminars. But of course, kind of the old faithful is just one individual going out for gospel meeting or seminar. We do offer those. Jack covers a lot of different things. His church reset material, his Christian assurance material. Of course, with his new book that's come out, Joe handles a lot when it comes to the pornography epidemic and dealing with, you know, what's a Christian's response to those things and what's Christians view of sex, all kind of stuff. Those are not the official names of the seminars. I'm just kind of giving, giving my paraphrase of them. And then I do a lot of stuff surrounding, golly, young men actually and kind of striving for excellence as young people. So yeah, those are, we offer those anytime there's a congregation that reaches out. So reach out to jackocuspress.org, messages on Facebook, any of those things. But with that, guys. So let's jump into it. So what we're talking about today is we've covered pornography before. Obviously it's a, the, the, you know, imperative nature. The seriousness of that discussion is something that just unfortunately has not gone away and probably will not go away. So we've had episodes about it, we talked about it. We want to take some different angles with our discussion kind of surrounding pornography today. A lot of different questions come up with it. Just to preview it a little bit. There's that fairly controversial question of whether or not pornography addiction from either spouse, but generally the husband is the one statistically who's going to be addicted. Is that grounds for divorce? Scripturally for those who would subscribe to that, is that grounds for divorce? Does that count as adultery? Does that fit into the exception clause? Pretty big debate, really. Looking forward to that discussion. We're going to get into some of the other angles of pornography, women's erotic novels only fans, all kind of stuff. And so, yeah, it's going to be very different than kind of the Episodes that we've done in the past about kind of here's what to do if you're, you know, struggling with it. You know, Joe's always has great resources and counseling and advice for that. So we're not going to go in that direction, but we should just get some great discussion out of this. So, Jack, I'll hand it to you next as you're kind of the one that brought this idea and this topic to the table. So as we kind of introduce the topic, what are your thoughts as we get started? [00:02:50] Speaker C: Yeah, the discussion. I've seen it a bunch online lately about. In fact, I got a message about it, but I've seen it going around elsewhere about divorce over pornography. And so that was kind of the first one. And then there were just other topics, as you mentioned, kind of clustered around it, related. And so we're kind of putting them together as a combination kind of episode. But it's. You think about the idea of lust and the sin that we're trying to avoid here, and then the temptation of it and how ridiculous this has become, how much. Take yourself back 100 years ago. A. You're not surrounded by immodest people. The only women a man would see, you know, he goes into town, goes to work, whatever. He might see a few on the way and coming home. And they're not half naked or whatever. Now, literally everywhere you go, if it's in the wintertime, the clothes are really tight. If it's in the summertime, they're barely wearing any. But for women, it's kind of the same thing. You go out, there's guys not, you know, without a shirt or you go to the gym. You know, that's something. We're all big gym going guys. It's just something. I don't want to call it the, the. It's the. The incidents in which you're having to deal with this. And then of course, you go online and there's ads and you watch TV and there's, you know, whatever's on the show. And I mean, it's. Even if you're not pursuing bad stuff, you are inundated with this stuff. And so we're going to start on the top of defining lust of what does that mean? What is it? That is the sin that we are avoiding here? What is the sin that we are fighting against? And so I guess we'll each kind of give a definition, but really it's based in desire. I mean, that's what the root word is based on is a desire for Something that's not yours. And this is something that the Catholics, I think, get kind of weird about. Can you even have lust for your own spouse? That's not lust. That's rightly ordered desire. But lust is wrongly ordered desire. Right. And so it's not noticing, hey, that person is pretty. Hey, that guy's handsome. Whatever it may be. It's. What's the second thought? Right. Where do you go with that thought? Are you. Where do your eyes go? Things like that. And that's where you start having that desire for something you should not desire because it's not yours. And so I think that's really what we're talking about here, as we'll kind of carry this through to all the facets of this discussion. But, you know, obviously, Joe, you work with sex addiction. And I'm gonna plug real quick, this is not a Pornography Addiction 101 episode. We've done that kind of thing before. You can look it up and think deeper. But Joe has the get out of Porn podcast. 52 episodes worth of stuff is books. The Quick Guide to Quitting Porn, I think it's called. That's on our FocusPress store or Amazon. So if you want the basic resources, that stuff's out there. But we're going kind of that next level here. But we're starting by defining lust just to lead into the other discussion. So, Joe, what do you have to add here? [00:05:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I was talking with a guy literally just today about it with a client, because he's struggling back and forth. I think I'm lusting a bunch. And I'm like, okay, well, can you define lust? What does that look like for you? And he had a really tough time. And you find that, like, everybody's definition of lust varies to some degree as to what's the point of lust, if they even notice a pretty woman? Some people are like, oh, I lusted, you know, versus the guys that are half undressing them in their mind. Well, I didn't really lust, you know, it's not like I was incredibly aroused. Like, okay. And everything in between. And so my definition of lust really is. There's. It's twofold, you know, one is, are you taking the second glance? To your point? The first glance is on her, second glance is on you is what it's been said. So the lust is that lingering. It's the, you know, okay, well, your eyes stayed for two seconds longer than they should, and it's just going up and down the body, and you're noticing body parts, and you Begin the objectification process. And so I think there's that element. I think arousal does play a key role in this. If you're looking at something, there can be just monstrosities out there that you're looking at and catch your attention and you find yourself gawking at it. And it's like not lusting after it. It's just like, what am I even looking at? Versus the arousal that comes into it, I think has to play a part. And your lingering looking back, I think is also where lust really sets in. And is your mind thinking about it? Does it stay in your heart? Does it stay in your mind? A lot of people, a lot of women get this false idea that it's about, oh, you just want to have sex with a woman. Like, no, lust is way more nuanced than that. It's not always about that. Sometimes it's about you wanting the woman to notice you. Can be about all sorts of stuff, but it's a tricky one and it is important to define lust. And will, I'm curious to get your thoughts on. [00:07:21] Speaker B: Well, that's definitely interesting, Joe. That's interesting because what you just said to wrap up there might contradict my working definition of it, which is obviously very similar to yours. But to me it's. It's looks that lead to thoughts that are sexual in nature is kind of the. Is kind of the way that I would define that. As you spoke to. Yes. You know, if you notice somebody who is attractive, you know, and you know that thought energy, oh, that person's attractive. Like, that would not. I do. I would not categorize that as lust. I agree with you as well on kind of the second glance and the lingering. To me, where the thoughts start to turn into a sexual. Basically turn sexual for either from, like you said, noticing body parts or just kind of mental pleasure, like enjoying. Enjoying the view, essentially, again, from a sexual perspective like that to me is where lust comes in. But what you just said. So I don't want to necessarily cross examine you there, but at the end of your thought there about it's not always sexual in nature. Sometimes it's about, you know, noticing or whatever it is. Would you. So I guess, would you disagree with my definition or do you. How would you kind of counter that? [00:08:29] Speaker A: No, I think it is sex sexual in nature. Sorry, I should clarify that. The reason for it may be different. It's not always about the sex. You are lusting after her, but sometimes it's like the guy is noticing. It's not wrong to notice Beauty. God made very, very beautiful people. And it's not wrong to notice beauty. The question is, what do you do once you recognize it? Wow, that's a child of God. That's. That's beautiful. You know, she's a. She's beautiful woman, very attractive. Good for her. And then we move on versus the lingering. And a lot of times when a guy is lingering, he does want to get her attention. He loves to have that attention. Then there's other guys that are more on the voyeuristic end. Like, they don't really want the attention. They just want to enjoy from afar. So lust is still arousal. There still has to be a sexual component to it in order for it to be lust. But it's important to this discussion as we start because as we get into some of the more nuanced things, lust is also difficult because we're going to get into erotica, we're going to get into erotic fiction, you know, and this is huge in women's circles. Like, that's all in their mind. They're not actually visually seeing anyone. But there still are lustful thoughts. And we don't run lust through the lens of a woman very often either. We think of lust being more of a guy problem. And I think there's a. The arousal has to come in. And that really sets the stage for us to be able to discuss that, which we're not going to get to just yet. But that's why defining these terms, I think, can be really important real fast. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Jack, before you go, I did want to comment on what you said earlier about. And this is what makes just raising boys so scary is, is that the opportunities to lust are just so much more plentiful now than they used to be. Obviously, we are recording this on April 15th. We are entering the heat of Middle Tennessee. As you spoke to Jack, the clothes start to come off. But even apart from. Even if you stay away from pools or stay away from beaches or whatever it is, things like that that maybe we'll get to in a later discussion. But going out to the grocery store, not to mention what you've got in your pocket, like on your, you know, for. For teenagers, like what you have access to in your pocket, unfortunately for some, going to school, unfortunately real unfortunately, going to church or church events or whatever it is, like, the opportunities are just, you know, leaps and bounds more than what it was even a couple decades ago. And so, you know, again, as somebody who. I have two sons like that, that's just a conscious thought that I have to Keep in my mind, like, what? How am I going to raise them to. I bounce as we, you know, it was called in my house, like, not taking that second glance and things like that, man. It is just, it's so unfortunate that the world and Satan has done a good job unfortunately, of presenting so many more opportunities for young men to lust. So that was my only thought on that. [00:11:05] Speaker C: Well, and that's what creates the issue with the question of does it lead? Is it grounds for divorce? And so, of course, you know, there are so many people who struggle with this in their marriage, men especially. I think this is a question generally asked by women about their husbands, but it can go the other way. I'm sure there are men that are asking that. And of course, the verse in question is Matthew 19:9. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery. And of course, that's drawing on before where they had asked about if it's lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all. Jesus answer is basically no. And then he establishes here, yeah, it's, you know, God made a male and female, they're one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man separate. Verse 6. And so we, we skim past that so many times where the answer is, no, don't get divorced. And we fixate on the exception clause here. But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality. Mine says immorality. That is a poor translation that the NAS 95 gives us. New King James. Sexual immorality, ESV, sexual immorality, fornication in King James and marital unfaithfulness in niv, which is interesting enough. And fornication in the asv. Let me check Christian standard while I'm at it, just for the fun of it. Sexual immorality. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Pretty wide range of different words. [00:12:29] Speaker C: Yeah, that's one of those. Take a point off the board from our beloved nasb. But so you have this established, that this is an exception that leads to the question, is this grounds for divorce when a man has. When a spouse has a pornography problem. [00:12:46] Speaker B: I think before you get to your answer, Joe, I was curious if you had any anecdotal, like, again, you know, people that you've talked to. Like, I was under the impression that this, the answer to this was fairly agreed upon within the churches of Christ. And after, you know, kind of some discussion with you guys, sounds like it's not at all. And I know I said at the top, the top of the Episode that it's fairly controversial, but I was talking about from an evangelical, like widening the range in the church of Christ or out from the Church of Christ. Sounds like maybe it's just as controversial within the churches of Christ. Joe, sounds like you maybe had some anecdotal evidence to that. I was going to ask you to share, you know, conversations or stories that you had about that. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, it is. Well, the thing is it's common because once you have a husband who basically is unrepentant, it rocks women to the core. Betrayal trauma is one of the worst things to work with, not worse in terms of, you know, like, you know, shame on them. Like, I feel so bad for them. And it is a horrible thing because like you didn't do anything. But it's, it's incredibly traumatic. Right. For these things to take place. And so when that takes place. Yeah. Women are not necessarily always in their logical prefrontal cortex mind. They're thinking very much from a fear based mindset and from a lot of hurt. And so that does push them toward like, yeah, there's got to be, this has got to be grounds for divorce. So even sometimes I worked with women that are like against it until it happens to them. And then it's like, I don't, I can't stay married to this man. The better question is, and what most people look at is it's not a matter of divorce. We've almost taken a no fault divorce type thing in the church. It's the remarriage part. And this is not an npr. [00:14:22] Speaker C: That's what focus on. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Correct. That's what we focus on is the divorce can happen for pretty much any. Oh, we didn't get along. It's just get remarried. And it's like, well, let's re, let's rewind a little bit. Let's go back and go to divorce is horrible. Let's go to Malachi 3. Like, God hates divorce. And so that's what we have to first get right in the church is realizing that like, let's not run divorce. [00:14:42] Speaker B: He says, don't separate what God joined together. Right? [00:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. What's really interesting though, I've worked with more women in the church that are more quickly to get divorced from pornography than women in the world. It's almost like women in the world have expected it to some degree or that they are willing to work with it more. I've worked with women in the world that. And this is not, this is just anecdotal evidence. But from the women in the world, like, I've worked with guys that were heavily into, like, prostitution and some pretty crazy stuff, and the women are willing to stay with it. It feels like women in the church are almost waiting for there to be an out that they can actually take. And sometimes it does not present in physical adultery. It presents in pornography, and they're just ready to take it. [00:15:23] Speaker B: I think it's because we've zeroed in on the exception clause so much and kind of made that the. The escape hatch, essentially. I mean, it. It goes without saying that the. The answer to this question of whether or not pornography addiction for either spouse is grounds for. This is a. This is an MDR question. Like, this is an MDR topic. We're going to hopefully maybe do an episode on that in the future. Not to show our car, not to show my cards. Personally, I don't speak for y'. All. I am a kind of. Of the opinion that there really is not any acceptable grounds for divorce. And so my answer to this, you know, would be no. Let me steel man it for a second. And Jack. Or maybe I'll hand it to you next. What those who will. I sent you guys an article that was pretty fascinating. Obviously, there's guys in the evangelical community that kind of go back and forth on this. What people will say is that the word there in Matthew 19, verse 9, the one that was translated so many different ways that Jack shared earlier, is the word porneia, which does not specifically mean adultery. And in fact, in many instances does not mean. Does not mean adultery. It does mean sexual immorality, like sexual uncleanness, sexual perversion, essentially, and the art. So the argument people make is that can take on so many forms and they would loop pornography is specifically pornography, unrepentant pornography addiction. They would. [00:16:45] Speaker A: They would group that in. [00:16:47] Speaker B: And so that's kind of the. Again, just to steel man it. You know, the work. Because the word once again being porneia not being limited to adultery, in fact, again, in many places in the New Testament. That is not what it means. It does just means, you know, First Corinthians 6, I believe, is one of those places just talks about sexual immorality. And it's not just specifically talking about adultery there. And so that's what the steel man there would be. I certainly have a take and kind of my thoughts on this, even if I did subscribe to the exception clause. But, Jack, I'll kind of hand it to you to kind of address that distinction that people will make there as to kind of Come out in support of the idea that it does. That it is grounds for divorce and remarriage. [00:17:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to get to that. I want to first of all go. I'm going to look at this one you sent us. This is on Covenant Eyes. They say they don't necessarily all endorse this, but the software itself ran this art that Will sent over. And he goes over three bad arguments and gets those out of the way. And I think it's good for us to get those out of the way because the second one is the one I actually hear the most. And so the first one is pornography is detrimental to a marriage, therefore it is grounds for divorce. Basically, I'm not happy. It's not good. This is no way to live. Anything fall into that. Right, right. So that's. And I think most of the people that are in the Church of Christ were asking this are more serious about the text. They're not doing that. This second one though is. Well, I'm gonna. I'll get to his third. I'm go. Out of order. Because his third one was pornography comes from the word porneia, therefore it's the same thing. Obviously, as my friend Jeremiah would say, word concept fallacy. [00:18:19] Speaker B: The. [00:18:21] Speaker C: So that. That's not a real. [00:18:22] Speaker B: This is actually a word concept fallacy [00:18:25] Speaker C: for real this time. But this is the one you hear the most. Porn is lust. And Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 that lust is adultery, therefore it's grounds for divorce. I've heard this one a few times and I think this is the main one that is used. And thankfully the guy writing on Covenant Eyes, even though he ends up saying that pornography is grounds for divorce, he rejects this one. The problem is, if you're going to be consistent with that, then you've got to say, man, everybody who calls somebody an idiot has to go on capital murder, you know, go to a grand jury. Because if it's like Jesus is saying, in your heart you've committed adultery in the same way in your heart you've committed murder. Well, if we're going to legally make it to where they've committed adultery and you can get the divorce, we've got to legally make it to where it's murdered. Like you're overstating the case there. So I wanted to get those out of the way and come back to the word porneia, which as he says, is broader than adultery. And he's right about that. Go ahead. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I was just going to say you're right. That is general. The second argument Porn equals lust equals adultery equals grounds for divorce. That's. Maybe that's where I was getting my. Like, I feel like that's not, you know, super widely held because to me, it is a pretty untenable position. Like, nobody is going to be able to say, you know, to follow along with the murder thing, because the other thing is in that entire section, Jesus is his. His point is the intents of the heart, not about legislating certain things. Right. Which, you know, divorce, your marriage would be. So sorry to cut you off there, but, like, I just. That's. I feel like it's a completely indefensible position to hold. [00:19:50] Speaker C: Right. So he. And again, this author rejects all of those arguments, but he comes around to porneia as, again, translated sexual immorality, sometimes translated fornication. And he goes over the. The prostitution cults of the 1st century of the pagan peoples and how it was related to that and how some of the prostitution cult people were performers, musicians, dancers, things like that. And he. So he relates that to pornography, porn stars or whatever in today's world. And so that's his answer for that. Well, Joe, do you have anything to get into here before I get into some of the Greek lexicons on this one? I've kind of been monopolizing this part. [00:20:30] Speaker A: That's all right. That's all right. Now keep going. [00:20:31] Speaker C: All right. So, yeah, so it's, as he points out accurately, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality. It doesn't say except for adultery, which keep that in mind. That's going to come back around later when we do an MDR episode because there's a lot of interesting rabbits to chase there. But it says except for sexual immorality. And that is a different category. It's a different Greek word from adultery. And so he's saying something like pornography could fit into that. Sexual immorality. The problem with that is when you look it up, porneia, again, is the word when you look it up in bdag, the number one lexicon, unlawful sexual intercourse, prostitution, unchastity, fornication. Number two, participating participation in prohibited degrees of marriage, also fornication. All of them, it's coming back to fornication. It is the literal sexual act with another person. And so a fantasy, even if there's another person on screen or whatever the case may be, doesn't fall into what the word fornication means. 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You know what it reminds me of, very oddly is your actually Jack, your debate with Jeremiah about at what point does salvation take place, justification take place with Jeremiah's position. It was fairly gray. Like there was not necessarily a specific hard fast. This is kind of, you know. Yes, I guess they'll say in the moment of faith, but like who's. Who can point to that and say that was the moment I was. You can't really do that, right? Baptism, we would argue you absolutely can. It's when you were buried with Christ, you know, had your sin, you know, Acts 22:16, right. Wash away your sins. That's the moment to me it's again, that's kind of analogous with this in the sense of like if you're going to argue that and he has, it was very interesting. Like he kind of gives five in this article scenarios laid out that kind of each one escalating aspects of somebody who, you know, you know, sleeps with a prostitute versus watches a prostitute, all those things. If you're going to argue that porneo could include anything that is not a, you know, act of sexual intercourse, then at this, at that point everything is so incredibly gray. It's, you know, it's so subjective. At what point, like there's no specific, you know, this is exactly what you know, constitutes somebody, you know, constitutes porneia versus sexual intercourse. That like that is pretty clear, right? As opposed to you watched it, you maybe you know, self pleasured or whatever those things. I just felt like the more you back that line up as you. You can do with salvation, unfortunately or some try to do with salvation, just the, the more gray it gets. And I do feel like with something like this, with something as seriously as God takes marriage, the sanctity of marriage, the marriage bed, the one flesh union that we haven't even brought up, you, you gotta have a Fairly specific, Fairly hard. Like, no, this is it. As opposed to. Well, you know, it could be. You know, if you're watching this, watching that, I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of where my mind went with this. Joe, I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but that's kind of where my mind went with this. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely get that. The. The struggle is like, that unrepentant part that the guy brings up in the article is that's what makes this really difficult, because I've worked with that, where you have a wife of a husband who just is lost in his addiction, he just doesn't care to try anymore. He's given up on it, and yet she's forced to still be there. And the crazy thing, and this is what gives me a little pause for. It's just a little pause or cause for concern, I guess, would be this man is liable to be disfellowshipped to be kicked out of the church, but he can't be kicked out of his own marriage. And I. I don't believe it is grounds for divorce. But that's what I struggle with, is what does a wife do? If the church did what the church is supposed to do, they would disfellowship him and say, you're out. You are done. Where does a Christian wife stand in that? Like, you know, disfellowshipping a spouse? I don't fully know. I don't know what that looks like. And so, you know, a time of separation, I think, can be relevant. I think can. Can help so as to help him understand. A lot of addicts have to hit rock bottom in order to want it enough. Like, they have to come to the end of themselves. And so in a situation like that, where the guy is, clearly speaking, the unrepentant, for the women that swing the pendulum, it's like, well, if he looks at pornography at all, it's cause for. For divorce. Like, okay, was it one time looking at pornography that allowed for it? Is that something that can be worked through? You know, that type of thing? [00:25:51] Speaker B: Because that's what I'm getting at with the subjectivity. Because, like, I watched the Doug Wilson video, and he used words like, well, if it's heinous or if it's, you know, really essentially, like, who gets to say what's heinous? [00:26:02] Speaker A: Very subjective. [00:26:04] Speaker C: And that's where I'm with Will is like, if you're gonna say this is. Then one time is enough, right? Because we would say that with physical adultery. Right. Everyone who takes that as an exception says, you don't have to commit adultery 27 times. People say, if he does it, then that's the path. You know, that's. You've got your out of the marriage. And so I think it's a little inconsistent. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And here's the other thing about unrepentant. You see in 1 Peter 3 about a man who's disobedient to the word. Now, that can mean a lot of things. I know it's not in this context of sexual sin, but that certainly qualify. Correct. And it qualifies a him being. And she's still there. She doesn't just get to walk away from the marriage because he's being disobedient to the word. [00:26:41] Speaker C: Like submissive to him. Correct. That's the trigger that might win him, [00:26:46] Speaker A: try to win him over. And so, you know, yeah, this puts you in. We're gonna get a bazillion 1 comments about if the guy is abusive or if, you know, it's just a completely unsafe situation. Yes. Separation could take place for a time. Have the elders involved, have other men involved in that situation. [00:27:02] Speaker C: One also, like, when we're talking about that, we'll talk about. When we're talking about this, we'll talk about this. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Correct, Correct. I just know where people's minds are going to go. And when it comes to this. No, I don't think it is grounds for divorce. And there's something very. We actually just had a comment on a. We get all sorts of wackadoo comments on Spotify for our gym episodes. And we got some woman that. And she may listen to this, who knows? She does not like us. And she commented on this like, you guys know nothing about this because she basically said it is grounds for divorce. And, you know, it doesn't. Cyber sex is just as real as regular sex. And it's like, no, it objectively is not. [00:27:32] Speaker C: Like, number one, you can't get pregnant from it. So that's correct. One, one down. I mean, like, there's. We want to start getting literal, like, in place. It's not good. [00:27:42] Speaker A: But like, the Bible makes a big [00:27:43] Speaker B: deal about the one flesh union. Like, and that to say that that can be done virtually because, I mean, like, oculuses and stuff like that, like virtual reality, like, that's where I'll just go back to. I feel like there does have to be a line. Good. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Well, it's. It's. You know, Paul in First Corinthians, 6, talking about being joined to a prostitute, Right? Like, there's a level of being joined together in this where oxytocin and. Yeah, oxytocin can be released to the, you know, secreted with the screen type of thing. But by and large, you're talking like love bonding, sex bonding chemicals. There are things that you become one flesh. That is what sex is intended to do. If that's not there, you are not becoming one flesh with the screen. Yes, you get the same chemical release, dopamine. Oxytocin does get secreted to some degree. Not to any degree of that. And it's not like you are one flesh with the screen itself when you're looking at stuff. And so, you know, his argument is, like, if you back it away from going to an actual brothel to just viewing it online, you know, that type of thing, what about viewing it in the mind? Okay, well, does she have. If we're going to go to looking at pornography, what about the guys who lust in their mind that don't have to look at anything? Is that grounds for divorce? So, no, there's a subjectivity to this entire thing. Will, going back to your point that has to be said, it is not. As much as this may be a terrible, terrible thing, as much as my heart goes out to those that I work with, and for all of the women that are struggling with this, this is not us trying to say, well, you have no, like, no, I don't think you have a right to get divorced. That's what we're all saying. On the other hand, doesn't mean you can't get help. It doesn't mean you can't go talk to other people. But in this context, Jack, since you keep getting these messages and we've seen this, and I'm getting back to messages on Spotify. No, all three of us are saying it does not constitute. There has to be a physical. And even then, [00:29:24] Speaker B: save it, Joe. [00:29:26] Speaker A: We'll save our takes for that episode. [00:29:29] Speaker B: I wanted to say something real fast. And then I don't know if we want to move on or. Jack, if I'm sure you get some other thoughts, maybe. But the first thing I want to say is to anybody who might just tragically be in this situation and might be listening, like, our hearts absolutely go out to you. This is a tough topic. It's not one that we, you know, it's a topic I wish we did not have to discuss. [00:29:49] Speaker C: Right. [00:29:50] Speaker B: But it's just an unfortunate reality. And so I want to make sure that, you know, again, if you're listening and you do hear our conclusions, does not appear that the Bible teaches that there's grounds for divorce on that and remarriage on that. You know, we don't want to come across callous. We really feel for you. I want to say something, though, to those who will hide behind those really rough situations to basically kind of stand up on their girl power, girl boss platform and kind of essentially, you know, the mom groups on Facebook, I guess, kind of who I'm talking about. Of like, no, you absolutely should leave him. That's, you know, to your point, Joe, of like, you know, Felix, one time, those are the type of people who, if they're listening to us saying, you know, I can't believe they're saying this. I do not care. Like, I do not care. Because what we are trying to do is, what does the text say? What does God say? What does the Bible say? And as we've looked, we've looked at the word, we've granted, to Jack's point, Jack was talking about earlier, we've granted the fact that, you know, it does not say adultery, but that there is a. An element of a physical act that has to take place. We're just trying to align as close to the text as possible. And so I wanted to say kind of those two things side by side. Like, we really feel for those who are struggling with this. At the same time, if you're going to, you know, kind of try to play the victim car. Not, Not. I'm saying, like, other people try to play the victim card about this. It's just what the Bible teaches. And again, the MDR discussion also can bring up, you know, that kind of sentiment as well. But it's. Man, we're just trying to get as close to the text as we possibly can. Jack. [00:31:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it really is awful. I agree. And don't do this to your spouse, whether you're male or female, you know, be open, be transparent for their sake, for the sake of your marriage, for the kids, the example you're setting for, I mean, ultimately, for your own soul's eternal salvation. I mean, there's so much at stake here. Get the help that you need. I mean, reach out to Joe, reach out to a minister, an elder, somebody. Get this taken care of. Don't put somebody through this. And again, if you're somebody who has been put through this, get the support you need. But again, as Joe kind of alluded to earlier, there's a lot of emotion in that situation. And studying the Bible, when There is that emotion, there is that desire for the text to read one way. That makes that a lot harder to come to a straight answer. So I'll wrap with that. But the other thing, I think that's kind of interesting to segue this, the idea of a man looking at pornography being grounds for divorce. What? A woman reading a neurotic novel. [00:32:17] Speaker B: Colleen book, right? [00:32:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Would anybody. Well, you know, Fifty Shades or any of those, you know, like, would that be grounds for divorce? I don't know that you're gonna find anybody who would say yes. I'm gonna say it's pretty much the exact same thing, the exact same problem. Is there, like, no, your eyes aren't working. But women are wired differently. So I think, to me, it's the same. It's the equivalent. It's the mirror image. [00:32:41] Speaker B: My take on this. So first of all, I thought this was an interesting thing that I saw somebody basically say books like this are emotional porn for women, you know, because, you know, it's not the visual, but it's the emotional and all those. But I do think that's even. That's turning, you know, into, you know, more sexual in nature and less emotional. My take on this is very simple. If you as a wife would not be comfortable with your husband watching the movie of the book that you're reading, you probably shouldn't be reading it. Like, I feel like that's just about as straightforward as I can get with that. Of like, if you're reading that, you know somebody and, you know, Christian women, we're about to get into maybe some stats about how much this has just absolutely exploded since COVID of the amount of pages that have been printed in the romantic fiction category, essentially. But yeah, to me, it's that simple. Like, if you're. If the book you're reading, if you would be very uncomfortable with your husband watching the movie or watching the, you know, whatever it is, watching the screenplay of the book that you're reading, maybe some soul searching needs to take place. But to Jack, to answer your question, I. I do think the comparison is apt. Like, I do think there are. I think it's a comparison that can definitely be made in the sense of, you know, the. The computer screen for guys, the. The books for women, obviously, vice versa, but, you know, the gender stereotypes kind of way it goes. Joe, I'm very curious your thoughts on this. I mean, again, we got stats on here of like, it's basically doubled since COVID or even more of how much is in print. [00:34:09] Speaker A: Women get into emotion or get into affairs, physical affairs. First off, they're initiating a lot of those these days. They get into it usually through the emotional connection. You know, the. The. Whether that be feeling like somebody cares or. Or somebody kind of schmoozing them and talking them up and flirting with them and things like that. And that's what this book does. And so it lays the groundwork for a sexual outlet without there being a sexual release. Look, women are sexual creatures. We all know that sexual things for women exist. I'm not gonna go into detail about these things. We know that. That is, again, I mean, from a guy's perspective, a lot of women will run to those things because they're looking for a sexual outlet. And what I find crazy is you have what seems to be an epidemic of women in the church that don't necessarily want to have sex with their husbands. But there's a lot of women who are willing to do this. I'm not saying they're all the same women, but I'm just saying, like, I don't think women can decide what they want to be, if they want to become, like, asexual and not have sex at all, or if they want to be hypersexual and go toward these things. And I know there's a lot of women in between. I'm not trying to put everybody in a box, and. But I'm just saying, like, you see really wide areas of the spectrum sometimes with guys, but it's a lot less likely to see the super big spectrum there. So as far as it goes with the erotica, yeah, I think there's just an emotional connection. You're. You're reading it. People say they're reading for the story. Like, okay, well, Harry Potter's a great story. You know, Lord of the Rings. I mean, we could read other fantasy, quote, unquote, that has nothing to do. [00:35:33] Speaker B: What is it, 50 shades of gray for the plot. Like, you don't watch the plot. [00:35:37] Speaker A: What is it about the sexual that is so. Well, because women are sexual beings. And yes, there's an arousal element to it. And they love the good romance story. Like, okay, good. Put that into your own marriage. How about you get. Put the book down the same way we would tell the guy. Put the phone down, put the computer down and go, you know, take care of your wife. Go be the husband you're supposed to be. Say the same thing to women that are reading this. Put the book down and go. Actually try to treat your husband the way that. That the women treat the guys in the Book. And some of these books, we were talking about this before time. Some of these books are like outright disgusting. [00:36:07] Speaker C: I mean, you have one top 10Amazon, one that is a bestiality, fiction, romance, [00:36:13] Speaker A: but it's a minotaur or whatever that is half man, half bull or whatever. It's supposed to be like, what is happening right now? It's basically beastly top 10 on Amazon. So for those of us that think we're overblowing it, like, these books sell like hotcakes. It is unbelievable how many these sell. Matter of fact, fellas, you guys, I think, had the print sales. Jack, did you have this? [00:36:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. We'll throw this in the chat. So print copy sold went from 23 million down around Covid 18, 17 million, 44 million last year. Romance, print sale books. That's in 2025. Unbelievable. 84% of readers are women. No surprise there. With more than half falling between the ages of 18 and 44. That is a lot. And I was going to get at what you were just talking about there, Joe, of like, for both of these, the books for the women, the video, the images for the men, it is a shortcut to the thing you're supposed to pursue from your spouse. Men are supposed to love and cherish their wives in a way that makes them warm up to the idea. That's not that that is the only element that's required. I mean, this is something that you go into First Corinthians 7. You're both supposed to be giving this to each other. This is an important part of marriage. But for women, also, the emotional connection, that's something you're supposed to be pursuing for your husband. And that you get that connection more when you do your job and the man gets the more sexual activation, the more he does his job. God designed us for these things. Or you can just pull up your phone or pull out a book and problem solved. That's bad for everybody. [00:37:47] Speaker B: I think there's also an addictive element to it because people say, well, you know, pornography is highly addictive. These book, man, the way some from, you know, first of all, again, just by the. The popularity, the explosion of how popular these books are becoming. There was a bookstore in Nashville that just opened up or in Gallatin called Slow Burn Books. I saw, you know, some social media stuff about it. It literally exclusively has these erotica novels. Like, it's not like it's a, you know, bookstore that has a ton of stuff. Like it's literally. It's called Slow Burn. It's what the Bookstore, when it opened, it had a line around the building. Had a line around the building. So yeah, it's very popular. But what I was gonna say, Joe, and maybe you can speak better to this. Like I do think there's an addictive element to it from the story, from the, you know, novelty of your, your you know, reading or visualizing something new. You get attached to characters. Like I understand people to say, well it's a, it's different than like the, than pornography addiction again where there's self pleasure and whatnot. Like I do think there's a highly addictive element to this as well that needs to be considered. [00:38:49] Speaker C: I think it goes back to Twilight. You guys remember. Well, you're pretty young for this but when the Twilight books and then the movies came out and it was Robert Pattinson and you had grown married, even middle aged women with shirtless Robert Pattinson. Team Jacob and yeah, like the posters on their wall and stuff like that. And it's like, this isn't okay. And apparently from what I understand, 50 Shades started out as a sexualized Twilight fan fiction and then they ended up spinning it off into like its own story. And it wasn't actually. But that's what it started as. And it's like, well of course there was a market for that because all these women going, oh, I don't want my husband, I want this 19 year old Robert Pattinson. I mean like this is really bad stuff. And again, this is a lot more widespread than people think because it's so much more socially acceptable. If a guy says, oh, I'm on such and such site watching whatever that doesn't have the same, or that that has a stigma that the book doesn't [00:39:45] Speaker B: for some reason which adds an element of sorry Joe, not to cut in front of you. [00:39:49] Speaker A: No, you're good. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Almost increased danger like because you're not aware of it. You're not aware you say the word pornography. Everybody knows you're not supposed to be looking at pornography. Everybody knows they're not supposed to be looking at stuff on their phone or laptop or whatever. These books can kind of seem like harmless, innocent fun almost. And I'm sure most people, most women, especially Christian women that read them, like there's probably a twinge of guilt, but it doesn't present itself as the same threat in my opinion, that, that pornography does. I mean, you know, there's Christian women that would have these books, you know, in their bookshelf, in their home or something. You would never have, you know, your pornography on a screen. Out in front where everybody can see. And so I do think, again, there's just an element of, like, it's almost. I'm not gonna say more of a threat. It's a pretty severe threat when you consider, like, people's guard is down with this. [00:40:35] Speaker A: Joe. That. That is the point I was gonna make. Like, from a biological point of view. No, it's not near as threatening as hardcore pornography just because of what it does. I mean, that. That burns out your dopamine receptors and does all sorts of things that are just really not good. It creates grooves in the mind that are way harder to break than something like this. On the other hand, is there addictive element to this? Yeah, I think you can kind of get addicted to the high of going toward these books. And they're still in the same way. [00:41:01] Speaker C: It changes your expectations of, you know, a man's of his wife and a woman's of her husband. [00:41:06] Speaker B: Exactly. Because just as Sergio. Just as the porn star, the female porn stars. That's an unfair expectation. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Yes. It's not legitimate. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Exact same thing with these books. Like, the. The. The man that they set up is like, it's just. Sorry, it's an unfair. [00:41:21] Speaker A: And that's. That's the struggle, though, is that it is not seen as the problem that it actually is. Whereas pornography, everybody knows, like, yeah, that's not good. Everybody in the church knows that's not good. This is not seen as near much of a problem. I was looking it up. I just googled in 2021 statistics. 165 million copies of 50 Shades of Gray trilogy. 165 million books have been sold. So from 2010 to 2019, they said 15.9 million copies were sold of the first book. Think about how much again, Covid. And how much that exploded. And so once again, we bring these stats up to tell people, like, this is a real problem. Those are not all unchristian worldly women reading that. I know there are Christian women that are reading those things. And so it's very detrimental because it is a comparison thing and because we're not recognizing how it is kind of affecting and warping our desires. The same way porn works our desires in the bedroom. Yes, from a objectifying standpoint, but from the type of sex that you are, you know, that you want. You have guys that ask for things. It's like, you would have never, ever asked for that if you were not looking at porn. I think there are women that get these expectations of men. It's like, you wouldn't have seen that as a, as a rousing thing or expectation wise without something like this. But let me speak to this real fast. Women desire a strong male. We've talked about this before. They desire a strong male. These books prove that more than anything. They're going after the monster in the book is what it is. But it's the monster they're going after the billionaire that is cold and calculating. They're going after the guy that is going to hurt them and take advantage of them and the powerful. And it's like, women love this. And so for all the guys listening, we're not going to take advantage of our wife. We're not dirtbags like the people in these books. We're not monsters. We're not any of those things that, that are projected. But what we can be as men. And men need to lead. And men, one of the ways you lead is by you burning those books or throwing them away and going, get them out of my house. Be the guy that she wants you to be. Women, women love having a guy that's going to take control of certain things. And that sounds really weird. And a lot of women love to push back on this. A lot of feminists, and yet those feminists are the ones that are buying these books that are loving this fantasy story where the woman gets, you know, she's just desired more than anything by this really powerful guy. Like, it's because there are tropes and there are, there are. What's the term that Peterson, Jordan Peterson used all the time? Types and Ana types, You know, those types of things. You know, a very Carl Jung approach to it. Like there are just, you know, the. What's the term that I'm looking for? Not types. Sorry, I'm blanking on it. [00:43:59] Speaker C: You know, you're making me draw a blank on it. I was gonna say I figured Jack [00:44:02] Speaker A: would have it, but either way, yeah, you're having these archetypes and. Yeah, those type of archetypes is what I was looking for. There are archetypes that go all the way back. [00:44:10] Speaker B: I didn't think antitype was the [00:44:14] Speaker A: archetype is what I was looking for. And so you have these archetypes, right, of a strong man and, and the damsel in distress type of thing. And women still love that desire, that is, even though the culture is trying to tell us otherwise. The problem is that a lot of men are too busy looking at porn, getting all the wrong conceptions of how to treat a female because of it. And so we're coming from two different angles that are really causing a lot of sexual problems to the point that Gen Z is like, I don't want it. Gen Z is not having sex. They're not experimenting, not doing any of those things, which on the one hand is really good. On the other hand that's coming from like a. They're really messed up about sex too. So we have an opportunity in the church to get this right. As long as we are not. We got to get our theology right, which is why we're having a conversation on whether we should be able to divorce. We just got to get our theology about sex right. Our understanding of like, what is this for? And women that are going to, to do this and bring this into the home. That's a very detrimental thing. [00:45:06] Speaker C: There's another part about the sexual dynamics you're talking about here that yeah, this is one of those, like you don't, you're not allowed to talk about. Doesn't. Nobody does talk about. So here we are, you know, 45 minutes into an episode, people who are still with us. Here you go. You get the, the good stuff is that women want guys, men of value, right? Men, not necessarily always like high status, but like guys that can do something, that guys who provide. Guys that, you know, there's, there's respectability, there's something about them or whatever. Men want attractive women, they want kind, warm women or whatever else. And in all of these, you mentioned that that's, you know, the stereotype type that the person is going for in their, their pornography, their, their videos or their, their novels or whatever. The other side in all of these is always you are, you get to be just the way you are as a dude. You know, they've got the chat bots, they've got the VR, the whatever that it's like, oh, these women just desire you. You just show up no matter what you look like, no matter. You can be the biggest loser in the world, but hey, here's a harem of women who all just want to talk to you. And the women's novel is starting back again with the Twilight thing. The most average girl in the world and all of a sudden the most, the best looking guy in the world, you know, who's a millionaire vampire, whatever he was, you know, like, oh, he just has to have her. Like, and apparently I don't read these books, but apparently that's the trope in all of them is, oh, just average girl, you know, comes into the workplace and the boss, the, the millionaire, high powered, you know, so and so he just wants her yeah, yeah. And it's like you don't have to change at all. You don't have to work for it. You don't have to present yourself as attractive. You don't have to accomplish anything that would make you desirable for the other person. And so it just makes you entirely lazy. And so this goes to bringing it. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Lazy, mental, entitled. [00:46:51] Speaker C: Yes, you deserve that. You just wait on that person. So you've got girls waiting. You know, like, I've got to have Mr. Perfect kind of thing and nobody's good enough for me, and the other way around. And so you take all of these things and you bring them into the church. It's no wonder you've got people who don't care about their looks, people who, you know, guys that aren't serious about their life. You guys are doing a good job with the gym podcast to say, strive for greatness, because a woman's not gonna want you if you're in your mom and dad's basement playing video games. 32 years old and 300 pounds. Yeah. Like, you've got to be a person of status. Well, porn tells you you don't have to be. And erotic literature tells you you don't have to be a kind, warm, attractive woman who tries a little bit and does your hair and tries to look nice. No, you don't have to do anything like that. The Superman's just gonna come and pick you out of the crowd. I mean, it's the. What it's doing to people's brains is insanity. Hey, folks, you've probably heard us talk about Focus plus and the Deep End. If you're wondering what that is, Focus plus is our subscription service available through Patreon. Every week, members get all kinds of Christian content for your walk, including daily devotionals, a sermon of the week, and our understudied teaching series, which Joe and I lead through obscure and less covered books of the Bible like Leviticus and Revelation. We also have the Deep End, of course, which is our bonus segment exclusively for Think Deeper listeners, where you can submit your comments on an episode and we will respond and have a bit of a Q and A each and every week. That drops every Friday. So if you're interested and want to know more, check that out. Go to patreon.com and search focuspress or go to focuspress.org/. [00:48:30] Speaker B: That's a great thought. That's a great take. Yeah, I mean, the other. Only other angle I was going to bring up about this is, you know, despite a small minority, I think that doesn't like to use the word and doesn't think the word porn should be used in the pulpit or, you know, ridiculousness like that. Obviously, there are lessons and things that go out where pornography is properly and rightly chastised. When's the last time you heard a sermon that mentioned women's erotic novels? I haven't heard. You know, Joe, you might have mentioned it last time, you know, whenever I heard a sermon from you or something. But, like, for the most part, that stuff doesn't get mentioned. And so I do think, you know, are they exactly the same? Are they on equal playing fields? No, but from a stereotypical or from. Not stereotypical. From a, you know, men's struggles, women's struggles. I think this is a huge struggle for women that just doesn't really get talked about. Like, it certainly doesn't get talked about from pulpits, Bible classes, things like that, because it presents itself as so harmless. And so that's where, again, as you're. As we're. I see. I try to see a lot of things through the lens of, you know, raising kids. And I started out the episode talking about how me doing everything I can to avoid. And I think that's probably the last thing on our outline here about, like, how do I give my sons the least amount of opportunities to lust and. And really, you know, remove those mental obstacles. Similarly, for girls, that's what we're gonna have to deal. Because, I mean, it's not. You know, there's other elements of this, too. For girls that, you know, whether it's movies or shows or whatever it is, we're going to have to be prepared to broaden our horizons when it comes to calling out things that are within this vein. And I just feel like we haven't done a good job of that in the church right now. [00:50:13] Speaker C: Joe, speak to on this. We did this a little bit with the men levels for women. Right. So you've got 50 shades of gray, which is just straight up sexual, whatever. But then there's Twilight, which I think ended up becoming a little bit sexual toward the end. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Allegedly a lot cleaner than that. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:31] Speaker C: So it's. It's not directly a porn erotic novel. [00:50:33] Speaker A: There was a sex scene in the fourth one, but it was okay, I think, so that. [00:50:37] Speaker C: So it's in there. [00:50:38] Speaker A: But I think the book, it was okay. [00:50:40] Speaker C: So. But then the. Let's say Pride and Prejudice, you know, like, it's not really a romance novel, but it's a relationship kind of thing. But pretty much everyone's okay with Pride and Prejudice, you start getting reservations of Twilight. And then the other stuff's like, whoa. You know. And so I want you to speak a little bit about, you know, for men. It's kind of you've got whatever website, then you've got like the Sports Illustrated, you know, swimsuit magazine they used to do or whatever. And then you've got just a show that has a. An attractive woman on it, but it's not, you know, about immodesty or showing off her body, but she's just that, you know, it's kind of like there's layers to that. But I mean, romance novels have been around for a long time. Not exactly erotic. So what would you say? I mean, older Christian women, like the day I was a Danielle Steele, I think was the lady for years and years wrote wrong. Would you say, don't do that, like, kind of categorize this for us a little bit, because we haven't gone into that side of it. [00:51:33] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's a great question or great thought on doing that. You know, the real underlying thing for all of this, like, why are you running toward it? Why are you reading these things? Women do like relationships. They like stories. They like, you know, and the question is how much they put themselves into it. That's what you have to be careful with. The same way that I would say with a guy, how much do you find yourself going after the really attractive woman on the TV show and finding that you really like the scenes with her in it, Even though it's not necessarily lust, you really gravitate toward it. I think women need to be aware of the same thing in those is like, how much are you putting yourself in the story as the object of desire? Because that's the key is men want to desire a really hot woman because that gives them status in a lot of ways. And this is stereotypical, not every guy, but, you know, by and large, that's a big drive. And women want to be the object of desire. They want to be desired. So all along the spectrum here, you're going to see both of those themes played out. The question is just how you navigate that a woman can get into a story, a Harlequin Romance or whatever that is. It's harmless. At the end of the day, they just enjoy the happily ever after type of thing, and that's okay. On the other hand, I think you can really get into the fantasy of relationships. And when you start living in fantasy is where it gets dangerous. And that could be even before you hit the Twilight, that could be Already happening where you are living in the fantasy and desiring that world more than you desire your own. Same thing with guys. Unless like I'm desiring the woman on the screen despite the fact that it really isn't that immodest. But yeah, she wears some tight revealing clothing from time to time. And I find that I'm desiring that woman more than I'm desiring, you know, my wife or I'm thinking about her later. Like that's how I comparisons to correct is it starts to get a little bit deeper inside rather than just at the top. Like, hey, I really like this TV show. And it happens to have this. Hey, I really like a good book that wraps up well. Just happens, you know, it's a romance book. That's fine versus now it's really settling in and the themes are coming up in our life more. I mean that would be. What I'd caution people against is just how much does this have a hold on you and how much are you really allowing in your life? That doesn't mean a guy can't ever watch TV show. There's pretty women, you know, all over the place. That's fine, but what do you do with it and how much are you allowing that to kind of be a focal point. So. And there's. I got so many thoughts on lust and where it comes from and why guys do it and everything else. But I think by and large it really does come down to desirability. And you know, both want to be desired. Guys want to be desired too, but they want to know that they once again got the really hot woman. That's why Genghis Khan had a bazillion and one women. That's why Solomon things like that. Like, yes, it's a high status thing to have women like you. And so guys think that it's really easy at 30,000 women online like you quote unquote and at no cost to yourself. Going back to your point, Jack. So we want to be desirable or we want to be, you know, be with somebody who is desirable because that makes us more desirable and women want to be desired. So both sides of that that really come into play with porn and such. And the other we didn't get to this. Women's porn statistics are also like increasing year by year. It is getting a lot worse. We didn't get into the onlyfans take, only fans is is turning it where women are now. They're becoming so much more sexualized than they used to. We always looked at it as A male problem. It is really turning toward a huge female problem that there. I've worked with plenty of female sex addicts out there. We don't think of it that way, but there are a lot of them. And that's the danger in this is like not just. It's not like if you read one book, you're a sex addict type of thing, but it can certainly open pathways. And if you are looking for the underlying things that those things give you, such as, I really hate myself, but that makes me feel better about myself. Yeah, that's right. For addiction. Because the self hatred is going to go toward porn, it's going to go toward erotica, it's going to go toward things like that. So just some things to be aware of. And we need to get in our, in the church. We need to like reframe our mind and realize this is a woman problem too. And both men and women are both looking for things from God that God has desired. Women want to be cherished, guys want to be respected. That's laid out by God. This is just a really warped way of getting those things. So I don't know if that answers your question in the least. Sorry. [00:55:35] Speaker B: But just a quick thought on the only fans thing which we had on the outline, but obviously we're running short on time here. It's scary because, man, 10 years ago you would have thought, man, access to, you know, pornography and illicit images and stuff, like explicit images and stuff like that. It's about as accessible as it's going to get. And then only fans came around to the point where it was not a highly paid actress. It was the girl down the street. It was somebody you went to high school with. It was, you know, like. And the fact that it started out essentially that whole platform started out as like a, you know, I just. You just create content for, you know, cool stuff that you do. And it turned into a site where girls just take their clothes off and get paid a ton of money. Just speaks to man, the, the. How debaucherous our society has become. But again, I guess the point I was zeroing in on was, man, we thought the access to pornography was bad a decade ago now with only fans where again, it's, it's not the, the highly paid actress. It's just somebody who is like, I want to make. It's like people side hustle, like that's, that's what's even scarier. So yeah, again, we had it on the outline. Didn't. Didn't get to, didn't Get a ton of time to. Didn't get to spend a ton of time on it. But obviously that's a, it's something that again, it's just more accessible for young people. [00:56:55] Speaker A: That's. Sorry, Jack. Get you in here in a second. That's where these things lead to, that is the danger of it is we eroticize everything. We live in a culture where we eroticize connection. This is actually a trauma based response. You see this in trauma a lot where like if there's sexual trauma at a young age, you start thinking that the connections you form with people come through sex. That's how I connect with people. That's how I'm loved. That's how I have value. And so you eroticize a lot of your connections. We're doing that as a culture. We are eroticizing any connection between a man and a woman. We can't have platonic relationships. We can't have, you know, a. Like now the average woman is trying to become a sex symbol and is trying to get the average guy to start lusting after her. And we have eroticized everything. And that is such a dangerous place to be. How did you get there? Because 165 million copies of, you know, 50 Shades of Gray where you told women that you are the sexual object. Like you said Jack, the average woman is the object of desire. How do you think you got to the OnlyFans? Because you told a bunch of average women, I'm sorry to say, but like a lot of the average women, that the billionaire wants her and now she's willing to actually post pictures on, on OnlyFans so as to get that. And the worst thing is the average only fans creator is like what, making like 20 bucks a month? So you're willing to put all of that out there and sell your soul for what? For 20 bucks a month type of thing? Because you've been sold this bill of goods, that your worth and value is found in your, your ability to perform sexually and your ability to get somebody to be aroused. That's eroticizing connection. And guys are more than willing to go along with this because it's, you know, female empowerment quote, unquote. And guys are like, yeah, I'll step back and let this happen all day long. Because we have a lot of unvirtuous men that are willing to take advantage of that and use that for their own, you know, their own pleasure. So it's just. And how do we get there for decades? I mean, playboy is what, 1957? So we're going 60, 70 years in the making on allowing for sexual content to the point that the average woman is now becoming our sexual content. That is a disaster, an absolute disaster. And we've seen this train wreck coming and it was. Is gonna be really, really bad in the future, in my opinion. I think it's gonna get worse from here, but I don't know. Onlyfans scares me to death. It's so dangerous. [00:59:07] Speaker C: I hope most of our listeners haven't heard of that. And as Will described, it's just a site where people can get on and upload pictures of themselves for their subscribers and make money on it. And the most. One of the, arguably the most disgusting things I've ever seen is driving my family on a road trip to Texas. There was a billboard of somebody saying, hey, here's my subscribe to my thing. And then, and thankfully the billboard didn't let them put, you know, something explicit of a picture of themselves, but like advertising their thing. And then driving around town, both here in Tennessee and when I lived in the Dallas area, you would see every now and then a bumper sticker. Hey, my only fans at is this. And it's like you see the person in the car and they're basically saying, if you want to see me naked, go to this website and pay money. What on earth, man? What is our society coming to? That. That is a thing that happens. And so ultimately this should all make you just really sad. It should make you sad for again, the marriages we talked about, what porn addicted men do to their marriage, what women in these, their unrealistic expectation from these books do to their marriages. What young women are doing to themselves. As you said, that they've got this sense of their value is in their. Yeah, their body and how it looks and how they can get people to look at them. And so the immodesty thing, people always, oh, don't talk about images, just tell men not to look. But like, yeah, great, tell them not to look. But also you need to tell a woman her value is not in getting people to look. I mean like that's, there's, there's a value that you have to protect in there. And it's really insane that we've got so many Christian leaders who will shout people down for telling a woman, hey, it's good to have clothes on. Like, we're so twisted on all of this stuff and it's so sad and it's ruining people's lives and I don't know, it's, it's something that just should not be. And so we've talked a lot about women on this one. Obviously as we, we mentioned at the start with men and what they do to their marriage. We're not, it's not one way or another. Anybody who has this sin problem, get it taken care of, deal with it, confront it, confess it, take it to somebody, get accountability, put software on your computer, do I mean, fight this tooth and nail because it will kill you and it will destroy basically everything you love. I mean that's the lesson of these marriages. That's the lesson of these young women. It's, it's not worth anything you think you're getting out of it. [01:01:20] Speaker A: I'll speak to the men as I wrap up. Men have the ability to fix this single handedly. Have the ability to fix this. And the way we do this is as we said, women like strong males. It's going to take a strong male to say, you are worth more than this. I'm not engaging in this. I'm not going to love you anymore or any less based off of sexual performance or anything else. I'm not going to subscribe to the onlyfans. I'm getting off of porn. And I'm learning to cherish the woman. Not women, but the woman in my life. I'm learning to cherish her. I'm going to drive all my sexuality back to her and have the Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon is great. It's all about having great sex. That's fantastic. That can happen in a God honoring context. It is a gift from God that Satan has warped and used against us. Men have the ability to reclaim that, so do women. But men can set the boundaries in their own home. What they let their daughters wear, what they let their wives wear, what they let their wives consume on social media, the things that they follow and their daughters and same thing with their sons, what they allow in their home. And men taking a stand against pornography all the way down the line. Like we don't do that here. And learning to have a God honoring view of sexuality and passing that down and treating your wife well and telling your daughter you have worth and value apart from taking your clothes off. Men can solve this. I'm telling you, like a generation or two of strong masculine men getting a handle on their sexuality and helping their wives understand, I'm a strong leader, follow me. And the women go, okay, okay, he's gonna, he's good. He's got us. We are safe under him. And women, when they are safe and secure are the most open sexually speaking. They're willing to receive. They love their husbands because they feel safe enough to actually open themselves to that. And so you got to be able to create the safety. I'm telling you, men have the ability to change all of this, in my opinion. It starts with us getting our own sexuality handled. [01:03:08] Speaker B: It's a great way to wrap. I don't want to add anything to that. I appreciate you guys for this discussion. Really hope that anybody who's listening, specifically, if you're subscribed to Focus plus, let us know your thoughts, let us know your questions. There's obviously so many different angles to this. There's so many different, you know, unfortunately, people that are caught up in this situation and so there's probably a question or angle that we did not get to tackle. And so let us know in the comments. We'll have an extra episode later this week where we will respond to that. And if you are not subscribed to Focus plus, then go to focuspress.org/ and subscribe. No, but let us know on social media as well. YouTube, Facebook, drop a comment, let us know. So again, not to beat a dead horse, it's an unfortunate thing that we have to have the discussion, but it is an important one. So I appreciate these guys and the thoughts and for us tackling this issue. And if there's nothing else, guys, I'm going to wrap us up right there. We will be back next week. [01:04:28] Speaker C: Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org.org donate thanks again for listening.