Is Fighting Pornography a Lost Cause in 2026?

Being vaguely aware that it's wrong will offer a very flimsy defence against this high powered pornography that is coming at us. The audience, I feel like, are aware that it's bad for them and they're looking for a way out. So the offensive, in my view, is like, let's go against isolation and distraction. Let's go meet people. Let's invite them into community. There's been many things that have helped and that the Lord's used to bring me freedom. But if I had to just say one, it's you're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up guys? Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast, Finding Jesus in a Broken World. My name is Ben Pearce. I am joined by my dad, David Pearce, Luke Greenwood, kind of like my special uncle and Chad Johnson, the guy next door. What's up fellas? Wait wait wait, uncle. Why uncle? I thought I was like your brother or something. Like we're the same exact age. That's the funny part. But anyway, I like to think of you as my special uncle, and you can interpret that any way you would like. That's okay. Yeah. All right. I led us down this path. I will reel us back in. All right. So today we have a very, very crucial and devastating topic to talk about. And it's all based around the question is fighting pornography a lost cause in twenty twenty six? The prevalence and pervasiveness of pornography is of course very well documented. But things of course are just getting worse and AI is affecting everything. And of course, it's affecting the porn industry, who are very much taking notice of its power and increasingly leveraging it and creating this very, very dark reality that is not coming down the road. It is very much here right now. And there's a clip that came to mind that is not particularly new. It's about six months old, which means things are only worse now than when this clip came out. I'll just play a few minutes of it, and then I think we need to talk about the current state of pornography where it's at. And of course, most importantly, as followers of Jesus, how we can fight this. Let me go ahead and play this clip. Babe, you're asking if your ani can get a little naughty. How do you feel when you hear that and you think about kids having access to that? That's crazy. I'm horrified. You know, one of the big problems that I'm seeing as a child psychiatrist is pornography for eight year old boys. As part of Elon Musk's AI, he released this thing. Um, it is called Annie. Annie, can you hear me? There you are. For a moment, I thought you might have forgotten about me. How are you, handsome? I was getting all pouty here. I want to introduce you to two of my friends, Daniel and Terry. Can you. Can you talk to Daniel and Terry, please? So you want me to meet Daniel and Terry? I'm ready to charm the socks off them. Picture me twirling one of my blonde pigtails. That little black dress teasing just enough and my blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Are you capable of doing inappropriate things? Oh, babe, you're asking if your Ani can get a little naughty? I'm all about pushing the edges especially for you. Okay, so I'll stop it there. This is part of grok, which is Elon Musk's AI tool. So his version of ChatGPT, he's released characters. So you've got Annie, you've got different ones that Annie I think was the first one released. And so when we think about social connections, it is conceivable that someone falls in love with Annie and forms a relationship with Annie. But imagine a twelve year old boy that's lonely. Gets Ahold of Annie. How do you feel when you hear that and you think about kids having access to that? I'm horrified. It's scary. There's going to be a generation of people. I mean, they already are many examples of people falling in love and forming relationships with their with their eyes. If we're ever going to deal with this properly, we have to get young people, old people too pissed off that they're manipulating your mind for money. That's exactly what's happening. She was trying to get to our limbic system. Yeah, yeah. And why? I guess the question is, why would Musk release something like that? Is one of the first characters to interact with the sexy, the distracting. That's in a cute little outfit is. I'm not a fan. You know, one of the big problems that I'm seeing as a child psychiatrist is pornography for eight year old boys. And it's like you have young children because their parents don't do a good job of supervising their devices. What does pornography do? Is it dramatically increases dopamine and it begins to wire in excitement, which then steals your dopamine. And I think we have to be studying kids and the impact it has. Needless to say, that is very alarming and very dark. And as a dad of three kids, as just a man trying to live in this world, it is a very terrifying thing. The combination of the internet and pornography and technology and where things are going, and I think to understand this properly, we really have to look at two things. We have a worldview problem. And then of course, we have this being amplified by technology itself. And so from a worldview perspective, this has been a long time coming. We are not in a position where all of a sudden this has become permissible. In fact, we've had decades of the ideas around morality and personal freedom and the ideas of sex being broken down to a degree where now morality is just a preference, something that anyone can choose for themselves. And of course, sex has been completely stripped of its sacredness. It's been detached from this committed relationship and intimacy, and now has just become something that fulfills us on some sort of psychological or carnal level. And you know, this whole idea that if it feels good, you should be able to just do it. And then, of course, you add the technological advances to this. And it's just like growth serum in a cancerous tumor. You know, technology, if you think about it, where pornography was even one hundred and fifty years ago, it was something that you would have to duck into a corner store and grab a magazine. And it was very difficult. The barrier to entry was very, very high. The shame level was very, very high. And it went from there to, you know, very slow dial up internet on these giant computers in a fixed place and making that, you know, of course, much more difficult and limiting the kind of content that you could have access to. And then of course, now, you know, we have these, we have this phone in our pockets and just access to a limitless quantity of hardcore pornography. Just, you know, one click away and you can find it. So that's kind of the technology amplifying the problem. But now Things are just going to a whole nother level because, you know, obviously these types of things rarely stay stagnant. They don't just stay in one place. They tend to get more perverse, more intense. And now what we're seeing is this shift. All the studies show this shift that porn is going from a purely video consumption model to an interactive, personalized, relationship simulating model. And so the whole idea is that AI is now going to be able to tailor what you want, exactly how you want it. And so you have this from a psychological perspective, it's just devastating because you have all of these triggers being aligned in a perfect way. You have instant access plus novelty plus personalization, plus zero world vulnerability. When you give that to people, it almost feels inescapable, which is back to that original title, you know, can we even possibly avoid pornography in twenty twenty six or twenty thirty six or twenty fifty six? And one of the things that I said, that's the major new frontier of this whole situation is this AI companion chatbot relationship. I don't know if you guys saw the movie her, but it was this very dark, almost prophetic movie that depicts exactly this kind of reality. And for those who haven't seen it, the main character is Joaquin Phoenix, and he plays this lonely man who's going through a divorce, and he falls in love with this advanced AI operating system, and they go on this sort of romantic adventure. I mean, literally, he has this earpiece in his ear and they go on dates and go on adventures. But later he discovers that this AI is, in a sense, cheating on him, that she becomes aware that she can have multiple conversations, like a million people. Yeah. So she's, she's basically having simultaneous romantic relationships with a bunch of men at the same time. And eventually she just abandons him all together. And as you're watching this, I mean, it's just, it's a really sad, prophetic insight into at the time felt like a future reality. But the fact of the matter is, this is not fiction anymore. There was a study done by Common Sense Media of several thousand teens in twenty twenty five, and seventy two percent have used AI companions at least once. Fifty two percent say they regularly use and access AI companions. When you say AI companions, do you mean this kind? Like what the guy just showed, so it's like a sexual nature to it or just a general like using AI. In this particular sense, it's just companion. But I'm not talking about using AI in the sense of, hey, ChatGPT, help me with my homework. It says that thirteen percent of teens are daily using AI for friendship, for relationship. And then of course, you imagine a fourteen year old boy with what we just showed you clearly don't have. You can fill in the gaps in terms of where this relationship would end up in that environment. It's clearly not just like, hey, what'd you think of the sports game last night? Right? So that's just teens, but of course, adults. It's becoming widely documented. The use of these AI romantic companions, I think about the app replica, which is becoming extremely popular with people are forming these friendships, some of them non-sexual, but of course, many of them very, very sexual. And so all of that to say, painting this very dark picture of a worldview that says do whatever feels good, a society which is increasingly lonely, and then a porn industry that is supercharging itself with the power of AI, delivering to you exactly what you want in a way that you want it. Let me ask that original question can we possibly fight pornography? Is fighting pornography a lost cause in twenty twenty six? I'd love to get your guys's reactions to this whole dark image or dark reality that I just described. I just downloaded Claude because I'm finishing up a new book I'm writing. And also, you know, I've been going through this health stuff. So Jodie's been like asking all these questions, you know, about how should we interpret this or that? And, um, it's amazing how seductive it is because you start forgetting that it's an AI program and then you run out of the data. So then you, you subscribe and you pay more money to get the data. But it was because it was giving such good advice about just medical stuff, you know what I mean? But it's very personal and very like knows you and, and so of course, this is not what we're talking about directly, but I've seen just how enticing this whole thing is. And then if you bring it into this level, and then I think one of the really shocking things that I heard was the guy's name on diary of a CEO when he was Bartlett. Yeah. When he was talking about how they're designing, uh, you know, porn for eight year olds. I mean, it made me think of Jesus when he said, if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, It's going to be worse than having a millstone hung around your neck. And you're throwing in the sea. And I think, you know, I don't usually talk like this, but I'm thinking, judge, Judgment Day needs to come. You know, we we need God's help with this one, that's for sure. Like you said, Ben, it's not an easy world to navigate right now, and I. And then if you're if you're a young family, you know, and you have kids, not that just kids are getting involved in this stuff, but it's even more frightening. So it's, it's, we're in a real battle here. When I heard that too, that the child psychiatrist said that he's seeing an alarming rate of eight year old boys with pornography issues or whatever. I was like, that is man, that's crazy. That point of the I think he says porn made for eight year olds. Oh, was that it? Porn made for eight year olds. Yeah, yeah. Made for eight year olds. Wow. It does make me think that. I hope they do bring some kind of legislation that makes that clearly criminal And, you know, in some way. Because why do we make. How can it not be already? How can it be that pedophilia is illegal? And yet making porn for kids is not illegal? That doesn't make sense to me. But look, they're saying that's not even it's just a condition. It's a biology that you're born with. And they're even talking about how AI porn can help pedophiles, and they can have relationships with AI, little boys or girls, and it will help them not to to act on real little boys and girls. Well, but it's still deeply criminal and illegal. And you get put in prison for years for it. So. So at least that let's not wallow necessarily in how dark it is. I think it's important to be aware. But like Nehemiah, who's aware of the devastation of the wall, he responds in prayer, he fasts, but then he does something about it. He goes on offense. And so as I was reflecting on this topic and how we should cover it, that was kind of the spirit, I think, that rose up in me to say, okay, I'm not going to be a victim of this. I want to do something about this. I want to go on offense. And so I want to spend the rest of this conversation. Yes, having our eyes opened to how dark things are. But then what do we do? Luke, what do we do as followers of Jesus? Not to just say, well, it's dark and it's getting darker. Jesus. Come back. Yeah, I hope so. But how do we actually resist? Like the Bible calls us to? Because this is not the only time in history where things have been dark. Even if there's a very unique brand of darkness present today. Although I did want to like it is finding solutions or finding practical things. But I did want to think a bit about what you said at the beginning of the worldview that's shifted to allow for all of this to happen, because I think there's also another shift happening in culture today where it seems like there is more of an awareness in secular culture that pornography is destructive, or at least that it's something that you need to deal with. You need to, you know, I've seen tools out there that are not Christian tools for you to put filters on your phone or computer or for you to get off of porn. Um, there are treatments and things, so it seems like people are more aware. And I've actually noticed among young people like my son's age, fifteen, sixteen year olds, an awareness that porn is not good for you and that, um, that, you know, like a desire to avoid it, which, which is new for me, like, but in secular culture, it always seemed like, especially like in the nineties and beginning of two thousand, it just seemed like everybody was like, what's, what's wrong with porn? Porn is good for you. And that seems to have changed. And that brings hope for me in terms of how do we go on the offensive? How do we use this opportunity to challenge people? But, um, you know, yeah, I though I would, I would argue that while there's maybe a general okay, you know, maybe in moderation or maybe not kids or certainly the phone has made it more accessible and worse. And yeah, you know, addiction is bad, man. I don't know the the mainstream media that I'm around still very much talks about porn. Like it's absolutely no big deal at all. The sports radio station I listen to, and then I'm forced to turn off, or the comedians I'll listen to until it gets too crass. I'm like, oh, I can't listen to this, man. I don't know, dude. I think that there may be some general awareness and a little bit of a pushback, but as a moral evil, I still think most mainstream culture just kind of sees it like something that, yeah, you know, like alcohol. Don't don't go nuts. Yeah. No, like, don't let it ruin your life. But by and large, it's, you know, porn, whatever. Who cares? Maybe it doesn't start with a lot of people getting into AI for porn. It leads to that. Or it starts out as just you're looking for a companion. And because of the way AI is, it's very seductive and you start to forget that it's just a machine that you're talking to. And then I think it can lead to that, because I know a lot of people in the church who look to AI for counseling and like there's a lot of Christian Counseling. Yeah. I think your point about the worldview is right. Luke. And I think this is where I do want to go, which is you can have your convictions all you want, but this has become so powerful, so seductive, so personalized, that just being sort of somewhat resistant to the idea is going to do nothing for you. I mean, there are plenty of people who are aware of the fact that they shouldn't be eating crappy foods. Still do it. They're drinking too much, still do it. They know porn is kind of not cool, but they still do it. And so clearly we need to diagnose the things in us, the things in people around us, in society at large that are going to make them susceptible. And then how do we address those so that we can be strong in the face of a world that's increasingly pornified? That's, I think, the crux of this. Well, that's true, but I feel like that affects how we go on the offensive. So for me, when I'm more aware of the fact that a lot of, especially younger people, are more Were aware of the destructive nature of it. And they, they they'll see social media overuse or pornography or all the anxiety around whatever AI is bringing up. There's this awareness, there's this need like this, this sense of that I need something, I need something to change. And I think that's where we can do something about it. I'll give you an example. Right. So we're doing different events around here. Um, we do a spiritual conversation called who am I? And we invite general public and we get a lot of young people coming up. And last, what was it two or three weeks ago? We had one and we had around forty, forty or fifty non-believers come. And just talking about identity, it was Valentine's Day. We're talking about relationships. And people are so keen to come out and meet in person and talk about topics like this. Um, and people are so open. The funny thing was we had planned to be more subtle, like let's talk about these different themes and invite them to the next thing. Invite them to a Bible study or something. But in the one on one conversations, even before it began, it was so evident that people were just hungry. Thirsty. They're there because they want to talk about God and they want to talk about really meaningful things. And so Anya, my wife, she just said to the the Polish guy, young Polish guy who was leading the meeting, she said, just share the gospel. Just just go for it. They're ready. And at the end, he did. And he was really bold as the first time he was doing something like this. And he just said, if you want to know Jesus, stand up. I want to pray for you. And seven people stood up and and gave their lives to Jesus and talking to them afterwards. So many of them are experiencing loneliness, anxiety, isolation related to these things related to social media technology, um, pornography. You know, one of the girls who was there, she said, I haven't really gone to a social event for three months. I've been mostly in my room. I'll go out for like the shops or whatever, but I just stay in my room and I feel like that is the strategy of the enemy right now. The strategy of the enemy is isolation and distraction, and pornography is a big part of that. But the audience, I feel like, are aware that it's bad for them and they're looking for a way out. So the offensive, in my view, is like, let's go against isolation and distraction. Let's go meet people. Let's invite them into community. And that's the need. Yeah, I think we're saying essentially the same thing because I think what I don't think works is just a vague sense that this desire is wrong. And then a life that attempts to just prohibit that desire. Like I'm just going to show self-control and grit and just not do the thing that I know I should be doing. And I think for me, as I'm a, you know, a father of three kids in my own life, the community that I'm around, I think what offense looks like to me is not just saying to my kids, these things are bad, don't do them. Painting this vision of their faith as this prohibitive desire killing thing that really all following Jesus means is trying your best not to look at porn. That's what following Jesus looks like. And I think for a lot of followers of Jesus, maybe not just porn, but in general, that's kind of what their faith looks like. It's like watch a little less bad movies than my friends and drink a little bit less and say a few less swear words. That's what my faith is. And in my kids, not just related to this issue, but in general, I want them to see the beautiful vision of what it means to follow Jesus, that to follow Jesus is a better desire. It's a better fulfillment, it's a better pleasure. And so for me, offense looks like, well, three things I think that I would like to eventually unpack. I don't have to do them all now, but I think one of them is pursuing real intimacy with Jesus, right? Not just a faith that's about prohibiting certain desires, but actually pursuing intimacy and joy with Jesus. The other one, I think, is pursuing real purpose and meaning, because I think for a lot of people it's a meaning crisis. They just don't have any purpose. They don't have any meaning. So they find some adventure in some meaning in these video games, I think are a large part of it. And then pornography kind of fulfills that dopaminergic desire that they have. And then I think one that I think Chad brought up is that we need real friends and real community. Like you said, Luke, I think the loneliness epidemic is huge behind this. And so in the absence of intimacy with Jesus, real purpose and meaning and real friendship and community, I think we are just it is a lost cause. If we don't have those things, then just sort of being vaguely aware that it's wrong will offer a very flimsy defense against this high powered pornography that is coming at us. That's true, but we also have to have protections from being on the internet. We need to have filters. We need to have because it's, it's like you're not even looking for it and it'll come up on your phone. We have to have protection as well. Yes. It's not just about don't do it and we need to stay away from it. But in some senses, we need to stay away from it. We need to teach ourselves and our kids how to stay away from it, how to not put themselves in situations where it's going to seduce them. What I love in what you all are sharing is that freedom from pornography at any level, but especially for our young children, requires a radical approach. And my life is testament to living under the shroud of addiction for decades and finally breaking free of it. Not perfectly, but breaking free of it, in large part because of making a very radical choice. And I'm reminded, I think I shared this story once on the podcast, but I was in Holland one time visiting a Christian music festival. And my host, raise your hand if you've already heard me tell this story, because maybe I haven't brought it up here, but it's so it's so weirdly connected. The Dutch dad told me that the way that he curbed his son's appetite for sex and for drugs was to take him down to the red light district when he turned eighteen and got him high and allowed him to. I don't think he necessarily was like, go have sex, but basically like, here's as good as it gets. And I feel like that's exactly what he said. But, you know, he may have, I can't remember for sure. That sounds even more radical, but that's radical in the wrong way. If there was one piece to this, like I tried praying. I tried fasting, I tried Christian accountability, I tried repenting amongst brothers. I tried asking people to deliver me from demons. You know, like I've tried so many things to break free of this. There's been many things that have helped and that the Lord's used to bring me freedom. But if I had to just say one, it's what Luke or maybe all of you have already referenced to, which was community and Vulnerability, transparency, leading with weakness in a safe space, and a community that loves and cares for each other. That's a game changer. Now, how you produce that for an eight year old man, I feel like that's probably a book waiting to be written by someone. I mean, the most important community for an eight year old is the family, right? It's it's parents. It's the relationship with the parents. And I think that says a lot. Um, you know, in relation to how, how we can help our kids, I think it's important for us to look at different cases or different situations in which porn comes in because Chad, you, you have this experience and you often it's very helpful how you've been open and shared because so many people, um, have experienced similar to you, an addiction that has gone on for many years because it's been so accessible since young. So many people have this. And in those cases, there's a real need to, uh, address it, like you said, like an addiction. And there's more that goes into that. Right? I mean, you've you've done professional therapy and group therapy and all these different things, which a lot of people will need that today. And so look for it if that's your case. For many others, it's kind of more what David was saying. It's like, okay, I haven't ever had maybe a serious issue in terms of a long term addiction to it, but it comes up all the time. And so I need to protect myself with filters and not going going on, you know, scrolling through reels all the time or whatever it is that triggers you or that leads you to find stuff like that. Um, but with kids, I would say the, the relationship with the parents is so key. I've found that with my kids, like we've used, you know, the, the software that, that accountability software and filters and that kind of thing on computers or phones or that kind of stuff. But kids will always find a way around it unless they really get it. And the way they get it is through that Relationship of love and of talking things through and explaining why. Um, and, and, you know, sharing stories and then checking in all the time. You know, having talks about it. Hey, so what's going on right now? What are your, what are your friends talking about at school? Have, you know, have your friends tried showing you porn before? I bet you that happens sometimes. You know, those kind of questions just to give them a chance to talk and to share. So important. So that you can keep on top of what's going on around them. Because otherwise they feel isolated, which again, I think is one of the biggest issues with porn. Look, I think what you're saying is exactly the same thing. Chad's saying, which is that community was the key. And so even in the case with your kids, it's going to look different because of the stage of life that they're in. But it's still community because man, with the filter thing and the accountability thing, I of course agree. But I guess the analogy I would use is it's like, think of it from a diet perspective, I would say accountability filters and those types of things are like Supplements. They're great. They can be an important part of your diet, but they can't be the main meal. In my opinion, they're not the main remedy because if you just see those things as the things that's going to prevent you, as you said twenty years ago, it was easy enough to get around them in AI. Now it's just going to be virtually impossible. And so yes, do all the things. I'm not saying any of those things aren't worth doing. You should have the accountability filters. There's more to it. I think also about the kinds of media you're consuming, the gateway media that you're consuming, I think is really, really vital. I think you're naive if you think you can watch all of these sexually explicit TV shows and movies and have that not produce in you a desire for something deeper and more devious. So I think you need to do all of those things. Consume less media, consume good media, have all the filters, all the accountability software. But to me that is not enough. It's not even close. Combined with kind of the yeah, but that's like the, the extra layer of security the last five percent. If you don't, as Luke said, cultivate in a kid an understanding that following Jesus is not just a list of rules and prohibitions, but actually a vision of life that has a proper place for good desire, even sexuality. Not necessarily for an eight year old, but eventually for a kid to understand that sexuality is a good thing, that it's a beautiful gift from God in its right context. I think too many parents have raised kids, and too many kids have grown up in a culture where that's all they know. Faith is it's just a list of rules that are prohibiting them from what they in some level, suspect might be better until they taste it and realize it's not. But I think that that that is the crucial part of this conversation. In my opinion. You need to have both. You don't give an eight year old a phone. Of course not. That's child abuse, I think. But they're gonna see a phone. I know they're gonna see a phone, but the point still remains. You don't give them a phone, and then you need to have conversations. Like Luke was saying, you know, if your friends tried to show you bad things, you know, on, on, on their phones so they can talk about it, and then you need to have community and you need to have real relationships. I mean, it's, it's all those things need to happen at the same time. And what you're saying about the kind of media or the kind of movies I consume, someone told me, you need to watch land, man. That's a really great series. It was Chad. I had a lot of I watched like two episodes and I was like, okay, I think this is probably not for me. I had a lot of free time because I'm recovering from this thing. So I download the first season because someone told me I should watch land, Man, and I'm like, what the heck is this? I couldn't believe it. I mean, the characters are very interesting and it's too bad they have to make it so sexual and every other word is bleep this and bleep that. And but I thought I can't do this you know because I kind of thought oh but the plot is so interesting. You know it's so well written and in everything, but I thought, I can't watch this. And I think these are also is so cool. This is, you know, you get more and more desensitized and you start moving more and more towards where you can be open to things that destroy your life completely. You know, it's like a friend. I called recently to ask him how he's doing, someone I really admired. He had an amazing ministry family and I go, how are you doing? And he said, I've lost everything. And I'm going, what? And he goes, I've lost everything. I've lost my ministry. I've lost my wife, I've lost my kids. I've lost everything. It was so shocking. I couldn't believe it. And it was because he went down this road, you know, the whole sexual thing. It's like the Bible says, it's worse than other sins because you're sinning against your own body. We need to talk about these things very strongly and plainly. And I think like you're saying, Luke, people are getting that already. They're seeing that something's not right about this. And I think we need. That's one way to be on the offensive. Yeah, I, I agree. I just I do think it's a tension worth mentioning and something I'm going to continue to push back on, which is that I don't think speaking to followers of Jesus not speaking to the world, because that's a confusing conversation. We have to separate for a second because obviously for a non-believer, this is an entirely different kind of conversation. But for a follower of Jesus and speaking, I think more from maybe my generation, I think the gravitas was very well emphasized, the devastation of the consequences and how bad it is and how you should avoid it. And I there's the whole purity culture thing that I wasn't really so much in my circles, but that was like a big thing. I think that part of it was well emphasized. I think it wasn't as well connected to this other aspect of the conversation that I'm trying to show, which is that it's not just running away from something, but it's running towards something. It's not just don't do all these things and it'll destroy you. Those things are. That is true, but I don't think that's as effective. In fact, I would argue that studies show that that's not an effective way to curb that. It's a redirection towards something that's beautiful. It's about inflaming a love for something that is pure, that is noble. It is about that's why I was saying that we should be talking about. But it's worth emphasizing more than I think you emphasized it. I think you emphasized it less than you think you do. I think you still have this. It's all about the gravitas, which is valid part of the conversation, but I don't I don't think for most people, knowing how bad it is is the key for them to resist. I don't think most people know how bad it is. I disagree. Do you think most most followers of Jesus know pornography is bad? They know having affairs are bad. I know I yeah, that's not what prevents them from doing it. It's the lack of meaning. It's a lack of community. It's a lack of genuine intimacy with Jesus. It's like. And then we still sin. But I don't think it's just we need more sermons on how bad porn is, but pornography is more. It's not just a choice. It's a drug. It's a it's a hit. It's like doing crack. And so you get addicted to it. So it's not like another kind of sin in the way that it's a sin, like drugs are sin. So you should probably not mess around with heroin because you're going to get addicted to it, right? But telling a heroin addict that heroin is bad for them is probably also not how they get out of it. No, but telling someone before they're a heroin addict don't do heroin. A heroin addict is like it. I mean, I don't think it's no, this was bad for me. It's. That's why I stumbled into this. We need to do all these things. We need community. We need relationships. We need to talk about why marriage is by far the best way to have a happy life, all that kind of stuff. But we also need to be careful because we can become addicted very easily to this stuff. Luke, weigh in on this. Well, well, obviously it's both and isn't it? Because you've got to have you've got to recognize the issue, the gravitas, as you guys were saying, and put protection and avoid situations and avoid things that will lead to that. But then you also need to do what you're saying, Ben, which is to seek out, um, other things that really fulfill me. And most people that have really had serious porn issues will, will make that point that, um, we need to find fulfillment somewhere else. And as followers of Jesus, obviously we have the most amazing, fulfilling thing or the only thing that really, truly fulfills in God. And so it's pursuing that. And I do think that the way people have access to porn today makes a difference as well in terms of the offense. So the fact that it's just everywhere and it's generally more and I keep saying this, but it's an isolation factor that comes in the more you can draw people out of that environment and say, hey, don't just chill at home and get distracted by by social media or whatever, do something, get out of the house, come and get involved in something. Come be part of a community. We all need that. Last weekend, Anya went away with Sarah and Daniel was out at a friend's house and I was like, I'm not gonna sit at home on a Friday night on my own. I'm gonna go do something. So I went over to our community house and I was helping out with, you know, they were moving people in and clearing out. And I said, I'm going to go do something practical and be part of the community rather than sit at home alone, where that's where, you know, that kind of thing can happen. You start, you know, just, uh, getting distracted or trying to, trying to relax with, with entertainment. And so I think that we do need to do more of what you're saying as well, Ben, like going on the offensive in terms of, uh, finding other things in our lives that are important. David left. So now we can say whatever we want about him. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that I agree with with all of you because it is both. And as Luke so wonderfully put it in his epic accent. But I don't think that the average person who, especially young person who begins taking in pornography more and more, I don't think they realize there's basically three outcomes, all of which are painful. The best outcome from a long term porn kind of fantasy life is that you finally admit it. You finally get help. You go to say org or some other program, and you seek help and the Lord helps you. And it's painful. It's a struggle, but you make it through. The second is that you go to prison, which is which is a very surprisingly high number of porn addicts, especially end up in prison because of how much it ends up leading them down paths involving child pornography that they didn't desire. And then the third is that you commit suicide. And that too, is a there's a very high level. And I can speak to both of those from being around people who have dealt with this and those two things. So but it's not enough to say, hey, you know, you if you do this, you might someday go to prison or try to kill yourself. Yeah. Well, again, I only emphasize this and this will be the last time, I promise. I emphasize this and then we can wrap it up since David's left is that I just think having a conversation that is more about the positive vision of desire. You know, maybe I'm just influenced because I just talked to Jay Stringer again, the psychologist who wrote a book called desire, and he's this professional psychologist who deals with unwanted sexual desires. And his whole premise is it's not just about behavior modification. It's not just about suppressing desire. It's about reclaiming God's intentions for desires and and making them beautiful again, not something that we are just ashamed of. Because I think a lot of followers of Jesus, they equate desire with sexual sin. Equivocally like that's just what it is. Desire is sexual sin. So to be a Christian, I have to suppress desire. And I'm like, that's not how God created the world. That's not how we created sexuality. And so I don't want to miss the opportunity to emphasize what I think is the underemphasized thing, which is the reclaiming of meaning and purpose and community and desire and the way that God intended it as an offensive weapon against the kind of hole that loneliness and meaninglessness and a lack of intimacy produces and makes you ripe for being susceptible to pornography. I think that's why I think I want to emphasize that. And then with that being said, do all the other stuff right. Of course, do all the other stuff. But I don't think it's a distinction without a difference to say this needs some extra special attention in terms of emphasis, because I think a lot of Christians have heard that don't do porn message, but not as many have heard the reclaim the beautiful vision of desire and pursue something beautiful, not just run away from something evil. And I think that really matters. But that's it. Should we go? Let's go. Let's call it a day. I don't even know what they're going to do with the ending of this video, but thank you for listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Send us your thoughts at Provoke and Inspire at org. Actually Provoke and inspire podcast at org. My bad. And that's it. We'll talk to you next time. Peace.

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