Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Your Husband Or Son Is Watching Porn — Now What? | Emeal “E.Z.” Zwayne
Episode Date: January 23, 2026Your Kids Are Watching Porn. Your Spouse Might Be Too. What Now? Tonight on Culture Apothecary, I talk with Emeal “E.Z.” Zwayne — pastor, speaker, and cultural commentator — about how porn is ...rewiring kids’ brains before middle school and destroying intimacy in marriages. We break down why the industry is bigger than Netflix, Disney, and the NFL combined, how it targets children and married men, and what parents and spouses can actually do to protect their homes and restore trust. This conversation is uncomfortable, but ignoring it will cost your family everything.Thank you to our sponsors!GEVITI: Use code "ALEX" to get 20% off your first purchaseCOZY EARTH: Use code "ALEX" for 40% offCROWDHEALTH: Use code “CULTURE” to get your first three months for only $99/monthZEBRA: Use code "ALEX" for 10% off any orderNATURAL SLOTH: Use code ALEX for 15% offJASPR: Use code "ALEX" to get $400 off your purchaseOur Guest:Emeal “E.Z.” ZwayneEmeal's Links:InstagramFacebookXBookEZ's Favorite Book: The Discipline of GraceEZ's Favorite Recipe: Tabbouleh Salad👗 Get Alex’s freshest fashion picks and exclusive guest recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox!Sign up for the newsletter HERE: WEEKLY NEWSLETTER SIGNUPFOLLOW ALEX:Instagram | @realalexclarkInstagram | @cultureapothecaryFacebook | @realalexclarkX | @yoalexrapzYouTube | @RealAlexClarkSpotify | Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark Apple Podcast | Culture Apothecary with Alex ClarkSubscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always talk to a qualified healthcare professional for any health-related questions or decisions.
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94% of 11-year-olds have seen porn.
What is happening to their brains before they even get to middle school?
Destruction, depression, isolation, inability to make decisions.
Porn isn't always the issue.
Men have pornographic machines in their brains.
We've got memory.
We've got imagination.
This is really the tragedy is that there are a lot of men who have this deception in their minds that masturbation's okay.
I can't tell you how many parents I've talked to and I've said,
hey, you know, what kind of filters do you have on your computers?
What kind of filters do you have on your kid's phones?
And they're just kind of like, what do you mean, filters?
What are you supposed to do when you catch your little boy watching porn
or find it on your husband's phone?
Pretend it's normal, blame hormones,
or finally confront the digital drug that's rewiring your family.
Today, we're exposing how porn is hijacking kids' brains before middle school
and killing real intimacy in marriages.
I'm joined by Easy's Wayne, Pastor,
and cultural commentator who helps men break free from sexual bondage and rebuild their lives,
their relationships, and spiritual health. We talk about why the porn industry is bigger than
Netflix, Disney, and the NFL combined, how it targets children and married men, what isolation
is doing to families and what parents and spouses can actually do to protect their homes and
restore trust. This conversation is uncomfortable, but ignoring it will cost your family everything.
If you want to watch this episode you can by subscribing to Real Alex Clark on YouTube or Culture
Apothecary on Spotify, if you're new,
here, we release two episodes a week where we bring on experts doing their best to heal a sick
culture physically, emotionally, or spiritually. If you're a first-time listener or long-time
listener, please pause, leave a five-star review before we get started. Let us know why you love
the show. Please welcome pastor and author EZ's Wayne to culture apothecary.
94% of 11-year-olds have seen porn. What is happening to their brains before they even get
to middle school? Destruction. A lot of people don't realize the effects on the neuroprone.
plasticity in the brain from looking at porn.
You know, we're living in an age, Alex, where people, because of how prevalent
pornography is, they have this mindset and understanding that it's not that harmful.
So it creates this deception.
But when you look at what happens, especially with young kids, in terms of depression,
isolation, inability to make decisions, pornography reeks havoc on the brain.
It gets them hooked from very early age and leads to all sorts of destructive behaviors.
Is it true that porn can literally shrink your capacity to have a sexual desire for your future spouse?
Oh, absolutely. In fact, you know, when you look at what's happened in Japan, people in Japan don't even want to get married anymore.
They don't want to have relations with an actual partner because they are so entrenched in pornography, so impacted by it, that they don't find pleasure.
an actual real intimacy anymore.
One thing that I see on social media a lot
and it's usually other men kind of dogging on other men.
Like when people talk about being addicted to porn,
they'll be like, what's wrong with you, brother?
Just walk away from the computer.
Like you're not an addict.
Like you can't be addicted to porn.
What's your response to that?
It's a lie.
And I mean, you know, look, common sense, first of all,
makes it clear that anything that you give yourself over to
for hours and hours and days and weeks and months
is going to get a hold on you.
But pornography, because it's related to the human function of sexuality, it takes you in an even deeper way.
I can't tell you how many men I've talked to who have gone to lengths that are unimaginable.
I remember one man in particular, this guy's at work.
He knows that he's being monitored.
His bosses talk to him.
He knows that it's going to cost him his job, and he's still looking at pornography at work.
The impact is beyond, I think, what people realize or even imagine.
What do you say to a guy who is like, you know, I can't help it?
It hurt.
It literally physically hurts if I don't get relief watching porn.
So I give him this scenario.
I say, let's say Elon Musk was up in one of his SpaceX rockets floating around in the sky.
He jumps out, parachutes down to you.
And he says, listen, if you go six months without looking at porn, 100 million bucks.
I mean, he's got it with him in a briefcase, right?
ready to give to you.
I don't know one single man who would not stop looking at porn for six months.
Every man would succeed and have victory.
So it's an issue of value.
I've often said value impacts behavior.
What we value will impact how we behave.
You know, we don't treat a penny in the same way we treat a $100 bill, right?
There are days I'm walking around, I'll see a penny on the ground or one will drop out of my pocket.
I don't give it the time of day to stoop down and pick it up.
But you and I would never do that with $100 bill.
So value impacts behavior.
But if the United States government suddenly switched those values and the penny became worth
$100 and the $100 bill became worth a penny, you can be sure that our behavior would change.
Start using the $100 bill as a scrap paper to ride on or maybe a napkin to wipe our hands with.
And then we'd we'd we'd week buckets of tears over all the pennies we didn't pick up
because we realized that we'd be a millionaire by now.
So it's an issue of value.
We need to reorient our value system.
Do you think there's correlation between pornography usage and this uptick in erectile dysfunction
we're seeing in really young men?
Oh, no question.
It's a known phenomenon.
Because what happens is when you have those massive dopamine dumps,
when you're entranced by unrealistic sexual behavior,
I mean, it's all dressed up.
It's all hyped.
You know, a lot of these people aren't drugs when they're engaging in these things.
It gets you to a place where normal sex doesn't even satisfy you anymore,
where it just doesn't do it for you anymore.
And that's why it even accelerates.
You see people getting into all kinds of deviant, pornographic behavior.
In fact, one of the most popular genres of porn right now is incest.
And who would fathom that?
But you have to go further and deeper in order for the satisfaction to intensify.
Talk about how the porn industry is bigger than Disney.
It's bigger than the NFL.
It's bigger than Netflix.
All combined, even.
Like, what are the sneaky ways that the porn industry?
porn industry is targeting men.
Well, it's everywhere.
You can't get away from it.
They infuse it into advertisement.
They infuse it into movies, into television programs, into podcasts.
Everywhere you go, you can't escape it.
But the problem is, Alex, isn't just what the industry is doing.
It's what people are not doing.
You mentioned kids earlier.
Especially what parents aren't doing to guard their kids.
I can't tell you how many parents I've talked to, and I've said,
hey, you know, what kind of filters do you have on your computers?
What kind of filters do you have on your kid's phones?
And they're just kind of like, what do you mean?
Filters.
And so there isn't any proactivity on the parts of parents
to make sure that their kids don't go in that direction.
And then at the same time, men don't guard themselves.
You know, I've often said that men don't realize,
and women, by that token, that we are at war.
And so because we don't realize that,
we kind of have this peacetime mentality when we're going through life when it comes to this issue of porn.
Imagine someone being diluted into thinking, like during World War II, a soldier during World War II,
being diluted into thinking that he's on a luxury cruise ship heading for the shores of Bora Bora to an exotic resort,
when in reality he's on a Higgins boat heading for the shores of World War II, Normandy.
Can you imagine this guy sauntering off the Higgins boat?
He's clad in his bathrobe, fluffy slippers, remote in one hand, a latte in the air.
the other, that guy's going to get smoked. And that's what's happening to men today. That's what's
happening to kids today. They have this peacetime mentality when we're smack dab in the middle of war
and nothing's being done. What sorts of questions on a date should a woman be asking a guy
about porn? You know, I have three daughters. And I've had suitors come my way, many of them,
for my daughters. And that's the first question I ask. One of my daughters is a lot older now,
and it's a question that she makes sure she asks at the beginning. And that is, hey, where are you
in this regard? And, you know, I heard a very well-known pastor say, the question isn't anymore,
do you look at pornography? The question is, is when was the last time you look at porn?
Yep. So I ask that probably like on the, I probably say like if I make it to like a third date.
I'm not going to say that on a first day. But on a third date, I'm,
I'm like, when was the last time you watched porn?
And they're like, ugh.
Yeah, like, what?
And the answers are really interesting.
You know, it's like probably like within the last month or so, I'm really trying to get better at it.
Or, I mean, probably like a couple years ago.
I really felt convicted about it.
Or, you know, never.
And I'm like, never.
And then, you know, I'm really pressing.
But, yeah, I think that's really important.
And it's a question.
Like, right now I feel like the hype is like, okay,
We're really grilling them about are you Christian?
We're really grilling them about your political views.
But like nobody is talking about this.
Right.
And what's interesting to me is the amount of women in my audience who are messaging me saying,
I've been married for four years and I'm just discovering my husband has like this serious porn issue.
And I'm like, wow, that it's scary.
I just feel so much for those women.
But if there was a way to find that out before even getting married, I mean, if you've got like a pathological liar when it comes to this issue and he's really hiding it like a true.
was like how do you think that you can kind of snuff this out yeah well first of all let me just say
that the question is so important and has to be asked and a lot of women have this misconception that
oh well maybe he's just struggling now because he's not married you know the guys that seem to
struggle with porn most are the guys that are married because they're now in that realm they're
experiencing it it gives them the opportunity to wander more in their thoughts and I can't tell you
how many men I know that they have plunged into that in marriage marriage is destroyed because of
it and I think a lot of
young women kind of want to plug their ears, close their eyes, and pretend like it's not going
on. Listen, if it exists before marriage, it's probably going to get worse after you're married,
and he's probably going to commit adultery on you. So if you're dating, and it's really serious,
and you're dating for marriage, and the guy says, you know, I used to really struggle with this,
but I'm a lot better now. What should be the follow-up question? Well, it depends on the nature of it.
Okay. So how long ago was it? How deep were you into it? One of the questions that I asked a young
man recently is what was the nature of the porn you looked at? Yeah, like what type? Yeah, like
what type of porn? Because that kind of tells you how addicted they were like if it was super
messed up basically. Yeah, absolutely. Again, because it progresses typically. Do you think that a guy
is less likely to be honest with the girl he's dating on that when it comes to the type of content
it was than like another guy at church, for example? I know that there is that possibility for
lying, right? And at the end of the day, you don't fully know, but at least you can take the
precautionary steps. I would even talk to his pastor, you know, I would go as much as you need to,
if you have any kind of suspicion in that regard. And if you do decide to date, be careful
in the process. You've got to examine his character. You've got to examine his spiritual bent.
You've got to examine his accountability. What does he have in place? Even if a guy looked at
porn, okay, we'll hit him with the question.
What have you done since then?
Do you use accountability software?
Do you have people that hold you accountable?
Have you read books on the subject?
What do you do when you're tempted?
All of those things are extremely important because the stronghold is so strong and so destructive.
And again, there's that lie that men can't help it.
It's not that they can't.
It's that they won't.
And something needs to radically change.
You know, I've often said, Alex, that if our love,
lungs were sitting on the outside of our chest, right, instead of housed with these walls of
flesh, you'd have a lot less smokers in the world, right? You've seen the healthy and the smoker's
lung like side by side in a picture online, I'm sure. But the problem is, is we don't see that
in the moment. So if men are able to see what pornography does to them on a spiritual level, on a
psychological level, on a social level, on a relational level, I think it'll be a wake-up call.
But there's just this blindness because we can't see the effects in the immediate.
Can you explain how porn watching makes real-life sex and intimacy boring, unsatisfying or awkward?
Well, again, as I mentioned earlier, it's that fantasizing that leads to what you're experiencing, not measuring up.
It's being lured into a world that doesn't comport with what you're really experiencing.
And so you're watching porn.
You're seeing this glamorous, fantastical world, and then you're interacting with another real person.
The person you're going to wake up in the morning next to who's got morning breath and who's
snoring and who, you know, you've got relational issues that have come into play.
And so people create these unrealistic expectations.
They're removed from real life when they're looking at porn.
And so when they're thrust back into real life, it just doesn't measure up.
And so that's what leads to adultery.
That's what leads to disconnection even within a marriage.
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What do you say to a Christian guy who says, I agree with you, I think porn is bad, so I don't watch
I still get myself off, but I'm not watching porn when I'm doing it. So I'm okay.
Yeah. Well, that's the thing, right? I often tell men that porn isn't always the issue in that
men have pornographic machines in their brains. We've got memory. We've got imagination.
And this is really the tragedy is that there are a lot of men who have this deception in their
minds that masturbation's okay. I remember years ago,
counseling a young man when I was pastoring. We're in the prayer room. And he was saying, man,
I don't know what's going on. You know, I'm in the word. I'm in prayer. I'm going to church.
I'm serving in my church. He said, but I feel this weakness. I feel this real kind of an inability to
have deep strength in my life. And I just looked at him. I said, do you masturbate? And, you know,
after the shock hit him, he's like, he goes, yeah, you think that has something to do with it?
So a lot of guys are desensitized.
You know, the act of sexual intimacy was created by God for a specific purpose.
A guy didn't wake up one Tuesday morning and say, oh, that's a good idea, right?
God designed it.
He fashioned it and he formed it for a specific purpose.
But when we get out of those bounds for which it was created, we're engaging in something unnatural and something sinful.
Sex was meant to be unifying between a man and a woman.
when you're not engaging in it in that way, then you're outside of God's bounds.
You know, I remember when we sat our kids down to have the talk.
You know, parents, when they have that talk with the kids, they're always nervous, anxious,
you know, ringing the hands, shifting the eyes, you know, and kids are like,
I never want to do that, you know.
And so, but I remember before we sat down with the kids, I said to my wife, I said,
honey, look, I want the kids to understand sex in light of the beautiful thing that it is.
And so it's important how we present it to them.
And so before we even sat down with them, I said, listen, kids,
mom and dad want to talk to you tonight about something amazing,
something beautiful, something wonderful that God created.
And, you know, they're all excited about it.
And so we sat down with them that night and we just, we laid it out.
But in the beautiful context in which sex should be presented.
And their minds were clear, right?
I love the saying that talks about how a child's mind is like a warehouse full of
empty shelves. Whoever gets there first and stalks those shelves is going to make it harder for the
next person to come unstock and restock them. And so I said, we want to beat the world to it.
And so it's important for us to remember, sex is beautiful, it's wonderful, it's amazing,
God made it, but Satan has twisted it, our flesh has perverted it, and the world has tainted it.
And so we need to get back to a place where we see it in the beautiful context in which God has
created it. What's your word of advice for a wife who is just in the middle of a season dealing
with a husband who's addicted pornography? You know, he says one minute he's getting better, he's doing
a great job, then she catches him slipping or he's saying he's not watching it. She finds out that he is
and she's just wondering like how long am I supposed to put up with this? You're not supposed to
put up with it at all. The problem is that because it's become so prevalent, women don't take any
steps, oh, I guess every guy does this. Oh, I guess he's got it under control. I don't want to upset him
and ruffle his feathers. Listen, anytime someone is in sin, anytime someone is in violation of God's
natural design, they're doing something unnatural and the end result is going to be destruction.
So here's what I would say to the wife, if you're approaching this from a selfless standpoint,
like Philippians too says, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit.
We're to consider others even more important than ourselves. If you love your husband, you're going to
recognize, aside from how this is impacting you and your marriage and your children, it's destroying
him. And so love would say, deal with it. So you've got to sit down with them. You've got to open up your
heart. You've got to come at him with love, compassion, but also honesty and saying,
listen, this is not right. And if he doesn't take heed, you've got to get others involved.
You've got to go to your pastor. You've got to go to close friends because it's not a light thing.
but because it's done privately and people don't see it expressed and the guy can go about life like normal like it's no big deal we don't do anything about it but it's not a light thing you can't just be half-hearted about how you address it besides a moral issue do you think that pornography is also a public health issue absolutely well all you have to do is look at the hard drives of pedophiles all you have to do is look at uh
you know, the collection of downloaded videos of men who rape women.
It's a massive health issue for our society in that regard.
But also, of course, as we've talked about,
the destruction of the individual themselves,
look, if I can convince someone that their brain cancer
is just a bad migraine headache,
I can convince them to take some extra strength Tylenol.
If I can convince someone that their intestinal
is just a bad stomachache,
I'll convince them to take some peptobismal
and end up destroying them.
And so we can't be light about this.
We've got to see it for what it really is.
You talk about the world, the flesh, and the devil attacking all areas of life.
Can you give examples where porn is just the tip of the iceberg for other cultural pressures?
You've got different elements that are at play.
Again, the spiritual is the most important.
And Satan's tactics are what they've always been.
It goes back to Eden in the garden, right?
when he was tempting Adam and Eve. And it began with first discontent. Has God said you can't eat of
every tree of the garden? Well, what did God really say? God said, you can eat of every tree except for one.
But the way Satan angled it, he made it sound like God is like, look, you can't eat of every tree.
You know, he said you can eat of every except for one. So he created discontent in them. Then it was
disbelief. No, no, no, you won't surely die the way God said that they would. And that's what
Satan does. He makes us think that the consequences for sexual sin aren't really what God says
that are going to be. You know, 1 Corinthians 618 says, every sin that a man commits, he commits
outside of the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. So scripture
is setting sexual sin apart as a distinct sin. And why is that? Because in the context of the chapter,
he's saying that when you commit sexual sin, you're joining Christ with a harlot because we're the
temple of the Holy Spirit. And Christ dwells in us. And
And so it's a serious saying. And then finally, it's deification. What did he end up saying to Eve? No, you will become like God. And that's the temptation of autonomy of, of, you know, my body, my choice in a sense, I can do what I want. And it's destructive. And then, you know, it leads to all kinds of cultural ramifications because we're not people of self-control. We're not people who are walking in the fear of God. We're not people who understand how we were made and why we were made and how we're to function.
somebody doesn't believe in spiritual warfare, how can they still recognize and respond to these
patterns practically?
Even secular experts are now recognizing the harm of porn.
Because for a long time, it was, oh, it's fine.
You can find entertainment through it.
Hey, it may even help your sexual dynamics within marriage.
But they're realizing now it's harm and its destruction.
So I would say to anybody, just like someone who may not be a Christian or have a spiritual
Bent, who's doing drugs, I'd say you've got to get help. You've got to stop. You've got to recognize
that this is only going to lead you down a pathway of a greater destruction. And so I would
encourage them as well to get others involved and to get help. I mean, again, the bondage
of sexual sin in many cases can exceed the bondage of heroin. It can exceed the bondage of
all sorts of chemical dependencies because it's that intense.
Because in a sense, there are chemical dynamics that are at work in it.
And so you've got to get help and you've got to recognize it.
Help is available, but you've got to take those steps.
If somebody catches their 8, 9, 10, 11-year-old son watching porn,
what is the correct way to deal with that and respond?
Well, in self-control, I think every parent I have five.
And I know the tendency when you come across something that's,
that's shocking is to fly off the handle. You've got to be careful that you deal with it delicately.
But at the same time, deliberately, I can't tell you how many parents I've talked to whose kids
have dabbled with porn, but they still haven't taken extreme measures. And so you have to take
those extreme measures. Eight, nine, ten, eleven-year-olds shouldn't be running around with phones
with internet access. Fully agree. That's the first problem. No iPads. If there's a computer,
It should be in a common area
where the whole family is at all times
nobody's allowed on the computer by themselves
without someone else in the room
I mean and the phones
is just unbelievable to me
Yeah and then parents are shocked
I can't believe my kid is doing this
It's like what do you expect
This is what really freaks me out
With friends of mine that have kids
Because almost all of my friends have kids
At this point
And what they're doing is like well
They're allowed to have a strategic
iPad time just for a few minutes a day
And they're allowed to go off
but they're just playing games.
Why is that kind of like a, it's a false security?
Because kids are a lot smarter than parents realize.
I've been educated by kids who have told me what they were doing to get around the system,
how they were able to access pornography.
On apps, you would think, what in the world does that have to do with porn?
But they're more media savvy or tech savvy than we realize.
And so you want to be.
be careful and giving them the opportunity to go in that direction. And you do it in love. Look,
the problem, Alex, is that parents are trying to tackle this when their kids are already
entrenched in it. So you have to have what I call, and I talk about it in my book,
preventative preparedness. You have to be determined to head off the dangers that lie ahead.
And so you've got to be proactive. These are your children, your custom. You're custom.
of the children of God that he's entrusted in your care. And you can't be lied about it.
What do you think is the right age to talk to your kids about porn?
I would say you kind of have kind of pre-talks, if you would, before you get to the main talk.
You talk to them about our propensity as people to be lured and tempted by things that are wrong.
You talk to them about desires that they might have that they could relate to even at a young age,
six, seven, eight, nine. As they enter preteen years, you start to up it a little bit. I'd say around
12, 13, you really open up that box in a deep way. And you may even need to before that,
depending on the circumstance your child is in. If your kid is in school, you need to talk about
it way sooner because they're going to get. Maybe like somebody might, you know, show you bad pictures.
Exactly. You're tactful with how you do it, with how you approach it.
But again, 95 or 94% of 11-year-olds will have looked at porn.
It's insanity.
And so you can't just have this thought of, oh, well, no big deal.
Even things that you're watching, a friend recently was watching, I think it was an Andy Griffith show.
And a commercial comes on with drag queens on it.
like Andy Griffith, you know? So you have to think ahead on what they might see, what they might hear
already. And so I'd say the sooner the better, but you adapt it to their age.
You talk a lot about how sex can be twisted into a weapon. How can somebody recognize
whether a natural desire has been turned destructive or not?
Well, whenever you're willing to sin against God in order to fulfill it,
whenever you're willing to hurt other people in order to satisfy yourself, you know, love,
has at its heart that desire to care about another more than you care about yourself, right?
Love the Lord of God without your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Well, we love God through glad obedience biblically. We love people through sacrificial service.
It says in the word, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
And, you know, when I talk to men about what it means to be a man, my book's called Fight Like a
man, right? And there's a reason for that. You know, we're living a day where, you know, we're living a day
where a Supreme Court justice, a candidate, couldn't even tell us what a real woman is and much less a man.
And so we're living in a day and age that's confused.
And when I talk about fighting like a man, I'm talking not so much about what we would consider as masculinity,
someone who's deep-voiced and buff and athletic.
That can all be true.
But a real man is someone that has courage, conviction, devotion, dedication, self-control.
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How do you balance the message of accountability with empathy for those who are struggling
with pornography?
Empathy is a must and should be natural because all of us have struggled with sin.
All of us have struggled with temptation.
All of us have struggled with the lure of lust.
And so there has to be that recognition of, wow, first of all, that could be me.
And second of all, maybe that has been me.
You know, when we look at scripture and it talks about a whole host of sexual sins in 1st Corinthians 6,
and then it says, and such were some of you.
And such were some of you.
So it's that reminder of that that was once us.
And so there has to be empathy and sympathy and compassion.
Otherwise, there's a blindness there, and it's going to be counterproductive.
Can you share a positive story where somebody successfully reframed sexual desire as a sacred connection rather than just something to consume?
You know, one of the things I did in my book at the end, which I'll do in every book I ever write, as I put an email address where I said, if this book has impacted you, I want to hear your story.
Love that.
I can't tell you how many, because yeah, it's like, you know, social media, you're going to get responses on your posts or whatever, but a book goes out, you just never know what happened or how it impacted anyone. And so I have a whole inbox that is full of emails from men whose lives have been changed through the truth of God's word. And it's been a joy. One in particular, whose marriage was on the brink. He said, hey, we were like on the brink. My wife was about to leave me. I read your book. I read the biblical principles in there.
I repented. I confessed to my wife. And it transformed everything. And I mean, I'm a man,
but I'm reading these things and I'm like bawling my eyes out. Because that's the thing. There is
hope in the Lord. That no matter how badly you've fallen, how deeply you've gone in a sexual sin,
there is hope. We're talking about the God who raises the dead. Yeah. And he can transform you.
Do you think that society leans too heavily on addiction language instead of bondage language?
Yeah. Why does that matter?
I think because sometimes addiction language is sort of a scapegoat type of approach to sexual sin.
And so I much prefer to talk about it as bondage because that's what sin is.
And scripture talks about that whoever you submit yourself to, you become that person's slave.
When someone recognizes, okay, this is bondage.
And what led to the bondage was my decision making.
and then there is a bondage breaker
whose name is Jesus Christ
who can transform my life.
That infuses the situation with more hope
versus, oh, it's just an addiction.
And I think that the language of bondage
also helps people to recognize
a spiritual root of it.
Because at the end of the day,
you asked me earlier,
what if someone doesn't have a spiritual bent?
At the end of the day,
whether they do or not
or claim to or not,
it's always spiritual.
It always comes down to what we're worshipping.
And if you're not worshiping
the true God, you're going to find another idol. And for many people, it's the idol of pornography
and sexual sin. What is the Nope principle? You kind of came up with this. How can that help men
struggling with porn? So one day I was counseling a young man, and I said, man, how are you doing
with porn? And he said, you know what? I'm doing pretty good. I could see kind of like a sort of a joy in
his response. Like, I'm doing really good. I said, how are you doing, though, with lust? Because this goes to the
question you asked earlier. I said, when you're going about your day, walking around, you see women,
or you're alone by yourself with your thoughts, how are you doing there? So he kind of hung his head,
a little discouraged, and just said, man, I'm not doing too well there. And I felt this sort of
zeal for purity and righteousness rise up in my heart. And I said, you know what, brother,
there just comes a time when we have to say enough is enough. I am done with this. We got to
just say, nope, it's over. I said, in fact, you know what, we need to say that word nope,
out loud, you know, because nope, it's got an edge to it. It's like, if you ask me, hey, can you
help me with this? And I go, no, it's one thing. If I go, nope, right? You know, like, I mean
business, right? It's no joke. So I said, we got to say it out loud because that commits us.
So I sensed it resonated with him. It resonated with me. So the next day, I'm leaving home,
heading to the office and these two women come jogging by my car, wearing barely anything.
And I suddenly instinctively caught myself going, nope, out loud in my car. And as soon as I said it,
I had this thought, I thought, man, I wish there was some sort of acrostick that could go along
with that word that would help me another man. And again, as soon as I thought it, it came to mind.
And it's no, N-O-P-E, not one peak even. Not one peak even. And then I thought, well, why not
one peak even? I thought, well, it's because it's fueled by what I love. And Jesus said,
whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom. That's what
we're doing when we're lusting, whether it's with porn or it's looking at other people or imagining or
whatever, we're called to walk forward for the glory of God as citizens of his kingdom. And when we're
looking at porn, we're looking back. We're not focused on the kingdom. And so I envision that as my
hand goes out to reach the handle of the plow, each one of my five fingers represents one of the
things that I love in life. And as I think on it, my fingers wrapping around the handle. So why nope?
Why not one peak even? Well, first, it's because I love my lord. The
one who paid the highest price ever paid for anything to redeem me. Next, I love my lady, the woman that I
vowed before heaven and earth to be faithful to. I don't want to wound her in any way whatsoever.
Next, I love my lineage, my children, my grandchildren. Those are to come from them. I know that my
sexual sin can destroy them. Next, I love his lambs, God's children that I'm called to be an example
to an impact. And finally, I love the lost, those that I'm called to be a witness to as an
ambassador of Jesus Christ. So because I love my Lord, because I love my Lord,
Because I love my lady, because I love my lineage, because I love his lambs, because I love the lost.
Nope, not one peak even.
Not now, not ever.
Not with my mind's eye, not with my physical eye.
Pornography is one thing.
And then I think about guys dealing with lust.
And I'm like, man, this seems even harder to me.
Like, lust to me seems like, well, I don't even know how you control that.
Like, is like thoughts that just pop up and what do you do?
I mean, so what do you say to guys about that?
Yeah.
Well, that's why my book has a subtitle.
a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity.
Because here's the problem.
Guys don't have a battle plan.
They don't give their hearts and minds
something to do when they're faced with sexual sin.
So they don't have the preventive of preparedness
ahead of time.
And then when they're in the midst of the battle,
they don't have a game plan.
And so I have what I call the six Cs to succeed.
And these are six points that are biblically based.
And each of them has an illiterated sentence
that men memorize it go along with it
so that they can train their heart and mind,
and they can go back to that,
just like with the note principle
when they're in the heat of the battle.
And so I'll just give you an example of a couple of them.
So the first one is creation.
And this is where I talk about the importance of realizing
what's going on when you're indulging in sexual immorality.
You think about what's involved in like the whole process of lust, right?
First you have vision.
Your eyes have 137 million light sensitive cells, right?
The focusing muscle moves about 100,000 times a day.
your eye has a built-in super sensitive light meter,
immediate automatic focusing,
wide-angle lens,
and full-color instantaneous reproduction.
Sounds like I'm talking about a camera, right?
But the camera was based on the human eye.
Then you have cognition.
So your eye is looking,
but of course your brain is processing.
You think about the human brain.
More nerve lines
than all the telephone lines
and the whole world put together.
Electrical signals from 200,000 living thermometer cells,
a half million pressure sensing cells,
three to four million pain sensing cells.
All the signals are from your eyes,
ears, nose, taste buds,
They're all routed to your brain.
You've got imagination, creativity, memory, recall.
Like, in what computer would you compare the human brain to?
And then finally you have coition, so vision, cognition, coition, and that's the word
coitus, which is related to sexual intimacy and the mechanisms of that.
You've got attraction.
You've got desire.
You've got pleasure.
You've got anatomical compatibility.
You've got procreation.
You are dealing with features and faculties that are.
are mind-blowing. But what we're doing is we're taking these wonders and we're using them as weapons
against God, ourselves, and others. And so that alliterated sentence is, wield wonders as wellsprings
for worship, not weapons for wounding. What we do, Alex, when we indulge in sexual sin,
whether it's pornography or it's fornication or adultery or masturbation or whatever, it's like
we're taking the Mona Lisa and we're using it as a doormat. It's like we're taking a grenade
and we're casually throwing it around like a football playfully.
We're dealing with priceless and powerful things.
And it's high time we wake up and realize these things aren't to be trifled with.
Can the nope principle be applied to things like gambling or food?
Yeah, because again, it comes down to self-control.
You think about it.
Everything in life comes down to self-control, right?
You're going to read God's word.
You've got to control yourself to do it.
You're not going to commit adulterter you've got to control yourself to do.
You're not going to look at porn.
You've got to control yourself to do it, right?
Everything is self-control. You could apply that to anything. But ultimately, it comes down to the fear of God. It comes down to love for Christ. You know, the last see see, the sweet Savior for strength, satisfaction, and sympathetic support. It has to be Christ. And what blows my mind is it tells us in Hebrews 4 that we don't have a high priest who can't sympathize with our weaknesses. He was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. And says, so we can come boldly to the throne of grace, we'll receive mercy.
seen find grace to help us in time and need. So Christ isn't looking at you as a believer in your
struggle with porn and just rolling his eyes and saying, you dumb idiot. He's looking at you and saying,
I love you. I was tempted in all points as you are. Right. I mean, the general temptation of lust,
of course, Christ would have been tempted by that. So he feels with you. He sympathizes with your
weaknesses and he calls you to run boldly to him. Scripture says that he doesn't quench a smoldering
wick, he doesn't break a bruised reed. You know, you see a little wick with an ember barely on there.
He fans it back into a flame. A bruised reed, he doesn't just break it and throw it away.
He mends it back to hell. That's what he does with people. So it has to be rooted in Christ
in love for him and the fear of God. There was an artist years ago that had this song
and he was talking about, you know, entering the kingdom. And it was kind of a pilgrim's
progress scene where he's heading for the kingdom and these enemies are coming at him.
And he talks about how the porn monster was coming at him. It's a hip-hop song. So it's lyrically
broken down that way. He said, with my sword, I hacked it to pieces because I'm way more attracted
to Jesus. And I thought, man, that nails it. We have to build an attraction for Christ, fall in love
with him, sit with him, spend time with him, grow in his word. That's going to be our greatest
tool and weapon in the fight against porn and sexual sin. You've brought up one of the main reasons
why men really feel like they're drowning on this issue is because they isolate themselves and they
live in echo chambers. Why is isolation so dangerous in porn struggles for men in particular?
And how does accountability prevent spiritual and relational decay? Proverbs 181 says that he who isolates
himself seeks his own desire, he quarrels against sound wisdom. I wouldn't be who I am today.
I couldn't have written this book today if I didn't have men in my life who speak into my life.
And I talk about what I call accountability fellowship, where it's not just chilling with the bros
and watching a game and talking just gibberish. It's about opening our lives up to each other.
I just got away with a group of 11 pastors. We went away and got accountable. We're looking at the pastors
around us that are dropping like flies. We said, man, we don't want that to happen to us.
And so we're getting accountable. We're opening our lives up to each other. And I talk about
how, look, it's going to take a number of elements.
First, it's going to take trust.
You've got to find guys that you trust.
And then it's going to take time.
You've got to invest the time that you need.
And then it's going to take transparency.
You've got to be willing to open your life because you can lie and hide it.
And then it's going to take teachability, your willingness to receive from others in that regard.
So that's key.
You've got to open up your life because you do end up in that echo chamber.
You don't have anyone who holds you accountable.
Asks you the hard questions.
Praise for you, encourages you.
I meet every month with a couple of different brothers.
Another brother I meet with on a weekly basis.
We ask ourselves the hard questions.
And there are times when we've asked,
have you lied about anything you just told me?
Yeah.
Right?
And that's why ultimately it comes down to the fear of God.
You can have all the accountability in the world.
You can have all the restrictions on your devices in the world.
But if you don't fear God, which means honor him,
are in awe of him, respect him,
have that healthy sense that you would have from a parent that you revere in terms of discipline
and so forth, then you're in big trouble.
How do you cultivate reverence in a generation that rarely views anything as sacred?
Well, it deals with understanding and value.
Like I said, what we value will impact how we behave with the illustration with the penny
and the $100 bill.
So we need to get back to opening what reveals to us the value of God, and that is his word.
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You've said that sexual sin is also sin against the cross. How does connecting pornography to
Christ's sacrifice, change motivation for holiness?
You know, it's crazy how the cross has become so devalued.
We see it worn as an accessory.
We see it used for decor.
But people don't recognize, like, what the cross is.
There are times, like, I'll see someone wearing a cross
and the most profane things coming out of their mouths with the cross right beneath them.
You know, we forget what the cross represents.
That represents God Almighty, who condensed himself into a man, giving his life to redeem his enemies.
When we're indulging in sexual sin, what we're doing is we're doing it, in fact, in the shadow of the cross.
We're sitting at the foot of the cross, indulging in that sexual sin.
And in essence, saying, what Jesus did meant nothing to me.
and we're basically spitting on the cross and we're stomping it beneath our feet.
And that principle in the book is stop spitting and stomping on such a sacred symbol.
We need to be crucified with Christ.
Jesus said, if anyone comes after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
And so when we reconnect with the value of the cross and that our sin cost Christ his life on the cross, it becomes sobering.
It can work kind of like a stopgate before we go, oh, I'm a bad.
about to do this in the shout of the cross to spit on it and stomp it beneath my feet.
We don't like thoughts like that.
They're uncomfortable.
But when we really uncover our sin for what it is, I think it could really help us to steer clear of it and really see what we're doing.
What are the biggest mistakes parents are making when they have the talk with their kids?
They're failing to help them understand how tempted they're going to be.
Oh, that's a good one.
When they face life.
Okay, so how do you do that? How do you explain that?
Yeah, you explain to them the subtleties of sin. You explain to them their tendency to rationalize
and excuse certain things that are going to lead them to harm. Well, I know that, you know,
and as they grow up especially, you know, I know that this ex-girlfriend of mine, you know,
was a big flame of mine back in the day. But, you know, it's been a while since we haven't been together.
and I just want to see what she's up to online right now as a married man.
Oh, oh, come on, what's a big deal?
I'm watching the show.
I know there's some sex scenes in it, but I can handle it.
I'm fine.
You know, the foolishness of thinking that we can handle certain things.
We need to recognize that we can't.
Oh, I'm just hanging out alone with my girlfriend in our apartment.
No one's around.
We're just cuddling on my bed.
You're crazy.
Sin is an enemy.
me, what lioness would give birth to her cubs in a hyena's den? What chicken would lay her eggs in a fox's
hole? What mouse would cuddle up to a boa constrictor? No, it doesn't happen. But you let them
understand their nature, their propensity to sin, the deceptiveness of sin, and the wisdom of being
on your guard. To what? Do us 1 Timothy 4.7 tells us, exercise yourself for godliness.
2.2. Flea youthful lust, right? First Thessalonians 4, 3 through 8, that you would know this is the will
of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality. So you have to be
proactive. You have to be all in. This is war. And you can never let your guard down. You can't
put your weapon down. You've got to fight. I love this from you. You said,
children's minds are like warehouses and that parents need to be stalking the shelves of their
warehouses responsibly before the digital world does.
Yeah.
Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's what I mentioned earlier.
You have to be proactive with your kids.
You know, your kids need to be raised by design, not by default.
Oh, yeah.
Think of the things, Alex, that we plan for in life.
We plan for our vacations.
we plan for our weddings, we planned for our careers, we planned for our educational goals,
we plan.
But when it comes to this area of raising the children, God's entrusted into our care,
we're just kind of doing it on the fly.
We have to pour ourselves into this and equip ourselves so that we can equip our children.
So you stock those shelves by family devotions.
You stock those shelves by good talks with your kids while doing fun things.
It's not about just like sit down and find every opportunity you can to connect and to speak to the issues of life.
Laugh with your kids.
Have fun with your kids.
Be tender, gentle.
Read books with your kids.
It's one of the things that we did early on with our kids.
We would read books at dinner time.
You know, we'd be eating dinner, talking.
I'd read a few pages of a book.
We talk about it, discuss it.
You know, you catacize your kids.
You teach them the foundations and the principles of the.
faith. You open up to them about your own life and God's grace and mercy and how he's worked in you.
And as you do that, you're not just giving them information. You're bonding their heart with
yours. You're creating in them this healthy sense of security. My parents love me.
My parents care about me. You know, we have five children and it's a joy to see all of them
at the stage of life that they're at, walking in purity uprightness. The third one's about
to get married.
I'm literally shook by this because I'm not kidding you, just tell you.
When I met you and your wife, I thought you guys were like parents of like really young kids.
Like I thought you were in like your late 30s or mid late 30.
I'm like, I don't understand how you have grandchildren.
Yeah, plastic surgery works wonders.
I'll give you my surgeon's number afterwards.
I've literally shook up like this whole time.
I'm like, what?
Yeah.
But anyway.
We got married young.
Okay.
I got married at 20.
Had our first is 21.
Whoa.
That's awesome.
And our oldest is 28 now.
Our youngest is 18.
And it's been such a joy.
You know, we have in our home a plaque that sits on our wall.
And it's connected to a family vision statement that I drafted years ago.
I sat my family down in the living room and I unveiled it to them.
And it reads like this, to gladly and passionately glorify God in every thought, affection, word, and deed,
while constantly enjoying him as our greatest pleasure and most precious treasure.
I've memorized that, my wife's memorized that, our five kids have memorized that.
It's become the foundation for our family devotions.
It's become the cornerstone of our discussions.
Because if there's anything I want my kids and their kids and their kids' kids to know,
is that they were made by God and for God.
And their calling is to live for His glory.
And so you start young with stuff like that, you know, and it really does make a difference.
How can somebody walk away from pornography and feel empowered rather than just shame?
Well, let me say this first. This may be a little bit controversial.
Oh, yes. We love that.
I think shame is a good thing.
Okay, yeah. Let me explain that. We're living in a culture that is constantly talking about getting rid of shame, getting rid of shame. Now, in part, I agree with that. But it has to be in its right context.
Wherever sin exists, we should experience shame. If we're living in rebellion, if we're living in sin, then it's appropriate to be a
ashamed. In scripture, it talks about a certain people group and it says they no longer know how to be
ashamed or how to blush. In the book of Thessalonians, it talks about how, you know, to remove such a one
from a money so that they may be ashamed. So there's biblical foundation for shame, which means what?
Having that sense of regret, that sense of remorse, that sense of even displeasure toward
yourself when it comes to your sin. But that shame should lead to repentance,
which should lead to freedom from shame.
So there's a difference between shame and guilt.
I think that guilt can be a part of shame or feeling a shame.
Okay.
But what happens is when you repent and get your life right with God, the shame can be removed.
Yeah.
The guilt can be removed.
Yes.
Otherwise, people are just dulling their consciences.
Oh, and that's the mindset.
I don't want to feel shame.
So I'm not going to listen to that.
You know, no, what I'm doing isn't wrong.
I don't want to, you know, feel shame.
No, no, no.
let the shame do its work, let the guilt do its work, to lead you to repentance, to receive
God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness, and then be free from the shackles of shame.
What should the church be doing to effectively deal with this issue and help men in the congregation?
Because, oh my gosh, I mean, I could do a whole podcast on this.
I just think historically, especially for millennials, the entire purity, porn, sex issue
has been so botched in the church, how they've dealt with.
with it. So what do we do now going forward, 26 and on? I'll tell you what has been one of my
greatest delights is I've had a couple of really large churches and some conferences that have
invited me and allowed me to speak on this topic. We have to stop pretending like this isn't
like probably the issue of our age in the church. Wow. We got to stop that. Like that's dumb.
Men are being ravaged. I mean, honestly, if if there was like some kind of chemical you could shoot out
across your congregation and the men that are looking at porn would glow or even the women,
right? Forty percent of women, by the way, are looking at porn. So it's not just a men's issue.
The whole place would light up. So a pastor's job is to shepherd the flock that's been
entrusted into his care. So you need to address it. You need to talk about it. You could do it
tactfully. You could do it tastefully. And you need to especially infuse it with grace.
But you can't pretend like it's not going on. You know, there's one pastor who just took his entire
men's group, a hundred men, it's a big church through my book. In fact, he wrote his own study guide
to take them through it. And we have a study guide that's coming out real soon as well, that's a
companion to the book. But address it, talk about it, ask the hard questions on an individual
basis with the men in your church. And they'll thank you for it because they'll see that you love
them. Talk about your book, Fight Like a Man. Who's it for? What do you cover? It's designed for men,
but I've been blown away by the number of women. Like I said, I have that, you know,
the number of women that have said they've read it and it's radically impacted them.
Because as you asked about other places where Nope can apply, the principles in the book apply to other
areas. So it's not just focused on just sexual immorality. The principles tie in with how we can
build a life that glorifies the Lord. So it's built for men, but but you know, works for women as
well. And it's broken down into four sections. And it's it's really about knowing who our enemy
is, what their tactics are against us and how to counterattack, how to combat those.
those enemies. And it's broken down to four parts. The world, the flesh, the devil, and then the
six seas and a nope. And you can get this on Amazon? Yeah, Amazon would be the main place to get it.
Fight like a man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. Let me just say, I've been
blown away by its success. It was endorsed by Dr. John MacArthur, which blew my mind before he
passed, like he's, you know, the pastor of pastors. That's so special. Yeah, it was endorsed by
Ray Comfort, endorsed by Owen Strand, which is a friend of mine that I know you've had on.
Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis wrote the Forward to the book.
All cool people.
And its debut, it was a number one new release and a number of categories
and one of the top selling books on all of Amazon.
So it's been awesome.
And again, the men that have written and have said it has transformed their lives.
It's been so encouraging.
Where can people find you on social media?
So you could check me out on Facebook, on Instagram.
You could check out our ministry, livingwaters.com.
And Emil Zwein is the name or Easy.
Zwayne is a handle.
If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would it be?
It would be the emphasis on who made you, why he made you, and why he put you here.
When all those questions are answered, you'll find that you'll have the remedy to every area of life.
And ultimately, that's all rooted and centered and grounded in the person of Jesus Christ.
I like that. That's like a remedy hack. Nobody's done that.
Nobody's done that on the show.
We got to hack it up.
Easy.
Thank you for coming on Culture Apothecary.
It's been a joy.
Thanks for having me.
Before we were Culture Apothecary, and it was the show by the old name, I did interview
a former porn star who became a Christian and totally changed his life.
I also interviewed a woman who battled with pornography addiction all throughout her teens
and early 20s.
I have not, though, until this moment, interviewed anybody on how to talk to your kids about sex
or what to do if you find your spouse or your child struggling with pornography.
So I really hope that this episode will bless you, your families,
and give you the tools that you need to tackle this problem
if it has presented itself in your own families.
Please leave a five-star review anywhere you get your podcast.
You can continue the discussion in the Kut Servitist's Facebook group.
I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.