Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1240 | TikTok’s Spicy Novels Are Warping Women’s Minds

Starting point is 00:00:00 The dark world of steamy romance novels is much bigger and more powerful than you think. It is very deeply affecting women psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually, perhaps even politically. We are going to explore the depths of this sphere today and explain exactly why this matters so much to Christians. If you love this podcast, please make sure you are subscribed on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Google Play. leave us a five-star review wherever you listen. It helps us out a lot. All right, without further ado, here's today's episode of Relatable. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. All right. I have been wanting to dive into this subject for a while, and that is the subject of dark romance and the hold that it has on so many women and how it is

Starting point is 00:01:06 affecting young women politically, psychologically, most importantly, spiritually. We've been gathering a lot of information and data on this subject for a while, but it was this particular post on X that just stopped me in my tracks and made me go even deeper into this subject because I realized just how disturbing things are getting in the world of social media book reviews. There is a book that is apparently very popular. I thought that it was a joke when I first saw it on X. And let me just tell you before we put the picture up, okay? And before we get into all of this,

Starting point is 00:01:46 if you couldn't tell by the title and the subject that I just introduced, this is at the very least, PG-13. Okay, like I would actually tell you, if your teenage daughter listens to Relatable, most episodes are great to listen to with the family. This episode, I would say not, okay? and I take no enjoyment from talking about this and you're going to think, oh my gosh, I can't believe that she's saying these titles. I want you to know, though, what is going on. Because if you do

Starting point is 00:02:14 have a daughter or you have a friend or you have someone that you know in your life who is into these kinds of books, you need to know what is going into their mind, the input that is going and that might be affecting the output. And to do that, we've got to get specific. It's not enough for me to just say, oh yeah, this is a trend. Believe me, I got to show you what's going on in the world and why women think the way that they do today in large part. Okay, so here's the book, y'all. It is called Morning Glory Milking Farm. Okay. And I mean, you could probably put the pieces together and kind of deduce what the euphemisms mean. If you are listening to this on the audio side instead of watching this, first you should be watching on Spotify or YouTube. It'll help you to see the visuals here.

Starting point is 00:02:58 me tell you what's going on. Okay, we have what looks like a cow. Okay. We've got a bowl. But he also is human. He's got biceps. He's muscular. And then we've got this woman who is obviously completely in love with this animal. Okay. And she's leaning against him. And this says morning glory milking farm. You can see that it's sexual right away. This author is apparently a best-selling author, is disturbing in and of itself. And what also caught my eye at the top here is, it says, a monster bait romance. So you're telling me that this is a theme, that there are other books that fit into this theme into this category. So as we started researching this, I wanted to know, is it real? And is this something that a bunch of people are reading? There is a reviewer on Reddit,

Starting point is 00:03:51 which Reddit is just a cesspool of some of the worst opinions in the world. But a redditor called this book, one of the hottest books that they have ever read. This writer, C.M. Nisgusta, claimed on Instagram that she has Afantasia, a condition where someone can't form mental images or scenes in their mind and cannot actually picture the stuff that she's writing. So I'm not sure if this person is saying this as an excuse, like, I had no idea that I was writing really weird, freaky stuff. or if I don't know, it's just a strange part of this person's character. And it's just also ironic that you are causing people to picture basically bestiality and weird dark fantasies, but you yourself aren't able to picture them.

Starting point is 00:04:40 The book is very popular on something called Book Talk. And we are going to talk about Book Talk today and how it is advancing some of the worst ideas and promoting some of the worst resources for women. So this TikTok had a lot of views. It was a part of book talk. And I guess this is a trend on book talk where these avid readers and romance readers try to explain the plot of some of the books that they're reading to their husbands or to another person. So just bear with me.

Starting point is 00:05:11 This person is going to explain what this very popular book that women are consuming is about. Soot 7. So the book starts off with a woman and she's down on her luck. and she sees a job advertisement for a milking farm. And it's not a normal milking farm like with cows. What it is is it's big, bulky minotars. And it's a special type of milking if you know what I'm talking about. Okay, so yikes.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Apparently this is the kind of stuff that women are reading. And it has only gotten worse and worse over the past few years. You remember 50 shades of gray. Do you remember when that premiered? I, of course, have not read the book. I have not seen the movie, but it was a really big deal when this came out. This movie, this book was promoting something called BDSM, which is basically violent and humiliation-based sexual acts. It's supposed to be consensual and in this world in which consent is considered the only standard of morality. It was seen as subversive but cool and women were escaping to, this fantasy and if their husbands weren't giving them everything they needed, then maybe women should be able to read 50 Shades of Gray and get the sexual satisfaction that they're looking for. So many different problems with this.

Starting point is 00:06:33 But we see that in 2015, when 50 Shades of Gray was published, that it made so much money, that it sold so many books, that it grows so much at the box office, that this was obviously tapping into a desire that many women had and that this was actually going to leave to a boom of this genre. And as we know, the sexual revolution moves really fast. In 2015, we also saw that the Obergefell decision was made by the Supreme Court, which said that gay marriage is a human right that has to be recognized or that is recognized by the Constitution. And in just a matter of 10 years, we got Drag Queen Story Hour. We have parents losing custody of their kids because they won't affirm that their child was born in the wrong body. So the sexual revolution,

Starting point is 00:07:24 whether it comes to LGBTQ or whether it comes to sexual promiscuity, sex outside of marriage, moves very, very quickly because that is the nature of sin. That is the nature of chaos and disorder. It accelerates and it breeds more disorder. And so that is what has happened actually specifically in the genre of romance that is targeting women that is so popular among the young women in America today. We'll get into more of that background in just a second. Let me go ahead and pause and tell you about our first sponsor. It's Carly Jean Los Angeles.

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Starting point is 00:09:01 merch at Share the Arrows last year. Well, guess what? We are going to have it back, but even better and even cuter this year. And we are going to make sure that there's enough. But the Share the Arrow's merch is only available for those who will be at Share the Arrows. Go to Carly Jean Los Angeles.com. Use code AllieB for 20% off site wide. That is such a good deal. Use code AliB at Carly Jean Los Angeles.com for 20% off. Okay, let's talk a little bit more about 50 shades of gray. This is probably the prime example that still comes into a lot of people's brains

Starting point is 00:09:42 when they think of this genre of smut or erotic literature. Now, what? it appears, so I am told, what appears on screen when it comes to 50 Shades of Gray is actually a lot more PG or PG-13 than what you read in the books. And that is a very important thing to remember about these books is that there aren't the same regulations and need for ratings and screaming when it comes to books. There are certain parameters that typically have to be followed to be on a streaming service, to be on television, even to be in a movie. Now, of course, the boundaries have gotten looser and looser over time, but that is not the case for books. And I think a lot of people think if something is written down, that it's not

Starting point is 00:10:32 going to be as bad. It's not going to be as explicit if I'm not seeing a picture. But the mental picture that is being put in people's minds by this literature is, I would argue, just as powerful just is brain chemistry altering as watching pornography or watching an erotic movie. So let me tell you some examples of this kind of smut genre that people, according to book talk and according to just the numbers that we see, are really into right now. And you'll see just how dark this is, okay, that this is not just about pornography. This is not just about emotional romantic fantasy, but this is about, in many cases the dark and demonic. So we have this series called the Lord series. It's by Chantelle

Starting point is 00:11:22 Tassier. Characters makes love with revenge, hurting each other emotionally or through power plays in a secret society before reaching twisted resolutions. Intense relationships feature one partner dominating the other with jealousy and control, creating a tense dark atmosphere. What's interesting is that this is a common theme, male domination of women, men overtaking women. in a lot of these romantic novels, irony is, is that a lot of the women who just eat this stuff up consider themselves strong, powerful, independent feminist. And yet in their fantasy lives, and the literary porn that they're reading, they are looking for this kind of humiliation and domination. It's very sick juxtaposition when you think about it. There's also a series called the Highest Bitter Series.

Starting point is 00:12:12 the core premise involves men buying partners in an auction-like setup. Okay? So this is like a slave auction fantasy happening. It emphasizes extreme control in ownership dynamics. The men exert intense, possessive dominance over their partners, creating relationships steeped in restriction and tension. You know, I'm starting to think here if when the feminists are talking about the Handmaid's Tale that they're actually fantasizing about it,

Starting point is 00:12:42 it and not warning against it. They seem to have this obsession with being dominated by men and they act like that's what they don't want, but the literature that they consume tells me otherwise. We've also got Chicago Ruthless series. It's set in a crime family. The stories feature violence, possessiveness and what one reviewer called an unrealistic amount of sex. So I'm telling you, this is just as sexual graphic explicit as any man who is addicted to watch. Chene pornography. There is Den of Vipers. It's a dark romance reverse harem about villains who get the girl. There are a lot of, I'm not trying to laugh. It's just so ridiculous that someone would be like, yes, I'm going to put pen to paper. And this is going to be how I spend my time and energy and

Starting point is 00:13:29 creativity and skill that God gave me. There are a lot of triggers in this book. One reviewer says violence, dark kinks, sexually explicit scenes are throughout this entire book. So if that's not your thing, I would steer clear. The Loser series, it is about a polyamorous dynamic with intense BDSM. Most unrealistic thing here is that according to the cover, these are supposed to be attractive people involved in polyamory. And we know from seeing what polyamorous, you know, polycules look like on social media, that that is like never the case.

Starting point is 00:14:06 Very strange fantasy going on here. Chokehold by Lee River. This is another, like, very popular book, gosh, it just looks so dark. A true hate-to-love story between stepbrothers who live together. No, no, no, no. I can't even finish the description of that because we've gone from gruesome to gay and it's just too much. Okay. I think that we could probably skip over some of the other examples.

Starting point is 00:14:33 You understand. There's violence. There's domination. There's possessiveness. There's BDSM. There's all of these things that can get into your mind, whether you're reading about it, whether you are watching it. And it changes how you think. It changes what you desire. It changes what satisfies you in a way that can lead you toward the path of the demonic.

Starting point is 00:14:58 Not only that, but also towards depression because real life, thankfully, is not like these fantasy books. And I just want to note that and we'll get into this a little bit more in a But whether or not a woman is reading these dark, demonic, violent books still escaping to this fantasy fictional world. Measuring your relationships or your sexual activity against what you are reading in books is always going to lead to discontentment. It is always going to hamper your sanctification. It is always going to inhibit the God-ordained intimacy that you have with your marriage.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Multiply that times a thousand when you're talking about the smut that so many young women are reading today. I guarantee you there's a big crossover between kink talk and book talk. A few years ago, we talked about this horrific trend where you've got the young, young women. We're talking teenage girls who are describing on TikTok, liking to be chokes and sexual violence and things like that. I'm not saying that all of them are reading these kinds of novels, but I am saying this is a culture. of self-objectification and degradation that directly flows out of a refusal to believe that we are all made in the image of God. It is all connected and Satan is having a playday. There is another genre within this, and this goes back to what we were talking about at the

Starting point is 00:16:28 beginning, that monster bait story, which seemed like a joke and wasn't a joke. There's monster smut. Okay, so there's smut, there's violent smut, there's monster violence, but there's monster, violence smut. It's crazy. One of the examples of this is Strange Love by Anne Aguire. A human pairs with an awkward non-humanoid alien, creating a forbidden dynamic due to their physical and cultural differences. Apparently, according to one reviewer, this is a sexy book. And then, like, they're not even trying with some of these titles. It's amazing to me that someone would look at this cover and be like, yes, I want to read this. That type. I got drunk and saved a demon.

Starting point is 00:17:10 Okay? There is a woman named Cinnamon who gets dragged into a demon's violent quest to kill a witch with their attraction growing amid danger in conflict. Okay, this also goes back to what we talked about with K-pop, Demon Hunter, the confusion of evil versus good. And normalizing demons, making them seem layered and nuanced and maybe inside, you know, able to be redeemed or lovable. or laveen when we know that is not the truth of real demons, we see a lot of that in these themes of making us think that maybe demons would actually like us if they really got to know us. And you know, I'm thinking, I'm wondering if that is why so many women are completely delusional about crime and criminals and just completely naive when it comes to the reality of good and

Starting point is 00:18:04 evil and bad guys and criminals that really exist and the need to restrain evil. Is that why they vote for these social justice soft on crime policies because they're reading books that make it seem like the bad guy deep down inside is good and sacrificial and will finally fall in love with them? I don't know. Something to think about. It's definitely not helping. We've got a book called Soul Eater. A horn of soul eater fixates on one human soldier in this male, male romance, Another one, you're not my king. A human man develops an attraction to a lizard-like alien king. And the alien king's possessive claim over the human involves restrictive dominating behavior.

Starting point is 00:18:48 Okay. So again, we see domination. We see LGBTQ. We see bestiality glorified. We see monstrosity glorified. We see violence glorified. Okay. Then we just have the regular spice.

Starting point is 00:19:03 Maybe you've heard of closed-door romance or non-spice romance. I would say that that is a category of books that as long as it's not glorifying sin is a category of books that women can read and enjoy and is not pornographic, but then you have spice. And the descriptor of spice makes it seem like it is not bad or explicit, but that's not necessarily true. So if you hear someone saying they don't like any of that crazy stuff, they just like spice, that's not better especially for the Christian. We'll get into that in a second. Okay, y'all, if you are looking for none of this stuff, like anti-smut conference, like if you want truth, if you want goodness, if you want beauty, if you want to be around women who care about that stuff too, then you need to come to share the

Starting point is 00:19:49 arrows because maybe you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm alone. Am I the only one that has the values that I do? Am I the only one that wants to consume only things that are pure and lovely and excellent? I want to, I need friends who. have my same beliefs and values, you've got to come to share the arrows. You can come by yourself. I just want you to know that if you come by yourself, you will not leave by yourself. You will make friends. This is the kindest and the friendliest and the most generous audience out there. Maybe you're not a Christian yet. Maybe you don't know if you're a Christian. Maybe you want to learn more. Come to share the arrows. Maybe you've been a Christian for 50 years. Come to share the arrows.

Starting point is 00:20:24 You will be taught. You will be instructed. You will be encouraged. You will be empowered and equipped by the wisdom of God that is channeling through these women. I have talked to them about their speeches. Their talks is going to be so good, y'all. Go to share the arrows.com. Go to share the arrows.com. This year, Share the arrows is brought to you by good ranchers. We love good ranchers. We're so thankful for their support. Go to share the arrows.com and get your tickets today. All right, before we get into the rest of that episode, let me tell you about every life. I love every life. We, use Every Life diapers and wipes in our home. We also love their other products. They've got a new belt bag out. Perfect for moms. Really cute. An upgrade from the fanny pack, but just as functional

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Starting point is 00:21:58 Okay, let us watch SOT3 to set up what this spice genre of fiction is. I'm getting a little bit concerned about your guys' level of spice when it comes to spicy books. Now, I'm a little sick right now. So if I sound congested, it's because I am. Mind your business. Thank you. But I asked you guys about a month ago to drop. in the comments your filthiest, spiciest, nastiest book that you've ever read. Like the number one where it's like,

Starting point is 00:22:37 whoa, that was like crazy. And some of you guys recommended as the spiciest, filthiest, nastiest book that you've ever read, Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover. Man, ma'am, ma'am. Okay, so she is saying and the rest of that that that is not spicy enough for her, that that's basically too vanilla. Now, I haven't read that by Colleen Hoover. I don't know how spicy Colleen Hoover books get. I understand that some of them are pretty spicy, what I would consider spicy. However, I have also heard that some of her books actually do get really dark, but this person is saying, nope, that's not what she wants.

Starting point is 00:23:18 She wants stuff that is really, really crazy, really explicit, really bad. So Melissa Savedra, she is the owner. of steamy lit bookstore in Deerfield Beach. She became a fan of the genre when she read the 50 Shades of Gray. So she created this company called The Steambox. It became a huge hit. And then she opened that bookstore. And she said that her shelves never stay full because she's always got women who are coming in,

Starting point is 00:23:47 who are trying to buy these very steamy books. Spice is a reader coin term. It refers to the degree of sexual explicitness. in romance novels, often rated on a scale of one to one to five. So here is someone kind of explaining that, saw one. He grabbed me by my waist, pulled me in close, and gave me a big kiss. And then we lived happily ever after. I got me in my and grabbed my fucking s' and whitt and my . . All right. So that is a court of thorns and roses. And I know that there are a lot of women out there. I've actually heard of this series.

Starting point is 00:24:31 I know there are a lot of women, including a lot of professing Christian women who are reading that series. I've also heard of this book, Onyx Storm, High Spice, explicit scenes in chapters, several chapters throughout featuring dirty talk, kissing in sex and romanticity context. Here's thought too. No, because this man is like everything. He goes, me holding back from you has purely been for your sake, not mine. I want you from the second I wake up until the moment I fall asleep. I dream about you. Okay. Just take my heart while I'm chip. I swear this man is going to be the end of me. He goes, I'm never giving you up. You know that right. You had your chance to run. You should have run by. Okay. So you might be thinking, especially if you're just listening to this,

Starting point is 00:25:24 well, that wasn't that explicit. So you kind of have to watch it because she is reading the words that are being said by a man, like in a very explicit sex scene in this book, Onyx Storm. So again, if you see your friends, if you see fellow church members, if you're a related brother out there, you see your wife. I doubt that this is the case. But reading this book or your sister, your daughter reading this book, then you just need to know it's not like Hunger Games.

Starting point is 00:25:52 Okay? it's not even like Twilight. Like Twilight would probably be considered now to be low spice, although I should not have been reading that when I was a teenager because even that, even the implication of the stuff in Twilight was not healthy for a teenage girl to be reading. But this is even worse. And I know that there are teenage girls that are reading things like a court of thorns

Starting point is 00:26:12 and onyx storm. And also I just want to point out, though, in the quotes there that she is reading, like there is this kind of like dominant that women are fantasizing about even these very progressive women. Now, the Colleen Hoover novels, like, it ends with us, very popular. It's been turned into a movie. We've talked about it before.

Starting point is 00:26:34 People say that that's moderate spice. But look, I'm just going to say Colleen Hoover books are very unhealthy. They should not be read or promoted by Christians, okay? They are not promoting healthy relationship dynamics. they are certainly promoting sexual immorality. And if you are a Christian woman, you are obligated to consume things that are excellent and praiseworthy. And just on a practical level, it's going to hurt your marriage.

Starting point is 00:27:04 Now, when I talked about this last time, I talked about this a little bit in the episode that we did on divorce and what the Bible has to say about divorce. And I asked the simple question, women who are in the situation, like the woman that we talked about was, they're saying, oh, my husband is great. He's everything that I've ever wanted, but I'm not satisfied. Maybe there's something better out there. If you are a woman who's thinking that, you need to ask yourself, before you do anything, what are you listening to?

Starting point is 00:27:32 Who are you listening to? Who are you following? What are you looking at on Instagram? And what are you reading? Because if you find yourself escaping to a fantasy land and comparing your husband to these fictional relationships or these fictional sex scenes, you will continually be disappointed. And I got all of these comments from people saying, oh, this is so sad. This is so prudish. No, this helps my marriage. Sure it does. Sure it does, Jan. I'm sure. It doesn't.

Starting point is 00:28:03 It is holding your husband to completely unfair and fictional expectations in the same way that pornography dies for men and affects their relationships. This is no less sinful. Reading pornography is no less simple than watching pornography, okay? And, you know, I think that we should be making a big deal about male addiction to pornography and the degradation of society that it causes. But this is no less a big deal. Okay. So we've got this, we've got this darker theme that we've talked about. And we've got book talk who is promoting all of this. This particular dark romance scene is this clip about it is lighthearted, it's not spicy, but you can see that how he is demonstrating the scene is glorifying violence. Stop for it. See, that's not even funny. So they're trying to make it

Starting point is 00:29:14 lighthearted, but she's sat at the end there because, okay, so he chokes her if you're just listening to this and like lifts her up by her neck because as the text says, he is trying to act out this dark romance scene that she is reading about. And she says at the end, don't actually do it to me. I'm seeing stars. I just think that that is so disturbing. Like, Chief Relatorbrough, a few years ago, I wanted to play that game where people are like slapping each other with tortillas because I thought it would be funny. And he would not even play. He would not even do that. He was like, I'm not going to even pretend to hit you with the tortilla. And so I think it's weird that a guy would be okay with even pretending to do something like this on camera, which clearly hurt his girlfriend or his

Starting point is 00:30:01 wife. Okay, here's another example of what these women are consuming. Stop five. Why settle when, you could have your step-uncle and your step-cous. Why settle when? He searches everywhere for you after you were given to him as a gift, but you decided to toss yourself over a waterfall instead. why settle when you cut him and he makes you lick the cut why settle when you get put up on an auction block against your will and you get bought by a demon and both of his friends why settle when you come downstairs in the middle of the night and find him deleting your whole family off of the earth

Starting point is 00:30:43 okay so this is the kind of stuff and that women are consuming And the New York Times is diving into this. Also, we looked at Writers Digest and some other news outlets just to see, like, what are the numbers on this? So these kind of romance novels are the top selling fiction genre with sales soaring from 18 million print copies in 2020 to over 39 million in 2023. Romance novels have been the top grossing fiction genre in recent years, generating $1.44 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2000. 23. Women make up the majority of readers driving this romance. Of course, making up 84% of the audience. That's actually very surprising to me. I would have thought it was 99%. Like what dudes are consuming this stuff? So what women are doing according to these articles is that they are getting away from the kind of happily ever after genre and ending to books. and they're purposely seeking out more disturbing and darker and even demonic and violent elements. Sircana, this consumer behavior analysis report revealed in a June 2025 report that romance readers are craving darker themes. The shift in romance aligns with growing genres like psychological thrillers, dark fantasy, and horror showing a broader trend toward darker fiction.

Starting point is 00:32:13 That book, Onick Storm, that we watched that TikTok about, sold. faster at its first week than any other adult book in 20 years. There are intense themes of violence, death, and dark magic. This is Breonna, or Brenna Connor, a U.S. Books Industry Analyst. She says this year I'm watching a shift away from rosier romance subjects like romantic comedy and new adult romance in favor of authors and titles with darker themes combined with the growth in other more intense fiction subjects like horror and dystopian, a new trend has emerged that's marked by darker escapist themes. These subject matters provide an outlet for readers to safely explore safely explore negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, or anxiety. We're exploring too many

Starting point is 00:33:02 emotions. We don't need to explore emotions. There are so many programs now for, you know, down to pre-K all the way up to explore our emotions. Look, emotions are bad. I'm not saying they should always be stuffed down, but sometimes they should. Like, sometimes we don't need to explore them. Sometimes we're just like a basket of confusion in there. And the more you explore your feelings, actually, the sadder you are. We're told over and over again that if you explore your feelings, you'll be a healthier person. Y'all, some of the people I know that focus the most on their feelings and desires, emotions are like really sad and really discontent because the further you dig into your heart, the more disturbed you'll be. Not the opposite. Okay. And so all of this,

Starting point is 00:33:44 just psychological, just whatever, just slop. I expect to see continued interest in these darker subjects. Okay. So this is happening in particular among Gen Z and you see this driven a lot by book talk and this is creating a huge industry boom with lots of lots of money behind it. Let's talk about the psychological aspects of this though. Let's talk about dopamine. Let's talk about loneliness the impacts on relationship and mental health. But first, let me pause. Let me tell you about our next sponsor. That's Good Ranchers.

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Starting point is 00:35:24 Plus, when you subscribe for the lifetime of your subscription, they will give you an extra bag of meat, whatever you want. Plus, when you use my code, you get $40 off. GoodRanchers.com slash Alley, Code Alley. GoodRanchers.com slash Alley code Alley. So I'm really interested in the psychology behind this. And what is so addicting in particular about these books? You would think in an age where we're reading less than we were before that people really have a hard time paying attention for more than 20 seconds. You have to put all kinds of movement into the clips that you post, the reels that you post, because people just can't pay attention for very long. So what is it about these books that are drawing women in in an age of technology?

Starting point is 00:36:10 According to psychology today, romantic stories trigger a cascade of neurochemicals and hormones that make our brains very happy. The combination of oxytocin, noraphenaphrin, and dopamine is an emotional roller coaster with more highs than lows. What's interesting about oxytocin, I mean, there are a lot of reasons that our bodies create oxytocin, both men and women, but oxytocin is the hormone that kickstarts labor. It is also the hormone that is released, when you and your baby are cuddling after your first born. And I've talked about this a lot. And I know that this is maybe an indirect corollary here.

Starting point is 00:36:52 But as women are getting married later and later, as they are valuing marriage and children later and later, as they are not getting these happy hormones and these connective relational hormones that are released between husband and wife, between baby and mother, they are seeking them elsewhere. They are seeking them from superficial sources like these dark fantasy books. Nikki Logan, president of Romance Writers of Australia, wrote the book, The Chemistry of Reading, arousing your reader, which explains how brain chemistry drives reader engagement.

Starting point is 00:37:30 She says that romance writers, she tells romance writers to leverage hormonal effects like dopamine and oxytocin by building tension and emotional bonds and stories. She provides a practical toolkit for authors to trigger those responses, creating addictive reads that keep readers hooked and eager for more. So it's important to know that when you are buying your books, that you are buying chemistry, that you are buying something that is going to affect you and change you physiologically. Like you're not just reading a book because it's a good story. This is something that is changing you on a physical level. I mean, that should really make you think about what you're consuming. Dr. Anna Lemke is a psychiatrist at Stanford. She is the chief of the Stanford Addiction

Starting point is 00:38:15 Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She treats patients with various addictions and researches, behavioral dependencies. She wrote this book, Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. It was published in 2021. Chief Relatedbrough just read this. And I remember we were talking about this aspect of this book that we found really interesting. And it is about her addiction to romance novels. So this author says that she was addicted for two years to these kinds of books, starting with Twilight and progressing to erotic fiction, which she compulsively read on her Kindle, even in between seeing patients. Here's Sa'i. I started reading, you know, more and more sort of graphic, erotic, sexual versions of this novel. And I was embarrassed. So I would hide that I was reading them. And that gets

Starting point is 00:39:08 into the whole double life of addiction where now we're lying about our use, where we're using our drug over here, but pretending like we're not. So my kids or my husband would walk in the room and I would be, you know, hiding behind another book, one book behind another book. So it looked like I was reading something, you know, I don't know, more sophisticated. So this is someone, she was a grown woman, and she was probably not influenced by TikTok. She's an expert on addiction, and she realized that she was addicted to smut. And she explains that dopamine produces pleasure and motivation, but, quote, it may be even more important for motivation than for actual pleasure, driving us to seek more, even as the high fades into pain. She compares her addiction to reading this kind of stuff to a form of masturbation,

Starting point is 00:40:02 triggered by a patient's extreme sex addiction story that mirrored her own compulsive Kindle use. She said that her own habits exhausted her, made her hide from her family, as you just heard and interfered with her life, with her roles as parent and doctor turning a pleasurable escape into a dopamine-fueled compulsion. To overcome her addiction, she literally had to quit cold turkey. for a month. She just said, no, she stopped it. She describes this as socially sanctioned pornography for women because it reinforces attachment and sex themes that really hooks the brain's reward system. Okay, so again, this is basically pornography for women. And she's not even

Starting point is 00:40:45 coming at this from a Christian perspective. She's coming at it from an expert psychological and personal perspective. Now, I do not think it's a coincidence. that Gen Z women, as well as millennial Gen X and Baby Boomer women, specifically white women, really struggle with mental health. The highest rates of SSRI prescription are found in this demographic. But let's look at Gen Z because a lot of book talk is filled with Gen Z. Gen Z women experience the highest stress levels globally with almost half reporting severe stress they struggled to cope with.

Starting point is 00:41:26 CDC data in 2003 showed that 53% of Gen Z high school girls feel persistently sad or hopeless. With 27% considering suicide nearly double the rate of boys. Among Gen Z workers

Starting point is 00:41:42 aged 18 to 22, 73% report feeling lonely sometimes are always an increase from 69% the previous year. We also know that heavy social media use is strongly linked to loneliness with 71% of users feeling lonely compared to 51% of light users. Now, what do we know about social media?

Starting point is 00:42:04 Social media also triggers your brain's reward system. It rewards your brain with very cheap dopamine. You don't have to put effort into getting that high, but you need more and more of it. You need crazier and crazier and faster and faster. faster content in order to stay hooked. The same is true of pornography that is being watched and the same is true of pornography that is being read. And so that is why we see the rates of depression so high among those who use social media. And that is why people who are addicted to this kind of smut tend to also be very unhappy and very discontent. Coping methods such as porn

Starting point is 00:42:51 can have addictive effects and also affect relationships. This particular study showed, of course, we already knew that. But there was a 2019 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships that showed the adults who feel lack of affection and watch more pornography tend to be less satisfied and feel less close in their relationships. They feel lonelier and they feel more depressed. There are so many reasons for that, which we have already articulated so far. So what does the Bible have to say about this?

Starting point is 00:43:21 like why should we be confronting this? Why should we be so careful about what we read? Because if you are like maybe I was in high school and you thought, well, if I'm reading it, which I was never reading this level of stuff. But again, just smut like, like Twilight and, you know, other things like that cheap teen fiction at the time, which wasn't nearly as dark as it is today, but still, I mean, pretty dark and too sexual for a teenage girl to be reading alone at night. It's just not healthy. But if you're like I was at the time and you think, well, if I'm reading something, at least I'm not scrolling or at least I'm not watching TV. And so it must be right

Starting point is 00:44:01 because it's giving me some benefit to my mind. Well, look, even if reading makes you smart, sin makes you stupid. Okay. And so increasing your dopamine addiction to this kind of smut is not actually helping you. It's not increasing your creativity the way reading other kinds of books are it is actually hurting you. It's hurting your relationships. It's hurting your brain and it's hurting your heart and soul. But thankfully, there is a better way. You don't have to give up your love for reading and your love for creativity and good writing because God created these things. He actually ordained his word to be written down and to be read. So we know that words are really important. So let's get into what the Bible has to say about it. Let me pause to tell you about our next

Starting point is 00:44:45 sponsor. It's Jace Medical. Jace Medical wants you to be prepared. You need a emergency antibiotics if something happens to the supply chain, if something happens weather-wise, unfortunately, you just don't know what's going to happen. And you don't want to be in a situation where you need antibiotics or your child needs antibiotics and you can't get it. So through their confidential telemedicine process, you can get this emergency kit filled with antibiotics that are safe and effective for most infections. The Jace case has 10 emergency medications and prescription antibiotics, ship to your door so you're ready ahead of time. And the Jace Daily case is up to a 12-month supply of your chronic medications that you need

Starting point is 00:45:28 on a daily basis should you need an emergency stash. It's National Preparedness Month. So Jace is running a huge sale to make readiness more affordable. See online for details. Enter promo code Allie, a checkout for a discount on your order. That's promo code A-L-L-L-I-E at J-A-S-E. com. Catherine Butler wrote an article for the Gospel Coalition, and I know we've had, you know, mixed

Starting point is 00:46:00 experiences with the Gospel Coalition, but this is a really great article about the release of that book, Onyx Storm, that came out in January and sold so many copies, really dark, really sexual themes. And she writes this. She says, around midnight on January 21st, 2025, bookstores across the United States experience crowds they'd not seen since the days of. Harry Potter. The fervor was so intense that some shops charged admission. Unlike the Hogwarts mania of the 90s, however, most attendees were women. Their costumes often included leather

Starting point is 00:46:36 body suits and the book in question featured not only dragons in a magical realm, but also explicit sex scenes. She comments on this trend. She says, Catherine Butler says, influencers often praise the female empowerment they encounter in these books. Romanticie allows women to have it all. Instagramer Christina Clark Brown told The Guardian. Its editorial staff elaborated. The Romanticie heroine speaks to the cultural moment. The strong female-led stories show young women can be nerdy and sexy, vulnerable and powerful, both not that girl and that girl. You can be anyone or anything you please. This is the fantasy. Such remarks hint at at women's yearning for meaning and identity. We crave control over our fate. We desire love to be

Starting point is 00:47:25 lovable and yet to be like God. Genesis 3, 4 through 5. If you've been watching this show for any amount of time, you know that everything goes back to that. It's an undercurrent of wayward longing also evident in the link between romantic and the pandemic. She says post-COVID, women are hungrier than ever to fill that Jesus-shaped hole in their heart that only festered during the loneliness of quarantine. And where men usually gravitate toward online pornography in those moments, women are more likely to pick up a romance novel or even erotica, said Marian Jacobs contributor to the Christian fantasy site, Lor Haven. In a small 2018 surveyed 94% of the 38, so very small, Christian women who responded reported struggling with lust. And they give in in this way

Starting point is 00:48:16 by looking at or reading Romanticy. What's interesting about this description of women wanting this strong heroin who is in control and they want to see themselves as that is that again, in all of these, including an onyx storm, there is a theme of the domination of the heroin by a man. So actually, what they are saying is that there is a part of the created order that they want, but they want it to be perverted and distorted. It's like they will bulk at Ephesians 5 saying wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives as Christ loves themselves.

Starting point is 00:48:59 They'll say that's anti-feminist and that's fascist or that's like Sharia law, whatever they'll say. But when it comes to these kinds of themes of violent domination of women and fantasy books, they'll glorify it. They'll love it. They'll want to pursue it themselves. Christian publishers should publish, this person in this article says, last name of Jacobs, should publish clean, God-glorifying Romanticy that seeks to lead readers closer to Christ rather than to a life of sexual addiction.

Starting point is 00:49:32 Like I would also say, you got to be careful about things like redeeming love. I loved redeeming love in high school. I loved it. And of course, it's not like these dark themes. It's not the same as Onyx Storm. not saying that, but did it foster in me at the time contentment and satisfaction, or did it grow in me a longing to be married, but only for like the sexual aspect of it when I was way too young to be thinking about that? If a book, whether it is Christian fantasy or not, is fostering

Starting point is 00:50:07 in you discontentment and lust and desires that cannot be healthfully satisfied, then I think it's not for you, whether or not it is pornographic. Why you should avoid, this is according to focus on the family, all shades of erotica. Fifty shades doesn't shy away from the S word, or at least the idea of it. That's right. It's time to talk about submission and why it's so tantalizing in erotica and sadist sexuality, yet shirked in Western society. And pulling back the shades, Dana Gresh writes that erotica strategically and masterfully pulls you in by exploiting what your heart secretly longs for. And what do women secretly long for? Psychologist Julie Slattery, co-author with Gresh, identifies five desires that women have. One, to escape reality. Two, to be

Starting point is 00:50:56 cherished by a man. Three, to be protected by a strong man. And four, to rescue a man. And five, to be sexually alive. And they argue, and this is so important. This is just what we were saying. All of these needs are God breathed since Eve. The first woman created as a helper for her man. Genesis 218, yet the modern women, I can do anything you can do, but badder attitude cast these relational longings as antiquated and even offensive. Felicia Masonheimer also has written on how erotic fiction harms women. She wrote about this in Christianity today. She and she talks about her own experience with this. She said there will be people in your life who will tell you that it's not that big of a deal, partially perhaps because they feel convicted by your recognition and you're

Starting point is 00:51:46 trying to find freedom from it. She said, when I talk about this online, people get very angry and defensive. It's just a book, but that is never a measurement of what is good for us. There are several biblical responses to this, but let's go specifically to the Word of God. What is the Bible? have to say about this and we'll end on reading some verses but let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day that is constitution wealth if you want to make sure that you are stewarding your dollars well the resources that god is given you if you want to make sure that you are actually investing in causes that align with your values rather than investing in areas that are completely contradictory to your biblical values then you need to reach out to constitution wealth first

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Starting point is 00:53:21 endorsement. Philippians 4-8 says this. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 1 Corinthians 618 through 20 says flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. It goes on to say, your body is actually a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's so important. John Piper for desiring God says, but the temptation that ruined the whole world in Genesis 3 came through the ear from Satan's voice. And so did the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The heart is the primary seat of holiness and the ear is as good a pathway of corruption

Starting point is 00:54:13 as the eye. So that means audio books are also off limits when it comes to this smut. Pastor Todd Pruitt says lust deserves our aggressive opposition. It can take such a foothold in your heart. That's why Jesus says it would be better for you to pluck out your eye. it would be better for you to pluck out your eye than to lust after a woman. And God has given us, number one, himself as our source of satisfaction, whether you are married or not. The truth is that, yes, sex is a beautiful gift that is to be enjoyed in the context of marriage.

Starting point is 00:54:54 But if you are single, you have that desire, but you do not have a holy means by which to satisfy that desire that is still not an excuse to run to any form of pornography. or smut is an excuse to run completely and totally to Christ because he is your full and total satisfaction and every single one of us single or married is called to self-denial and to self-sacrifice and to take up our cross and to get rid with the power of the Holy Spirit of the sin in our life and to follow him. That looks different for everyone depending on your relationship, depending on the stage that you're in, but we are all called to pursue holiness in this way, not because God wants to rob us of things, but because he loves us, because he knows what's good for our mind.

Starting point is 00:55:41 He knows what's good for our body and our relationships. And one day, in a very short time, we will no longer be tempted. We will no longer have unmet desires, but we will be fully and truly eternally satisfied in him. And with our eyes on heaven, we forego all of the. the sin that wants to hinder us and hold us back. Remember, it goes all the way back to Satan tempting Eve. Did God really say? All right, that's all we've got time for today. Make sure that you tune in on Friday, y'all, amazing conversation with Raymond Ibrahim about the Islamic

Starting point is 00:56:18 infiltration of Western civilization and what we need to realize. So stay tuned for that. We'll see you guys back here then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1240 | TikTok’s Spicy Novels Are Warping Women’s Minds

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