Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 889 | Why 'Ethical Porn' Doesn't Exist | Guest: Benji Nolot (Part Two)

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Today, we're joined again by Benji Nolot, the founder and CEO of Exodus Cry, an organization dedicated to ending human trafficking. We continue our conversation with a look at how the Bible views healthy sexual relationships through the lens of mutual submission. We look at prominent conservative figure Dennis Prager's comment on porn and what it misses and explain why there is no such thing as ethical porn. Then, we discuss why you can't disconnect child trafficking from porn, as much as the pro-porn crowd wants to, and look at the impact on socialization of children when it comes to early porn consumption. You can get Benji's book 'Raised on Porn: How Porn Is Affecting Our Lives and What We Can Do about It' here: https://www.amazon.com/Raised-Porn-Affecting-Lives-about/dp/B0BYLSK5Y5 --- Timecodes: (01:03) Mutual submission / obligation-based mentality (05:01) Empathy & mutuality is better than consent (06:40) Mental gymnastics of being “pro-porn” (09:11) Dennis Prager’s statement on porn (13:17) Five ways porn is connected to trafficking (17:40) Child exposure to porn (22:08) “Ethical porn” (25:06) Research on porn's impact on consumers --- Today's Sponsors: Range Leather — highest quality leather, age old techniques and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to rangeleather.com/Allie to receive 15% off your first order. PublicSq — download the PublicSq app from the App Store or Google Play, create a free account, and begin your search for freedom-loving businesses! CrowdHealth — get your first 6 months for just $99/month. Use promo code 'ALLIE' when you sign up at JoinCrowdHealth.com. EveryLife — the only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. EveryLife offers high-performing, supremely soft diapers and wipes that protect and celebrate every precious life. Head to EveryLife.com and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% of your first order today! --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 498 | Exposing the Threat Porn Poses to Kids | Guest: Benjamin Nolot https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-498-exposing-the-threat-porn-poses-to-kids-guest/id1359249098?i=1000537150888 Ep 717 | From Porn Star to Pastor | Guest: Joshua Broome https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-717-one-mans-journey-from-porn-star-to-pastor-guest/id1359249098?i=1000588385066 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Is viewing porn immoral? You might think the answer is obvious, but there are some very prominent voices, including conservative voices, that would argue no. Today, my guest, Benji Nolot, who is the founder of Exodus Cry, an international anti-trafficking or, organization of the author of Raised on Porn is going to give his take on that today and also talk about how pornography is specifically affecting children, their view of themselves, their view of sex and the long-term consequences of how this is shaping their minds. This episode is part two of a two-part conversation. Part one was yesterday, so go check that out. This episode is also brought to by our friends at Good Ranchers.

at good ranchers.com. Use code alley and check out. That's good ranchers.com. Code Allie. I just want to read just because I think it's important to actually go to God's word when we're looking at this, that the Bible makes very clear that it is a mutual submission when it comes to sex between man and woman, husband and wife, 1 Corinthians 7, 4 through 5. And this would have been radical at the time that this was being written. I mean, in a highly kind of patriarchal society in which women were viewed at the time, and especially in secular culture, really, as just kind of objects of pleasure, children too. This is what 1st Corinthians 7, 4 through 5 says, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. That sounds

scandalous, but it also says likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. That's because the two have become one. You have a stake in your spouse's body. do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. And so it's not a wife's exclusive responsibility to make sure that she is always sexually available to her husband. It is a mutual submission that we are called to, and we also are called to self-control. And so I think it's important to, despite any false teachings that may be out there in or outside of the church about sex,

that the Bible is really clear on the role of the man and the woman when it comes to sex and sexuality. Okay. So can I just mention something about that passage? Sure. Okay. So I love that perspective that you're sharing. and here's where I think this some of this gets off is when one party of the other applies that in such a way to say you are required to be available to me because of this verse any time I want. So I think it's okay for somebody to read that passage and to posture themselves in a way in their relationship,

to be available to their partner, to their spouse, to say, I want to have a connected, loving sexual life with you. But when one party or the other uses it as a way to subjugate the other and impose an obligation on them is when it can become dangerous. Because at a very basic level, we just know that there are so many times and examples where that sex would be off the table for any number of reasons. I'll just use an obvious one.

Let's say somebody just had a baby. Right. We know that their body is not in a condition to engage in that. So if the partner is using a Bible verse to tell that person, you must now do this. And then for the woman in that situation to internalize this passage, as I'm obligated to now be sexually available. My body has gone through this traumatic event. I'm emotionally depleted.

I haven't slept in however many days, but now I'm obligated. I mean, so this obligation-based mentality around sexuality is probably the quickest thing to actually shut down sexual arousal. It doesn't create sexual arousal. And then again, now the woman is the sponge. She's the receptacle. So this all comes back to the point of consent. There's something that we should be talking about, which is much higher ethical standard

to approach sexuality with than consent. And that is empathy and mutuality. So the idea that I am trying to understand what is going on in my partner's life, mentally, emotionally, physically, psychologically. I'm trying to be sensitive towards where they're at. And then the mutuality component is, what do you like? What do you desire? What kind of things would enhance your experience of this sexual relationship? So I do believe that each person's responsible to steward their own needs and boundaries in terms of communicating those things. But then

obviously empathy and mutuality are part of the communication process to get on the same page about what we can enjoy and experience together as a mutually enhancing experience. And so I think that when you look at sexuality through the lens of mutuality and empathy, you end up in a place that can truly be life-giving, that can truly be bonding as opposed to something that is damaging or as opposed to something that is bringing pleasure to one person at the other person's expense. And pornography certainly ruins that. It doesn't even offer that possibility.

If you're masturbating to pornography, it can never be about mutuality. It can ever be about empathy. It can never be about connection, right? And so go ahead. Go ahead. You can respond. I mean, just real quickly, just to say, it's whenever I hear somebody describe themselves as pro porn or, you know, promote porn at all, you'd think I'd be.

used to this by now, but I, it always takes me aback a bit. And I'm like, man, what kind of mental gymnastics have you been engaging in to get yourself and what kind of lies have you been believing to get yourself to the point of actually thinking of pornography as something positive and promoting it to others? So there's just so much to unpack and deconstruct there. And again, it's one of the main things I've been thinking about for the past 16 years. So obviously I have a lot to say about it, but it's a lot to unpack. And it's it just on one hand, you know, of course, I want to be gracious in understanding where people are, meeting where they're at.

On another hand, it's just like, I just, yeah, yeah, it's, I feel a lot of deep frustration, especially with my male brothers. When I hear things along these lines and it just spent how much work we have left to do. as men. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality

itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us. You know what? Someone with a whole lot of influence that I'm sure you and I both appreciate a lot of ways. I really appreciate the work that Dennis Prager has done to help advance ideas that I think are good for the country when it comes to economics, even when it comes to social and cultural issues. I've worked with Prager You many times. And so I really appreciate so much that he has brought to the table over the years. But he made a comment that I'm sure you saw recently basically saying that porn isn't all that bad. So I'm going to play that clip and then I want to get your reaction to it.

I'm not even giving a religious answer. I'm giving what I think is a moral and realistic answer. Men want variety. And if adultery is a substitute for, if pornography is a substance. for one's wife, it's awful. If it's a substitute for adultery, it's not awful. So what's your take on that? That was actually my first time hearing that. Oh, okay. So, yeah, so a couple things. I mean, one is the idea that porn is going to satiate

men's need for variety is not real. That's not true. Porn is not a satiator. It is a cultivator. So if it's pouring gasoline on a fire, it is not extinguishing something. So just fundamentally, that very concept is flawed. And then again, this goes back to the point that we talked about, the idea. The of self-control. So where does that come into the equation? You know, again, the idea that, well, I may commit adultery, but since I have no self-control, I'll go look at pornography instead. And then, again, how does that play out? So we're in the bedroom together and I tell you, hey, I have an appetite for variety. Do you mind leaving the room for a few minutes? I mean, and how does, So this gets back to the point of empathy.

So then how does the woman, how does the wife experience that? So she's outside the route now. She hears her husband in there. There's another woman moaning on the screen. She hears him doing what he's doing. How does she experience that? You know, betrayal trauma is something very real and can absolutely be invoked through one partner or the other watching pornography.

I mean, engaging your sexuality in a voyeuristic. way with somebody else in that act, again, a very special, powerful, private, mysterious act can have a dramatic effect on the other partner. And so can experience betrayal trauma and fidelity trauma through that. And yes, they're not physically with another person, but then you have to get, but it's a form of technologized prostitution. You're actually engaging in digital prostitution. And then you're participating in fueling the coercion and often trafficking that's happening to create that porn in the first place. So it just to me, that comment strikes me as a really thoughtless and

careless remark about a very significant issue that our world is currently facing. And that, you know, I believe that the the effort of the, the, the effort of the conversexious, conservative Christian movement is to uphold an ethical standard for society when it comes to matters of sexuality, fidelity, family, those kind of things. So it seems like an opportunity for a deeper education on what pornography is and the way we interact with it. And I would just say that I'm fundamentally opposed to the comment that I just heard. I think that's an awful and careless depiction of how to interact with pornography. Yeah, pornography, because it's not just about, It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It's not even just about what that one person is experiencing in front of the computer screen. And as you just described, that in of itself still has consequences and is still unethical and wrong. But it's part of a whole system. And part of that system, which I'm sure, and I think Dennis Prigger has said this, that, yes, child sex abuse, the quote unquote, child pornography that we see, that's awful, that's terrible, kids can't consent, all that kind of stuff. I think he agrees with that. But I don't think that you can disconnect, as you guys have talked about so much. You can't disconnect child sex trafficking from pornography, regular pornography, whatever you want to call it, adult pornography, because it's all connected. The demand demands all of it.

The demand buoys porn hub. It buoys all of these pornography sites that we know platform child sex trafficking, the rape of children. You can't disconnect your consumption of pornography to a child. adults from the demand for child pornography because they are connected. Very often it's the same people producing both kinds of videos, right? Absolutely, spot on. And the five areas that we saw that pornography was connected to and overlapping with trafficking, where first, when we were going into red light districts, we noticed that

they were handing out pornography to advertise the women who were being used. used in prostitution and the trafficking victims. And so it was the marketing of trafficking and prostitution. And then the women who were in the trafficked and prostitution positions were also being required to make pornography. So they were in the videos. The third thing that we saw is that this was being used, pornography was being used to groom child victims of sex trafficking. So they were shown pornography to groom them, to condition them, to show them what would be expected of them as they were required to engage in paid rape from clients. And then we saw that it was fueling the appetite for illicit sex. So we interviewed. So we interviewed. We interviewed.

I'm touring a film right now called Buying Her. It's the first documentary about male sex buyers. The one thing, these men come from all walks of life and background, the one thing that is consistent among all of them is that they had a prior history of porn consumption from childhood. And so porn was fueling the appetite for the demand side of human trafficking. And then we investigated, the fifth thing is we investigated, the mainstream porn industry and saw the way in which coercion was used as the backdrop for the creation of the vast majority of mainstream pornography that is online today.

So those were kind of the initial five overlapping intersecting ways that we saw pornography connected to the larger sex industry and to sex trafficking. Then when we went into the porn industry and began to hear some of the stories of the individuals, who were being propped up as porn stars, that was a whole other level of heartbreak. And so I, as a potential, let's say potential porn consumer, just as any person could be in this world, would have to bypass my own knowledge that many of these people did not want to be there, experienced it as violating, were coerced to get on set. I'd have to go through all these. Is that really worse?

I mean, like, it's just, it's just recklessly irresponsible at this point. Let me just make one last point. I'm going to turn it back to you. Just one last quick point. Because this is something that I've been thinking about recently is I've been hearing a lot of arguments of people who would describe themselves as pro porn and all of this. There are no protections that exist online in any kind of effective way to prevent children from having exposure to pornography currently.

So the internet is a city without walls. And virtually all children will be exposed to pornography at some point in their life growing up. I mean, the numbers are so staggeringly high. And most children will experience as an inadvertent exposure to pornography that because of neural coupling and all of these things, the way our brain works, can experience that as a form of sexual abuse, premedent. materially awakening their sexuality. It really, they don't have the cognitive, biocyclo, social, emotional capabilities to handle this potent, toxic graphic depiction of sexuality. And so it has a devastating impact on them.

So just think about this. Children are most vulnerable demographic people in this world that we should all be able to agree, deserve to be protected, have their innocence. have their innocence protected. There are no effective measures currently on the internet to protect children from having exposure to pornography. So even if you believe in theoretically the value of pornography in the like whatever best case scenario version of that a person can imagine,

well, now you put that out there in an environment in which there's no protection for children, you're at the very least having to sign off with, I'm okay with children being exposed to this, even though we know it has a dramatically devastating impact on hijacking and colonizing their sexuality. So that alone is enough for me. But then when you go down that threat of looking at what people refer to as ethical porn, I mean, that's just a whole other thing. Like they, if you want, I can go down that path.

I'm going to stop here because I'm going on and on. That piece really matters. to me and I know what matters to you about the protection of children. I want to talk explicitly about this documentary and this book that's recently come out raised on porn. And so you are free to continue to go down that path and just talk about the ways pornography has kind of become the new sex ed for kids. And I know we've seen these trends on TikTok where girls, I mean, we're talking like 13, 14 year old girls talking about wanting to be choked, wanting violence in the bedroom.

because that's what they've been exposed to. That's what they think sexuality is. That's really what they think their first sexual encounter should be. That it's not something about commitment. It's not something within the bounds of marriage, certainly, but it's something, again, just for male pleasure, even if that includes violence and objectification. So tell us a little bit more about what you wrote about what you found

when you were researching for this documentary and book. Okay, for sure. No, thank you for the opportunity to share on that. So I just want to just real briefly hit the ethical porn piece because this is the other direction that a lot of people go to. They say, well, I'll just watch the ethical porn. And I don't know why it is that people are so obsessed with pornography that they need to find some kind of justification for it. I mean, what does that say about us that we need to access our sexuality through a screen? So I think there's a deeper issue going on there of mental health and,

the kind of like addicted self-medicating consumer's culture that we live in and a lack of healthy outlets that people have in their lives to be so obsessed with finding the version that will work so they can still have their pornography. But there was a great example of ethical porn given through a documentary on Netflix called Hot Girls Wanted and it was the second installment called Turned On. And they did a whole episode on ethical porn and starts off this lady named Erica Lust saying, I'm not giving a TED talk saying I'm not here to get girls off a porn. I'm here to get girls into porn, something along those lines.

So her mission statement is to get people to participate in pornography. And then the idea is she's going to do it in this really ethical manner. Well, by the end of the episode, we see that they're on the set of the quote unquote, quote, ethical porn set. And there's a woman at the piano, and it's supposed to be this very romantic setting in which she begins to make love to the male counterpart in the scene. And he approaches her from behind,

and as she's playing the piano, they stand up. And then he begins to attempt to have sex with her. Well, she's experiencing it as really painful. So she attempts to stop the scene, at which time the quote unquote ethical porn director tells her, Just fake it. Just fake it. So the whole episode is about how this is about women's pleasure

and they're going to do it in this ethical way and it's all going to be romantic and consensual. And, you know, surely if you throw a piano in there, it'll make everything better. But then when the woman is not enjoying it, she's actually in pain, doesn't want to continue as being cajoled and manipulated and coerced

and bribed into just keep going and fake it. So I think for those people who would build their notion of acceptable pornography on the idea of ethical porn really have to go back and reconsider their own cognitive dissonance about this and their own critical thinking about what they actually believe they're participating in. So I just wanted to make that point to kind of wrap up that thought on ethical porn. But I can jump into just a few thoughts on the book if that's okay. Yeah, go for it.

Okay. So during this eight year plus investigation, I was approaching this from a public health and human rights standpoint. So public health being porn's impact on consumers, really wanted to understand what is porn's impact on consumers and relationships on children, on adults, on men, on women. So we explored that part of it. And then the other part of it was the human rights part. How is this being created? What is the impact on the performers that are being used in the pornography? And so I spent the better part of eight plus years investigating both of those things

and then released a documentary last year called Raised on Porn and now just released this book, which is a much more robust and in-depth resource on the subject. So there's a question of, you know, how is porn impacting us? We, you know, we now know that pornography is ubiquitous throughout our world, that most children are being exposed to it by the age of 11 or 12 years old. So what impact is that having on us? And one of the examples that you brought up, I thought was really interesting. the idea that a young woman who has virtually no sexual experience desiring to be choked in one of, you know,

maybe her first or early sexual activity, and where does that come from? And so, um, so I do think that we really have to consider the social, the impact on the socialization of children when it comes to porn. Here's the thing is that we don't do a, a great job about discussing issues of gender identity and sexuality in the world. And in the absence of that, pornography becomes the way in which many, and I would say most people are getting their

sexual education and unintentionally oftentimes getting an education about what it means to be a man or a woman. Now, pornography used to be thought of as just a male issue. But I'm actually in pre-production right now on a new documentary about porn's impact on females because about a third of the people that visit porn sites now are women. And so females. And so there is a much greater level of exposure to females with pornography today. And what I see happening seems to be a fundamental altering of female sexual DNA from the standpoint of, of maybe going with an initial curiosity about what are the males they're interested in looking at?

Why do they so into this? But then through having that exposure, our sexuality is so fragile, it is so sensitive and can begin to have their own sexual appetites affected by what it is that they're seeing. And so that's why I say altering their natural sexual DNA. So maybe prior to any kind of porn exposure, they would imagine some type of romantic scenario of lovemaking with the person that they're interested in or in love with and in a relationship with. But after pornography, maybe they want to be choked, maybe have sex with multiple men at once.

And then, you know, I'm trying to be conscious of not getting too graphic here. but I'll just I'll just leave it at that so so yeah so you know a girl's first sexual experience being choked out or having sex with multiple men is very common today and that is a direct result of widespread female exposure to pornography and to me I mean I just I think that's that's tragic again just going back to the point that I think sex has a purpose I think it can be such a beautiful thing, but the way that it's glorified and deified in our culture is that in a way, it's almost like all sex is good sex. And no, we know that anything that is really good and powerful and awesome can also be corrupted,

it can also be twisted, it can also be perverted. And to me, that is the very essence of evil is to take something that's beautiful and pure and powerful and good and to twist it into something else. And so I think that is what we see happening with regards to how porn is affecting our sexuality and ultimately then the relationships that we have. There's so many different parts of pornography and the consequences of it that people just don't realize are so incredibly far-reaching. I mean, I'm very thankful.

I'm thankful for the work that y'all do and especially and also the work of people that expose specifically Pornhub. And just what an awful smuddy industry and business. this all is totally based on people's pain and exploitation and trauma and they just don't care. And it really does stun me people who claim to have even some of the same values maybe that you and I do try to justify it without thinking at all. Like you've mentioned a lot in this episode, just think about it. Just like put a little bit of thought and a little bit of consideration into what kind of thing you're fueling, what you're a part of just for that flea. momentary pleasure that's going to end up destroying your life and your relationship and your

sexuality anyway. There's just nothing, nothing redeeming about pornography. And I am so concerned about the children who are exposed to this at even younger ages. It's so ubiquitous. They're seeing it on TikTok, whether they're searching for it or not. They're seeing it on Instagram. They're comparing their own bodies, their own sexuality to these fake depictions that they're seen on social media. I mean, I don't even think we fully know the long-term repercussions on a societal level of kids being exposed and addicted to that kind of stuff early on. I mean, it's scary. Yeah. We have to, I mean, it's if we care about the protection of children, if we care about the dignity of women, if we care about authentic, healthy masculinity, we have to begin to look at the issue of pornography and how it's affecting us.

And I don't mean to come across as, you know, cynical or disillusioned when I talk about how this is affected, you know, the church and the secular world and conservatives and liberals. It's just that I'm in this really unique space where we get all the stories. So all the stories come to us of people who have been manipulated, defrauded, sexually abused, trafficked in all these different contacts. and by all these different people. And so I think there's just this unique autonomy and objectivity that we feel at Exodus cry as it pertains to this issue. And so, yeah, we want to just herald a message that it is an hour of crisis. It is an hour in which we really have to think about what we are going to do as a society

to protect future generations of children, to protect the dignity of women, to to produce healthy men and ultimately facilitate the ability for us to have healthy relationships to grow healthy families and healthy society. And right now, that is all in the balances. It's all in the balances by virtue of the tsunami of pornography, graphic, often violent, potent, visual media that has been invoked on us over these last few decades. Yes. Wow. Where can people watch this documentary raised on porn? We have it. It's just up on our Magic Lantern Pictures YouTube channel.

So they can go there. They can go to magic lanternpictures.com to see all of our films. And it's a 37 minute long film. Has nearly 4 million views online. It's a very consumable length. It's a palatable film. I think from my part, I think appropriate for, teenagers, but really tries to quantify porn's impact on the consumer. And we try to do all of our

productions with a really high standard for production quality. So I definitely encourage people to give that a look. And then the book, again, is a much more robust and in-depth resource. And they can get that where anywhere books are sold. It's, you know, Amazon or whatever. It's just the book is called Raised on Porn by myself, Benjamin Nolo. Thank you so much. I really, I really appreciate you're taking the time to come on. There are just a lot of stunning statistics, too, studies that are included in this book. And so if you want to be equipped, not just for yourself, but conversations. And I also, like, I encourage people take this book, take this documentary to your pastor,

to the ministers in your church, to make sure that they understand what's going on. I do think that this is something that's not talked about quite enough. Maybe we talk about, like, lust in general, but specifically the danger that pornography poses. is we just need to be, I think, I mean, as Christians, we need to be leaders in that world of heralding the one of the parts of the good news, which is that we are made in the image of God. We're made for something so much more and so much better than pornography. Thank you so much, Benji. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Absolutely. Thank you. It's always an honor. And I just appreciate you so much. So, yeah, thanks again. Thank you. Hey, Relata Bells and Relata Bros. If you could please leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to Relatable, that would mean so much to us and it really does help the show.

Also, if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, please deal. Thanks. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first. principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you

about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.