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S8 E6 | Is Pornography Actually Harmful? · Therapy and Theology

• Shae Hill: Hi, friends. Welcome back to the Therapy and Theology podcast by Proverbs 31 Ministries, where we help you work through what you walk through. I'm your host, Shae Hill, and I'm so excited for you to hear episode six. Can you believe it? From Lysa, Jim, and Joel. It's been such a great season so far. I really hope these episodes have helped you get out of any dysfunctional dances that you might find yourself in and be bravely honest about what you may be experiencing behind closed doors. Today, they're gonna talk about pornography, which Lysa, Jim, and Joel have covered before on the podcast, but it's been a couple years and you guys had so many more questions, so we had to circle back to it. We also want to acknowledge that there may be some of you who have been personally affected by pornography in some way. So please know we're here for you and we feel the way of being sensitive to a topic just like this. Before we jump in, I wanna let you know about two things. First, we want to hear from you guys, our listeners. By clicking the link in our show notes, you can submit a question or even a voice memo for Lysa, Jim, and Joel to listen to. Your question could be answered on a future episode, so make sure you check it out. Secondly, download a free resource by Lysa titled, “Trust Is a Track Record, Five Scriptural Truths to Remember God's Faithfulness.” This resource will provide you with prayers to declare when you want to stay connected to God, guided journal prompts to help you work through your honest thoughts and struggles about trusting Him and more. Because we help you work through what you walk through here on Therapy and Theology, I wanted to make sure you knew about this free resource that could really help you just do that. So download it today using the link in our show notes. Now let's jump in to hear from Lysa, Jim, and Joel. Lysa TerKeurst: So this whole season of Therapy and Theology, we're talking about things people are experiencing behind closed doors. Often, it's relational dynamics that they're experiencing. They don't know what to do about it. And I felt it was really important to talk about this subject, pornography. I found in so many conversations with other women that this is the topic that they're either very afraid of because they don't know what to do, what to say, how to talk about it, and, certainly, how do I confront it in a way that actually is gonna make a difference, or they don't wanna talk about it because they themselves are caught in the trap of pornography. So there's just a whole host of things happening around this topic, and I felt like we have to. We must at Therapy and Theology step into this conversation and better equip all of us to know how do we talk about it, what do we do about it, and how it's impacting us behind closed doors. So, Jim, I'm gonna look at you. I know last night, you just did a two hour seminar on this topic. And, of course, we don't have two hours today. Jim Cress: We do not. Lysa TerKeurst: But I felt like the information you have is so valuable. And, certainly, Joel, we're gonna turn to you because we definitely need some theology around this topic as well. So, Jim, I'm gonna let you just take it away. Jim Cress: Yeah. The lenses that, I taught people to look through, this is very helpful globally about taking a look at the problem of porn, what I call the porn demic, because we're in that even at the point of recording this. We are, in a global mental health pandemic coming out of a COVID pandemic even if we're at the tail end wherever. So a lot of stuff going on. And the porn demic, which rose so high when we were back in that original COVID pandemic, people had nothing to do. They had all this time and it's stunning without boring with all the stats of how high porn use, went. A thing at that time called Pornhub. Unbelievable. The way to look at this, this is with these lenses. The porn problem is a multifaceted problem that requires a multifaceted solution. If you're a hammer, the whole world likes and looks like a nail. Well, it's just lust. I've had pastors tell me that. I understand that it is that and it's more. You just need God, you just need Jesus or behavioral modification or whatever else. Thinking in the terms that's a multifaceted problem that requires a multifaceted treatment plan. So you never wanna leave the brain out of it with neuroplasticity. That's the part of the brain that if you send it down the porn trail, it's going to have a rut in there. Back to Aristotle we are what we repeatedly do. So that is going on and we want to in recovery or in healing lay use that neuroplasticity. It just means the brain is moldable and laying new neural pathways, let alone the word of God that we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. So the brain's involved in that. Obviously, the body is involved in that. Part of why that's important is if you think if you gave someone, imagine 11 or 12 year old, you gave them cocaine, opiates or opioids, or heroin at age 12, most people when these 28 are not gonna say go cold turkey. It's unfair. We'll say that around pornography just come off of a cold turkey or just stop. It didn't work with Nancy Reagan in the eighties. God bless her for trying. Just say no. I mean, there's a place to say no, but that's not going to do. This has been long term for a lot of guys especially. Lysa TerKeurst: And there are chemicals involved. Jim Cress: Dopamine, serotonin, catecholamines, PEA, norepinephrine, adrenaline, and the one that's missing when person is acting out to pornography by him or herself because when they're involved in this too with a rising stat is oxytocin. The bonding chemical that almighty God said be with your spouse at the end of lovemaking and skin to skin and the two literally are becoming one again and again. With that, you're left to bond with nothing at the end of someone acting out. So the body and brain keep the score thinking of it. So I say that every pornography addict, can we use that term, is is is a a an addict indeed. They are a chemical addict. They are a drug addict because all those neurochem neurochemicals and neurotransmitters in the brain and the drug dealer for the porn addict lives where? Inside him. He didn't have to go down the street, get old dime bag or get a hit of this. It's all right there. So there's more than the brain, but that's a starting point to realize this has been going on with a lot of these guys for a long, long time. Lysa TerKeurst: Yeah. And I think it's home situations. I know it can go both ways. But for the purpose of focusing the conversation, I want to talk tenderly to the wife who, last night, just walked in to, like, her husband's office and saw what she saw on his computer, and it's now causing her great angst. Jim Cress: It's called discovery. Right? You know that. Yeah. Lysa TerKeurst: And so what do you say to her? Because at that moment, okay, yes, it has to do with the brain. Yes, it has to do with chemicals. Yes, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's at play here, but she's panicked. And so what do you say tenderly to her? Because I know many women walk into your office, and they say, help me. I don't know what to do. Jim Cress: No one's gonna be a little FBI tactical, but I work in the tactical. Right? That is take a breath, try to calm yourself down as best you can for a moment because they'll be offered in that lower limbic brain because they just discovered it and they're into fight, flight, or freeze, whatever. The tactical part is when you see that because of a previous episode about gaslighting, not love bombing on this, but gaslighting, is I want you to get your phone and I want you to go and take a screenshot of or take a shot a camera shot of what you see. Because people could come back, they that's a bad gaslighting. Erase the history trail, say it's not there, and I don't want you to become obsessive. We've talked before about shopping for pain. I'm gonna literally be in the FBI, but I want you to be able to say, this is what I've seen because people will come back and that's all hard gaslighting. You didn't say that. That would or even to blame kids, that must have been one of our kids. I didn't do it. So I think get that, get regulated. And at that moment, to I'm not big on, although I understand this in trauma, for her to immediately confront her husband, if it's in a marital thing, is reach out to a friend or two, risk saying, well, then I'll blow his life up because they'll know I've pulled the curtain back, but to say, I need to talk. And you're helping a good friend will help you get emotionally regulated. I do that as a partner trauma therapist with a lot of a lot of women who've gone through this and say, again, I hear you. I understand you. I believe you. Because their world, in some cases, has literally just been blown up. Lysa TerKeurst: And I think it's really important to to emphasize, it's not that you're trying to blow their world up. Right? Jim Cress: That's that is for some women, it's scorched earth, and I I can understand it. At that moment, you're trying to not blow his world up. You're trying to get your world regulated because it's been like, woah. Lysa TerKeurst: I remember the first time that I met you, and, I didn't even remember this until you reminded me years later. That we were speaking at the AACC conference. I was backstage about to give a keynote message. And Julie Clinton, a mutual friend of ours, brought you up to me and, and said, hey, Lisa. You live in Charlotte. Jim lives in Charlotte. He's a therapist there, and I was interested. Right? And you have me until you handed me your card. And on his card, he said sex addiction. Jim Cress: Certified sex addiction therapist. Lysa TerKeurst: Yes. Jim Cress: Because I remember you went green as that sweater. Lysa TerKeurst: And I was just like…And I I looked at him going, what just happened? Jim Cress: Sorry, Julie. I just wanted to say hi. Lysa TerKeurst: I know. But it just kinda so caught me off guard. Yeah. And I thought, well, I don't need a sex addiction therapist. Like, I've got issues, but maybe not that one. Right? And so I just remembered there was so much fear around even the thought of, like, sex addiction and all of that. And so I didn't even have the memory of meeting you until years later when Jim was recommended to me by another therapist for me to go see him in betrayal trauma. And, Jim reminded me, like, this is part of the first time. Yeah. Jim Cress: I didn't do it first day because I thought, oh, no. I wonder if she remembers. I had to build a little trust, and it was like, guess what? That was me. Lysa TerKeurst: Yes. But the thing that I appreciated that you explained to me right away is that you're not just talking clinically about this. That you have personal experience of understanding this. And that gave me a lot of comfort. Because I thought if you personally have struggled with this, if you personally overcome this addiction. So you're not just speaking it from a clinical therapist standpoint Jim Cress: It's in my story. Lysa TerKeurst: But it's it's in your story. It's part of your testimony. I've heard you say it many, many times. That's what gave me the comfort to learn from you. And I want you to have that comfort today too, you know, as you're listening or watching on YouTube that that Jim knows about this and has overcome this, personally in his own life. True. And so tell us just a little bit about your story. Jim Cress: So, you know, sexually abused at age four. That's a real life story and maybe some of you have that. And then my fifth of six kids, mom said she wanted two. I always with all my intensives I do with people, let's explore what were the milieu you were born into. Naming, not blaming, what were you born into? I mean, please please go do your story work in a safe place. So you've got abandonment. I have studying much later an anxious attachment style. I'm just looking for a place to feel safe and to have a external solution to my internal problem. Right? In that and then so that's their loneliness in the house with a what we call in our field, a high level of rigid religiosity external, which I don't that's my story, Joel. Memorizing the Bible and church activities very conservative and I would say legalistic, and yet there was some safety in that. So you've got that going on. So two worlds, I was, you know, Jimmy on fire for God, gonna be a preacher boy and all that. And then behind the scenes praying and agonizing to come off of what I call poor man's pornography because all I could get would be a Sears catalog. These catalogs are out there and a boy coached me at about 12 and he said, you can do this. Talked about the word masturbation then said you need to look at pornography. And I'm like, I don't know what all this means. I mean, what is this? And he's I said, well, Christian, homies. Well, your mom notice the coaching. Notice the grooming. Your mom has these catalogs go to this section, and then I was hooked. Like, absolutely hooked like cocaine. And then for years, I was on fire for God, and I was never the guy going, I'll be fake. God, please remove this from what I didn't have there. I was not doing any therapy work as a teenager. Then I go to a Christian college and thought if I can marry, who I've been married to forty years, a beautiful Christian woman and do all that, that will be my external solution to an internal problem. Literally thought. Because biblically, in Jesus' name, I can have all the sex I want. That's why in pornography, we always assess with a couple with the partner of the wife, watch out for addicted sex in marriage. What is that? That's just saying, okay. I'll stop doing porn but you're gonna have sex, you know, 12 times a week or something like that. And so they just swap and begin to try to use their body, the body of their wife. So what happened is I did my wife and I did eight years of therapy. That's a long time with a biblical and Christian counselor. And then years later, my I've been sober twenty years from this. My, great mentor and friend, doctor Larry Crabb, said part of you wants to look at porn, but part of you doesn't. Because I've been in ministry too and on National Christian Radio. And he said we're gonna have to talk about what's different, which is Colossians 3. Kill the deeds of the flesh. Stop that porn. Stop means stop, it does, but give life to what's most alive in you. Larry said, what do you want more than that? And I said, I don't I've said it. I said, I don't want my boys to come in and catch me looking at porn. I wanna be a man of integrity. That alone wasn't gonna do it. But as I got into my rather serious horrific trauma story from childhood and did my work, I began to realize the porn was not just a choice, a problem. I was using it to medicate my trauma, my lack of attachment. When I know better and knew better, I began to do better. And that's not even talking about your original question, how my wife who was a partner and she had to go do her work to the partner question. The wife discovery, all like that needs or disclosure if he discloses it. She needs to find a good safe person, i.e. a therapist, I think, to really go explore the damage that was done to her too, not just couples counseling. Lysa TerKeurst: How much did it affect your marriage? Jim Cress: Tremendously. I mean, in our marriage, we had a five year period of time. We this is our testimony we've taught in marriage workshops together that we both she realized in therapy she'd been sexually abused as a child. I knew mine. I knew the story we both did, but the therapist said, what we do here a lot is, you know, that's called sex abuse. I just what happened? I mean, I so we had to get the right naming, the nomenclature. We had five years in our marriage, no sex, no sexual touching. That's not good. We didn't even though we were in therapy, we kinda weren't bringing that in. So what we call there is a cycle of disaffection, and we began still having kids. There's a six year gap between my youngest son and my only daughter. You can see it. So that's in our story, and we were just moving away, kind of omitting that with omitting that with our therapist. We really wrestled with, quite frankly, hating each other, not liking. I'm in ministry doing that and agonizing with God. Please remove this. So inside also, there was a moment where my wife, the therapist said, you think Jim's the problem completely and he thinks he's the problem. I was always quick to go, I'm the biggest screw up you've ever seen. I mean, I'll own it. I mean, just that's me. And she began then to so beautifully go do her own work. She's a board certified coach now. She's brilliant around partner trauma, and she would say, as our sweet friend, Leslie Vernick, who knows my wife well, says, what is your problem with his problem? Not in an arrogant way or an angry way. So she began to go do her own work clear going back into her own story, her views of sex, her historical thoughts and things of her own abuse as she did that and we became together. And, yes, as over twenty years ago, I got sober from it. And I always tell people, sorry, but not because I got old. Well, you're old. It has nothing to do with it. Trust me. So that piece is I began to do my work, and I had to sit and hear her story, the impact, like many men I work with, said, you've t boned her in an intersection. She's on a bicycle. And that is you need to sit and have that empathy with her because when you were acting out in porn, you did not have empathy towards yourself and you did not have empathy toward her. So that's the shift, and she knew that I really began to take it seriously. Lysa TerKeurst: Okay. I've got a few other questions. But, Joel, I do wanna turn to you because I wanna hear some of the theological research that you've done on this very challenging topic. Joel Muddamalle: Yeah. I mean, I can share personally too that, you know, I remember my first time being introduced to pornography. I was 11, 10, 11 years old. And, was introduced to it at a family member's house. And I remember my first response to it was like, I've shared this I think with you guys before, it was this righteous anger. Like really like I knew I knew this was bad. I knew it was wrong and I brought it down and I kind of like shared it with the family member. I was like I cannot believe this and the individual told me put that back and let's not ever talk about this ever again. Jim Cress: Classic. Joel Muddamalle: Right? And so that created for me roots of secretness and hiddenness and what was righteous anger turned into curiosity and obsession and ultimately addiction, right? And so I remember you're it's funny that kind of just generationally, I think I was in the shift generation where I had some friends who were like, hey we can ride our bikes to the White Hen Pantry. There's this place called White Hen Pantry in Illinois. And they had a place where the naughty magazines were. And we would, you know, try to figure out how to steal them. Well, by the time I get into high school, it's the rise of the technology world, you know. AOL Instant Messenger, there's this thing called Napster and that was where there's accessibility. And I think what I found and this is gonna lend into the conversation of the biblical narrative, what I found was for me entering into an environment that was now hypersexualized, and where once I had an imagination for the beauty of what it was to be a man or what it was to be a woman, that beauty and that imagination I think God created for us, in originally in the Garden of Eden was perverted and it was corrupted. Yeah. And often when it comes to the biblical text, when it comes to conversations that we're having, Lysa and we worked on, a chapter. I wrote a chapter in an upcoming book that me, you and Jim have co authored together. I think it's gonna be, really important work and I'm excited to share that more with you guys, as the days go. But I wrote a specific chapter on pornography because one of the big questions is, well, what does the Bible say? We know therapeutically, and we've got the data and the science of it, but what about the theology of it? And and often I'll get, like, from guys, you know, well, the Bible doesn't say pornography anywhere. It's not talking about it. So, you know, how do we know that it's bad? And, to that I would say, okay, take a look at, Matthew 19:9. Jesus refers to sexual immorality, and he uses a Greek word, about sexual immorality and it's porneia. That's where we get our English or pornography from. What is porneia? Porneia was understood in the time of Jesus and in the time of Paul and, and when Paul's planting all these churches in Corinth and Ephesus and Galatia, it was understood as a sexualized environment. So notice how Jesus is presenting it and then how Paul is dealing with it. He's not just saying it's this one thing over here in this corner. It's this one thing over here. No. He's saying it's actually an environment that is actually perverting the ideal of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. And then here's the other thing that often people will say. They'll say, well, well, Joel, like, how do we even know that he was even that bad back then? Like, we're in a totally different context. Like, our cultural context is different. To which point I would just say, I wish y'all walked around ancient Rome. Ancient Rome would make Las Vegas look like it was PG compared to what ancient Rome was. You know? Lysa TerKeurst: Absolutely. I mean, we were just this past year in Ephesus. Joel Muddamalle: That's right. Lysa TerKeurst: And it was it was a lot. Joel Muddamalle: It was a lot. And so I I wanna bring that context in because it's important for us. There are these Roman emperors, Claudius, Caligula, and Nero who were known for, like, their sexual exploits were so horrific that historians, Herodotus, Tacitus, Roman historians would not even write it. Like, they wouldn't even depict the stories of it. And I actually think, Jim, you probably have a lot of thoughts on this. I actually think that we actually live in a world that's actually a little bit more challenging than the Romans in this way. At least it was out on the open back then. Right? Like, I think we were in Ephesus and they had well, remember it was a, a a private entryway. Lysa TerKeurst: Yes. Joel Muddamalle: Go ahead and explain it. Lysa TerKeurst: Yeah. It was a private entryway where, you if you were a boy, you went and they had, like, footprints in the stone Joel Muddamalle: To let you know. Lysa TerKeurst: To so if your feet were bigger than the footprints in the stone, then you were allowed admission into the brothel. Joel Muddamalle: Into the brothel. Lysa TerKeurst: And and there's, like, these private entrances to I mean, it's just it was just out there. And you could also be like, you could tell your wife that you were going to was it the library? Joel Muddamalle: The library. Yeah. Lysa TerKeurst: Yeah. Well, help us. You're going to the library, but then there was a tunnel that went underneath from the library straight into the brothel. Joel Muddamalle: And, and so the other thing apart of so you have the social life, but you also have the religious life. And so you think about the temples in Corinth, you think about the temples, in Ephesus, that these were known places where temple prostitution, where, sexual exploits were taking place. And so when Paul is dealing with these things, when he's talking about them, he's talking about something that's incredibly, pervasive in the culture, in the society, and it's something that is pervasive in the culture and society today. And there's a reason why Paul and Jesus, when they talk about pornography, they almost and and I wanna be careful and precise in my language. It's not that pornography is a greater sin or a lesser sin, but it does seem to suggest that any type of sexualized sin has a greater level of gravity that is associated with it because it's a direct offense against the image of God that you bear. Lysa TerKeurst: And the fact that we are the temple of God. Joel Muddamalle: And we are the we are the temple of God. And the goal of pornography is self fulfillment. It's self glorification. And it actually totally subverts the image that God has for, a husband, one man, and one woman to come together in holy union and to give themselves over to each other, right? And so the point of marriage and, and sex in the context of marriage is actually mutual gratification. It's to love outdo one another in love. Pornography is actually you're trying to outdo your own love for yourself, you know, and it's this hyper focus on, on self gratification and self obsession, and it was a disaster. It was a disaster. And one of the reasons why the church was so hated, in the first century is because as Christians began to follow the way of Jesus, they turned their back on the brothels. They turned their back on sexual exploitation. It messed up the temple systems. It messed up the, brothel systems. It it created, you know, like once again going back to the Ephesus thing, like it was interesting that there was a a pie basically, it looked like a pie and that was the symbol was you were going to the marketplace in Ephesus that would let everybody know that you were a Christian, that this was a Christian business, you know. And so almost instantly, like I didn't even think about until just now, Lys, you have this compare and contrast of a sign and the symbol of sexual, exploitation and self deception. But simultaneously, you have a sign and the symbol of the way of Jesus, of the way of the people of God. And really the people then and today, you and I have a decision to make. Which way are we going to go? And the issue with the sexualized environment I would just suggest is so serious. And again, I wanna be careful in how I'm talking about this, but I wrote a forward for a friend of mine and he wrote on spiritual warfare and in it I used an example of a frog and I think this is true of spiritual warfare. I think this is true of pornography and there's this, you know, old story of a frog and boiling water. And if you put the frog in a pot of boiling water, the frog just jumps the heck out. Right? Like I'm out of this. But if you take that frog and you put that frog in just cool water and then you turn the burner on slowly and the temperature the frog just gonna like, this is nice. I'm in a sauna. I'm in a hot tub. And then all of a sudden the frog is boiled alive and dead. And what what I'm watching in our culture and our society today, what it seems like is this sexualized environment and the burner is just dialing up. And we're becoming more and more accustomed to things that are being presented in front of us as good and beautiful, but it's actually a deception of the enemy because it is sexualizing and it's actually devaluing a woman. It's devaluing a man. And, and if we don't open our eyes and allow the Holy Spirit to convict us and to say, oh, I'm not gonna participate in those activities. I'm not going to like those pictures on Instagram. I'm not gonna follow those accounts because of what it's doing. And it's not about them. It's about me. Lysa TerKeurst: And it's slowly turning the temperature of the water up. Joel Muddamalle: Yes. Because it it is it is this, it is a step towards the justification of sinful behavior. Right? And, and I just I think that when, Paul and when Jesus talking about in Matthew 19:9 and when he's addressing, the churches in Corinth and Ephesus and Galatia, when he's, when he's talking about the devastation that takes place in marriages because of pornea and because of, living in these sexualized environments and being okay with them. He's like, hey. There's a reason why, you ought to turn away from those things and turn towards the way of Jesus. Because when we turn towards the way of Jesus and we actually uphold the the dignity of the man and the woman, it actually serves as a winsome witness to the world of an alternative way. There's another way that you don't have to give yourself over in self destruction to pornography or to sexual activities that are, that are self deprecating, like they're they degrade who you are, you know. And in fact there's a way that you can find that God actually and you actually kind of just joked about it, but mentions like, man, sex can be a phenomenal in the context of marriage where there's trust, where there's love, where there's high honor for one another, You know? And the Lord's like, hey. Enjoy it in that context. But when it goes outside of that context, it is absolutely devastating. Lysa TerKeurst: So Joel or Jim thank you, Joel. What do you say when a woman comes into your office and she says, I need help? Like, where does she start? What does she do? And then what do you say if a couple is sitting in front of you? So let's start with the woman first. Jim Cress: Well, either way, I'm gonna start with the two d's of discovery or disclosure. Now I'm not a robot, so I may start here one time and that, that one time. I'm also wanted to get into the story. But before we get into her story in that case, I want the story, the narrative of did you discover something? If so, or is he disclosed something? Most of the time, it will be discovery. What did you discover? I want you to know this is confidential. I'll tell her we're gonna talk about this. I'm not gonna judge and rush to judgment of your husband. She might. But I wanna know what happened. I wanna know a little bit, best you can remember, of the history of it. How long ago do you think I saw a sign, you know, I would go down and saw a blue light or I came in and he closed the old days. You know, close the laptop down, change the channel when I'm walking in the room or I found a burner phone or two. You know, I found that he had another phone or I saw a history trail or something. I thought maybe it was something. I began to find evidences of something. And so I would say, well, let's walk through. Give me some ideas of what you found and how long was it there. I wanna know, does he know? I have women come in my office and say I'm about to blow his life up or I'm about to go to confront or I'm gonna go to the pastor. He doesn't even know I've discovered it yet. So I have to meet them uniquely there and kind of warn and guide because part of this is once you go and and say to him, here here's everything I found, you know, he might start hiding stuff real quickly. So that's on her part. I'm letting her know ahead of time that, okay, you're in a journey now that you're gonna need to go do whether it was with me because I work with a lot of women or with someone else. You're not gonna need to go explore your part of the trauma because you're in ICU right now. Again, he T-boned you in an intersection. You're on a bicycle. Let her know because sometimes and for years, it was very common. It's him, him, him, him. And I go, it is him what he's done, but you need to go do your own work. So I'm kind of just laying that out. In some cases, they're not ready to hear that you're like, this isn't about me. I say, okay. So then I wanna is he willing to come in? Helps a lot for me at least at some level can if a person's a Christian. But if if I work with non Christians too. Is he willing to come in and does he know ahead of time? Yeah. He knows what I've discovered. And then if they come in with a couple ship, I'm willing to say, she's discovered. Let me hear you, not your side of the story. But what's what's happened? What are you willing to own? And if we say, if you Chaz knows this, your husband, you know, in addiction stuff, that those of us in recovery, if you spot it, you got it. That was a porn addict for years. And with that is if I see everything from the breaking out in a sweat or getting angry, I read their eyes, their nostrils flare, or they begin to yes, but. If they give an excuse, an excuse is just the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. So I'm knowing already and I'm going, okay. I don't judge them right away or confront them. I'm trying to get the narrative out and just feel the vibe, trusting the Holy Spirit of what I see. That's the beginning point. And then if they'll do the work, then I wanna say, if we're gonna do the work, we're not gonna do this simplistically. I need to get both of their stories out in detail. And and I think every time, if not nearly every time with a guy in porn, I'll be able to see the ideology, we call it, or the origin of probably this is where this all started way back here. Lysa TerKeurst: And then is there hope? You know? I know that you have done great work, and you've seen great restoration in your marriage, but what does it take? And is there hope in this situation? Jim Cress: Yeah. The one that takes a great one, and it means thoroughly. Right? Do your work. The the idea – Lysa TerKeurst: And when you say do your work, like, unpack that. Jim Cress: Like, in counseling to go in, we believe in the sex addiction field as I'm a certified sex addiction therapist dealing with pornography. It's probably a two to five year plan because you need to rewire the brain. Remember this is doing your work. Address the neurochemical part, the brain part. You wanna you wanna address that. You've been pumping those drugs for years. You wanna address shame, which you know I've said is self hatred at my expense. So these guys actually don't have a good view of themselves. They hate themselves. It's a shame based problem. If people only knew what I was doing, what would they think? That's that fear. Look at their thinking. I'm saying, what is your thinking? Listen, even in childhood, what did you add a story you shared personally? So if someone discovers porn, well, just sweep that under the rug. But we shouldn't do that. What's their thinking view of God, Sexuality? Wives? Husbands? Men, women? There's a lot of misogyny. That's that word that means the hatred of women. If you're looking at porn, there is a hatred of women. That is not a viewing of porn. I have to do so much word we use is psychoeducation because they don't see it. I'm I'm trying to say, slowly you begin to see this. They've got to look at the emotional impact. This is what we call an intimacy disorder. When they're acting out to porn, it feels like real intimacy. When they're looking at porn, I've dubbed it modern day polygamy. Yeah. The average person from 12 men, from 12 to 28, and I are in my office, they have looked and acted and the body feels like it's having sex. Listen, better than Solomon or worse. Thousands of women. Most guys don't look at one porn picture and act out to it. And I assess deeper, like, I don't look at porn. I go, are you looking at sexy images on Instagram? Oh, and I say, have you willfully sought out sexually stimulating material to look at? So I'm getting them to do their work as to go in. I'm gonna start if they're willing and they're willing to start unpacking unpacking their trauma story to go back. And and I'll find, man, you got you just told one. You found porn. See, it's this porn problem is accessible. It's anonymous. It's accidental. Right? It's affordable. Nobody should pay for porn these days. It's accidental. It's airbrushed and it's AI. Now, like, we've never seen. I mean, it's like this is the the one place I don't I'm I'm I believe in the word of God, but the one place I wrestle with Solomon that it's that it's that it's errant is when he said there's nothing new under the sun. Dude, you wait till the Internet comes along and AI. Now I believe in the Bible. Don't get me wrong. I'm kidding. I tell everywhere I speak, I say that Joel Muddamalle: Principle not policy, Jim. Jim Cress: Oh, thank you. Because I'm like, this is not your father's porn or grandfather's porn problem. Joel Muddamalle: Let me let me I just wanna one more thing. Just connect it, very practically, because I've got a bunch of friends in in the last couple of years. The Lord's opened up opportunities to speak at some, college campuses or some things there, which has been phenomenal. And one of the big ones that I'm getting on the women's side, young women's side is, like, we're all the godly guys. Like, we're serious. We wanna be in a committed relationship and, like, there's no and then on the guy side, it's like, well, there's just nobody out there. There's just nobody out there. And so one day, I I did this and it's like pretty brash. I was like, hey. Let me see somebody I knew. Let me see your phone. Can I can I look at your Instagram real quick? It's kinda like, yeah. Whatever. Sure. And I looked at the ins and I started to scroll and go, do you know her? No. Do you know her? No. And these are all just, like, supermodel, like, you know? And I'm just like, this is a sexualized environment and you're training your brain, you're training your heart, you're training your mind, you're training your body to buy into a vision of reality that my friend is not reality. And and so now look at the deception of this. The deception of this is you're conning yourself out of actually godly women that love Jesus that are beautiful, that don't look like this fictitious imagination wiring their brains toward that. Your brain towards false template. Right? So now guys aren't getting like that watch this thing, like, play itself out, you know. And I do think that this is a deception of the enemy. This is all connected to the impact of pornography and it's deeply theological, it's deeply therapeutic, and it is impacting people, children, marriages, you know. Nobody goes unscathed. A couple of just passages, because we've been talking a lot about this. I just want to anchor us in a couple places. It's 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul's just like y'all acted wild. It's actually reported. That was me. That's not in the text. It says it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and the kind of sexual immorality that's not even tolerated among the Gentiles. Lysa TerKeurst: Okay. Where's this 1 Corinthians 5? Okay. Joel Muddamalle: A man is sleeping with his father's wife and, and you're arrogant. Shouldn't you be filled with greed? Now I think this is huge because it's both saying the person who is observing the act should be filled with grief and the person who is in the who is in the act should be observing grief. Both parties should be responding in a certain way and yet that response is not happening. And then you could flip over to, 1 Corinthians, 6, the very next chapter starting in verse 15. This is what you kind of alluded to, Lys, and quoted, don't you know that your bodies are part of Christ's body? So should I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of a prostitute? Absolutely not. Don't you know anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For scripture says the two will become one flesh. It's a call back to Genesis. But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Verse 18, flee sexual immorality. It's not saying don't flirt with it, don't hang out with it, don't consider it, flee. Flee sexual morality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God? Like one of the most, precise Greek sentences that you can have. You're not your own for you were bought at a price. So, glorify God with your body. Lysa TerKeurst: That's good. Thank you, Joel. Jim Cress: One of the big dangers here, so I teach it all day long with people and I believe it's accurate and if Joel tells me it's not, I still believe it's accurate, That if you're married to your wife and sexually and spiritually, the two become one. And Paul has clearly said here, if you connect to a prostitute to become one, the pornography issue, I believe there's a a a the realm of the demonic being opened, but of strongholds and attachments that many of them and I've helped them renounce it just globally that the the the men are actually bonding in an unhealthy way, becoming one with so many pornographic images. It's unbelievable. And I work to say, we've got to come out of that, confess it, repent, and say, give it all to God. But there is an attachment and bonding in porn. Lysa TerKeurst: Well, thank you both so much for both sharing your stories, but also your wisdom around this really challenging topic. Jim, as we close, I know you said that, you know, it's gonna take, intensive therapy, and there's a lot of layers to the healing. But I love that your story gives great hope. Because if you will invest the time and get out of the blame and the shame and start moving on to rewiring the brain and having healthy patterns and habits in your life, I love that your story is such a great example of how not only were you restored, but your marriage was as well. So as we end today, can you talk to that couple who is facing this right now and they're just in this cycle of fear, dysfunction, chaos, blaming, shaming, you know, all the things that are happening. Can you talk tenderly to whoever it is that's listening? Jim Cress: Well, you're at ground zero, aren't you? You're at the 9/11. Even if it's been months worth of what do we do here, you're at ground zero. And I tell everyone that it's not a bumper sticker. It's true. Come on in here in the office. Let's talk. We'll get the story out. We have more help, hope, and healing than you have problems. So I wanna give them that vision. There is a way out. I've gotten out. There is hope for you if you do the work. But the way out, Robert Frost, the poet said, the way out is through. Prepositions matter. We're gonna work through this to get to the other side. There has to be healthy me before there's a healthy we. So both of you have to do your own work and don't be dependent whether your spouse does your work or not. That's happened with so many women I've worked with where the guy just bails or he's not gonna do his work and so the idea is do your own individual work and you really need to get that set before you do the deeper couples work. It works if you work it. It really will. There's more help and hope and healing for this pornography or infidelity problem than you know. It's there and it awaits you. Lysa TerKeurst: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Therapy and Theology. Shae Hill: Lysa, Jim, and Joel, thank you so much for today's conversation. Friend, after listening, there's a lot you can do with what you heard today. First, I would encourage you to share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it. Send them the link to listen, then maybe go grab coffee and talk talk it over together. Or, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, you might find yourself in a really difficult place of feeling distant from God, questioning if his plans for you are really good, or maybe something else. If that's you, I want you to know that we deeply understand, but we also want to help. That's why I wanna remind you about Lysa TerKeurst's free resource titled, “Trust Is a Track Record, Five Scriptural Truths to Remember God's Faithfulness.” Download it today using the link in our show notes. That's all for today, friends. Thank you so much for tuning in to Therapy in Theology. Therapy in Theology is brought to you by Proverbs 31 Ministries, where we believe if you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.