Latest / God + Mental Health Podcast / What Drives Women to Porn: Crystal Renaud Day on Female Sex Addiction and Recovery

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What Drives Women to Porn: Crystal Renaud Day on Female Sex Addiction and Recovery · God + Mental Health Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, welcome.
0:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to the god in mental health podcast.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Roslyn, and I'm so excited to be back in front of the microphone with you this week.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I have an amazing podcast I'm so excited to be interviewing Crystal today We're going to talk about a topic that I know a lot of people shy away from talking about or may not hear a lot of voices talking about especially in the faith-based community
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about it today, so I am interviewing Crystal Renault Day.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a pastoral counselor, author, speaker, and recovery advocate who has spent close to 20 years working with women who are struggling with pornography.
0:36
[SPEAKER_00]: She is the founder of She Recovery, the author of Dirty Girls Conclean, and her fourth coming book that basically came out last week, what drives women to porn.
0:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to be interviewing her today and I'm very excited about that.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are washing the podcast via YouTube, thank you so much for engaging in this content.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are listening to the audio, make sure you check out the show notes for the video podcast we get to see Crystal and me interact in this conversation.
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey Crystal, how are you?
1:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey Roslyn, I'm well.
1:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Good to be with you.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to talk with you about this.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not kind of stood that's you before we hit record.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll start there.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I have, like you said, been working in this field of working with women specifically, the women themselves struggling with pornography, sex addiction, love addiction, really any unwanted sexual behavior in the church outside the church.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But primarily, my target has been to educate churches, get women talking about the
1:42
[SPEAKER_01]: talking about this issue in their congregations.
1:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But since they aren't, I took on that role in helping women find the healing that they need.
1:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But it all came out of my own story.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was exposed to porn at the age of 10 years old.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 41 now.
1:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking about 30 years ago, magazines.
2:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But today, we know that this issue is
2:04
[SPEAKER_01]: everywhere.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on social media.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on your dating apps.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's everywhere.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's all of it.
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's that.
2:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's who we want to serve to your recovery exist to help.
2:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't say this to you pre-production, but I got exposed to pornography and apps talked with us on my podcast before, but maybe people haven't heard, but I got exposed to pornography and I was in a fifth grade.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's about 10 years old.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: About the same.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, about the same age.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: and then struck with the addiction throughout middle school.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And my early early high school, but then stopped after high school.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, it early exposure as well.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So it interested in us talking about this.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So why don't you kind of tell us, of course, I know it's in years old, you didn't think, I'm exposed to this.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to work with women.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk a little bit about how did you end up in this and what kind of happened that propels you
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I entered recovery early sounds like you were able to overcome your struggles with it too early on, but I was able to I know I was I was deeply addicted at the teenager.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I was exposed at 10 it felt an emotional need for me and I kept rolling with that for close to a decade.
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was about 19 years old, is when I met a woman who shared a story with me.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: First time I'd ever heard a female talk about pornography from her perspective, her experience.
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Not as a wife, not as a betrayal trauma, but like, this was her story and shared it with me.
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And that gave me, you know, the ability, the opportunity to save me to and enter into healing.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: the reason I reached for in the first place.
3:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But through that recovery, that looked like counseling, that looked like accountability, that looked like support, that looked like prayer and surrender.
3:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was able to overcome it, you know, not perfectly at first, but eventually.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of had the philosophy of thanks Jesus, like, got me through that I never want to talk about it again.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: ever.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And only a few people have been new about my story.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But I found myself on church staff and doing social media, that social media is so much as like graphic design and media and things like that.
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, I was about, I was, it's 2006, so I'm 23-ish and actually 20.
4:30
[SPEAKER_01]: 22 and I am on church staff and it come out that my pastor that I who had been my pastor since I've returned to church of 15 and my mentor on church staff had been having a long-term affair and so that to me that was the catalytic event to say there are people in the church.
4:51
[SPEAKER_01]: who are struggling sexually, who you would never suspect or struggling sexually.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to me, it was the Holy Spirit, the Lord, it was like, Crystal, hey girl, you have a story, you know, you have a story to tell to help other women to find the freedom that you have gotten because someone shared her story with you.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that really just began as a me and a group of three women meeting in a church classroom
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: not really relevant but largely irrelevant to us who are struggling or who had struggled with pornography.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's how it, that's how she recovery began and that's how all this work began but now we're talking almost 20 years ago.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's always interesting how God will be like, yeah, we're going to actually talk about this.
5:39
[SPEAKER_00]: over the way.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to actually bring it up.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we're going to not hide it.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: How about like, you're going to actually talk about it.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was that line for you when you started to feel that nudge?
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And then.
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how you said like the the moment with your pastor at the time was like the catalyst moment.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like this light bulb went off on your mind like we actually have to talk about this.
6:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was it like for you when you felt the Holy Spirit kind of nudge you to say, okay, I want you to do this like in a small group sitting, share your story.
6:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you feel fear, how did you feel shame?
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you feel like what were the emotions that you
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking about when blogging was like a big deal.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like at that point in our current culture before influencers, before tech talk, where we were all blogging.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, it started with feeling like, just because I was already blogging, I was called Pink Hair Girl and it was like this whole thing where I was just talking about working at the church and being this graphic designer and whatever, being really cool.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to share your life a little bit.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I was sharing my life, yeah, so I had somewhat of a following, not big, but somewhat of a following and I was sharing just my life and my experiences on church staff and being a Christian woman in ministry is different things.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like that was where that was going to start.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So like that was going to be where I would first share my story was through the blog, it felt like the most natural way to do it.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: and so I just went straight to public but basically is what happened with my story and then I was getting feedback like I was getting like comments like oh my gosh me too I've never never knew this was a thing like I thought I was alone though that was the only one and so that's when I was like oh I should like create a space like create a space for women to heal but I didn't know exactly what that meant what that looked like especially given that the time frame
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no resources like there are today that I hadn't written anything yet and other people hadn't written anything yet.
7:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, but I was like, but I can create a group and we could talk about it and I could find something that may be relevant.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's really where it started, but I had to get like church approval.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was always like, I was probably the hardest, the hardest part was like going to our church was rather large.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it had its own like
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: are like hair groups and like support group type type things.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went to the head of that department and I'm just like, I would like to start a group for girls or women who are shuggling with pornography.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, cool, but why?
8:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, like, what do you want to do?
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you want to do this?
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had to basically be like, well,
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So for the first time, church leadership learning that this was my story, I'm thankful they were nothing but encouraging and he was just like, we'll try to find some kind of book, something to help, you know, give you a framework, you know, but yeah, here's a classroom, here's a sign up, like go ahead and give it a whirl.
8:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's interesting about that is that none of the women who actually attended my group went to my church.
9:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So these were all women who had heard about it through my blog or heard about it through like an online group registration type thing.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, I actually can't went to my church.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: super interesting.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So from you doing that small group, was it like a fire lit up in you?
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: What were some of the things that you remember from that first like subset of women that you got to kind of talk?
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so those first few women just varying stories.
9:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what was interesting was
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had my experience, I had my story, so I knew what my experience was like, and I also knew what the woman who had confessed to me, her story was like.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But now I have women in this room who were talking about stories that have a similar thread, but they were, but they were their own unique experience.
9:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Some were using porn all the time.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Some were compulsive masturbation and excessive fantasies.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Having sex like they were literally like couldn't quit a guy, you know, like they just kept going back to the same same guy over and over and over again And as Christian women, you know, it's one thing to be like, you know, a secular group of women It's just talk about these things and they don't necessarily experience shame Maybe they do what they don't talk about that shame But these ladies it was like for the first time they're putting words to their experiences
10:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just remember feeling like, you know, I wish there was material like that I could use that it's like that would walk them through what recovery that would walk them through there's some steps like that would encourage them to dig deeper that it's not just about sobriety.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's when we're talking probably 2009 at this point, I feel like, you know, God's like, write it.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the body had been a blogger.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been a decent writer.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was internalism in high school and just, you know, so just write it.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you can write this.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I'm like, no, no, with you.
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: a couple of short tangent with that.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like what I wanted to point this out.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it the pornography manifested itself in different ways for them.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, kind of you said there was a thread so we can talk about that because I know you've also done you surveyed a lot of women around this topic, so you have some data now that can give you some Assault set of where this could start or what is interesting about but it kind of manifests itself differently and I think what's interesting where you're talking about women we kind of.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I think we think about when we automatically think of men, um, automatically think of this could be a man issue.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What was interesting about it being women, and like women actually using porn that was,
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think surprising to you.
11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think when I hear you talk about it, it makes me think to myself like, I would not probably immediately think women.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've had my own experiences with, I would not think women.
12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But what was interesting about it when you realized like, there are actually a lot of women who are using porn and it turns into masturbation, or maybe even obsessive masturbation, or like other things.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So talk to me a little bit about that.
12:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So initially, I think the overarching theme was believing that they were the only one.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So like that was like the, that's like, I remember for like years, the emails I would get.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I would get at least one a week.
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just say one.
12:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That was camped with a family.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was the only one.
12:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that was that like that could have been.
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: like a popular tattoo, like that was like the most common phrase that I would hear for years.
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, I hear that lesson less because there's more conversations happening around it.
12:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so initially, that's what I what I had heard.
12:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was the only one.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I was exposed young, struggled through, through adolescence into college, and then it blew up.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And it, and it looks different, we talk about the presentations of female sex addiction, so it can look like pornography.
13:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like masturbation.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like excessive fantasy.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like erotic novels.
13:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like hardcore pornography on porn hub.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like serial dating.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like,
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, poking up culture, like all these things.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all presentations of female sex addiction.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's also true for men.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks the same similarly, like it's not all just men watching porn.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like we see men, again, serial dating, sexual relationships, pornography, masturbation.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, you know, and then, you know, I can lead to other more reckless behaviors than that.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It can look like lead to prostitution.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It can lead to, you know, all kinds of things.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think was interesting as far as my findings we did a survey about three years ago, of over 1,300 women, and it we asked about their porn experiences.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So when were you exposed?
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you exposed?
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What keeps you going back?
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And from that information, 46% of them
14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: you and I are those women.
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we are looking at almost half of them before the age between ages of 8 and 12.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it was about 87% before the age of 18.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these things are happening.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: This exposure to pornography is happening before we have a language and understanding of our own bodies, let alone.
14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Sex, how sex works, what sex is for, and all of that.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it changes your sexual palate, and it molds your sexual palate.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It creates your sexual palate, and your sexual worldview.
14:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the things that you may have found to something you never thought you would experience, never thought you would do, you start to inch towards it because pornography has dis sensitized you to those behaviors, to those actions, to those experiences.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so these women who were in my group, who, like, especially the one that was having, you know, kept returning to the same man who was married.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a, it says that she's in a fair partner for this man.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: These aren't things that she, you know, woke up at 15, saying, I'm going to go do this.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go have an affair with a man.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: These were long.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a process of, I think, with Andy Stanley set a series of unwise choices where you are dislofaid into these types of things.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, like, no one sets out to do it, but it's a slow fade and it happens.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to point out a couple things you said that I think is interesting that I can't relate to from my, like, on experience.
15:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the things you kind of said was it just sensitizes you.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So you are almost like, and what that kind of would mean is I want to even say it's it's devalued, but it's almost like the you may expect like arousal to come in a different way or you may see to find the comfort that you would get from pornography or and you can probably talk about this deeper as you kind of worked with women, but I will say for myself for me it turned into
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: from all throughout middle school to high school.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have my first sexual experience so I wasn't high school with a boyfriend, but I even then I was a teenager and church.
16:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always felt this feeling of shame of I'm doing this and I'm going to church.
16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing this and what does God think about me when I'm doing this?
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: and I have these sensations in my body that I want to gravitate to someone.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, I was alone a lot.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I was alone a lot in middle school, late elementary school, middle school, early high school.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: My parents were very random business.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a turned key kid.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I was home a lot since I was exposed.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I had lime wire, I would dale low stuff.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, yes, freedom that it's on to me.
17:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And they didn't know I did tell my mom till I probably was an adult.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was so surprised.
17:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, going back to what you said, kind of the sensitization, we don't know like it's changing kind of even our bodily feeling and sensation around sex.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you kind of talked about that.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm so,
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: for some of the women that you experience like reading the survey feedback, what things surprised you about this feedback that they talked about and now you talked about early exposure that's obviously and and I also would say in my opinion hearing that number tells me that that is a tactic of the enemy to try to expose us early on to to
17:53
[SPEAKER_00]: kiddos quickly as as various children who probably haven't had the six talk parents probably haven't opened up about what a six is they probably don't watch porn so it's not a thought that my kid would go and find this stuff I think now millennial parents were like no right but they're like different of they don't have that understanding for other things surprise you about this data
18:21
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I think is interesting, I set out to do this survey.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I had some things in my mind as to, based on what I had seen, I wanted to confirm with a larger survey group, to be a basically like, yeah, see, I was right about this or that.
18:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the great myths that is involved in this issue, especially from maybe more the feminist side of it, where it's like, wow, I would women ever watch porn it, so degrading it's all this stuff, is they believe that women only use porn because of the spouse, like a spouse has coerced them into using it.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's something that I have heard in this work for all very a long time and it continues with the narrative that's given even to me at, I'm at a conference with my table with my books and my resources, and this would been still walked by and say, let me only do that because of their husbands.
19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the survey data found that only 2% of these went used pornography at the request of a partner, two as a primary reason.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what was their primary reason?
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Somewhere around 53% was for, I don't know, I always flip it, but I think it was 53% was for emotional release and like 46% was for physical release.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is sexual and it's emotional and they go back and forth as to what the need is.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about this in terms of what women do every month.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We experience ovulation, right?
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we, it's Christian women, we also experience ovulation.
20:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like we don't because we're Christian, right?
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's, we experience these highs and these lows with our luteal phase and our follicular phase and all the things in between where our hormones go up their hormones go down and our bodies are literally like, give me a baby.
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: give me a man and I need one now.
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, right man.
20:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, but a man, but on Mother's behalf, my body is like preparing to have a man.
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be a man.
20:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, your body's didn't give me a baby.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Your brain's like, give me a man.
20:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's what you want, right?
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but that's what's happening in our bodies every month.
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet for some reason as Christians, within the church, it's like, with an aren't sexual.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't like it.
20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't want it.
20:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you end up with, and if you're a woman who
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: sexual feelings, which we all experience sexual feelings, we hear these messages, these narratives and we're like, is there something wrong with me?
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're not all going to the ice from social and talking about it later with as far as the majority of women.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We are all walking around believing the same thing that if we have sexual feelings, it's wrong.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If we have sexual
21:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to add to that.
21:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think that narrative and I think I remember my mom having this conversation with me when I was probably like nine or ten.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But even for her, never watched pornography, never was
21:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mischievous was married to my dad.
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So like it was a very traditional thought process in way of like I didn't know what a sex drive was.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was an adult and I think what your timing is like we're almost taught to suppress these urges and they are urges because our bodies are naturally we're we're body soul spirit.
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And so our bodies are naturally desiring these things
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But we kind of blanket statement over our belief in Jesus that we shouldn't, and that is not the way that God created us.
22:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, hearing you name kind of women having these biolic sensations, and...
22:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, if you're early exposed, you're exploring those things.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You're probably understanding all the wicked really early.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so suddenly you go from you're playing with dolls and writing your bike to playing with yourself.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is, and it feels good.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, you know.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And other things to think about too is it's also our experiences that weren't good.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I think 46% are 40, about 47% of our survey takers had experience sexual abuse.
22:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so pornography and these sexual feelings sexual behaviors, they are familiar to us.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Familiar doesn't mean wanted, it just means familiar.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it also, that shapes our sexual experience.
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
23:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about how this looks for women faith-wise.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we talk about with recovery because I know for me, the personal struggle it was, I mean, this is not to say
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: um, it was a very being God had to work it out.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I never shared with the until I really kind of just was like at this point I'm talking about it, but to say it openly is very much so a place of, you know, not experiencing that shame but for a lot of people I know that that is a shameful thing and it really impacts our identity, the way we see God, the way we see our sales,
23:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we could talk about how this impacts and plays into sexual partners when you're a married, like how it impacts that, but that's maybe another rebel for another day.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: But talking to me about like how some hearing these women or walking women through recovery shapes their faith or impacts their faith because of this addiction.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you allow me in my new book, what drives went into porn, I do our survey really informed the new book because we were able to find like what drives them.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We found five primary drivers of these, of these behaviors and they were emotional, relational.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: identity, trauma, and spiritual.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So talking about it in terms of it being a spiritual, it's a whole driver in itself.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, and of course, you could have one of those drivers, you could have five of those drivers going on at the same time.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But for women of faith, and I remember this because I was one struggling,
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: with pornography.
24:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only did I experience more shame because I knew that my behaviors did not match who I wanted to be as a Christian woman and it also did it match what I knew I was supposed to be as a Christian woman.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, that shame is actually, I thought about it in the book too.
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We have an addiction cycle, and I can talk about that if you want me to, but we have an addiction cycle where it starts with the wounded self.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's just me myself and I, where I am broken, I have woundings, and then I can become triggered by something.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And that could all look like something very different.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I often say that my first love was food.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hid food, I snuck food, like food was a comfort for me before I ever knew I needed comfort.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we were talking about being a turnkey kid, like I was too out, we called it Latchkey Kids or whatever, where I went home from school alone, and that's how I found the magazine.
25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we just sitting at my brother's bathroom.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: and so there was some emotional neglect that was going on.
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom had clinical depression, my dad traveled full time so that I had the right, like, you know, core unit family, but it was still broken.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It was still broken in its own way, or I experienced emotional neglect.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So, again, with
26:15
[SPEAKER_01]: with that food and then when porn came along it found me and it fulfilled me in ways that the food stopped fulfilling me and so but so that's the wound itself and when you have something like porn or like food or it can be disorders social media habits it can be shopping it can be filling the blanket in terms of that dopamine hit
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: that pleasure-seeking behavior that fills your heart with joy and endorphins, like that's what you're going to do because you don't want to feel that trigger, that wounded self.
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you're triggered, that's when you go through the cycle.
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So you go from wounded self, I mean triggered, to preoccupation.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And preoccupation is where you start to just like think about it.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just like,
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: like the good stuff, right, or on the end.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of this is your nervous system.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, like your nervous system's learned, discomfort means, let's fix it, and you've learned to fix it with these negative behaviors.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you have preoccupation, your brain's like, hey, remember?
27:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember that thing that's so satisfying?
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you go into ritual, and ritual is the point of no return, essentially where you're saying,
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Walking into the behavioral pattern, so you're getting on your phone, you're getting on your computer, you're laying in bed, whatever that looks like, you're putting yourself in position, and then you act out, and that's the third phase of the cycle, and then you end up in despair, and misery, because now you're experiencing that shame again, and what shame, or what shame should do is lead us to God, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up in despair, and then you end up
28:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But what shame actually does is lead us back into wounded self.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that goes back to the beginning of a cycle and that's what keeps it going.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for Christian women who are experiencing these behaviors and they're stuck in this cycle, it's at despair and shame that keeps us from God.
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he's the one who can comfort, he's the one who can heal, he's the one who can set us free.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, we are so ashamed.
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we feel like we are so far from Him that we've gone too far, done too much, that we can't possibly go back.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what that is.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's actually the voice of our enemy, the enemy who hates us.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemy of our soul who hates us, and wants us to stay stuck and far from God and in effectual for the kingdom.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if we, so that's the spiritual side of this, but there's also an identity side to it, where it's like, this is who I believe I've become.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: This is who I believe I am.
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I am dirty.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I am unmovable.
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I am unwanted.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I am undesirable, and so again, that goes back to the room itself, and we need to write back into the addiction cycle and far from God, because we can't possibly believe that He loves us, and loves us unconditionally if we've never experienced it with ourselves or anyone else.
29:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how you went through the cycle piece of it because
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think being able to name that formation of it can give people clarity that it's not, them dukes.
29:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say them doing something wrong, but it's like, this is the cycle of the way it comes up.
29:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we have to really address and I think you can talk about in ways you talk about this with women in recovery.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: is addressing that initial urge is there is an emotion you actually want to comfort.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something that meets comfort and I always say every emotion has a need to attach to it.
30:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it is disappointment, you may need, you know, comfort or affirmation, you may have had an expectation that wasn't fulfilled.
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to ask the question
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: women, you said something earlier and I don't want to miss say it, but what are some of the things you've heard women say?
30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe even heard from the survey of the emotions that they feel that may drive them to also use pornography or have some type of sexual addiction.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the number one trigger, so the number one, you know, wound itself to trigger that we'd sweet saw on the survey was loneliness.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So that feeling of just a loneliness, and you can be lonely in a marriage, you can be lonely in a relationship, you can be lonely as a single woman.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Loneliness doesn't care about your relationships status, loneliness is an emotion, loneliness is a feeling, loneliness is an experience inside of you, and so that was the biggest one that we that we had seen as far as as far as what the triggers were, what those emotions were, obviously you have other things going on emotional pain, you've had
31:16
[SPEAKER_01]: past experiences that read that re-trigger you, you have traumatic experiences that re-trigger you.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Rejection is a big one.
31:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Powerlessness is a big one trying to think of the other.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, I mean, name one and it's a reason to act out.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But that honestly rejection, that feeling of like just being dismissed is a really big one in women and then of course that loneliness factor, which of course they all kind of feed into each other as well.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like how you talked about, you know, it's separated from the spiritual side of it, while also the body side of it.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're having our conversations now and this time around the nervous system and how the nervous system really is intertwined into the way that we
32:03
[SPEAKER_00]: naturally navigate in our bodies.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: If we don't feel safe in our bodies, if we don't feel common in our bodies, if we don't even know what our body is triggering, there is this like unawareness of things that we end up doing behaviorally that tack onto that.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But I always like to tell clients, especially like when we are attaching emotions, we have to also really get in touch with where that lands in the body.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of us are like, and individually, I'm kind of putting my hand under my chin, but like, we don't connect under there at all.
32:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We only connect them here.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about, like, what have you learned about the nervous system as it relates to these sexual addictions?
32:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I also like to say, sex is a very bottom-down experience.
32:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say the woman, like if you are in your mind all the time, you sometimes just don't even connect sexually because you may, you don't even connect in your body.
33:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, that's a very blank statement to describe, but that can happen.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, talk a little bit about what she learned from this too about the body, the nervous system, and those connect to pieces as well.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the nervous system, again, it learns.
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So you experience things in your life.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be like the big tea traumas.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be the little tea traumas.
33:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my experiences, I would say the little tea traumas.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that they don't matter.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes the little tea traumas are the things we think don't matter and so we belittle them.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But really, because of it, it just becomes, we have more shame about having those feelings
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like your nervous system learns from a very young age of a few experienced things.
33:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Your nervous system is designed to protect you.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, your nervous system is designed to see a perceived threat and protect you.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But what happens is
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: it goes in hyperactive mode when you've experienced trauma really if any kind.
34:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So it can be a sexual assaults or a rape or abuse or it could also be deep neglect, abandonment, rejection, and your body takes that on.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You're brainier body, you're connected.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They just are.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single piece of us is connected.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Body-mine is spirit like you said earlier.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so your nervous system learns what worked.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: to make you feel safe and what's interesting is we look at it as like how do I find comfort and relief, but really it's about feeling safe, because if, yeah, it's really about feeling safe, and you might not even realize that that's what's going on.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, most don't realize that's what's going on.
34:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you may not feel safe emotionally in a moment, but that safety, or you may, you may feel lonely, you may be stressed, you may be tired or hungry or bored, but all these are emotions that your nervous system perceives as a threat.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, your nervous system is like,
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's fix it.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember how that thing you did when you were 12 felt really good.
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can still do it at 25, you know, and it remembers and it goes back to it.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why trying harder.
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That cycle we talked about.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I try harder doesn't work, because you can keep trying hard.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But until your nervous system figures out a different path, that's the pathway.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where it's going to go back to each and every time.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Because again, everything is connected, especially when it comes to habitual behaviors.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Compulsive behaviors, addictive behaviors, because it's a very deep groove of Deep pathway has been created and that's what your brain and your body know what to do.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I have women I've worked with where You know, they can give up porn.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fairly honestly fairly easy to give up porn
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes us a fantasy and the masturbation that's the hardest part to give up, or just the wanting to be wanted is what is hardest to give up.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like they'll be like, how do I how do I stop masturbating?
36:15
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I stop doing this?
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are meridly men or or single women.
36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So meridly men still struggle even when they're married.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when sex is apparently afraid, you know, available to them.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: They're still struggling because
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about sex, it's about safety, it's about comfort, and it's what your nervous system has learned to do.
36:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like, and so much of it can be muscle memory.
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're in bed at night, your body and your brain are used to reaching over finding that tool, using your hand, whatever it is, and engaging in that behavior.
36:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just muscle memory, your brain is like, hey, we're here again, let's do this.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, trying harder, praying more, all these things are, they're fine, but they're not enough and they're not going to help you out of that cycle and out of that pathway.
37:06
[SPEAKER_01]: because you have to learn something different, you have to teach it something different, you have to teach your nervous system, that it is safe, and that it's okay.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I've got these negative behaviors.
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I want to ask about that, but I want to pull a couple of things and give like some physical examples towards you said, you talked about some of this is muscle memory.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a habit of every single morning, every morning coming downstairs and making a pot of coffee.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: To the point to where I go to sleep and I think about when I wake up, I'm going to have a cup of coffee.
37:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is muscle memory at this point because it's been years to go downstairs make that pot of coffee without even thinking about what I'm going to do.
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you do spend an early part of your life if you were exposed, masturbating or exposing yourself to pornography.
37:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a habit now, like when you talked about the North Papua.
38:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Our brain has what's called more plasticity.
38:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can create new habits at any point, but like you talked about the muscle memory, it almost becomes subconscious.
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And that subconscious behavior of like you's named, I'm laying in the bed.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel the urge to come up.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I do without us getting curious, without us questioning or even going from the path of shame of like, this is what I've always done, so this is must be what I should do.
38:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pouring the new habits that we can create.
38:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love how you names like the praying harder, trying harder.
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that really kind of puts us back into that performance, performance,
38:42
[SPEAKER_00]: place of it's that we have to or form to fix and perform to do.
38:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really not the best way or the best option for us to.
38:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And not to say prayer doesn't work.
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that that's what Crystal is saying.
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's naming like that not being the main thing you do only.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: in conjunction to creating a new habit.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I were to stop drinking coffee, I would have to literally knock up downstairs in the morning, six and make the pot and do something else.
39:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what would you say?
39:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's kind of comes down to willpower.
39:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we have to kind of tell ourselves, we have to do this in order for this to work.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: What actually works instead for someone who might be in that cycle,
39:26
[SPEAKER_00]: to change the habit.
39:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, you know, without even knowing, I would say one deep think that I think is helpful is community and having community of accountability and exposure.
39:37
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible talks about, we bear, we should bear each other's burdens.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say for
39:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The benefit of my life being so vastly different now because I have community that will expose me that I will expose myself to because I I within received not only just the safety, the space of safety, but the space of that's not who you are that's not what you have to do in order to be confident or
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: might be solving a problem in my ears, et cetera.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So for how would you explain that to someone who might be in an addition space, what things would you say would help them change that habit?
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you're exactly right.
40:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes down to community.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot heal alone.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot recover alone.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not meant to be alone.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that, you know, we like to think that Eve was made as a
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're not supposed to be.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not creative for it even if you think about it in terms of like how God made Adam It was about a relationship with God.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it wasn't about Adam does a living his life like just out there in the garden Adam didn't even make Adam alone exactly
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and so he gave Adam something, because even that wasn't enough, like we were created for community, we were created to be together, and so that to me is that's why I created Shoe Recovery was to create a space where women can belong, to see themselves, to experience community, to heal in community, to confess,
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: to be accountable, to take responsibility for their own healing, but that's to me the most important things you mentioned, like, yeah, pray harder, keep praying, keep letting God into your struggle.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I just hear it, which we see it a lot, we're like, I'm praying for God to take it away.
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, maybe he is asking you to do something different.
41:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe God's not going to remove it the way that you think he's going to remove it.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he's not going to take it away the way you think he's going to take it away.
41:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I on experience?
41:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, you know, I prayed too.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I prayed all the time.
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a good worship leader.
41:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I was leading groups.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing all the good godly things.
41:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still struggling until I had the opportunity to share my story and get into community and to heal.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: God brought me to community.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening to this episode, watch this episode like he and you haven't heard this kind of messaging before.
42:15
[SPEAKER_01]: This is God speaking to you, opportunity for healing that is available to you.
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yes, praying, asking God for his leading, asking him to heal you.
42:26
[SPEAKER_01]: All good things keep doing that because he will provide the way out
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I do believe that community is like the number one thing that women need.
42:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the top thing from this that I've gotten from just our conversation is one of the way may ways to start recovery is exposure.
42:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And like being very open about where you are to then receive that support and receive like how would say the safety piece that you can be met with love.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You can be met with care and that God still deeply wants you
43:04
[SPEAKER_00]: to know that he cares about you and you're still loved unconditionally just because this might be a thing because it doesn't matter I think I think I think I think there is just there's no there's no distance you could have or got I can't meet you I think about the protocol so he came to himself and he realized immediately he turned the father ran to him It wasn't a thing where he ran back to him.
43:26
[SPEAKER_00]: He the father ran to him and was like fly son, my son
43:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there isn't distance between God getting to you.
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a better of being able to, sometimes know that he can get to you through other people.
43:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He, we are the hands and feet.
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And why don't you tell us a little bit about your book that came out recently?
43:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
43:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad that.
43:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's actually my fifth book over the last 15 years, almost all the resources are created with the woman who is struggling in mind.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But what drives women to porn is my newest book, and I've really wrote this honestly through some of my hardest seasons in adulthood, but also it was informed by
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: 1,300 women who share with me their own unique stories, and so in it we talk about the drivers of these issues, talk about steps of recovery, and we talk about understanding your story.
44:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I say healing begins with understanding, and there is more to your story than you watch porn.
44:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's all about helping the reader to navigate her why.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Figuring out what's under it, why does she reach forward in the first place?
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I also wrote it very much with the clinician in mind because we have tons of counselors, we have tons of Christian counselors, church leaders, college leaders,
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: coaches who don't know how to help women who come to them, who don't even know it to ask the questions that they need to know to discover these issues or happening with these women.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wrote it with them in mind as well to be a tool for learning so that they can understand women's experiences and their struggles and how to help them heal.
45:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
45:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really think it's going to be fantastic.
45:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited for you and all the work that you do.
45:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is in a great interview.
45:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I will have all of crystals information in the show notes for you.
45:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Please take advantage of grabbing her book or all of her other books as well.
45:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to find out more about her and her work, you can check the show notes for that information.
45:36
[SPEAKER_00]: This was great crystal, I will talk to you soon and I will talk to you all next week on the podcast.