 Why whenever the church or Christians talk about pornography, they always talk about it in context to men and not to women. This is an interesting topic that I wanted to dig into today. So what I did was I booted up my mic and I'm sitting in the new podcast studio in my parents' basement. So thank you to everyone on Patreon that's helping support my ministry and helping me get out of my parents' basement and hopefully doing this full time one day. We'll get there. Thank you to everyone on Patreon. I wanted to talk about, yeah, why we don't talk about pornography in context to women and usually it's only focused in context to men. I've fallen into this too and I'll get into that a little bit later. But for now, let's just talk about pornography in general. I think this issue is one of the biggest issues of our day. I think about it and man, there's not a friend or even like myself, like we've all been impacted by it. But yet it's one of those things that we really scared to talk about because it is so, man, it's so disgusting. It really is. And it's so perverted. But yet so many of us experience interacting with this content. And so it is widespread, right? And the church is picking up on this. We're picking up on this fact that, look, guys are addicted to it. At least from a guy's perspective, we know we're talking to our friends. We know the impact that it has on our lives. So you have sermon series about pornography. You have these kind of cool, I don't know, these cool programs that are directed towards men that have cool names. Like, you know, I'm even got the Freedom Fighters t-shirt on here. It's like, it's very like masculine in terms of its approach of defeating pornography. Talk about a battle. Talk about, you know, being warriors for Christ and entering this army and all this kind of thing. Right. And so it's heavily directed at men. So why is it not directed at women? Why don't we recognize as guys that girls go through this, too? They struggle with this, too. I think it has to do a lot with purity culture, honestly. And I talked a little bit about purity culture in a past video. But what we're taught as guys is that, and maybe this is just me, or, well, I know this isn't just me, but maybe you didn't experience this, but we're taught that men are visually stimulated. Pornography, that makes sense, right? It's very visual, very graphic. But for women, we're taught that, no, they're more emotional, right? They're not visually stimulated, sexually stimulated like we are. Why do girls struggle with pornography? They're not interested in visual imagery. They're all about the mind. Okay. So I'm not a woman. So I don't know exactly how this all works out. And every woman is different. So generalizing is really not that helpful. But I do believe there's some aspect of truth to this. I couldn't fathom that there's not considering how widespread this is. I could be wrong. But there is some truth to this, I think. But not nearly as much as what is portrayed, right? And so I'm not sure how this lie got started, whether it was some like fundamentalist pastor that all of a sudden just wanted to, you know, said, women aren't visually stimulated. They're more relational and that kind of emotional men. We like the visuals and we got to watch it. Like, I don't know if that's how it started, but all I know is that we were wrong about it. So I want to give men the benefit of the doubt in some ways. I mean, I'm kind of in that boat as well because I talk about pornography quite a bit. And I, like in a video that I just put out on TikTok fairly recently, I address teen boys and talking about pornography and that kind of thing. And yes, I realized that adult guys struggle with pornography and girls struggle with pornography. But it's that kind of like as guys, we kind of want to hit the target that we think, I don't know, we can speak to, right? And so for me, being a little bit, you know, out of my teen years, I felt like I can speak to that audience. And I don't think that's a bad thing. And I think that's a lot of what men in the church are Christianity. That's what they feel most comfortable with. They can speak to men about pornography, but there's a lot of questions about how to speak to women about pornography because we're not them. We don't know. So I think there's some fear, some trepidation, some just like ignorance in terms of how we're going about talking about this issue. I can definitely speak to that on my own part. But I think the best thing that we can begin with is that women struggle with this too. So now I want to speak to you. If you're if you're a woman that has struggled with pornography, maybe you you first came across it on a random Google search that kind of piqued your curiosity and you came back week after week and you liked it. But at the same time, you felt this deep sense of shame along with it. And maybe you went to church and a pastor mentioned pornography offhandedly directing it at the men, but he never looked in your direction. Growing up in the church, I think we're told that this just isn't a women's issue. Not necessarily exactly that specifically or explicitly, but we're definitely focused on men. And I think that trains us as guys and people in general to just think of this as a men's issue. And I think that does a lot of damage. I think that's one of Satan's tactics, honestly, because when you feel that way as a girl, if you feel like this is a guy's issue, then maybe you feel like, am I just that disgusting and perverted that that me as a girl who shouldn't be tempted by these things is tempted by these things? And that is that's just, man, that's so distorted, right? And that's one of Satan's tactics, I think, because he wants to get you isolated, he wants to get you feeling alone and and that you are so far out of God's grace that God could never love you or God could never save you or God could never help you. And also that that this is not a thing that is common. So you shouldn't speak out about it. You shouldn't lift your voice and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. Can you help me because you feel isolated? It's interesting how kind of Satan works in this dynamic because I've seen it where for young guys, it's like almost they're they're they're stirred up to look at pornography because so many of their friends are looking at it. And it's kind of seen as like a cool thing, like a good thing. And so there's that kind of communal aspect to the sin, at least for guys in a lot of ways. Not to say that there isn't like an isolating aspect. There definitely is. But it kind of is affirmed communally with guys. But for girls, it's kind of the opposite I've seen is that it draws girls into isolation and makes them feel that much more alone. And that kind of stirs up this cycle of just self-hate and confusion. And isolation and it's very it's troubling. So a couple of things I'd like to say to you girls that are struggling with this. And I don't have all the answers. I don't I would love to be able to give you that thing that's going to change your life right away, that's going to transform, you know, your your relationship with pornography overnight. But if you're watching this video, most likely you've heard a lot of people talk about this. You've heard all the stuff about accountability and and how we need to, you know, pursue purity in our lives and and all those sorts of things. And I don't think that's what you need right now. I think a lot of the times we just need somebody to say, look, I see you. I know you're struggling. I know this is difficult. You're not crazy and you're not so far out that that God could never love. You know, God loves you and he's welcoming you once again to cast all that shame on him. That you would find freedom in him. I was reading this verse from James four. It's James four, seven to eight. It says, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. How amazing is that? Because I think our sin, it it creates distance from us and God. And then the shame kind of perpetuates that distance in our mind. And it causes us to kind of move further and further away. But what God is saying, come near to me and I will come near to you. And I don't know if this means much to you, but just know that I'm with you, that I'm cheering for you, that I see you. And I totally believe I firmly believe and I've talked to so many people about this, that are struggling with this issue. And I tell them the same thing. I believe that you can find victory over this. You know, I definitely experienced victory in my own life. And that doesn't mean it's not a temptation. That means that doesn't mean that it's not a not a struggle sometimes, but it does mean that that with God's power and presence in your life, that you can overcome these temptations. And that's that's the that's a future that I would hope for you to have. And if you want to go deeper in this issue, if you were feeling like, hey, I would like some more practical steps that I can take, I'm going to link a video down below and maybe even in the card somewhere. That's a video called quit porn step by step guide. And it's going to help you walk through some of the steps you can take to overcome pornography. Thank you again to everyone on Patreon who makes what I do possible. It is such a blessing. God bless each one and every one of you. And thank you for watching. Leave your comment down below with your own story. I would love to read it and God bless, guys. I'll see you next time.