Navigating Youth and Pornography Exposure: Expert Insights

Foreign. Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Red. And today, of course, I'm joined by my Wonderful Co host, Dr. Kevin Skinner. But we also have another guest with us today, Dr. Devon Mills. He is coming in from Atlanta, Georgia, is that right?

That is correct.

And do you like to be addressed as Dr. Devon Mills? Dr. Mills?

Just Devon will work.

Okay. I kind of like the sound of Dr. Devon, but that's okay.

I'll call you.

Devon is a founder and director of Thrive Counseling in Atlanta. And in Devon's private practice. I hear you do a lot of work with sexual addiction, sexual trauma, working with families that have experienced members of the family having pornography addiction. Maybe you could give us a little more insight into how you came to be in this practice.

Yes. So originally, I would say I always start with the bottom of the funnel, which is complex trauma with men. So men experienced all types of trauma in childhood and primarily learned to cope with that by acting out sexually. And so that kind of led to the sexual addiction piece of the work and then just evolved from there. Did a lot of work with submissions organizations early on. And Atlanta's the land of churches, so there are churches everywhere. It's a lot of church work as well. Just became where all those things intersected is where I ended up working.

Very neat. I love that. And I'd Love to hear, Dr. Skinner, your relationship with Devon, how you met, and your current working relationship.

We go back quite a few years. I was actually doing a CSAT training. I was the instructor, and Devon was actually in the class. And afterwards we just got chatting. And ever since then, we've just developed a great friendship. And one of the things that he. He was teaching at a university in Atlanta. And during COVID I actually went out there and did some training for some of the students. And anyway, so we just go back. We've done a series in particular for on Parent Guidance that was really phenomenal, where we sat down and talked about helping children who are coming out and how parents can effectively respond. Just helping them really connect in a way that's more meaningful than maybe not knowing what to do. So we did a series on that on Parent Guidance. So we've done some work together. And he's just outstanding.

I love that. Do you have anything you want to say, Devon, to add to that?

I appreciate every opportunity I get to work with Dr. Skinner. He. I remember the specifically you were Doing the Cartman triangle is the big standout there. And then got to do supervision with him. And then it evolved from there. And anyone in my practice that comes CSAT always said, okay, you've got to do all of your supervision with Dr. Skinner.

So how lucky am I that I get to be here with you both? Thank you both for being here. Let's jump right into this.

Okay.

I'd like to kind of wade into the deep end here. Maybe you could tell us more. What is the average age for pornography Expo exposure and does that vary based on gender?

There's not a ton out about gender exposure. I think we almost work off of this really not healthy default of boys will be boys kind of thing. I think the last stats that came out was the average age is around 11. Now we really see it shifting so much. It's truly like a technology and generational thing. If you go back to Gen Xers, it was people truly like discovering magazines in the wood or discovering a stash in a parent's room or something. You bump it down and then it was whoever had the best technology, whoever had the phone, whoever had an Internet connection. They were exposing neighbors and friends. And now what we see is most kids self discover pornography. It's a generation of being able to search anything on the Internet. So they wake up one day and they realize, hey, if I put in a picture of a horse on Google, it shows me a picture of a horse. Oh, wow, I bet I could put in this. And it's this odd self discovery that's happened. So it's more about how we've come to discover it. And it's really tracked with technology.

Wow. That's actually one of my other questions. So thank you for answering that, Dr. Skinner. I can tell you have something you wanted to add.

Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is initially there may be some curiosity. I heard about it in the locker room. But we also are now finding because more and more children are getting iPhones or getting their smartphones earlier, that there is this opportunity that maybe we as parents didn't even know existed.

Yeah.

And so we have this other part that is it, the technology is coming to us. And so in many instances that I've talked to individuals recently, is it, is this like almost an accidental discovery that they didn't know and then now the curiosity is there and they're not talking about it. And so really this isolation and it begins at a really early age. Think about it. The average is 11. The average, which means. That means half of Them are doing it earlier than 11.

Oh yeah.

And so we have to be aware that we're talking. That's the average. Take that down. The youngest I heard was four.

Wow.

And game changing for that four year old boy.

Yeah. That leads me into my next question. What is the danger of a child or adolescent being exposed to pornography and using pornography? And is it more dangerous the more early the exposure?

Yes. So I would say the big thing is the earlier you get into the exposure. If you just go to like stages of development, a child's brain, you take someone 4 to 8, the sexual components of their brain are not even working at that point. Dr. Skinner, you can probably speak to this more as well. But there's a lot of data out there about how it can be interpreted almost as violent for a child to see sex. So it's got like this little traumatic piece to it of where it's not perceived as a sexual erotic thing so much as like a violent traumatic image. And then it just skews everything about what sex and sexuality should be. So it creates this completely false representation of what it is. And so you have someone entering into their actual developmental stages where sexuality comes online and they have a completely false notion of what sexual interaction between two adults should look like and be like. So it takes everything and hijacks it. It hijacks the dopamine neurotransmitters and gives off way too much dopamine, which then sets the child up from, for like really looking for things to boost dopamine. There's so many areas that like, it just throws things off track.

And, and when he says so many, he's not kidding. Right. That was just a neurochemical, the dopamine system. But we look also at the, that mindset that he was talking about when an individual is exposed. Let, let me give an example. Let's do it. Historically, most of my generation, if they were exposed to pornography, like Bond was saying it was a magazine, but today the children are getting exposed to things that are so much more violent, aggressive in ways that we would have never considered at our young, our younger years. It wouldn't have, we wouldn't have even considered it.

Yeah.

And so the consequence of that is that intensity that he's talking about, the dopamine. Where do you go if you're starting off at something that's very intense? So in contrast with, say still picture an image of a nude body, contrast that with something that is highly aggressive. And if that's your first exposure, then where do you go from There, if that's your mindset, that's normal.

Yeah.

And so the culture that we're now living in today is something that really, I don't think we were really prepared for and we didn't even conceptualize. So one of the other damages that I really would like to emphasize here is what it does to my perception of people and relationships, how I see myself in relationships.

Yes. I think one of the things I hear over and over when I'm working with guys in their 20s and early 30s that have had. I've worked with multiple clients that are 30 years old and they've got a 20 year old pornography viewing history. And everyone is almost just called into two groups. Like someone I'd be willing to have sex with, someone I wouldn't be willing to have sex with. And so that perception of humanity, of when we just are out and about at the grocery store or the shopping mall and we're automatically just parsing people out based on sexual, like what they look like sexually, that's such a skewed perception of who we are as humans and how we engage and interact with people. It's coming from such a, such an unhealthy place.

Yeah. And a real detriment to connection and intimacy. The type that will bring you long term happiness, long term joy. I can feel my body tensing up as you guys are talking about this with. I have teenagers down to a seven year old right now. And as parents, it does feel like, okay, great, this information's awesome. What can I do to make sure my kids are not being exposed to this? And what I'm hearing you say is the longer we can protect our kids from being exposed, especially to a more intense or violent form of pornography, the better off we are. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Yeah.

And let me add a. You asked a question earlier. I want to make sure that we don't avoid or don't get, not get to it. It's this. The earlier the exposure. We know from research that the earlier the exposure to alcohol or drugs, the more likely a person is to be dependent upon it as an adult. So while we may not have research on what early sexual experiences have pornography, in this case what we do know is that it is highly influential in terms of the brain and the body's development, the stress that it creates in the body. Because imagine that you see something at age 8, 9, 10, and you can't talk about it. You're afraid to talk about it. It really, your environment shuts it down. Now you've got a secret. What does that do to you developmentally? Because now you're creating a secret, this double life and you don't know what to do with it because you're afraid to. Or in a religious context, you're ashamed to bring it up.

Yeah. And if I throw in one other thing before we jump to how we protect our kids is. And I'm going to like really massacre science a little bit in this is we have vasopressin, which is a chemical that is released as well when we are engaged in sex. And so it's called the partner preference chemical. So when we are engaged sexually, vasopressin is released and in our brain it couples like, oh, this is the sex that I prefer. This is where I feel nurture, comfort, acceptance, etc. When pornography has been preference and we see individuals get married and enter into what we would hope to be healthy sexual relationships, the brain is literally not releasing vasopressin. It's like, oh, this is whatever it is, but this is not actually my sex life. My sex life is over here. So there's that other kind of adaptation that takes place in there with this chemical release in the brain of where we actually form preferences. And so that becomes a lot of the big impetus of how do we protect our children. Because it's more than just, oh, we don't want them to see these things. We don't want them to skew their perception of reality. There's a lot of adaptations that take.

Place and such long term effects, not just the trauma that's happening at that age. Wow.

And we're not prepared for that. Who is having this conversation that we're having today to help educate and our parents and any ourselves to protect our children. And I know there's a lot of people, the pornography industry and many others, oh, it's just pornography. But it's not the pornography that most of our generation grew up with. It is so much more intense, it's so more accessible. Whereas before, if I was looking at a Playboy magazine, I saw an image, today I'm seeing hundreds and hundreds of images in a short period of time. So it's, it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom type of intensity which makes it. So when we get to a point of a human relationship, as Devon's saying it almost in some ways, if I've been exposed for so long, it's actually boring. A human is boring.

Yes, yes. Because the physical, two physical bodies coming together cannot repeat, reproduce the intensity that someone can in their mind and Just with themselves. And so we really do. It's just a really difficult thing.

And then I feel that leads to isolation. Am I correct? Is that what you're seeing with a lot of your clients is that they end up being very isolated and very lonely because of their inability to have that. Let me try to say this in the right way. What takes a long time to sow, the reaping lasts longer, the harvest lasts longer. And so putting in that sacrifice in that time, like a relationship, that kind of intimacy that's born and grown through time. Right. The long term effects from that, they're longer sustained. And so having these conversations with our kids are so crucial because that is what we want for them. We want them to have that sustaining kind of a relationship where it's constantly feeding them, it's giving back to them, or it feels like this will never give back to you in the way that you're wanting.

Yeah. And it, as old fashioned as it is, it comes back to consistent conversation. To go to your question of how do we protect our kids? It is just creating space to talk about it and us consistently checking in with our kids. And, and I think the big thing that I always try to convey to people is it's never going to be comfortable. I'm a therapist, I'm trained to talk. And talking to my two children about sex and sexuality is still the most uncomfortable conversation that we ever have. So it will always be awkward, it will always be uncomfortable. And it's incredibly vital that we create that space. Space and that consistent check in where there's an opportunity if they are feeling isolated and trapped, that they know they do have an opportunity coming up to say something.

And along those lines, I think it's really important that we bring up here research shows that about 90%, a little bit plus on the plus side there, 90 plus percent of all children, boys, girls, gender, doesn't matter, will be exposed to pornography before age 18.

Yeah.

So it's really not a matter of if they're going to be exposed. It's a matter of when they're exposed. And that then is as parents, it falls upon us not to be afraid of those conversations, to have an open dialogue. I don't want my child to feel ashamed because they experience something with pornography. More than anything, I want them to be able to come to me and say, hey, something happened to me today. I experienced this. And so even preventative is a language of hey, when you are exposed to what is referred to as pornography, I invite you to come talk to me. There's no shame there. I want you to understand what it does and how important it is that we have this conversation because it's going to create thoughts, feelings and emotions inside of you that will be surprising. But my daughter was exposed at school. My daughter was exposed typing in a Barbie doll name. These are conversations my children have had with us.

Yeah. And I think the balance that is so difficult for parents a lot of the time is how do we talk about pornography without vilifying sexual. Because I think it's easy then to create and inject shame around sex, which is actually a God given, beautiful thing. And so how do we keep the topic about, hey, let's not look at pornography, and here are the dangers of this mode of delivery and this like, presentation of sex, but sex itself, like, how do we keep that really separate as two different conversations is really important.

I think one thing that I've really appreciated that I've heard you both say is get comfortable with the uncomfortable. And so when you go into these conversations and your kids start to fidget and they're starting to get really uncomfortable and they stop looking at you in the face, don't shy away from that, but just get into it and talk about it. Because parents of today have not had the same experience. It's obvious we have not had the same experience with technology. And so I think even more so we shy away from having these conversations because maybe we don't want to confront it or we are in denial about what our kids are experiencing. But to dig in and to really pay attention to what they're probably going through is so vital. And I'm so grateful that we get to talk today about having these crucial conversations with them because now that we've laid the groundwork for this is not a great thing. Pornography is harmful. How do we actually have these conversations? And so today I'd really like to discuss how to handle those first few moments when a child comes to you with pornography exposure use, or especially how to handle or approach those first crucial moments if you catch a child por with pornography use. And I imagine after working with so many clients over the years, you have a lot of insight in how to best respond and also how best not to respond. And so I would love to go into, and maybe I'll hand that over to you, Devon, to talk about the most helpful and the least helpful responses and having these conversations with our own children.

So least helpful is anything that involves freaking out.

Which is what all of us will do 100% if we don't catch Ourselves.

It's really, I think again, where because it's uncomfortable is recognizing it's uncomfortable for our kids if we catch them or we talk about it. So trying to honor where our kids are at in that. So if you were actually to walk in and catch your child viewing it, or if you were to find out, big thing is, hey, we're going to need to talk about this. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to regroup. I'm going to. Let's circle back in five minutes, but we're going to talk about this. And then more or less trying to start the conversation, information gathering. Tell me a little bit about how did you find this? And also needing to reassure, like, okay, I just want to get the information. This isn't about measuring out how much punishment that's involved. Like, you want to create a place at this point, it's so much more important for you to understand what all is going on and the depth of it more so than like really finding this as an opportunity. Well, oh, my kids have got to know that I hold the line on this. Your kids know you have a problem. All of our kids know that we have a problem with it pretty much. So not using that as the opportunity to really drive that home. But more about how do I keep this calm, how do I gather information and how do we chart a path forward?

So you're trying to not get them to close off or shut off. And I hear you saying, get curious. Get really curious so that they can give you information in a calm way, which as a parent, that is a hard asks to keep us a face because they can feel your energy. Your kids can tell. Even if you're saying the right things and you even have the right facial expression, they can tell. And so I think if this is prepared as a parent to be like, okay, when this happens, not if this happens, but when this happens, okay, I practice this. I'm going to go into my calm response, into my loving response, my connective response, and get curious before I start accusing or preaching.

Yeah. So, Carly, let me back up just a second for while we might think about how we're going to respond. We actually have to do something first in my mind. And that is, what does pornography mean to us? I think we have to have a clear conversation with self. What do I think something's wrong with pornography? If so, what. And is there something that I perceive that it could do to my child? Because if, yes, we've had this conversation, but more often than not, we have to Do a self examination, say how do I think about it? What do I feel about it? Do I see any detrimental elements to it? Because sometimes I've talked with parents and I'm not sure it's that big of a deal. Yeah, and that's where I hope in our initial conversation, because the developing brain is at high risk for intensity and pursuit of that dopamine high. And as a parent, we have to step back and look at our own beliefs about it because that conversation can go many different ways. Because there's also the parent who says, oh yeah, it's not that big of a deal because I don't think it's that big of a deal. And so we have to do a self examination to begin with to say, what's my perception of this?

And that actually shows up in the research. If you bump back to 2012, 2013, there's this predictive batch of research that came out and said the problem is going to be we have always as a culture thought pornography was detrimental and wrong. And now we're moving into a whole generation of people that don't think it's wrong. And so there's. That's going to be the challenge is us figuring out how to engage with the generation that thinks it's healthy and normal and adaptive. And that's truly where we've reached this point. And again, to go back to something I said earlier, we have this very unhealthy belief system in the United States that boys will be boys for boys in particular and that it's just almost a rite of passage and that we shouldn't really raise an eyebrow around it and just take this, oh, that's normal. They'll grow out of it stats. And that's absolutely not what needs to be going on because it really does reinforce what you're saying of it gives off this vibe of it's cool, we don't really have a problem with it.

And there's going to be a lot of pushback there. Again, to our listeners, I'm going to just tell you, if you've sat in my office or Devon's office long enough, you see the emotional pain and the disturbance that it creates in individuals. Now, we aren't asking these people to come to our office. We're experiencing the aftermath of a culture who has shifted so much away from it being a. This is something that isn't healthy to a confusion and ultimately embracing something that from a relationship perspective, there's very little evidence that pornography helps enhance relationships. There's very little evidence and there, that's just the reality. And there, yes, there may be some people who argue with that, but over time there is not research to support it as a long term viable thing for healthy relationships.

And this is one of the few places that across the spectrum, religious, non religious, conservative, liberal, pick a vantage point. Almost all the research supports what Dr. Skinner just said. It's not healthy. You have your handful of people that are like really out in left field that are saying the opposite. But the massive body of research comes along and says there's just not a healthy way to navigate it.

And yet it's one of the most thriving businesses that exist currently. Which means that, I mean, it's proof that people might have a problem or dependence upon it.

Yeah. So now to get back to your original question, sorry, I took us on a left hand turn there because I.

Just, I'm actually so sad we didn't do this in a two part series because I wish we had more time to do this whole first front part and then go into all this other part. But it's okay.

So let's talk about that communication though, right? That, that communication of what we say and what we don't say. I think Devon set a really good precedent there. Right. The understanding and the open conversation and the things that we don't want to do is we don't want to shame them, we don't want to make them feel like they're bad, that they're wicked, that they're evil. I've heard some people say, my parents told me I was going to hell. Again, those are not the things that you want to say. You want to understand first. Devon mentioned that once you understand now we can have a conversation about frequency, type what it's doing to them, how they feel. And we know that there's going to be a curiosity, even if it's your first time, there is a tremendous curiosity to say, what was that? That felt different.

Yeah.

So if we can get an open conversation as a starting point without shaming, just inviting them to open up and really talking openly about it, then we aren't afraid of it and they are not afraid to come to us.

And that is, I think, frequency. I don't know what you think, Dr. Skinner, but frequency to me is the big important thing. Like I know with my own kids it was really me making just a true mark in my calendar of when to check in and just bringing it up over and over and just saying, hey, anything we talk about here, it's not about you getting in trouble. It's about I'm concerned about you being healthy later in life. So I'm going to do this as uncomfortable it is for you. I just want to know, has anyone shown you pornography or are you going looking for pornography? How are you feeling about the world at large in pornography? I think I. I saw it a little bit as a benefit of having daughters because I was able to come at it from the viewpoint of, like, how does it feel to be in this culture of hypersexualization? And how to. I don't. It felt like I could align with them a little bit more because females are so frequently sexualized. So it gave us a little bit of an open communication. But for our family, the frequency was what changed the changed everything of when I remember specifically when one of them just casually responded in that conversation. Yeah, so and so showed me something on their phone. And it was not a revolutionary day that was any different. It was just the fact that we had this consistent conversation and we had proven and built the trust with our kids that we weren't going to freak out, that they weren't going to get in trouble. We weren't going to lock their phones in the trunk of our car. It was like. It was just. They knew that they could say what they needed to say, and we were able to have further conversations from that then.

I think that's such fantastic advice to talk about the frequency of it. I also, as you were talking, thought about how we're trying with our kids to talk about meaningful connection with other humans on so many different levels and in so many different ways. And so getting out of the house and having friendships and even dating and what that looks like and being a part of a sports team and serving our neighbors. And then when we go to talk about meaningful relationships and meaningful intimacy, it feels really natural to talk about the best form of healthy connection looks more like this than this. And so those more frequent conversations, it feels like it's part of a greater whole of your overall health and happiness is so dependent on your ability to connect with other humans. Your level of happiness, as we know now, is highly dependent on the quality of your relationships. And here are a lot of the facets and factors that are going to get you to that point. And so we've had those conversations with our teens, especially as they're starting to go on tournaments where we're not going to be there, and they're with, you know, in hotel rooms with a bunch of other kids their age. And so it is a very frank conversation of now this is probably going to happen. I will be very surprised if it doesn't happen where someone's going to pull up a phone. We've put a lot of parameters on their phones, and whatever, it doesn't matter. They will be exposed to it. And so, to be very frank about it, say, when this happens, what's your plan? And those conversations have been really natural and normal. And when they return, they report, how did it go? How was your trip? We want to hear the whole thing. And then we ask. Even my husband will say it very casually. And I'll be like, don't you want to be, like, in a room in the back? And he's like, no, we're just in the car. We're hanging out. He feels very comfortable asking. And I'm very appreciative of it because similarly, they've responded in ways that I've been surprised how comfortable they were, saying, well, yeah, this happened, and this is what I said, or I saw this. I was surprised at how not uncomfortable it actually was.

Yes. My kids are 23 and 20 now, and we laugh because we talked about it frequently enough. I. I would say girls. They would both go, no, dad, we're not looking at porn. No one touched us. Everything's fine. There's so many. Please stop. But it was also in those conversations where they did share things.

Right, Right. I really like that. The frequency. Now, I don't know if you want to say anything before we move to this next part, Dr. Skinner.

The only thing I would add to that is when we're comfortable with it, they're going to be more comfortable with it. The less comfortable we are with it, the less comfortable they will be. So whether it's in a car or a boat or a train or a plane, it doesn't really matter where we're. Right. I. Playing on.

Thank you, Dr. Snus.

Thank you. Sorry I had. I had to do that one. But the reality is we have to be comfortable with the conversation. And if we're not, we need to ask a question. Why not? What am I so afraid of? Because the more comfortable we are, we come to realize this is a part of our culture. We can't put our head in the sand. We can't ignore it. And the more we ignore it, the more we avoid it, the more challenging it gets for them and for us as they get older. Because it's like, oh, I haven't talked about this. Probably should have.

Well, it reinforces the messaging that sex is not something that we should talk about, which then gets our teens into emerging adulthood with this messaging that, oh, now I'm 15 years into this thing that I can't talk about.

Now. I've heard you say to not normalize pornography use. What do you mean by that? Because we were talking about frequency having these frequent conversations. But what do you mean by don't normalize pornography use?

I come back to over and over. It's just not healthy. It doesn't matter who's saying it's okay. It doesn't matter what culture says about it. It's just not healthy, period. And I think being really comfortable, I, I'm a big believer in just the way I was trained as a therapist of owning what I genuinely believe and saying the things that need to be said. And so I would say, I know you think I'm old because I'm in my 50s. I know you think I'm not that smart because I'm your dad or I'm the therapist or I'm the teacher. And I'm still going to hold the line, this is not healthy. It won't ever be healthy. You're not going to be the exception to finding a healthy way to do it. And just really being comfortable in that space of this viewpoint is correct on this topic. Not getting pushed with like kind of pop culture.

Yeah. So you're not normalizing it into being okay.

Right.

The frequency of us talking about it doesn't mean we're condoning behavior. We're doing the exact opposite.

Right.

And if I would just to add two parts to this, one is our culture today is going to push back against this conversation. Most people say, really? You really think it's that? But it has been my experience that when people start to understand there are, there are different pleasure systems in our body, we, we have a satisfactory pleasure system and we have one that is a pursuit of pleasure. And pleasure rarely leads us to really lasting satisfaction. Arthur Brooks talks about that in some of his work. And the reality is I can pursue pleasure all day long, but it's not going to get me to the type of internal well being and happiness that I long for. So I can pursue it is in a thousand different ways or I can have meaningful connection and relationships. It's really that simple. But the complication is we live in a world today where people say it's not that big of a deal. Right. It's freedom of choice. And you really, you're some conservative Christian zealot who's trying to promote and, and limit people. If you look at my research, there is no Population that is not being influenced by this. It's influencing every culture, and we can't ignore that reality.

Yeah.

I want to go into this before you have to leave Devon, about as a parent, I would want to know, how do I know we find out our child's been using pornography? I think people throw around the word addict, especially in a religious culture. A sexual addict or a porn addict. How do we actually know if this is problematic behavior that they may need to get help with? And how can we differentiate between using, abusing and then actual dependence on pornography?

That is such a great question. I taught addictions for years, and the benchmark for addictions is you have to have tolerance and withdrawal. So tolerance means seeing the still image used to be super arousing, and now you're way up here at this really extreme type genre of porn and extended amount. So we've created tolerance and we have to keep watching it because the withdrawal symptoms are so much stronger. That is genuinely where addiction is at. There has to be tolerance and withdrawal. So most of what we're seeing when our kids are young, when we're talking like that developmental stage of early exposure on, we're talking about problematic use at that point and maybe habit. I think we've all because we started throwing the word addiction around, we've done away with the language of bad habits. And so I think it serves us all well to recognize we're probably talking about problematic use when they're really young and really bad habits that are forming. And really it's digging in and getting that conversation of how frequently are you watching? How long are you watching? Did you used to watch something that wasn't as high intensity as what you're watching right now? And then from that information, figuring out what you need to do next, do you need to have them see a therapist where they're going to talk more freely and openly with them and they can put some parameters around it that it might be difficult for the parents and child to engage with themselves. But yeah, the word addiction, we overuse it specifically in religious environments. And I. I can't tell you how many kids I've worked with in their early adulthood where they actually, they weren't addicts, but they wore this label with so much shame.

Right.

Yeah, you do need to change this behavior. But no, you're not an addict. It's an important distinction.

Yeah. That kind of leads into the next couple questions I have. One is, which I've heard you say, don't keep it a secret. And what do you mean by that and also maybe going into how a family's faith plays a part in how we talk to our kids about pornography. Because I think especially with that shame aspect, if it's such a. No, no, in your culture or in your faith tradition, the shame is enshrouding the entire family, not just the individual. Which probably makes that shame feel heavier on the individual. Cuz they can feel that it's hurting the entire family. If that makes any sense at all.

No, it's not.

So yes, the keeping it a secret thing and then how faith plays a part in how we talk to our.

Kids about it, keeping it a secret, that's such a hard one because again, I think it comes with so much shame and everyone does try to keep it a secret. So again I'm going to go back to frequency of conversation, creating avenues to talk about it. I'm a therapist, we're a big believer in therapy. A mentor of mine told me once when our kids hit their teenage years to put them in therapy at least once a month just to have another outlet. And that was truly some of the best guidance we ever got. Because they really would talk to their therapist because they had an ongoing relationship. So I know that's not for everyone. Worked really great for our family in having things not stay a secret. That needed to really be brought out and talked about. The shame piece and religious shame again is going to go back more uncomfortable conversations. How do we really have a God honoring viewpoint within ourselves about what sex and sexuality is so that we can communicate that with our kids? It's one thing to say don't watch pornography. It's something else to say, hey, this is a damaging way of seeing sex and sexuality. God has a really beautiful plan and sex plays a really amazing role in our relationships. Those are two really different conversations and two really uncomfortable conversations to have that. The only way you can downplay shame is to speak truth. And to speak truth about sex and sexuality is going to be uncomfortable when you're talking to your kids about it. It's the only way to pull out that shame of this is a sin, you can't do this. God is not pleased. The only way to debunk that is to really speak the truth to them.

That's beautiful. I love that I've heard you also just from a lot of different people. But the concept of maybe praying it away or wishing it away and I've even heard, I think it was you said that the allure and the attraction and the captivation of the pornography industry will not magically disappear and then when it doesn't and they still struggle with it, that it can't just be wished away or prayed away, but that there has to be actual involvement and real practical guidelines and maybe even some treatment into healing and repairing and all of the things that we hope for them. But maybe shying away from overt spiritual language as the end all to making this problem go away, because, correct me if I'm wrong, but it. Is it more common that individuals in more strictly religious groups or traditions struggle more with pornography use? Is that correct?

That is correct. It's a odd little thread in the research that the higher the level of conservatism goes within a religious or faith tradition. Religion or faith tradition, the higher the level of porn use. And like hypersexuality goes, oh, the more.

We think it's wrong, the more we want to do it, pretty much.

But if we were to look at that, if we were to break down the why I really believe the why there is that we're uncomfortable talking about it. We've made it taboo rather than, look, we're sexual beings. You're going to be curious. You're going to have these interests. And now let's put it in perspective of what healthy is. Devon talked about healthy sexuality. In contrast with this thing that's taboo that I'm curious about. That is a cultural thing that everybody's doing. And really that shift is really, look, this is. We have to be comfortable. We have to be comfortable with this conversation without fear, with openness. Then we can take away this tabooness, say, look, we're sexual beings and that's healthy. That's God given in a Christian sense. We're going to feel sexual and we're going to be curious. There is nothing wrong with that.

And I think the. I'm going to bring out my Southern religious roots here. The as my last thing here is, I was raised really being taught that you can't do what only God can do and God won't do what you can do, which became like this blending of the balance of. There are some things that are very spiritual, that it takes divine interaction for us to be able to really combat it. And there's this practical aspect. God's not going to make my computer shut down anytime I open it up and want to look at pornography. There are some things I've got to do that praying it away is not going to work because I can do those things. And there's a supernatural level where I really need divine intervention. And he really does want me to be able to embrace with this really healthy, God given biological thing he put into me. And so I think there's a great blending of what's my role in this and what's God's role in this. And if we can keep those intersected in a really great way, that we do get the best outcomes.

That's also really very well said and very beautiful. Anything you want to add to that, Dr. Skinner?

Love the conversation. Devon. Just thank you so much for your time. And if I could just leave one thought with the parents. We have lived for so long not having to deal with this just because we didn't know, but with today's technology and with today's devices we really knew do need to be intentional and aware of what's happening. Because maybe one of the better gifts that we can give to our children today is to be aware of the challenges. And this is one of the key challenges that they're going to encounter. So we need to be prepared for that conversation 100%.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for coming. We are so grateful. I'm actually so devastated that we only had an hour or less than an hour. Maybe we'll have to do a two part series or revisit the topic soon.

Sounds fun. I look forward to it.

Thank you so much, Devon.

Thank you.

Have a good one.

You've been listening to Finding Noble. I'm Carly Red. Follow Finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more on our website, findingnoble.com that's findingnobeln o b l e.com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leaders, leading professionals working in the mental health world, share courses and even answer your questions all on parentguidance.org that is parentguidance.org brought to you by the Cook center for Human Connection.