Kolton Thomas: 0:00

Welcome to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast where we are helping men to rewire their brains and overcome the shame that often surrounds unwanted pornography use. I'm your host, Kolton Thomas, and welcome to episode 19, where we are going to have our guest, jonathan Stormant, back on the podcast. Jonathan was our guest a few episodes ago in episode 16. In that episode we talked about theology of the body. It was a series of writings by Pope John Paul II which had really impacted Jonathan. He read them and then he taught a series of lessons on them at his church he is the preaching minister at Pleasant Valley Church in Little Rock, arkansas and the content of these lessons that he was teaching I felt strongly when I heard them that they were applicable to anyone struggling with pornography, because they really get deep to the heart of some of these issues around pornography and around human sexuality. And a big focus in episode 16 was that God has made our bodies, including our desires, including even our urges, and those are good things. The problem is they often get hijacked. We form attachments, we form addictions and those desires get taken and channeled in the wrong direction. But we talked in episode 16 about how at the core, at the root of these desires is the fact that God gave them to us, and they are good. Now episode 19. Today, I'm excited to talk to you a little bit more about history. Jonathan shares some brief stories in history that shed light on how sexual ethics especially for the West, for our culture has evolved over time, and it's really important, I think, for us to understand how it's evolved in order for us to know where we need to stand apart from it. Right as Christians, we know that we shouldn't be buying into everything that our culture is putting in front of us, and our culture is more sexualized today than it ever has been before. But in order for us to be able to separate ourselves from the unhealthy parts of this culture, we've got to have an understanding of what it is and how it came to be, and so I think talking about where we are today in light of where we were in the past when it comes to sexual ethics and Christian sexual ethics is a really important conversation. And then, towards the end of the episode, we talk about how, even when we know, our culture is constantly putting the wrong thing in front of us when it comes to sex, why is it that so many men who don't want to be looking at pornography find themselves still struggling not to look, even after we become convicted that it's wrong and we understand more about why. Why does it still have a strong pull for us, right? I think the answer to that question isn't just one simple answer. I think that there are different key moving parts, but Jonathan is going to present at least a couple really solid reasons why he believes men really struggle with pornography, even when they don't want to look at it, even when they know that it's wrong. So stick around to the end of the episode for that.

Kolton Thomas: 2:51

Before we dive in, I want to say thank you for being patient. I know it's been a few weeks since we've come out with a new episode. I've actually been working on a YouTube channel for Reclaimed and so if you'd like to go over and check that out and subscribe to it and support the content I'm creating there, so far, the content that I'm creating is actually just shorts. It's actually 60 seconds or less per video. So they're quick thoughts, but they're powerful thoughts from some different thought leaders and experts.

Kolton Thomas: 3:16

You know anyone, from other popular YouTubers and content creators to neuroscientists and psychologists, and one of my goals for the channel is for people to find it and people to find all these different, powerful thoughts shared from these different leaders in our society today and realize that there is a army, I mean there is a solid wall of people who are recommending, strongly recommending, that we avoid or abstain from pornography for our health, for our own good, whether that's spiritually, mentally, physically, and so it's pretty convicting. So, again, if you want to hop on YouTube, search for Reclaimed with Kolton Thomas or Reclaimed Recovery, you should be able to find the channel that way, and I'd really appreciate your support, guys. So let's jump right into this episode. It's going to start by Jonathan talking about human rights and human sexuality throughout history and how Christianity has made an impact on that, and then it's going to transition into what's happening with Christian sexual ethics today. So enjoy the interview, guys.

Jonathan Storment: 4:17

The problem with Christianity is not that it changed nothing, but that it changed everything. But I've been paying attention to years to where do we get things like human rights and women's rights and preferential treatment of the poor people who are vulnerable? You know those kind of things are very deeply Christian and so if you were to go back and read pre-Christian history you would not recognize it. You especially wouldn't recognize what they thought of when it comes to sex or women, how women should be treated, or children and what's kind of common sense today would have been like ludicrous to people in first century Greek or Rome or the kind of outlying areas of that empire.

Kolton Thomas: 5:01

What are some examples of that?

Jonathan Storment: 5:02

Yeah, so there's a letter from around 30 AD from this Roman soldier who was writing a letter back to his wife and it's kind of a sweet letter, like he's just saying hey, you know, I'm going to be away for a while longer. When I get paid I will send it to you Take care of our son. Oh, by the way, if you were pregnant and it's a boy, let it be, and if it's a girl, cast it out, hugs and kisses, and nobody thought that was problematic. You know the wife doesn't read that and take offense.

Jonathan Storment: 5:39

You know, and like if you were, if you're a high status man, then in ancient Rome you saw people as kind of penis receptacles, like man woman. You know, as long as it wasn't a high status married woman, then the world is your oyster. And you know, like Harvey Weinstein is a great example of you know, kind of Christianity pushing back on that, but every man was Harvey Weinstein. In fact there's a historian, tom Holland, who's not a believer but he's done a great history of Christianity and he said the movement of Jesus grabbed men by the testicles. It really did cause men to restrain their sexual desire and redirect it.

Kolton Thomas: 6:28

That's powerful. I mean, those statements, I think, might surprise some people. There's a lot to unpack there. So Christianity what you're saying is that we came from this time where anything was permissible sexually and men who had strength or power were almost entitled to use it to have any kind of sex that they wanted. And so you know, I think, that there's also a lot of child slaves that were specifically used for sex during that time.

Kolton Thomas: 6:56

And so what you're getting at is what is this massive cultural shift that had to happen for us to get to where we are today in the West, to where we push back against those things? And you have, like the Me Too movement, and you have women who are coming out and saying, no, this is my body, is my right, you can't advance on me sexually or use me sexually, because I have power over my body. And so I think what you're talking about is like, what is it that transitioned us to get to that point? And I know I've heard you talk a lot about how you really see it as Christian ethics, the teachings that Jesus taught to teach us self-control when it comes to sexuality right, but those ethics are now being really pushed back against.

Jonathan Storment: 7:45

Yeah, I don't think the sexual revolution, as the 1960s were called, was not somewhat a revolution, as it was a return or attempt to return to a previous state. The true sexual revolution was in the first century and subsequent centuries, as it began to build up ahead of steam, but it was good news to both men and women. Another resource for people who are listening and for readers would be the case against the sexual revolution by Louise Perry, who is I don't think she's a believer. The book is very dark, heavy and it talks about some pretty perverse stuff and, like the impact of porn on our culture and culture on porn. She's a liberal feminist who thinks that liberal feminism has largely failed women and I think she's right. And one of the things Louise Perry says is that the majority of young college females the majority report having been choked in their last sexual encounter and that is the effects of pornography.

Jonathan Storment: 8:47

I have some friends who are in the SLA program which is Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, which I highly come into someone, and they tell me that the three stages of sexual addiction are private, then it goes public, so strip clubs, escorts, etc. And then it goes violent and that third one is often a surprise to people. But if you are habituating your soul into people or objects or commodities to be used, then eventually it has a terminus and that's. That may sound jarring, but I think that's right. So yeah.

Kolton Thomas: 9:31

So we have a society that's full of people who would like to think that a little pornography doesn't really hurt anybody, and I think that for men who don't want to be looking at it, they realize there's pain. They felt the pain of it. They felt the pain of this shame and the secrecy, but the pornography itself I mean there's. You can get online today and find psychologists and doctors arguing that pornography statistically hasn't been bad for our society, and they saw it a number of different reasons. Some say that the overall percentages of sexual abuse and rape have gone down in recent decades, and one thing that I'm trying to make is that there are experts out there trying to say that pornography isn't harmful. If anything, it's given men an opportunity to redirect some of their sexual desire into it, rather than real women, and so I was like I don't agree with that narrative. I'd love to hear your perspective. Why is porn actually harmful? That someone's daughter, son or niece or sister.

Kolton Thomas: 10:32

So I told you about. You should share about him and share his stories.

Jonathan Storment: 10:37

So Sigmund Freud his ideas have largely been discredited, but they're in the culture and they have won the day. Sigmund Freud's big idea is that male sexual desire cannot be restrained and if it leads to neurosis. And his nephew Eber Bernays, he worked with his allies against the German army and what they would do.

Jonathan Storment: 10:59

So, basically, Eber Bernays realized that his uncle was on to something that Sigmund Freud believed, that a lot of people do stuff and they're not aware of what they are really thinking, their unconscious biases and fears. And so Eber Bernays would go after those kind of driving desires that everybody has Fear, concern for safety, desire for sex, this kind of lack of security, Anyway. So Eber Bernays would work with the allies and he dropped propaganda pamphlets on the soldiers while they were at war. And it would be like pamphlets that were dropped on them that said like while you're out fighting those war, your wife is sleeping with someone else, so just introduce that anxiety and demoralize them. One thing he did he dropped a bunch of extra large condoms on them, labeled small, and acted like they were supposed to be for Americans. So I mean like if I'm talking to dudes, right now.

Jonathan Storment: 11:59

Yeah, you know like that would work right. You'd be like what kind of stallions are we fighting? I mean just stuff like that. So, eber Bernays, he gets, once the war ends, he's out of a job and it dawns on him that he could do the work he does at peacetime, that he did for the war. So he writes a book called Propaganda. If you've ever had a marketing class, you've heard of this book, because he was the father of marketing and he connected our deepest desires with products. So if you've ever seen a movie where a couple make love and then they light up a cigarette, that is an Edward Bernays special.

Jonathan Storment: 12:39

Because before Eber Bernays, the average American woman was just an average normal sized female. But because cigarettes suppress the appetite, he realized I have to create a problem in order to solve it. So he began to platform really, really thin women and tried to redefine and did successfully redefine the American ideal of beauty to be this very thin person. And then, after a few years of that, he then presented Lucky Strikes as a way to curb your appetite. In other words, here's why I'm saying all this, like you're asking about culture.

Jonathan Storment: 13:18

I think that one of the challenges anybody trying to live in America is going to have is that our entire culture has been sexualized, and it's not been sexualized for sex. It's been sexualized. Just sell you crap you don't need. And you may think that that's silly and that doesn't work, and I would say, well, just check out your bank account or your house or your garage, because chances are Sigmund Freud knew something about us that we didn't know, that we are driven by desires that we're not conscious of. So I would say people are used to sell products, and that is one of the challenges of trying to be faithful to the way of Jesus with my body in America.

Kolton Thomas: 14:01

Which is, you know, in pornography and in sex work, people become the products, right, and so part of this is us just needing to recognize that and realize that he want nothing to do with that right.

Jonathan Storment: 14:15

Sure, people aren't property or profit centers. Luis Perry talks about the sexual disenchantment of the West and basically this is what Pope John Paul II is getting at with. The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of a person, but too little. Like when you reduce someone to certain parts of their body, as if that person is a vagina on a stick, or you know what I mean, then you're not loving the whole person. Nobody wants to be loved like that and nobody really wants to love like that. It diminishes this really special thing that human beings have by disenchanting it, and you know we do that by. Come on, it's just sex, it's just like it's a handshake or something. And yet when sexual assault happens, we know it's different than physical assault. When sexual abuse happens, when rape happens, something has been violated. That's more than just what can be, you know, physically described.

Kolton Thomas: 15:17

Yeah, our moral compass, the instinctual morality, is placed and every human being can recognize the evil in violating someone sexually. But what you're saying is, if culture is saying let's liberate sex and sex is just sex and it's okay just to have that pleasure all on its own, without it being connected to all these other important things, then why are rape and sexual abuse, why are those so distasteful to us? And what you're saying is that those things should be signposts for us that point to the fact that there is something sacred to sex and to human sexuality. But why is it that so many of us are buying into the secular ideas about sex? Why is it so tempting?

Jonathan Storment: 16:03

Yeah, well, there's a deeper thing too. There's that GK Chesterton quote that every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. I really do think that's true, because I think there's a reason that we're drawn to this and we're all very thirsty. So, okay, like John 4, right, like the conversation with Jesus and Samaritan woman, jesus runs into her at lunchtime at a well. She's by themselves, and he asked her for water. And she says how can you ask me? I'm a woman, you're a man, I'm a Samaritan, you're a Jew. How can you ask me for water? And he asked me for water. And he says if you knew who I was, you would ask me for water, because I can give you water that will quench your deepest thirst forever. And she's like oh, give me this water. And he says, okay, go, go and get your husband. And she's like man, I don't have a husband. And jesus is right, you don't have a husband, you've been married five different times and the man that you're living with now is not your husband. And she says Sir, I can see that you're a prophet and nosy.

Jonathan Storment: 17:12

And what is happening in that moment is jesus is not changing the subject, he's doing exactly what she asked. He says I would like this water that can quench my thirst eternally. Can I have some? And so what he does? Show her what well she's drinking from right now. This is why I think jesus is so Compassionate and understanding to anybody who is going through sexual immorality, because what we're really searching for is him. And there's an itch that you're not gonna be able to scratch in this life, and that sounds like something preachers are supposed to say. So If you bristle at that, then read albert camu, the existential philosopher, who's not a believer. Describe the absurdity of life and that we all have really well, and I think what we're doing is we just have this thirst and we're drinking saltwater, even though we know it doesn't satisfy. Maybe for a moment might know.

Kolton Thomas: 18:06

Yeah, and you know, we have a lot of men in our culture longing for that, for deeper intimacy, for a deeper relationship with god. And yet, like you said, baked into the very history of our culture is this idea of using our most instinctual desires as a way of selling us things, as a way of driving our economy, selling his products. And if one of the things this podcast accomplishes is to just help men wake up to how much this is still going on today, to how much pornography and other sexual advertisements or shows are really there in order to drive profit and to use their instinctual desires for that purpose, and how much that's taking them away from so much of a greater, deeper vision of what sexuality could be Right, that's my prayers that more men would hear about our culture and get cultural insights, as well as the history of it, and recognize that we don't have to buy into the narrative in the story that our culture is trying to feed us about sex.

Jonathan Storment: 19:11

That's right. Yeah, I mean, I do think Christianity has always been best when it's a creative minority that is faithful to a very alternative worldview. Because sexuality is, it's not one of the essentials of Christianity, it is an implication of some of the essentials, like incarnation, resurrection, ascension. All of those are affirming the goodness and inherent dignity of a human body. But it is a kind of first flash point of whether you're going to obey the way of Jesus or not. So I would tell people who claim to be followers of Jesus you got to take this seriously for your own mental health, spiritual well being. This is pretty central to you following Jesus. Well, it's one of the ways you are loving to your neighbor and to the women in our life is by practicing self restraint and having eyes to see people better than products to be used.

Kolton Thomas: 20:04

Yeah, that's well said. Well, that wraps up today's interview. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, if there's one point that I would want you to get from this episode, it's just to understand the big picture and where we are at this moment in time and how important it is for you to learn self-control Over these desires that you have, so as not to participate in what culture is doing, but rather to stand firm in the principles, in the faith that you've always aspired to, that you've always held on to. And it's not an easy thing to do. We stumble, we fall. That's understandable, but it reclaimed. We have a community of men who, together, are keeping each other strong, our speaking truth and encouragement Into each other's lives, and we're seeing men actually win in this battle, actually watch Pornography less and less and less until it becomes such a small problem in their life that they're able to manage it and go on living and not have to worry day-to-day about looking at porn. So there's no shame in asking for help, there's no shame in opening up. You know that it reclaimed. We have coaching. We have a program that includes individual coaching, group coaching, a video course.

Kolton Thomas: 21:16

So if that's something that you're interested in, reach out to Kolton@reclaimedrecovery. com , or check out our app, our community app, and you can create an account and log in there. It's free, it's confidential. You could even send me a direct message in there at community. reclaimedrecovery. com. You can reach out to me in either of those places. You can also just ask questions, make comments on what you're hearing in the podcast, please. I want to be accessible, I want to hear your stories and I want this podcast to be transforming lives, to be helping as much as possible. But again, there's so many men who just need that direct work, that direct Encouragement and coaching to really get that momentum going. And once you've got that momentum going and once you've got that community, those connections you can open up to and you can lean on to practice integrity, man, you're gonna take off.

Kolton Thomas: 22:06

I mean, I've seen so many guys just overcome pornography and outgrow this issue a lot of times. That can start with just reaching out, opening up, making an investment in yourself and taking a risk, whether that's with reclaimed or just any resource that you've been thinking about To help you move forward. Don't wait, don't let pornography have one more day to dictate your feelings, to dictate your identity and your sense of self worth, because God didn't just throw you together. He created you. He has a plan for you in your life and he's given you specific, unique Gifts to be able to use in this world to bless others, to care for others, to look after others, to protect Others. So don't put it off for too long. So that's all we have for today, guys. In the meantime, stay humble, stay resilient, and thanks for listening to the reclaimed recovery podcast. We'll see in the next one.

Kolton Thomas: 22:57

If you enjoyed listening to today's interview, you can help me move mountains by taking a couple minutes of your time and Supporting the podcast. There's a couple key ways you can do that. One, it's really easy you can leave a review for the podcast. A lot of times, when it comes to reviews, people tend to take time to leave negative ones, but not positive ones. But you can help change that and leave a positive review for this podcast if it's making a difference in your life. The second thing you can do is you can contribute financially and you can help me in creating more high quality Well research content and interviews. So you can find a link to support us through PayPal or patreon in the show notes. Thanks so much, guys, you rock. Get out there, be resilient, live porn free. We'll see you next time.