How many men and women consume porn on a regular basis?
How common is porn use within the church?
How is porn affecting us?
Nick Stumbo, Executive Director of Pure Desire Ministries, joined Dr. Juli Slattery on the Java with Juli podcast to unpack the surprising results of a recent study conducted by Barna on pornography use and shared potential solutions.
Prefer to listen? You can also listen to the full conversation here.
Juli Slattery (01:37.73)
Welcome to Java with Juli and I have with me a guest who is no stranger to the work that we do at Authentic Intimacy, Nick Stumbo from Pure Desire. And Nick, you’ve been on this podcast a few times. It’s always a joy to have you back.
Nick Stumbo
Yeah, thanks for having me back. Always glad to be a part of it with you, Juli.
Juli Slattery
Well, you’ve in the past shared some of your story. You’ve shared your passion personally for the work that God is doing through pure desire and helping churches, helping individuals, helping leaders overcome pornography, overcome sexual addiction. And we have a little bit of a unique conversation today that’s actually based on a research project. So can you give us a little information about what that project is and kind of how it was inspired?
Nick Stumbo
That’s right. Last year, we were actually looking around at the landscape of the church and our world and really looking at who is doing new research on pornography use, not only among Christians, but in the world at large. And the reality that we were finding, and I don’t know if you would echo this, that there really wasn’t anything new coming out, that as we operated in this space, people that were referring to stats, I knew, that comes from 2012 stat pack from Covenant Eyes. That’s from the 2016 report that Barna did with Josh McDowell Ministries.
And in those last seven, eight years, you we’ve all lived through the COVID pandemic. We’ve seen incredible upheavals in our society and politics and gender identity and things around that. And it just felt like we need to understand the impact this is having on people. And in particular, young adults, know, those who are a part of Gen Z, it’s really the first generation that have now become young adults that grew up with high speed internet from day one, you know, from the time they were little kids, they were handed tablets, and smartphones as babysitters and ways to occupy their time. And to just ask the question, what is this doing to people’s moral fabric? What’s happening in their interior lives as it comes to pornography? And since no one was doing anything new, we reached out to Barna, who is, you know, I think a leading group in this kind of area and just asked, are you doing anything? Are there any works in the plans? And they said, no, but we would love to.
Nick Stumbo (03:57.518)
And so we prayed about it and talked with our team and our donors and just felt that this was a cultural moment that God was asking us to step into and to shine the light back on this topic. Because that’s kind of my feeling as well, that I sense that many churches, maybe about 10 years ago as the Conquer series was coming out and this Barna report, there was a lot of conversations happening in churches about pornography. And I think it became a little bit of a been there, done that kind of moment for the church of, we ran the Conquer series and you know, we did that a while ago and now we’ve moved on to these other issues. And while it’s totally normal that churches cycle through different topics and focal points, the reality is that the individuals in the church continue to carry this topic with them and are looking for places of hope, of recovery, of conversation. And we found that by and large that hasn’t been happening. And so that was really our heartbeat. You know, data reveals reality. I hope that that helps us to see the truth, but that doesn’t necessarily create change unless we interpret the data in a way that says, what can we do about this? What steps would this lead us to take? And that was really our ultimate goal, is that by shining the light on the reality of what’s happening, it might motivate more churches and leaders and parents and individuals to say, we have to do something about this topic. It’s continuing to undermine relationships, families, people’s faith. And if the data does that even in a small way, then we will feel that it was worth the time and investment in bringing this data out to the world.
Juli Slattery
Yeah, and I’m so thankful that you did this. In my work with a lot of Christian organizations and churches, I feel like within the last 10 years, the LGBT conversation has really predominated our thoughts.
And for good reason. I mean, there’s a lot of changes even in the law and on the cultural landscape around LGBT issues. And we need to talk about it. But I think in our focus on that, we’ve kind of thought, well, we already dealt with pornography. That’s not the big issue of today. Whereas pornography is impacting probably far more people than even the LGBT conversation.
Nick Stumbo
Absolutely. And it’s changed.
Nick Stumbo (06:20.88)
As you said, we can’t look at research from 15 or 10 years ago. It’s so rapidly increasing that having research today is really important. And I would add that the two conversations are far more tied together than most churches, leaders, people think about because what we see happening in the LGBTQ circles and in our culture and with, you know, gender fluidity. It was normalized in pornography long before it became normalized in culture. Some of the, what we might have 15 or 20 years ago referred to or thought of as a deviant lifestyle. And I don’t mean to say deviant as a put down or criticism, but to say that’s a deviation from the normal that we’ve established. This is a normal, healthy relationship, a family unit, a marriage unit. And the deviations that we now see being normalized were normalized in pornography decades ago. And I think we’re seeing the impact of pornography bubble up into the way that people view themselves, in the way that people view other people, in the way they view their bodies. It’s this connection that pornography really promotes a system that who I am and my sexual identity or how I use my body are two disconnected things. And so that what I do with my body or do with my sexuality can be one thing and not really be impacting who I am. And so people have felt this freedom to experiment or to consider other options. And the brain actually flows towards those experiences. And what we’re seeing happen is not that this is the way your brain is, it’s actually this is what’s happening to your brain because of the things that you’re exposing it to. And so you look at, in a vast majority of adult films, same-sex relationships are normalized, even celebrated.
And so is it any wonder that that’s now become a cultural norm? And even transgender pornography is hugely on the rise. So the two are very deeply connected. And I think even for churches that have really done a lot of work to try to help people understand their sexuality because of those greater issues, we need to be willing to recognize that pornography is far more prevalent and is far more influencing of people’s ways of thinking than maybe we’ve given it credit for.
Juli Slattery (08:36.848)
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, just to highlight some of what you said, like two ways that there’s this overlap. One is that when you’re exposed to sexualized images, your brain responds and builds pathways. And so we hear a lot of stories of, for example, an 11-year-old girl who sees gay pornography and then begins to assume, that means I’m gay because I responded to that and her brain is building neural pathways that reinforce that. But the second thing you said that I think is really important as well is pornography teaches us to steward our sexuality based on being consumers of what do I want, what excites me, and that flows into sort of the same narrative that is propelled by LGBT as well as other things like a lot of dysfunction in marriage. You can’t approach married sex as a consumer and have that go well.
Nick Stumbo
Yeah, there are far reaching consequences in all these discussions.
Juli Slattery
Yeah, I mean, it’s so revealing too of the contradiction between life in the gospel and life in Christ and life apart from Christ, because really the worldly ethic is what’s in it for me, what’s best for me, what leads to my greatest pleasure or joy or experience that that is the carnal mind doing what it’s made to do. And we even see in that is God’s creation of looking out for our own survival, that when that is detached from our faith in Christ and his love for us and experiencing what he intended us to, the brain has been designed to pursue what feels good, avoid what feels bad, and that will lead to a very self-centered way of viewing life, which then makes pornography a logical outcome of why wouldn’t I consume others to feel good about myself versus a gospel way of living that says my greatest joy is actually in and through the way I love and serve and treat others. That because of what Christ has done in my life, I’m now free to not pursue life for me, but to pursue the goodness of others. And in that actually believing that the joy I have in this life will be greater than if I just pursued it on my own. And so it’s, think underscores too, where we try to make pornography kind of this peripheral issue that it’s that one little thing that some people deal with.
Nick Stumbo (11:02.623)
And it is so deeply connected to our identity and our sense of how am I viewing myself in this world? And is it about me and my pleasure or is it about that other centered self-giving love that Christ modeled for us and gave to us that then we enter into relationships with? And I think all of that is at stake as we talk about the way people view their sexuality and their willingness to allow for pornography in their life.
Juli Slattery
Well, getting back to the Barna study, it is complete. You’ve been sharing the results in many different venues. I guess the number one question a lot of people would have is, and not just what did you learn, but specifically, how prevalent is pornography?
Nick Stumbo
Yes, so the question was asked, you know, do you view pornography and people were given the option of daily, weekly, once or twice a month, less often or never? And so for the general adult population, 61 % of all U.S. adults would say at some level they’re viewing pornography. And within the church for practicing Christians, and Barna defined a practicing Christian as someone who self-reported that their faith was important to them and that they go to church at least multiple times a month. So for a practicing Christian, we might hope those numbers are far lower, but it only drops to 54%. And as far as I’m aware, it is the first study that would suggest a majority of practicing Christians, men and women who are sitting in church on a weekly basis would say, yeah, to some degree, pornography is a part of my experience. It’s something that I’m engaging in. When you break that down into genders, it was 75 % of men and 44 % of women. So I think it also highlights that this is not a man’s problem. There may be a percentage that it is more common among men, but when you’re looking at 44 % of Christian women saying, yeah, me too. I think it makes very clear that we need to help people in this area and not men and assume women are fine. And if you break down, I like to share this part as well, because you can break down the genders by age groupings. And if you look at younger adult women, so millennial women who would be in their late 20s and mid or to mid 30s, and then Gen Z women, those who are in their late teens and early 20s, those numbers are much higher.
Nick Stumbo (13:25.405)
Sixty two percent of millennial women and sixty four percent of Gen Z women say pornography is a part of my experience. So you’re looking at a full two thirds of our young adult women saying, yeah, me too. And I think if nothing else, maybe the study will communicate, stop helping the men only and let’s help people. And yes, we might have to help men in men’s groups and women in women’s groups. There might be a way we approach the men. It’s different than how we approach the women. I think gender distinction and how we help people is totally normal, but to only help men, it has to become a conclusion of the past because God designed men and women as sexual beings and men and women are being tripped up by this topic.
Juli Slattery
And when we define pornography in this study, is there a set definition or could we define pornography as even maybe some of the mainstream shows that you might see on Netflix or is it like, is it just when you do a search for a pornographic image, like how do we understand that?
Nick Stumbo
That’s a great question and it reveals in my mind one of the drawbacks of the first study in that it asked people about pornography but it let them define pornography in their own terms. And so some people might have said no because what they view they didn’t define as pornography. And so for the purpose of this study we did clarify that pornography was any image video or written representation that was meant to be sexually arousing as pornography. so within that definition, that’s where we got those percentages. So I think it does clarify, if someone could acknowledge I am using this for the purpose of sexual arousal, or that’s the intent of it, that let’s define that as pornography.
Juli Slattery
Okay. Yeah, that’s helpful. And so a lot of people might be watching things that we would define as pornographic, but it’s kind of incidental, they’re not seeking it out, but it certainly has an effect on them. Nick, I wonder if you saw this study, I saw it from a few years ago, and it really caught my attention because of the numbers. It was a Psychology Today study that was looking at pornography use from 18 to 35 year olds, and it asked the question, have you viewed pornography within the last six months?
Juli Slattery (15:45.929)
And I believe it was 98 % of men and 73 % of women said yes, which is even a greater percentage than what the BARNA study showed. Have you seen stats that high?
Nick Stumbo
I’ve heard a similar study, it may have been that one. I think in some of those, that’s why we went to a group like Barna because they are so trusted for doing research in a way that is getting truly the broad demographic of our country. I think some of those smaller studies, it may have been where people found the question. I they were already online. They were maybe in forums or rooms that were connected to sexuality to some degree that I think may have inflated numbers. So I wouldn’t argue that, well, they’re not that high, I think among young adults. Even the report does show, you know, I talked about Gen Z women and millennial women. Well, for Gen Z men and millennial men, the numbers are into the high 80s and low 90s that would say I’m to some degree viewing pornography.
Nick Stumbo
Is it 95 or 98 % or you know the old joke that 99% of men struggle and the other 1 % are lying? I don’t know that that’s the reality. Thankfully, one of the surprising data points was that among Gen Z men attitudes about pornography and actually their willingness to acknowledge, ‘I don’t want this in my life’ was higher than millennial men and I think we’re seeing in the data a little bit of a shift among Gen Z that says we’re seeing what’s happening in generations ahead of us. We’re seeing what it’s doing to marriages and to our leaders and to our culture. And we’re getting a little bit sick of this. We’re a little tired and seeing this is not good for our society. And so their resilience towards pornography is higher, I would say, based on the data than millennial men. So, yeah, when you get into young adults, again, I think it’s the byproduct of what we’ve already talked about, that when you’ve had a cell phone or a tablet or a gaming device, from the age of five or your friends have or your cousins or your older brother that is one click away from explicit content, we should not be surprised that that generation says almost universally, ‘Yeah, I view pornography’ and it underscores what you and I know that pornography is not innocuous.
Nick Stumbo (18:07.455)
It is not stagnant or inert. It’s not just something we view and walk away from and it leaves no effect that, that what it does in the brain and to our brain chemicals and our body response as God designed it to, but it’s a hijacked system, it creates a desire for more, for curiosity, for the novelty that brings people back again and again. And so when you’ve got Gen Z men and women that grew up probably with many of them, one of the things we have found in Pure Desire groups as we ask people about their sexual story, I have yet to find someone that says that their first exposure to pornography was wanted and something they were seeking out. I have never heard that story. And maybe someone has that story, but every story that I have ever heard involves someone showed me, I stumbled across something, I found it in my dad’s workbench, I was on the bus and someone showed me something on a phone. And I’m like, what is this? That’s where everybody starts. And so if everybody is starting there and in this generation, probably everybody had something like that. There are little hooks that are being set in the brain chemicals saying, what was that? What did, what did I just feel in my body? Because something started to occur that I’d never felt before. And the drawback to it, even if we objected to what we saw, I think is what’s being revealed in the numbers that almost universally young men and then two thirds of young women saying, yeah, this is, this has been part of my world and I can’t seem to walk away from it.
Juli Slattery
Yeah. It’s sobering. You know, Nick, I think sometimes when something becomes so widely used in our culture, it becomes a trend. We tend to downplay the effects of it. You know, I use the example of junk food. Like there’s so much junk food. There’s so much obesity in our nation that sometimes it’s like, well, that’s just the reality we need to adjust. And I see the attitude somewhat with pornography among some people that hey, it’s just life, it’s not that damaging, everybody looks at it. One of the things that you looked at in the study was what is the impact of pornography and why even apart from our Christian worldview should we be concerned about it? And so what did the study reveal related to that?
Nick Stumbo (20:24.934)
Well, I would say two things about that. Number one, we did ask the question, do you wish or are you comfortable with how much pornography you’re using? And this was only for those that answered, yes, I’m viewing pornography at some level. And 49 % of practicing Christians said, I’m comfortable with how much pornography I use. Half of Christians that view pornography say, I’m comfortable with it. And I think it’s revealing what you just brought up that we’ve moved towards normalizing, towards acceptance, and I don’t think it’s because we truly believe it’s okay. I think it’s more the sense of everybody’s doing it. I’ve tried to resist, I’ve tried to walk away. It seems to keep coming back up. It’s just everywhere around me. Well, I guess this is just the way it’s gonna be. And if it’s not at the moment significantly impacting my life or relationship, it’s like, well, it is what it is. And yeah, I guess I’m comfortable with it. And I think that underscores the work that we need to do as leaders, as pastors, as parents to continue to underscore this is dangerous. This is not something that just leaves you where you are. is progressive in nature to take you further and deeper and lead you into places that you never thought you would go. But that is the very nature of compulsive sexual behavior and addiction. And so I think we have it underscores we have work to do there.
We may assume, well, everybody knows this is wrong. Everybody knows this is bad. Everybody knows this is damaging. Everybody knows this objectifies women and that that’s wrong and sinful. And we might feel that. But when people were asked about their internal belief, they’ve actually moved to the place of justifying and accepting for a whole variety of reasons. Only 21 % of practicing Christians said they wish they didn’t use pornography at all. And that was convicting to me as a leader of a Christian recovery ministry, because we also can make the assumption that, everybody wants this out of their life. Well, maybe not, maybe only one in five actually want it out of their life. And the people that show up at our ministry and at yours are the ones that are motivated to say, we need to be done with this. And I’m asking myself the question, how do we reach out to the 79 % that have maybe just given up hope or have so accepted some of the lies of culture that they’ve normalized it?
Nick Stumbo (22:42.375)
Because I think there’s tremendous opportunities there to lead people into a greater way of experiencing God’s freedom and God’s promises in this life. The other aspect I would bring up is the impact we’re seeing on people’s mental health and on relationships. In separate parts of the survey, those that responded, they used pornography, also asked questions about their mental health and things about anxiety, being critical of themselves, even having ideas of suicide.
And if you look at this page in the report, it is across the board. It is this even line that shows the more pornography someone views, the more unhealthy their views of self are, the more anxiety they have, the more suicidal thoughts they have. And conversely, we ask questions of people about their their well-being. Like I have a positive outlook on life. I feel that people care about me. And the converse was also true that the more pornography someone viewed, the less good they felt about their life and about themselves. And so we don’t know if that’s correlation or causation. Does the pornography cause the unhealth or is the unhealth why they’re reaching out for pornography? But I look at that and say, either way, what it reveals is that these two things are tied together. Our view of our world and our self and our wellbeing is deeply tied to our experience of sexuality and how we’re handling our sexuality.
And so I’ve been saying to leaders and to churches, if we want to help people live fulfilling lives, to be free of anxiety and self-harm thoughts. Like pornography is deeply tied to that conversation. And if we want to help people holistically, their sexuality is a big, big part of this. And so we need to be willing to go into some messy places and into some hard conversations, believing that I’m not just helping them get rid of a bad habit of looking at porn once in a while. I’m actually looking to set them free of a vice that is causing them to live in shame, to live in self-regret, to live in anxiety. Like people are trapped, not just by the behavior, they are trapped by the mindset that it creates. And so I’m hopeful that that creates some passion. Like man, this is a bigger work than we even thought of. It’s not just about one bad choice that people make. It’s about their way of life and living life to the full that Jesus promised us in John chapter 10, that you have life and life abundantly.
Nick Stumbo (25:02.481)
Well, people who are stuck in pornography are not experiencing abundant life. And the data just makes that so clear. Did the data help provide like support for what actually helps or what churches can do, what individuals can do to start addressing this problem? I believe it does. A couple of the questions that to me are actually at the onset look very sobering to me are actually very exciting and are kind of a silver lining. People were asked the question, does anybody know about your porn use? And they were given all the options of family, friends, pastor, an adult I don’t even know. And then the answer, no one. Half of all people, 49 % said no one knows. And we might be hopeful that among Christians it’d be far lower because we’re encouraged into confession and vulnerability and authenticity and you know, bearing one another’s burdens, but among Christians, it only drops to 48%. So we’re 1 % better. That’s not very encouraging. But I look at the flip side and say, man, if half of all people haven’t even felt comfortable telling anyone, what if we created safe spaces? What if we created a culture in our homes or churches or communities that people knew like you can come with anything and you’re going to be loved and supported and helped? I mean, for half of people, that would be a starting point.
Another question people were asked was, who is helping you? So even for those that maybe someone knew about their porn use, everyone was asked the question, who is helping you in your struggle with pornography? And 84 % in that question said no one, that no one is helping me. Now again, that’s sobering on the outside. How could so many people say there’s no one even helping me? But I look at the opportunity to say, what if as churches we were helping? What if as parents and adults we were helping and we were being very intentional to come alongside people and say, you know what, if you struggle in this area, I am so here for you. I am for you. I am with you. I’m not here to judge you and reject you. I’m here to help and believe that you can move out of this and find freedom. Eighty four percent of people, that would be a starting point.
Nick Stumbo (27:25.633)
So when I look at things that we do like helping start support groups, educating churches to communicate about this more effectively, creating cultures and environment of grace, I say that would go a long ways towards people simply having a place to come and say, I’m struggling and will you help me?
One other question I’ll bring up from the data. People were asked, who do you feel comfortable talking to about a pornography problem? The number one answer, as we might expect, is a counselor. But even that number one answer, less than 50 % of people said they’d be comfortable going to a counselor. So we still see a majority of people don’t really feel comfortable talking to anyone.
But on that list, a pastor or spiritual advisor, you have to go down all the way to the ninth person. Only 11 % of people struggling with pornography said they feel comfortable going to their pastor. They’re more comfortable going to a doctor or an adult they don’t even know than to their own pastor. And I look at that as such a moment of opportunity for us as leaders and pastors, because we have created an environment where this topic, people feel like, either my church doesn’t help in this area or they don’t want to, or they would reject me. And from the pastors I know, that’s not their heart. Their heart isn’t to push people away. But at the same time, most of us aren’t saying anything. And silence can actually produce and breed shame. Because when we don’t hear about it, we assume, this isn’t safe at my church. And so I think about the future and say, man, what if churches and pastors and leaders just regularly talked about this topic in a way to say, we’re here to help, we’re safe people, you can come with anything. And if 11 % of people went to, you 90 % of people said, man, I could talk to my pastor, I think we would see this topic shift in tremendous ways. And so the data just in all these points so clearly reveals that silence, avoidance; the taboo nature of it is still maybe the primary thing that is keeping people from getting the help they need. And it may be the easiest thing for us to change, to just start talking about it in a way to say, hey, we realize this is a big problem and not just for a few of us. This is a big problem for a lot of us. And so you know what? Let’s talk about it. Let’s see what God has to say. Let’s see what His grace would speak to our hearts about this.
Nick Stumbo (29:43.466)
And if our communities, if our churches started to feel that, again, I think the data would suggest that alone would move us in a tremendously different direction.
Juli Slattery
Nick, I think one of the reasons that not just pastors, but people that are discipling, including parents, don’t want to say that is because they don’t know if they can walk it out. So to say, hey, I’m a safe place for you to share this. I want you to come and talk to me about this struggle. I’ll help you. And then somebody comes and confesses and we don’t know what to do next. You know, what we know from sexual struggles and pornography is for most people, it’s not just a matter of confessing a sin and being done with it. It’s a very messy long journey. So what would you say to the individual or the leader who’s like, yeah, I want to be that safe place, but if somebody confessed to me, I really wouldn’t know what to do other than to pray with them and say thank you for sharing.
Nick Stumbo
Three things actually come to mind. Number one would be face your own story, do your own work, if that’s a part of your life. Number two would be get educated, get equipped, get resourced. And number three would be encouragement that you don’t have to be the expert, but you can link to people that do this, like what you’re doing on authentic intimacy, like what we’re doing at Pure Desire, like a number of other really great ministries. We’re here to help. And so to go through those maybe a little more in depth, I do think there is a reality, whether we’re parents or leaders or a pastor, we feel like how am I going to talk about this? Because I’ve got questions about my own story. You know we found that one in five pastors said this is an ongoing issue in their life.
And two thirds of pastors said that it’s been a part of their story at some point. And what I know to be true among the two thirds of pastors, and that was my story, that have this in their life, the vast majority don’t feel comfortable to talk about it in their church. They don’t feel comfortable or safe to talk about their story. So I think that’s a starting point. And I’m not saying, you in every church, culture and environment is different. I don’t believe that every pastor needs to get up in front of their church and share their whole story. That’s not always appropriate. It’s not always safe.
Nick Stumbo (32:05.932)
But I do think pastors do need places where they can gather maybe with other pastors. know, at Pure Desire, we have groups for pastors to go through a healing experience. And that’s true though, whether you’re a pastor or a parent or a leader, if I’ve got my own unresolved questions, my ability to help others will be limited because it may still be an area of shame in my life. And when it comes up, I kind of feel shut down. So I’m like, now it’s triggering all of my own fears about what I’ve done and haven’t been able to face.
If you’re there, that’s step one is how could you work on you? And in working on you, that’s actually gonna be the best thing you can do to help others. And we provide avenues like that as well as many others do, but that would be a noble pursuit to realize, man, I so badly wanna help other people in this and my first step is to get help myself. There’s some great research out there that says when we’re motivated to help others, that’s actually like the number one way that leads to self change than when we’re just doing it for ourselves, that’s not as effective as when we’re doing it for someone else. So if any parent hears this and says, so badly want my kids to do better than I did, but I haven’t really done my own work, to be motivated by that to go do your own work would be tremendous. The second point, yeah, get educated. mean, by listening to this podcast, you’re already saying, I wanna know more, I wanna understand this better. By getting a copy of the report and understanding the reality of what’s happening,
At puredesire.org, we have all kinds of free resources and ebooks that you could learn about how to break free from pornography and what betrayal trauma is all about. I know it authentic intimacy. You all have tremendous resources. Just say, let’s get educated. We don’t have to have a master’s degree to sit with someone and have an helpful conversation, even to get someone to move from just seeing that most people when they confess they’re beating themselves up with the shame of how could I be doing this? What’s wrong with me? And if we even have a little bit of insight to say, you know, what you’re doing is actually probably a byproduct of deeper needs you have to feel loved, to feel valued, to feel affirmed. And you’re finding those in an artificial way in pornography. So the problem isn’t just that you look at porn. There are deeper places that God wants to do a work in your heart.
Nick Stumbo (34:26.833)
How could I help you in like even that much information? can help someone tremendously start to come out of shame because they just think, I’m just a really messed up person. I’m doing this because I’m so wicked. And if they hear it, man, maybe I’m doing this because I wanna be loved. And in an artificial way, I’m finding something for a moment that’s working, quote unquote, working. Well, now I’m seeing my whole struggle differently. So getting educated and equipped can be tremendous. And then the third one, as I mentioned, you’re not alone. You don’t have to be the expert because there are people out here like Juli Slattery and Pure Desire Ministries and others that say, we’ve got tools and resources and podcasts. Let us help you. And I say that because I do think a lot of pastors or leaders do feel like I’ve got to be the expert on everything. And if I’m not, I just don’t talk about it. Well, that’s really limiting. And I hope leaders in humility can say, you know what, I need to just let go of that. And I need to I need to affiliate with some people that are doing really good work in this area and learn from them because that’s what we’re all here for.
Juli Slattery
Nick, can you talk about the importance and the power of community and groups? You know, I think there are some people who are like, okay, I really want to deal with this in my life. I might confess it to a counselor. I’m going to confess it to the Lord. But they don’t get involved in the community of healing. Why is that an essential step?
Nick Stumbo
Yeah. One of the things that other research has consistently proved about compulsive sexual behaviors, pornography use, is that when we keep going back to it, it’s not about the sexual high. I mean, that might be part of the glue that gets us to keep going back. But under the surface, study after study has shown how it really is an intimacy deficiency. That because we have unresolved relational wounding or trauma or breaks in our life, that leaves us with these questions of, I loved as I was talking about? Am I good enough? Am I valued? That’s what hooks us into pornography in a way that we can’t seem to break free of. And that underscores or emphasizes why community is so essential, because if we’ve been wounded in our past through relationships or maybe just environments where our parents were too busy for us or they were away at work or we grew up with in an abusive situation or there was a lot of silence.
Nick Stumbo (36:48.283)
We’re left with all these questions about our worth and value that pornography is answering in a false way. And so what we need for healing isn’t just to stop the pornography, it’s to go to that root of the intimacy deficiency. And by intimacy, I don’t mean sex. By intimacy, I mean being fully known and fully loved by people that can look into my soul and they’re comfortable staying with me and saying, I care about you. I’m your friend, I’m with you.
And that can happen, that kind of relationship can happen in a group environment. Because when we’re with other people that we feel comfortable sharing our story, and I think this is one of the important points I’d like to to really emphasize. Many people feel like, I’ve shared with others my struggle. And when I ask them more about it, what I find is, well, they told someone I struggle with pornography, but they didn’t get into any of the details of how long, how much, what kind, what frequency. Because in those details is hidden a lot of pockets of shame and secrecy that keep us trapped. And when I say we need community, we need to be in a place where we can go pretty deep. And that’s why Pure Desire has worked so hard to create a group environment that is safe, that is structured, that is confidential. So someone doesn’t just show up saying, I struggle, let’s talk about it. It’s like, no, here’s my whole story. And as we start to connect the dots in our story and our past, the choices we’ve made, and in that safe community, others continue to walk with us and affirm us and love us. Now we are we are relearning a new way of doing relationship where we’re not hiding our behaviors, but we’re living out in front of other people who are a part of that with us. That is what we have found actually changes the brain. It actually changes our heart and the way of viewing ourselves and viewing our world. And that’s why it creates lasting change and not just a sin management approach where we figure out how to not do the bad thing, we actually become changed from the inside out so that we no longer need that habit of pornography or other compulsive sexual behavior.
So that’s where the group environment, and this is again what excites me because no organization on the planet is better set up for this than the church, than the body of Christ, than those of us that have been redeemed by the grace of Jesus and feel called to love one another and bear one another’s burdens.
Nick Stumbo (39:07.193)
Like this is the perfect environment for that kind of community to happen. And that’s why I believe the church is really at the center of recovery that will happen when it comes to this whole topic of pornography and compulsive sexual behavior, because we have the tools. And by tools, I don’t mean, you know, some, you know, sexual addiction counselor. I mean, community, the body of Christ truly loving one another in this area in a way that leads to lasting change. so community and the church are really at the heart of all of recovery.
Juli Slattery
Yeah. Well, I am so thankful for Pure Desire for the work that you’ve done and continue to do to resource the church, to resource leaders and to provide them with content, curriculum, encouragement to create these kinds of spaces and for the investment that you made to do this research to kind of give us a wake up call and a window into what’s really happening. So I just want to thank you.
