Joshua Shea becomes our first repeat guest.
Joshua was on earlier to talk about pornography and sex addiction, and he joins us this time to talk about pornography and the coronavirus.
As a result of the lockdown, pornography usage is up 18%. Joshua talks about how porn websites are promoting themselves by giving away free premium content and how that is making the pandemic even more problematic.
Tune in to see Pornography and the Coronavirus Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
Listen to Episode #85 – Pornography and the Coronavirus with Joshua Shea
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Episode #85 Transcription
Craig Graves: [00:00:00] We are live.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:05] All right, we are live, live as in live and in the person or on the show. Well,
Craig Graves: [00:00:11] the show, definitely not allowed in person.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:13] We’re still doing the zoom based video conferencing, social distancing of said, I think on the last episode I’m missing the Mics my friend, I’m missing the mics, but, we have another episode of through a therapist’s eyes where we invite you to see the world through the lens of a real mental health and substance abuse therapist.
Being aware, this is not, the delivery, not the discovery, the delivery of any therapy services of any sort. Craig. I’m super excited about this one. Cause we have a, we have a return, a return man, a return guest returned friend, a friend of the show mr. Joshua Shea has returned, back to talk about, part of what we’re trying to do.
The Corona virus influence topics. Would you say that’s what we’re trying to do, Craig?
Craig Graves: [00:00:56] Yeah, I think, so this is definitely relevant to that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:58] I would say, once again, I failed my, my research on the past shows that we did with mr. Joshua Shea, was it 65,
Joshua Shea: [00:01:09] 66 and 67.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:12] Boom. He rocks it, man. Well done. no, now I am thouroughly embarrassed Josh how’d you know that.
Joshua Shea: [00:01:21] That’s upright. I, actually went and had to check something. so I went to the YouTube page and, saw those were the two numbers.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:30] So I was pretty
Joshua Shea: [00:01:31] close. It was like 20 minutes ago. So I ended up stalking you. I mean, and, and it all full, you know, Disclosure full disclosure. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:42] Well, we love that.
You’re a friend of his show and we’re really glad that you came back, to share with us. You reached out on a topic and you caught us, you know, right in the middle of what we are trying to do, which is, you know, give some coverage to all the stuff that we’re struggling about with the COVID-19, pandemic.
Did you hear that’s going on by the way?
Joshua Shea: [00:02:02] I have heard about that. I keep telling my kids to go back to school and I keep asking my wife why she’s not going to work. because you know, I’ve, I’ve worked from home for five years and, I’m good at it. And suddenly, you know, the rest of the world seems to be trying to, you know, want to be me.
So they’re all staying at home, doing the work thing and yeah. You know, whatever, if, if, if that’s what it’s going to be, that’s, what’s going to be, I understand why people want to follow in my lead and, yeah, that’s cool.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:33] That’s funny. so let me try to introduce you again for the folks that, have not listened to episode 62 67 65.
What’d you say it was again,
Joshua Shea: [00:02:44] 66 and 67,
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:47] right? He spent some time with us. They’re sharing about guys, his personal story, being a recovering porn addict and the author of addiction. Nobody will talk about how I let my pornography addiction hurt people and destroy relationships that was released in January of 2018.
But his next book at the time, soon to be released. But now is released. Holy cow. Congratulations. I want to hear about that has been released, right? The second part. Yeah, yeah,
Joshua Shea: [00:03:14] yeah. It came out in December.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:16] He is a porn addict. Now what, and that takes it from the perspective of, primarily I think a spouse, right?
Joshua Shea: [00:03:24] It’s a Q and a with, Answering questions that spouses Zack ask. I answer them from the point of view of the recovering addict and, my partner, Tony Overbay, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist answers them from the point of view of the expert who has dealt with couples in the past.
It’s very easy to follow. Like I said, Q and a format
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:47] that is a really neat concept. And, Super glad that you’re brave and courageous enough to share your story, about that. And, and, and that angle is one that I appreciate greatly because in the addictions field, we don’t deal with the family side of it.
So taking a, taking a ring at that is, is really, really cool. I appreciate it. Jake that. So in review, he’s appeared over a hundred podcasts, radio shows using your personal story to promote ideas. The porn addiction spans all demographics and those with a problem should seek help before it’s too late. As it has become his case.
We chronicled his full story. I wrote it down right here in episode 65 and 66 is what I wrote though. We have a discrepancy anyway, prior to admitting addiction, Joshua was a prominent magazine publisher or award winning journalist film festival, founder, and politician in central Maine. As his 20 year addiction was reaching a critical level in late 2013.
Joshua made a, a major error leading to his arrest followed by six months in jail. The spoiler alert. I’m not gonna talk too much about that. It’s an episode 66. but I put in bold letters here, sir. Now sobers since 2014.
Joshua Shea: [00:04:58] Yes. Yes. I, celebrated six years from alcohol on April 1st. And while I don’t know the exact date, it was a few days before that for pornography.
So I crossed those six year lines on both alcohol pornography. Since I’ve spoken to you last.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:16] That is super cool, man. I, as a clinician, it just, it, it does, no special happiness inside me goes off. When I hear people kind of crossing thresholds of recovery, although for recovering people out there, I understand it can be actually a really dangerous time and difficult time.
I actually was working with somebody who just about relapsed, I mean, was pulling in the parking lot, going after the bottle on his 20 year. Sobriety date, I believe. Yeah. 20 years sober from alcohol, a full AA member and everything. And he just about, so it’s, it’s a tough time, but it’s a, it’s a celebratory time and, and it’s, it’s absolutely cool.
Craig, do you remember what we’re talking about tonight?
Craig Graves: [00:06:02] I do not
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:05] pornography and the Corona virus. Has it gone up? Has it gone down? Let’s get your cold take before Josh. We jumped to some statistics though. We’re not a statistics show. It is a really interesting fact of, of, of some of what you gave me on the pre show notes and stuff.
Josh. Great. What do you take from pornography and the Corona virus and all the effects?
Craig Graves: [00:06:29] Yeah, unfortunately I don’t have a cold answer. I know that it’s gone up. I’ve seen some stories on it already. So, yeah, I know that it’s increased because of the virus and people being locked up at home.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:44] It’s kind of a weird thing to think how we get caught up into, all of the negative coping mechanisms that we typically have.
I mean, You know, buying stuff we can’t afford though. That’s actually out alcohol. porn is certainly, you know, different drugs and pot probably is, is, you know, weed use is, has increased dramatically. Josh, what have you seen with the statistics? Like I say, of the porn industry and we’re not a stat show, but boy,
Joshua Shea: [00:07:13] well, probably, yeah.
Yeah. What’s your, what’s your finding, is really, this is a, this is a two fold story. First. There are the people who are stuck at home. if you know anything about the Corona virus, you know, that at first hit big in China and then it moved over to Europe and the three countries that were hitting. Big where Spain, Italy, and France and PornHub, in all their brilliant PR wisdom decided, well, what we’re gonna do as a PR stunt is to give Spain, Italy, and France, complete access to our website onto all of our member sections and premium and whatever.
That means, but giving them completely, you know, unfettered access. Well, what this did of course, was since there’s very little else to write about or talk about in the middle of a, of a pandemic, a bunch of free publicity around the world, and essentially overnight, these three countries saw their traffic on PornHub, absolutely explode.
In Spain, it actually reached a high, a couple of days after this was offered of 57% more traffic, on a, on a given day than they had a year earlier, in, it was a little bit lower in France and in Italy, but, it was kind of, right about 30, 35% for the first couple of weeks when this. Be pandemic went worldwide.
PornHub then decided, well, let’s push it all over the world and let’s give everybody in the world complete access to our website. And while I obviously have certain issues with the, Content of what they present to the world. I have to give them props in that they present a lot, a lot of great statistics to the world.
I think in a lot of ways, their statistics are about bragging about how they’re doing, but they do give us a look of the analytics, right. And, you know, for instance, in America, when they gave the unfettered access, it popped up to a high of about two 24, 25% overall. it has slowed down since then.
We’re now recording this five, six weeks into the pandemic. The average daily traffic is now. 10 to 12% above what it is on an average day, but, perhaps, you know, alarmingly is that with females in America, they’re still seeing a 25 to 35% jump in traffic on PornHub, as far as Americans go and you’re seeing across the world, and they break it down country by country.
Right. That it’s anywhere between, you know, places like, South Korea and New Zealand are only at a three to 5% spike while there were other countries that are still at a 40% spike in daily traffic, but traffic has not dropped anywhere on PornHub. And I think that, Well, a lot of people mistakenly believe porn hub is the number one porn site in the world than it once was it’s for the last six months, been ranked number three.
And I think that we can probably extrapolate that, while they do have great PR. And while that probably does drive some consumers to the site, their competitors. They are, whether they’re bigger than them or smaller than are probably seeing similar jumps. So we’re seeing a double digit increase overall people who were using pornography, and at least in America, the numbers of women utilizing pornography are a higher than they’ve ever been before.
This flips the other part of this story. Is that these porn companies are trying to attract new content, when you’ve got this many people who want to, You know, look at the content, use the content, you need more content producers. And what’s happening right now is that you’ve got just an almost unlimited supply of young adults who have I’ve been laid off from their service jobs.
And. Can’t go get a job somewhere else right now. And if they’re, you know, if they’re not eligible for unemployment or employment is not cutting it, where can they go? Well, the porn companies obviously realize that they can get a lot of these good looking men and women too. Come on and become, you know, cam guys, cam girls.
And you’re seeing absolute droves moving to this industry right now because these cam companies, some of what they’re doing, including PornHub, they are increasing the payout. To their cam models. Usually for every dollar spent on a cam model by an end user, usually half of it goes to the cam model.
half of it goes to whatever the website is, a lot of these websites are now offering the cam model 75, 85%. To come and be a model for them. On top of that, you’re seeing this whole other, sub industry popup in the online pornography world, which has kind of being a passive cam girl where you don’t have to go and talk to people.
Live one-on-one you don’t have to take off your clothes to anybody live one-on-one. Yeah. It’s almost like a, for a couple of different sites of these, and I’m not going to name them because I don’t want to push them, but, sites that are almost like a Facebook or a LinkedIn, where you can go, you sign up.
For these different models you like, and then you can just do a pay to play kind of situation where you can pay to see their photos or pay to see their videos. And they’re not doing an actual live in. Person deal with you. And I was reading an article that I think it was either in the New York post.
Might’ve been the times was about a week old. Now talking about one of these sites in particular, and they’ve talked to a couple of these women and they said that they are more comfortable doing that because they don’t feel like they’re true cam girls or strippers. That way they can have their boyfriend take the pictures or they can take them themselves.
And then they just post them and people consume them on their own time. What’s happening with this though, is that these women let’s say that you, you tell your, guys who are watching that it’s $10 a month to get your photos or your videos. What’s happening is that a lot of these women are choosing this option versus becoming a true cam girl.
And they’re flooding the market with this sort of softer core, cam girl stuff. So, you know, they’re not getting the 200, $300 a day that are promised to cam girls who use some of the bigger sites. These girls are lucky if they’re getting 200, $300 a month. But what’s happening is that they are content is still getting out there.
Their content is getting stolen. Their content is getting pushed to a lot of the free sites or other porn sites out there that, you know, offshore non reputable w you know, suddenly you’ve got. Tens of thousands of women producing pornographic content that these people are stealing, putting up all over the internet.
And I don’t think a lot of these, men and women who were deciding that, yeah, this is a good choice, you know, not to be a true cam girl or cam guy, but to do this more passive thing where people access your material, when they. But I don’t think they’re recognizing that this is still going to be out there.
This is still going to last forever, just because you’re not interacting one-on-one in real time with somebody doesn’t mean that the content isn’t going to be out there in perpetuity. So these are really the two, the two pieces that the porn industry, especially the online porn industry are going after in the time of Corona virus.
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:58] Yeah. Wow. So there’s a lot there to unpack. The first, the first thing I’m hearing is first of all the numbers. So when you talk about percentage increases, let’s just realize a, well, let me back up to Craig. I hope I didn’t screw up by, by not giving us a soft disclaimer, by the title. Obviously we’re talking about pornography in the coronavirus.
So, I don’t think that this will get too explicit in any regard, you know, We’re talking about it in terms of the companies and kind of what’s going on. So I wasn’t sure if I needed to give a disclaimer, like we did a, the show, the last show, Craig or not, but, but nevertheless, be, be aware of your kiddos, listening and such, the, the numbers per se of pornography use are high.
Anyway. So just to point out the fact that when you’ve got increases percentage increases of 20, 30, 40% or more, I mean, that’s a lot, it’s a big number. You know, 30% increase on 10 people is only, you know, three people, but 30% increase on 110,000 people is a whole lot bigger of an issue that that’s, that’s the first point that comes to my mind.
the other is this whole area that you’re talking about that I didn’t anticipate or. I guess realize that all is sort of people that aren’t involved in the industry that are now suddenly involved in the industry.
That’s surprising to me. I want to hear more about that. A and B
when you speak of, maybe I’m showing my ignorance. Cam companies. I don’t really understand what that is. What is that also?
Joshua Shea: [00:16:32] Well, one of the fastest growing segments of the online porn industry is, you know, peer to peer cam, setups were essentially, you can go onto a website as a consumer. you are presented with 20, 30, 40 per screen, I guess it depends how you set up your screen.
you can, you know, Decide what demographics you want. If you’re looking for men or women, and they’ll present you with that many people on a screen, and you can go page by page by page. And these are people who like you and I are talking right now are literally sitting on the other end of the computer, waiting for you to give them some money and they’ll do a.
You know, show you something, do a sex act, whatever it is, that’s agreed upon, depending upon the, the different websites or the different setups, you know, sometimes it’s communities, a user’s pooling their money together. Sometimes it’s, you know, people are there just to try to get, the consumer one-on-one private room.
Where they can charge them a lot of money per minute. it’s, it’s absolutely exploding. The fact that, are there is, it is exploding and there are so many new users. These companies need new performers. And for, you know, the youth culture, which kind of is a little bit desensitized to pornography, desensitized to, you know, sex and nudity.
It seems like a much more viable option to a 21… 22 year old good looking guy or a girl than, you know, being an actual stripper, or, or doing any real porn. it’s all from the comfort of your home. You run the show, you stop the show, you do what you’re comfortable with or not comfortable with. And, you’ve got these, these, consumers on the other end, sometimes thousands of them in a room at a time who will tip you and pay you to do whatever you’ve agreed upon.
you know, it’s, it’s, it’s like any other, chat website, except it involves copious amounts of nudity for money. Okay,
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:40] Craig, what do you take from all that? Let me pull you into that because I have not realized that or heard much about that or thought about how people are getting into this that never have.
Cause cause one of the things that scares me yeah. You know, people will do a lot behind a computer screen and they wouldn’t do in real life to say, to say the least. So I’m kinda like. You know what, I guess I’m just sort of shocked by that. Craig, what have you ever heard of anything like that?
Craig Graves: [00:19:17] I have. I’m not to be honest with you.
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:21] Yeah. So
Joshua Shea: [00:19:22] I’m actually surprised because you know, there was, there was recently a giant, independent movie that came out called. Girl. That was a fictionalized look at this, on the HBO, summer series euphoria, one of the teenage female characters was like, this is really now a regular normal part of youth culture.
Craig Graves: [00:19:45] What’s the name of the movie? Josh? You kind of broke out, right? When you said the name of the movie
Joshua Shea: [00:19:48] The movie itself is called cam girl. Cam girl, and it’s on HBO. the movie is available anywhere. The, the television show itself was called euphoria. it was on HBO this past summer, kind of looking at, teens in Southern California and how, you know, their world is messed up in, in 2020 or 2019, I guess when it came out.
and one of the girls, Two is a little bit overweight is a little bit insecure about herself. She finds, you know, a level of control, going onto these websites and finding guys who like her who are bigger, who like girls who, you know, present what she can present. I don’t necessarily create that.
It’s it’s, it’s, it’s told in both an empowering and a sobering light, cause it does come back to haunt her. but yeah, for youth culture, for a young culture, the world of cam pornography is as normal as the exotic dance stripping world that, you know, we know. Or, or the, the pornography movie world that we know about it is it’s one of those things that, and again, it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s one of the reasons why I’m out here talking to people as much as possible, you know, trying to use my story, but try just to talk about the industry in general, because there are so many things people don’t recognize going on, especially with.
Youth culture. It’s a little bit ironic that here I am a pornography addict, a young fellow. Well, no, I’m not a young fellow, but I’m on pornography. I’m actually getting white in my beard. It’s freaking me out for the first time. I, I was, you know, I was a pornography addict for years. I. Stay away from the stuff now, but yeah, as an educator and someone talking about this, I have to learn about it.
And I’m constantly, you know, reading about this stuff and yeah. And talking to younger people and talking to people who, you know, I advised online about this stuff and trying to constantly learn. And I’ll tell you w the, the scariest thing I learned today was that there is a website out there. I. Don’t remember the specific name of it, but they were specifically targeting female McDonald’s employees who have been laid off to come and become cam girls for them.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:01] You know, the thing is I can attest to that. Josh. I see that in my, in my office, I do, you know, the there’s a training that I went to on, You know, technology and social media with kids. Craig, if you recall, back in the day, it very much led to a lot of our shows that we did on social media with, dr.
What’s his name anyway. it just escapes me. They talked about kids as being technology natives. Right. I think the three of us judging by our age, we are not technology natives, meaning it doesn’t come naturally to us, but our kids are growing up and I’ve had them in my office, man. They are, they are listening to, you know, porn and gauging in the movies.
It’s it scares me what you’re saying, Josh, because I can tell you. The parents have no idea, but they’re like upstairs or in the bonus room and they’re sharing their pictures and their bodies and their images with, with predatorial people, right readily on the net, off of your deck, on my wifi, that’s in your house that that’s happening.
Would you, would you agree with that?
Joshua Shea: [00:23:04] I agree with that, but I’m not. And I don’t want to say I’m not worried about it, but those predatorial people. There are such a tiny number of this. I’m actually a little, and those, you know, freaks are going to be out there forever. I’m almost more worried about the, you know, high school kids who this is just normal, so they’re exchanging.
You know, nude videos of each other and like 99.9% of high school relationships. So they go bad and when they go bad, they go real personal and suddenly stuff starts getting shared all over the place. I was, I was, I was actually informing my therapist about some of these things the other day. And she was sharing with me that I guess there had just been some.
outbreak at a local high school of some guy shared his ex girlfriend and stuff, and it went around and they all kinda settled it. but six guys now have to go to, this, you know, they have to have to have to go to therapy for the next six months as part of a court ordered mandate. and that none of us, none of these people really saw this happening.
And, you know, I guess these guys are going to be told in therapy that this is the wrong thing to do, but. If this is what the norm is, this is why we have to go after the kids and talk to them about pornography. You know, this is why we have to at, you know, seven, eight years old. We need to make it age appropriate, but we need to, we need to tell seven and eight year old boys and girls that, Hey, guess what?
You don’t ever let somebody take a picture of your private parts and guess what? You don’t take a picture of anybody else’s private parts, and then you can leave it at that. You don’t need to get into the history of pornography. You just have to, you know, share that with them the way that you share, you know, if you don’t, if you see a cigarette laying around, you don’t take, you, don’t take it.
If you see beer around, you don’t take a sip of it. You know, we can start doing that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:24:53] Exactly. Let me highlight that a little bit, man. That, that is a really good thing for people to be thinking of as a, as a, as a total takeaway, probably from the show, it really is a responsibility of, of parents primarily to provide a certain amount of.
you know, safety training, it’s a vital component of, of guiding a young person. And you’d think your 13, 14 year old kid kid is more knowledgeable than you. They kind of are because they’re, again, they’re technology natives, but the reality of it being is that man. You, you, you you’ve really got to teach safety about what is, what is private, what is not what you do.
If somebody, you know, appropriate touching inappropriate touching, who’s, who’s allowed to touch your body. The sanctity of all that. I mean, starting at what age, I would say quite young, we need to really be kind of gearing into, safety teaching to our children. That that’s a, that’s a big thing. I hear you talking about.
Joshua Shea: [00:25:51] Oh, absolutely. And I just, I think that, something that we need to recognize is happening and we can’t rely on what we think we know, and we can’t rely on things like, internet filters, because if, if you’re using an internet filter, you know, I just informed you about these cam sites that have been around now for six, seven, eight years.
If you don’t know to block them well, they’re still out there, right? And, you know, I think that filters are wonderful tools to make parents feel better, that they’re doing something right. But, you know, I have to ask my kids about what the apps people are using today are because you know, you and I, we talk about Facebook.
We may talk about Twitter or Instagram. They got off those five years ago and they’re using other things. Things that we may never hear of because they may never hit the full mainstream.
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:44] My son reminds me all that all the time. He’s like, dad, nobody uses Facebook, man.
Joshua Shea: [00:26:49] Yeah, no, their parents and grandparents do so they don’t want to be there.
So they have a hundred other things to do. I mean, for instance, with Instagram, a lot of people don’t recognize this, but you can create an Instagram account within an account. Yeah. And have it locked, or you could have multiple accounts that only certain people can get at. And your w while your dumb parents think that you’ve got this one account and you’re questioning yourself well, should I allow them to put that bikini photo on there?
I don’t know if that’s appropriate, they’ve got triple X stuff on their other account that you know, nothing about. And so as, as parents, I think that if you want to try it to stop your children doing this, what needs to happen is that you need to have them make the best decisions possible. And that’s only gonna come from.
Feeding their head with knowledge when they are four or five, six, seven, eight years old. And you can make it a little bit more specific and even technically a little more graphic as they get older and a little more, you know, porn centric, I guess. but it needs to be in, in 2020, it needs to be part of the conversation.
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:56] So let’s go down through a couple of these men and, and see what, what specifically is kind of going on with them. I was intrigued by your, okay.
Craig Graves: [00:28:03] Before we go too far away from the topic. So like taking pictures of, of each other and sending them around, where did the legalities get involved with that?
Josh? I was listening to Joe Rogan the other day and he was somebody and this, this topic came up and Joe said that this girl was underage, took pictures of herself, send them over to her boyfriend, somebody found out, and then she got in trouble legally for distributing child pornography. So, what do you know about that aspect of it?
Joshua Shea: [00:28:33] Th the, there have been, judgements depending on how far parents want it to take things or higher of how far DA’s wanted to take things. There have been judgments all over the place. There are, you know, guys and girls who have. Created their own pornography, and distributed their own pornography of themselves and have got in trouble with the law, and got in some pretty good trouble with the law.
You know, there are, there are now, you know, guys and girls who are on sex offender lists for life. Because they’ve done this at such a young age and made a mistake, thinking that they were, you know, just doing something, you know, kind of kind of innocuous because that’s the way it’s sort of, I sent it to that age group.
Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s absolutely illegal. You know, you can not your. Not exempt from yourself. You cannot take pictures of yourself naked. And if you are underage and send them to somebody else, because then you are distributing underage pornography, I’ll tell you. What’s kind of interesting. and I in, in is that.
States some States use age of consent as the rule for you can do this or not. And some States just use the overall 18 year old, you know, line of adulthood, demarcation. So the laws from state to state are absolutely all over the place and the way that different DAS judges. Police and, you know, parents are going to deal with, this are all over the place.
There is no consistency to it. The, you know, the, the best thing in the world is obviously for the child to not create the pornography. Yeah, this, this, this sadly isn’t recent. I think it was three, four years ago. Now that I read a statistic that said, you know, only one fifth of the child pornography being made in this world is being made by adults.
The rest is being made by the kids themselves.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:20] Whoa, wait a minute. Say it, say that again. One fifth of the child pornography that’s being reduced, created. Generated is done by adults. Four fifths are made from kids themselves.
Joshua Shea: [00:30:33] Yes. And, and, and I’m sure it’s the, you know, absolutely most depraved, violent six stuff that the adults are making.
you know, and a lot of that stuff is imported from Europe. but. You know, I think it would scare us right now if the number of guys and girls who were in their room, who are under 18 years old, who are taking photos of themselves or doing something that they shouldn’t be doing online right now, if that number popped up in front of us, I think that we would all probably, Recoil in terror, because how much is, you know, the, the amount that’s out there is absolutely.
you know, ridiculous.
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:11] Yeah. That’s a scary reality. Honestly, I, again, techno I’m pulling together the idea of a. You know, technology, native people that are, that are younger, they’re, they’re just way more comfortable with, as they’re, they’re way more aware of what’s going on and engaging in stuff that is super dangerous to them.
As you said, the permanency factor of this all going on. And, and, and I guess it’s, it’s a little surprising to me with the COVID pandemic, how that sort of, you know, creating a bit of a swirl where people are sort of swirling into this thing and getting really, Really maybe getting activated and turned on upon, not intended into the quick buck it can be.
Get from this. You know, what are the longterm effects of this stuff? I wonder
Joshua Shea: [00:31:58] and, and, and think, think of it this way. right now, the, the, best statistic that’s outdoor scariest to stick that’s out there when it comes to men between 18 and 30, comes from the Barna group, is that 32%, have said that they either have a problem with pornography.
Or that they believe they have a full on pornography addiction. So let’s just say one out of three guys between 18 and 30, have a pornography addiction. Now you take these porn hub statistics in America, let’s say. And then all of a sudden, you know, it’s only 10% more use of a pornography through PornHub than there has been in the past.
Still with that. 10%. You’re talking about three out of every 10 guys who are now utilizing face or, or PornHub who weren’t utilizing it in the past are likely going to become addicted to pornography. I mean, that’s going to be one of the longterm effects. I truly believe of it. The COVID virus and of the Corona virus is that…
these people who become hooked on pornography because we’re not equipped to deal with this. Right. They’re going to be porn addicts in 20, 30, 40 years. They’re going to, you know, they’re going to find that whatever reason porn screen is that itch, it’s still scratches that itch when we I’ll go back to work and go to the restaurants and do, you know, re resume whatever the normal life is going to be.
Yeah. Know, it’s not all of a sudden, wow. Addiction has gone. That’s not the way, unfortunately it works, but just looking at pornhub’s numbers and looking at numbers of addicts, you can see what the damage is going to be.
Chris Gazdik: [00:33:34] No, I think I can maybe. Comfort you a little bit in that honestly, or, you know, run some clarity a little bit in that regard as a substance abuse professional, we talked about this actually in the first episode, 65, I think, where, You know, what is addiction is the, is the discussion there?
We had a long lengthy conversation about that, which I think was, was really productive because we know that scientifically genetically based basically that there’s about 10 to 15% of our population that is addicted and that, and that has a pretty long. A well established, static number. now people that are abusive, people that are destructively doing, you know, weed or alcohol or, now pornography, you know, that, that number I hope addictively is going to be about the same now destructive use whole nother story.
Terrifying reality. Also the issue of cross addiction. Now there’s a lot more pornography, sexually based activity with people that are actually thinking they’re in recovery, not realizing that porn and sex addictions are real fall into relapsing with that. So I see. So I see some comfort. I don’t think it’s going to explode, you know, exponential addiction per se, but the mannerisms of acting out and, and who gets involved in it destructively.
That you know, that’s a whole, another ball game. That’s that’s going up. Does that make sense?
Joshua Shea: [00:35:02] Yeah. That, that does make sense. and, and I, I definitely hope you’re right. I just, you know, like I came out here last time and said, I just, if we don’t start dealing with this, you know, these guys who were 30 become 40, and then they become 50 and then they become 60 and, you know, If the numbers keep moving in the direction they are, it’s not going to be 32%.
It’s going to be 36% of 18 to 30 year olds and then 40%. And what does a world where one third of your guys, and one quarter of your women who are porn addicts, you know, what does that look like? And at a time like this, you know, when everybody’s stuck at home and can’t do anything, you know, Hey, Mom’s not minding the cookie jar.
I can go get as many as I want. I just, I really fear that, we’re going to, not nothing good is going to come out of this, this time with the virus. it’s only going to make things worse and it’s only gonna make things worse in the long term. I, I guess that’s a job security for all of us. Yes.
It’s not a good job. It’s not a great thing for society in general.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:10] No, not at all. I mean, it is. It is it’s, it’s why we are doing these set of shows, because I think people are not thinking about as much though, it’s gotten a little bit of play the mental health and substance abuse side of this stuff.
Joshua, I’ve kind of been telling people, you know, colleagues and such, especially like, I feel like mental health and substance abuse professionals are on the front lines, you know, with these issues, you know, direct care doctors and nurses and such are our team one, but, but we’re team two because this stuff is really.
I mean, lots of suicidality, lots of terribly harmful things in, in the long run or are, you know, in depression and anxiety. I mean, his stuff is just exploding with all the mental health and substance abuse factors. And this is one sort of
Joshua Shea: [00:36:55] say it again. Yeah, there are a lot, there are a lot of things that we should be doing. We’re not, I mean, you look at, for instance, all of these, schools that are passing out school lunches, they should be passing out a piece of paper that has all that has a whole bunch of mental health. you know, options on it as well for domestic domestic abuse options, all these different things that are happening out there.
And, you know, there are horrible things happening, domestic abuse, like I said, it’s up drug use is up, drinking is up, and all, you know, There’s these types of things, you know, are all trying to share space, you know, with headlines that we haven’t, I’ve never seen before, because we’re living through a frigging plague, whoever thought that would happen.
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:37] I know. Oh my gosh. I know I did want to go down. Craig, Craig, I don’t want to dominate you. You think of anything? Let me check in with you and see what you’re hearing about.
Craig Graves: [00:37:46] Well, you know, I just, just the things you guys are saying, just to go back to that whole thing about, you know, I don’t know if you guys saw the interview with dr.
Phil the other day, but he was on, the Fox news channel and he was arguing. We need to kind of get back to work, to get people out of the house and because the long term of being a lot on this lockdown and shut in is going to be worse than the virus itself. And he got a lot of flack for that, but man, it just, what you guys are saying, just kind of solidifies the fact that I think he was right.
You know, we got more domestic violence, more, more pornography addictions, more people drinking, suicide people. Can’t people can feed their families, feed their kids because they’re out of work. I mean the longterm effects of this. Sounds to me, like in my opinion are worse off than the short term, staying at home.
And I don’t know how you guys feel about that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:44] I’m, I’m real mixed because I’m not a medical expert. Craig. I know, I, I worry very much about all of the child abuse and you know, that’s not even mentioned it very much in domestic violence, you know, you know, it’s, it’s a difficult give and take and I actually, I actually heard of, yeah, I can make it public.
Now I’ve actually heard of a, have you heard of the hammer and the, the dance is a current metaphor kind of going around on how to manage this? Well, the hammer, the hammer is, you know, shut down, stay at home, you know, boom, the curtain drops and that’s because there are so many deaths going on. The dance is where you were ever entertaining this conversation about getting back in and going to work and doing some things.
So I have actually thought for at least a couple of weeks now that we’re really, you know, to be ideal with the way that we have internet communication and, and worldwide reality is, you know, we can, we can kind of coordinate really, and maybe an ideal way where we’re engaged in the world for two weeks and then we shot.
Down and shut back for two weeks. And then we kind of go back in for two weeks. Well, this is what they’re describing actually now with the hammer and the dance. So, so it allows for some of the mental health like relief to, to, to just get out and function and be with people. Well, I mean, dude, I am missing shaking people’s hands, you know, I mean, I’m missing, you know, I can’t tell you how much I want to go and give my mom a hug across town and I’m not, I’m not going to do it cause I don’t want to get her.
I don’t want to get her sick and infect her and whatnot, but, but to bring it back to our topic here, I mean, you know, in lieu of not having that human can, that is so important. Josh. I think people are turning to porn.
Joshua Shea: [00:40:25] Well, and I mentioned this before we started recording and I put a, you know, a little bit of a joke of it up on LinkedIn today.
where I said, you know, I’ve been working from home for five years. I need the rest of you to go back to work. Cause I live vicariously through you. Yeah. Yeah, but what I’m actually, and I’m somebody who I have figured out how to work from home. I figured out a balance. I, I do actually notice how much more I went out than I realized, just simply bringing my son to school or picking him up in the afternoon.
That was two times a day that I had to get out. so I,
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:01] Oh, that
Joshua Shea: [00:41:01] was a big loss.
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:05] Alright, Josh, we, we got a break. No, we had a big zoom break. We lost ya. I don’t know where we lost you, but go back. Okay.
Craig Graves: [00:41:13] He said he got out of house twice a day to get your kid. There you go.
Joshua Shea: [00:41:17] Okay. So I, I, you know, would leave my house twice a day to get my son. I don’t do that now. So I recognize there is some change in my life, but the change in my life has been very minor compared to most people.
I look at LinkedIn. Well, it’s up on my screen most of the day. And you know, I’ve made a lot of good friends like you guys through LinkedIn, and I’ve got to tell you, most of my connections on LinkedIn are in the mental health professional community, and it’s losing its mind. It’s going crazy at home. I can watch just so many more videos.
Of people drawing with their kids and talking about how great this time is at home, where I can tell they don’t think that’s what the case is. And you know, everybody’s a wonderful musician and I appreciate everybody’s new front lawn, but it’s clear that there’s and I’m sure it’s true with other sectors of other industries, but just watching all of these mental health professionals who I.
Witnessed, you know, for months and months on LinkedIn in their normal lives, they’re going stir crazy. And you know, you know, guys, like you probably have a better handle and self recognition when something like this is going on. Yeah. Well, hold onto people around you.
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:30] Not necessarily, we are people too. We have emotions.
And to be on with you, your, your observations are absolutely correct. I mean, people are telling me, you know, telephone therapy is as a clinician. That is, that is it’s very draining to be so focused and to, you know, over a limited. Venue or a limited scope such as that we hopefully have a little bit of it heads up practice what we preach.
But the point that I’m trying to make is when the emotion comes home, when the emotion is in us, when it’s our thing, it is very much equally, so difficult to handle in a Josh. I think that’s why you’re seeing, you know, all the mental health professionals being stir-crazy and having a lot of the same questions and doubts.
I mean, yeah. Listen, when you’re dealing with your kids at home, frustrated and mad at you for having you being forced to do the math, you know, sheet, we are too, we’re just a parent and they’re hating us for it. It’s it’s, it’s all so tough. Which again, to bring it back, you know, are people moving towards porn as a release?
are they moving towards that as a coping mechanism? More so than normal? And I think the answer’s yeah.
Joshua Shea: [00:43:36] Yeah, we’ll just look at, look at Netflix. Look at a few weeks ago. How big this tiger King show was? I. I barely watch Netflix ever. I just don’t watch much TV. I, I do other things. and I was bored and I was like, okay, let’s find out what this is about.
So it’s, I’m always at home. And I watched this stupid show for the, you know, and watch something on Netflix for the first time in years. And everybody’s watched this crazy ass show for the first, you know, and everybody knows about this. Because it’s the communal thing that we can do at home together. And what’s something we can do at home by ourselves.
Well, we’re all looking at porn and that’s, that’s what I fear is that, you know, there are so many people who they’re not going to talk about it in, in, you know, the way that they talk about watching tiger King, right. But you can’t tell me that this many people would have watched tiger King if they weren’t all locked up at their house and they’re all lots of their house and the whole thing.
What do you watch when tiger King is over… well? There’s an unending supply of porno. There. And if you’re willing to watch something as crazy as tiger King, maybe you’re willing to try other venues and other areas of things you don’t normally look at. I also worry about people who are porn addicts already, who are getting even more restless.
What happens to a porn addict or somebody who, you know, uses a lot of. Porn who is stuck at home. Now I have a feeling like with most addictions, that’s probably escalating faster than it would have been. It’s probably getting into weirder areas, more extreme areas, potentially even more dangerous and legally questionable areas.
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:12] Well, let’s,
let’s talk about that and move on a little bit. In that I wanted to kind of focus a little bit on what it is is the harmful effects of porn. why is this such a bad thing before we kind of go there? So, the three of us, the two of you get your it’s, your brain’s kind of centered on that a little bit.
Do we want to mention anything about these specific companies kind of what’s going on? You, you, you, we started off with PornHub a little bit, in your, in your promo, Josh, you mentioned a few companies and I didn’t even know what they were, but I guess I want to say. Is there specifics that are interesting or important for people to know such as you mentioned with a Periscope and I don’t even know what that was a subsidiary of Twitter, dropping it’s monitoring of live videos.
That was crazy, webcam sites, I guess you were talking about that, you know, in the webcam models and stuff, and coronavirus pornography is the latest John rhe. What, what are these things that people need to know? Probably particularly the dropping of the live. Video monitoring streams.
Joshua Shea: [00:46:10] Well, th that has actually, that is actually coming back back, which I guess enough people complained.
So they brought it back. But Twitter has a, Twitter has a subsidiary called Periscope, which is a, I guess Facebook live would be the closest thing where you can stream. And, a lot of people can watch you stream at one time. and it’s, it’s a, it’s a popular app. you can get it on your computer as well.
They have always done a huge job. Of monitoring. They allow nothing that’s even borderline PG 13, a couple of weeks ago, they dropped all of their monitoring. Then suddenly what was a very well regulated space where you could go in, you know, see these different people from around the world. Talk about different things.
A lot of companies used Periscope to share information, that suddenly you’ve got. the wild West and suddenly you’ve got, you know, the red light district in Amsterdam or bourbon street. you’ve got people, you know, doing whatever the hell they want on there. And while. I don’t think that, Twitter or Periscope were making any money off of this.
I think what, it’s a brilliant move to get people to go towards the, app itself or to go towards the website itself. At some point you reach a critical mass of people who are going to use your app. Well, if you can radically change that, think about it. Like, Hey, instead of it being rated G or PG, it’s now going to be rated, whatever you want is okay.
You know, broadcasts whatever you want. That’s going to get a whole lot of new eyeballs to it. And, and, you know, they, they have re-instituted these, these monitoring and th this, the moderators are back, but you can’t tell me for three weeks. It was just a, it was just a coincidence. And there were people who were on there saying that.
Well, I bet it’s because of the COVID virus that, you know, Twitter had to send all of its Periscope employees home, and it’s. What would be the easiest job in the world from home being an online content moderator, you know, you should never go into the office for that. Yeah. It seems like the easiest job do from home, but they stopped doing that for several weeks and obviously, money and views and eyes were behind and it shows that, while, you know, they used sex, they used pornography, As a tool to drive eyeballs and that’s, you know, that’s just another way of showing how companies can utilize sex pornography and whatnot for their advantage and not be a quote unquote, you know, online porn provider.
Craig Graves: [00:48:42] do you think that’s why they stopped monitoring it? Josh did for that race for pornography.
Joshua Shea: [00:48:49] I can’t. Well, the thing is why did they have monitors in the first place? It was to get rid of the pornography. I mean, I can’t believe that that many, you know, murders were taking place online, that they needed moderators.
They were moderating specifically for nudity and for sex. And when the moderators disappeared, all the sex and the nudity came back and it was there for a few weeks. And there were people online who started complaining about it. And, you know, you know, I’ve read several articles from, websites about it and.
Suddenly it came back. I went and I I’d never actually used a Periscope until I’d heard of this. And I went and looked at it and it was like, Oh my God, this is ridiculous. and I’m glad to hear that they’ve got those, those monitors back up there. I, I. You know, I, I can’t see any reason that G 80% of the world is staying at home.
Now, this is a great opportunity to capture more customers. what is the one thing that we can do to capture more customers? We can stop moderating and realistically it’s. No matter if you care or not. you’re probably, you’ve got other things on your mind than fighting this. I mean, that’s one of the things that I think a lot of these companies are using in their favor right now is that we all have 101 other thing, things on our mind, you know, how can I, how can I.
Really condemn the, you know, McDonald’s worker who wants to, you know, flash their butt online to make a few extra bucks to make the rent. When you look at the world we’re facing right now, how can I condemn that person? Well, it’s still not a good choice, but I feel bad contempt condemning that person, because of what’s happening in the world.
Craig Graves: [00:50:30] Yeah. And I think a lot worse things are gonna start happening. No longer this lockdown thing. And he goes on, dude, when people get desperate, when they can’t eat or they’re kids, man, stuff’s going to start happening. So yeah, you’re right. You can’t really sit in judgment of somebody who’s. It’s trying to feed themselves or their kid or whatever, right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:50:47] Not to judge, and, and, and, and condone or whatnot. But I do do want to, you know, before we run out of, completely out of time, I want to kind of focus us a little bit on what, what is destructive about pornography in the first place? Not necessarily from a sex addiction perspective. Because Josh, I think that’s a little bit different, a little bit more involved, but looking at it more from probably a vast, higher percentage of people that are engaged in pornography, what, what is it that is, troublesome about pornography in the first place?
I had listed out a couple of my thoughts, but, why is this bad in the first place? Let me ask you two guys.
Why should we care? Why
are we worried about it?
Joshua Shea: [00:51:25] Okay. Well, the answer that I always go back to, is this, and I know that people can use pornography without becoming addicted. people can drink without becoming addicted.
People can gamble without becoming addicted, but here and, and. There are these genres of pornography or movements in pornography of ethical pornography or pornography made by women and pornography and try to put a spin on the creation and distribution of pornography somehow, not this, evil, white male dominated, you know, man, You know, viciously attacks, a woman, you know, sexually and all, but fact is there is no pornography that has ever been produced that doesn’t reduce and another person to justify.
SACA body parks, right? There is no pornography out there that does not simply reduce somebody to objectification. And ultimately I think whether you’re the person on the screen yeah. Who is doing it, even if you’re enjoying the money at the moment, or you’re the person or the user who is objectifying that.
The person in the short term, it’s going to Dawn on you. That’s what you’re doing, hopefully. and that’s why pornography. Isn’t good because it’s just simple objectification and that’s not healthy.
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:52] Yeah. I get you. And that, that is a big piece of it. Craig. You want to take a stab at that? Do you have thoughts about that before we kind of go to some of the things I’ve listed and thought out.
Craig Graves: [00:53:03] About why it’s bad.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:04] Yeah. Why, why it’s a big deal. What’s the big deal someone might say, why, why do I gotta worry about this? This is, you know, this isn’t, isn’t hurting nobody. I’m doing it all on my own. Anyway. You know, I wanted to spend a little bit of time. Yeah. What destructive nature does it really have?
Craig Graves: [00:53:18] Well, I think it’s probably just, like Josh said, it’s demeaning, you know, demeaning to a it’s mostly women, right? I mean, But, but, but beyond that, I really don’t know. I’ve heard people, like I fell up in Greenfield quite. Yeah. Then I mentioned him on the show before too. And he says that, you know, it’s bad for the mind and the brain, but I’ve never heard Ben talk about why, I don’t know the specifics of that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:41] Well, you’re going to love this then. I kind of did my own brainstorm. Let me tell you how I developed this. I did my own brainstorm, listed a couple of things, and then like, I haven’t done this in a while, Craig, but I haven’t, you know, a little pop, a little Google search and see, see what I came up from.
But you’ll see on the show notes, please check that out because the psychology today article I thought was fascinating. It speaks directly to that. My own thoughts were, you know, unrealistic nature or developed bleif about a woman’s sexuality, you know, it’s not real put people that are young.
honestly, that our own age that are older, get an unrealistic belief about true women’s sexuality. you know, Some would say that it’s full blown, cheating, you know, when you’re actually engaging in pornography, some would say, well, you cheated on me. whether you feel that way or not, it’s something that could be, create a perception in your spouse or in your partners.
view getting needs met outside of the marriage is something that marriage therapists don’t like to hear. You’re getting your, your needs met either. Physically sexually or, or emotionally as well. Cause these cams, Josh, I would imagine people were developing relationships and getting, you know, regular customers or whatever.
I don’t know, but I think that probably happens. And then emotional distance gets created. But listen to this, this, this, this article in psychology today made my brain kind of pop a little bit because they highlighted some of what you were talking about. Well, what did you say? Greenfield talked about that, Craig?
W, what did you hear him talk about?
Craig Graves: [00:55:11] You know, I listened to Ben for years and I don’t remember what he said specifically, but he did say, he said it was bad for the brain or bad for the mind. I can’t remember exactly what Ben said about it, but he’s. Not a fan.
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:23] So they, this is paraphrasing and a little bit of conclusion on what these guys were talking about, but plenty of people out there, including teens and preteens with highly plasticity, highly plastic brains, right?
So that we, we grow and we change our brains change. We now know that they find out or compulsively using high speed internet porn with their tastes becoming out of sync with their real life sexuality that I mentioned. But this is escalating compulsion. So in the first ever brain study on internet porn users, Josh, you might be interested in this article.
I bet, which was conducted at the max Planck Institute for human development. Berlin actually researchers found that the hours and years of porn use were correlated with decreased gray matter in the regions of the brain associated with the reward sensitivity as well as a reduced response sickness to erotic still photos.
So there’s like a disassociation between sexual desires and their responses to porn users may mistakenly believe that porn makes the most aroused and is represented their true sexuality, but it’s not right.
So it’s also not by coincidence. They point out. Then that porn users report altered sexual tastes so less satisfaction in their relationships, real life intimacy and attachment problems.
All of that stuff kind of blends in together. But it’s, it’s fascinating because as we learned about the limbic system and the brain and the gray matter, that all of our endorphins are racing through and whatnot. This is a pop, like you say, Josh, it. It, it, it, it, it attaches to that itch and it, and it changes is literally the way the brain is functioning.
Now, somewhat argue as we learn more about addiction that can lead over into a biological, you know, addiction reality. I I’m skeptical of that, but I haven’t skeptical at all about the fact that, you know, when we do destructive things, it is changing literally our brain. This is why, by the way, in a positive way, Craig you’re, you’re, you’re talking a lot more about.
You know, deep breathing and yoga practices and meditation, we could change our brains to the positive as well. But when we were hitting the pornography, guys, we gotta understand that there is a biological impact here, Josh, how much of that is new?
How much of that is, did you know? And, and what are you hearing with that?
Joshua Shea: [00:57:36] Yeah, no, I, I, I absolutely believe that I have heard similar things. I, I perhaps have even read that article. Read so much. I can’t keep it straight anymore. yeah. Well, what I was, what was hitting me was two things that I’ve heard recently. And I don’t think I shared either of them in, in the last episode we did just tell you a quick here I was talking not too long ago.
To a, a woman who is counselor at a health clinic at a college that I won’t name. But one of the things she does is she holds different groups, for men and women, who are students there. And she has a sexuality group of women, who discuss different things. These women, mostly freshmen, sophomore girls.
They specifically do not want to take a guy’s virginity these days because guys who are having sex for the first time tend to be far more violent. Then guys who have been doing it for awhile because they believe based on the porn. They’ve watched it based on the media they’ve watched. They want they’re there, that women want them to be dominant.
Women want them to be violent. Women want them to take over right. Take control to be the alpha male and these women who were in this group. of, of, this, this, little group therapy or group sessions that this other, counselor holds has said that they specifically do not want to be with Virgin men because of the way that they view sex these days.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:09] Yeah. That’s fascinating because, I mean, again, we know, you know, you view this stuff. It’s not real people. I mean, any adults, you might think I’m silly, but dots that are listening to this. It, we need reinforced with the idea that this stuff is not real, but it’s, it, it freaks me out Josh, to hear you say that the women are not wanting to take.
Men’s virginity because they’re, they’re thinking they’re going to act like a porn show and I’m not a want that. And that’s remarkable.
Joshua Shea: [00:59:34] Well, and they’ve clearly experienced it, right. If they don’t want that stuff, they’ve experienced it. And I mentioned the HBO program euphoria earlier, and I really, I urge.
Parents to watch this. I would urge adults to watch this. Now I watched it. I thought this can’t be legit. This has to be very dramatized. And then I’ve seen so many teenagers, especially those in Southern California, talking about the drug and the sex climate there, the youth culture. And they say that it’s.
Dead on accurate, which is scary. And in one of the first episodes, one of the girls goes to take a guy’s virginity. And the exact same thing happens where he immediately grabs her by the throat. And she’s like, what are you doing? What are you doing? I thought this is, I thought, this is what you like. And it’s like, okay.
No, it’s not, and
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:23] I’m not Pamela Anderson on PornHub dude.
Joshua Shea: [01:00:26] And the other thing, the other thing is I will, I won’t get graphic here, but the two things that men respond and have responded for pretty much the last 25 years that they want to experience sexually is number one, a threesome, and number two anal sex.
And if you look at the statistics of men who actually have experienced this. They are very, very low, less than 30% of men have ever had a threeway less than 15% have ever had anal sex. Yet, if you look at pornography, if you look at the attitudes out there, if you look at, you know, these are the things that guys want, they don’t happen.
They’re not realistic. Women don’t want this stuff. But it perpetuates this perpetuated now for decades, that these are the gold standards of what you want when it comes to fantasy or the things that you can actually have happened when it comes to fantasy. Yet the statistics show, they don’t actually happen very often.
They aren’t going to be out there. I think any guy who probably has ever asked a girlfriend or whatnot for these things have found this out yet, it’s kind of perpetuated out there. This myth, this. Fantasy this, you know, gross misconception. You know, that, that that’s part of it is this, this gross misconception that pornography is what real sex is like.
And now that every 13 year old boy has an iPhone in their hands, they can watch the most depraved stuff, 24 seven. And because of the elasticity of their mind, believe that this is indeed what. Sexuality is, and this is what sex is going to be like when I become 18 or 20 or however old they are, they go into it.
Absolutely programmed incorrectly.
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:11] ghees programmed way incorrectly. Yes, that’s a, yeah. That’s I thought that was fascinating. Cause we knew so that the brain can kind of, you know, the pleasure centers change and we can change them for the good though. I, I wanna, I want to end this little section on that though, to realize that, you know, we can reprogram our brains and get into healthy.
Sexual relationships and healthy ways of dealing with our, with our stress. So let’s taxi in, we got to go, and wrap this up. So I wanted to wrap it up by, you know,
how do you positively
cope with stress? How do you, how do you positively manage this, the stress that we’re feeling with the COVID-19 and that type of thing?
so yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you can hear that. My son is trying to call me, so let’s, let’s get, Let’s get into what do we do for fun, man, Craig, I am dying to get a hockey game, a handful of peanuts and a hockey game. I can’t do it. So what are we going to do instead for fun? What are we going to do to do it with our stress appropriately guys?
Joshua Shea: [01:03:07] Make your world look better. Fix your house up, paint a room, you know, go, you can still online. Shop, buy a new bedspread. You know, when you can’t fix things on the inside, sometimes the easiest is to fix things on the outside. I got to tell you, I am absolutely looking forward to tattoo parlors, opening back up in Maine.
I can’t wait. Yeah, one, you know, and I, I haven’t, I haven’t got one in a couple of years, but I want to go get one now. because it’s just time for a change. It’s time to be different. And I’m pretty cool with who I am on the inside. So let’s change something about the outside.
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:41] Got it. Like it, my lawn is handsome.
Some, some mulch put down in some grass put up and I finished my gate at home. I have cut a, more of a tree down and it’s it’s and my lawn is looking pretty good. I agree, Craig, what are you doing for fun? How do we deal with stress?
Oh, we can’t hear you. Are you muted? You muted yourself.
Craig Graves: [01:04:02] Yeah, so I would, you know, I would say start trying some new things. I mean, we talk about meditation and we talk about yoga and stuff like that. On this show, I would, you could start doing one of those kinds of practices. You know, I know we’re supposed to stay in doors, but it’s a great time to get out, go for a walk, go for a run, pick up some exercise in some form or fashion.
There’s lots of, body weight workouts that you can do. It’s a great time to declutter. You know, I’m going to do some de-cluttering around my house, in my garage, in my bedroom. And. there’s lots of stuff that you can do. I mean, that goes kind of along the lines of what Josh is saying there, it’s fixing things up, pick up some new books, you know, there’s, pick up some new books.
There’s tons of resources on the internet now where you can, our new skills, you know, there’s this website called you to me.com and they’ve got thousands and thousands of different kinds of training courses. You know, you could pick up a new skill. I mean, there’s just tons of stuff that you can do now.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:00] It really is, you know, listen, we gotta get on outta here. Josh, if you remember from episode one, you didn’t do a whole lot of personal sharing this time. I really do want to refer people to episode 65 and 66. if I’m right about those numbers or if you’re right 67 to 67, 66 and 67, you’ll see ’em out there.
we do a high five when people were sharing. So you have shared, so here in a few seconds, we’re going to do a clap, the symbolizes a high five with them, with people that are sharing, because it is a courageous thing. What you’re doing, man. I really appreciate what you’re doing. I appreciate how you’re going about it.
I appreciate you reaching back out to us because to get back on, was with a great idea was such a, you know, it was it’s perfectly timed. So on kind of three, we’re gonna clap here. One, two. Josh you and me?
Joshua Shea: [01:05:45] We’re clapping. Okay. We’re clapping
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:48] symbolizes a high
Joshua Shea: [01:05:49] five. Okay. Clap high five. I gotta get this on video.
There it is.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:54] Yeah. We’re well, we’re, we’re recording, but not showing the video, but, because like I said, you know, it’s a high five. I liked the one signify, you
Joshua Shea: [01:06:02] know what you’re doing? I think there’s just the elbow bump.
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:04] This is true. Virtually we’re clapping and vert. Yeah. Tapping, tapping feet nowadays.
Yeah.
Joshua Shea: [01:06:10] Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:10] I can’t wait for things to get back to normal. Josh, take us out of here. So we’re going to let you take us out of here with your closing thoughts. How about that, Craig? Is that sound okay with you?
Craig Graves: [01:06:18] Sounds good to me.
Joshua Shea: [01:06:20] Well, I guess, you know, very similar to what my thoughts were last time. And my thoughts will probably always be, while we didn’t get into my story this time, I was the last person in the world that you thought would be a porn addict I had on the surface, you know, great job.
I was, a local politician, family, man, kids, wife, full nine yards. I hit my pornography addiction for 22, 23 years until it got too late. if you think you have. Any type of pornography issue, or if you think you have any type of addiction, you’ve issue get help before it becomes too late, because the end story with addiction yeah.
Is it always becomes too late unless you get help before that. So do the smart thing, do the wise thing, do the brave thing step well and get yourself some help. If you think you have a problem.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:08] Dude that is super well said. Appreciate that guys. We’re going to keep on a coronavirus theme for a little bit here.
Help us get through all this mess. Stay safe out there. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.