Natale (00:03)
Quote: you can say whatever you want, I’ll still keep gooning. Gooning is too beneficial for me to stop. Just because some people get trafficked isn’t reason enough for me to. End quote. So what is that Elisabeth?

Elisabeth (00:21)
Well, this is what a typical day looks like going through comments. We see comments like this every single day. People who disagree with the messages or the research that we share, people who have differing opinions or just share hate for the sake of sharing hate. But we see stuff like this a lot that says, porn’s really helpful to me or I don’t feel like it’s harming me at all. And so even, you know, like this person says, people get trafficked. They recognize that people get trafficked, it’s not good enough for me to quit.

Natale (00:54)
So this is a message that is from today, I think. this is the first time I’m seeing these messages that we’re reading. You’re kind of in the weeds managing our social media, seeing these comments all the time. we wanted to share the experience of what it’s like to be kind of behind the scenes here and doing this work, sharing education and what it’s often met with.

I want to read a couple more if that’s okay. “I started viewing porn as a boy at age 11 and made no distinction between adult and child porn. You just don’t think about that at 11 years old, sick that I was able to be harmed that way.”

Elisabeth (01:38)
Yeah. And some context behind that specific quote, we had shared a video of an anonymous video of a man talking about an experience that he had as a child being exposed to pornography and then acting out with his sibling because that was just something that he was curious about when he was replicating those things that he was seeing. And so this was kind of an interesting comment that someone said that, yeah, like viewing pornography as a child, you don’t see that that’s harming you in any way. You don’t recognize what is unhealthy about that, so especially that so heartbreaking to see that as a child, they were exposed to child porn, images of other children being sexually abused, and they just weren’t able to process that at the time.

Natale (02:21)
Right. And this really speaks to the array of the types of comments that we get on our platform. Some others I want to share that you’ve listed here from today or within the past day.

Elisabeth (02:34)
Well, actually, while we’re on the topic of kids, there was another one that I wanted to share. So we, couple of days ago, shared a post that said, quote, 52% of teens who viewed porn report seeing scenes depicting rape, strangulation, or someone in pain. And yet one in four young people list porn as the most helpful source to learn how to have sex. If we want to stop sexual violence, teaching kids that porn is not an accurate or healthy depiction of sex

Now, something that someone commented on this post today is…there was a little thread here. So this person says, “Yeah, nobody is forcing you to watch or access these sites. You’re choosing to be that person.” Another person responded, “Yeah, 11-year-olds are choosing who to be, question mark.” Then again, “Unfortunately, children are exposed to it at a young age and grow up hooked on it.” This original person again said, ” Yeah, no, sorry, I’m 21. I’m part of the generation you’re talking about. You’re incorrect. It’s a choice. They’re gross people. It’s a skill issue. You choose it.”

So, wanted to get your thoughts on that. So there is a narrative out there, I guess, that even if you are a child who’s been exposed to pornography, that that’s a choice and that’s you’re making bad decisions. What are your thoughts on that?

Natale (03:49)
It’s an important conversation to have. We often talk about with adults who are like in recovery from pornography habit or compulsive behavior or addiction, the idea that it’s always a choice to view it. Like, yes, it might be a compulsive habit, but it is also always a choice. And I think that’s interesting when it comes to exploitation. Like, obviously, there are, especially with children, children who are exposed to pornography, completely unintentionally, without seeking it out. Maybe they’re searching something online, and they get a pop-up. Maybe they’re playing a video game and they get a pop-up. Maybe an adult shows it to them as a form of grooming. Maybe an older child or another child shows something to them that they don’t even really understand. It’s just something they found in a magazine or a picture or something that they found and they shared.

It’s not necessarily always a choice for a child to be exposed to pornography. Certainly, choices are made in follow-up where war children can sometimes seek that out again. And there’s also something to consider with like a child’s education level about this topic. Do they really know what they’re seeking out? Is it something that, you know, having curiosity about sex is natural and normal, but if there hasn’t been someone in their life that they’ve had a healthy conversation with that about, then where else are they gonna look? They’re gonna look online. And so, yes, it is a choice to consume things, but also, there is nuance in the way that people are exposed to explicit content.

Elisabeth (05:26)
Yeah, and I think exactly like this post that this conversation happened on, 52% of teens have seen violence and rape in pornography. There’s a very large amount of children who are being exposed to pornography. And I think that labeling children as quote gross, right, or being exposed to that creates a lot of shame around something that obviously this person has a lot of feelings about, and they, they, you know, they seem to be on board with our mission and what we’re trying to accomplish. And so I think it is interesting that even people who are on our team, we can still have maybe a better, healthier perspective when looking at people who are struggling with it.

Natale (06:10)
Absolutely, and I think something you noted specifically is the amount of violence that is in sexually explicit content or pornography today. I mean, research shows that that number is high for the percentage of content that includes violence. And even if a child starts by seeking out something innocent, sites are made to push people to more and more extreme types of content, so someone maybe finds themselves consuming something or viewing something that they never intended to seek out. And then once they get there, especially young children don’t have the capacity always to process what it is that they’re seeing. So, I think that’s really important to know and also important to know that shame is unhelpful in these conversations.

We’re trying to be careful to not be shaming commenters right now who are on our side, but also just noting that an empathetic approach, a compassionate approach tends to be more helpful in achieving our goal. If our goal is to help people understand the harms of pornography so that they, in turn, want to decrease the demand for sexual exploitation by quitting consuming pornography, research shows that shame keeps people stuck in those cycles. And so that’s something we want to be cognizant about.

And dialogue is important. Conversations about these topics are important to break the stigma. But we do want to be careful to avoid shame in these conversations, which is good to note as we move forward and look at some more comments.

Elisabeth (07:44)
Which sort of, along those same lines, we just recently released a new episode of our Consider Before Consuming podcast. We interviewed Hunter Clark, which Natale interviewed. Do you mind just sharing a little tiny overview of his story?

Natale (07:57)
So Hunter came into the studio recently to chat with me about his personal experience with pornography. It was something that became part of his life at a young age. And he thought, like many people think, you know, when I get married, then I won’t need this anymore. And it wasn’t something that he was able to kick. And he learned over time that it was something that he, definitely, it was a compulsive behavior for him.

And so he talks a lot through his story of getting to recovery, getting to a healthy place, and what that looked like in his relationship with his wife, what that looks like for him now. It was a really encouraging episode that, you know, is in the work that we’ve done here, not unlike stories we’ve heard over and over and over and over again from people who’ve struggled with pornography, and in their relationships, and how they’ve navigated that.

And again, it’s Hunter’s own story. It’s not to say that every relationship should navigate it the same way that he did, but I think it’s something that there was a lot to resonate with people. And it takes so much courage to share your story so vulnerably about something you have struggled with to help kind of destigmatize that for others. And so I’m so grateful he was willing to join us, but we did share that recently.

And I know we’re here to talk about responses to things we’ve shared. So do you want to share a little bit about what the response has been like?

Elisabeth (09:23)
So we shared a little bit, like a little clip of his story just to help others get an idea for what his story is and what you’re going to be discussing with him on the podcast. And there has been, like always—I don’t want to make it sound like every comment we get is bad or negative—get so many people who are really uplifted by the content that we share, by the stories that we share. And so Hunter has been very influential in giving people hope. And there were people on there who were saying, this is so encouraging. I’ve been struggling, but this is giving me hope. So that’s such a wonderful thing.

And at the same time, we’re also seeing some people who are definitely on our team and they believe that pornography is harmful. That is very clear in their messaging, but they also maybe are having a hard time understanding that this isn’t something that for everybody is as simple as I’m just not going to watch it anymore. And so there’s a lot of shame around that, especially for someone like him where he has been through that process of trying what he said. He tried everything to quit until he finally figured out what would work for him. And so I think that that can be really harmful for people. There’s a lot of people who have addictions. I mean, the research is showing us that pornography addiction is very real based on the way that it affects consumers neurologically. And so that’s something that is real to people or even just having a compulsive habit or having a struggle with that.

And so then having this narrative around that, you should just be able to stop can really enforce the shame that already comes with having a pornography addiction.

Natale (10:55)
And I think that’s something that’s really important for us to talk about because we look at this issue while we’re, you know, trying to shine a light on the harmful effects of pornography, the harms of pornography that so many people just don’t know about because it is so normalized. It is something that enters people’s life a lot of the time when they’re young It is something that culturally is everywhere if you go online. It’s everywhere. We try to address this from all sides, so that’s how pornography affects individuals, which is this addictive nature, the way it can affect self-esteem, mental health, all of these individual effects, the way it can affect relationships, and the way it affects society. And each one of those is significant, and we want to create change across the board.

The way it affects society is obviously people are being exploited through this content. It’s affecting perception of…gender and race and all of these, you know, sexual orientation, all of these things that pornography capitalizes on fetishizing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about. Those are all not okay. The reason we do this work is because we’re combating those things. We want to fight for those who are exploited. We want to fight for survivors. We want to fight so that no one is exploited ever again. That’s the goal.

We also don’t want relationships to suffer because of this, either partner in a relationship, families, friendships, communities. We also don’t want individuals to be suffering in silence. And so if we really want to create change across the board, then we have to be able to empathize with and have compassion for all parts of that.

And to your point, that’s something that a lot of the time in comments, people who are coming to the defense of someone who’s been harmed in a relationship or society is also just shaming these individuals, who, in Hunter’s case, he’s here to tell his story because he fought so hard to create change to overcome this struggle, to have it be something he wasn’t controlled by in his life anymore. And so if that’s the kind of change we wanna see so that it has a positive ripple effect, then shame is something we have to talk about.

And actually in his episode, we talk a lots about how shame kept him stuck in that cycle and how breaking free of that shame is something that helped him to get out of that cycle. And so, a quick note, if you want to watch that episode of Considerable for Consuming on YouTube, you can check us out or listen anywhere that you subscribe to your podcasts. We’ve got Hunter’s episode, we’ve got lots of other episodes with people who have struggled as individuals, but also with former performers, with experts, with couples who have experienced this in their relationships, with survivors. We are kind of addressing this in all of those ways on this podcast.

Elisabeth (13:46)
Great. And sort of this narrative of shame extends to all facets of this large topic that we’ve talked about. We hear the same thing on ex-porn performers or people who have been trafficked. We hear that same similar narrative of shame from those people as well. It’s shaming them for being a part of the industry, even though they recognize the harm, and then left the industry and are now trying to create change. And I think it’s frustrating for a lot of people because not every person who consumes pornography actually wants to change. Not everybody who supports the porn industry recognizes the harm in that. And so it makes sense that people want to defend that. At the same time, because there are people who are trying to create change, let’s support those people who are in that process.

Natale (14:35)
And also just noting the difference between shame and guilt. We’re not saying that there should be no accountability or that someone who has perpetuated harm or caused harm should not feel the effects of that. That’s actually a healthy motivator for change. But piling on additional shame doesn’t help people get out of those cycles. And speaking of shame, I want to go back to the first comment that we read.

Because, if you’re listening and you listened initially, you might have thought, maybe we were shame-y about the way that we read that first comment. I’m going to read it again. “You can say whatever you want. I’ll still keep gooning. Gooning is too beneficial for me to stop. Just because some people get trafficked isn’t reason enough for me to quit.”

So some of my pause after reading that initially, again, this is the first time I’m seeing or hearing most of these comments, is that, it is shocking to hear people who are so, who will double down, will say, I don’t care that someone is being trafficked. That’s alarming, and that’s not okay. At the same time, rather than shaming this person for expressing that opinion, I would say, great, let’s educate them. Let’s educate them on what people are actually experiencing who are trafficked. Let’s educate them on what’s actually happening within the industry that is harmful, so that hopefully they can make a more informed decision.

Elisabeth (15:57)
For sure. Yes, like exactly when we respond to harmful or hurtful narratives with empathy and with understanding and trying to provide information, you wouldn’t believe the response that we get from some of these individuals.

One example of this, person had posted on a post that we had done about relationships and the impact that porn can have on a relationship. And there’s a big narrative or a stigma that it’s the woman’s fault or it’s your wife or your girlfriend, whoever the female in the relationship is, that it’s her fault that the man is turning to pornography in the first place.

Natale (16:32)
And also women consume pornography, and anyone can be the opposing partner in this, but primarily we’re often hearing from, and research is primarily done about men as consumers, and women who are partners of those heterosexual men who are consumers.

Elisabeth (16:49)
Perfect, thank you. So this individual had commented something hurtful on a post like that, which again can be really hurtful for women who see that or for people who have experienced how pornography is impacting their relationship. And so instead of responding to that and meeting them with the level of antagonistic language that they were meeting us with, we responded and said, ” Hey, Gabe, thanks for sharing your thoughts. We hear this assumption a lot, but research tells a different story.” And we were able to provide that information for them. They responded and said, “Fight the New Drug. This was actually a great response. Thank you for this insight. Could you share the link as to where you learned this information? I would love to learn more about it. Thank you.”

So I would just encourage our viewers, our audience members, our Fighters, when you see people engaging with our content in ways that bring up some rage inside of you or are hurtful to you in any way, just a general reminder that we don’t have to meet that hate with hate, but we can be educational, we can be informative, and we can be empathetic.

Natale (17:51)
And we’ve seen over and over again how that actually is more effective. I mean, this is a movement that this is our 17th year as a nonprofit. And we’ve had social media the whole time as part of this. We reach millions of people, tens of millions of people every year through it. And over and over again, we see how education and compassion tend to be much more effective than hostility.

It’s tricky online today because hostility is the way that many people learned to engage online and it’s rewarded on platforms. And I think with a topic like this, the work we’re doing is so important and this mission is so important and this movement is so important. For every person who comments, there are many, many more who see comments or read comments and say nothing. And so the better we can help educate people and meet them with compassion, tthe better off we’ll be. And that’s all with a grain of salt because certainly there are people saying horrific things that are absolutely not okay that we have to ban sometimes or delete or remove. like, this is not to say that we believe everything is.

Elisabeth (19:05)
Easy breezy

Natale (19:07)
Or acceptable all the time. But just, you know, when someone is really trying to understand, it’s helpful both online and in conversations in person to try to hear what people are really saying and meet them where they’re at.

Elisabeth (19:21)
For sure.