Not Just a Man's Problem

Crystal: 00:00:06

Living or

Jay: 00:00:19

welcome to this week's addition of Taboo Talk with Jay.

Jay: 00:00:22

Louder, really fascinated today and I, I think we're talking.

Jay: 00:00:27

A very important subject.

Jay: 00:00:29

We have a guest today by the name of Crystal.

Jay: 00:00:32

No, she's really an expert in this field.

Jay: 00:00:34

She's been featured and everything from Christianity Today to

Jay: 00:00:37

ABC News, The New York Times.

Jay: 00:00:41

She's got a very effective ministry and she's helping women

Jay: 00:00:45

all over the United States.

Jay: 00:00:46

Crystal, welcome to today's podcast.

Crystal: 00:00:49

Thanks for having me, Jay.

Crystal: 00:00:50

It's good to be with you.

Crystal: 00:00:51

Yeah,

Jay: 00:00:51

I'm really excited.

Jay: 00:00:52

And really honestly I think today not only are, are listeners gonna be educated, but

Jay: 00:00:58

I, I think I am and you're dealing with a, I mean, you're helping a lot of people.

Jay: 00:01:04

With something that quite honestly, most people don't think is an issue with women,

Jay: 00:01:10

and that's an addiction to pornography.

Jay: 00:01:12

Of course, we know that this is an issue that men struggle with and

Jay: 00:01:16

from all ages and all walks of life.

Jay: 00:01:18

And of course that's been accentuated.

Jay: 00:01:21

Really since the invention of the internet, and especially I think the

Jay: 00:01:25

cell phone, because I know even when I was growing up, the only way that you

Jay: 00:01:29

could view pornography would be if you were to go to a store and buy a magazine.

Jay: 00:01:34

And a lot of people wouldn't do that for fear of being seen.

Jay: 00:01:37

And it really wasn't something that you could do in a clandestine way.

Jay: 00:01:41

I mean, it was rather harder to hide it than it is now where

Jay: 00:01:45

you can view pornography from a tablet or your back pocket.

Jay: 00:01:50

and not only that, it's really in today's society, of course we use social

Jay: 00:01:54

media and, and I know you do as well, Crystal but we use social media for

Jay: 00:01:58

our ministry and to get the word out.

Jay: 00:02:01

And I know that even on social media, I mean, you don't even

Jay: 00:02:04

have to be looking for pornography and most of it's soft porn.

Jay: 00:02:07

But just even on social media, you.

Jay: 00:02:11

Often stumble into pornography and not even being looking for it.

Jay: 00:02:14

So I, I, what I'd like to do, Christo, if we may, let's just start out and,

Jay: 00:02:19

and let's hear, We want to eventually get around to talking about your

Jay: 00:02:22

ministry and about she recovery.

Jay: 00:02:24

But let's start off today talking about how did you get in introduced

Jay: 00:02:29

to pornography and how did that really translate eventually into an a.

Crystal: 00:02:34

Yeah, you know I'm 30, almost 38 years old, so my first exposure

Crystal: 00:02:38

to pornography was before the real age of the internet or social media.

Crystal: 00:02:44

I was only 10 years old when I was exposed to pornography and

Crystal: 00:02:48

was exposed by a magazine that had been left out and available.

Crystal: 00:02:53

By one of my older brothers, he had left it in his bathroom obviously by accident.

Crystal: 00:02:58

He didn't want anybody to have found that.

Crystal: 00:03:00

But I did and I was home alone and basically was flooded with kind of

Crystal: 00:03:06

this mixture of like immediate just excitement, intrigue, like what is this?

Crystal: 00:03:13

But also kind of for the first time, kinda experienced shame.

Crystal: 00:03:18

There was a feeling that came over me that said, This is

Crystal: 00:03:20

not for you and this is wrong.

Crystal: 00:03:23

And yet I wanted to still engage with it, which of course the nature, but also

Crystal: 00:03:28

it's the nature of being 10 years old.

Crystal: 00:03:30

And so I decided to that day kind of feast on this material and this

Crystal: 00:03:36

wasn't what you would consider.

Crystal: 00:03:38

Your typical Centerfold kinda Playboy magazine.

Crystal: 00:03:42

This was a more harder core magazine that that depicted actual

Crystal: 00:03:48

sexual acts between men and women.

Crystal: 00:03:50

And so it wasn't just centerfold models, this was sexual acts.

Crystal: 00:03:55

And so it really was kind of my first exposure to sex.

Crystal: 00:03:59

So my sexual education, This magazine and these sexual acts taking place on paper,

Jay: 00:04:06

which is obviously, it's very tainted.

Jay: 00:04:08

And I think especially some younger people don't realize that, that

Jay: 00:04:12

pornography is not a realistic picture of what sex really looks like.

Jay: 00:04:18

Right at all.

Jay: 00:04:19

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:04:19

. So now, now backing up a little bit, Crystal, were you a believer at this point

Jay: 00:04:23

in your life or were you a non, a non.

Jay: 00:04:27

. Crystal: Well, I grew up in what would

Jay: 00:04:30

At that particular time, I, we weren't attending church.

Jay: 00:04:34

My mom had fallen into clinical depression.

Jay: 00:04:37

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:04:38

, and she really was kinda a spiritual leader in her home.

Jay: 00:04:40

My dad was not, and so she once, once she kind of fell into that we

Jay: 00:04:46

fell away from church for a while.

Jay: 00:04:48

But I do remember going to church early on, you know, in my life and,

Jay: 00:04:51

and knowing right from wrong and kind of having that, you know, the,

Jay: 00:04:55

the conscience of that obviously but not at that particular point.

Jay: 00:04:59

What I truly have identified myself as like a Christ follow.

Jay: 00:05:02

But certainly grew up with, with the right information in my, in the household.

Jay: 00:05:07

But

Jay: 00:05:07

it was later in life when you became a true believer.

Jay: 00:05:10

Yes.

Jay: 00:05:11

Okay.

Jay: 00:05:11

So here you are and you're, you're pretty young.

Jay: 00:05:13

You, you weren't looking for pornography.

Jay: 00:05:15

You, you kind of stumble onto it and, and take us from there.

Jay: 00:05:19

How, how does it unfold?

Crystal: 00:05:21

You know, it's, this is, you know, almost 30 years ago now,

Crystal: 00:05:23

kinda the whole kind of framework of what, of the progression is a little

Crystal: 00:05:27

fuzzy in terms of timeline and time.

Crystal: 00:05:30

But certainly as much as I could and as long as I could, I would engage with

Crystal: 00:05:35

whatever material I could find in the home for a number of months and years.

Crystal: 00:05:40

One day the magazine wasn't there and so I had to kind of figure

Crystal: 00:05:43

out what else can give you?

Crystal: 00:05:44

These same feelings, the same kinda high, the same, you know, intensity.

Crystal: 00:05:49

And, you know, my parents did the right things.

Crystal: 00:05:52

They had, you know, they had a code on the cable box we had once

Crystal: 00:05:55

we had internet in the house.

Crystal: 00:05:56

It was quote unquote filtered internet.

Crystal: 00:05:58

They did the things that they thought they were supposed to do with parents,

Crystal: 00:06:01

but we kids are sneaky and we, I know how to get around all of those things.

Crystal: 00:06:06

My brothers actually had, they had figured out the code to the TV a long time ago.

Crystal: 00:06:11

They shared it with me so I could watch mtv, like just all those types of.

Crystal: 00:06:15

So I was able to kind of crack the code on the tv, watch movies, watch

Crystal: 00:06:19

stuff that wasn't appropriate.

Crystal: 00:06:20

Rate my dad's movie cabinet, which he did not have pornography, but he had

Crystal: 00:06:24

movies that I knew it wasn't supposed to watch cause had nudity in them.

Crystal: 00:06:28

So I would fast forward to those movies and watch whatever I could.

Crystal: 00:06:31

And then eventually, once we did get internet in the home

Crystal: 00:06:34

filtering is only so good.

Crystal: 00:06:35

It's easily maneuvered around.

Crystal: 00:06:37

And so I was able to navigate the internet and really even at age, you know, 11,

Crystal: 00:06:43

12, 13, as internet is in our home.

Crystal: 00:06:46

I still don't have a word for what I'm looking at.

Crystal: 00:06:49

I don't like pornography was not in my vocabulary.

Crystal: 00:06:53

I didn't know what I was looking at, but it was naked people, it was

Crystal: 00:06:56

sex, it was those types of things.

Crystal: 00:06:58

So I would just look those kind of things up where I go to chat

Crystal: 00:07:00

rooms and find links that people were, were sending back and forth.

Crystal: 00:07:04

And so I would engage in this behavior for, you know, nearly

Crystal: 00:07:09

every day, at least in some parts every day throughout my adolescence.

Crystal: 00:07:13

And of course through with that came.

Crystal: 00:07:16

Compulsive masturbation.

Crystal: 00:07:19

Sometimes I would do sexual chatting online with strangers.

Crystal: 00:07:21

I would do phone sex lines whatever I could to kind of get that same

Crystal: 00:07:25

feeling, that same connection, that same drive forward with my behavior.

Crystal: 00:07:30

Wow.

Crystal: 00:07:30

And yeah, and at 15 years old, I have the opportunity to go

Crystal: 00:07:36

back to church with my mom.

Crystal: 00:07:37

She was getting well and she was, she thought we should go back to church.

Crystal: 00:07:41

And so, When started visiting a new church in town that was recently

Crystal: 00:07:45

opening and was able to engage in kind of that more, again, more religious,

Crystal: 00:07:49

more Christian influence into my life.

Crystal: 00:07:51

And so with that came a compounding shame because I, knowing that what I

Crystal: 00:07:57

was doing was wrong, but then adding on the sexual sin factor to that

Crystal: 00:08:02

compounded the shame that I experienced.

Crystal: 00:08:04

But then also, you know, I like, I can vividly remember one sermon

Crystal: 00:08:10

from the pastor, probably I was about 16, and I am hearing him talk

Crystal: 00:08:15

about pornography from the stage.

Crystal: 00:08:18

And actually he's telling me for the first time what this material is called.

Crystal: 00:08:21

And, but he's talking about pornography, which is great for a pastor.

Crystal: 00:08:25

Talk about pornography especially that at that time, this is,

Crystal: 00:08:28

you know, again, 20 years ago.

Crystal: 00:08:30

And, but he's mentioning it only to the men in the room,

Crystal: 00:08:35

you know, in the congregation.

Crystal: 00:08:36

He's talking to husbands and, you know, young.

Crystal: 00:08:40

Pornography is, is bad.

Crystal: 00:08:42

It's adultery.

Crystal: 00:08:42

It's all these things.

Crystal: 00:08:43

And it's, it's, it's not honoring to women.

Crystal: 00:08:45

It's not, you know, and all these things.

Crystal: 00:08:47

And, but I'm hearing as a 15 or 16 year old girl, you're

Crystal: 00:08:51

watching something that men enjoy.

Crystal: 00:08:54

You're watching something that men use.

Crystal: 00:08:56

And so to me it was, there's something wrong with me.

Crystal: 00:09:00

Not only am I engaging in sexual sin, but it's sexual sin that only men should be.

Crystal: 00:09:06

Or supposed to be what I'm, you know, engaging in

Jay: 00:09:10

it's only compounds.

Jay: 00:09:11

I'm sure you're feelings of guilt that you already have.

Jay: 00:09:14

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:09:15

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:09:15

That compounds of shame even further.

Crystal: 00:09:17

So I have these heap, this heap of shame on me, just, you know, extra scoop on top.

Crystal: 00:09:22

And finally I decide to go to church camp and really the idea going to church

Crystal: 00:09:29

camp was the very first time that.

Crystal: 00:09:33

And this is, this is five or six years into this behavior that I really

Crystal: 00:09:38

started to realize I have a problem because my first thoughts of leaving

Crystal: 00:09:44

home for a week is I can't watch porn.

Crystal: 00:09:46

And I'm like, I can't go to camp.

Crystal: 00:09:48

I can't watch porn.

Crystal: 00:09:49

But I obviously, I couldn't tell somebody a good re good enough

Crystal: 00:09:53

excuse for why I couldn't go to camp.

Crystal: 00:09:54

So I ended up going, which I ended up being the best decision of my life.

Crystal: 00:10:00

It was at that camp experience that I genuinely came to a division of faith

Crystal: 00:10:06

and came to accept the Lord as my as.

Crystal: 00:10:09

Jesus and the Lord Savior.

Crystal: 00:10:10

Of course, I

Jay: 00:10:11

would imagine Crystal when that happens.

Jay: 00:10:14

So you, you, you develop a real relationship with Christ.

Jay: 00:10:17

It's legitimate.

Jay: 00:10:18

And now, you know, I mean, you already had those feelings of guilt, but now you

Jay: 00:10:22

know that, okay, this has gotta stop.

Jay: 00:10:24

But as you, you would know this, well, a lot of people with whatever

Jay: 00:10:28

their struggle is, have that desire and say, Okay, this is not right.

Jay: 00:10:32

I need to stop.

Jay: 00:10:34

, but how do I do it?

Jay: 00:10:35

Wanting to stop and being able to stop or are two different things.

Jay: 00:10:38

So yeah.

Jay: 00:10:39

Yeah.

Jay: 00:10:39

Keep going here.

Jay: 00:10:41

And

Crystal: 00:10:41

just becoming a Christian did not mean that I was without sin.

Crystal: 00:10:44

Right, Of course.

Crystal: 00:10:45

And so for me it was more of the issue of, I.

Crystal: 00:10:50

My father, my, my, my earthly father, my dad he was a good man, but he

Crystal: 00:10:54

was not available to me emotionally.

Crystal: 00:10:56

He traveled full time in his career.

Crystal: 00:10:58

And so, like, he wasn't engaged with me in a way that my young

Crystal: 00:11:02

heart needed for, for a dad.

Crystal: 00:11:04

And so this camp pastor was explaining that I have a father in

Crystal: 00:11:07

heaven who loves me and who loves me unconditionally and was available

Crystal: 00:11:10

for me whenever I needed him.

Crystal: 00:11:11

So that really was kind of, The catalyst too that did that faith

Crystal: 00:11:16

decision was, I want that, I want to know that I have a father who loves

Crystal: 00:11:20

me, loves me unconditionally, but knowing and then knowing my condition.

Crystal: 00:11:25

was a porn addict.

Crystal: 00:11:26

It was, you know, Because he loved me as I am.

Crystal: 00:11:30

Cause he loved me even as a sinner and that's what I was told he would

Crystal: 00:11:33

love me even while I'm still a sinner.

Crystal: 00:11:35

And and so obviously it did, it compounded again that shame of

Crystal: 00:11:40

like, Hey, I'm a Christian now.

Crystal: 00:11:42

I should be able to get a grip on this.

Crystal: 00:11:43

You know?

Crystal: 00:11:44

But I couldn't.

Crystal: 00:11:45

And part of that was again, that isolation of not knowing who was safe to tell this.

Crystal: 00:11:50

Because I, again, I felt like I was the only female, and so there was

Crystal: 00:11:53

something like innately wrong with me.

Crystal: 00:11:56

So if I told someone, I kind of had irrational thinking in terms like,

Crystal: 00:12:00

what would that, what would that mean?

Crystal: 00:12:02

Well, what would happen?

Crystal: 00:12:03

Would they do, would it be sent away?

Crystal: 00:12:05

Like, you know, what would happen if I, if I, if I told this?

Crystal: 00:12:09

And so really my secret became between me and God and, and I didn't

Crystal: 00:12:14

tell anyone and I prayed for the opportunity, be able to tell someone.

Crystal: 00:12:17

But it took three years for that prayer to, to come to

Jay: 00:12:20

fruition.

Jay: 00:12:21

And I presume that during that time that you, although you were wanting to stop,

Jay: 00:12:25

I presume that you were not able to, that you were still struggling with conviction?

Jay: 00:12:28

No.

Crystal: 00:12:29

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:12:29

Yes, absolutely.

Crystal: 00:12:30

I still engaged in that material and those behaviors, and really there was

Crystal: 00:12:34

kind of this, I really had this idea that if I did enough good stuff, so I

Crystal: 00:12:38

did, if I did enough church stuff and.

Crystal: 00:12:41

That maybe through osmosis like this would stop.

Crystal: 00:12:44

Like I would, I would, I would, I would lose the taste for it.

Crystal: 00:12:48

And so I would, you know, I would sing on my, on the worship team.

Crystal: 00:12:50

I would leave the, the Christian club in my high school.

Crystal: 00:12:53

I did all these things, good, godly things, hoping that I would get, become

Crystal: 00:12:58

sinless and I would get over this.

Crystal: 00:13:00

That didn't happen.

Crystal: 00:13:01

But God did intervene eventually.

Crystal: 00:13:03

And I think he probably provided other ways outta that

Crystal: 00:13:06

sensation many, many times.

Crystal: 00:13:07

But it was, My my will that didn't choose to accept them.

Crystal: 00:13:12

And I, at 19 years old, I met a woman at church at a, an

Crystal: 00:13:18

event that I was volunteering.

Crystal: 00:13:20

Who shared her story with me.

Crystal: 00:13:22

And when you tell your story, especially in the church,

Crystal: 00:13:24

sometimes we tell our testimony of faith, which is largely flowery.

Crystal: 00:13:30

I think, and we don't necessarily talk about the, the hard and

Crystal: 00:13:33

deep things that we've been through that has seen us through.

Crystal: 00:13:36

But she did she shared with me, you know, about her pornography history, her, her

Crystal: 00:13:40

years of pornography use in high school and how she was addicted to it and that

Crystal: 00:13:45

it was this whole struggle for her.

Crystal: 00:13:46

And still, but she knows kind the steps out of that temptation.

Crystal: 00:13:51

And I was dumbfounded when she told me her story.

Crystal: 00:13:54

I was like, Did she somehow know me?

Crystal: 00:13:56

Like, does she, does she know my story?

Crystal: 00:13:58

And just trying debate me.

Crystal: 00:14:00

But I really had the decision in that moment to either kind of walk away from

Crystal: 00:14:04

this opportunity to really, you know, enter into some confession or I could

Crystal: 00:14:09

just say the two, the two most powerful words in English language, which are too.

Crystal: 00:14:14

And thankfully I went with the latter and said, Me too, and

Crystal: 00:14:18

share with her my story that day.

Crystal: 00:14:20

And that really was kind of a jumping off point for me to enter into recovery.

Crystal: 00:14:25

And to fully surrender, not just the behaviors, but really the things that

Crystal: 00:14:30

were driving me back to pornography use, which are largely emotional issues,

Crystal: 00:14:37

and was able to go to counseling and have accountability and thankfully

Crystal: 00:14:43

have been porn free now for about, 17.

Jay: 00:14:47

So when you began recovery Crystal, did you go to a person who

Jay: 00:14:51

specialized in porn addiction, or was recovery with a, a spiritual leader,

Jay: 00:14:56

or was it just a normal counselor?

Jay: 00:14:58

Or how, how did you, what kind of therapy did you, did you seek for your recovery?

Crystal: 00:15:04

I don't think I have the, the thought of is there such a thing as a

Crystal: 00:15:09

sex addiction counselor at that time.

Crystal: 00:15:12

So I really just tried to find someone who would pour into me as

Crystal: 00:15:15

a person of new and growing faith.

Crystal: 00:15:18

And so I did go to Christian counseling, but with Christian mental health

Crystal: 00:15:21

counseling, not just biblical, you know, counseling was with a pastor.

Crystal: 00:15:24

It was true.

Crystal: 00:15:25

You know, Clinical counseling, working on the deeper woundedness that I'd had,

Crystal: 00:15:29

which speaking to my father, my father wounds, but also my mom, you know,

Crystal: 00:15:32

the way that, you know, her clinical depression played a role in my young life.

Crystal: 00:15:37

Just, just the isolation and loneliness and even feelings of abandonment that I

Crystal: 00:15:42

had experienced from both of my parents.

Crystal: 00:15:45

Were kind of driving that need for kinda a false intimacy through pornography.

Crystal: 00:15:49

And so I worked.

Crystal: 00:15:50

True those issues, which was really, really important.

Crystal: 00:15:53

And when you work on the kinda the four wounds of what's driving you

Crystal: 00:15:56

back to pornography, you don't need it so much anymore cause you've

Crystal: 00:16:00

worked on what's underneath it.

Crystal: 00:16:01

And so for me it really was important that I, that I worked on the true underneath

Crystal: 00:16:05

issues with a trained professional.

Jay: 00:16:08

Right, right.

Jay: 00:16:09

So you feel like that part of what led to this addiction was an absentee father

Jay: 00:16:15

that your mother's clinical depression.

Jay: 00:16:18

That you feel like because of the, the fracture in those relationships,

Jay: 00:16:22

that's part of what caused you, that you see it as you were seeking an

Jay: 00:16:27

intimacy, I guess, that you were not getting from your parents.

Jay: 00:16:30

Do I understand that correctly?

Crystal: 00:16:32

I mean, it's how it started obviously.

Crystal: 00:16:34

There, there's, there's a point of, of.

Crystal: 00:16:36

Accountability and age of accountability where you know better and you're, but you,

Crystal: 00:16:40

you're an active addiction at that point.

Crystal: 00:16:42

But I think in those early years, I, I can look back and see myself,

Crystal: 00:16:46

you know, at age eight nine with an unhealthy relationship with food too.

Crystal: 00:16:50

You know, just kinda food for comfort.

Crystal: 00:16:52

And I think that when.

Crystal: 00:16:53

I found pornography replaced that and became kind of this, this false

Crystal: 00:16:57

intimacy, this false sense of affection.

Crystal: 00:16:59

Because it said that of the brain for me, and it made me feel comfort, it me

Crystal: 00:17:04

feel good even while also me feel bad.

Crystal: 00:17:07

So there's that, there's that tension between the two.

Crystal: 00:17:09

Right.

Crystal: 00:17:10

But certainly those, those core wounds are important, you know,

Crystal: 00:17:13

that they played a big part in, in.

Crystal: 00:17:15

What would have caused me to stumble into an addiction behavior.

Jay: 00:17:19

So you feel like if, if I understand you correctly, you're

Jay: 00:17:21

saying that that's kind of what was the launching pad, That's really kind

Jay: 00:17:24

of what started it was that need for intimacy, but it kind of grew from there.

Jay: 00:17:29

Yeah.

Jay: 00:17:30

Where that maybe that were, that's what instigated it.

Jay: 00:17:33

That's not what continued it.

Jay: 00:17:34

Is that correct?

Jay: 00:17:36

Yes.

Jay: 00:17:36

Yeah, that's correct.

Jay: 00:17:37

Yeah.

Jay: 00:17:38

And then I, I would assume also as with any believer who's struggling

Jay: 00:17:41

with any sin, regardless of what it is, not only is there.

Jay: 00:17:45

This battle that goes back and forth of I'm doing something that I shouldn't do.

Jay: 00:17:49

And not only that, but I'm a believer.

Jay: 00:17:51

But then there's this one side that it brings some degree of comfort or pleasure,

Jay: 00:17:57

but then there's that flip side, that there's this condemnation and this guilt.

Jay: 00:18:01

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:18:01

with.

Jay: 00:18:02

, I'm a Christian.

Jay: 00:18:02

I shouldn't be doing this.

Jay: 00:18:04

I know better.

Jay: 00:18:04

I'm a bad person.

Jay: 00:18:05

I'm a bad follower of Christ.

Jay: 00:18:07

I'm unworthy.

Jay: 00:18:08

I'm assuming that you must have dealt with some of those emotions

Jay: 00:18:11

that people deal with regardless of what their addiction is.

Jay: 00:18:14

Just that condemnation, and I would assume even because I know in my own

Jay: 00:18:18

life with the struggles that I've had in different areas, that some of the

Jay: 00:18:22

things that the enemy tempts me to do that as soon as I've given to those

Jay: 00:18:26

temptations, then he beats me up and tells me what a terrible individual I.

Crystal: 00:18:30

Absolutely a hundred percent that, That is the

Crystal: 00:18:32

tension I lived in every day.

Crystal: 00:18:34

You know,

Jay: 00:18:34

I've been reading up on you Crystal, and I'm really fascinated and.

Jay: 00:18:38

You know, you talked about the beginning of your story where this

Jay: 00:18:41

pastor was talking about this addiction that men had, and obviously I'm very

Jay: 00:18:46

uneducated in this as well because I know that it's a struggle with men.

Jay: 00:18:51

But I really haven't realized until the last few years that there is a significant

Jay: 00:18:58

portion of the female population that struggles with pornography addiction.

Jay: 00:19:03

I know that, that women.

Jay: 00:19:04

Stimulated by sight.

Jay: 00:19:06

I, I don't think that women are stimulated by sight to the degree that men are.

Jay: 00:19:11

I may be wrong about that.

Jay: 00:19:12

It's just a perception that I have.

Jay: 00:19:14

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:19:15

, do you, do you, do you adhere to that?

Jay: 00:19:17

Do you think that's correct or, because I know you've mentioned that women

Jay: 00:19:21

seek out porn for different reasons.

Jay: 00:19:23

But do you feel like that, that that's an accurate assessment?

Jay: 00:19:26

That, that men probably are a little bit more stimulated by sight and women.

Jay: 00:19:31

The motivation for women is completely different than it is for men.

Crystal: 00:19:35

I don't know.

Crystal: 00:19:35

The motivation is different.

Crystal: 00:19:37

I think that your, your assessment is correct in that men are more visually

Crystal: 00:19:43

stimulated, but I don't think that it, but women still are, you know, the degree.

Crystal: 00:19:48

Um, And I do think that if you're talking about pornography from

Crystal: 00:19:52

an addiction standpoint, I.

Crystal: 00:19:54

The core wounds are the same.

Crystal: 00:19:56

You're still medicating something, men and women both.

Crystal: 00:19:59

And but certainly there's, for women, I a more emotional component where we are

Crystal: 00:20:04

seeking a intimacy and relationship or relat connect relationally, whereas men,

Crystal: 00:20:11

you know, it is largely more physical.

Crystal: 00:20:13

Connection with what they're looking at and visual connection

Crystal: 00:20:16

with what they're looking at.

Crystal: 00:20:18

And women are more emotional, but that's how, that's how God's

Crystal: 00:20:20

created men and women differently, that we're more emotional, men are

Crystal: 00:20:22

more kinda the physical and visual.

Jay: 00:20:25

So, yeah.

Jay: 00:20:26

You know, I get that.

Jay: 00:20:27

And.

Jay: 00:20:28

On one, it, it's hard for me, and maybe it's hard for me to

Jay: 00:20:30

understand because I'm a man.

Jay: 00:20:31

I, I get the fact that men are, are, are visually stimulated and

Jay: 00:20:35

that there's a satisfaction, you know, that that comes from that.

Jay: 00:20:38

And I can even see where it makes common sense.

Jay: 00:20:41

It's very pragmatic to think, okay, a man could, since he is visually

Jay: 00:20:45

stimulated, could look at something visually and that fill a gap in his life.

Jay: 00:20:49

But it's hard for me.

Jay: 00:20:51

I, I know it's true what you're saying.

Jay: 00:20:52

It's just hard for me to wrap my mind around how.

Jay: 00:20:56

There is a emotional connection, you know, emotional fulfillment from pornography.

Jay: 00:21:02

Is there any way to explain that?

Jay: 00:21:03

Because again, it, it's, it's very practical to think that if, if what turns

Jay: 00:21:07

you on is what you see, well then it doesn't take much other than you seeing.

Jay: 00:21:12

But when I think of an emotional connection, I, I think of it

Jay: 00:21:15

in the terms of communication.

Jay: 00:21:17

I think of it in terms of tangible interaction, whereas obviously,

Jay: 00:21:21

pornography's not that so.

Jay: 00:21:23

Is there a way to explain how there is this emotional satisfaction that comes

Jay: 00:21:29

about for women by viewing pornography?

Crystal: 00:21:32

Yeah, it is complicated.

Crystal: 00:21:34

I don't have the science really, you know, to, to walk you through it, but

Crystal: 00:21:38

women's brains actually are, are designed differently in that we can, we can create

Crystal: 00:21:45

and retain images and, and have, and have deep fantasy in a way that men cannot.

Crystal: 00:21:52

And so that's part of why we can think of a thousand things at once, and men

Crystal: 00:21:56

are kinda singularly focused, . It's, there's more capacity for storage

Crystal: 00:22:01

in the women's brain than there is for men, and that's just science.

Crystal: 00:22:04

I can't give you the, the citation at the moment, but I could if you gimme a second.

Crystal: 00:22:08

But.

Crystal: 00:22:10

With women, because we are more mostly connected, we have a deep

Crystal: 00:22:14

ability to retain and create fantasy.

Crystal: 00:22:18

There is a, there is such a thing as we are creating in our

Crystal: 00:22:21

minds what we are longing for.

Crystal: 00:22:23

So for women, there's this longing to be known, to be connected to, to

Crystal: 00:22:28

receive to receive love and affect.

Crystal: 00:22:31

You know, tension, affirmation, and affection are kind of those,

Crystal: 00:22:34

the things that drive us forward.

Crystal: 00:22:36

And the way that pornography hijacks that is, that it's giving us a,

Crystal: 00:22:41

a false sense of, of intimacy.

Crystal: 00:22:44

And so even though it's obviously pornography is a counterfeit of

Crystal: 00:22:48

what true biblical sexuality looks, It's still sex in that it's, it's

Crystal: 00:22:54

what we have been exposed to.

Crystal: 00:22:56

It's what we've seen at what we've experienced.

Crystal: 00:22:58

And when you are engaging this material as a woman, and I'll back up a little bit.

Crystal: 00:23:05

When you are experiencing sex in general and you're experiencing

Crystal: 00:23:09

an orgasm, sorry for to be blunt you are experiencing a, a flood of

Crystal: 00:23:16

neurotransmitter response in your.

Crystal: 00:23:19

And that's all taking place in the pleasure, in the

Crystal: 00:23:21

pleasure center of your brain.

Crystal: 00:23:23

And part of that, of that, of that chemistry mix is called oxytocin.

Crystal: 00:23:28

And oxytocin is nickname the cuddle hormone.

Crystal: 00:23:31

Cause it.

Crystal: 00:23:32

Cause it bonds you to the thing that you're looking at.

Crystal: 00:23:35

And so with pornography, you can become bonded to pornography

Crystal: 00:23:40

through the act of masturbation because that oxytocin hormone.

Crystal: 00:23:45

Is being activated.

Crystal: 00:23:47

And so you're being, you're, you're being bonded to pornography and so

Crystal: 00:23:50

largely women have been ex if you, and this also makes a difference of when a

Crystal: 00:23:56

woman has been exposed to pornography.

Crystal: 00:23:57

And what was her first exposure to pornography?

Crystal: 00:24:00

For me, it wasn't romance novels and like story and all this romance.

Crystal: 00:24:05

It was hardcore pornography, and that's unfortunately the

Crystal: 00:24:08

case for most young women today.

Crystal: 00:24:10

That's their first exposure to pornography.

Crystal: 00:24:12

It's not some romance story, It's not twilight, it's porn.

Crystal: 00:24:16

It's hardcore pornography.

Crystal: 00:24:18

And so we're becoming bonded chemically in our brains to be bonded to pornography.

Crystal: 00:24:23

Where yes, it doesn't make sense that we would.

Crystal: 00:24:27

Emotionally connected to hardcore pornography that actually demeans

Crystal: 00:24:31

and objectify and abuses women, but we are, we are becoming bonded to

Crystal: 00:24:36

it through the active masturbation and by use of pornography.

Crystal: 00:24:39

And so, does that help a little bit with kind of understanding how that works?

Crystal: 00:24:43

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:24:43

I

Jay: 00:24:43

mean, Wow.

Jay: 00:24:43

I, I'm, I, I'm just, it's just amazing to hear that perspective.

Jay: 00:24:48

And I, I've never looked at it from that standpoint.

Jay: 00:24:50

Of course, I, again, it's, I guess there's some limitation here because

Jay: 00:24:53

obviously I'm wired different, mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:24:55

, and for a long time I thought, I'm sure a lot of our listeners are going

Jay: 00:24:58

to be a little surprised to hear this because I think a lot of people don't

Jay: 00:25:02

think that this is an issue with women.

Jay: 00:25:05

I, I, I think part of that comes from bad example, but I.

Jay: 00:25:09

If, if, if a woman walked down the street outside of my office building here on

Jay: 00:25:13

the 11th floor with no clothes on, I think probably there would be a lot

Jay: 00:25:17

of men that would find satisfaction in that and would probably stare at her.

Jay: 00:25:22

Whereas there's this thought process that on the flip side, if there

Jay: 00:25:26

was a handsome man walking down the street with no clothes, That the

Jay: 00:25:30

response of most women would be, Oh, you know, put your clothes on.

Jay: 00:25:34

So , you know, it, it, it's a little difficult, you know,

Jay: 00:25:37

to, to wrap my mind around.

Jay: 00:25:39

I know it's true.

Jay: 00:25:39

I've heard mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:25:40

, I've heard this on the road as, as, as a traveling evangelist.

Jay: 00:25:43

But yeah, it, it's, it's so fascinating to hear what the takeaway is for

Jay: 00:25:49

men and what the takeaway is for.

Jay: 00:25:52

And what is the motivator?

Jay: 00:25:54

What bring, what part of it brings satisfaction?

Jay: 00:25:56

Because although they're both, I, I, I agree with you.

Jay: 00:26:00

Both of 'em are, are coming from core wounds.

Jay: 00:26:02

And, and I I, I do agree that they're both being hijacked, obviously from,

Jay: 00:26:07

from a different angle, though.

Jay: 00:26:08

A, a completely different angle.

Jay: 00:26:10

Yeah.

Jay: 00:26:10

Yeah.

Jay: 00:26:11

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:26:11

, one of the comments that you made just in reading some of the articles

Jay: 00:26:14

on you, Crystal, is you made this comment that porno is not sex.

Jay: 00:26:18

Elaborate on that.

Jay: 00:26:19

If you.

Jay: 00:26:20

. Crystal: Yeah.

Jay: 00:26:20

Pornography is not sex in that.

Jay: 00:26:23

It's not sex as, as it's intended to be.

Jay: 00:26:26

You know, pornography is, yes, what's happening on the screen is real.

Jay: 00:26:31

And I want people to understand that it's not like watching a, a movie

Jay: 00:26:36

or a television show where, where it's stimulated sexual activity.

Jay: 00:26:40

Pornography is, it's hardcore and it's sex.

Jay: 00:26:43

But it's not.

Jay: 00:26:44

Biblical sexuality is that biblical sex is a counterfeit cause.

Jay: 00:26:49

What you're seeing on, on the screen is they're not in

Jay: 00:26:52

relationship, they're not connected.

Jay: 00:26:55

It's just body parts coming together.

Jay: 00:26:58

And so it's not as it attended to be, and largely that depiction

Jay: 00:27:02

is going to be more violent.

Jay: 00:27:04

It's going to last longer than what is real life.

Jay: 00:27:07

The, the things that you're, you're, you're watching.

Jay: 00:27:11

The woman is not, doesn't look like that.

Jay: 00:27:13

She doesn't act like that.

Jay: 00:27:14

She's, you know, in, in real sex requires consent.

Jay: 00:27:19

If you're talking about pornography, largely these women and men who are

Jay: 00:27:23

on the screen, they're not really consenting these to these acts.

Jay: 00:27:26

It is an act of, of human trafficking.

Jay: 00:27:29

They are being coerced, they're being drug or being.

Jay: 00:27:32

And so there has to be a, an element of consent as well.

Jay: 00:27:35

And so sex, as we should look at it, is not what is pornography sex, as we

Jay: 00:27:40

should look at it, is what the biblical definition of sex is, which is men.

Jay: 00:27:46

You are responsible for the sexual needs of your wife and wife.

Jay: 00:27:49

You are responsible with sexual needs.

Jay: 00:27:51

Your husband is giving, not receiving.

Jay: 00:27:54

And in pornography it's all about what can I.

Jay: 00:27:58

And how fast can I get it?

Jay: 00:28:00

Right?

Jay: 00:28:00

And and so that's not what sex is supposed it is or what it's supposed

Jay: 00:28:03

to be.

Jay: 00:28:04

Right?

Jay: 00:28:04

Well, and I think it's important and I, I was having this discussion with

Jay: 00:28:08

the other day I've got a younger son and there was some guys over the house

Jay: 00:28:11

and somehow pornography was brought up and, and I made the comment, you know,

Jay: 00:28:15

that it's important to understand.

Jay: 00:28:16

This is that when if you watch pornography, you've gotta understand that

Jay: 00:28:21

it is acting that kind of what you said.

Jay: 00:28:23

This is not realistic from the standpoint of what happens between a marriage, a

Jay: 00:28:29

committed husband and a committed wife, that these are people who are, are acting.

Jay: 00:28:34

And so, The, the whole component of that that is missing in pornography.

Jay: 00:28:39

And I, I think somehow people, I, I, I don't think that people really

Jay: 00:28:43

care, but that, that the true intimacy is missing the true connectivity.

Jay: 00:28:48

Yeah.

Jay: 00:28:48

Which obviously is God's purpose in that, is beyond just having children,

Jay: 00:28:52

but it's, it's the unity, it's the connectivity that comes about, you know,

Jay: 00:28:56

even the scripture talks about in the New Testament, When two people come together,

Jay: 00:29:00

that there's a bond that comes together.

Jay: 00:29:02

And of course, pornography is absent of that bond.

Jay: 00:29:05

Yeah.

Jay: 00:29:05

Another thing, Crystal in reading information about you that,

Jay: 00:29:08

that I, I, I find interesting is that part of your story is that.

Jay: 00:29:13

You eventually went to a hotel room to meet someone and they knocked on

Jay: 00:29:18

the door, if I read it correctly.

Jay: 00:29:19

They knocked on the door, and then you kind of bailed out at the last minute

Jay: 00:29:22

and, and decided, I guess, had a fear or, or, or what might have happened to you.

Jay: 00:29:26

You bailed out of that situation, but mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:29:29

What I read in the information was, is that women tend to be less successful

Jay: 00:29:33

than men in recovery, and that women tend to be more likely to have multiple

Jay: 00:29:39

partners, casual sex and affairs.

Jay: 00:29:41

I'd be curious why is that?

Jay: 00:29:43

I, I, I mean, I was a little surprised by that takeaway as well.

Crystal: 00:29:47

It, it said that roughly 81% of women who engage with

Crystal: 00:29:51

pornography will eventually escalate to an in person encounter.

Crystal: 00:29:54

And again, that goes back to the need for connection that women have the need

Crystal: 00:29:59

for, you know, to actually experience the things that they're watching because

Crystal: 00:30:04

it's not enough just to watch it.

Crystal: 00:30:05

And the same thing happens with men as well.

Crystal: 00:30:07

There's a whole, you know, men.

Crystal: 00:30:10

With prostitutes and affairs and all kinds of things, because

Crystal: 00:30:13

eventually porn is on enough.

Crystal: 00:30:14

I don't have the stats on men, but 81% of women who engage with pornography

Crystal: 00:30:19

will eventually escalate that behavior to an in person encounter.

Crystal: 00:30:24

So whether that is an affair, whether that is an emotional, it

Crystal: 00:30:27

doesn't have be an, a physical affair, can be an emotional affair.

Crystal: 00:30:30

But, you know, physical affair, emotional affair it could be sexting,

Crystal: 00:30:34

you know, anything that it's more, more of an engaged behavior where

Crystal: 00:30:39

you're engaging another human.

Crystal: 00:30:41

And again, that that speaks to their women's unique need

Crystal: 00:30:45

and desire for connection.

Crystal: 00:30:47

And then, and that one on one intimacy connection, the pornography

Crystal: 00:30:51

stopped satisfying that eventually.

Crystal: 00:30:53

And that was true for me.

Crystal: 00:30:54

You were talking about the stop story of me in the hotel room and so this was just

Crystal: 00:30:58

before I met that woman at church who shared a story with me and I really love

Crystal: 00:31:03

my rock bottom experience was I had had this these years and they were talking.

Crystal: 00:31:09

You know, nine, we're talking nine years of behavior with pornography

Crystal: 00:31:13

that did escalate into sexual chatting and phone sex and things

Crystal: 00:31:18

like that where I was connecting with people, but it wasn't, you know, it

Crystal: 00:31:21

wasn't tangible in, in front of me.

Crystal: 00:31:24

But I couldn't shake this addiction, this feeling that I needed more, I needed.

Crystal: 00:31:28

Different.

Crystal: 00:31:29

I needed to connect and on deeper level.

Crystal: 00:31:31

And so eventually I kind of came to the conclusion that I need to get it outta

Crystal: 00:31:35

my system or need to figure it out.

Crystal: 00:31:37

If that's going be the thing that will, that will take me over, over the

Crystal: 00:31:42

edge, will, will it finally be enough.

Crystal: 00:31:44

And so I went on to a a porn site and oftentimes porn sites also have,

Crystal: 00:31:50

you know, hookup links, you hookup.

Crystal: 00:31:53

As ads on them where you can basically arrange to meet up with somebody

Crystal: 00:31:58

for a hookup, a sexual hookup.

Crystal: 00:32:00

And so I went on that website.

Crystal: 00:32:03

I met somebody, chatted with them for a little bit, and we arranged

Crystal: 00:32:07

to meet at a, at a local hotel.

Crystal: 00:32:09

And the thing about this was, you know, I was a Christian.

Crystal: 00:32:13

I knew it was.

Crystal: 00:32:15

I have been told through purity culture, you know wait till marriage

Crystal: 00:32:19

to have sex and even while walking, pornography, I wore a purity ring,

Crystal: 00:32:24

you know because I felt I was chased because I was still argent.

Crystal: 00:32:29

Never mind the fact that my mind was not pure.

Crystal: 00:32:32

And even the, the behaviors I was doing were not pure, but I had my

Crystal: 00:32:36

virtue because I was a virgin, right?

Crystal: 00:32:38

In my.

Crystal: 00:32:39

And so I'm making this decision to meet this person and I'm,

Crystal: 00:32:43

I got to the hotel first.

Crystal: 00:32:44

I arranged it.

Crystal: 00:32:45

I wanted to feel like I had more control over the situation and which I didn't

Crystal: 00:32:49

but arranged it and I waited for them.

Crystal: 00:32:52

I told them what room I was in, and so they're knocking on the.

Crystal: 00:32:56

Expecting to have sex with me.

Crystal: 00:32:58

And here's the thing about this too.

Crystal: 00:33:00

This was potentially extremely dangerous, no doubt, because I

Crystal: 00:33:05

didn't know who this person was.

Crystal: 00:33:06

This person could have just been there to rape me or kill me, you

Crystal: 00:33:10

know, abduct me for trafficking.

Crystal: 00:33:12

Who knows?

Crystal: 00:33:12

You know?

Crystal: 00:33:13

So you don't know what was, what was happening with this person,

Crystal: 00:33:15

who this person really was.

Crystal: 00:33:17

And so this was a, it was reckless, it was dangerous, and it was just stupid.

Crystal: 00:33:21

And it was sinful.

Crystal: 00:33:22

And so I am, I am waiting in this room for this person to, and I'm

Crystal: 00:33:26

sitting on the edge of the bed.

Crystal: 00:33:27

I look looking of the kinda, the mirror is, is right in front of

Crystal: 00:33:33

me and I see myself sitting on this bed looking at myself in the

Crystal: 00:33:36

mirror and I just shaking my head.

Crystal: 00:33:38

I'm like, How did you get here?

Crystal: 00:33:41

How did you get to this place where, you know, a little bit of

Crystal: 00:33:45

porn at 10 years old has brought.

Crystal: 00:33:48

To this place.

Crystal: 00:33:49

And I, and I think for the very first time I've really heard,

Crystal: 00:33:52

and I've been a Christian now, you know, for about three years.

Crystal: 00:33:54

I think it was the first time I really sensed the Holy

Crystal: 00:33:57

Spirit really speaking to me.

Crystal: 00:33:59

And it was kinda that rock bottom moment where the, since I had the

Crystal: 00:34:02

impression of me that came, you know, if you, if you walk away from

Crystal: 00:34:06

this, I will provide you a way.

Crystal: 00:34:08

I have so much more for you than this, and that was really

Crystal: 00:34:10

the sense that came over me.

Crystal: 00:34:12

And so I, I just kind of collapsed, you know, I cried.

Crystal: 00:34:15

I was kinda, I really was in my desperate place at that point and

Crystal: 00:34:18

just heard the knocking and I just ignored it until they went away.

Crystal: 00:34:23

And thankfully they did go away and I was able to wipe my face and, move on.

Crystal: 00:34:28

Unfortunately, you know, I walk away from that and I still d

Crystal: 00:34:31

know what I'm supposed to do.

Crystal: 00:34:32

Like I still dunno who to what, and I'm guessing it was

Crystal: 00:34:39

within a week I that at church.

Crystal: 00:34:41

And so I do think that it was my final, it was my, it was a true surrender moment.

Crystal: 00:34:46

It was like, Okay, I'm, I'm done, but I don't know how to be

Crystal: 00:34:49

done, so I need your, and he, he provided that through that woman.

Jay: 00:34:54

Wow.

Jay: 00:34:55

Let me ask you this, Crystal, do you ever, in your ministry obviously

Jay: 00:34:58

dealing with pornography addiction, do you ever deal with couples?

Jay: 00:35:02

Because I know that there are some couples who, as a married

Jay: 00:35:07

couple, watch pornography.

Jay: 00:35:09

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:35:10

. , Crystal: We do get quite

Jay: 00:35:12

I would say probably the majority of our clients are single.

Jay: 00:35:16

But I, we do get we do get women coming to us who are married fairly regularly.

Jay: 00:35:22

I don't find that their husbands even know about it.

Jay: 00:35:25

And that's what I find interesting.

Jay: 00:35:27

There might have been a season where they engaged in it together, but prob,

Jay: 00:35:33

but their husbands didn't know that they had taken that behavior to a you know,

Jay: 00:35:38

individual level where now they are engaging the pornography without him.

Jay: 00:35:42

Mm-hmm.

Jay: 00:35:42

. And that's kind of what takes place is that it might start out

Jay: 00:35:45

as they're watching it together, thinking it's going to be good for

Jay: 00:35:49

their marriage bed, which it's not.

Jay: 00:35:51

And that woman is now engaging in, in, in pornography by herself, engaging

Jay: 00:35:57

in masturbation by herself, you know, no longer engaging with her husband.

Jay: 00:36:01

Which obviously becomes a problem and becomes a problem for the men as well.

Jay: 00:36:05

Men become hooked on porn and they interested in their wives.

Jay: 00:36:08

Same thing happens to women, is that they end up kinda internal internalizing

Jay: 00:36:12

with their sexual needs and they don't express them because pornography provides.

Jay: 00:36:18

Different satisfaction.

Jay: 00:36:20

It's a stronger bond even than what they experience with their husband.

Jay: 00:36:24

Right.

Jay: 00:36:25

Yeah.

Jay: 00:36:25

I knew a couple that I, I, you know, she, they had told me we were talking

Jay: 00:36:30

and they had broken free from that, but neither one of them, they said, watched

Jay: 00:36:35

it independently one another, but they had watched it together in the, in

Jay: 00:36:40

the hopes that it was going to kind of spice up their, their, their sex life.

Jay: 00:36:44

And I just wonder if that's so, It is something that you see on a common

Jay: 00:36:48

basis where couples do engage in that.

Jay: 00:36:50

It sounds like from your experience, that the couples that do engage in that

Jay: 00:36:54

eventually it translates into one or both beginning to view it independently of one

Crystal: 00:36:59

another.

Crystal: 00:36:59

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:37:00

That, that is what I see most, most frequently.

Jay: 00:37:03

Right.

Jay: 00:37:04

Another thing that I, I read was that 80% or close to that, close to 80% of

Jay: 00:37:09

women who struggle with pornography of have had some form of abuse.

Jay: 00:37:15

. And that, that figure to me was significantly higher than what

Jay: 00:37:19

I would've expected it to be.

Crystal: 00:37:20

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:37:21

We have that statistic as well, and I think that's something that does

Crystal: 00:37:24

translate to our clientele that we see that there is some form of, of abuse

Crystal: 00:37:28

that might not be sexual, but there's some form of abuse, whether it's

Crystal: 00:37:32

physical, emotional even spiritual abuse.

Crystal: 00:37:34

Um, And sexual abuse, that there's some kind of trauma in the, in the early

Crystal: 00:37:38

childhood or adolescent that they are not satisfying medicating rather with

Crystal: 00:37:43

pornography or acting out behaviors.

Crystal: 00:37:45

And such as that.

Crystal: 00:37:46

It's, it's terribly sad and I think that if we, if we had enough men, and

Crystal: 00:37:51

this is the thing about men as well, is that men don't talk about their sexual.

Crystal: 00:37:55

At all.

Crystal: 00:37:56

So while, while women might eventually admit to a sexual abuse encounter, men

Crystal: 00:38:02

don't, and I do kind of wonder how deep of an issue it's for men as well who

Crystal: 00:38:07

are hooked on pornography or, or have, have an inappropriate sexual conduct.

Crystal: 00:38:12

How often sexual abuse is a factor in their child, in their c.

Crystal: 00:38:15

As well.

Crystal: 00:38:16

Unfortunately, child childhood sexual abuse is, is so

Crystal: 00:38:19

prevalent and so widespread.

Crystal: 00:38:21

I don't think it's just girls, it's it's boys as well.

Crystal: 00:38:24

Correct.

Crystal: 00:38:25

And but yes, I, I do think that there, there's a factor there that might cause

Crystal: 00:38:30

a, a propensity towards pornography use.

Crystal: 00:38:33

And a lot of the times you would hear from young who have experienced abuse

Crystal: 00:38:39

that they did engage with pornography.

Crystal: 00:38:42

Seeking out pornography and almost as a way to understand what happened to them.

Crystal: 00:38:47

Kind of learning, trying to figure out through research almost like

Crystal: 00:38:50

what was it that I experienced?

Crystal: 00:38:52

And so engaging in pornography And so that, that, that trauma, that

Crystal: 00:38:55

early trauma, again, speaks to the fact that wounding is what drives

Crystal: 00:39:00

the addiction forward, is that need to medicate and have that shock.

Crystal: 00:39:04

of neurotransmitter response to the brain to help you cope and to, and

Crystal: 00:39:09

to just deal with what's happened instead of dealing with really what's

Crystal: 00:39:12

underneath that and, and working through the sexual abuse issues.

Jay: 00:39:16

Crystal, obviously, from the time that you began recovery, I mean, it was

Jay: 00:39:19

a long road and didn't happen overnight.

Jay: 00:39:22

How long was it from the time that you began recovery till the time that

Jay: 00:39:27

you completely broke free from porn?

Jay: 00:39:29

. Crystal: Um, Thankfully pornography

Jay: 00:39:34

kind of break free from fairly quickly.

Jay: 00:39:37

Mainly because I had accountability software put on my, on my

Jay: 00:39:42

computer, my devices at that time.

Jay: 00:39:44

And I had that woman at church who she became an accountability

Jay: 00:39:48

partner and eventually a mentor and a friend to support me

Jay: 00:39:51

through as, as an act of account.

Jay: 00:39:53

The things that were harder to overcome were, were the masturbation

Jay: 00:39:58

issues, which we could have a debate on whether masturbation or

Jay: 00:40:01

not, but I consider it a problem.

Jay: 00:40:03

And so for me it was an ongoing issue for a while.

Jay: 00:40:06

And again, talking about women's brains fantasy, I didn't need porn, right.

Jay: 00:40:10

To kind of create, to, to refer back to those images, to have the fantasy,

Jay: 00:40:15

to, to accomplish the task at.

Jay: 00:40:17

And so masturbation was harder cause that really was the thing that

Jay: 00:40:21

actually causes the brain to respond and to have that, that the TER Center

Jay: 00:40:26

neurotransmitter response to feel better.

Jay: 00:40:29

And so that was the harder part for me.

Jay: 00:40:31

I think it took, you know, off and on.

Jay: 00:40:34

I had success with the variety with that, but it really was working through

Jay: 00:40:38

other issues that, that helped me to eventually let that go as well.

Jay: 00:40:42

And I would say if I, if I entered recovery at 19, I probably had

Jay: 00:40:46

full sexual wholeness probably within 18 to 24 months from there.

Jay: 00:40:53

Again, that's.

Jay: 00:40:54

That's having accountability and support and him working through issues.

Jay: 00:40:57

So if you're not doing that, if you don't have that, it's much harder.

Jay: 00:41:00

Yeah, and I was gonna, That's what I was gonna say, that part

Jay: 00:41:02

of the reason for your success.

Jay: 00:41:04

I mean, obviously God played a role in that and obviously therapy did.

Jay: 00:41:07

But yeah, that accountability was obviously a huge part of that as well.

Jay: 00:41:10

Accountability's good for anybody?

Jay: 00:41:12

Crystal talk a little bit.

Jay: 00:41:13

We're gonna have listeners today, people who are believers, non believers,

Jay: 00:41:16

and are listening to this podcast.

Jay: 00:41:18

You have a great ministry called She Recovery.

Jay: 00:41:20

I want you to talk a little bit about that and just also how people

Jay: 00:41:23

could connect to SHE Recovery that may have this same struggle.

Crystal: 00:41:27

Yeah, she recovery.

Crystal: 00:41:28

It was birthed out of my own experience, my own story.

Crystal: 00:41:32

I started this ministry, it started out as a recovery group at my church in 2007.

Crystal: 00:41:39

So I've been doing this, doing this work one on one with women for.

Crystal: 00:41:42

For 15 years now, but it started out as just me and a few women in a, in a, in

Crystal: 00:41:46

a church classroom meeting eventually became what it is today we offer we

Crystal: 00:41:51

have, we're entirely virtual, so all of our services are available worldwide.

Crystal: 00:41:57

We have an online community where you can chat with women who are in your

Crystal: 00:42:01

own kind of situation and just has kinda sticking your, your tiny toe

Crystal: 00:42:05

into recovery is that online community.

Crystal: 00:42:07

And then we also have virtual recovery meetings that take place

Crystal: 00:42:10

every single day of the week.

Crystal: 00:42:12

And that is kind of sticking your whole leg into recovery.

Crystal: 00:42:15

You're jumping in your, your waist deep now into recovery working with

Crystal: 00:42:19

our ladies to facilitate those and.

Crystal: 00:42:21

They're facilitated by women who are either have, have been in

Crystal: 00:42:25

recovery for a number of years.

Crystal: 00:42:27

They either have a counseling degree or a coaching certified.

Crystal: 00:42:30

And so they are Able to help you and work through that.

Crystal: 00:42:33

It's a great time for prayer and discipleship, and again,

Crystal: 00:42:36

accountability and support.

Crystal: 00:42:39

Those meet every day of the week.

Crystal: 00:42:40

We also offer virtual counseling and coaching services as well.

Crystal: 00:42:44

If you're ready to like, like jump your whole body into the water and you're ready

Crystal: 00:42:48

to really dig into kind of the what's underneath your acting out behavior.

Crystal: 00:42:52

We have both services as well that we offer, again,

Crystal: 00:42:55

entirely virtual, all online.

Crystal: 00:42:57

So there really.

Crystal: 00:42:58

There's no, it's all telehealth for that and secure and safe, and we are ready

Crystal: 00:43:05

and able to help you out@sherecovery.com.

Jay: 00:43:08

Man, I love what you're doing, Crystal, and I love the fact, I think

Jay: 00:43:11

one of the problems in today's church is that, issues like this, and this is not

Jay: 00:43:16

the only one, but there are many issues that are almost, Well, that's why we

Jay: 00:43:19

call this taboo talk because some of the issues that should be addressed in the

Jay: 00:43:23

church that should be talked about in the church are not, and I think this is one

Jay: 00:43:27

of those issues, and I love the fact that.

Jay: 00:43:29

You're doing what I believe God wants everybody to do, which is

Jay: 00:43:32

take their pain and take their story and use it as a sounding board, as

Jay: 00:43:36

a platform to help other people.

Jay: 00:43:38

I think that's biblically true from Second Corinthians one, three, and four,

Jay: 00:43:41

where it talks about that God gives us help so that we can transfer that help to

Jay: 00:43:46

other people who have the same struggles.

Jay: 00:43:48

And I think your ministry is extremely important.

Jay: 00:43:51

I think there's a lot of people who don't understand that this is not just

Jay: 00:43:55

a man issue, that this is an issue with.

Jay: 00:43:58

and that it should be talked about and that there is help available and just

Jay: 00:44:02

kudos to you much respect, Kristen, as we kind of wrap this thing up today I

Jay: 00:44:06

know that obviously recovery's important and accountability's important and a

Jay: 00:44:10

network of other people who can relate and understand, but I also know that

Jay: 00:44:15

part of the reason that you were able to break free and, and find this freedom

Jay: 00:44:22

is because of your relationship to.

Jay: 00:44:24

I know people, especially who listen to this podcast, who are believers,

Jay: 00:44:27

regardless of what their struggle is, have gone through some of the

Jay: 00:44:30

same condemnation guilt, where they feel as though they're a failure.

Jay: 00:44:36

They can't seem to get success.

Jay: 00:44:38

over the issue at hand, but what would you say to people from a spiritual context,

Jay: 00:44:43

Crystal, who are struggling with this?

Jay: 00:44:45

Who, who are believers, who are sensing the guilt and

Jay: 00:44:49

condemnation, who maybe feel there?

Jay: 00:44:51

There is no escape, or I'm afraid to come out and I'm afraid to tell anybody.

Jay: 00:44:54

Where would I go?

Jay: 00:44:55

Who would I talk to?

Jay: 00:44:56

What would you say to them from a spiritual perspective?

Jay: 00:44:59

I mean, you and I both know that the scripture teaches that the

Jay: 00:45:03

son of God came to set people.

Jay: 00:45:05

But is there anything that you would say from a spiritual context?

Jay: 00:45:08

I mean, I know your relationship with Christ just played a huge role in who

Jay: 00:45:11

you are today and the success that you're having in ministry and the help

Jay: 00:45:15

that you're able to give to others.

Jay: 00:45:16

But I just wondered if there's anything that you would say from a spiritual aspect

Jay: 00:45:20

to people who are struggling with this.

Jay: 00:45:21

Maybe it's in regards to guilt.

Jay: 00:45:23

Maybe it's in regards to condemnation.

Jay: 00:45:24

Maybe it's in regards to forgiveness.

Crystal: 00:45:26

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:45:26

Scripture tells us there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

Crystal: 00:45:30

So the condemnation and the shame that you feel are not from God?

Crystal: 00:45:34

That that's something that I had to learn myself is, is to really discern

Crystal: 00:45:38

the voice of God from the voice of the enemy who is speaking over me.

Crystal: 00:45:42

Cause even in recovery, There was a point where I was like, I can't help others.

Crystal: 00:45:47

I can't be in, I can't be in ministry.

Crystal: 00:45:49

But there's no condemn, no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

Crystal: 00:45:52

There is wholeness and help and hope in Christ Jesus.

Crystal: 00:45:56

And so if you're experiencing shame and you have this voice in your mind

Crystal: 00:46:00

saying that you're dirty, that you're bad, that God doesn't love you, that

Crystal: 00:46:04

you are too far from God to come.

Crystal: 00:46:07

That's, that's a lie.

Crystal: 00:46:08

It's a lie from the pit of hell.

Crystal: 00:46:09

And it's not what Christ is saying to you.

Crystal: 00:46:12

Christ is saying, Come to me.

Crystal: 00:46:14

Come back to, and I will give you rest for your weary spirit, because

Crystal: 00:46:20

I've experienced that for myself.

Crystal: 00:46:22

And the thing that you're struggling with, pornography, all of these, those other

Crystal: 00:46:27

just behaviors, it's not who you are.

Crystal: 00:46:30

Your identity is not, I'm an addict.

Crystal: 00:46:33

My, your identity is not, I am a sinner.

Crystal: 00:46:36

Your identity is, I am a and I'll speak to women who are listening.

Crystal: 00:46:40

You are a blood bot daughter of Jesus Christ.

Crystal: 00:46:44

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Crystal: 00:46:47

You are the the head, not the tail.

Crystal: 00:46:50

And you are able to, through the help of the Holy Spirit and through

Crystal: 00:46:55

the help of others, find freedom.

Crystal: 00:46:58

And if it was true for me, it's true for.

Crystal: 00:47:01

And there are resources, resources available to help you take those

Crystal: 00:47:05

next steps in front of you.

Jay: 00:47:06

Well, Crystal, that's a great word.

Jay: 00:47:08

And it's especially to those ladies who have a relationship to Christ.

Jay: 00:47:12

And I would add for those that maybe listen today that don't

Jay: 00:47:15

have a relationship to Christ.

Jay: 00:47:16

You may remember earlier Crystal talked about that there was a

Jay: 00:47:19

fracture in the relationship with her father and that maybe initially

Jay: 00:47:23

that this may have instigated.

Jay: 00:47:26

Wanting that, that father figure, that relationship that

Jay: 00:47:29

she didn't have with her dad.

Jay: 00:47:31

I would say to those that are listening today as I on top of what Crystal's

Jay: 00:47:34

already said, that if you don't know Christ, that there is a father who

Jay: 00:47:39

does seek a relationship with you regardless of your baggage, regardless

Jay: 00:47:43

of your struggle, regardless of even your addiction, that, that he loves you

Jay: 00:47:48

and that he wants to set you free and.

Jay: 00:47:52

He wants to connect with you.

Jay: 00:47:53

And the way that he does that is simply by your willingness to turn to

Jay: 00:47:56

him asking for forgiveness, believing that he died for you, that he rose

Jay: 00:48:00

again, believing that when he hung there on the cross, he was hanging.

Jay: 00:48:04

Not just so you could have a ticket to heaven, but so that you could know

Jay: 00:48:07

him intimately in a personal way.

Jay: 00:48:10

And that he says that if you would be willing to come to him to simply

Jay: 00:48:13

call out and put your faith in him and him alone, that he would heal.

Jay: 00:48:18

And he would forgive you and even restore your crystal.

Jay: 00:48:21

So much respect to you.

Jay: 00:48:22

Thank you so much for what you're doing to help people with this addiction.

Jay: 00:48:26

I hope many people will reach out to you again.

Jay: 00:48:29

That website is, Say it again, one more time.

Jay: 00:48:31

Crystal for our listeners.

Crystal: 00:48:33

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:48:33

It's She Recovery, so just like she as in com.

Crystal: 00:48:38

And if I can just real quickly.

Crystal: 00:48:40

Just promote our summit.

Crystal: 00:48:42

We have a virtual summit, so if you're looking for kinda a next step on your

Crystal: 00:48:46

recovery or to learn more about these issues we do have a virtual summit.

Crystal: 00:48:50

It's entirely online for women, for teen girls, parents, counselors, church

Crystal: 00:48:54

leaders to learn more about these issues and to get the help that they.

Crystal: 00:48:58

Taking place October 17th to the first two, and we'd love to see you there.

Jay: 00:49:04

Crystal.

Jay: 00:49:05

Thanks so much.

Jay: 00:49:06

Continued blessings on you and what you're doing.

Jay: 00:49:08

Thank you for being a voice, especially in an area where a lot of people are

Jay: 00:49:14

afraid to come out and talk about it.

Jay: 00:49:16

And

Crystal: 00:49:16

you for having me, letting me share about it.