Pornography and Culture | Dr. Mike Sytsma

[Music] dr. Mike thanks so much for being here we're all excited to have this conversation with you I know that you're the director and founder of building intimate marriages but I know that you do and are part of so much more would you care to expound on that a little bit yeah so building a marriages does kind of three things touch teach and train and through that we do an obviously the counseling piece focusing in on marital sexual issues predominantly we also do teaching I travel around about six different seminaries and teaching classes each year for that doing workshops for a variety of organizations and for couples mostly helping them in their marriage or helping them with healthy sexuality so that teach peace and then training other therapists training pastors to work especially with sexual issues in within the context of biblical sexuality so it's a lot of fun it's it's not an area that I thought I would ever do but it's an area that God's called me into that's awesome well I think this is gonna be a great time you talk about sex all day I think about is very much um should work yeah I should work so what what are the current themes that you see in your practice so for the counseling side probably 70% of what I work with our affair type cases we work with a number of couples that are in high conflict crisis we work with a lot of sexual dysfunction where they're having difficulty with desire or arousal or pains part of an issue or will work with people that have a hard time disciplining their sexuality anything that comes within that realm tends to fit for us as well as a number of couples coming in that say things are pretty good but we want this arena to be better just out of curiosity how have you seen those themes changed kind of throughout the years when you counsel couples a number of things have shifted over the years one is the influence of Technology bringing tech in allows for people to with a couple of clicks to have access to a different kind of education than they may have had in the past I think another issue that I've seen is that faith provides less of a boundary than it used to when I first started working in this field especially those that come in and and claimed to be following Christ that really informed what they did in their marriage or conformed what they did in their bedroom or how they approach sexuality and many times today I'll be sitting with somebody and look and say so wait how does that fit with your faith and they'll stop for a minute and look a little confused and go well it doesn't they tend to separate their faith out from their day to day type of practice I think the the last thing that I would see is just the more prevalence of sexual boundaries being looser for example pornography a dramatic increase in that and some of that goes to the the technology sure sure you mentioned just a second ago just the idea of clicking pornography I feel like it's it's getting pervasive it's getting more and more easy you know to access just to click away have you have you experienced that you've seen that some of the statistics that we we have one of the most prominent websites are it's estimated that there are over 40,000 different porn websites that are out there and one of the most prominent ones released their statistics for 2016 and they said that 92 billion videos were watched just in 2016 on that one porn site a four and a half billion hours which breaks down to five thousand two hundred forty six centuries of time was spent in 2016 alone looking at pornography so we have this huge number of huge consumption yeah pornography that's a little bit different between 50 and 80 percent of men report some level of regularly watching it and that's going to be huge dependent on how old they are so guys in their 60s about 50% of them are regularly accessing porn we're a millennial group error reporting is in the 80 percentile range of regularly looking at it so not only is there an increased consumption but we have a much broader number of people that are looking at it and it's not just guys either though that's kind of surprising sometimes for people we see a dramatic increase in women looking at pornography the porn websites say that a quarter of their audience are females Wow I gotta be honest that's staggering it's it's a little disheartening knowing that the men and women of our church you know is being influenced it's such a negative fashion with pornography and so these people are coming in and outside of our church they're filling up our seats you know our circles how do you think the church should be handling this this issue of pornography I love that question um because I don't know that we're handling it really well the current statement is just don't look at it enjoy it and while I'm very supportive of that you know there's so much damage that comes from it I don't think it's been in be very long before we we can't not see it we're driving down the expressway we're going to be exposed to it and and just about any TV channel we look at and many common TV shows we're going to continue to see more and more of it so just a message that says don't ever look at it or I'm gonna freak out if you do look at it I don't know how much longer in our society that's going to work we need to be able to help people when they do run across to when they do see it or when they're drawn into it so for example a wife who learns that her husband's been exposed to it rather than freaking out rather than saying how dare you look at it to be able to say okay so what goes on in your mind and is this who you want to be and how can I help you you know who do you need to be talking with or if the husband finds out that his wife is looking the same thing so rather than shaming somebody for looking at it it may be more how do we help you to pursue what is healthy and what is good and how do we flesh that out what is it going to take for you to get there so a lot of people honestly think pornography is not a problem you know I know you've experienced that how do I as a mentor or as a leader help this couple understand that pornography really doesn't have a place it doesn't fit with healthy intimacy part of pornography is about the parts the technique about the rush it's about what somebody does it's not about the connection it's not about the intimacy so part of the damage of pornography is it draws us away from the heart of sex and what what it's designed for and we see couples who are individuals who spend too much time in it losing focus for what's rich for what's good they start to be focused on the parts they start to be focused on the technique they lose sense of that intimacy we see a lot of even younger men experiencing an increase of erectile dysfunction or we see both men and women having difficulty with orgasms in part because they've been trained with something that is so powerful and fantasy based that the richness of the real no longer has that same ability to excite and so it really tears away out the relationship from that side as well and from the experience pornography also gives this unrealistic expectation I mean there's lots of cuts and lots of edits and lots of and people begin to think that's what it's supposed to be like and it's not so they stop being really enthralled with the experience of it with being with somebody and that often leads to some of the sexual dysfunction that occurs because pornography is focused on the body parts on the body many times people are comparing themselves or their spouse to what they see on screen and we see an increase of not being comfortable with who they are not being comfortable with their their bodies we also see obviously the the sense of shame that comes in as they don't feel good about it and they're they're hiding it and it tends to tear away at their view themselves so then when they enter into relationship with their spouse they lose sense of being able to be fully present and engaged and open and honest with each other so it has an an ever-growing cost that many times will deny but is very real so far for us as leaders and mentors like we have people and spouses discover oh I just found out my spouse is viewing and engaging with pornography what how would you help us you know advise them or how would you help us direct them to a healthy perspective first ask as they've come deal with their pain so just sit with them for a bit in their pain I am so sorry you know you do you believe that your spouse would always be focused only on you and and in some sense they stood in an altar and promise that and so I'm really sorry that that's not happening just allow them to express the pain help them do not catastrophize this doesn't mean that your spouse is a bad person it doesn't mean that their heart is bad it doesn't mean that they don't want to be with you it doesn't mean that they're an addict who's going to do bad things help them do not catastrophize but to kind of stay centered bring them back to the love that they have and who they know their spouse to be and encourage them give them hope there is some things we can do with this there is help that you guys can get helping them to see that walking through this and being being honest with it can help them to grow their relationship help them to know that it's really not about them you know the first thing that spouses usually do is okay what's wrong with me why are you engaged in that and not in pursuing me and it is almost never the case that it is about the spouse so to be able to step back and go it's not about my body it's not about what I do or don't do is truly that you've gotten caught up in something that is fantasy-based that is got a hold of of who you are but they can come in alongside you know I love it when a spouse says I'm gonna come alongside you and care for you and and let's join together as a couple in defeating this and getting it back out of our relationship I think the often that takes a leader or a mentor or somebody to stand beside the spouse and say you can do this don't let it be about you let it be about their choices and join with them and helping them to kind of get rid of it I love it it's such a super practical playbook for for me for us as leaders and mentors Mike your you're a licensed counselor certified sex therapist yep Casius expert I suppose so that's I like that term I like what I would ever tell my wife I would like to be a sexpert I often joke yo God called me to be a pastor talking about sex is not what ever thought I would be doing but yeah I suppose that would okay well let me get us back on track so so as a counselor I know I sometimes you know I wrestle with as a leader and or mentors do as well when you figure out oh this person has had exposure there you're looking at pornography when when do you think that person needs professional help that can be tough to know um so often what I'll tell people is well think about it like anything else um if I've hurt my finger I'm probably not gonna go see a surgeon I'm gonna acknowledge that it's hurt and I'm going to start with some things at home to try to deal with it so I'll start by putting some filters on all of the software that we've got or all the access points so if somebody's looking at it through their phone or their iPad or their laptop or their desktop making sure though there's filters on it filters don't stop us from being able to access porn they just make it more difficult I have to choose to get around it next thing I tell them is you've you've got to get open with it they need to find two or three other accountability partners two or three people of the same gender that they can set with and just get honest about their level of access and I'm really quick to tell them your spouse should never be your accountability partner okay we want to be open and transparent with our spouses but this is an arena that I think it's very important to have somebody the same gender that we talked to somebody who understands a little bit more how our brain works and they come alongside us and help us to not if that's not working if we're still finding where we're going back to it and we're getting drawn into it then I tell them let's take the next step and hire a professional let's talk to somebody who has been specifically trained in working with this and now we're engaging with the profession who knows the steps to keep us from going back to it well Mike I sat here and you know listening to you share just helpful you know practical advice with this and but also listen to just the the reality that we find ourselves in and how pervasive pornography is and how disruptive it is and how it we see it destroy relationships and marriages and with your stats and your feedback honestly it's it's depressing and I feel like we're in some ways we're like losing a battle like oh no there's just it seems hopeless in some ways what how would you respond to that it could pull me out of my pit of despair if we just look at culture it does get very overwhelming and to sit in our office day after day hour after hour and dealing with it it could get really scary and hopeless the beauty of it is we serve a God who's already defeated sin and what we've learned is if somebody stands alone and working on it they don't stand a chance because sin is older and wiser more powerful than we are but for guys that reach out and get some help for women that reach out and they pull other sisters alongside of them when we start to work with somebody and we've got a squad of people or we've got a battalion of people beside us that are helping us in this fight helping us in the battle there's nothing that can defeat the Church of Jesus Christ there's nothing that can defeat us as we move forward and I work with so many men I have so many friends there are so many colleagues that have decades of of being clean of time that they were caught up in looking at it regularly and it seemed to have a hold of their lives and they aligned with others got into community that or that helped them to stay strong and it reaches a point that it doesn't have that hold any longer where it doesn't have the same appeal to them in many respects the only ones that I work with that can't seem to overcome it are the ones that try consistently to do it alone when they do it alone it it's just bigger it's more powerful than they are but when we join with other men when we join with other women when we joined together it there is great hope because it's already been taken care of for us we just have to tap into that that's great thank you doctor I really appreciate all that you're doing to help arm us you know to be better on the battlefield [Music] you

Channel: North Point Care

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Keywords: care network, north point community church, woodstock church, buckhead church, Gwinnett church, decatur city church, brownsbridge church, help, struggling, challenges, pain, relationships, transition, change, ministry resources, resources, training, counseling, porn, pornography, porn addiction, sex addiction, porno, sex, sexual fanatasy

Id: 59yQb4TULvo

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 23 2018