Yesterday Today Tomorrow

Inseong J Kim: Hello, this is Inseong Kim from Yesterday Today Tomorrow. We have rising subjects that we want to discover, and today we have a special guest, Ashley Jameson, is here with us. Thank you so much for being with us.

Ashley Jameson: Yeah, I am honored to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Inseong J Kim: Yes, and recovering from the sex addict and Pure Desire is one of our nation's most recognized organizations combatting pornography and sex addiction in the church. So please share with us about yourself and the organization.

Ashley Jameson: My name is Ashley Jameson and I'm the Director of Programs and Partnerships at Pure Desire Ministries. We are a nonprofit and in a nutshell, our aim is to help men and women who are struggling with compulsive sexual behavior or they've experienced betrayal because of a spouse's compulsive sexual behavior. We have online groups for men and women who struggle and for betrayed women.

We have groups all in churches throughout the country and through the world that are using our resources to host groups for these men and women. We have clinicians that can take somebody through a counseling process and we've got resources: podcasts, books, free e-books. So we have something for everybody: parents, youth pastors, men, women.

My heart for this ministry comes out of my own need. I've been here for ten years on staff and it started by looking for resources for my own betrayal with my husband and not finding good resources. The resources I found were either too clinical and I didn't know how this incorporated with my faith or they were too spiritual and I knew that there was some science behind addiction and I needed some practical tools, not just to be told to read my Bible more and pray more.

When I stumbled across Pure Desire about twelve or thirteen years ago, it was the answer for me of blending practical tools and spiritual, biblical foundation to help find some lasting healing from betrayal and addiction.

Inseong J Kim: Okay, so Pure Desire recently partnered with the Barna Group in a joint study beyond the porn phenomenon and they discovered astonishing stats including that 75% of the Christian men and 40% of the Christian women view porn. It's only one in five Christian porn users who state they didn't use it at all. So please share with us about these stats.

Ashley Jameson: We really see the statistics rising, not decreasing, especially among women. I think we can look at our own church and we can think that that kind of stuff is not really happening in our own church, but it is. That's what we see with any kind of research we ever do and the people that come to us for help. They're silently struggling in our churches.

On top of the 75% of men and the 40% of women, two-thirds of pastors also have their own personal history with porn use, so 67%. I think that's part of why our churches are struggling to talk about this because the pastors themselves don't know how to talk about it because they need resources and they need help. So we also work with churches and pastors to get them healthy so that they can then be the one to direct their congregation to help.

Inseong J Kim: What do you think is the reason behind it that it's rising? Is it because of social media or some other factors? You talk about betrayal. Can you share a little bit about, since you studied about this deeply and showed us, what is the main cause? More availability?

Ashley Jameson: It's all of it. We've never had this much access to pornography. Now in the culture that we live in, you can drive down the street and a billboard could be something pornographic or arousing to somebody where before you would go to a store and you'd have to purchase a magazine or a video from behind a counter.

Now we can get access to it anywhere. We all have access to it in our pockets, on our TVs, on our laptops. It's not just one stash that Dad had to drive to a store to buy it and then bring it home and stash it under a mattress or in a garage. It is now everywhere and it's landing in our laps.

Instead of us having to seek it out, it's actually just falling into the laps and the hands of our children, our men, our women. So accessibility and the prevalence of it is just never ending. Also you can view and do things anonymously now. You don't even have to show your face at a store or go to a strip club or do anything like that. You can sit in the privacy of your own home and search things out.

On top of that, our technology and the people who create these kinds of materials know how to create things and how to fish and how to make things very addictive. It's more addictive. The video content that we have and the speed of which we can search it and look for more, look for more hardcore things, it's escalating the addictions in some people.

Our young women, our young teenagers, they're seeing things on social media. They're comparing their bodies to girls on social media or they're looking at things that are pornographic to try to figure out what it is they think they need to be in a relationship. It's everywhere and I think because churches don't have the right setup to support their own staff and their own leaders, they kind of don't know what to do. So it's growing out of control with not enough people knowing how to handle it.

Inseong J Kim: Does it come from curiosity that people want to know how it works? Sometimes I thought about this, Airbnbs and hotels have cameras these days and they are selling the data. I'm wondering if they're using those data as well. That would be a scary thought. I just kind of thought about that.

Ashley Jameson: The curiosity is a big thing and that's why we really emphasize being a home that just talks about sexuality, that doesn't frame it as good or bad depending on if you're married or not, but that sexuality is good and it's a gift from God. Just talking about it and using language so that when people stumble across it or they're wanting to know what sex is supposed to be like, they have good reliable places to go to get that information: good resources, good books, good courses, good mentors that they can ask questions to so that they don't feel like they have to go down this secret back alley to find the information out.

About extortion and violation of privacy like you said maybe with an Airbnb, all pornography is exploitive and it's all bad and it has so many victims and the demand is being created for things like peeping on people in hotels, sex trafficking, violence, all sex-tortion, all of that. The more we are consuming this content, the greater demand we're creating for those next level, more violent behaviors.

Inseong J Kim: I heard that even the Meta Facebook moderators who watch to regulate those violent or sexual contents, they get really damaged in their brain because they have to watch it to regulate it. If that's true, how much is it damaging for the public to watch violent or distorted sexual videos?

Ashley Jameson: It's really damaging to the brain. In our conferences and our talks and our resources, we talk about how pornography changes the brain. You really do essentially sear your conscience not only morally and spiritually just start ignoring that voice of right or wrong from the Holy Spirit, but you change the structure of your brain to rely on fast ways to get pleasure and dopamine and acting out and desensitizing things that are evil.

You start to change structure of your brain and they can see that now with brain scans. But with good intentional work, you can repair your brain as well. You can bring it back to a state where it is healthier and it is learning to do things that are good and God-honoring and right again.

We're in a society where it's so easy to get things that we want and so we're getting a lot of reward chemicals in our brain without having to work really hard for it anymore. So it becomes the easy way of why do I want to pour into this relationship and do things the hard way and emotionally invest in somebody and have to have sacrifice when I can just go over here by myself and get what I want on the internet?

Inseong J Kim: This one has to be a deep search about it, but someone who has a photographic memory, I don't know how much healing can be done for those people because they do have a strong impression on their brain that doesn't easily go away.

Ashley Jameson: I did hear once that the men's brains are more visual than women, and so it is possible it may take more work to kind of rewire your brain to not think so objectively about women. We have a little saying that the neurons that fire together wire together. So the more that they are letting go of those things that are damaging and unhealthy and doing the behaviors that are positive and good and holy, the more their brain will go that way.

It's not to say that things might not pop in, but they'll know what to do with it and not to entertain those things or not to go down that path, but to have a plan when those thoughts or those feelings come. We help them create plans to quickly start doing something else that's going to nourish their brain, heart, and soul in a good way.

Inseong J Kim: Awesome, so there's actually tools that they can use. Sean McDowell, PhD author and Professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, praises this "Hope, Healing, and Freedom" deeply personal insight and stories that will give hope and confidence with the grace, truth, community, and proven strategy. Porn addiction can be defeated. That's very hopeful messages about this book.

Ashley Jameson: It is because we've got these people that we highly respect that give high praise to this book because Pure Desire has been around for decades and we've seen thousands and thousands of men and women who thought that there was no hope, whose marriages were completely destroyed, who ended up in jail because of their behaviors, and they pour in to do the work and they come out completely changed people with so much joy and actually using their stories then to go help other people. So we've seen it firsthand with thousands and thousands of men and women and we know it's possible.

Inseong J Kim: Please share with us about this book. Is it a book that just a person can purchase and read it and use it by themselves, or do they have to be in a group, or is there a system in place?

Ashley Jameson: This book is meant to purchase and read it by yourself. We wanted an easy book to be able to buy for yourself and just kind of check us out in the privacy of your own home, see what resonates, or give it to a pastor. Maybe if you have a son or daughter who's struggling with sexual behaviors or betrayal you could give the book to them to give them hope that they can break free of compulsive sexual behaviors.

Order it and just read it on your own and then from there really pay attention and maybe even highlight what areas resonate with you and figure out what your next step is. If you're struggling or if you have a past where you've struggled and you've never really dove into it to process it, figure out why you did what you did and connect your behaviors to your thoughts and all of that, then you'd want to go back and be able to do that.

I would say the book is a good first step, but if you're somebody who has or is struggling or experiencing betrayal, then figure out what you're going to do for your next step after that. Part of that may be emailing us. It's okay to say, "Hey, I just read your book 'Hope, Healing, and Freedom.' This part really stood out to me. It sounds like my life. I don't know what my next step is. Can you help me?" They can email groups@puredesire.org. That's G-R-O-U-P-S at Pure Desire dot org and we will help them figure out what their next step is.

Inseong J Kim: The main thing is, first of all, people use it, only one out of five are regretting. So the rest of the people don't see this is a problem, right?

Ashley Jameson: Most people, it's not a problem until it's a problem. They can kind of convince themselves, "I'm not hurting anybody. This doesn't involve anybody except for me. I'm not doing anything illegal. At least I'm not having sex outside of marriage." They can convince themselves that there's no problem.

It's great when somebody can realize that what they're doing is actually distancing them from God, creating shame in themselves, crippling their potential of who they should be and what the potential of their life could be, hurting their relationships, causing low production at work, or messing up their finances. It can take them a while but there are some people who recognize that on their own and say enough is enough, it's not working, I need to get help.

More often than not, somebody has been hurt and like a wife or a child or there's been legal consequences or they've gotten themselves in such debt that they're forced to address their issue. So many people come to us because they've kind of been found out or the bottom fell out of their system and now they're needing help. Usually within a few weeks of doing group or counseling, they realize, "This is what I've been looking for. This is the hope, this is the joy, this is the freedom I've been looking for."

Inseong J Kim: I want to share a little bit about the concern that I have, two issues. Shame; a lot of people might have difficulty sharing it because they're shameful. And second is once they get into this situation like this, they become low self-esteem and it develops their very down-spiral life that they found out how did I get here. So how can we help for us to have a conversation? Are there symptoms that we can notice to bring up the conversation? How do we help them?

Ashley Jameson: I think hands down the best way to help people, because I like to assume that everybody has a struggle, everybody has something where they feel a little shame about it, whether it's sexual addiction or yelling at their kids or not being able to get their eating under control or whatever it is. So I tend to live my life in a way where I think we as people who want to be able to help somebody else, make sure that you've done the work for yourself first and then you're free to organically kind of live that out loud in front of them.

Because I've done my own work and I don't have shame around my own sexual struggle anymore or around my betrayal or around getting pregnant as a senior in high school. These are some of my stories. I don't have shame around that anymore because I've done my work. So when I'm in environments, I share those things freely.

If I sense that people think, "Well, I don't know if I'm qualified to do that, I don't know if they'd want me, I don't know if I'm good enough," then I'll just say, "You know what, I used to think the same thing. I used to think that my battle with an eating disorder or the fact that I was pregnant at eighteen or that my marriage was kind of falling apart and I experienced betrayal, I used to think those things disqualified me too, but I realized they don't. They actually equipped me to be able to help more people."

People are not searching for somebody who is perfect. They're searching for somebody who can relate to them and who understands their struggles and can be a real source of hope and saying, "I've been there, I know how to help you and trust me there's hope." Living just your own authentic self is really good.

But I would say if you specifically sense, like there's a one-on-one situation—and I had this happen with somebody very close with me, we were riding in the car and I just felt that she was covered in shame and I had to listen to the Holy Spirit—but I said, "You know, I get the sense that you have something heavy weighing on you and I just want you to know that God loves you no matter what. Your life has purpose no matter what. And I know that because I have a history of sexual abuse, I have a history of eating disorder, OCD, acting out sexually, betrayal, and God used all of that for His glory and to really help me live a better life through that healing. So just know that I love you, I've been through some junk and I'm here for you if you ever need to talk, but God loves you."

This girl started crying and she had just recently had an abortion. I was able to just smother her with love. Fast forward about a year, she ended up getting pregnant again and I was the first person she called and I was able to say, "I will walk with you, I will help you find resources, I will love you, I will pray with you," and she had that baby and it changed her life. If you get that sense, say something and say, "I don't know if I'm misrepresenting here but this is just my experience and I wish somebody would have come alongside of me and helped me realize I didn't have to carry the weight of the world by myself."

Inseong J Kim: Definitely there is some, I've been kind of still researching about this, correlation of this cultural disorder that we're living in with the pornography, abortion, divorce rate, drug, whole thing is taking us down spiral. And then what is at the door is communism ideas coming into our society because we believe that that's more strict, controlled society and people behave better, social scores.

I think everything is kind of socially engineered and I think finding a hope through God is so important in our time rather than bringing a society with kind of lockdown everyone and controlled. I don't know we can even control the human. So, yeah, I am very encouraged about this ministry and then the book about "Hope, Healing, and Freedom." Where can people purchase this book?

Ashley Jameson: On our website, puredesire.org, so P-U-R-E D-E-S-I-R-E dot org.

Inseong J Kim: Is it in Amazon too or not in Amazon yet?

Ashley Jameson: You know what, you're asking me a question that I don't even know.

Inseong J Kim: Okay, that's okay. So yeah, I think it would be a great tool. I've been kind of watching and paying attention there are many tools coming out to help those people because so many people are affected in our time yet we don't talk about all these issues. So we really appreciate your book. What stands out the most from this book for you?

Ashley Jameson: For me, you hit on it, just breaking down the stigma, breaking down the shame and saying if you want to stand on your Bible, look at your Bible and see that we have history from the beginning of time where there is shame wrapped around sexuality. So you are not alone and this book helps break down the shame and also gives you an insight into how you can experience some healing, that it is biblical, it is practical and you do not have to stay stuck where you are.

Inseong J Kim: So we recognize we're all fallen, which is there is some kind of standard we have but we realize we're something wrong with us. I think that was to go from there. So thank you so much for your ministry and also so much about this amazing book that people can buy, "Hope, Healing, and Freedom." Thank you, Ashley, so much for what you do and for this interview. Thank you.

Ashley Jameson: Thank you for having me.

Inseong J Kim: Thank you so much and thank you so much for being with us. This could be a great tool for someone who struggling for sexual addiction or pornography. Thank you for listening Yesterday Today and Tomorrow. We'll be back next week. Thank you.