Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
What to Say When a Friend Confesses to Watching Porn
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What do you say when a friend confesses they’re struggling with pornography? Whether they admitted it directly or you discovered it by accident, knowing how to respond can feel overwhelming. In this honest and compassionate episode, Dr. Joe Beam and Kimberly Beam Holmes guide you through how to handle these conversations with empathy, truth, and clarity.
They discuss the spiritual, relational, and physiological effects of pornography and how to walk with someone you care about toward hope and healing. Whether you're supporting a friend or facing this struggle yourself, there is a way forward.
📌 Topics covered:
How to respond when a friend opens up about porn
Why porn affects both men and women
The impact on marriage and intimacy
The connection between faith, guilt, and behavior
Practical next steps and resources for accountability
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In today's episode, we're going to be talking about what you could do if you just had a friend come to you and tell you that they are struggling with pornography, which is a very common struggle that many people have.
Speaker 2:So that's what we're diving into on today's episode, or even if your friend didn't tell you that you'd stumble upon it. You went and sat down to use their computer for a minute. You saw the history, and so it may be that the friend told you, or it may be that you stumbled upon the fact and you looked at your friend and say I see what you've been looking at here.
Speaker 1:Either way, or it may be that they were bragging about it.
Speaker 2:That's possible. That's possible. Or it might even be asking about the good or bad of it, like this is what I do. Do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? There are any number of ways you could get into the conversation. The point is, once you're in the conversation, what do you do? Now? Don't assume that we're talking just about males. I haven't seen the latest statistics I haven't looked for it actually but a couple of years ago it was like 40% of internet porn users are female, and so there's a large percentage of women that are doing that as well. And when I was teaching human sexuality at a university here in Nashville, I would have people come up and talk to me about that kind of problem, and far more females than men.
Speaker 1:Would come up at the end of the college class and talk to you about that. What would they say?
Speaker 2:They usually were feeling guilty and typically something I had taught in that class that day would have touched them or affected them in some fashion, and so they would come up and say you know I've been seeing some porn about, and most of the females that did it were not same gender relationships in their lives they were heterosexual but that the primary form of porn that they looked at was female-female. Why do you?
Speaker 1:think that is.
Speaker 2:I think it could be for any number of reasons. One is that they can convince themselves they're still not doing anything wrong if they're not looking at a male and a female Like, well, you know, that's fornication or whatever word they might have for that. And so therefore, if I don't look at that, I won't wind up doing that and therefore I'm still going to be a good girl. And the other is that, because of the fact that women tend to be more romantic, tend to be softer, and so they look at that, but I'm thinking, more than anything else, it's so that they don't wind up sleeping with guys. Now, that's just my opinion. None of them told me that, and typically they would say it to me with great guilt, like I did that. What do you think? And the response would be I think you need to stop that. Okay, how can I do that? Well, our counseling centers right across the way over there. They're trained to help you do that. Because I have to be very careful what I talk to with my students about as you understand.
Speaker 2:So go over there and see them. So guys, yes, but in my classes more girls.
Speaker 1:Would admit it at least. Well don't you think it's also more socially acceptable among males?
Speaker 2:That they do it. Yes, as a matter of fact, I was talking to a group of teenagers several years ago at a church and they invited me to talk to them about sex. And when I walked in the door, I got there a little early there were three guys there a young man, 15, two were 14, one was 15. And I told them hey, is this the right room? I've come to talk about sex tonight. And they said, yeah, yeah, this is the right room. What would you like to know? That's literally what they said to me and I said you mean about the church, about the class? They said, no, about sex. We know all about sex. And I said where did you learn? Well, you know, we watch it and therefore we, we know that everything is there is to know about it.
Speaker 2:And these were three boys in a very conservative church who were going to be in that class that night, who regularly went to that church Wow, another church. I was talking to teenagers about sex. I was talking just to the boys. They didn't bring the girls in because they thought maybe that was too volatile, having the girls and the boys in one room. And I was talking to the boys and one of them spoke up and said but you don't understand, it doesn't hurt anybody. I'm not doing anything that causes anybody else a problem. Therefore, it doesn't hurt anybody. How can it be wrong? To which I replied well, it's hurting you. Well, no, it's not.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you how You're going to build a set of expectations about what sex is going to be like from something that's not real. I mean even the true life porn stars in their real life, not on that video. They don't want to have sex all the time, and so in that video, it makes it look like anybody wants to have sex anytime, anywhere, any position, any office, et cetera, et cetera, any number of partners, and you're going to wind up with a paradigm that that's what sex is supposed to be like. So a few years ago I think it was what year did we go to Australia the first time? 2007.
Speaker 2:Okay, so in 2007, I went to the World Congress of Sexual Health. It was being held in Sydney, australia, and they were actually teaching there that internet pornography is the number one method of sex education in the world today, and here's what they said. They said therefore, it may take a while, but therefore marriage is doomed, and their explanation for that is because of the fact that one of the paradigms that these people are going to develop you know, boys and girls as they're growing up and learning this way is a paradigm about sex that does not occur in the real world. It just doesn't. And therefore these people because that's their expectation, that's what they've been trained for in their minds are never going to be satisfied with one sex partner who's not always ready to go to bed with you, who's not always ready to do anything you want to do, whenever you want to do it.
Speaker 2:And they said, because of the fact that one partner then will never be able to sexually fulfill these people that are learning sex from internet pornography, people that are learning sex from internet pornography, marriage is doomed no-transcript.
Speaker 1:So what should someone say when you have a friend, that either they've come to you or you've somehow found out that this is going on? We've already established it's not good. It's not healthy for your marriage. So now what?
Speaker 2:Well, it's not healthy for the person either. For example, if a person's watching pornography and masturbating at the same time, typically what they will do is they learn how to reach their orgasm more quickly. And the reason is so that they don't get caught Like I don't have hours and hours, what if somebody comes in? If they're still a teenager living at home, what if mom comes home, or whatever? And so one of the results with men again talking about the negative effects with men is that they tend to have problems with premature ejaculation once they get married because they have trained themselves to orgasm very quickly from the pornography.
Speaker 2:Another is that, because of the extra stimulus of this many people on the screen doing this many things on the screen that often then, once they get past the new stage, once they reach what is referred to as sexual boredom, that stage that with a new partner for about after two years you tend not to be as excited because you are so used to each other. It doesn't tend to be titillating and you're going to actually become bored, Boreding. Boredom, that's not a word. Boring, it doesn't tend to be titillating and it can actually become boring, boring.
Speaker 2:That's not a word Boring, boring, boring. That then what's going to happen is they're going to go back to pornography to find that extra stimulation, or they're going to seek sex outside the home, or that they're going to start developing sex problems within the marriage because they're going to be demanding of their spouses things the spouse doesn't want to do, because they're looking for that extra exhilaration. And so not only then can it affect a male, particularly in terms of premature ejaculation. It can affect them in terms of not having any sexual excitement with your spouse, and particularly as you get older. People on sex videos tend to be pretty young people, unless there's some kind of a fetish going on. And I've read one time this was many years ago that the average age of retirement of a female porn star was like 27 or 28, something like that. And one of the reasons for that is because of the fact that age begins to affect you. Things aren't as firm as they once were, and you may get wrinkles, you may sag here or there, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, if you're married, then your spouse is going to age every day. And of course, if you're married, then your spouse is going to age every day. And so if you're having to have that young, hard body to get you excited, there comes a time when your spouse no longer can, and therefore that sex life is pretty much over. And if you have sex with each other, it's not romantic, it's just a need for some fulfillment that can be relatively fast, etc. And so all of those things can happen to men. What you're doing is you're sacrificing your future physiologically, but you're also sacrificing what the relationship will be sexually with your spouse as you get older, because both of you are going to age, both of you.
Speaker 2:Now that's talking primarily about guys and so destroying their future together, and that's what I try to explain to the teenagers. Yes, it's going to hurt you, definitely going to hurt you, and therefore you're sacrificing your future for what you see as a thrill now, now, if we want, and since these were churches and therefore you're sacrificing your future for what you see as a thrill now, now, if we want, and since these were churches. I would then go into, less likely, what the scripture says that if you lust after a woman, you committed adultery with her already. That's what Jesus said in Matthew, and therefore you are committing sin by lusting, and that in the book of Job.
Speaker 2:Job said that the way he kept from doing that is he made a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a maiden, and so if you're watching this stuff, it can't mess up your future. And so what you're doing now is you're finding something that's physically stimulating or mentally stimulating right now, that you're actually sacrificing your future. For Now I'll say something very similar to females if I'm talking to them, but you might understand that my conversations with females about porn have typically been okay. Let's go get you to another counselor who can help you with that.
Speaker 1:So you're a 35-year-old guy and your best friend has come to you with this. What are the next words out of your mouth?
Speaker 2:I understand Trying to make them feel guilty right off the bat is not going to get any empathy. It's not going to develop any kind of conversation.
Speaker 1:I understand.
Speaker 2:I understand the temptation of that. Let's talk about what it's doing to you already, let's talk about what it's doing to your future, Okay, and so it would be an understanding of what's happening and then helping him think about it in terms of his spirituality. Like, okay, if God really can not only see what we do I'm talking about, if you're talking to a Christian friend, for example and if God can also know what we think, which you believe if you ever pray silently that God can know what's going on in your head, then God is seeing you, both in that action and in your head, what you're doing. And then you're going to turn around and pray and you might say, God, I love you so much, what a great relationship we have, et cetera. And God's saying but there's something between the two of us. Remember the story in the Bible and I'm addressing this usually to Christian guys where this guy came to Jesus and he said I've done all of these things, but I'm lacking something.
Speaker 1:The rich young ruler right.
Speaker 2:That's what he's typically referred as to. What am I missing? Remember what Jesus said to him.
Speaker 1:He said go and sell all your things.
Speaker 2:Now, is that a command to all Christians?
Speaker 1:So he was telling him to get rid of the things in between him and Jesus, there's one thing between you and me, and that's your wealth.
Speaker 2:Therefore, go get rid of it. But I've done this and I've done that and I've done that, yeah, but you even admit you're missing something, you're lacking something, and what I'm telling you is you can't have that something as long as you've got something between the two of us, it's got to go.
Speaker 2:And so if I were trying to help a guy with this, I would say let's pray right here and let's dedicate your computer to God, let's dedicate your phone to God, let's dedicate your heart to God, and et cetera. If he says, well, what if I never find the right person to marry? Well, let's pray about that too. Lord, bring people in my life that will help me find the right wife. If that's what you need and that's what you want, 1 Corinthians 7 says rather than lusting, get married. And so, if you need a sexual fulfillment, find a woman that also has a good attitude about sex, because if you marry a woman that doesn't want sex, that's not going to help you very much and go ahead and get married, which is not the way Americans look at it.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Because Americans typically tell their kids something like Try it out, Go and see who. All Well, first of all, they'll say parents will say go get your education, get a job, get some money.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then wonder why the kids have so much trouble. Kids, young people, young men, young women have so much trouble being celibate. And then the world says just go find somebody, go to the club, go drinking, whatever they're always out there and if nothing else, go find a prostitute. And in 1 Corinthians 6, when the apostle Paul and again I realize I'm addressing this from a Christian perspective now, I started off from sexology and now I'm in the Bible In the end of 1 Corinthians 6, he tells the single Christians to quit having sex with temple prostitutes. Now there were male temple prostitutes and there were female temple prostitutes, and so some of the women were paying those payholes to have sex with them. Some of the men, those women and the money was all going to support that false god to begin with. But what he said then is because when you have sex with that person, you become one with them. He said but you've been bought with a price.
Speaker 2:His argument and it's an implied argument, but it's pretty strong is that the Holy Spirit is in you. If you join yourself to someone he doesn't want to be part of, then at least for that period of time you have forced the Holy Spirit to abandon you. And that's why he starts right back in the beginning of the next chapter, chapter 7, and said but since there's so much immorality, everybody needs to get married, and if you get married, you shall fulfill each other. You must fulfill each other sexually so that you will not be tempted because of your lack of self-control. And so the Bible answered to you if you want to handle your self-control when it comes to sex, get married to a partner who is willing to be sexual with you, not a partner who isn't, but a partner who is, because the Holy Spirit inside of you. There are certain actions you do he will not be part of, and if nothing else.
Speaker 2:So if I'm holding a picture in my head right now of some orgy, or while I'm watching it on TV or whatever, and having that orgy in my head and masturbating into it, et cetera, where's the Holy Spirit? You think he's in there, going, well, I'll just wait. Or do you think he's saying this is not of God? And so I think it becomes a thing where you force God away from you. But I think there are a lot of things people do that force God away from them, and so I would try to help my friend. That way, if a male and if it were a female, I'd get a female to help her. Help her. That way, all of this can be handled, because what you're doing, you're ruining your spirituality, you're ruining your future, and all of that for a temporary thrill.
Speaker 2:And maturity is the fact of bypassing the short term for the long term. That's what maturity is all about. I'm not going to do that. When it comes to eating, I can eat that Krispy Kreme right now and it'll be delicious, or I cannot eat it and go for a walk and lose some weight. Well, the more mature person is going to do the second thing. Okay, have I lost you through all this rambling? I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, what about the person who is married? So they're already married. Maybe their spouse doesn't know. So then what's that conversation with the friend?
Speaker 2:It's really kind of interesting If you look at the research about that and again, it's been a while since I've studied this stuff. But the research is if they're just dating, the woman typically doesn't mind. It's like no, she doesn't have anything, I don't have. So if you want to watch that, go ahead and watch it, it doesn't bother me. But according to the same research project, as soon as the relationship becomes serious, like now, we're going to get engaged or we start. Maybe in an American culture we're going to live with each other, which I can explain. Lots of reasons why that's bad. But we're going to live with each other or we're going to get engaged or we're going to get married. The woman's attitude, according to research, changes dramatically. So beforehand it was like boys will be boys, and then, as soon as there's a serious relationship, it's like you're cheating on me. You're not cheating with a human being that's coming in the house, you're cheating with that. Well, actually you are, but they're coming in through the television or through the movies or whatever and you're cheating on me. And so wives often get very disturbed, almost always. Now some wives will actually watch it with husbands, but what they're doing is typically destroying their future, when they get older.
Speaker 2:Several years ago a minister came to me. This was back a long time ago, so long ago that the way to see porn was you were going into a little shop and you'd go in a little room and pull a curtain, according to what he told me, and you'd drop a coin in and five minutes of porn would come up for a quarter on your screen. And then you'd drop another coin in and another five minutes would come up of porn. So this was back like in the 70s. It was a long time ago. And he came to my office. He felt so guilty about it he was tearing him up. He said I don't know how to stop. I'll do anything to stop. I said okay, tell your wife. He said she'll kill me. I said that'll stop you. So he did.
Speaker 2:He went and told her and apparently he did it very humbly and she understood and she realized that she had a little bit of contribution to it because of the fact that she had been avoiding him sexually I'm too busy, I'm too tired, I'm too this, I'm too that and she began to realize, according to 1 Corinthians 7, he had sexual needs. So she started dressing differently I'm not talking about in a lewd way, but much nicer. She'd actually put on her makeup. I very seldom saw her makeup before that, but she'd put on her makeup and she'd dress nicely. And they came to the office one day to thank me, and so they were fulfilling it all at home. He had told her she worked with him Rather than throwing him out you terrible person. She realized. Well, 1 Corinthians 7 says I can help with this by becoming more sexual with you. And so that's what she did and that's what helped them.
Speaker 2:So I would recommend tell your wives Now. You might be some guy listening right now or some wife listening right now. I might be saying if I tell my spouse you don't understand, you don't know how he or she is, they'll never forgive, they'll never get past it. Well, in that case you've got to consider some other things. But you need to tell somebody who can actually help you, not just somebody who may remember a year from now to ask you how you're doing. Maybe a sex therapist or a sex counselor. But if you go see one of them and they say it's no big deal, keep doing it, fire them, go find somebody else. Find a counselor or a therapist that will help you work this out where that you can be true to your spouse and not distracted by these other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or join a group like Celebrate Recovery, something like that. There's xxx churchcom.
Speaker 2:They do really well.
Speaker 1:That does a lot for accountability. There's covenant eyes, which is a software that people can like put on their phones and devices and you can have it send, I think, to an accountability partner. So there's a lot of options out there.
Speaker 2:Let me just have a little bit slower again. Sex helpcom that's current site, sex helpcom. He's kind of the grandfather of helping this. And then, as you said, xxxchurch that's XXX, not write out XXX. No, I'm sorry, xxxchurch dot com, they've got a little good help out there, but, like most things that have become almost addictive, you're going to need somebody who knows what they're doing to help you stop it.
Speaker 1:And that would be the recommendation. So if a friend comes to you and says I'm struggling, the answer is I understand, let's find a way for you to stop doing this and I'll hold you accountable.
Speaker 2:I'll hold you accountable. Now, sexaholics Anonymous, if I remember correctly, started here in Nashville many, many years ago and I happen to know some maybe more than one ministers who regularly attend Sexaholics Anonymous and it has helped them tremendously make their lives the way they wanted it to be. So what I'm saying is it can happen to people who really want to do right, really want to be good. People can still be caught up in that. But Sexaholics Anonymous Now I've been to Alcoholics Anonymous because I had a big struggle with alcohol several years ago, but I've never been to Sexaholics Anonymous. But I hear it's a 12-step program. That's really really very good and if you're afraid to go on your own, you can probably look them up on the internet, find out the closest group to you and hopefully they'll have some kind of a contact person there and you can contact him, because if you're going to go, you're not going to go mixed gender, not to Sexaholics synonymous, but contact him or her, as the case may be, and say I'm really kind of afraid to come or ashamed to come or apprehensive about coming. You know, can you help me and I don't know about them? Maybe you can just ask your best buddy to go with you the first time and he or she can go with you the first time.
Speaker 2:I know, an alcoholic synonymous, that when you come to what they call the first time and he or she can go with you the first time. I know in Alcoholics Anonymous that when you come to what they call the closed meeting, you're supposed to be an alcoholic but there are so many people out there admitting themselves to be alcoholics you typically can find somebody who will go with you. Sexaholics Anonymous I'm not sure. I would just ask I'm afraid to come. Can my buddy come with me the first time? And my guess is they're going to say yes, that's my guess. A lot of resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of good resources. Was there anything else we need to cover before we wrap the episode?
Speaker 2:Well, isn't it true that when couples come through our workshop we don't deal with sex addiction directly or pornography directly in the workshop, but in our membership we have that seven and a half hour program.
Speaker 1:The SPARK program for workshop graduates?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if a couple is coming through the workshop now it's not seven and a half hours in one sitting, there's actually 12 sessions and there's teaching.
Speaker 2:There are actor couples who talk things out and then every once in a while I'll say stop the video and do this exercise in the PDF that you have, and then when you both finish that, come back to the video. I'll explain what your scores mean. And so for graduates of our program, they can actually get that and the one that was seven and a half hours that they work to together and talk about as they go through it, which means it's going to take more than seven and a half hours. But you do it in segments. I went one segment, two, segment three, et cetera, and and that can help a lot in opening up the conversations in your marriage even has instruments in it where that if one of you wants to do something sexually that the other one is hesitant about doing, there's a little profile thing you can use there to help you figure out whether you should try it or not, based on what each of you feels, and that's based in there. There's all kinds of good things in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. If you want to find out more about that or any other way that we can help you at Marriage Helper marriagehelpercom. Slash call Just go there, book a call. Someone on our team will be able to answer your questions and see if there's anything we do. That would be a great fit for you, joe. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yes, sorry that I talk so much in this workshop. I'm sorry I talk so much in this episode.
Speaker 1:You're the expert.
Speaker 2:But I'm the sexologist. That's right. And you might be thinking, isn't that your daughter? Yes, and you're talking this openly in front of her. Yes, so we have to tell them the story before we go on Tell them the story.
Speaker 1:I took his human sexuality class, the first one you ever did.
Speaker 2:The first one I taught in university. She was in it and the day I was discussing a particular part of the female genitalia, one of the other girls in class looked at her and said is this like freaking you out? And you said At our house.
Speaker 1:This is dinner conversation.
Speaker 2:We've always been open and transparent. Now we don't get vulgar, but we've also always been open and transparent. Thanks for letting me ramble about it.
Speaker 1:No, I think it's super helpful, Definitely needed. Remember there is always hope.
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