You ever roll your eyes after seeing an advertisement for the 100th time? Why this again? Human beings are creatures of habit, and habit is all about repetition. If you get it after the first time, you are the exception, not the rule. We need repetition to learn concepts, facts, charts, and tables. And we need repetition to internalize truths and beliefs about ourselves and the world. The Bible is repetitive. Textbooks are repetitive. Political propaganda is repetitive. Business marketing is repetitive. The question isn’t whether we change in response to repetition. The question is what it is that we are repeating.
Today, I’ve transcribed an exchange between YouTubers, fitness pros, and life coaches, Elliott Hulse and Frank Rich on the detriments on pornography. To Hulse, pornography is “a scourge on mankind,” whose primal allure he can understand as someone who was first exposed to pornography in the fifth grade.
Rich, for his part, warns about the soft porn and triggers that are omni-present on social media platforms like Instagram. Due to pornography’s allure and easy accessibility, people and parents have to be on top of their game at all times.
It perverts. It perverts the mind, it perverts the heart, and it perverts the body. It’s so destructive on so many different levels, but yet, it’s so enticing.
Elliott Hulse
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Philosopher Will Durant Summarizing the Work of Aristotle
For more, see the complete archive of articles on integrity.
Transcript Of Elliott Hulse And Frank Rich On Pornography
So, what are your views, opinions, on porn? What’s it doing to the men of today? What’s it doing to the kids of today? And let’s just open it up and let’s just make this an open dialogue, but where is porn at in, you know, your view, [your] perspective. I have my beliefs. I think it’s a true demonstrative demon that is ruining the men of the world, but what’s Elliott’s take on the topic of pornography?
Hulse: Well, I agree with you. I think that it is a scourge upon mankind. And that the minute–and this is how I heard it described by someone, and I take it at face value—the first time your eyes meet pornography, your sanctity is ruined, because you will no longer be able to see sexual acts, you will no longer be able to be with a woman. You will no longer have normal sexuality, by watching it just once.
It perverts. It perverts the mind, it perverts the heart, and it perverts the body. It’s so destructive on so many different levels, but yet, it’s so enticing. It’s something that—I remember when I was probably like in 5th or 6th grade, the first time seeing naked magazines. All right? I forget where I was. I think somebody like hid it in the woods, and me and my friends were hiding in the woods. You know, the first time smoking weed and the first time drinking, even the first time busting a nut.
The first time seeing pornography was like WOW! And, just remembering that experience, right, because I didn’t suffer with it the same way you did. My story is a little bit different, but I can relate, because I remember that experience as a kid. I recognize just how primal, or how it tugs at instincts that are beyond our conception. We don’t even understand. It just tugs you right now, so much so that now it’s so different.
I had to go looking in the woods. We were playing in the woods. It was halfway buried, and we found it. Now, we literally—my kids all have one of these devices. We don’t even have to go and find it. I have to protect—those of you who have children, you got to protect your children. I say sons, but even daughters now. Girls are suffering from porn addiction, too.
Rich: Here’s the thing—and not to cut you off—but you know, the thing I’m trying to bring awareness to. You don’t even need to type in the www site. Like, if your kids are on social media. If they’re on Instagram. If they’re on Tik Tok. If they’re on any of these platforms out there, it’s already existing. There’s no parental control that you can put on there. If they have an Instagram account, if they wanted to, they could find it.
Since I started opening up and talking more and more about it on my social, I’m obviously getting a lot of love and support from guys and women that are supporting what I’m doing. But I’m also getting the other side. I’m getting the people that are in support of porn and just full-blown, like, “Yeah, I’m addicted to porn and I love it.”
So I’ve been getting these comments from people. I’ve had to delete them and block them from my page, but you click on somebody’s profile, and it’s just a gallery right there on your Instagram profile, of nudity, sex, graphic images, that, if you’re a kid with an Instagram–so for the parents out there. This is an awareness. Exactly what Elliott is saying.
We had to build a fort out in the woods, steal the magazines from our parents, and then go hide them. It’d be like we’d meet up every afternoon to look at them. Nowadays, it’s literally like we’re walking around with it, like, in our pockets, so 100% on target.
Hulse: Thank you for bringing up Instagram because I’ve been going ham try to block all these websites and stuff, and the minute you brought that up, I’m like “Oh, man. I still got work to do. Thank you.”
Rich: Going back to talking about what I do with my guys here. I know for me Instagram would be a trigger. In the fitness space, 90% of the girls in the fitness space are—their posts are what we used to see in the magazines back in the day. This is like a girl that’s just promoting her leg workout, and if you look at it, “Hey, that’s not really a fitness workout. That’s way more graphic.”
So, for me it was definitely, I’d be scrolling through Instagram, *trigger,* let me go upstairs and take care of business, so I understand the process. But yeah, for parents out there. For guys, if you’re struggling with this issue, the first place to look is right there at the people that you’re following. Remove them. It doesn’t serve you in any way, shape, or form, at all.
Are you familiar with the Dave Aspery quote? Something along the lines of “Porn is the high fructose corn syrup of sex.”
Hulse: Wow.
Rich: Yeah, it’s like high fructose corn syrup. It tastes good going in. It makes you feel good initially, then an hour or so later you’re laying down on the couch and the food is settling in your belly and it just makes you feel like crap. But after experiencing the taste of that, then the normal, all-natural whole foods never taste as good as they’re supposed to, unless you go through a fasting period to reset your palate, to re-sensitize, and do all that.
So just going back to exactly what you’re saying. It’s like once you’ve experienced or seen it for the first time, the natural act of sex will never be the same again.
Hulse: Yeah, what a shame.
