The Problem With Pornography

This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to ManTalk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio to all our listeners. And you know, we ended last week's show.

We still have Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin with us and Nikita Kolov, the Russian nightmare. So when we ended last week's show, Roy, we were talking about how pornography has affected our society. So and we were talking off the air and General, you brought up some comments in reference to a book you have read. So if you want to pick that back up in reference to that discussion, the name of the book and what that book basically entails and what we're dealing with today. Yeah, thanks.

I'm happy to do that. In 1958, 61 years ago, the Communist Party USA wrote a book called The Naked Communist. They were telling us exactly what they were going to do to take over America and make it a Marxist communist nation. Well, one of the things they said they were going to do was they were going to promote pornography as a First Amendment right. And the idea behind it was to get men addicted to pornography to destroy families because the most important structure in the American society is the family, an intact family. And they said they were going to promote, for example, same sex marriage. And that would also destroy the families. They were going to promote easy divorce. That would help to destroy the families. So their focus was destroying the family in order to destroy the fabric of America, the society as a whole. And when you look at what has happened in that 61 years since they wrote that book, The Naked Communist, it is stunning and frightening. I would say, I mean, it almost, forgive the reference here, but it almost sounds like a playbook for some of our Congress with some of the stuff we've passed and allowed to happen. And pornography in the state, in the sake of free speech, that there's no controls on that material, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Wow, that's so amazing, Jerry. And it's so accessible, as I said on the program, the previous program, the average boy now, according to the statistic that Josh McDowell has published, the average boy is introduced to hardcore pornography at nine years old. That's frightening.

He'll never have, unless Christ comes into his life and heals the wounds that are inflicted on him by this, he'll never have a normal relationship with a woman. I would just eject real quick there, just to solidify those points, you know, when you've got a one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old playing on iPads and four, five, and six-year-olds playing on cell phones and maybe playing games or what, but they're smart enough. I've learned with seven and an eighth grandchild on the way, smart enough to know even, I watched one grandson when he was a year and a half old navigating the self, knowing what buttons to push and things pop up, right? Yeah, exactly. So another strategy, right, taking keyboards that kids dial in on and attaching pornography to your point or everybody's point and exposing them, as General Boykin said, at the fingertips in today's world. And it's tough. It's tough in the sense of monitoring that, because there are many times pop-ups, right?

And I was like, boom, there it is. So anyway, yeah, we just need to, boy, we need to pray. We need to pray, and man, if you're listening, you need to be looking at your kids' phones. You need to be putting the software on the computers, you know, there's Triple X and I think there's Covenant Eyes, and there are numerous things out there where it may not be 100%, but they will, will catch quite a few of the opportunities that these young men and young women are trying to get out there to do. Absolutely. And it'll stop and it'll also send you reports, so don't be afraid to grab your kids' phones or computers and load this stuff up.

Your future, their future, generations ahead of them are counting on you to be a responsible man to take a stand and do something about it. Mm-hmm. And so we want to move right now, Roy, into the General Book. General Book's book. Yes. Yes. General Book and when they're excited to hear you've got another book coming out this spring, and would you share a little bit about that with us? And then I think, Nick, aren't you starting to work on a new one next year as well? So we'd like to hear about that.

So the perfect timing. Mm-hmm. So General, if you don't mind, just share with us, and I think it, you know, I think it might actually be about men, if I remember correctly. It is. In fact, the title of the book is called Man to Man. Subtitle is Rediscovering Masculinity in a Confused World.

Ooh, I like that. And it is, in fact, my publisher called me after he had read the manuscript and he said, you know, you're going to, you are going to get your butt kicked over this. And I said, what do you mean?

He said, this is so countercultural. Mm-hmm. And I said, good, I'm right where I want to be then. Exactly.

And at this point in my life, you know, there are other things that are more important than what people say. Amen. But this is coming right at men, and it's not just all scripture. It is a practical book, and it calls for men to be five things in their community, their church, their work, their families. It calls for them to be five things, a defender, a provider, a chaplain, a professor, which means that they've got to know the Bible, they've got to know prophecy, et cetera, and then a battle buddy. Every man needs a battle buddy.

He needs somebody in his life that he can talk about the most intimate fears that he has, the most pressing problems that he has. And of course, you know that my battle buddy is Stu Weber. I can tell Stu Weber anything. Mm-hmm. 20 years with Promise Keepers, and the greatest book for men ever written, called Tender Warrior. Amen.

Stu Weber. Yep. Mm-hmm. And I call him anything, and he will tell me anything, and we pray for each other, and when I've got a real need, he's the one I call. And we live on opposite coasts, and we spend as much time as we can together, but I just got on with him about two hours ago. You know, we strengthen each other. So a man needs to be a battle buddy to some other guy.

Amen. And he needs that guy in his life. And those relationships are not developed overnight.

No. Those relationships are developed over time, and the fact is, most men don't have a battle buddy with that kind of relationship. And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, right, General, is the loneliness factor, and afraid to say, hey, I need somebody to come alongside of me.

Yeah. And it takes back to the courage point. You've got to have the courage to say, I can't do it alone. Well, and to the point of talking last week about loneliness and courage, you know, what's the plan if there is an ultimate enemy out there who comes to seek, kill, and destroy, destroy the family, destroy the individual, and one of his tactics that I have found is the loneliness. If I can get the man isolated, if I can get that person isolated and making him feel alone, even though he may not even be alone. Right. And these stories that we hear, people are in a crowded room and yet feel all alone in that crowded room. Right.

So just a tactic of the enemy of isolating people, and by isolating them, then instilling that loneliness feeling in them. Right. Sounds like the General's book is perfect, perfect timing for what we need in this attack on masculinity, perfect timing. It's great timing, especially given what we're just seeing in the marketplace right now. We were talking about this. You know, we've seen changes in the Will Loud Journal, and Nick, I'd like to hear your insight onto it. The change with the Hallmark Channel, which we saw go one direction back to the other direction. And we saw Chick-fil-A move, change positioning relating to standing on biblical standards, right?

And I think it's because of the public pressure that everything's going on. And I think what we need to talk about too along those lines is men, it's okay to stand on your standards. It's okay to share your faith. And like the General said in the previous show, you don't have to be in their face about it, but it's okay to share your faith and live it out so men will see a difference in your life so that they're part of what you've got.

But if you're no different than the world, then there's no need for them to even ask, right? So I think that's what we're seeing. Yeah, I think when it comes to men too, it's always that trust factor. You know, men opening up and saying, if I open up to this man, can I really trust him with the information that I am, you know, conveying to him? Or is he going to spread my business all over the place?

It's just that man factor, you know, if you will. Well, Will, you and I have been through enough meetings together, and you've heard me talk about it. I know you've talked about it, and I'm sure, General, you've done the same in Nick through the weekend and the week conferences. Confidentiality is vital. It's a critical element of that battle, Buddy, as the General was talking about.

That's right. If I can't trust you to keep it confidential, you know, then there's a problem. And if it gets out, we could lose that person for a lifetime. Well, transparency, right, vulnerability, and unfortunately in some cases, you know, they've opened up, but then Ben, the key word that's resonating in me is the word betrayal. They've at some point been betrayed, which then shuts them down and go, okay, I ain't ever doing that again.

Right, exactly. I ain't open up to no other battle, Buddy, ever again. Social media has, and those of you who know me well know my thought about social media, and that's one of Satan's greatest tools.

It could be one of God's greatest opportunities, but it tends to be one of Satan's greatest tools, because everybody focuses on the negative, and that's where this stuff gets crazy. People forget about that you're supposed to hold things to the best. You're supposed to be a man of your word, because it's okay.

They see it all day long, and they get distracted, and there may even be a slip-up or whatever, and all of a sudden you've revealed something you should have never revealed, and then you've broke a man's spirit. Well, you know, there's, I mean, if you go back to the Bible and you say, what's the standard for this kind of battle Buddy relationship? Well, how about David and John? How about Joshua and Caleb? I mean, here's two old battle buddies. They were the only two out of 12 people that went and spied out the bottle.

They were the only two that actually stood on the word of God. They were battle buddies, and if they do, they can trust each other. Amen. We'll come back with that as we come back from break.

We'll get ready to take a break here, folks. Think about that concept, battle buddy. Who's your battle buddy?

Exactly. And if you don't have a battle buddy, let's start on that pursuit to find a battle buddy, because life will be much more fulfilled and God can strengthen the two of you. Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Affordable chiropractic in High Point. As you might tell from their name, affordable chiropractic, even for the cash patient. Dr. Jeff Fricke has been caring for patients in High Point for 34 years. Physical therapy such as ultrasound and spinal decompression for disc conditions such as herniation. Comprehensive care for auto accident injury patients with no out-of-pocket expense. Remember, affordable chiropractic on West Lexington Avenue in High Point.

Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio, and we are here with Nikita Koloth and we have General Jerry Borkin on the phone. And, you know, for this last segment, Roy, we want to talk about, you know, because talking walking Christian men's ministry is all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination, because these are things that we have seen in, you know, our years of ministry that has affected the church, and the mind of men has, you know, been stumbling blocks for men and hurdles for them to get over. So I would like to ask General Borkin, in your history in the military, have you seen racial bias? And how did you deal with some of those issues that you've seen?

Yeah, I have indeed. You know, first of all, we need to understand that there is no place for racism in the military. And the best thing that you can do as a commander in the military is train them hard to where they are so dependent upon each other that they don't even see, you know, race.

I have seen it in the military. And when I first came in the military, right after, you know, just as America was coming out of Vietnam, the race issue was a huge issue. And there were, I mean, there were lots of things going on that could be tied back to racism. That said, I grew up in a racist environment. I grew up in New Bern, North Carolina.

I love that town. But it was a racist environment. It was segregated.

You know, the Jim Crow laws were taken very seriously. And when I came into the military, that is something that I had to overcome myself. Because if I was going to be part of this military, I had to overcome that. And you don't do that overnight.

You have to work at it. And you have to be objective. And you have to put your effort into accepting people for what they are, whether they're white, black, Hispanic, or Asian, you've got to put yourself in a situation where you just accept them for what they are. And, you know, there's still racism in America. And if anybody that says that we don't have a racism problem, I think they're burying their head in the sand. We do have a racism problem. But it's not what it was when I was growing up. It's not what it was in the 60s. And I watched the civil rights movement.

And I was greatly disturbed by what I said I saw there. And by the way, after I left home, my dad adopted a black boy. So that helped me to overcome pretty quickly any racist notions I had. But you don't see it in the military the way you did when I first came in.

Well, one of the things, General, that we've talked about as part of this is that you've got to start the conversation. And thank you so much for sharing that because you make a great point. You don't overcome it overnight. You don't break learned behaviors or taught behaviors overnight. But you've got to pursue that forgiveness and pursue that overcoming. You can't just sit back on the sidelines and constantly think about, well, I wish it wasn't the way it is without being a person of action. And I think one of the things that we as men tend to do, back to standing on the sidelines, I think a lot of men out there have got a good heart about it and want to do something different. But they're not stepping out. And we've talked about this, Will, you and I, many times. If we would just take the first step in the natural, then God can do amazing things in the supernatural alongside of us and behind us and through us. But if we never take those steps and we're not willing to take it head on, then it's never going to get corrected.

Well, you know, I want to switch and ask Nikita. During your time as wrestling, during those early years, did you encounter racial bias? I think it's prevalent everywhere.

In fact, to the point I think we all are aware of still to this day, the most segregated hour in America is 11 o'clock on Sunday mornings. Exactly. For those who aren't aware of that. It still exists today for a variety of reasons, I guess. But that said, yeah, I mean, it's everywhere. In wrestling, like if you watched professional wrestling, like let's say in my era, in the 80s and early 90s, and I know even prior to that, I mean, there were some successful black professional wrestlers, but they were kind of few or far between. And it was interesting, as I observed it, if someone got what we called a push, like if they say, okay, we're going to push a Ron Simmons, for example. The interesting dynamic was, and this is true on both sides of the fence, guys can get a chip on their shoulder for whatever reason, right, and feel they have to prove themselves. And it seemed like the black athlete that excelled in professional wrestling was the one who didn't have a chip on his shoulder and feel like he had something to prove, but yet just embraced the opportunity and therefore became a world champion like a Ron Simmons, who, if folks out there aren't familiar with him, I mean, he excelled at Florida State University, excelled at the professional level in football and in professional wrestling, but it was there.

I guess, actually, it was there. It was known, and it just was. Well, I guess, and I was a young person when the desegregation started, and as it ended up, I was, my home, my housing that I was living in, my parents' home that they had bought, ended up being very, very close to government subsidized housing, which was predominantly black during that time period. So, basically, we as a pocket got moved out to a county school district because they were trying to balance the racial populations of the schools. So, for me, that, and then I ended up driving a school bus for them and everything.

I mean, and plus I played football, and not a whole lot different than the military. You know, when you're lining up a side of each other every day and you're running together, all those things, you become one, so you're not, it's your brother, and that's the way you look at it. But it was, it would be one way on the field, but it was a different way at the house, much like what General Brooke was talking about earlier.

And, but here are some of the stories that some of the men of color that have shared even today, as we've talked about in one of our previous shows, and General, we'll have to share that with you when we see you, but some of the stories have been heart-wrenching, even as grown men are experiencing stuff today, even just in stoplights, people walking down the street, those sorts of things, things that you would have thought were 40 years ago are still going on today. It's still a dynamic, it's still, it's still prevalent. What did you call it, government, what did you call it? Subsidized housing. Yeah, we didn't call it that where I grew up.

We called it the projects, because I grew up in that predominantly black, government subsidized housing, and to this day, I mean, when it comes to secular music, my favorite music is Motown, it always will be, so I don't have those bones in my body, but it's still prevalent, it's out there. I was summarized by saying this on my end, until Jesus comes back, there's going to be an ultimate solution to all of this. Exactly. Until Jesus comes back. That's right, that's right. But the one place, and I'll add on top of that, and General, I hope you'll agree with this, we can make a difference.

For sure. If the church will start taking these things seriously and get outside the walls. I couldn't agree with you more, and you know, I love, first of all, I love to go to churches that have an interracial, I mean, inter, what am I trying to say? Yeah, interracial, yeah.

Interracial audience, because it demonstrates to me that the people there have gotten beyond their prejudices and their biases. Now, I think that it's up to the church to lead the way on this. So, you know, first of all, there would never have been a civil war, probably, if it hadn't been for the church. Because the church came out in the Second Great Awakening and began to speak very boldly against slavery. And by the way, for those who don't know, there were actually white churches that were pastored by black pastors up in the Northeast during that period. And it was the church that brought about the civil war. Well, it's the church that can bring about this reconciliation, and that reconciliation is not, you know, like, I remember promise keepers one time. They said, you know, well-meaning, well-meaning, you know, you and one of your black brothers come down here to the altar. Well, okay, that is not going to achieve racial reconciliation.

This is a one-time event. I can go wash your feet, Will. I can wash your feet a dozen times and confess all of my bad thoughts, all of my previous racist attitudes about things. That is not going to achieve racial reconciliation. Exactly.

It's got to be developing a relationship with you and making that relationship real and intimate in some kind of way to where I understand you and you understand me. No, I'm still not going to eat collard greens. What about broccoli? I ain't eating broccoli either.

I don't think he likes green. But I ain't listening to rap music either. I got my limit.

Not even Christian rap? Come on. Hey, I want to, General Boykins, just kind of tag on there just real quick. Interesting dynamic. A Tale of Two Churches. If you go to NewYorkBooks.com, you'll read a phenomenal story by a young Jewish lady on racial reconciliation between my home church, the refuge, and a church in Greensboro, an all-black church in Greensboro. Oh, wow. Tale of Two Churches.

General, can you give us the name of your book and when it's going to be released again? Yeah, Man to Man. Man to Man. That's it.

Simply Man to Man. Order. It's pre-order. It would help if you would pre-order now. It will actually be in print on the 14th of April. Okay, and is that available on Amazon?

It is available on Amazon. Alrighty. General, it's been an honor having you here. Nikita, thank you so much for joining us.

Absolutely. Merry Christmas to you guys and God bless. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.