#196 Joshua Broome - "Rocco Reed," Inside The Adult Film Industry

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Speaker 1 I went there and got drugged.

Speaker 1 I thought it was my fault. I was filming in Atlanta.
It was a disgusting shoot. Like, people were like urinating on each other, spinning on my face, in my mouth, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 I'm just like, what have I become? I was like, I want to die. I didn't realize that that scene was for the most popular website in America at that time.

Speaker 1 When I heard the pain in her voice and she said, why did you do that? Satan said to me,

Speaker 1 see?

Speaker 1 You're exactly who you thought you were.

Speaker 6 Joshua Broome, welcome to the show, man.

Speaker 1 Man, so glad to be here. What an honor.

Speaker 6 I'm pumped to have you. So we got a mutual friend, Victor Marks, huh?

Speaker 1 What a guy.

Speaker 6 Victor shot me a text this morning, and I love hearing from Victor. You never know what you're going to hear.

Speaker 1 You never know. It could be a four-minute voice memo of just chaos.

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 But I'm pumped that you know him, and

Speaker 6 that just reinforces, you know, you're good people to be around if Victor's hanging out with you. So, once again, thank you for coming, man.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 so, we're going to talk about

Speaker 6 a little bit of your life story,

Speaker 6 an insight into the adult film industry, what got you out of it, and being a pastor now. So, so, and I'm sure we'll go down a handful of rabbit holes

Speaker 6 throughout the interview. But I'm really curious.
You know, it's, I mean, the adult film industry is huge. What's that girl's name? This is the girl that's, she's like.

Speaker 1 She slept with a thousand guys in 24 hours or something like that.

Speaker 6 And now, like, now it seems like all these other girls are like trying to top it. You just keep hearing this stuff.
Like, there was some other girl. I think it was in Miami.
She was shooting a...

Speaker 6 film set or like some kind of a gangbang or something on a balcony and like fell off the balcony to her death.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I think what we're seeing is, you know, content creation became a legitimized career.
And then because we live in an over-sexualized culture,

Speaker 1 and then you see the birth and rise up of OnlyFans, those worlds kind of intermeshed. And it really happened during COVID.
During COVID, OnlyFans

Speaker 1 production, people who are participating in OnlyFans went up by 1600%.

Speaker 6 1,600%? 1,600%.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 porn consumption went up 400%.

Speaker 1 Wow. And but what you would see is essentially they were using social media like a funnel in that, you know,

Speaker 1 I've met with many girls who used to be in OnlyFans or girls that worked on the marketing arm of OnlyFans.

Speaker 1 And the way they would work is, you know, once a girl became popular, once they became, you know, the top 10%,

Speaker 1 they would grab that girl and they would say, hey, we're going to represent you. We're going to take great care of you.

Speaker 1 And they would bring them into a studio and they would shoot all this stock footage. And they'll say, hey, we're going to 10x,

Speaker 1 you know, the way that you're being monetized because we're going to shoot all this footage.

Speaker 1 And then we're going to have, you know, 30 random, you know, guys in a basement in the Philippines or whatever.

Speaker 1 They're going to be chatting with the people. So they're going to have your password.
You're not going to have to be on OnlyFans anymore. We're just going to shoot all this stock content.

Speaker 1 And it's like catfishing 2.0, where, you know, you pay per message, per video, per picture.

Speaker 1 And then you got a guy sitting there pretending to be her, and you're talking with these people, and they're saying, you know, whatever in the comments.

Speaker 1 And they're just plugging, playing stuff from stock footage. So once a month, I just go and shoot all this footage.

Speaker 1 Now you got this, you know, this stuff to work with, and you're just plugging and playing. So now they can be talking to 30 people at once, but they're talking to no one at all.

Speaker 1 And then they're getting

Speaker 1 75, 80% of that revenue. Damn.
So you're not even, so to the person that is addicted to OnlyFans, if you're talking to a popular creator, I can almost guarantee you you're not talking to that person.

Speaker 6 No kidding. Why do you think, why do you think that, I mean, we're going to get way more in depth on this stuff later on, but I mean,

Speaker 6 where does this this shit end? Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's just, I mean, it's like anything else you see, right? But it's just, they're constantly one-upping each other.
Like, oh, how, how,

Speaker 6 you know, how disgusting can I make it? You know, a thousand, a thousand

Speaker 6 dudes in 24 hours.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, what does that even look like? I mean, how do you even recruit that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it's pretty easy.

Speaker 1 And I, because like, I, you know, I was in the porn porn industry for almost seven years. And, you know, when girls would do gangbangs,

Speaker 1 because like guys

Speaker 1 that were like professionally like in the industry, for the most part, didn't do gang bangs because a director is not paying, you know, top,

Speaker 1 you know, because you have a day rate. You have an individual rate that you make per day.

Speaker 1 So you're not paying that per guy.

Speaker 1 You know, so you're, you're finding anyone off the street that's willing to go get uh an SED and AIDS test so you're you're you're probably you might not be paying them at all so you you know and these girls again they got all these fans all you do is post a story in the comments saying hey um anyone in this vicinity that follows me um do you want to be part of this go get a test bring the test here and you get to have sex with me and it works and it's like where like social media is working like a funnel now where the girls they're supposed to be provocative on TikTok.

Speaker 1 And in the TikTok, it says, go to my IG. And on IG, there's

Speaker 1 a little link in their page. And here's my link tree.
And on my link tree is my OnlyFans. And it's just a big funnel to sell porn.

Speaker 6 Jeez. Geez.

Speaker 6 Isn't Kanye West getting back into the...

Speaker 6 Not back into.

Speaker 6 Is he getting into it? He just had his...

Speaker 6 Girlfriend pretty much naked at whatever award show that was. I don't follow any of this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's it's wild, man, because like, and kids were around.

Speaker 6 Yeah. It's like little kids looking at this.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, you see, like, Kanye go from someone who was having these, like, these, like, church things. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 And had like pretty decent like Christian rap come out and then like really like go on this like bender. But I would say, man, like the guy experienced significant brokenness in his life.

Speaker 1 And I think to the person that's saying, man, how could this person actually know Jesus? I think he liked the idea of Jesus. But

Speaker 1 for Jesus to invade and to

Speaker 1 help you,

Speaker 1 to invade your heart, you have to surrender and submit. And

Speaker 1 that's not a natural thing,

Speaker 1 especially to the guy who has

Speaker 1 millions upon millions of dollars and everyone around him saying like, you're the guy, you're the guy, you're the guy.

Speaker 1 For you to say, I'm not the guy. And

Speaker 1 the way to find healing and wholeness is for me to bend my knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That's very different than acknowledging that something exists.

Speaker 1 So I would just say, I think he liked the idea of Jesus. And then he experienced some brokenness and he was trying really hard to be okay.
And he just wasn't. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because he's just kind of been up, down, up, down, up, down. But I saw like he got kicked off of Twitter because he just went on this like rampage.

Speaker 1 He posted like porn like for you know two or three hours like non-stop just posting like hardcore pornography right after that happened like right after he showed up to the award show with this with the girl.

Speaker 1 Is it his wife? I don't know. Or who I don't follow any of this stuff.
No, it's like he was he was married to a Kardashian and they got, you know,

Speaker 1 I mean

Speaker 1 I don't know what I don't know exactly what happened, but it's sad. It's sad.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you know, well, I got your I got your whole life's outline right here, but I don't really want to go down the outline.

Speaker 6 I think this is going to be a very fascinating conversation. And

Speaker 6 so I just want to riff. And I hope you're okay with that.
But, you know, I really want to talk about,

Speaker 6 you know, in a lot of my interviews, we talk about like the effects of war and

Speaker 6 extreme trauma and how to get over it and what that does and the rabbit hole, you know, the downward spiral that sends you on. And I gotta, I just have this feeling that

Speaker 6 this is gonna be very similar to that. Absolutely.
And, um, and to be honest with you, I've been, I tried to get Jenna Jameson to come on here to talk about this.

Speaker 6 I've been trying to get her for years, but

Speaker 6 I think she's got some health stuff going on. But, um, but yeah, it's just always been a subject that I'm.
I've been really interested to dive into.

Speaker 6 And, and especially like, I don't know, are you familiar with like the, the, the effects that it, you know, that it has on kids?

Speaker 1 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 6 And, and the addictions and all that kind of, I mean, this stuff is like

Speaker 1 really bad. Yeah, I mean, you look at, you know, look at research.
Average age of exposure three years ago was 11. It's trending towards eight years old now.
And

Speaker 1 eight years old. And what's interesting, so 84% of first-time exposure to pornography for kids, it's secondhand exposure, meaning that

Speaker 1 they weren't looking for it. They were either on an unprotected device and it was looking for them

Speaker 1 because this is the world that we live in because of streaming and things like that.

Speaker 1 Everything has porn on it to the extent, depend on what your definition of porn would be.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 being at

Speaker 1 school or someone else's home. And then it was shown to them.

Speaker 1 But it's crazy, man.

Speaker 1 Not to come out swinging, but I would say probably the most dramatic thing I would share with you is that

Speaker 1 so a really good friend of mine,

Speaker 1 she once was a critical care nurse in Kansas City, Missouri. About six months ago, she started a nonprofit and she's just speaking on this full time.

Speaker 1 But she started seeing a reoccurring theme.

Speaker 1 And it was that, so she was an examiner for sexual abuse cases of children. And she was noticing over and over again that two things were happening: that the abuser of the child

Speaker 1 was between 10 to 14 years old, and it was a sibling. And she was like, Well, is in, and it was a lot of cases like that in Kansas City.
And she's like, Is there just something weird going on here?

Speaker 1 And she started asking her peers in different places. Her name is

Speaker 1 going with this.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think I know where you're going with this. I interviewed somebody a while ago, where I was talking with somebody and

Speaker 6 we were talking about, like before the show, we were talking about the sexual exploitation of kids. And

Speaker 6 are you going into,

Speaker 6 he told me that the number one

Speaker 6 most searched type of porn is incest.

Speaker 6 Is that where you're going with this?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, I mean, just the reality that, so in around 60% of the sexual assault cases that happen to children in the United States, the perpetrator is A,

Speaker 1 between 10 to 12, 10 to 14 years old, and B, it's a sibling. So that's, it's in the 60% and the US, it's higher in Europe, highest in Australia, around 73%.

Speaker 1 And then fastest growing niche of pornography is insexual, the step-bro, stepsister stuff. And the reality is, 100% of the cases, the kids are addicted to porn.

Speaker 1 They're watching porn, they're developing fantasies, and then they're superimposing these fictitious desires. They're imposing them on their sibling.

Speaker 1 They're tying up their brother and sister and raping them because they've developed an appetite for something that they don't know what to do with and the porn doesn't.

Speaker 1 Again, like we were talking earlier, this belief

Speaker 1 that you can consume something and it not have a real impact on your output like in what world does that make sense?

Speaker 1 You can't like whatever you ingest, once it metabolizes, there has to be somewhere for it to go.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 So to the person thinking, you know, porn's harmless, who can it hurt?

Speaker 1 Kids. There you go.
And at a significant rate.

Speaker 6 Well, we'll get more into that real quick. Let me, everybody starts out with an intro.

Speaker 6 Joshua Broome, you're a guy who went from a small town, South Carolina, to the bright lights of Hollywood, chasing the acting dream, only to fall into the adult film industry.

Speaker 6 You became Rocco Reed, starring in over 1,000 films and raking in over a million dollars as one of the top male performers on the planet.

Speaker 6 You're a man who hit rock bottom, staring down depression and suicidal thoughts until God stepped in.

Speaker 6 You're a voice behind the counterfeit culture podcast and the unmentionable docuseries, taking the fight to the very industry you once ruled. You're now a pastor, a husband, and a father of four.

Speaker 6 And something else I want to dive into is spiritual warfare.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 As you know, we got a Patreon account. They're our top supporters.
They've been with us since the beginning when I was doing this in the attic of my house and

Speaker 6 their support's brought us here. And now we're building a new studio.
I got an amazing team who you've met. And so one of the things I do is I offer them

Speaker 6 each and every guest that comes on, they get the opportunity to ask a question. And so this one's from Stephen Casey.

Speaker 6 What would you recommend to parents of children so that they could set up their families' habits to prevent their children from being lured either passively or actively into the environment that caused you so much grief and pain and is hurting others, the porn industry?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you know, this as someone who was in the military, and you know, anyone that's been around athletics,

Speaker 1 I have to have good self-awareness before I can have discipline.

Speaker 1 So for us as parents,

Speaker 1 we can't believe that we can just protect our kids from the world.

Speaker 1 You know, the Bible tells us that bad things will happen. You know, the world

Speaker 1 is not

Speaker 1 a safe place. You can't protect your kids from everything.
So I would say the way that you protect them is you inform them.

Speaker 1 So talk about sex in an age-appropriate way that is real and that is helpful.

Speaker 1 There's a book called A Good Book.

Speaker 1 I think it's Good Book, Bad Pictures.

Speaker 1 And so it's, I think it's been around for about 20 years, but there's a theme in it that's helpful for even adults.

Speaker 1 There are bad pictures in the world that you probably will see, but if you see those pictures, that doesn't make you bad.

Speaker 1 So if you see them, if you're hungry, run to mom and dad. Scared, run to mom and dad.
See something you shouldn't see, come tell mom and dad so that we can process it with you.

Speaker 1 Because if you don't create a space to have that conversation, what you don't talk about says something.

Speaker 1 So I would say that's the biggest problem with porn sex, you know, in the church, where it's not talked about in the way that gives people a comfortability of talking about it.

Speaker 1 Because anytime that you would say porn or sex and you cringe, you probably have an unhealthy relationship with it. You know, so like say, hey, you know, sex is this beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 This is how you got here, you know, to your son, to your daughter, and, you know, explain it in a way that makes sense. And also, we need to protect ourselves from the world.

Speaker 1 The world is a dangerous place trying to come at us. So Bark is a really great piece of technology where

Speaker 1 You, you know, bark.org is the website and you get to control everything that your children has access to if they're going to use any kind of smart technology.

Speaker 1 And what I love about it is you get a report of everything that they see and everything that they're sent.

Speaker 1 So if you're allowing them to use text messages, emails, things like that, you will get a notification if someone's, you know, there's bullying, there's any kind of conversation around self-harm, either by them or someone else, anything pornographic, any keywords.

Speaker 1 And then you can have a healthy conversation where instead of being accusatory accusatory of, hey,

Speaker 1 I know that I saw this, you know, you know that I saw this. So, you know, you know, fess up.

Speaker 1 You can say, hey, is there anything that, you know, was said to you or you saw today that you want to talk about with me?

Speaker 1 So I would say that's, that's how we have to navigate that conversation because what we don't say is not helpful, but it also says something.

Speaker 1 Because, you know, Romans 12, 2, either you're being conformed by the world or you're being transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Speaker 1 So, the world is going to teach you, but the prince of the air, the devil, wants to teach you something that's drastically different than what God wants to teach you.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you know, I mean, with the phone stuff, we were just talking about Ryan Montgomery, my friend before the podcast. And he had an interesting quote that made a hell of a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 6 He said,

Speaker 6 when you give your kid a phone, you're not giving your kid access to the world, you're giving the world access to your kid. And that's resonated with me ever since.

Speaker 6 And, you know, but you had mentioned

Speaker 6 you had mentioned it age appropriate when what what is age appropriate now I mean you just mentioned earlier that eight years old is eight year olds how old are your kids so my my kids uh so Cannon is almost seven um but so six four three and one

Speaker 1 so I mean For example, Cannon, last year when he was still six,

Speaker 1 there's this apologetics camp that I always speak at and I teach sexual ethic. And he comes with me because I'm not saying anything that's inappropriate.

Speaker 1 I'm saying everything that's true and everything that I'm saying is biblically accurate.

Speaker 1 So he's heard me, you know, he sits, you know, up on stage and, you know, he's probably like drawing, you know,

Speaker 1 Paw Patrol or something like that, but he's hearing me. He's listening.

Speaker 1 So I would say it's, it's like, there, there's no like line in the sand with kids. Just, you know, pay attention to them and just know your kids.
I mean,

Speaker 6 how do you bring it up? Yeah. Have you had any one-on-ones yet?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, you know, just like, you know, just the fact that we've got four kids, like mommy's pregnant.
You know, where is this baby coming from?

Speaker 1 You know, you know, mommy's parts are different than ours. You know, yet we're, you know, she's, you know, outmanned in our house significantly.

Speaker 1 But they're just asking questions. You know, like, what, you know,

Speaker 1 why do I have something different than mom?

Speaker 1 You know, what,

Speaker 1 where do babies come from? Stuff like that. They're just kind of naturally inquisitive.
So we just tell them truth, you know,

Speaker 1 and I think you, but like, you know, we don't get, you know, over,

Speaker 1 we don't over explain ourselves. We just

Speaker 1 say it, you know, matter of fact. And it is what it is.
And I think like when you make, when you make it a bigger deal than it should be, it becomes a big deal, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, I think about this stuff all the time. You know, I got a

Speaker 6 little ones. Yeah.
And

Speaker 6 it just, man, the shit that's out there now just is terrifying. Yeah.
And I can see how it will,

Speaker 6 I mean, it can destroy

Speaker 6 your mind in those certain aspects of.

Speaker 6 in just so many ways.

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Speaker 1 well and another thing um you know i was sharing with you around like the the whole um incest thing um regarding like the niche and pornography and all the stuff that's happening with um sexual assault but in addition to that um you know image-based like sexual exploitation, you know, that that's a new thing that's on the rise, and especially with young men.

Speaker 1 But the importance of kids not watching porn is this.

Speaker 1 There's a new scam that's on the rise. And I think like so far this year, this has happened, I think, around like 170,000 times.
It's been documented where a kid was approached by a scammer.

Speaker 1 And it, you know, they have a fictitious profile, looks like a cute girl. and they have an interaction with a guy, and they say,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 they send them a fake naked picture, and they said, you send me one back. And once they send one,

Speaker 1 got you.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I want you to send me $500

Speaker 1 or I've hacked your account. I'm going to send this photo to everyone at your school, all of your family.
You got 24 hours. And

Speaker 1 I think around 150 of those kids committed suicide.

Speaker 1 Wow. Because as a teenage boy, you're like, my whole life is ruined.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Or a girl.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's wild because around like, around 90% of those cases are guys.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's everywhere. That's why it's so important to have those conversations because

Speaker 1 you don't send a naked photo to someone you don't know online unless you've been watching pornography.

Speaker 1 Like that's not, you know, a rational thought unless your mind has been corrupted and perverted in a way that, and I believe, you know, maybe there's a, you know, exceptions to this, but for the most part, like that thinking comes from pornography.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you know, I mean,

Speaker 6 I was talking to somebody else and they were talking about, you know, how this, you know, it starts, it starts with regular, it starts with, I don't know, sports illustration. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And then it's, and then it's Playboy, and then it's softcore porn, and then it's hardcore porn, and then it's gangbangs, and then it's, you know, it just gets, and then it goes into the incest stuff.

Speaker 6 And they were talking about how

Speaker 6 young men, boys get addicted to this, and it just keeps getting... you know, more perverted and more perverted and more perverted.

Speaker 6 And at the same time, the kids that are the same age, the girls, are online and they're getting exploited.

Speaker 6 And they're only talking to older men online because or they get they get trapped like you were just saying but it's it's hey do you want this Louis Vuitton bag cool send me this then they're blackmailed or they're not and they're only interested in older men because they shoot some pictures or take some videos of themselves for

Speaker 6 the new iPhone a new purse whatever the latest fad is and so that takes the interest away from the boys So then the boys don't even have anybody to go date. And it's like this fucking thing.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's why, I mean, we live, we're living in a post-Christian United States.

Speaker 1 I mean, luckily, there's been some, you know, progress in the right direction. I saw Bible sales are up 22%,

Speaker 1 you know.

Speaker 1 But for the most part, it's like the world is looking dark and bleak in some ways.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it's nuts, man.

Speaker 6 Yeah. yeah well everybody gets a gift on the show

Speaker 6 gummy bears thank you so much made in the usa no funny business just candy they're horrible for you but they taste great awesome thank you so much yeah you're welcome have something for you oh nice

Speaker 1 so i have uh a copy of my book um

Speaker 1 Copy of my book. And what I love to do.
So that book, so seven lives that'll ruin your life. So really it's like, hey, here are seven lies from culture that negatively impacted my life.

Speaker 1 And then here's seven truths from God's word that kind of eradicated that lie and gave me a new foundation to stand on. And if you, you know, kind of like

Speaker 1 a progressive overloading like workout plan, if you do, you know, 10 sets of two for 10 weeks, you will get stronger. And the same way, if you apply God's word to your life, your life will change.

Speaker 1 But man, my life, like just me, me being in this room, you know,

Speaker 1 how, how, you know, like God had a plan, you know, but I would say

Speaker 1 my life has been made up of people inviting me into places that I don't have any business being into because they saw something in me and people that gave me time that they didn't have.

Speaker 1 And so this is my friend Jonathan Pecluda's new book.

Speaker 1 It says it's called Your Story Has a villain and he just did like a like a two or three year deep dive into spiritual warfare um grew up catholic um kind of you know

Speaker 1 threw it by the wayside and kind of lived for the world and you know was very successful in the marketplace and then came to faith later in life and you know he's he's been part of you know some of those college revivals that you've seen like baptizing thousands of people at uh college campuses and stuff but he was a part of that yeah so he's he's one of the he's one of the people that have been part of each event um him and jenny allen along with um tanya but yeah so he's there preaching at every event and baptizing those kids um but

Speaker 1 it's wild but um because he poured into this guy andrew that poured into me and uh just kind of a neat discipleship circle but i wanted to give you that thank you um because i love love giving people you know literature that was uh it's simple it's clear and uh

Speaker 1 you know it was a it was was a game-changer for me. But he's somebody that, you know, Proverbs 27, 6 talks about the wounds of a friend.
And while, you know, sometimes you need to hear,

Speaker 1 you know, encouragement, but, you know, every once in a while, you need a kick in the butt. You know, so.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Can't wait to die.
But we've been tracking this guy. Yeah.
We've been tracking this guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's a good, good friend of mine.
So he lives in Waco. So he pastors a church in Waco, so a little bit north of me in Dallas.

Speaker 6 Interesting.

Speaker 1 But phenomenal dude. Phenomenal dude.

Speaker 1 He's the biggest, tallest person that I know that does not play basketball.

Speaker 6 Right on. Well, I love the spiritual warfare topic.
It's fascinating. So we'll.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And he's got, you have to ask him about Victor Elsa.

Speaker 6 I will. I will.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 But let's... So I know you grew up in South Carolina, correct? And

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 6 how old were you when you got into the porn industry?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 If I if I could take what you said and just back up a little bit, I think it's so important. So

Speaker 1 I grew up in South Carolina. Mom got pregnant with me when she was 15, had me at 16 in a super small town, like

Speaker 1 one gas station, one grocery store.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my dad was in that town. but never in my life.
And my mom worked at this like

Speaker 1 flounder and fried chicken, you know, like restaurant. And that it had like big glass windows and the windows, I would sit there and I would eat pretty much the same thing.

Speaker 1 I'd pretty much eat the same thing after school every day.

Speaker 1 This is when I was earlier, but I would, I would,

Speaker 1 I would look out that window and it was called Rogers was called the convenience store and Rogers is my grandfather. And also, so it was, and my father was Roger Dale Jr.
and he was Roger Dale Sr.

Speaker 1 And I saw the convenience store and I saw the green Z71 like pull up every once in a while. And

Speaker 1 so I saw him.

Speaker 1 It was my dad. And I saw him.
So

Speaker 1 he was in close enough proximity for me to see him often, but never know him.

Speaker 1 And I was confronted with, so I was confronted with, you know,

Speaker 1 over and over again, not being chosen. And,

Speaker 1 you know, just the way that attachment theory works, you know, neurologically, just how we develop an understanding of our emotions.

Speaker 1 It's like, man, I had this conflict and this chaos that I didn't understand. And the way that I made sense of it, well,

Speaker 1 must be on me. You know, there must be something wrong with me that he's not choosing me.
So

Speaker 1 the best I can do is try to overcome.

Speaker 6 How young were you when you started seeing that?

Speaker 1 Um, I mean

Speaker 1 nine, ten. I mean, when I when I started like comprehending it, yeah, um, but

Speaker 1 all the way through, yeah, my whole life, you know, up until graduated high school.

Speaker 6 No interaction at all, just looking at him through a window.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I, I,

Speaker 1 there was probably like a few times where there was some fumbled, awkward attempt for us to have a conversation. Um, he was never, there was never any malice involved, but um,

Speaker 1 it was just strange.

Speaker 1 And in retrospect,

Speaker 1 at a place now,

Speaker 1 I can have an understanding of, man,

Speaker 1 what stays in the dark grows. And

Speaker 1 today is the easiest day to apologize for the thing that you did today.

Speaker 1 Tomorrow it's going to be even harder. And the next day and the next day and the next day, it's just going to compound over time, especially if there's shame involved.

Speaker 1 So I don't think he was like, man, I don't want to be this kid's dad. Maybe he didn't know what to say.
And then so much time passed by, he just became crippled by it.

Speaker 1 But either way, it impacted me, you know?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so then I go to college, study theater.

Speaker 1 I was in a fraternity, all the stuff. And I was sharing earlier with someone,

Speaker 1 one of your team members, I was sharing how my fraternity brother was the one who taught me how to tie a tie for the first time because our fraternity, we wore, you know, suit and tie on Tuesdays in a pin.

Speaker 1 And they were like, man, you can't be wearing a clip on.

Speaker 1 You'll get a SmackDown for that. And I was like, man, I don't know how to tie a tie.
And I remember my big brother teaching me how to tie this single Windsor tie.

Speaker 1 And it, you know, stuck with me forever.

Speaker 1 And just like moments like that,

Speaker 1 it's this like duality of

Speaker 1 I'll always be this like kid that his daddy didn't want, but also like, man, I need guys in my life to teach me something, you know,

Speaker 1 but, but kind of like with that foundation, I believed in my, you know, core of my being is like, man, um, if I earn enough, if I become enough, if I do enough, maybe

Speaker 1 I'll feel as if I'm enough.

Speaker 1 And what I really wanted to hear was, son, I'm proud of you.

Speaker 1 And because I never heard that, I thought I could earn it from the world.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I was just kind of one of those guys where, like, everything I did, I found success in. Like, I was a good, I was a good ball player.
I was good at acting.

Speaker 1 I had a lot of success in modeling.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 kind of took that to Hollywood and I had an agent and I was having more success in modeling than acting, but everything was great. I was living in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 Had a great place to stay, had a good friend group, had a great agent, had opportunities.

Speaker 6 I just want to backtrack real quick. I mean,

Speaker 6 I think that affects a lot of people.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 And, you know, with my kids, I've made it a point.

Speaker 6 I make it a point to make sure I tell my kids I'm proud of them every day, multiple times a day. Tell them why I'm proud of them.
Not just, hey, I'm proud of you. I tell them why I'm proud of them.

Speaker 6 And even if they don't understand, you know, it's,

Speaker 6 it's, it's, it's in there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, I think what, what you said is, it's so important, that, that added layer, because it's one thing

Speaker 1 to say, I'm proud of you, or you did a good job, um, or, or whatever that might be, but when you make it intentional and explain why, um,

Speaker 1 I feel like that would be even more meaningful and allow them to understand. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, kind of all that foundation led me to that moment of

Speaker 1 being in Hollywood and, you know, still acting like an idiot, like living like an absolute fool.

Speaker 1 But, you know, kind of with all that factored in, I saw porn for the first time when I was 13.

Speaker 1 Never

Speaker 1 saw my mom in a healthy relationship. She was married for a very short period of time to someone who was very abusive, drug addict.

Speaker 1 So outside of that, I never saw her in a healthy dynamic.

Speaker 1 My grandmother and grandfather, they didn't sleep in the same bed. My grandfather was like fishing every day, you know, like

Speaker 1 bad back or whatever. They didn't share a bed.
But I just had no like foundation of what is a healthy relationship? What is love? What is intimacy?

Speaker 1 What is, you know, never had a sex talk, saw porn when I was 13. And I thought, man,

Speaker 1 maybe if I

Speaker 1 act out what I'll, what I'm seeing in this magazine, maybe I'll feel what I don't.

Speaker 1 And, you know, that was kind of the start of me living a very promiscuous lifestyle. In addition to that, where you, you know, did you ever, did you ever, did your dad ever come into the picture?

Speaker 6 Still to this day?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, I have a, I have a really great story about forgiveness

Speaker 1 because at the end of the day, it's like,

Speaker 1 I'd say

Speaker 1 I love that I get to share. Thank you for asking that.

Speaker 1 And I love that

Speaker 1 I have the platform that I do today with the maturity that I do. Because when I used to talk about him,

Speaker 1 when I used to talk about him,

Speaker 1 I think I did it in a way that I was still a little bit angry with him.

Speaker 1 But I've I forgave him. And it was just, it was a big moment for me because, you know, know, when

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 forgiveness is easy or easier

Speaker 1 when

Speaker 1 you know that reconciliation is on the other side.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 when reconciliation doesn't meet your expectations, are you still willing to forgive?

Speaker 1 Meaning that,

Speaker 1 why would I forgive my dad if he's not going to become my dad and become a grandfather to my kids? Why would I forgive him? Why would I forgive the person that's not going to change?

Speaker 1 Why would I forgive the person that did wrong and is not going to, you know,

Speaker 1 be sorry for it or pay a price for that? Like, I understand that God is, you know, a God of justice and justice will be served in the end, but

Speaker 1 we often find ourselves saying,

Speaker 1 I want to play God in some way. I want to control the outcome.
I want to have some kind of autonomy. And I'll forgive if

Speaker 1 not in the not in God's economy, not in God's kingdom.

Speaker 1 We forgive because we've been forgiven. And when you don't forgive, the thing that

Speaker 1 the person who pays the price is you.

Speaker 1 And for a long time, I was dealing with, man, like, you know, it was on the other side of me conquering all these other things, like all these addictions and traumas and lust and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 But I was still wrestling with a little bit of anger issues. And

Speaker 1 it was because I would, like, in my heart of hearts, I would say, man,

Speaker 1 the messed up stuff that people say about me

Speaker 1 or say about me to my wife or say

Speaker 1 about my kids or whatever.

Speaker 1 There was a little part of me that said,

Speaker 1 Dad, if you would have been there, I wouldn't have done those things and this wouldn't have been happening. So it's kind of your fault.

Speaker 1 and I had to come to come to grips with that's not true

Speaker 1 like my trauma impacted the way that I saw the world yes

Speaker 1 but I upon my own volition I made those decisions I have free will so I had to take ownership of my mistakes and I had to let go of that for him so

Speaker 1 So I speak about him very differently. I speak with him.
I speak about him with more empathy today

Speaker 1 than I have in the past.

Speaker 1 We don't have the relationship that I wish we did, but...

Speaker 6 Where'd you learn forgiveness from?

Speaker 1 Victor.

Speaker 6 Me too. Me too.
Really? Yeah, no bullshit.

Speaker 6 After hearing his story,

Speaker 6 and he forgave his dad and what he did.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I was like, whoa. And he called me one day and told me I needed

Speaker 6 to forgive somebody for something they did

Speaker 6 that is a friend of his. And

Speaker 6 I was like, are you fucking asking me to forgive this asshole?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 he's like, yes, I am. And I was like,

Speaker 6 I was like,

Speaker 6 man, after what you've been through, it's really hard to say no to you, but

Speaker 6 I'll figure out how to do it. And you know what I realized, for me at least, forgiveness isn't for the other person.

Speaker 6 Forgiveness is for yourself because you imprison yourself in that fucking resentment and that anger.

Speaker 6 And it just never leaves. And every time

Speaker 6 the name comes up, it's like...

Speaker 6 But if you can, and it's hard, it is hard, man, to just let it go.

Speaker 6 You've like...

Speaker 6 You pull yourself out of that prison.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 but I learned that from Victor, too.

Speaker 6 And I tell people that, and I thought, you know, I don't, I don't know if it resonates or not, but you have to think of that's how that's how I have to think of it.

Speaker 6 If I don't forgive this person, it's going to eat me alive. Yeah.
And

Speaker 6 it will eat you alive. Yeah.
And when I was able to do it, like, it

Speaker 6 man, it's like having a 10,000-pound rucksack lifted off your back. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 6 so, so you forgave your dad? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Did you tell him him that? Yeah.

Speaker 6 How did that go?

Speaker 1 I mean, it was super emotional. I mean,

Speaker 1 I was so like,

Speaker 1 I'd made up my mind what I was going to say before, you know, it got too far. So as soon as I got him on the phone, I said it soon and

Speaker 1 he apologized.

Speaker 6 What did he say?

Speaker 1 He didn't, I don't remember much about it. You know, it was more,

Speaker 1 it wasn't this like, he's not an emotional guy. You know, it was like,

Speaker 1 it wasn't like I conjured up in my head.

Speaker 1 I thought it was going to be this like green, this groundbreaking moment where, you know, I thought it was going to be like, you know, rocky and Apollo, like, you know, dapping up on the beach.

Speaker 1 But, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 6 What did you say?

Speaker 1 I said, well, I said, I'm sorry that I blamed you for every bad thing that I've ever done.

Speaker 1 And I've been holding a lot of resentment for you not being there. And I missed you a lot.
I needed you.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the frustration that I have in my life and the unforgiveness that I have in my heart, I want to let it go.

Speaker 1 And he pretty much said me too, you know, said he was sorry for not being there.

Speaker 1 That was kind of it.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know,

Speaker 1 my prayer is that

Speaker 1 my life and the way that I pursue him is healing for him in some way, because I can't imagine

Speaker 1 what goes on in his head, in his heart, in turn.

Speaker 6 That's what I was just going to say, too. Another thing that kind of

Speaker 6 helps me is knowing, like,

Speaker 6 I mean, you have to be able to, like, I guess you don't have to, but to put yourself in their shoes and to have to carry the guilt of never being around

Speaker 6 had a massive

Speaker 6 part in how things turned out or how they didn't turn out.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And, I mean,

Speaker 6 they're going to carry that shit for the rest of their life. They think about this stuff.
Unless they're a total narcissist, you know, which most people aren't.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's every day of their life that's haunting them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and, and, um, and that impacts everyone they touch.

Speaker 6 Yep. Yep.

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Speaker 6 Man.

Speaker 6 All right. So back to back to Hollywood.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So kind of all that leading up to me being in Hollywood.
And

Speaker 1 I was at this bar, saddle wrench, so like mechanical bulls and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 these three girls walk up to me and they were headhunters for the porn industry.

Speaker 1 And they worked with a porn agent, and they asked me straight up, like, hey, would you be interested in being in a porn? And I was like,

Speaker 1 not really, you know, but maybe.

Speaker 1 I didn't have a, I think it's like when you don't have a good reason to say no, sometimes you say yes to something you should say no to, you know.

Speaker 1 But they, you know, like some people asked me, like, was it, is there a correlation between sex trafficking and the porn industry?

Speaker 1 And think about trafficking, you know, generally involves force, fraud, and coercion. And, you know, people ask me, well, you know, is that, does some of that exist in the porn industry?

Speaker 1 It doesn't exist. It is completely dependent on it.

Speaker 1 It's manipulation is, you know,

Speaker 1 at the cornerstone of the porn industry. And that the girls were trained to use language where they're in a place where you know a lot of people are trying to make it and they're using you know

Speaker 1 meet with our agent and you'll do an interview and you'll you know he'll help you with your career and and all that stuff you know he'll and it's it's almost like

Speaker 1 you know when when we say things or when we call things different than what they are it creates this unrealistic barrier and that you know we we say um we don't want to say porn we say adult film industry yet porn is a word that is from the the greek new testament so pornea um and it's you know but we we want to say adult film industry but when we say that trying not to be abrasive what are we saying we're we're insinuating that that's adult behavior that's how adults act you know um

Speaker 1 so it's just so interesting that they would use specific language of saying agent this and that. And then they essentially they were like, hey, if you want to do this,

Speaker 1 you'll meet with our agent. And I was like, you know, I've been watching porn for a long time.
I've been acting like an idiot forever.

Speaker 1 If I get paid for what I'm already doing, like maybe, you know, that would be cool.

Speaker 6 How old are you at this point? 22. You're only 22? Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, just being totally honest, if I was 22 and got approached with that, I'd probably have been, yes. Yeah.
You're going to pay me to bang hot women. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's do it. That's pretty much what I heard.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I and I go and I meet with this guy. And

Speaker 6 it's three attractive

Speaker 1 smoking hot girls.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, so I'm like, sure, I'll meet with the guy. You know, like,

Speaker 1 and I thought, so I had like in my head, I'm like, if it's weird,

Speaker 1 I'll just, you know, hide. If if i'm if i go to the place and it's like

Speaker 1 you know at a hostel or at like a you know yeah yeah some sketchy like motel and he's like a guy like picking lint out of his belly button you know i'm just gonna get out of there but it was at you know a uh like a business complex and in studio city adjacent to universal studios walk in you know they brought me in through like the like underground like parking garages and they're just like you know, the Bentleys and Beamers everywhere.

Speaker 1 And I could go up and walk through this hallway. He's got, you know, almost like if you were a sport agent, how you would have all, you know, any players you represent.

Speaker 1 So they were, you know, anyone that was on the cover of penthouse, Playboy, Hustler, whatever.

Speaker 1 And I'm walking through and sit there, reception. It's like, you know, his name is Derek.
And like, Derek will be right with you.

Speaker 1 And I'm waiting, and there's like porn on the, you know, the coffee table in the waiting area. area he calls me into his office and sits me down he's like so tell me um how did you grow up

Speaker 1 what are you doing in la

Speaker 1 and um what do you hope to accomplish

Speaker 1 how did you grow up i know but like in retrospect i didn't think about it but looking for broken homes yeah well yeah i was like did you grow up not having something that i can that i can use to manipulate you to do what i want so i can extract value from you

Speaker 1 100 yes That's what he was saying, but I was too naive to hear it. How'd you grow up? Just me and my mom.
Perfect. You know, should have been a red, a red flag, it was a green flag for him.

Speaker 1 What do you, you know, what do you, you know, what are you doing in LA? Modeling, acting, you know, doing what most people are out here doing, trying to make it, trying to live out my dream, whatever.

Speaker 1 What year is this?

Speaker 1 This is 2006.

Speaker 6 2006.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then he was like, well, what do you hope to accomplish and i was like

Speaker 1 yes be famous

Speaker 1 and um what's sad about that is you know famous is

Speaker 1 you know objective it's it's fictitious because you know if you think um

Speaker 1 you know if if enough people know, you know, how many people need to know who I am to equate to being famous? Like, how many followers do you need to have? You know, like, what's what's the mark?

Speaker 1 And if there's no mark, there's no measure. If there's no measure, there's no reality, you know?

Speaker 1 And if you get to the place that you thought if you would get to, that you would feel some sort of way, and you don't, you just increase the measure.

Speaker 1 You know, being rich is the same way. It's like, if I had this, I would feel that, you know, over and over again.
And we, we know the deal. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1 But I thought, man, if I become somebody, I will feel like I'm somebody. And again, what I was trying to do is I was trying to, you know, stack the scale in my favor enough where

Speaker 1 this, the kid that didn't have the dad

Speaker 1 would feel like I was wanted, seen, heard, known.

Speaker 1 And he kind of spoke into all that. He's like, man, he's like, you've got acting experience.
The porn industry is shifting. We're parroting all these movies.
They're doing big films.

Speaker 1 Like, you can be the lead in all these.

Speaker 1 You can make a ton of money.

Speaker 1 Like, you can do like by doing the films and you can do, you know, marketing with this i've got deals with clubs in vegas they'll bring you out you'll you'll sit in the vip and they'll they'll pay you ten thousand dollars just to be there you know like all this stuff

Speaker 1 and you know like my career was going okay um but i was having more success modeling than i was acting i really wanted to act that was my passion um but i

Speaker 1 But there was a part of me, again, I couldn't shake that like, man,

Speaker 1 maybe I'm just not good enough to make it you know at 22

Speaker 1 you know your modeling career is is not peaked out but you know most people have their their best years modeling like 16 to 21

Speaker 1 not that's not definitively true across the board but you know a lot of people do acting has this big you know a lot longer you know range

Speaker 1 And I just thought, man, I just don't have the capability of being successful because

Speaker 1 you know, what was that based on? Well, me,

Speaker 1 you know, comparing myself on my peers.

Speaker 1 And a lot of people that were in the same network as me or even had the same agent as me, they were doing, you know, they had booked their first lead role or they've done this and they've done that.

Speaker 1 And I hadn't quite done as much as they've done. So I must not be good enough.
And I thought, man, maybe this is just a, you know, a counterfeit version of the dream that I have.

Speaker 1 And I should hop on this boat before it leaves because maybe this is as good as it's going to get for me.

Speaker 6 Did he tell you that as well during the meeting? Did he destroy your dreams of what you wanted to do to get what you wanted?

Speaker 1 I did that to myself.

Speaker 6 You did that to yourself, he threw all this money on and everything on you, right? Yeah, right at the get-go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I, and I, and I said, okay, well, you know, where do we start? And it's so interesting because you were already in before you were in, yeah.

Speaker 1 Um, well, at least I was like, well, I'll do one.

Speaker 1 You know, I'll do one. We'll see.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's like, okay, well, you got to go get a full STD test and AIDS test.

Speaker 1 And when that panel comes back, it generally takes 24 hours. When that panel comes back,

Speaker 1 I'll set up a shoot for you.

Speaker 1 And I was like, you know. Great.
Sounds good.

Speaker 1 I was thinking like, all right, I'm going to get paid to like, you know, take a camcorder and go, like, hook up with this hot girl and then I'm going to get a check.

Speaker 1 I do the test. I go there and it's full-blown like

Speaker 1 any other like, you know, the biggest project I've done.

Speaker 1 I walk in as a receptionist, and it's so interesting. I'd love to dig into this, come back to it.
So they give me paperwork to sign. This is how you get paid.
Sign here, sign here, sign here.

Speaker 1 So so many people they own the ip oh yeah yeah all of it yeah all of it 100

Speaker 1 so so so many people ask you know they just like especially when they see that i'm a christian and specifically see that i do ministry vocationally um they're like well um did you give the money back and are you what are you doing the the with the residuals what are you doing with the royalties royalties and residuals don't exist in porn you're a day rate employee and you you give away everything But not only do you sign away everything, what you're signing, the last thing you sign is

Speaker 1 saying that they reserve the right to

Speaker 1 disperse and to sell to as many third parties for an,

Speaker 1 you know, a

Speaker 1 forever

Speaker 1 time limit.

Speaker 1 So they, so what happens is you do a porn and all of a sudden my pictures are on dating sites. My pictures are on sex toys.
My pictures are on billboards. Am I compensated for any of that no

Speaker 1 you know um

Speaker 1 but anyway they i sign all that paperwork and i walk in and there's you know girls in the in a makeup chair and you know like a big you know studio there's catering there's all this stuff and then there's this like day bed and there's this like sea of lights around this girl and you know the the PA that's with me is like that's the girl you're going to be working with um she's taking you know some photos

Speaker 1 She's taking some photos, and

Speaker 1 we'll need you about 30-40 minutes. We understand this is your first time.
So here's a Viagra, put it in my hand. He's like, if you've never taken it before, I'd buy it in half.

Speaker 1 So I was like, oh my gosh, like, what, you know, what have I gotten myself into?

Speaker 1 And I'm like in the bathroom, like, you know, still, you know, pretty much a kid, you know, and I'm like talking to myself in the mirror, like, you know, what are you going to do?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I felt like

Speaker 1 I'd gone too far to turn back but again

Speaker 1 everything's so intentional you knew it wasn't the right thing right oh yeah I mean I I'm just waiting on my mom to jump out and like judo chop me in the throat

Speaker 1 but but but so intentional I got I got picked up in a town car I was not told the address that I was going to. So what did I have to do if I wanted to leave?

Speaker 1 I'd have to call the agent and say, hey, you know, like a kid that went to a sleepover that changed their mind. Like, hey, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm scared. I want to come home.

Speaker 1 So I felt like I couldn't make that call.

Speaker 1 And I think so many of us will do something and we believe the lie that's from Satan.

Speaker 1 We'll believe a lie that's from Satan that

Speaker 1 you've gone too far to turn back.

Speaker 1 So your only choice is to keep going.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of

Speaker 1 what I did so I popped the whole thing drank a bottle of water

Speaker 1 and walked out there and waited a few minutes and

Speaker 1 you know when you take Vager you start to feel like feel blotchy like in your chest and and I was like I was like am I gonna pass out like what you know what's going on and

Speaker 1 They kind of waved me over and I never had any kind of interaction with the girl. Like I never

Speaker 1 talked to her. Like I didn't even know like what her stage name was her real name was i wasn't sure because all you do is you so you sign that so they have uh photocopies of her id

Speaker 1 and then uh a printout of her std and aids test and you have to see that the test is current so it has to be um 27 days or newer and um her id has to be valid and not expired.

Speaker 1 So I have to look at that, match the names, and I have to sign that I saw it. And that was the only interaction I had with her.
Walk over to

Speaker 1 the scene and pretty much the, you know, this is, this is still, this is, you know, somewhat back in the day. So like bigger cameras.
So the director has this camera and the

Speaker 1 videographer has this big camera and he's kind of like over my shoulder.

Speaker 1 And the girl is not looking at me, looking at the camera. So it's like, you know, the fantasy that you

Speaker 1 become to believe when you watch porn is there's this like intense connection between the girl and the guy, it's a hundred percent disconnection, no kidding.

Speaker 1 Well, because the director is telling you what to do and telling you how to do it, and you're not having sex for pleasure, you're having sex for show, so it literally has to show.

Speaker 1 So, you're strategically doing it in a way that is visible,

Speaker 1 so it's very uncomfortable,

Speaker 1 and you're it's it's performance art at best it's certainly not sex regarding what we would know it to be um

Speaker 1 so i that happens and i was like man um i felt pretty disgusting afterwards how long does it take i mean

Speaker 1 you know it just depends on like what's going on what it is how many people were in the room probably 20.

Speaker 6 20 people yeah

Speaker 1 it was It was wild. I mean, like, again, like, there was, you know, boom mic over my head, someone literally, like, holding a sea light like underneath my junk.

Speaker 1 Holy shit. You know, camera A, camera B, someone shooting BTS.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 most of the girls, they either have, you know, someone that's there with them.

Speaker 1 They would call them a boyfriend more often than not, a pimp,

Speaker 1 that's there watching.

Speaker 6 You know, sometimes. How many women had you slept with before this, approximately?

Speaker 1 I mean, probably hundreds.

Speaker 6 Hundreds of 22?

Speaker 1 Maybe not hundreds, but probably a hundred.

Speaker 1 Man.

Speaker 1 And but I did that and I was like, I felt, man, that was, and I just, I can't, I'll just always remember it. So on my way home, I'm in this town car going home and it's like, like.

Speaker 6 What about afterwards? Hold on. What about afterwards?

Speaker 1 is there any interaction with the other with the woman with the talent no like as soon as you finish like you move because like as soon as you orgasm like they want to take pictures of that and then you get you just like you you're like you're done

Speaker 1 shuffled out oh yeah and then they want to take photos and and stuff

Speaker 1 yeah so you're you're out of there but it was like it was so interesting so there was like showers on set um but i remember there there there was like there was not body wash in the shower there was just like dial hand soap um and i was just like trying to wash myself with that and then i'm in the town car and i'm on my way home and it's like i can still feel the like

Speaker 1 lube in the hair of my legs i just felt gross and then i got home and i like took this like

Speaker 1 shower um have you seen redeeming love no it's just it's a it's a it's a faith-based film but essentially there's a girl that works in a brothel. She meets a guy that has a faith.

Speaker 1 They connect and he's kind of like trying to get a faith. A faith.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he's trying to lead her to the Lord and also like wanting to be with her. But like for us to be together, like, I want you to follow the Lord.

Speaker 1 And there's this. point where

Speaker 1 she's

Speaker 1 and I mean I can just relate to this so much where like there's something inside her that was craving the only thing that she knew which was chaos because like you know he's in a in a cottage on a farm now they're eating good food

Speaker 1 but that's it they're on a farm it's just him and her this is like you know this is pre um you know television and internet you know it's just them

Speaker 1 It was like she was going crazy not experiencing chaos and she ended up going back to the brothel and she, you know, turned a trick

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 it didn't feel the same. And she felt so dirty and so disgusting.
She couldn't believe that she went back to the thing that she wanted to be rescued from.

Speaker 1 And there's this scene where she's in this like river and she's got a rock and she's scrubbing her body. But what she's trying to scrub off is not on a surface level.

Speaker 1 And man, I've took many of those showers.

Speaker 6 Damn.

Speaker 1 And, but I was like, never going to do it again.

Speaker 6 It hits you right off the bat.

Speaker 1 Oh, I was, it was great before it even happened. And I got paid like 500 bucks.
And I was like, man, I got paid 500 bucks to do that. And like,

Speaker 1 I mean, it was not sexy. The girl was not super attractive.

Speaker 1 There was no positive experience.

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, I could make $500 like bartending at a bar in Hollywood. I mean, there's like 500 bucks for that.
I'm like,

Speaker 1 what a mistake that was. You know, I'm out.

Speaker 1 But, you know, 2006, different world. So that I didn't realize that that scene was for the most popular website.

Speaker 1 um the most popular porn website in america at that time and they they they they shoot like three to five scenes a day and they post every day. So the turnaround was pretty quick.

Speaker 1 So it was up the next week.

Speaker 6 What was the website?

Speaker 1 It was like Naughty America or something like that.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was like, so all of a sudden, like a few of my fraternity brothers and then a few other people was like, dude, I saw you on this website. I saw you on this website.
I saw you on this website.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, you know, being from a small town, the thing about a small town, it only takes one person to know one thing about your life for everyone to know everything about your life.

Speaker 1 And someone told my uncle at work, and then my uncle told my mom. And then I get a phone call from my mom.

Speaker 1 And, you know, growing up in the South, like, how much of your name is used is how much trouble you're in. And I heard, you know, when I answered the phone, like, Joshua Luke Broom,

Speaker 1 did you do a porn? You know, did you do a porno film?

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 I was like, I did, mom.

Speaker 1 And like, in that moment, like,

Speaker 1 Satan just put his foot on my throat. Because I already believed there was something wrong with me.

Speaker 1 But I can remember it so clearly. Because when I heard

Speaker 1 the pain in her voice, when she said, Why did you do that?

Speaker 1 Satan said to me,

Speaker 1 See,

Speaker 1 you're exactly who you thought you were.

Speaker 1 You're not a kid that does bad things,

Speaker 1 You are bad.

Speaker 1 And then I begin to shrink.

Speaker 1 And I begin to believe, man,

Speaker 1 I hurt the only person that ever hurt me.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm not even good enough to be her son.

Speaker 1 And then a few days go by, and then my manager calls me.

Speaker 1 Normally when they want me to come by,

Speaker 1 the agency to have an in-person meeting, it's a good thing. It's like, hey, here's an offer on the table, and you know, let's assess it.
Do you want to accept it?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 your name's attached to

Speaker 1 a pornography website. That's a big problem for us.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of you, but we're going to have to end our professional relationship. You're fired.

Speaker 1 So now I'm like,

Speaker 1 now what?

Speaker 1 I blew up up my whole life.

Speaker 6 Damn. On the very first one.

Speaker 1 So then, like, well, what do I do?

Speaker 1 And then I begin to believe the lie that the only thing that I could do as a 22-year-old is continuing to do the very thing that created so much turmoil in my life because that was the only viable option.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 in perfect timing, agent calls me, porn agent calls me, hey man,

Speaker 1 that scene went viral. I'd love to offer you a contract.

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 6 What did your mom say after you told her yes?

Speaker 1 She was hurt, disappointed.

Speaker 1 Told me that I probably needed to move back home.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 1 And if I'm honest, I didn't know what to say.

Speaker 1 I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say. You know,

Speaker 1 I didn't say I was sorry.

Speaker 1 I just kind of,

Speaker 1 yeah, you know, I did it.

Speaker 1 I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 1 So I didn't say anything.

Speaker 6 How's your relationship with your mom today?

Speaker 1 Oh, so good.

Speaker 6 It is?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Good. I'm happy to hear that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, that

Speaker 1 the porn agent calls me and like, hey, you know, want to sign you to a contract. And so I doubled down.
I was like, well you know

Speaker 1 i i'd found some way to for the most part everything that i've done in life i'm relatively successful at and i thought well i have good work ethic um i i have good communication and people skills so i feel like i can really figure out this industry so i i feel like i can become the guy and i did you know over seven years I

Speaker 1 did over a thousand films,

Speaker 1 won around 20 different awards directed for some big companies wrote some movies starred in you know some of the biggest you know grossing movies that they've you know ever put out like in the porn industry and uh because they did crazy stuff like we uh we did um like We did a Star Wars movie, and I played Han Solo.

Speaker 1 And like, it was thinking, like, most people just think, oh, they had sex. Like, well, it was shot over several months.
Like, they, they built a replica, like, Millennial Falcon.

Speaker 1 Like, we had, like, actual, like, replicas of, like, guns and stuff and costumes and grew my hair out and stuff.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, and then as I'm doing that, it's like a little part of me was like, oh, this is art in a way, but it's like, still, you know, still porn.

Speaker 1 But doubled down and had a lot of success and got nominated for Performer of the Year four times.

Speaker 1 and I didn't win it until 2012. Won it in 2012 and I thought, man, if I ever won that award,

Speaker 1 that would solidify for me,

Speaker 1 you know, my worth. And if I just won that award, like...

Speaker 1 I had this belief that something would happen. Like something supernatural would just happen like in me.
Like the

Speaker 1 feeling of, you know, worthlessness or inadequacy or whatever i i wrestle with on the pillow at night it'll just go away if i won that award then i won it

Speaker 1 and nothing happened and when nothing happened everything got worse

Speaker 6 let's take a quick break

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Speaker 6 All right, Joshua, we're back from the break. Kind of,

Speaker 6 we hit your first film, and then we breezed through everything else, yeah, pretty much. But I think we left off with thousand film, thousand plus films.
You won the uh

Speaker 1 well, you won the award

Speaker 6 male performer of the year.

Speaker 6 And so, I'm just, I mean, it sounds like you got

Speaker 6 I mean, just a household name in the industry. Yeah.
And so, you know, we want, I really want to get a snapshot of what that lifestyle is like.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 so a thousand plus films in how many years?

Speaker 1 Six and a half.

Speaker 6 Six and a half years.

Speaker 6 So how much

Speaker 6 are you on camera

Speaker 6 performing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I was just every day.

Speaker 1 Well, because like the industry, so the award show is in January, and everyone's trying to get stuff turned in for the year

Speaker 1 to submit for that. So, to make it, because if something wins an award, then you know, it has notoriety, you can push it, etc.
So, kind of the industry

Speaker 1 doesn't shut down, but slows down significantly in

Speaker 1 December and January.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 like, so really like 10-month increments,

Speaker 1 I was doing

Speaker 1 20 scenes a month minimum. And then during the summer, sometimes, you know, I was shooting two, three times a day.
I do, I think I've done like 40-something in a month

Speaker 1 was the most I did.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 6 well, I mean, what constitutes an award?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, you know,

Speaker 6 the view counts. What is it?

Speaker 1 So, I mean, there's

Speaker 1 used to be on Showtime, you know, it was

Speaker 1 voted by fans and the studios.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And then, you know, you had mentioned

Speaker 6 on the first, on the first shoot, there was no interaction between you and the woman, at least verbally. And so

Speaker 6 as you grew in that industry, I mean, there had to be more human interaction other than sexual intercourse, interaction right yeah and so who who are your

Speaker 6 like what's the lifestyle who are your friends what do you do i mean what is what is it like

Speaker 1 yeah i mean for the most part like

Speaker 1 you were friends with and if you dated you dated from inside the the pool of the people who are in that industry um

Speaker 1 like your friend group wasn't exclusive to people who were just in that industry, but

Speaker 1 dating, it would be really hard to,

Speaker 1 maybe not in today's age, but

Speaker 1 it was hard to kind of say,

Speaker 1 what do you, you know, you're, you're meeting someone, you know, at the gym or wherever you might meet someone and, you know, get to talking about what you do for a living. It's like, well,

Speaker 1 I'm a porn star, you know.

Speaker 1 That's probably not

Speaker 1 going to be someone you you know see yourself compatible with

Speaker 1 um maybe for a flame but not a relationship you know um

Speaker 1 so people would date um from within the industry and that

Speaker 1 um i think was a large part of my mental and emotional demise in that

Speaker 1 I was dating someone for a while

Speaker 1 in the industry for almost two years

Speaker 1 and she was already popular became even more popular

Speaker 1 who was it uh

Speaker 1 like her asa akira is uh her

Speaker 1 you know her name so she was she's like the face of porn hub now um she's a spokesperson for porn hub um she's you know gone viral for multiple things like crazy things she said but

Speaker 1 um but she was you know,

Speaker 1 she was my person at that time, and, but the reason you guys still interact? No, no, I mean, I haven't, I haven't spoken to her,

Speaker 1 you know, since

Speaker 1 like well over 10 years.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 the, the thing was, you know, if, if all my friends are in that industry and my, you know, girlfriend is in that industry,

Speaker 1 you, you, you live in this suppression of reality in that we would say that we were in a monogamous relationship while having sex with other people just calling the work in which we did you know or calling you know us having sex with other people at work we would just call that

Speaker 1 work it wasn't sex it was just work

Speaker 1 so they didn't count

Speaker 1 And we suppressed that as reality. But what we claimed as reality is that we were in a monogamous relationship because off camera and on camera were two different realities.

Speaker 1 But then you're faced with, I'm sitting at, you know, Mastro's and Beverly Hills with a friend of mine, and he's there with

Speaker 1 his girlfriend, and my friend had had sex with my girlfriend on Monday, and I had sex with his girlfriend that day. And we're pretending as if

Speaker 1 that's not real and it's not problematic to the atmosphere and when you suppress reality chaos is a promise is it an outward appearance or is i mean is it always in your head i don't know or do you actually do you actually trick your mind into oh yeah i mean i was in a place where i mean i could have sex you know and and i would i would do them it's like i would have sex in a in a theater in front of hundreds of thousands of people and especially in Europe and

Speaker 1 not think twice about it.

Speaker 6 Wait, what?

Speaker 1 Yeah, they would have live sex shows used to be a thing. Like now, you know how people are taking.

Speaker 6 I'm talking to thousands of people.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Or, you know, how now it's become popular to take your podcast on the road to have that live element.

Speaker 1 Well, instead of watching a porn,

Speaker 1 you know, on a screen, you would watch it happen live.

Speaker 1 That was a thing for a while. But

Speaker 1 I could do that, drop a hat, like no, no problem at all. Like, you know, not face me.
But you look me in the eye and shake my hand, tears would stream down my face because that was real.

Speaker 1 It was terrifying.

Speaker 6 Jeez.

Speaker 1 Like, that's how much I had suppressed reality.

Speaker 6 When's the first time you did it live

Speaker 6 in front of a live audience?

Speaker 1 I think it was in

Speaker 1 probably two years in,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 it was either in Vegas or

Speaker 1 was one of the first times. And then like stuff like that happens a lot, like in Europe or like Barcelona.

Speaker 6 Do you remember the first time?

Speaker 6 I don't. No.

Speaker 1 Everything just became so like there was no interaction that was more special than the others. The only thing that like

Speaker 1 um, I have like real memories around is, like,

Speaker 1 the roles I played, where there was like significant,

Speaker 1 you know, there was a script to learn, a character to play, um, things that were outside of,

Speaker 1 you know, the, the, the sex aspect. Because in a porn, you know, because like

Speaker 1 Star Wars, we filmed, you know, over three or four months. There's five sex scenes, you know,

Speaker 1 which takes you know a few hours to film so

Speaker 1 like there was a lot of the movie that wasn't sex so i just like that like that whole thing that whole experience was very memorable to me um

Speaker 1 but yeah i mean the the sex it just the sex and the people

Speaker 1 it just

Speaker 6 So everybody had convinced themselves that, you know, it was in a monogamous relationship inside that industry. Everybody had had convinced themselves mentally that

Speaker 1 this is on screen doesn't matter or or off screen this is or even yeah or either that or the polar opposite of like they're all in and they're swingers 24 7 and like sex is just you know sex and and high fiving someone it's all the same let's just have a party have fun you know um

Speaker 1 because some people like some people could, like, work as a director and someone be having sex with their, you know, significant other and they would just film it and it would just be

Speaker 1 whatever.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 or,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 and I just, for me, like, again, uh,

Speaker 1 single parent, you know, like my mom was young. She's a beautiful woman.
Like, I remember like,

Speaker 1 throwing cans of like corn like at a guy, like,

Speaker 1 like trying to talk to my mom, like, get away from my mom. I'm going to protect my mom.
So like jealous kid turned into jealous boyfriend,

Speaker 1 which turned into, even though I was in that industry, I was, I like, that was my girl.

Speaker 1 I didn't want anyone to touch her, which, which is how I felt, but I had to suppress that feeling because of what I said.

Speaker 1 And I think that would, you know, bring up an interesting point where People say, you know, I love what I do.

Speaker 1 Well, if you love what you do, let's let's, you know, go back to that moment where I said yes to being in the porn industry well I'm gonna make I'm gonna make you famous

Speaker 1 okay Derek you're gonna make me famous

Speaker 1 what what's what's the first thing I do what's next you know okay well we got to pick you

Speaker 1 a name to go by

Speaker 1 sorry I gotta pick it pick you a name to go by

Speaker 1 You go by a pseudonym.

Speaker 1 Because if I can get you to detach yourself from who you are, you will do things that are outside of and different

Speaker 1 than things that you would ever do. Like you think about social media,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 the antagonist on the other side that's, you know, talking trash to everyone online. What are two things that are always common of that person?

Speaker 1 They have an obscure username and they have, you know, a meme or a random photo as their photo. Because if I can detach detach who I am from what I do, then I'm not held accountable for what I do.

Speaker 1 So it's not me doing the things. In the porn industry, very same thing.
I'm going to get you to go by a pseudonym because I can get you to detach yourself from your humanity.

Speaker 6 That's interesting.

Speaker 1 So that was the first thing I did.

Speaker 1 So kind of, you know, with that, you know, that thought

Speaker 1 in our mind,

Speaker 1 you know, who I am,

Speaker 1 it began to matter less and less so

Speaker 6 is there drugs and alcohol is there a lot of that involved

Speaker 1 i mean uh it's it's interesting

Speaker 1 it's uh it's really interesting um because like drugs and alcohol on set

Speaker 1 like there was some of that um before me like there was you know um there there was always like

Speaker 1 times where

Speaker 1 if it was like a live shoot, kind of like everything's kind of out the window. There's no rules, you know.

Speaker 1 But for the most part.

Speaker 6 What do you mean a live shoot?

Speaker 1 Like what I was sharing, like a live shooting.

Speaker 6 Like a live show.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Where it's like we're filming something happening live and it's streaming or someone's watching.
So we're not creating

Speaker 1 a curated and

Speaker 1 crafted and edited product.

Speaker 1 Like if we're if creating that, then they want a more controlled environment.

Speaker 1 So, if you showed up to set drunk or high, you would get sent home because

Speaker 1 more often than not, like in LA, like

Speaker 1 you would have to get a permit to film porn.

Speaker 1 And a lot of times, you know, they would come by and check for your permit. And when they would check for the permit, they're you know trying to get a peek.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I didn't see a lot lot of that onset.

Speaker 1 But is it part of the industry? 100%.

Speaker 1 But it's more so to deal with the consequence of what you did in contrast of being able to do what you did.

Speaker 1 You know, people aren't getting drunk and high on set to do the scene. They're getting drunk and high because they did the scene.
Interesting.

Speaker 1 And then once addiction sets in, they, you know, those things start to bleed into each other. I mean, there

Speaker 1 there were certainly like times where people came to sit drunk, high,

Speaker 1 all the things.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've seen it all. I mean, part of the reason that I'm so passionate about talking about it is

Speaker 1 as of today, over 40 people have committed suicide or died of overdose.

Speaker 1 Every roommate I've ever had except one dead.

Speaker 1 And these are people, not just like total in the industry, like these are people I knew personally, like friends of mine.

Speaker 1 You know, people we had meals with, like traveled places together, like people I knew. And when they would die,

Speaker 1 the porn industry would make a compilation film of you know their best of

Speaker 1 why to monetize on the thing in which

Speaker 1 caused their demise.

Speaker 6 Jeez.

Speaker 1 wow

Speaker 1 was there

Speaker 6 what should i be asking you

Speaker 1 yeah i mean um about the industry

Speaker 1 i mean just the just paint a picture of how like fictitious it is i mean like the girls are using numbing cream um the girl the all the guys are using erectile dysfunction medication um you know there were some directors that would require you to use Caberjack.

Speaker 1 So, Caberjack is, you know, for paraplegic, you know, people where, you know, you would inject something into the cavern of your penis and, you know, you would have an erection for, you know, three or four hours.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter if you're reading the newspaper or, you know, whatever.

Speaker 1 And then the danger is if you use too much, then you've got to go to the hospital to get lanced because it's not going to subside, you know.

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 or uh you use it for long enough then you become dependent on it

Speaker 6 i mean was sex even enjoyable no you know like real like

Speaker 6 real sex with your with your whoever you're in a monogamous relationship with yeah i mean is that how do i mean well i mean for the mom like for the most part like even if you did that you would like

Speaker 1 Because I work so much, I would like not finish because I was like, you know, you'd want to save your orgasm you know because the the quantity

Speaker 1 was important

Speaker 1 because if that wasn't there and they couldn't capture what they needed then you know they would be upset

Speaker 1 yeah so when you had sex it was like

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 not that often not unless you had a you know big break and you went on a vacation or something like that wow

Speaker 1 it was like you know it was almost like, you know,

Speaker 1 if you worked at Krispy Kreme and you love donuts, like the last thing that you would want to do is eat donuts, you know?

Speaker 1 But yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think just like the

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 when,

Speaker 1 so the, the, the agent that I had, when

Speaker 1 the agent that I had, when, when girls would come into the industry, they'd ask them their no list, right? So things you don't want to do, you know, anal, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Like, what, what do you not want to do? So that's on your no list.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, if a director would ask, well, you know, does this girl do this? No, it's on their no list. But the way that worked was

Speaker 1 like in the industry, your no doesn't really mean no. It means how many numbers.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So the way that the poor agents would work is there would be things that girls wouldn't do. And

Speaker 1 after a period of time,

Speaker 1 if their popularity would start to subside, you know, they're not getting as many requests, they would go to a few studios and say, hey,

Speaker 1 how much would you pay for such and such to do anal? Like, you know, 15K, 20K, 30K.

Speaker 1 30K, okay, high spider.

Speaker 1 Then he would go back to the girl. It's like, hey, out of nowhere

Speaker 1 this studio just said that they would give you thirty thousand dollars if you would be willing to do anal and i know you said you didn't want to do it but you know you're not getting as many your requests as you had been in the past and you know you do that you know they'll make a big deal of it you'll become relevant again and then your career is just going to start to you know skyrocket

Speaker 1 She does it, but what happens?

Speaker 1 What she never wanted to do and she did one time becomes something that she does all the time. Because once she does it, it loses, you know, its whatever.

Speaker 1 And they would just do that with girls over and over and over again. At the same time,

Speaker 1 they would convince them to do escorting. And it's like, you know, they would spend weekends or go on trips, you know, with guys.
And it's like, well, you know, there's a check and there's a test.

Speaker 1 As long as there's a check and a test, it's all the same, is the way they would present it to them.

Speaker 1 We're making the client get

Speaker 1 the same STD and AIDS panel so they're clean and you're getting paid.

Speaker 1 So they just convinced them that

Speaker 1 they were trafficking them.

Speaker 1 Wow. Because it wasn't on like a public site.

Speaker 1 It wasn't quite on the dark web, but it wasn't far from it.

Speaker 1 Or not, you know,

Speaker 1 that guy, Derek, like he ended up, you know, serving time for sex trafficking because he was he was extorting girls he would bring girls in from different countries get them fake ids have them paid in cash living in his own house um charging them rent to pay in their house taking some of their money that they were getting paid as their agent and you know their landlord um

Speaker 1 and making the the the the the people who paid them paid them in cash so he would take the money and he decided how much they got

Speaker 1 shit i'm gonna go to some i'm gonna go somewhere pretty dark um

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 so with guys, you know,

Speaker 1 they would ask, do you want to do like VIP parties? Do you want to like bartend or whatever? Like you would bartend shirtless.

Speaker 1 And you'd make, you know, 10,000, 20,000 bucks. And

Speaker 1 I would do stuff like that sometimes. And it was almost like, you know,

Speaker 1 it's kind of like what we're talking about. Like, how do you, how do you ever get to, you know, this place? Like, how do you go from here to here?

Speaker 1 Like, how do you go from, you know, me personally, the first magazine that I ever saw that like created a sexual thought in my head, it was like, it was, I think it was like.

Speaker 1 Mac, you know, like GQ like

Speaker 1 or the,

Speaker 1 I don't know, like swimsuit version of like Maxim or something like that, but of just like a see-through bathing suit

Speaker 1 like how did i go from there to like watching hardcore porn you know

Speaker 1 so doing porn getting paid for sex

Speaker 1 and then doing these barking bartending stuff and then um there was uh

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 1 high profile company

Speaker 1 in the fashion industry that would have these parties and they would bring out guys and girls to do these parties.

Speaker 1 And, you know, girls will walk around naked, guys will walk around, you know, in boxers, whatever, serve everyone drinks.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I went there.

Speaker 1 It was in Paris.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 long story short,

Speaker 1 I went there and

Speaker 1 got drugged and raped

Speaker 1 by

Speaker 1 the owner of a very well-known fashion

Speaker 1 what used to be the CEO of a very well-known fashion organization

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 when that happened to me I thought

Speaker 1 it was my fault

Speaker 1 this is what I signed up for you know this is this is who I am

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then I started like trying to sabotage, I was like towards the end of my career, so I was like,

Speaker 1 started trying to sabotage myself and

Speaker 1 started making a pretty clear plan to take my life.

Speaker 1 And he kind of looked up, like, I had this pretty strong pain medication, you know, like how many pills would do the trick. Okay, well, take that number, maybe add two more.

Speaker 1 And I'd put them on the counter and I'd separate them. It's like I took, you know, old-school vitamins.
I used to take like the like Vita pack, like an animal pack or whatever.

Speaker 1 I'd take like 40 vitamins at once. So I'm like, I knew like I could take a lot of pills at once.
So I separated them so I could make sure I would get them down, swallow them, I wouldn't chicken out.

Speaker 1 And I set them up like that

Speaker 1 time after time after time. I just could never do it.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 this one day I was filming in Atlanta and

Speaker 1 it was like, it was just like it was a disgusting shoot. Like

Speaker 1 people were like urinating on each other,

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 spitting on my face, in my mouth, stuff like that. And I was just like,

Speaker 1 what have I become?

Speaker 1 I was like, I want to die.

Speaker 1 Can't undo what I've done. done.

Speaker 1 Got,

Speaker 1 you know, more money than I thought I would ever see. You know, growing up,

Speaker 1 food stamps, trailer, government housing, like

Speaker 1 got a nice, you know, Breitling collection and

Speaker 1 nice home.

Speaker 1 Do all the stuff.

Speaker 1 But I'm miserable.

Speaker 1 And this is what I've made of my life.

Speaker 1 There's no hope. There's no hope.
There's no way out.

Speaker 1 But I needed someone to agree with me.

Speaker 1 So I got paid from that scene. And the directors on the memo of the checks, they would always write something grotesque.

Speaker 1 Like if the title of the movie wasn't sexually explicit enough, they would write.

Speaker 1 something

Speaker 1 being antagonistic knowing that you're gonna have to give that check to someone.

Speaker 1 And I normally wouldn't do that. I would just

Speaker 1 ATM, Dropbox, you know, anything other than handed to a person. But on this day, that was going to be my formula.

Speaker 1 I put the water on the counter. I lined up the pills.
The Wachovia that I banked at was across the street from the place that I lived.

Speaker 1 And and I walked over there, had the check, waited in line, handed the check to the teller,

Speaker 1 and I waited.

Speaker 6 What did it say on the check?

Speaker 1 It's like some gang bang or like

Speaker 1 something like that.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I wanted the person to,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 some look of disgust. Best case scenario, say, like, you know, how sick are you? Or something.

Speaker 1 She said nothing, you know, deposited the check, handed me the receipt. You know, I got tears streaming down my face.
I'm pale, like, you know, shaking.

Speaker 1 And I'm defeated because I didn't get what I wanted. I didn't know what to do.
And then

Speaker 1 I look up and she had walked around.

Speaker 1 the counter and she put her hand on my shoulder and she said, Joshua are you okay

Speaker 1 Joshua can I get you some help

Speaker 1 and Sean that was the first time I had heard my real name

Speaker 1 in 18 months

Speaker 1 wow

Speaker 1 and it just like

Speaker 1 it just like woke me up

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I beelined it to my place and I called my mom And I hadn't, you know, my mom had been calling and texting me,

Speaker 1 didn't respond.

Speaker 1 I thought,

Speaker 1 you know, she's just reaching out to me because she feels like she has to, but I've lost the right of being her son. I've disqualified myself.

Speaker 1 I think it was by pride,

Speaker 1 shame.

Speaker 1 But I called her.

Speaker 1 And when she answered the phone, she lit me up. She, you know, good southern mom and she cussed me out, you know, for, because she was worried about me.

Speaker 1 But then she said everything that I didn't think she would.

Speaker 1 She said,

Speaker 1 I will always love you, and you will always be my son. And you're so much better than the way you're living.
Please come home.

Speaker 1 So, right then and there,

Speaker 1 I called everybody I needed to call.

Speaker 1 I quit, I quit, I quit. And I subleased my place pretty quickly and

Speaker 1 left L.A.

Speaker 1 And, but like when I, when I left,

Speaker 1 I didn't think I could change. And I didn't have any kind of, it wasn't any kind of spiritual awakening,

Speaker 1 but I do think that was the Holy Spirit in that bank.

Speaker 1 But very quickly I thought, okay, you know, what do I have? What do I have that I can use? Okay, well, you know, I've been doing CrossFit for a while. I got a level one certification.

Speaker 1 Maybe I can coach CrossFit.

Speaker 1 I got an exercise science background a little bit, strength conditioning, you know, understand that. Maybe I can get into that.

Speaker 1 And then I did, you know, the formula that I knew that worked, find a good mentor,

Speaker 1 get, you know, double down, work really hard, get some credentials, you know,

Speaker 1 build a kingdom for myself.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I was working with this guy, Jason Davidson. He was the strength conditioning coach for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Speaker 1 He was leading the Thor program at Fort Bragg, plugged me into some right circles, bows for me. And all of a sudden,

Speaker 1 what I like to say is I put enough good dirt on my bad dirt so I didn't look dirty.

Speaker 1 Because I couldn't change. I didn't believe I could.
But what I thought I could do is I could manage people's

Speaker 1 perception of me. And if I did enough good, it would outweigh the bad that was impossible for me to run from.

Speaker 1 And I spent about two years doing that.

Speaker 6 I mean, when you were before you left the industry, I mean,

Speaker 6 was it a build-up of misery, or was it literally that one

Speaker 1 thing or that one shoot?

Speaker 6 Or was that one shoot the last straw?

Speaker 1 That one shoot, that last shoot was the last straw, but it was, you know, the relationship. So that relationship got more toxic.

Speaker 1 It went from us being at dinner where we had sex with the other person across the, you know, table

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 her wanting to talk about

Speaker 1 stuff that was happening on set, like, you know, in our home.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I was.

Speaker 1 It was interesting because I was like, man, I need to man up. This shouldn't bother me.

Speaker 1 but it does.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know, we look at men in today's society, it's like,

Speaker 1 you know, we're struggling with a mental health crisis because we pretend like we're okay when we're not.

Speaker 1 And the inevitable fact of pretending like you're okay when you're not, the thing that's not okay is not going to get better. It's going to get worse.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 1 I allowed that to be part of

Speaker 1 our relationship or her to tell me stuff that she was doing with other people, and pretending like that was arousing to me.

Speaker 1 And I think,

Speaker 1 again, just like further and further compromising

Speaker 1 myself as an individual

Speaker 1 and suppressing reality led to

Speaker 1 combustion, you know, internally.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you're trying to convince yourself to change what you know is right and wrong.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 again, like the the jealous kid, you know, in the grocery store is still the jealous kid that I don't want anyone to look at my girlfriend.

Speaker 1 Now I'm saying that I'm okay with people having sex with her.

Speaker 1 But yeah.

Speaker 1 So I mean that that progression

Speaker 1 and just the reality of like me having sex with as many people as I did and it just becoming the most arbitrary thing in the world is incredibly dangerous for your mental and emotional health.

Speaker 1 For me to walk into

Speaker 1 you know a lie, you know, this studio and a girl to be sitting there. And for me not to talk to her or anything, and I just walk up to her and start having sex with her.

Speaker 1 And then there's a bunch of cameras around, and I'm doing it for these cameras. And then I orgasm and then leave.
And that's my job. That's what I do for my career.
That's what I do, you know,

Speaker 1 four or five days a week. And I do that for, you know,

Speaker 1 short of a decade. like that's

Speaker 1 I mean that's going to damage you significantly

Speaker 1 was there any talk within the industry on your way out about or just anytime at all in there about when I was that other people were struggling with or oh yeah I mean there was there was yeah I mean suicide is rampant in the suicide and over like people are dying of overdose probably five I think last time I looked around 500 people have died of overdose, suicide, and murder over the last 20, 25 years.

Speaker 1 And murder, because if you believe little of your, you know, if you believe little of yourself, you're going to end up in a relationship where that person thinks little of you, and there's abuse, and that abuse turns into, you know, you losing your life.

Speaker 1 And like the amount of that happening, it's documented, is pretty astronomical.

Speaker 1 And then just, I mean, you know, know, we were talking about

Speaker 1 not to change the topic, but we were talking about guardian angels. It's like, man, there was HIV outbreaks like in the industry.

Speaker 1 You know, like, there were people I had unprotected sex with that had HIV that they died.

Speaker 1 There was an HIV outbreak that was big enough

Speaker 1 in the industry that it shut down for, you know, not a long time, but around two months.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 6 Were there ever any open discussions about it? I mean, did you have any

Speaker 6 friends in the industry where you would have these like

Speaker 6 talks with about leaving or about things that were affecting you or anything like that?

Speaker 6 Or was everybody wearing a mask?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I call it a first aid mask, you know,

Speaker 1 where you don't know who you are, but you pretend to be whoever you think the person across from you wants you to be so that you can you know

Speaker 1 appease them

Speaker 1 or so that they would like you because you don't really know who you are or you believe who you are doesn't have any value

Speaker 1 but I would say there's this like

Speaker 1 there's this generally across the board there was this belief that

Speaker 1 you know, doing something outside of the industry the longer that you stayed in the industry was

Speaker 1 impossible.

Speaker 1 So the only like the best possible outcome

Speaker 1 is that you have a good long-standing career in the industry and then one of the studios that you worked for a lot, you get hired on as a director and then you work as a director.

Speaker 1 You know, that was the next hopeful progression because

Speaker 1 not being in the porn industry

Speaker 1 wasn't an option because being in the porn industry meant you couldn't do anything else.

Speaker 1 At least that's what I wanted you to believe. I mean,

Speaker 1 for example, Cagney Lynn Carter, she was a great friend of mine.

Speaker 1 She got in a little bit after me, stayed in much longer than me,

Speaker 1 much later than me.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think it was last year. She had left the industry,

Speaker 1 opened a dance studio.

Speaker 1 She was like a ballet dancer, like in her teens, something she still was passionate about. And she opened up a place.

Speaker 1 But everyone around her

Speaker 1 was like,

Speaker 1 you can do whatever you want.

Speaker 1 You can say

Speaker 1 that your name is whatever.

Speaker 1 but I know who you are.

Speaker 1 You'll never escape

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 that. You'll always be that person.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she tried really hard, and it's so sad, bro, because

Speaker 1 she took her life. And the day that she took her life, she posted a photo of herself on the beach saying,

Speaker 1 I'm free.

Speaker 1 But what's true is

Speaker 1 she was in prison.

Speaker 1 Like you

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 I wanted to leave the industry. I wanted to do something else, but you begin to believe that you can't.
And it's not something you do,

Speaker 1 it's who you are.

Speaker 1 and if the only thing in which you can do is to sell yourself for sex, then your no loses its volition,

Speaker 1 you know, it loses its validity.

Speaker 1 Your no loses its validity because if the only thing that you can say yes to is selling yourself for sex, then you can't say no to anything, so you say yes to everything,

Speaker 1 and it's just so sad, man.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, just to think it, you know, I was sharing with someone,

Speaker 1 you know, there's, you know, 40, 40 of my friends, suicide, overdose.

Speaker 1 Those porns are still there.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 it's like, man,

Speaker 1 if I could encourage someone that's watching that now, it's like, man,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 there's this, like,

Speaker 1 there's all these things that are true while you don't know if there was forced fraud or coercion, you know, regarding

Speaker 1 the scene that you're watching. You don't know how old that person is.
Like, you don't know if they gave consent.

Speaker 1 And then in this situation, what I'm saying is you don't know if the thing in which they did

Speaker 1 caused them so much pain and hurt that it led to their death and you're partaking in the thing in which caused their demise and you're and you're extracting pleasure from it

Speaker 1 and that person is dead because of what they did and it's and they're they're still making money off of it

Speaker 1 I mean it's crazy

Speaker 1 I mean past you know you know

Speaker 1 right before November 4th last big push from the Harris Walsh campaign, they ran ads on Pornhub in seven different states. Why? 120 million viewers a day.

Speaker 1 And they ran an ad saying it was someone that, you know, a character that somewhat resembled Trump walking in. And this, it was so gross.
It was so gross.

Speaker 1 There was this guy masturbating underneath a blanket.

Speaker 1 And he was looking at his phone and someone that looks like Trump comes in and takes the phone away and says, if you don't want to lose your right to watch porn, you better vote

Speaker 1 in the same way that you want, you know, to consume that. Are you shitting me? No.

Speaker 1 Seven states ran those ads.

Speaker 6 What states?

Speaker 1 I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 Jeez.

Speaker 1 I mean, I would assume very left states, but we're about to get to a point in the story that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Man,

Speaker 6 they really trap you.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 Had you known anybody that had made it out?

Speaker 1 I know one girl.

Speaker 1 I don't know one guy.

Speaker 1 Well, I know guys that have made it out.

Speaker 1 I don't know how guys who are whole and healthy. For example, a good friend of mine, his name's Greg, his porn name is Randy Spears.

Speaker 1 He even had, you know, a character on Family Guy. And

Speaker 1 he lives in San Antonio and

Speaker 1 he still goes by Randy Spears.

Speaker 1 You know, he's got a normal job.

Speaker 1 You know, he's not in the porn industry anymore.

Speaker 1 He's about 10 years older than me.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I talked to him, and it's like, you know, he called me Rocco. Like when he called, I called him and left him a voice memo or a voice message because he didn't answer.

Speaker 1 And when he called me back, he called me Rocco. And he

Speaker 1 said that, you know, he was Randy. And he sent me his social, like,

Speaker 1 text me his social media and Randy Spears.

Speaker 1 And I think it's this belief that

Speaker 1 who I am can never

Speaker 1 supersede that persona. So

Speaker 1 I'm going to cling on to that because my worth is so much less than

Speaker 1 this.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 yeah, I know one person named Brittany, she lives in Santa Barbara with her husband Richard. They're actually both in ministry.

Speaker 1 They do, they actually help girls that are in in trafficking or like prostitution. They kind of help them get back on their feet.

Speaker 1 But yeah, like she's the only person that I know.

Speaker 6 Are any of them reaching out to you? Anybody?

Speaker 1 Tons.

Speaker 6 Like,

Speaker 6 how do we get out of this?

Speaker 1 Tons.

Speaker 1 Every day.

Speaker 1 And it's like, and

Speaker 1 some people are very frustrated with me.

Speaker 1 Because I, I mean, there's still people who are in the industry that are very successful that either I, you know, I mentored or were good friends to me.

Speaker 1 Cause, you know, a lot of the guys who were younger, when I was in the industry, you know, they were like, you know, how do I do this?

Speaker 1 How do I do this right? How do I make a career out of this?

Speaker 1 You know, how do I, you know, because the thing that I was best at was, well, I understood, well, if you get relational equity with a director, then he's going to hire you often and he's going to recommend you, you know, to other people.

Speaker 1 I understood networking.

Speaker 1 i understood relationships and it's like i wasn't i was a good actor you know but i cared about people and i remembered people's names and you know um so like simple stuff was the things that allowed me to be very successful in that industry and i was just you know teaching them simple things that worked well for them um but i've had conversations as of recently you know as of as recent as a month ago of people who are very very successful in the industry today that have been in the industry you know now you know, approaching 15, 20 years,

Speaker 1 saying,

Speaker 1 Man,

Speaker 1 I thought we were friends.

Speaker 1 And I was like, What do you mean by that? He's like, You say all this stuff about the industry. I'm like, Yeah, man, I detest the industry with every fiber of my being, and I think it's vile and evil,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 1 I don't have to agree with what you're doing.

Speaker 1 I mean, I understand

Speaker 1 you find identity in that.

Speaker 1 So I understand why that feels offensive to you.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I don't have any animosity towards you. I wish you would do something different with your life.
Because the reality is, bro, if you are

Speaker 1 girls also, if you're into the top 3% to 5% of any industry, you have the capacity of being excellent at another trade and being more successful.

Speaker 1 Like you have charisma and gifts and talents that you are misappropriating. But if you surrender and you submit

Speaker 1 to your life to the person of Jesus Christ and allow him to take the things that he put in you and point them in the right direction, guess what? You're going to 10x your success.

Speaker 1 And it's going to be something that you're doing that

Speaker 1 is fulfilling because it's going to be the thing that you're made to do.

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't hate you. I hate the choices that you're making, but I don't hate you.
And they just don't get it. So

Speaker 1 there has been a lot of

Speaker 1 situations that I wish I could have had the conversation in person.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 So you leave the industry, become a CrossFit trainer.

Speaker 6 I mean, how many people are coming up to you that recognize you?

Speaker 1 So day one,

Speaker 1 I'm living now in Raleigh, North Carolina. And first thing I do, I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I've got a Celtic cross tattoo on my shoulder that for some reason in my mind, like, I'm not walking around with my shirt off, but I'm like, I know that is on a hundred, you know,

Speaker 1 covers of porn, you know.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna get that covered up. So, I get it covered up.
I got like a

Speaker 1 fish like coming out of water, and like, you know, freaking cool, you know. Um, but I got that covered up and shaved my head, deleted my social media, and it's like

Speaker 1 Rocka Reed

Speaker 1 gone, dead,

Speaker 1 New life.

Speaker 1 Walking to Whole Foods. Like literally, I haven't even moved into my place yet.

Speaker 1 And a guy in the meat section is like,

Speaker 1 Rock-O-Reed.

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 1 are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 And then it just continued to happen over and over again.

Speaker 1 And then I'm just kind of like,

Speaker 1 I was kind of found, you know, I was, I was found, I was found out,

Speaker 1 but I just kind of,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 deflect from it. And I was just trying to build like, I'm a trainer, I'm a trainer, I'm a trainer, I'm a good trainer, I'm a good trainer.

Speaker 1 I got a lot of personal training clients, you know, making money. I'm doing good.
I'm helping people. I'm doing good.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 two years of that.

Speaker 1 And two years in, this girl comes into the gym.

Speaker 1 she's wearing like all iowa hawkeye cheerleading stuff so she had obviously you know was a an alum that was very proud that she had cheered at iowa gorgeous best athlete in the gym but she was different in that she worked really hard she would kick everybody's butt in the workout she was a gymnast so she could you know all this like old-school CrossFit, like if you could walk on your hands and like do stuff like that, like if you were good at that, like you already had

Speaker 1 an edge over everybody else

Speaker 1 but she was just better than everybody and I was just fascinated about you know with her and she was gorgeous so I asked her on date and she was like I'm good

Speaker 1 I'm in love you know rejection you know

Speaker 1 so I asked her out a bunch of times and she was finally like well i go i'll go uh for a long run

Speaker 1 before church on sunday mornings If you want to meet me at this park, we can go for a run. And I was like, all right, you know, I'll take whatever I can get.

Speaker 1 And I get there, and I'm there early, and I'm waiting.

Speaker 1 And I started thinking, I'm like, man,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 Christmas party and like a few other parties we have, like,

Speaker 1 she didn't really hang out that much.

Speaker 1 She's always at the gym, but

Speaker 1 after the workout,

Speaker 1 if she's not like doing extra work or whatever,

Speaker 1 like she's not hanging out and mingling. Like, she's not like.

Speaker 6 She's not looking for fronts.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so, aka, she doesn't know my story.

Speaker 6 Doesn't?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, man, if she knew who I was,

Speaker 1 she would not, you know, agree to this. And there was just like some conviction that I had.
I'm like, man,

Speaker 1 I need to be forthcoming with this. Not something I had done, you know, in the past.

Speaker 1 And when she got there, like,

Speaker 1 the run never made its way to a run.

Speaker 1 It was a, maybe a brisk walk.

Speaker 1 And I was like, hey,

Speaker 1 I just want to, I want to share something with you. It's going to, you know, be a little heavy.
She's like, okay, what, you know, what's up? And I was like, you know, kind of like laid out my guts.

Speaker 1 You know, I was like, man, I'm the kid that his daddy didn't want. And

Speaker 1 I did all this porn. And it's still all over the internet.
and like every bad thing I've ever done that creates shame in my life you know it's on the internet forever and this is who I am

Speaker 1 and she was just like

Speaker 1 holy crap you know like super taken back and she didn't say anything we just continued to walk you know she didn't say a word and I didn't know if she was mad or she was gonna slap me or

Speaker 1 you know i don't know i was gonna am i gonna get fired you know i i was just thinking like all these

Speaker 1 then she stopped and she looked at me like, you know, she's an elementary teacher.

Speaker 1 There's the, you know, a look that like a mom or a teacher has. And she just looked at me with this, like,

Speaker 1 she's like, hey,

Speaker 1 I don't want to minimize

Speaker 1 the pain that you've experienced in your life. And I don't want to.
negate the

Speaker 1 real problems that your decisions have made for you.

Speaker 1 But I want you to know

Speaker 1 that you're not defined by the worst thing you've ever done

Speaker 1 and you won't be defined by the greatest thing you ever do

Speaker 1 because there's one author of you

Speaker 1 and it's not you

Speaker 1 It's God. Do you know who that is? Do you know God?

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 maybe.

Speaker 1 I went to church a little bit when I was a kid because my grandmother, my grandfather, they went to church. They had a faith.

Speaker 1 I was like, I know of God. I certainly don't know God.

Speaker 1 And she was like, well, I've been following Jesus since I was in the seventh grade. And I'm not perfect by any means, but

Speaker 1 my foundation that I live

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 is from my relationship with him like the way I live my life is contingent on my relationship with him

Speaker 1 so what kind of food do you like I was like

Speaker 1 what are you like an alien or something like what

Speaker 1 like what are you talking about like you don't want me to leave

Speaker 1 like she's asking me about SMART goals. I'm like, dude, I don't know what an acronym is.
Like, what are you talking about? Like, I

Speaker 1 like, I had the worst of intentions with you. Like, I

Speaker 1 my plan A, B, and C is to hook up with you, you know?

Speaker 1 I, I don't, I have no idea, you know.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 and then we just walked and talked, and she asked me questions that I didn't think of for a long time, you know, like what what do I want to like in the gym industry?

Speaker 1 Like, would you ever want to own a gym?

Speaker 1 You know, what's your relationship like with your family?

Speaker 1 Like, do you, like, would you ever want to have kids? You know, just asking me things that are like, I,

Speaker 1 I honestly, like, I feel like

Speaker 1 it had been so long of like me. thinking like that.
I was like

Speaker 1 reaching for humanity. I didn't know if I still had.

Speaker 1 That went on for, you know, we, we walked and talked for like probably two hours.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, she, you know, we, we went separate ways and, you know,

Speaker 1 text like high school idiots for a week. And then on Saturday, she was like, hey,

Speaker 1 I would love for you to come with me to church. And I was like, wherever you're going, yes.
You know, I'll be there. Wherever the pretty girl's going, yes.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she had, like, she had been catalytic for like some curiosity. I'm like, what in you

Speaker 1 allowed you to respond to me like that?

Speaker 1 You know, like,

Speaker 1 there's this really great book I love, Master Plan of Evangelism. Robert E.
Coleman wrote it, and he talks about how

Speaker 1 it's good to tell people you know

Speaker 1 something but it's better to show them like people are often not looking for an explanation they're looking for a demonstration and I think you know Colossians 4 like Paul's talking about hey

Speaker 1 you know I'm in prison for preaching the gospel but I'm praying for opportunities to preach the gospel and I'm praying to do it with clarity and I'm praying to do it with tact.

Speaker 1 You know, I want to be wise towards outsiders. And most importantly, man, allow my speech to be gracious and seasoned with salt so I might know how I ought to answer each person.

Speaker 1 Because how I respond

Speaker 1 matters.

Speaker 1 How I respond to the individual in front of me. Not a blanket statement.
The person in front of me. How I am aware,

Speaker 1 how I'm intentional,

Speaker 1 how react is important.

Speaker 1 and the way that she reacted to me, like

Speaker 1 it

Speaker 1 was like, wow, dude.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she invited me to church. And

Speaker 1 we went there. And I thought, you know, am I going to like set, you know, into,

Speaker 1 am I going to catch on fire when I walk in? You know, like,

Speaker 1 I certainly have no business here is what I was thinking. And then, you know, my only

Speaker 6 like excuse me. Because I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Yeah, I mean, I thought, you know, I thought the same thing when I walked in. Yeah.
Totally different reasons.

Speaker 6 Maybe not so different, but

Speaker 6 I get it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I thought, you know, if you had, you know, tattoos on your arm and wrinkles on your shirt, like you're going to hell.
You know, that's

Speaker 1 what I thought. And then I saw a man with tattoos and, you know, a t-shirt and jeans get up on stage

Speaker 1 preaching.

Speaker 1 And he told the story of 2 Samuel chapter 9. And

Speaker 1 just to provide a little bit of context, so 2 Samuel chapter 9, it's King David. David had just rebuilt the temple.
And now he's kind of at the pinnacle of his reign as king.

Speaker 1 And he's just rebuilt the temple and he had done something for God.

Speaker 1 And then he was asking himself introspectively,

Speaker 1 Lord, what can I do for your people to show your loving kindness to me? How can I reciprocate the love that I've experienced from you, like to your people? And then he's like, oh yeah,

Speaker 1 I made this promise. to my friend Jonathan.
So Jonathan was the son of Saul. Saul, his kingdom was stripped from him when he sinned.
And then David was chosen and anointed to be king.

Speaker 1 And then there was this conflict between Saul and David. And

Speaker 1 Saul had a son, Jonathan. And Jonathan and David were great friends.
And Jonathan even was like, hey, I know my dad's like trying to throw spears at you and like trying to kill you.

Speaker 1 And like, he's, you know, kind of lost it.

Speaker 1 If he's plotting on you, I'm going to have your back. I'm going to let you know.

Speaker 1 And then David said, hey, I'm going to make this covenantal promise with you that I'm going to show you love and affection, not only to you forever but to your family as well you know fast forward he's remembering this and he's saying man um how can i show this to

Speaker 1 you know god's people and he's oh

Speaker 1 i wonder if there's anyone left out of the house of saul and he finds a guard um Ziba is the guard's name, and he served under Saul, and he's like, hey, is there anyone left? And he's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 Mephelosheth. Mephelbosheth was a son of Jonathan, but he's in this place called Lodobar.
It means place of no pasture. He's in hiding because

Speaker 1 he was, you know, when he was around like five or six years old, when

Speaker 1 his dad and his grandfather, when Jonathan and Saul were killed in battle,

Speaker 1 you know, there was this hierarchy where he was next in line to be king, but David was chosen and anointed to be king.

Speaker 1 So if David had his right place on the throne, historically, if there was an opposing person that could potentially cause an upheaval, they were identified and eradicated. You know, that was the plan.

Speaker 1 So he was in hiding because he thought his head was on the chopping block.

Speaker 1 David goes, finds him, brings him in front of him. And Mephabosheth is like, you know, doomsday.
Today's the day. I'm going to die.
I've been found.

Speaker 1 And David says, actually, I'm going to

Speaker 1 give to you, I'm going to restore back to you your grandfather's land, which is part of Canaan, so the promised land. I'm going to give you access back to your land.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to invite you into my kingdom. And I want you to have a seat at my table, not for a day, not for a week, but forever.
You are now part of this family.

Speaker 1 And I was like, wow, this is amazing. It's a beautiful picture of grace.
But 2 Samuel 9, verse 8, Mephabusheth, how does he respond to this? Does he like, wow, you know, God is so good.

Speaker 1 Wow, this is amazing. No.

Speaker 1 He refers to himself as a dead dog. He says, what would you want to do with a dead dog like me? And I was like, yeah,

Speaker 1 that's it. Because before he was talking about, man, you know, Romans 3, 23 says that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
So everybody's guilty.

Speaker 1 Romans 6, 23, you know, the wage of sin is death.

Speaker 1 So if we're all guilty, and that guilt equates to death, eternal separation from God, if that's true for everyone, then, okay, I'm on the same playing field.

Speaker 1 But then you're talking about, you know, this grace of God.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm like, okay, you know, Romans 10, 9, whoever confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed that he was raised on the third day will be saved. I'm like, this is amazing.

Speaker 1 But then I still find myself,

Speaker 1 don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I've done?

Speaker 1 Don't you know who my daddy is?

Speaker 1 Don't you know

Speaker 1 even he didn't want me

Speaker 1 and then he read Hebrews 12, too.

Speaker 1 It talks about how Jesus

Speaker 1 went to the cross with joy in his heart set before him, scorning our shame.

Speaker 1 Before he sat down at the right hand of God. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 joy.

Speaker 1 You're talking about that, okay, Jesus was

Speaker 1 fully God, fully man, so fully perfect, he's omniscient, he's all-knowing,

Speaker 1 so an all-powerful, all-knowing God

Speaker 1 went to the cross. Okay, he was obedient to his father, so that makes sense.

Speaker 1 But why would he have joy

Speaker 1 in his heart?

Speaker 1 And then it hit me

Speaker 1 because he loves me

Speaker 1 because he loves me.

Speaker 6 God loves me.

Speaker 1 And I just kept saying it to myself over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 And I fell to my knees and I started to cry.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what happened that day, but when I stood up, you know,

Speaker 1 I gave my life to Jesus the best I knew how.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 what I felt when I stood up was the ruck was off my back.

Speaker 1 And I understood the father that I always wanted.

Speaker 1 He gave me pictures of shielding me and protecting me and walking with me and fighting for me and believing the best about me.

Speaker 1 That's why Romans 5.8 is so powerful.

Speaker 1 Like while knowing the worst thing you've ever done,

Speaker 1 Jesus went to the cross and died for you.

Speaker 1 Like he would like you it talks about how, you know, you wouldn't do that, you know, for a bad person,

Speaker 1 maybe for a righteous person, but, but not someone that had done the things, you know, that we did that put him on the cross. Like, no way.

Speaker 1 Yeah. While knowing the worst thing you've ever done, the thing that you would not want to say out loud, he knows that and he chooses you.
Why? Because he loves you.

Speaker 1 And that love it changed me that day. It didn't fix all my problems.
I was still, you know,

Speaker 1 very much a knucklehead.

Speaker 1 But man, if there was something that I was sure of, it was that God loved me

Speaker 1 and I wanted to be different.

Speaker 1 And the thing that I didn't think was possible

Speaker 1 just came true: is that I had a father

Speaker 1 who adored me

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 that girl

Speaker 1 her name is Hope which is pretty cool and you know I'm not the smartest person in the world but married her and you know we've been married for nine years

Speaker 1 and uh

Speaker 1 got four boys and I've just seen so much beauty come from the ashes of my life and you know from

Speaker 1 you know that moment of being disciple to going to liberty and getting a theological education to preaching at liberty at convocation last month and and doing you know having conversations with incredible people like yourself um like i didn't have the guts how did you immediately start implementing

Speaker 6 this stuff into your life after that after that

Speaker 1 hour at church yeah i mean for for me it's like you know uh

Speaker 1 so thinking about like like fighting like i i wasn't the best fighter but i was a good counterpuncture you know um

Speaker 1 basketball like i i was i was quick but i wasn't fast so i was a shooter so i had to i could i could create separation so I could get my shot off.

Speaker 1 All these things were technique driven, but I understood that it would yield results.

Speaker 1 So I believed, man, if I take inventory of the things in my life that don't line up with where I want to go and I implement a regimen of things that

Speaker 1 will set me on the trajectory for me to go, then it'll work. Okay, so where do I start?

Speaker 1 Need a mentor. So first thing I did, it was so crazy.
I go to this church. It was a pretty big church in Raleigh.
And I was like, there's a pastor I can talk to. Like, sure.

Speaker 1 You know, executive pastor was, you know, around the corner, just happened to be in there. His name's Gary Vett.

Speaker 1 And I walked in there and I was like, can I tell you a story? Because I feel like God wants me to build a boat.

Speaker 1 But I shared with him my story. And I was like, man, I feel like.

Speaker 1 I need to build a foundation because I think there's people that God's going to use my story to rescue, to point to himself.

Speaker 1 And that's the boat that I feel like I need to build. What am I supposed to do? He's like,

Speaker 6 wow, you know?

Speaker 1 And then he grabs this guy, Andrew. And Andrew just graduated from DTS, Dallas Theological Seminary, moved to Raleigh to help open another campus.

Speaker 1 And discipleship was something that he was passionate about and gifted in, like very gifted teacher.

Speaker 1 And, you know, if

Speaker 1 I, you know, it's funny. I used to tell a story.
It was like, man, he was a new guy on staff. He had all this free time.

Speaker 1 You know, knowing what I know now in ministry, the new guy on staff does not have free time. You know, you're doing all the stuff.

Speaker 1 But he's like, I didn't have time. And honestly, you know, my plan was to

Speaker 1 give you a Bible.

Speaker 1 Tell you, you know, what to read

Speaker 1 and tell you to get plugged into a small group.

Speaker 1 and uh

Speaker 1 he was like man just the holy spirit just fell on me and convicted me like when you walked in my office and i was like man

Speaker 1 i've got to

Speaker 1 pour out every bit of me into him and i don't know why

Speaker 1 and you know he he didn't know what he was getting himself into he's like man i just want you you know to open up my office to you you know i want to spend as much time discipling you as you want to spend.

Speaker 1 So I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 You know, I've got a little bit of a crazy work ethic where I was like, all right, so I was like doing everything I could to like, I was like giving away personal training clients.

Speaker 1 And I was showing up at his office and I was spending 10 to 15 hours a week with Andrew.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we started in the book of John, where the book of John, you know, anyone asked me what's the first book of the Bible I need to read? The book of John.

Speaker 1 The book of John is an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. You know,

Speaker 1 John walked with Jesus and John wants you to know, hey, this is who Jesus is.

Speaker 1 This is what Jesus did. And this is how it matters to all that believe.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and it's like John specifically is written to not specifically like a Greek audience, not specifically a Jewish audience, it's an overarching audience.

Speaker 1 So it uses language that's not confusing. It's very clear.

Speaker 1 So we dug into that. And

Speaker 1 I wasn't like a scholarly dude, but like I could read

Speaker 1 and like regurgitate stuff, but it wouldn't always like conceptualize.

Speaker 1 There was, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's true that the, you know, the Bible says that the Bible is, you know, the word of God is alive and active, sharper than you know, any two-edged sword divides bone and marrow. Where if

Speaker 1 you are allowing the Holy Spirit to lead you, I think it's important that we pray before we read our Bible. Man, I was reading this text and it was like, it wasn't just words on a page.

Speaker 1 It was like it was coming into my heart and undoing things.

Speaker 1 And it was like I was like receiving, you know, it's, it's, you know, I think it's appropriate that we talk about, you know, Jesus is the bread of life.

Speaker 1 You know, it's the water that will never leave you thirsty because once you experience like true sustenance like if you've ever been starving and then you find sustenance like you're satisfied in a way that is almost like

Speaker 1 you can't fully articulate

Speaker 1 it was that and i experienced a peace that came with that that i became very hungry for and I couldn't get enough.

Speaker 1 And for me, you know, it used to be, man, if you come to my house, you know, or my grandma's house, her buttermilk biscuits are ridiculous. And, you know, she's such a great grandma that, you know,

Speaker 1 I get out of school, you know, at 3.37. She's taking them out of the oven at 3.40.
You know, they're hitting, you know, a plate and you can bite them.

Speaker 1 They're still crispy on the top and they're, you know, soft in the middle. And she times it perfectly.
You got to try this.

Speaker 1 The gospel became that for me. It was like, man, this really works.
This really is changing my life. And it's beautiful and interesting and captivating.
And

Speaker 1 it's the best story ever told. And that story, it's about a God that is personal and wants to get to know you.
And man, I can't wait to tell you about him. And that just became

Speaker 1 all I ever wanted to do. And that's, you know, if I'm honest, like, I get to do some really cool stuff.
But at the end of the day, like, that's the thing that fires me up most.

Speaker 1 So it started there.

Speaker 1 But I think, like,

Speaker 1 if you're to teach anyone anything, you know, I was talking about Victor, you know, like Victor is going to

Speaker 1 show me how to do something with a knife. And then he was going to give me the knife.
And then I need to show him what he showed me.

Speaker 1 Because if I can't replicate what you just taught me, I didn't catch it.

Speaker 1 you know um and you have to apply it to truly learn it and i think when when we reciprocate our faith in that, we share things that God has, you know, implanted on us to others, there's something that's solidified.

Speaker 1 You think there's, you know, there's something beautiful that happens when there's a physical and practical response to something that's prompted in us spiritually.

Speaker 1 And that just has been natural for me.

Speaker 6 How long did it take you to learn forgiveness?

Speaker 1 A lot longer.

Speaker 1 A lot longer.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 the first step of that was

Speaker 1 when our first son was born.

Speaker 1 I remember, like,

Speaker 1 I remember, my wife is like a dramaphobe, and she's always like, you know, have you washed your hands? Have you washed your hands?

Speaker 1 Like, our kids, like, any, like, we will, like, be somewhere and wash our hands and get in our car and if we pick up like takeout you know and we're gonna eat it on the way home and they're in the back like watching a movie or whatever they know like you gotta get the hand sanitizer also you know

Speaker 1 but so when our son's born you know i'm like she's already instilled the fear into me but by that point i'm like are my hands clean enough you know to touch our son you know um because he the nurses had him and you know he's all like slimy and cone headed and got the little bonnet like hanging off his head and um i'm freaked out because like so she was in the middle of a crossfit workout when her water broke and like she like we went home we like we had just bought our first house um been married for about two years and um

Speaker 1 just like she was like i'm gonna do my makeup and then we'll go to the hospital like your water broke you know i'm like freaking out i thought i needed to have like you know

Speaker 1 but we get there and her her water broke but she she wasn't dilated enough. And then almost 24 hours later, he's born.
So I'm like crackhead by that point.

Speaker 1 And he's born. And I'm like emotional and hungry and tired and all the things.

Speaker 1 And the nurse has him and he's looking, you know, all alien-like. And

Speaker 1 she's like, do you want to touch him? You want to see him? And I walk over. I'm like,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 and as I'm reaching in his direction, his little hand reaches up and grabs my finger. And I started weeping.

Speaker 1 And like, not audibly, but, you know, in my spirit, I heard God say, I love you more than that.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I was like, man,

Speaker 1 I don't deserve that. I don't deserve to be a dad.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to be a dad. I'm scared.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to do it right. I've never seen it done.

Speaker 1 I'm a, you know, I'm a screw up. You know, I started just thinking all these things.

Speaker 1 I was thinking, man, I was, I was 30, you know,

Speaker 1 33

Speaker 1 at that time.

Speaker 1 And I was like, man, my dad was 16.

Speaker 1 And I think like that moment,

Speaker 1 it

Speaker 1 is the beginning of me feeling some empathy for him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 some time passed, and

Speaker 1 God started opening up some cool opportunities.

Speaker 1 I was on staff at Life Church for a while as an associate pastor and then took a teaching position in Iowa.

Speaker 1 And then kind of thing after thing started happening. You know, I did Tucker and Candace Owens and a few other things and started getting a lot of momentum, a lot of opportunities.
And

Speaker 1 God was just moving.

Speaker 1 Kind of in the middle of that, I was in Dallas actually before we lived there. And I was staying at the Omni and

Speaker 1 I'd woken up at around like 2 a.m. and it's often, not super often, but often that God will like wake me up and I felt prompted to pray in the middle of the night.
And

Speaker 1 I was lazy. So I was just like, I'm just going to lay here.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I began to think, like,

Speaker 1 hey, what am I doing?

Speaker 1 And I just felt like super distracted.

Speaker 1 And then I started to think, it's almost like the Holy Spirit kind of brought to the forefront of my mind: like,

Speaker 1 do you fear me?

Speaker 1 Like, do you revere me? Like, the fear of the Lord rightly understood is reverence, not you know, human fear. Like, do you revere me as Lord?

Speaker 1 Get on my face and

Speaker 1 begin to pray, and then I started to see almost like if you would like to go through a flipbook,

Speaker 1 my dad.

Speaker 1 I don't know

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 way that I would look out that glass, like looking for my dad,

Speaker 1 is my dad as a kid looking for me

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 how it just got harder over time

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 while I was feeling empathy I was also feeling this like bubble of rage at the same time

Speaker 1 you know these like two conflicting emotions and I was just like man because I

Speaker 1 I've like screamed into my pillow before like when you know especially it was like the day that we found out we were pregnant for the first time someone um hacked my wife's facebook and sent every single person like family friends like grandma

Speaker 1 like my pornography

Speaker 1 it's like we announced we're pregnant

Speaker 1 five minutes later there's damn

Speaker 1 so i'm like in moments like that

Speaker 1 i was like i don't know why i like Obviously, I'm like, man,

Speaker 1 I'd love to grab that IT, that IP address and go like curb kick that person. But also,

Speaker 1 like, something in me, like, it was almost like the first thing I would think was like, man,

Speaker 1 dad, if you would have been there, this stuff wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't be experiencing that.

Speaker 1 It's your fault. And it would go from like, it's your fault to like, dad, it's your fault.

Speaker 1 Why couldn't you just be there? You were down the street.

Speaker 1 Like, why do you hate me?

Speaker 1 And then just my heart broke. And I'm just like,

Speaker 1 I have to forgive him.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what that looks like, but I have to figure out a way. And then I tell my wife, and my wife be my wife.
She like, she like messages.

Speaker 1 He's got, you know, I have a half brother and sister that I don't know very well, but she reaches out to Justin

Speaker 1 and then she gets his number and then I end up with his number and she's like, you know, very quickly, she's like, here you go.

Speaker 1 Do what you need to do.

Speaker 1 I called him and

Speaker 1 we had that phone call and it was like, man,

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 when I had that conversation with him,

Speaker 1 it didn't go exactly like I thought it would,

Speaker 1 but a million pounds Came off of me

Speaker 1 But what's really wild is in between that dream and that phone call

Speaker 1 the weekend I had with Victor Marks

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 nuts

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 We know Victor and it was uh

Speaker 1 it was I think maybe it was like the third or fourth time I'd hung out with him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we were filming a

Speaker 1 spiritual warfare documentary.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he had interviewed me for that. And he's got, you know, this prayer, you know, this retooling prayer where you identify, like, is there any, you know, demonic oppression on you and calls them out.

Speaker 6 We did it on here.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 1 But he did that with me and I was just like, you know, it's like,

Speaker 1 you know, I would say I'm like

Speaker 1 Baptistal. You know, I'm like Baptist in my theology and Pentecostal in my expression.

Speaker 1 But like the demonic, you know, what like wasn't super familiar with, you know,

Speaker 1 definitely experienced a lot of evil. But regarding stuff like that, not, you know, not super in tune with.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 I think your whole life's been spiritual boring, man.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 Um, but I think that the demonic is

Speaker 6 sorry, no, no, no, please,

Speaker 6 it's traps,

Speaker 6 it's these fucking traps.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 6 it's vices, it's addiction, it's lust, sex,

Speaker 6 it's temptation, money, yeah,

Speaker 6 jealousy, resentment.

Speaker 6 Those are, I think that, I think how the, I think, I think about this shit all the time. I think that's how it works.

Speaker 6 Different traps work for different people. Oh, sure.

Speaker 6 Yours was,

Speaker 6 I mean, it doesn't sound like yours was even really lust.

Speaker 6 It was more fame and money.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and affirmation.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and your whole life has been acceptance. Where can I get accepted?

Speaker 6 First one that came along, or at least the first one you noticed. Yeah.

Speaker 6 You know, was...

Speaker 6 So there was three traps set. Acceptance, fame, money.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 You know, and so I think it's...

Speaker 6 If you display what you really,

Speaker 6 I don't know how to say this, if you display what you're really craving or want, whether it's, you know, sex,

Speaker 1 power,

Speaker 6 fame, money,

Speaker 6 those things will come.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 They might not be good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I would say it's easy to fall into this shit.

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah. I see it all the time.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're, you're, I mean, I think you're really tapping into something important because the reality is that most people that struggle with porn, like porn is problematic in their life, but porn is not their problem.

Speaker 1 Like, porn is the band-aid that they've covered

Speaker 1 the wound, the lack, the need

Speaker 1 with,

Speaker 1 and now that the porn has become problematic in their life.

Speaker 1 Where, you know, you started watching porn

Speaker 1 because of whatever,

Speaker 1 but it's covering something that's so much deeper.

Speaker 1 That's why, you know, helping people stop watching it, it's not, you shouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 We do stuff that I ought not to do all the time, you know.

Speaker 1 It's so much deeper than that. It's like, why?

Speaker 1 Why do I do what I do?

Speaker 1 In contrast of...

Speaker 1 Why do I do, you know, stuff that I don't want to do? You know, Paul talks about that. Like, why do I have this desire to do do things I ought not do?

Speaker 1 Why do I find myself doing these things?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I mean,

Speaker 6 it doesn't even necessarily appear like a trap. It doesn't look like a trap at the time.

Speaker 1 Unless it could trap there, right?

Speaker 6 And then, and then you're in. Well,

Speaker 1 a good trap would have. camouflage.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know, that's why, you know, John 10, 10 talks about the enemy wants to kill, steal, and destroy.

Speaker 1 And, you know, he, you know, you're thinking about, you know, if he's going to put you in change, he's not going to show you the full picture of the chain that you will be in.

Speaker 1 He's just going to show you a link and like how that link's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 I love this

Speaker 1 Dallas Willard quote. I believe it's Dallas Willard, but it just talks about how repentance seems easy

Speaker 1 at first, and then after you sin, it seems impossible.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 I mean, how, like,

Speaker 1 there's a demonic assignment on each person.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I think the,

Speaker 1 I would say the biggest problem, especially like in like Protestant circles,

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 this

Speaker 1 negligence or this disbelief that evil can tangibly impact your life as a follower of Christ. Because

Speaker 1 are we without sin? No. And when we sin, what do we do? We, we, you know, essentially invite an opportunity for deception, you know, so

Speaker 1 it's,

Speaker 1 yeah. I mean, I, I love

Speaker 1 the way that JP just like lays it out there. He spent two years just talking about, man, uh, we're digging into the fact that, you know, there's

Speaker 1 the devil, like, you're not interested, you know, that you're not interesting to the devil per se, but he's got legions of demons

Speaker 1 that, you know, they know the wounds, you know, in

Speaker 1 your family history. They know the things in which you have a proclivity towards.

Speaker 1 He knows, you know, what kind of trap to set for you. He can't make you take the bait, but he can make it seem enticing.
And even more so,

Speaker 1 once you take it, he can make you believe that

Speaker 1 it's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 But yeah, man, back

Speaker 1 to that moment with Victor, we were doing that retooling prayer, and I was like, I was pretty dismissive of it.

Speaker 1 And then we did it.

Speaker 1 And then as soon as he started talking,

Speaker 1 it was like I was a kid and I was in a room

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 it took me to a moment that I had suppressed as a kid. I was seven and a half years old and I was, I heard my mom being hit by this guy that she was married to

Speaker 1 and I

Speaker 1 there was the dresser was pressed up against the door and I was pressing with my forearm against the door and I got it open just enough where I could see through it and I saw him hitting her and I was screaming at him and I felt so weak and so useless because I couldn't open that door

Speaker 1 and then I cried until I fell asleep

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I woke up

Speaker 1 And he was just like, what lie did the enemy tell you?

Speaker 1 I was like, that I'm not good enough

Speaker 1 it was just like

Speaker 1 man

Speaker 1 and it was like so how do you undo you know

Speaker 1 how do you undo something like that it's like

Speaker 1 how do you replace a lie well you have to replace it with a truth. You know, Thomas Kempis talks about habit has to be replaced with habit.
A lie has to be replaced replaced with truth.

Speaker 1 So I'm like, man,

Speaker 1 how do I fix this? How do I undo this? How do I,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 what do I do with this? What do I do with this like

Speaker 1 new, like unearthed trauma? You know, I've already like been to counseling for two years. You know, I've already,

Speaker 1 it was like something I didn't deal with. I never even thought of.
I didn't even know it happened, really.

Speaker 1 And the first thing I could think of was again that dream when I was praying. You know, that moment when I was praying, it's like, man,

Speaker 1 the reason I don't believe that I'm enough, it came from

Speaker 1 another lie

Speaker 1 that my dad wasn't there for me

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough to be his son.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to choose to forgive him in spite

Speaker 1 of an outcome

Speaker 1 and i did and i think the enemy like

Speaker 1 like i i i thought in my head like man god had orchestrated this incredible moment you know that i was gonna like when i caught him there was gonna be like fireworks shooting off and then we were gonna like you know

Speaker 1 grab some shotguns and go hunting or something you know like i

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 But it was just not the case.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I was talking with a buddy of mine recently, Matt Chandler. And

Speaker 1 he was telling me the story of like him and his dad like reconnecting like later in life.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he was like, I was like, well, how did, you know, how did that happen? And he was like, man, just like randomly one day, I just got like this inkling to say, hey, dad,

Speaker 1 I've got access to this cabin.

Speaker 1 I'm going out there for three days,

Speaker 1 hunt, fish, do all the stuff you love to do.

Speaker 1 Why don't you come with me? It's all on me. It's all taken care of.
Why don't you come hang out with me? And he did.

Speaker 1 And, you know, ended up professing Jesus as Lord.

Speaker 1 Ended up having a great relationship. Even moved closer to him.
And I was just like,

Speaker 1 my dad, like, has a, you know,

Speaker 1 he, like, my dad's like office, like, looks like this. If it was, like, dear and bore, and, you know,

Speaker 1 I was like, he'll be all over that.

Speaker 1 Send out a text,

Speaker 1 look at it,

Speaker 1 show it to my wife,

Speaker 1 hit send

Speaker 1 30 seconds go by. I don't think that's going to work.

Speaker 1 There was so much in me that wanted to like

Speaker 1 take 10 steps back, you know.

Speaker 1 It's like, man, like, what?

Speaker 1 What do I have to do?

Speaker 1 But at the end of the day, it's like, man,

Speaker 1 I can't control his decisions

Speaker 1 and I can't control

Speaker 1 his response to dictate

Speaker 1 how I perceive reality and live my life.

Speaker 1 All I can do is be the best father I can be and the best husband I can be and be the best Christ follower I can be and be the best leader in the organization that I'm a part of.

Speaker 6 It's not you, it's him.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it sucked.
You know, it sucked. Like, I thought for sure, like, that was

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 1 But I think a better way to think about it,

Speaker 1 you know, as I'm sitting here, it's like, maybe it was a seed, you know?

Speaker 1 When was that?

Speaker 1 Three months ago.

Speaker 6 It's a lot of pain. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's wild. It's like, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about porn.

Speaker 1 But when I do men's events,

Speaker 1 like, I know

Speaker 1 90%

Speaker 1 or more of the guys there have or are struggling with porn. The thing that I get to minister to people about is that

Speaker 1 there's some kind of father wound and there's there's levels of fatherlessness. You know, there's there's guys, you know, fathers that they weren't there at all.

Speaker 1 There were fathers that, you know, divorce or death, or

Speaker 1 it would be easy for me to become the father that's absent in that

Speaker 1 I'm there,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I'm trying to overcompensate so hard that I'm not present.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 so many guys with a similar wound.

Speaker 6 How How do you keep that balance?

Speaker 1 How do I keep the balance?

Speaker 1 I mean, for me, it's like, again, my wife is just the best.

Speaker 1 Where we were doing premarital counseling and,

Speaker 1 you know, looking, we were looking at like the five love languages and

Speaker 1 she she was saying well her top love language is quality time and naturally

Speaker 1 the way that we are naturally inclined to love people is the way in which we most naturally receive love which often is not the same as our spouse and you know with hope she wanted quality time like She was like never like not seen as

Speaker 1 like her family. It's like if they fell out of the Hallmark channel, you know, it's like not real life, you know.

Speaker 1 She, it's like she talks to her mom and her sister multiple times a day, and you know, they're on like, you know, I've

Speaker 1 her sister just had a baby, and they're like, you know, it, it's, it's wild, it's nothing like I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 It's almost, it's not uncomfortable, but it's like, it's so normal, it's weird to me. Um,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 she was like, quality time. So, like, when I hear quality time, I'm like, quality date, quality dinner, quality, like

Speaker 1 something

Speaker 1 really good.

Speaker 1 She's like, you know, I want, you know,

Speaker 1 sit on the end of a pier where the water is completely, you know, placid and just sit there, you know, no folds, nothing,

Speaker 1 just unattached from everything, just me and you. The greatest gift gift that you can give me, the greatest present that you can give me is your presence.

Speaker 1 And that's hard for somebody that doesn't think a lot of themselves. So it was almost like

Speaker 1 the way that she required me to love her well

Speaker 1 allowed me to heal.

Speaker 1 Because like, man, how could you see that in me?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 there's just been so many times where she has just did things and said things

Speaker 1 that have been so healing to me.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 with our kids,

Speaker 1 she reminds me that

Speaker 1 Canon, especially, that's my dude.

Speaker 1 He likes presence.

Speaker 1 and likes

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 stuff.

Speaker 1 At the end of the day, he he wants me to sit on the ground and play tic-tac-toe with him.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's like we overcomplicate simple things that distracts us from the most meaningful things.

Speaker 6 It's a good way to put it.

Speaker 1 So it's that. It's, you know,

Speaker 1 the way that she loves me well is she lovingly course corrects me from time to time. Sometimes it's, you know,

Speaker 1 a bony elbow and sometimes it's a, it's a kiss on the cheek. But

Speaker 1 she's never afraid to tell me the truth. And I appreciate that so much about her.

Speaker 6 Sounds like a great woman.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's wild.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, we were, we were, you know, we were sitting with a group of people and someone asked her like, well, you know, in good faith, they were asking her like, like, gosh, I just admire you so much.

Speaker 1 Like, how do you not have animosity towards him?

Speaker 1 Slept with thousands of girls, you know, did all this stuff that's all over the internet.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 how do you not have like

Speaker 1 something

Speaker 1 like in you that causes you to compare yourself? You know, like, how do you not have animosity? And, like,

Speaker 1 how do you not have that in you? And she was like, well, I knew him for five days before he gave his life to Christ.

Speaker 1 So I'm not going to hold his past against him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I don't believe that when you Google him, you will find the thing that's most true about him. The thing that's most true about him

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 that he is a son of the king of kings.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to speak to him and think of him the way that God does, not the way that Satan does.

Speaker 1 Because Satan would like me to hold on to his past,

Speaker 1 but God says,

Speaker 1 that is my son whom I'm well pleased. That's been forgiven and cleansed by his blood.

Speaker 1 Like the prodigal son, like when the prodigal son took one step toward his father, the father ran towards him and put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, a robe on his back, and threw a party because, you know, he said, this is my son who's come home.

Speaker 1 and I think, man, it's like if

Speaker 1 I think if we could just understand like who God is, he would seem

Speaker 1 not only more attractive, but irresistible.

Speaker 6 Wow, man,

Speaker 6 that is a hell of a story. Yeah,

Speaker 6 What a strong woman. Well, you want to end it in a prayer?

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 6 All right, you lead it,

Speaker 1 Father. We thank you

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 we get to look at you and say,

Speaker 1 Abba, Father.

Speaker 1 We thank you for our time together.

Speaker 1 And Lord, we just pray that the conversation that we had, it is both convicting

Speaker 1 and comforting. And that it doesn't matter what you've done.
It doesn't matter what's happened to you. It doesn't matter how far you've gone.

Speaker 1 You cannot outrun or outsend what Jesus has done for you on the cross.

Speaker 1 And to the person that is wrestling with and struggling with pornography addiction, God, I pray that you lovingly correct them, that you

Speaker 1 do not condemn them for their sin,

Speaker 1 that if they are a follower of you, that they are someone that would say, Hey, I call myself a follower of Jesus.

Speaker 1 Your word says that Romans 8:1, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So I pray that they don't feel condemned in shame,

Speaker 1 but they do feel feel corrected in their spirit and that this is not a good thing.

Speaker 1 This is not something that they should hide. This is something they need to tell someone that's close to them and that they pursue freedom and healing.

Speaker 1 And God, I just pray that to the person that doesn't know you,

Speaker 1 that we understand that we were created to live forever and where we spend forever is up to us, that you sent your son into this world to die the death that we deserved he paid our debt on the cross and God I just pray that to the person that doesn't know you that they right now in this moment that you draw them close to yourself and they say hey I'm a sinner that needs saving I don't know how to do it on my own but Jesus I pray that you come into my life that I turn from my sin and I turn to you and I give you my life and I trust you and I pray that you fill them with the Holy Spirit so they can follow you with all their life for the rest of their life we pray this all in jesus mighty name amen amen

Speaker 6 well josh thank you man thank you i just hope that uh

Speaker 6 when i just hope that and i know you will and i wish you the best of best of success with what you're doing now and spreading the message and And I just hope that this conversation,

Speaker 6 you know, just a lot of people out there are are caught in a vice, a trap, a prison, and they don't think they can find their way out of it. I've been in one multiple times.

Speaker 6 I know, I mean, it's a big part of what we do. And

Speaker 6 I just hope people take this and realize there's always a way out. There is always a way out.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And yeah, just the reality that wherever you are today,

Speaker 1 you're not stuck. You know,

Speaker 1 you can change. It doesn't have to always be this way.

Speaker 1 That's the gospel, that, you know, God loves us enough to meet us where we are, no matter what our situation is.

Speaker 1 But he also loves us enough to not leave us as we are.

Speaker 6 God bless, brother.