Porn Reboot w/ J.K. Emezi

Porn Reboot w/ J.K. Emezi

October 20, 2023

So many men have an unhealthy or compulsive relationship to pornography. In this episode our guest J.K. Emezi shares the story of his porn addiction and presents a pathway out of the cycle.

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Intro: [00:00:00] Mark Azulay is an industry leader in psychotherapy and men’s mental health. He’s helped countless guys get back on their feet, deepen their relationships, and excel in their lives. Now he’s taken all that he has learned and is sharing it with you. In each episode, Mark will interview an expert in the field of masculinity and men’s work.

We’ll cover topics such as emotional intelligence, masculine identity. Anger management, financial health, trauma recovery, marriage, and divorce ethics and spirituality. Tune in and become a better man. 

Mark: Welcome back to the men’s therapy podcast. I’m your host, Mark Azulay. And I’m here with JK amazing. He’s a porn recovery expert, um, a coach, and he’s the founder of elevator recovery.

org and the porn reboot podcast. JK. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Mark. Thank you. Yeah, I’m so excited to have this because, um, we just relaunched our show, [00:01:00] uh, we’ve been running for about two years and now we’re focusing on men’s issues and you’re the first one to come on and talk about porn addiction, which is something that I think is not talked about enough and needs to be talked about more.

Agreed. So let’s start by talking a little bit about your story. Are you currently recovered from porn addiction or have you worked with men who were, or what got you into this field to begin 

J.K. Emezi: with? Well, first of all, we don’t use the term recovering and I’ll talk about that and I’ll explain why from a therapeutic standpoint as well.

But I got into this because, um, I was a porn addict for many years. I was exposed to it at the age of eight. Uh, I’m 39 years old. So I’m part of what we call the, uh, a latch key generation. Our parents left us at home, told us don’t open the door for anyone. Just stay home. Once you, once you get home from school, long story short, we had a cousin who used to come check in on us and I was a big comic book fan, still am, still collect and she, um, She had a comic book and she kept reading it.

She just wouldn’t let me read it. So [00:02:00] I was hell bent on finding out what this comic book was about. Search for it, found it. It was pornographic in nature. Now bear in mind, Mark, I was eight years old, so I didn’t have the capacity to get physically aroused. But what happened was I knew it was naughty. I knew that this was not what I was supposed to see.

But I had seen too much, and this was my first exposure to something that was explicitly sexual. And I thought that this was how people had sex, without triggering anyone. It was very, very graphic. It was a graphic comic. My state changed, and I was shocked. I was like, Oh my god, this is what mom and dad do?

This is the sex thing? This is crazy! So I didn’t know how to feel about it. I was scared. I was concerned. I was afraid of what would happen when I became an adult. But the most important thing was that I changed my state. And what happened right after that was as a kid, anytime, uh, mom and dad didn’t give [00:03:00] me candy, anytime I wasn’t allowed to watch Saturday cartoons.

Anytime I had to do my homework, anytime I was punished and I wanted to feel better. For some reason, I realized that nudity would change my state. Now, of course, that was in retrospect, I didn’t know what a state was, a state change or anything like that. And I just continued doing that. I continued secretly looking for nudity to change my state until I hit puberty about 13, 14 years old.

And then I discovered masturbation and orgasms. And then I was off to the races. I used it to deal with every single thing we deal with as teenagers. Like, Oh, my arms are growing longer than my whatever, you know, like I don’t have, I don’t have hair yet and all the other guys are developing faster than me.

And I have acne. I’m ugly. The girls don’t like me. I’m awkward. I’m weird. I’m a nerd. Everything was porn, porn, porn, porn, porn made me feel. Better. Unfortunately, I carried it into college in my early twenties, and it was at that [00:04:00] point that I realized that it was a full blown addiction. 

Mark: Yeah, I love what you’re saying there.

Um, so what I’m hearing is to pair it back, right? Is you used it as a way to cope with everything, right? It became the kind of short circuit in your brain to help you feel better whenever you were. Exactly. Yeah. So how? How bad did it get? Did you have a rock bottom moment? 

J.K. Emezi: Yeah, it got really bad. Again, I’m not a fan of rock bottom moments.

You’ll find that we are a little bit, we are a business actually called contrarian solutions, right? We, we do things in a therapeutic way, but, um, Elevated recovery on our flagship program porn reboot is designed to deal with the modern issues which are facing men. A lot of things like high speed internet pornography, the changing sexual marketplace, the way, um, the issues, you know, this already, the issues that are facing men today are very different from the issues that were facing us 10 years and 20 years ago.

So, [00:05:00] some of the Therapeutic models and modalities that I used to support us just don’t fit anymore. So, um, we can talk about the rock bottom moments later, but there was a moment when I realized that. I needed to change something and it was when I actually started acting out sexually. So I went from just viewing pornography to going like, dude, you are such a loser.

That’s what I told myself. You don’t have a girlfriend. You can’t get girls. You can’t talk to girls. You’re sexualizing every single person you see. You’re wondering what it would be like to have sex with them. Women are just sexual objects to you. So what I would do, because I was very inhibited was in the evenings I would drink.

I would go out to bars and clubs. I would try to hit on girls and get with girls. It didn’t work. So I would come back and I would get on chat sites, video chat sites, and I would swipe my credit card and talk to women and listen to them telling me like, Oh my goodness, you’re, you don’t [00:06:00] seem, you look all right.

You look so handsome. Like while the, they’re racking up the, the, the payment. Yeah. Why don’t you have a, why don’t you have a girlfriend guy like you? And I fell for all of that crap. Eventually it got to the point where I would start getting on anonymous sex websites, things like Craigslist back in the day and searching for anonymous sex, and I had a couple of experiences where thankfully nothing happened.

No sex was actually involved because I was still raised as a good Catholic boy. So each time I was about to cross the line, all the guilt would kick in. I’ll be like, what am I doing? But I had a few events like that, specifically one where a Woman said that she was babysitting and, uh, it was about 2 a. m.

I’d been drinking. I was like, okay, this is it. I’m going to lose my virginity. So I jumped in my car. I drive tipsy across town to this alleyway behind the house. I’m in a low income neighborhood. And she’s like, dude, why don’t you just come out of your [00:07:00] car? I’m here. I’m like, I don’t see you. And I’m freaking out.

I’m paranoid. My, my car’s in, in drive. She’s like, just put your car in park and come out. And I’m just freaking out. I’m ready to go. The driver’s side mirror smashes. It’s a dude. I don’t know whether he used a baseball bat or whatever it was. I’m already on high alert. So I just put my foot on the accelerator.

Dude, I drive through the backyard. I drive through like the plastic. Pools. I hit a trampoline. I drive through the front of the house and get back on the main road. And Mark, I remember just driving back home with my, my hands, just gripping the steering wheel. I kept saying, JK, you were not raised like this.

You were not raised like this. You were not raised like this. Like I wasn’t, I wasn’t raised to like visit with, with escorts or prostitutes. And that was just not how I was raised. I mean, I was raised in poverty, but I was raised with, with certain types of values. I drove home that day. Went back to the room, it was just close to my college and I told myself, JK, [00:08:00] anything could have happened today.

You could have died. You could have gone to jail. Your face could have been plastered all over the papers, like you could have ended everything tonight. And that was when I realized that I had a problem with pornography because it was the one consistent thing that fueled my behavior. You see, Mark. Before I did that, I needed to watch pornography to get in that state, to change my state and get excited.

And I realized that I was a different person every time I viewed pornography and that person, I either had to understand him or I had to separate from 

Mark: him. Yeah, that’s a hell of a story. It’s a hell of a story. And I, you know, we’ll talk about it more in the second segment. I’m recovering from drug abuse, right?

Okay, what substance? I will go term poly drug abuser. So, okay, okay, whatever I could put up my nose. I put up, um, marijuana was [00:09:00] probably like, the most consistent one. Okay. Um, I had an opiate stint for about a year and a half that culminated in an overdose and that was my wake up moment. Okay. But in that I was, I was like in the rave scene.

So it was like, who knows what the fuck I was snorting? Just like bags of powder, right? Like, I don’t know. It’s probably meth to some extent. I don’t know. But anyway, for over 10 years. But the reason that I bring that up is when I was recovering from, um, marijuana from weed, particularly, I had a very similar insight.

This idea of, oh my God, I am stoned literally all the time. And I don’t know, like, being sober feels like an altered state and being sober feels like a different person. You know, it was more weird for me to be sober than to be high. Right. I was literally smoke all day every day. Right? Like, huge pothead.

So, yeah, I wonder if that connects to kind of what you’re saying. Around that state, you get into 

J.K. Emezi: when you were looking at porn. I love that example, because that’s exactly what it was, because prior to looking at pornography, what a lot of guys who are addicted [00:10:00] to porn do is that they go into a state where they are constantly aroused right now, for instance, when guys feel whatever emotion that they’re trying to not feel, they will hop on Instagram.

They don’t even know. That they are looking for something. So this, I was just there to entertain myself, bro. I was just watching some memes, some funny shit. And next thing you know, you’re looking at some woman fitness girl, whatever it is, that’s out there and you’re going down that rabbit hole, but you do it.

So consistently. It’s really just part of your templates. It’s what you do. And then when men are out and about, they can’t walk around without looking at somebody, um, to find something, something attractive. That can arouse them, or even if they are making friends or going out to a social event, there are a lot of guys who realize that they actually can’t make friends or go on a trip unless sex is involved.

So if it’s just a trip and you’re just like, it’s not going to be a way to get sex. We’re not going to go to a bar or club. We’re not going to [00:11:00] party. We’re not, we’re just, well, we’re going to go to a trip and sit on the beach. Are they hot chicks? If that doesn’t exist, they can’t do it. And they don’t realize that that’s not normal.

Right. Yeah. That’s, that’s 

Mark: a big question. I’m so curious your thoughts on this, of what is normal, but quote, normal male sexuality is conditioning and addiction. Right. Cause of course are the sex is everywhere. Like you said, high speed internet, like you can pull the port hub on your phone, literally any moment you want to go on Instagram or Tik TOK, you’re going to see those bouncing, you know, girls, no matter what.

Right. So, so yeah. So like in your idea and your definition, what is considered normal male sexuality and what is. Maybe on a hypersexuality, whatever term you may have 

J.K. Emezi: for it. Yeah, I don’t think anybody can truly define what normal sexuality is. The reason why is because all of us have what we call an arousal template, and your arousal template develops when you’re a child.

It’s from the first images you see, the first women you see, um, the things that soothe you, um, whatever they may be. And then once you become [00:12:00] an adolescent, that’s when you start Making sense of all the, the stimuli you got growing up as a child, you start making sense of it sexually. Sometimes it involves trauma, specific experiences and memories.

So I’m very open sexually, um, to what people, and especially when we step into things like fantasy, right? Um, fantasy is healthy. The reason why fantasy is healthy is because it stays as fantasy. It stays in your head. The problem with fantasy is people are afraid that if. Other people knew what your fantasies were, they would judge you.

But then the further problem is that pornography actually takes our fantasies and makes them real. So it takes the fantasy and it actually acts it out for people to see. And when you consider our fantasies, our fetishes and other things which are part of our arousal template. You really can’t go to a group of people and tell them this is what normal sexuality is.

And this is one of the reasons why we’re [00:13:00] called Rebooting, not Recovery. Because when you go to Recovery for sexual addiction, you’re looking to your sponsor to tell you what normal sexuality is. What if he said normal sexuality is missionary sex with your wife for 30 years, whether you’re attracted to her or not.

Is that normal sexuality? That’s where the question comes in. 

Mark: Yeah, 

J.K. Emezi: that makes a ton of 

Mark: sense. Right? Um, yeah, there’s so much to talk about here. I am curious your thoughts on what, I think a lot of men use porn as sex education, right? Yeah. And like you’re saying, they use that fantasy, that entertainment material to teach them about sex.

Mm-Hmm. , I’m gonna prompt you with that. Go, go on that topic. . Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did that impact young men and, and guys like porn? GPT? Just go drop him off. Just, just he’ll 

J.K. Emezi: go with it. Launch. 

Mark: Yeah. 

J.K. Emezi: Uh, um, I think a lot of people do use pornography as, as, um. Um, sex education, and there is some truth to that part of one of the thing would be [00:14:00] working with our clients.

We have them write a thank you and goodbye letter to pornography. And a lot of men do write in the, in the thank you letter that without pornography, they wouldn’t have known where to put their penis. You see the, the diagram in biology class in person. It’s like really different. You’re like, Whoa, and she’s like, not there.

You’re just like, Oh, okay, my bad. It goes in here. So pornography sometimes teaches you some of those things. But you also need to know what the limit is. Pornography can teach you where to put your penis and it can teach you a couple of different positions, but really that’s where it ends because the rest of the things are acting.

The biggest thing pornography cannot teach you is it cannot teach you intimacy, which is key to a long term, healthy sexual life. There’s no intimacy when you view pornography, it’s just two people acting and having sex. Right. 

Mark: It’s very mechanical, right? There isn’t that long term connection. There isn’t the game to know your partner, 

J.K. Emezi: right?

There you go. Yeah. It’s just, you just start off with whatever clip that Pornhub or whatever site chooses to show [00:15:00] you. And for a lot of people, uh, real quick, before we, we, we move into the break, I was being interviewed by a guy yesterday who runs a retreat for young men. And he says, this kid stands up and says, I have a question for you guys, the older men.

And then he was like, well, what’s the question? He’s like, the question is. Uh, I’m really scared does sex he’s 10 years old. He’s like the sex lasts more than 15 seconds. And the guy was like, why? And he was like, well, I just thought like, I’m so worried about having sex because all the porn clips or wherever he watches them on Tik TOK or whatever are 15 seconds long.

So he thought that sex in real life only lasted 15 seconds. This 10 year old, how crazy is that? That’s crazy. That’s sex education in 2023. Exactly. 

Mark: Yeah. And I don’t need to tell you this, but I’ll just mention it for our audience that of course porn is highly correlated with, you know, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation.

For sure. Porn induced erectile dysfunction, P I E D. Exactly. Right. So it creates a self fulfilling [00:16:00] prophecy where you might last 15 seconds. If all you’re doing is looking at that’s funny. Yeah, that’s true. So we’re going to move to our commercial break. Um, when we come back, I want to hear more about, um, your reboot terminology.

I want to hear more about how you help men, if there’s any process that you move them through. Um, and then I think, yeah, I think talking more about the impact of. We’re on social media on our culture, you know, you’re real expert in this field. And I think a lot of guys need to hear what you’ve got to say for sure.

Happy to do so. Yeah. So you’re listening. Hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other side of the commercial break.

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Azulay. To reach the show today, please call 1 888 346 9141. That’s 1 888 346 9141. 3, 4, 6, 9, 1 41, or send an email to podcast at men’s therapy dot online or visit www. menstherapypodcast. com. Now back to the men’s 

Mark: therapy podcast. Welcome back to the men’s therapy podcast.

I’m here with JK amazing. And we’re talking about, um, porn reboot and recovery and getting, getting through it. Um, so I’m curious, right? You have your own terminology. You have your own language. I’m curious about the reboot model, where that came from and how you might walk a 

J.K. Emezi: guy through that. Fantastic.

The reboot model came from, um, my journey into seeking healing from my out of control [00:19:00] behavior as most people who struggle with any sort of out of control behavior. You just don’t believe that it’s possible to end the behavior at first. And of course, you struggle with a lot of hopelessness and you sometimes think that something’s inherently wrong with me.

Like, yeah, Other people can quit, but I, Mark, I, I have some problem, something can’t stop me. I’m unique. And so that is very similar when you’re struggling with a sexually compulsive behavior. The only issue came about when I started attending 12 step groups, which have been very, very helpful in our programs.

Foundation is built in a lot of these modalities, but one thing I could not accept when it came to sexual behavior was the fact that. With sexual behavior, you are still required to be recovering. Now, when it comes to a substance abuse issue, the substance is external, right? And the use of the substance can be viewed to be a symptom of something which is deeper.

However, when it [00:20:00] comes to something sexual or with pornography, The drug itself is not pornography. The drug is within us. So when we go through the behavioral process, it’s called a process addiction. What we are addicted to is the release of adrenaline, norepinephrine, dopamine, and all those endogenous opiates that are within us when we are seeking orgasm.

Another issue is that we already know inherently that the orgasm is short. We know that the release of the opiate hit is really short. So what do we do? So we spend more time in the process. We are addicted to the other parts of it, which is why a lot of men, their behavior escalates. So they’re opening different tabs.

They’re like, no, no, no, this is not the one I’m going to ejaculate to. I’m going to find the next one. The next I’m like, well, why don’t you just orgasm? Why? Because you’re not addicted to orgasm. Yeah. Addicted to the process of chasing, which then screws up your ability to get aroused, which is one of the reasons that a lot of men deal with [00:21:00] erectile dysfunction, because a woman is not multiple tabs.

She’s not multiple ethnicities. She’s not multiple body types. She’s not airbrush. She doesn’t make all those sounds, right? She’s none of those things. When I stepped into traditional recovery and the idea was that I would have to be J K A recovering porn or sex addict, I realized that I wanted sex to be a consistent part of my life, but I did not want to pathologize it.

I did not want, and I had the choice to make alcohol or weed. It didn’t have to be in my life. So if you had to, if you told me to choose between alcohol and sex for the rest of my life, which would you give up? Well, I’m going to give up alcohol, bro. That’s not, there’s no question about it. It’s not a problem.

And, um, that was my problem. Another thing was that the concept of recovery traditionally also involved recovering all of that which we [00:22:00] lost to out of control behavior, our values, material things, relationships, and so on. However, the thing with, um, sexually compulsive disorders and things like porn addiction is that it lasts for a very long time for a lot of men because there’s a lot more shame.

Attached to it compared to drug addiction, you can hide your pornography addiction so much better. So what happens? When you are 35 years old, trying to recover something you lost at 21, your ability to relate to women in a certain way. Bro, you’re 35 years old. You can’t go back to being those ages when you were sexually active.

You’ve lost all those things. So we have a lot of men who get very depressed when they’re going through their quote unquote recovery for sexual addiction because they can’t recover their youth. They can’t recover that time in their life. You So we use the term rebooting because rebooting is hitting the reset button.

It is [00:23:00] building everything up from the ground up. It is new values for the man you are. Maybe at 35, it’s time to start dating with finding a relationship in mind, as opposed to just dating to have casual sex. You can’t recover that, right? Rebooting is hitting the reset button on what you find attractive.

Hitting the reset button on what you want your body to look like, what you want intimacy to look like, and what you want your spiritual life to look like. So we don’t use the term recovering because also in Western culture, it comes with a lot of inbuilt, um, what’s the word for it? Assumptions. And we have a lot of people when it comes to their sexual behavior, because sex is so exciting and so varied, they Struggle with recovery, because they feel that their life is going to be black and white when they go into the meeting and they look at the examples of men in front of them, they’re like, these dudes [00:24:00] seem boring.

They seem square, they seem black and white, and the truth is that for people who may have been on the edge of death. Being square or boring or whatever the hell somebody wants to call it is better than being dead. It’s way better than being dead. And I tell that to clients who like, Oh, I was attracted to your stuff because it seems cool.

I was like, No, bro. If you’re struggling with, if you have a co occurring disorder, sex and heroin, Bro, you better go get square in whatever way possible, because I rather you do that than be dead. Don’t run to me to help you reboot from that. But at the same time, a lot of people pick that up. And because of the shame mark, even the sponsor.

Or the therapist cannot tell a man, like you asked me, what’s a normal sex life. They can’t even speak about, like, you’re going to find very few sponsors who are going to sit down and tell a man or churches, even here’s what your sex life should look like. They can’t talk about it. And [00:25:00] so recovery in the sense of the traditional recovery, taking the alcohol and substance abuse model and applying it to behavioral addiction, like pornography often does not work in the longterm.

Uh, that’s the reason why we’ve done so well, and we are probably, we probably have one of the largest porn addiction private groups on the internet out there. We have about 15, 000 plus members in our group, and we have about 450 active clients that are paying within the program. And that’s simply because we are the only group for 11 years.

Our promise is simple. We’ll get you to overcome your behavior, rewire your brain within a year and a half to two years. It doesn’t, for your sexual behavior, it doesn’t have to be pathological, and it doesn’t have to be a lifelong sentence. I can’t say the same for substance abuse, but for this behavior, you can end this behavior.

Ad: Yeah, 

Mark: that’s great. That’s great. I’m really happy about your success with the program. It makes a ton of sense [00:26:00] using Reboot. Right. Because it makes me think of people that struggle with the eating disorder, right? It’s like you have to eat, right? Sure. It’s like, you have to have sex or you want to have sex.

It’s not about being a teetotaler or just being like, you know, a hard line, sober individual. It’s about redefining what that means to yourself. Um, so I want to dig in to the part you’re talking about towards the end there, the shame, right? Because I think that is something that is hugely lacking. In just male culture in general is that as guys, we don’t know how to fucking talk about sex at all.

Right. I mean, we don’t, we don’t want to talk about it either through porn or through locker room talk or through innuendo or stonewalling, but there aren’t models for, you know, quote, healthy sexuality or normal sexuality. You know, it’s very hard to find guys that can go in there, so they end up going to, to porn.

Right. True. Absolutely. 

J.K. Emezi: Yeah, that’s very common. It’s, it’s hard for men to talk about, about sex in a healthy way. It’s also [00:27:00] hardwired for a lot of men to be a source of validation. 

Mark: I 

J.K. Emezi: was talking to some guys the other day about, um, Porn induced erectile dysfunction. And I’m explaining that when it comes to sex, our relationship with men in the early days, when we don’t have the skill set to, to, to have sex is it’s something we get, right?

So you see guys in the locker room saying stuff like, Hey, man, did you get some? Did you get some? It’s something that you have to obtain. And then when you get older and you’ve had a few experiences and you have confidence in your ability to. Get it, it because become something to do, right? Or did you like that?

Did you, did you come, did you come? Did I, did I do you right? And that’s where pornography comes in because we watch people doing something. And as human beings, when we do things, we have a tendency to wants to do it well. So sex becomes all about the doing, and then we’re like, Oh, did she get it? What’s, what’s the, what’s the feedback?

What’s the ROI on sex? Did she orgasm? So did you come, [00:28:00] did you like it? Good. Uh, we just wanted to ask you, like, compared to your acts, do you think my dick’s big? Do you, do you like, you know, we’re getting the validation from that, but we seldom get to the next level. The getting into doing is all well and good, but what have the intimacy, what have the being, what have the fact that if a lot of men and a lot of men, those of you listening consider the fact that if you let go of the getting, And the doing and doing it right.

And you just focused on being, you wouldn’t have so much anxiety that you’re unable to have an erection. It is the doing part that you wants to do it. Well, the anxiety worrying about what somebody else will think in a future events that brings that up. But the worst part of is this, of this is that it reinforces that thing within you that says that as a man, if I don’t do something, well, I am a bad person.

Which is shame. And so [00:29:00] you are constantly reinforcing your shame by wanting to do something right, or your judgment of doing comes from something that is not real, which is pornography. And that’s the point I keep trying to bring back to man that pornography is not going to release you from your shame.

It only reinforces it. 

Mark: Really well said. I love that. Right. I mean, a lot of the guys that I talk with when they finally are able to open up about sex, this is just what you said, right? They’re like, it’s a test. And I feel like I can pass and I can fail and I’m really anxious about it. And that makes me fail.

Right. And it’s just like a skill that I’m building where in that moment, they actually feel very powerless to the woman. Right. Because I feel like that their sexual partner is judging them of like, did they come enough or was it long enough or whatever? Right. So dig big enough, all that stuff that I think a lot of guys carry a ton of insecurity around, which makes it not very enjoyable.

Right. If it’s like this pop quiz that just comes out and I know it’s nowhere that you fail. Um, Yeah. So, so I’m curious for you, [00:30:00] like, can you speak more about the being sex? Because I think, yeah, a lot of guys don’t know what that is, right? Like what is being sex to you? 

J.K. Emezi: Yeah. Being sexist is focusing on intimacy first, and we don’t need to have a very complex explanation of what intimacy is.

Intimacy is just deep closeness with a person. Right. We did not program. I don’t care how people have sex. Some guys like, Oh, I only want to have one partner. I’m like, why? Right. And if, if it’s for religious reasons, I respect that if it’s for, I respect whatever the reason is, but I always want to make sure they understand why, if they’re just doing it because it’s conditioning, I have a problem with that.

Because one of the things that happens is. A lot of men force themselves into intimacy and this causes problems because they were told that they have to be with one partner and that is good. They don’t know why. And so when they run into the things that we all run into in relationships, which is we fight, our bodies change, different things happen.

They [00:31:00] don’t know how to deal with intimacy. So learning intimacy is learning how to be close. To people, if you’re dating casually or whatever, I tell men that, yeah, sure. The person is attractive. That’s the thing that catches our eye, but start looking for things in their life, in their personality, subtle cues they give off.

Yeah, you that brings up a pleasant sensation within you and you go like, wow, I like that value. They have. I like that. I relate to that and focus on that part of the person pornography instead forces you to focus on the Physical aspect of the person or one thing about the person that’s usually extremely superficial in nature when you can train yourself to find the non physical parts of a person that actually you enjoy and you like, and it brings up a warm feeling within you when you are sexual with that person.

There’s less trying to do, and there’s [00:32:00] more like, I appreciate you for this unique personality trait, this unique value, this unique expression that you have, that’s where being is, that’s where you start being with different people by appreciating them. That’s it. Appreciation with anything. Oh, the, the, the, the stock appreciated.

The value of something goes up when you appreciate it, you start valuing women more as opposed to you objectify, you objectify them, you’re not really, you can’t, you can’t value that. The, the, the, the stock price, so to speak of somebody’s body is what it is. We’ll just go find another one. But a unique personality traits.

A value they hold closely, a story they told you about their past that you find beautiful. When you appreciate that it’s value goes up and you’re better able to be with the person. 

Mark: Does that make sense? It makes a ton of sense. Yeah. I think you’re [00:33:00] saying it like really well, right? This idea of, I think it’s just connection, which no bigger topic, but I think as men, we don’t know how to do that and we’re not conditioned to do that.

We have to learn how to connect. Right. And not objectify. Right. We have to work through our own misogyny. We have to work through our own, you know, narcissism of our version of that. Right. Like, instead of seeing our partners, Hey, what have you done for me lately? Right. Or like, what can she provide to me?

It’s Oh, what is something about her? That is beautiful that, that I can appreciate that I can just be with and just kind of like bask in. Right. You don’t need to do anything. You can just take it in and just have it wash over you. Um, in a way that that will fill you up, but I think, yeah, for a lot of guys, that’s, that’s like speaking a different language, right?

Like, we have to really practice being able to feel on that level. 

J.K. Emezi: I think it takes a lot for many men to get there. We were so used to being closed off and operating on on a certain level. So I think a lot of times for. A lot of therapists [00:34:00] struggle with getting through to people in that sense. Uh, I’m very direct and crude and I cuss and I, I say what’s necessary, but it gets guys attentions and they’re, they’re like, okay, this is, this is the guy who’s going to help me because he’s going to call me out.

Mark: Exactly. Right. You’ve got to challenge him. You got to build respect, right? So they know, like, yeah, you’re not going to get away with it. So we’re going to move to our final segment here. Um, when we come back, I’m going to talk about some concrete things that guys can do to either look at their porn use, um, or consider the impact it has on their life, or if they want to take a step towards reboot or some good starting off points.

So if you’re listening and you’re working with this issue, stay tuned because JK is going to give you some good tips on how to take the first couple of steps.

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Azulay. To reach the show today, please call 1 888 346 9141. That’s 1 3 4 6 91 41 or send an email through podcast at Men’s therapy online or visit www dot men’s therapy podcast.com. Now back to the Men’s Therapy podcast. 

Mark: Welcome back to the show.

Uh, in this segment, we talk directly to you, the listener, and give you some concrete steps if you want to take some of these changes [00:37:00] and make some of these changes. So, jk, can you. Let a guy know like how they might start to just step one is like, how do you just evaluate your porn use and notice if you need a reboot 

J.K. Emezi: or not?

Fantastic. Well, easiest way is, is you can go to our website. We actually have a, a porn addiction quiz that you can take, but on your own, a simple question you can ask yourself to find out if your behavior is compulsive is a lot of men listen and they go, am I a sex addict? Am I a porn addict? I watch porn and I have sex.

Viewing pornography and enjoying it, having sex and enjoying it does not mean that you are addicted to it. However, if it is interrupting any aspect, any domain of your life, the financial aspect, if it’s interrupting your career, the middle of the day, let’s say you work from home and it gets stressful and you absolutely, habitually have to view pornography to Quote, unquote, take the edge off.

Um, and most importantly, if you try to stop because you don’t feel good about it, it doesn’t matter whether you feel [00:38:00] shame after that you try to stop, you tell yourself you’re going to stop, but you can’t, and you keep doing it despite your best intentions, then your behavior is compulsive in nature. And that’s okay.

It’s nothing to freak out about. You don’t have to call yourself an addict if you don’t feel comfortable with that. But you do have to try and stay off pornography, a simple test. And just, I use 30 days, not because it’s 30 days or anything special. I couldn’t care less, but it’s something that a lot of guys relate to try and stay off pornography for a month.

That’s it. I don’t care if you masturbate, actually, as long as you don’t fantasize to, uh, pornographic images, but see if you can stay off pornography for a month without rationalizing it or justifying it. And if you cannot do that, you likely have a compulsive behavior. When I say pornography, I mean all images, uh, literature.

That stimulates you. So some guys would go to like written erotica. Some guys would be like, well, it wasn’t porn. It was like something on Instagram [00:39:00] or was no, like no visual at all. And nothing written. If you were going, it was either you were having sex. Or you were fantasizing and masturbating. Um, once you realize that you have a problem, the first step is to actually admit that you have a problem.

And it’s the same with every out of control behavior. You need to look at yourself and you need to tell yourself, Hey man, I have a problem and it is impacting my life. The next step is how you’re going to go about ending this. And I’m going to make it very simple. We have three simple steps that we take.

Um, we start off by changing our habits. An example of a habit would be, um, identifying the two times during the week or the two scenarios where you’re most likely to slip and relapse. For instance, we have some guys who, for them, the cue is when their partner, their girlfriend, whoever leaves home. So hearing the door close, the car screech out the driveway, something clicks and they’re like, well, I’m going to [00:40:00] do it for some guys.

It’s right before bed. They’re like, Oh, I can’t sleep. They’re going to do it for some guys. It’s in the middle of the day when they’re stressed out, just identify those couple of places and set the intention to not act out during that time. You can also install. A porn filter, the great ones like covenant eyes, um, which basically stop you from accessing pornography without affecting any of the work that you’re doing.

That’s the realm of habits. Um, there are a few more that you can use, but it’s also in this realm that a lot of basic coaching and personal development lies. I want you to understand that habits are not. Enough for you to end your compulsive behavior. If they were, there’ll be harrowing addicts and meth addicts and all these functional addicts who would not be dealing with their problem.

The second step is lifestyle. This has to become a part of your lifestyle. If you go to a certain place or you have a habit of being stuck on Instagram, [00:41:00] you’ve got to change that. Whatever the habit is, if it’s boundaries with your phone, It ha you have to accept that you’re going to live this way. This is where some accountability might come in.

Now, this is where a lot of 12 step groups and a church groups and men’s group groups reside. They reside in the lifestyle part of this where you have great accountability. You’re living a certain life. You’re showing up for the meetings. You’re going for the retreats. You’re doing all the self improvement work.

Maybe you’re even doing some plant medicine, but. They don’t know how to take you to the next step, which is why you are often recovering forever, which is why you are often day, day by day. Nothing wrong with that if you want it to be your lifestyle. But with this behavior, the final thing that must change is your self image.

You have to stop identifying as a man who needs pornography to function, which means I use a very simple analogy. Like many of us with the bed when we were growing up, right? [00:42:00] You wet the bed and a certain point, you just stop wetting the bed, right? You, you were used to freak out. Like, Oh, my God, would I wet the bed?

I don’t know. But at some point, it’s like, you’re not, you’re going to bed. You’re not worried about wetting the bed. It’s a biological function. In this case, this is a biological function that you have abused due to the introduction of something external. So there’s work to be done on the inside. This is where the inner work starts getting done.

This is where you identify the pain. And there are three reasons why men reach out to us to end their behavior. And this might be for you if you’re listening, is you end this behavior out of love. Out of duty or out of fear, it could be your duty as a man, it could be your duty as a father, it could be a duty as a professional, whatever it may be connected to your values, it could be love, maybe you just be about to have a child and you don’t want to see your child repeat that you don’t want to be this sort of father, it could be fear.

You know, the [00:43:00] FBI agent in your, in your webcam might be watching you. And he’s like, Oh, I might, I might get busted. I watched some shady stuff and there’s a little bit too much of it. I got some, some hard drives there. My history is like fierce. It’s a great motivator, right? Identify, is it duty? Listen, as you’re listening to this right now, identify am I, if I were to end my behavior with pornography, would it be out of love, out of duty and out of fear?

And the final thing I want to share with you is that. It is absolutely possible to live an exciting sexual life, a varied sexual life, a fulfilling crazy sexual life without pornography. That’s the biggest fear that holds a lot of people back, that somehow it will take away from you. It will feel like that at first as you go through withdrawals, but your life can be absolutely amazing without it.

Mark: Yeah, I want to talk about that for a moment, but as you were talking, I just have a question. Like, Are [00:44:00] you concerned, or what are your thoughts are on kind of the escalation of the porn industry? What I mean by that is things like only fans, right? It’s like personalized porn, right? Or AI generated porn, where it’s very customized to people’s likes and desires.

And, you know, I think all these changes that are happening, right? I mean, like you said, you know, when we grew up, like we had the beginning of the internet, we had chat rooms, we had like some video chat. You know, before that it was pornography, you know, mags, but like, it just keeps seems like it just keeps getting more and more accessible and more and more, um, personalized, 

J.K. Emezi: right?

Absolutely. Yeah, that’s what’s going to keep happening. And frankly speaking, we’re not here to change the world. Um, I believe that the trajectory. It’s not going to change. I don’t mean it in a hopeless way. I’m a realist. I’m very practical. Um, I understand that the strongest emotion always wins. And as someone yourself who is in recovery, you also understand that.

Um, how powerful the pull of substances [00:45:00] is and that there are many people who are not going to make it. There are also many people who are going to make it without recovery. Something’s just going to happen in their life and they’re like, I’m done with it. A lot of people actually outgrow certain behavior.

There are people who get married and they’re like, screw it, I’m going to stop doing this. They have a kid and they’re going to stop that. So there’s a natural course to a lot of things. But yeah, now they have OnlyFans, Fansly has AI generated images that are apparently winning their stripping competitions or whatever they do on these sites.

Um, there’s a lot of personalized pornography. Virtual reality is going to take it to a next level. Um, people now have AI girlfriends and AI partners. I mean, the future is here. In the last couple of years, it’s amazing the things that have happened. And a lot of men are going to get addicted. Uh, it’s going to change the course of our culture.

And all I have to say is that it is a choice. You can decide whether you want to live in that world, which is going to bring without a doubt, a [00:46:00] lot of pain in the future, or you can make the choice to be a person who changes his life. And hopefully you’re one of those individuals like Mark, who there’s change in your life.

It’s sparked something within you and you have the skillset, the talent, the gift, the unique ability, whatever you want to call it. So go off there and start spreading the message to others and touch as many people, um, as you can. 

Mark: Yeah. Very well said. Thanks for the compliment there at the end. Um, so I think the end on something positive, right?

You talked about how rebooting your porn. It doesn’t mean that your sex life has to suck. Right. And we’ve been talking a little bit, we’re sprinkling in a little about polyamory, a little bit alternative lifestyle, um, kink or BDSM. What are your thoughts on that? And how can guys start to kind of expand out and increased, uh, expanded attention of sexuality?

You know, 

J.K. Emezi: one of the great things I’ll tell rather the good things that has come out of. for any man who’s dealing with an out of control behavior with pornography is that [00:47:00] it allows you to take a very close look at your arousal templates. Unfortunately, with a lot of 12 step groups specifically for recovery from sexually addictive behaviors, they do not encourage any sort of alternative sexual lifestyles or relationships, which is one of the big issues I had with it.

Because I realized that, Pornography highlighted the things that were of interest to my arousal templates. And when I would go to like a 12 step group or a traditional therapist, they would force me to suppress or repress that. And anytime you suppress or repress something, you’re going to bring up other issues.

It’s never a healthy thing. So for those of you who are struggling with this behavior, some of you may have been introduced to alternative lifestyles via pornography. But I want you to know that that doesn’t change the fact that it’s having a negative impact on your life. It may have been the gateway or the doorway to enter into these lifestyles.

My [00:48:00] suggestion to you is to get it under control or eliminate it from your life and see what’s left. Usually the fetishes, the lifestyles, the things you’re interested that are left after that are the things which are natural. Those which are porn induced quickly fall away. You find out that without pornography to fuel them, they don’t exist, but they’re going to be a handful that are left.

I’ve had clients who came in and they were in traditional monogamous relationships and they realized that they were not monogamous people. And when they started going a little bit deeper and prioritizing intimacy, not sex. Priorizing intimacy, they realize they have the capacity to be intimate with more than one person, right now, you know, embarking on any of these relationships does, it’s can be a painful experience.

It can also be a very liberating experience, but I just want to say that pornography doesn’t really help with that. I [00:49:00] think for a lot of these communities. Um, pornography has actually muddied the water for a lot of these communities, which are very healthy because a lot of people begin to enter into these communities and these sort of relationships and they were fueled by pornography.

So the people who are legitimately in there, because it’s their thing, it’s just that having really uncomfortable, uh, experiences and relationships, because they’re like, yo, you are not really, This is not what you think it is. You think you’re exploring it, but you’re literally just here for sex and to experiment.

And so removing pornography makes all these relationships a lot more pure. I 

Mark: really like what you said there, right? And my mind goes, it’s, it’s kind of like breaking down the voyeurism that I think comes from with porn and participating, right? Like, I think this is true across main domains, of course, but I think porn and sex is a big one.

Right. And the story you told is so common, right? [00:50:00] Like so many males have a lot of porn experience, but very little sexual experience. Right. And they see things in porn that they would never do or don’t feel confident enough. And, and it’s like this fantasy. Um, so I encourage the guys out there. It’s like, if you’re interested, you know, start trying it out in real life.

I’m sure it’s way better than looking at it, you know, uh, on your phone and doing it in a way that like, like you said, it’s like, you know, consensual, of course, and ethical and takes the time, but really like getting out of the stands, getting into the field. 

J.K. Emezi: I like that. Not enough men do that. Um, and the process of them, we have another program called dating reboot where we teach men how to date with intimacy, but we push them to put themselves out there to expose themselves to those things.

And they quickly come to realize that, oh, Like I don’t, I don’t have what it takes to do this. I have so many insecurities. I have so many fears. And if I wasn’t exposed to this, I would have lived my life behind the screen. [00:51:00] Never trying to play the game in real life. 

Mark: Totally. Yeah. And just to like, underline that it’s like, I think this is one of many paths towards self development and like, yeah, you’re going to reboot your porn and reboot your dating, but it’s also going to make you a better person, a better man by going through and overcoming those insecurities.

So I love what you’re doing out there. JK. Um, where can people find you online if they want to learn more about you and your programs? 

J.K. Emezi: Cool. My name is JK. Amazing. The initials JK. Last name is spelled E. M. E. Z. I. You can also find me at elevated recovery dot or G. On, um, YouTube, uh, TikTok, we are Porn Reboot.

You’ll find us there. You can search for JK Amazi. We have a very popular podcast with about 500 and something episodes, the Porn Reboot podcast. We have a lot of free groups on Facebook as well, if you search for Porn Reboot. So basically we are on every social media. If you search for Porn Reboot, check us out, join our free groups and just participate.

1st of all, before you [00:52:00] consider joining a coaching program, see if it’s a problem for you in the 1st place. 

Mark: That’s great. Yeah. Point reboot literally everywhere. Just Google it. You’ll find it. Um. I like your call to, like, again, get out of the stands and just, like, participate, start talking about it. Right.

They’re talking about, I think it’s really critical. Um, so thank you again so much for being on the show. I think it’s a really important topic and you’re an expert on it. I think you’re helping a lot of guys out. Um, So if you’re listening to the show and you think you need this or you need someone else another man who’s to hear this Please share it pass it along.

Um, keep the message going send them over to jk And thanks again for tuning in. We’ll see you next week. Another episode of the Men’s Therapy Podcast.

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