How Rampant Explicit Material Is Poisoning the Minds of America’s Children | Kristen Jenson

Child and child sexual abuse has skyrocketed, fueled by pornography.

Kids are swimming in a sea of sexualized media.

In this episode, I sit down with Kristin Jensen, founder of Defend Young Mines,

an author of the best-selling book series Good Pictures, Bad Pictures,

that educates children on the dangers of pornography.

What does pornography actually do to young minds?

And how can we protect children in an age where many will encounter it

before they're even 10 years old?

Children who know how to reject pornography and why are safer

from an actual hands-on predator.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Janie Kellek.

Kristin Jensen, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Thank you, Jan. It's great to be with you.

It's been my contention for a while that

this ubiquitous use of pornography in our society is a huge,

I don't know, a destructive force in the social fabric,

and specifically around children, because of the availability of the internet,

basically on every screen, practically.

And this is the thing that you know most about, but explain to me the scope of this problem.

Well, the scope is huge. Children are viewing pornography.

They have so much access because they have devices that are connected to the internet,

they have apps, social media, and they're stumbling onto content.

And the porn industry is not just sitting there waiting for kids to show up there,

actively pursuing them because if they can get them hooked,

then of course they've got lifelong members or lifelong people that are going to be

watching and viewing and paying for premium subscriptions, etc.

Pornography really hurts children.

You know, back in the 60s, Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring

in which she said, look, this DDT is affecting the young, the little tadpoles,

and the eggs, and the eggshells, and all these things that are affecting the young.

And that's when we know we have a crisis.

We have a public health crisis.

Pornography is a public health crisis because it is affecting our children,

but nobody seems to want to talk about it much, right?

I don't say, I shouldn't say nobody, but it's something we don't really want to admit how

much pornography is harming and hurting our children in so many ways.

Well, let's dive into that.

Like, can you give me a sense of the scale?

I mean, there must be some numbers out there on how many kids are affected,

what ages they're starting to look at.

Girls and boys.

Right.

Yeah.

So, let's talk about the age, you know, what age, what's the average age the kids view pornography?

When you look at retrospective studies,

they come up with 11, 12, 13 years old, and these retrospective studies are done because

you can't go into 100 elementary schools and say, we're going to talk to the kindergartners

or the sixth graders and ask them if they've seen porn.

So, we're not able to do that.

We're only able to ask older teens and young adults, you know, when did you see pornography?

And the reason you don't ask us to be clear is because you're kind of introducing it to them

that way or why?

Yeah, I don't think you'd get permission.

There's an ethical, you know?

Yes, of course.

So, to set up the gold standard study would be difficult.

So, they do retrospective studies.

So, one study in Jakarta said that of the fourth to six graders that they were able to talk to,

97% of them had seen pornography.

When you look at common sense media study, they say 15% of kids under 10 had seen pornography.

I think whenever you give a child a device, like a smartphone, pretty much that's when they're

going to start seeing porn.

And kids are getting these devices younger and younger.

And I believe that the average age is much younger than 11.

So, that's one part of it.

When you think about a child and their development, their normal natural development,

pornography is really going to impact, negatively impact their cognitive development,

their studies that show that kids have cognitive issues, the kids that frequently look at

pornography have cognitive delays almost.

It affects their mental health, and we could talk a long time about the mental health issues,

but there are many studies that show that children who look at pornography have higher rates

of depression, anxiety, suicide, lower self-esteem, you know?

And we're seeing so much of this across the board, so much more depression, so much more

anxiety in kids, body image issues, premature sexualization, which leads to riskier and

earlier sexual activity.

Well, let's talk about that because I read a statistic which I found just absolutely horrifying.

I'm sure you know it, I'll get you to tell me, but just that a lot more of the sexual

abuse that's happening right now is whose children doing it to each other.

And I just, I don't even want to think about that, but explain that to me.

Yeah, well, child-unchild sexual abuse, and sometimes it's called child-unchild problematic

behavior, has skyrocketed. So when I first started talking about this issue, it was at 40%,

and I thought that was really bad.

Wait, wait, wait, 40% of all child abuse?

40% of all reported child abuse cases were perpetrated by minors,

by other children.

That's been the case in the past, you're saying it's higher than that?

It's now 70, 70%.

So what's happened?

You don't think about that. I mean, we think about child abuse, we think of it happening, and

we know it's often adults that are related to the families and so forth, but you never

think about the children doing it to each other.

Right, and it used to be some family member that is the predator.

And that's still the case when there is an adult predator. It's usually someone known by the

child. However, it has become children on children. That is the majority of the cases,

and it's fueled by pornography.

Let's just kind of break this down a little bit. This is just every aspect I think

about this is absolutely horrifying. But it's not that probably most of these kids aren't predators.

I mean, let me state a few assumptions. I don't know the issue at all, but they're not.

Are they just acting out what they saw in the films, or are some of them being turned into

these predators? Like, what's happening?

So, let's talk a little bit about the brain of a child. Children are imitative.

That's how they grow up into adults. They imitate. And any parent knows this.

They see their child imitating them, imitating how they talk, what they do,

kids love to imitate. But when you add in the factor of pornography, now they're seeing

pornography. It is not surprising that some of these children want to go ahead and act out

what they see in pornography. And we're seeing that more and more and more.

So, when I got started writing good pictures, bad pictures, the reason I got started doing it

was because of a young man, 17-year-old who was sexually molesting his younger brothers and

sisters from the 14-year-old, down to the four-year-old. And pornography was involved in all of that.

And so, I talked to him like six years later and he told me that he'd gone into, in his state,

there was a training, there was a program, treatment program. So, he was in this treatment program

with eight other boys. Now, one of them had a hands-on predator perpetrator, right? They had not

been sexually abused by a person. It was porn. Porn was a perpetrator that got them then to act

out on their siblings or cousins or other more vulnerable children. And that was years ago.

So, we see this over and over and over again where children, imitative, right?

View pornography, act out on other children. And one woman in my area actually contacted me

and she told me how she was, during one summer, she was watching a ten-year-old boy in the

neighborhood because his mother, single mother had to work. And, you know, most of summer was going

by. Everything was fine. He was playing well with her kids. And then one day, he took the seven-year-old

daughter, her seven-year-old daughter into the bathroom, shut the door and started to try to do

sexual things with her. So, this mother obviously found out and called the boy's mother.

And, it told her what happened and she broke down a crime and said three weeks ago I found

that my son was watching porn on the iPad. And so, all of a sudden he's fine and then he starts

watching porn. And then this happens. Now, you know, I can't, I can't say, you know, yes, this

causes this. But, I have so many stories like this. And you speak to anyone that's in, for example,

the people that are helping kids that act out sexually on other kids. They all will talk about

pornography privately, right? No one seems to want to talk about it out in the open. Why?

I don't know. I don't know. I would like to know that because I also have gone to child abuse,

you know, prevention conferences. And you don't hear a lot about pornography on this stage from

their presenters. But, if you talk to them in private, they will tell you, oh yeah, yeah,

pornography is definitely a factor here. Definitely a driver. I don't know why. So, this

comports with my own kind of thoughts about this, which are not terribly educated. It's just my

sort of observation from having talked to lots of people. I suspect that a lot of adults are

watching porn. And they don't want to admit it because it's shameful, obviously.

But it's just, I've learned a bit about how addictive many things in our society are never

mind things, which are just kind of naturally deeply addictive, like pornography itself,

right? And I suspect it's probably a large crisis in itself. And because of people's shame,

and this is a hypothesis, obviously, right? Because if people shame, they don't want to,

they don't want to talk about it. That's because you tend not to want to talk about the things

you're ashamed of. I agree. But there's also this kind of idea out there that if you're anti-porn,

you're sex negative, you know, and you're kind of, you know, anti-sex. And I'm like, I think porn

is sex negative. That's horrifying. And you're right. No, that makes perfect sense, but it wouldn't

have occurred to me until you, until you said that. So somehow you have to sort of be,

you know, appreciative of it. What a mind job. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I have many people come

up to me and say, especially men, I wish my parents had had your book. Let's talk about it before

you start talking about your book. So no, because you have written a fascinating book. I mean,

there's nothing else like it remotely that I, I mean, I looked, right, to see good pictures,

bad pictures. Tell me about the book. Yeah. So good pictures, bad pictures. I wrote when I found,

you know, this friend of mine, her son was, you know, sexually molesting his younger brothers

and sisters, porn was involved. So I went to look for a resource and couldn't find anything.

And I did a little more, you know, looking around on the internet and I just figured, you know,

we can boil this down for a seven year old. And so I wrote good pictures, bad pictures. The

whole point is to model parents talking to their children. That's really important to open that

conversation. And then to give kids a definition of what pornography is in an age appropriate way.

So you could read this book to your children, even before you kind of started those conversations about

about sex. So a definition so they can recognize it, a warning so they understand why it's dangerous.

It's not good enough to just say, porn is bad. Don't look at it, you know. So a warning about

its harms. And in my original book, I talk a lot about how it becomes an addiction.

And then third, a plan. So they know exactly what to do when they see it. So a definition, a warning

and a plan, all set in a conversation with a mother and a father who are open and explaining

these things to their children because that's what I want to see. I want to see parents doing that

with their children. And then I have another book, good pictures, bad pictures, junior. And parents

asked me to write it for younger children, which was a shock to me. But that, but every kid's on an

iPad. I mean, every three year olds on an iPad and they need to be warned as well. I just want to

comment on this too because you say to two studies. I think the one in Indonesia was four to six

graders. And it was almost everybody had seen it. And the other one was 15 percent of

under 10 and under. That's still enormous. Whatever that. And there's of course a huge range

in between that. And maybe there's cultural differences as well. One of the things that strikes me

here is, you know, as a parent, if you're hearing, hey, there's a book that you're going to, you know,

you're kind of going to expose your kids to pornography or the threat of pornography or something.

I mean, some parents might be thinking, hey, aren't I, like, going to be start to groom my kid

on pornography here or something? Right. Like, I mean, that's, that's a very legitimate question.

Absolutely. And parents do fear this. What if I start this conversation with my son or my daughter.

And then I arouse their curiosity and they go out and look. And we, you know, there are those

kids that they have to touch the hot stuff. I'm like, I'm that kid. You know what? I can tell,

you know, I'll share some of my own thoughts about it after it. But please continue. Yeah.

But my, my argument is this. You have two choices. You know, one is to cross your fingers,

but dread in the sand. Hope your kid doesn't ever see it until maybe after you finally get the

courage to start talking about it. Or to be proactive. And that first, you know, that first plan

has not been working. Not been working. So to be proactive is to start and to open this

conversation. It gives children a vocabulary, right? It makes you a safe person to talk about these

things with. And if you do it right, there's not going to be shame. There's not going to be judgment.

So even if your kid goes and runs out and touches the hot stove, first of all, it's still safer

because you're still opening, continuing those conversations, continuing to educate that child,

building a disposition of wanting to and knowing how to reject pornography and knowing why,

right? But by and large, the stories I hear are the stories that I started reading good pictures,

bad pictures to my child. And they let me know they had already seen this kind of material.

That is usually what happens, I would say. And kids are swimming in a sea of sexualized media.

So I think it's rare when a parent is the one that initiates that curiosity. And it's not a friend

of theirs at school because, you know, kids share this stuff on their phones with other kids.

And I'm just, you know, I've been thinking about this a bit because so when I was one of these

kids that had to touch the hot plate, even if you were told the hot plate, touching the hot plate's

bad, right? And the way I was exposed to pornography was there was a video store. They were VHS,

you know, V to videos. They had come out at this time. And the store was just stupidly, you know,

giving people like me, I think I must have been like 11 or 12, whatever we wanted. Of course,

we wanted the forbidden stuff. And this is kind of the argument, you know, someone might give you,

hey, wait a second, you know, kids are just going to go for that for a bit instead. But my own

reflection on this is knowing from the parent, from your parent what they think about something

is still actually very helpful, even if you're still enticed into the forbidden thing in the first

place. Yes, because you have, you are opening this conversation, you are instilling your values

about it, you are giving your strong reasons, you know, why you don't want them to go in that direction.

And that is worth a lot because ultimately as parents, we don't have full control. We used to have

a lot more control. But with digital devices, even if your kid doesn't have a smartphone, the kids

at school do, the neighbors do, you know, so you can't control what your child does, but you can

influence them. But you can do something with screens though. I mean, your kids can go to schools

where there's no screens, for example, or your kids, you can also restrict your kids' screen use.

And that probably would play a very important role, wouldn't it? I mean, just your thoughts.

Yeah, my thoughts on filters and parental controls and all of that. And I think that's all very

important to do. Yes, definitely get your Wi-Fi filter, definitely get, you know, the parental

controls on all devices. I would say never give your kid a device, have a family device that they

can use. Give them access, don't give them a thing, right? Because there's a different psychology

there. The important thing is, is that you are training them and you are giving them an internal

filter, right? So you can have all these external filters and tech filters and that's important.

However, once they go out the door, even if you have everything in your house locked down,

which is still really hard because these kids are very clever. But once you have everything

locked down, a minute they walk out the door, there's no guarantee of any filter. A minute they

go into a public library. Right. There's no filter. So at least in my state. So I think that kids

need an internal filter and they need to know why. You're talking about morality, you're talking

about instilling morals in your children, basically, around these things. Yes, good information,

good information, and yes, why this will lead if you want to have, you know, better mental health,

if you want to have happier, more intimate, you know, sex life, honestly, when our kids get older,

you know, we don't, most parents aren't going to say out loud, I want my kid to have a great

sex life. But you do. At the right time with the right person in a committed relationship,

you know, like marriage, that's what you want. A pornography is going to poison all that.

It's going to, you know, infect the mind with these toxic sexual scripts that, you know,

are self-centered, that are violent. All of the things that make a marriage beautiful

and trusting, you know, and bring you closer, that's the exact opposite of what you're going to see.

And be taught in pornography. And the violence is horrible. So one study showed that by the time

kids were 18, you know, and they'd seen porn, 79% had seen violent porn. I mean, that's the

main fair out there is violent porn. It's hitting, it's slapping, hair pulling, strangling,

story about a girl that finally, you know, she got a kiss from her boyfriend at the age of 12,

and he strangled her because that's what he'd seen in porn. And, you know, how is it that kids

are going to grow up and be able to have happy, healthy relationships when their view of sex is

so poisoned by pornography. It's so performative. It's commodified. It's object, you know,

objectification. And so easy to stumble upon. I mean, I had this actually happened to me. I

was at an event where there was someone speaking about their, I think it was actually they were going

to run for a political office and they shared their website. It was actually happened to be a woman

shared their website. And I looked at, I had my iPad and I looked it up, except somehow I wrote

the wrong link. And suddenly there was hardcore pornography playing on my iPad, which I was,

you know, I was kind of like cradling to hoping they'll end up with, would notice, but it just,

it really hit me. Yeah. That, that this is, this is how they prey on people. I mean, never mind,

just never children and adults, right? Like, I mean, because it's, there's a weird kind of enticing

thing about it, right? Like it's kind of, you have to, you have to make a very conscious decision

to say, no, this is not something I want. And you have to have good reasons. So someone just says,

oh, it's bad. You know, it doesn't explain how harmful it can be to you, right? That can be,

become an addiction. Let's talk about the brain chemistry. What happens? Yeah. Because this,

this is, this ties into the addiction piece. Yeah. Well, in good pictures, bad pictures,

porn, profane, today's young kids is where I lay out how pornography actually becomes an addiction.

So a seven-year-old can understand it. So they find that things that are drugs, right?

What happens is it affects the dopamine in the brain. And so dopamine is going to come over a

neuron. There's a synapse and it's going to be thrown over to the other synapse. On this synapse,

there are these, like, little mits that are catching the dopamine, right? But when you have a super

stimulus, like a drug, right? Or pornography, even gambling, you know, that is pushing so much

dopamine over that neural connection. The brain is like, ah, too much dopamine. And it starts to

shut down those receptors. Well, now what happens? You've got to, now you're not getting that response,

and that's pleasure, right? And dopamine is sort of essential. It's the seeking part of it. It's

the seeking part of the pleasure. So what happens is your mood comes down. Because the next time

you need the fix to get it. Right. You have to up the ante, right? So the next time you go and use

your drug, you gotta use more or something more potent, right? With drinking, you might start with

the beer and end up with vodka, you know, that kind of thing. Or you with pornography might start

with something pretty tame. But then that's not doing it for you because dopamine and that process

is the same in the brain. And especially if you're using anything that you're using to escape from

like a negative emotional state actually drives addiction even stronger, even more. So children

will get into pornography many times to distract themselves from the negative things that are happening.

So addiction, really, it's the same process. Whether you're taking a drug or you're using a

behavior, it's really the same process in the in the brain. They've shown this like they've done

MRI studies in Germany and in the UK prestigious universities where they show, for example, they bring

in people that are using pornography compulsively heavy users. And they show, for example, that their

prefrontal cortex has shrunk. The shrinkage of this part of the brain is noted in all kinds of

addictions. It's also noted in behavioral addictions like pornography. The thing is is that pornography

use can become compulsive. Some people don't want to say a dictane, but the the outcome is the same.

You have to have it and you have to have more of it to just keep a baseline.

I think the fact that pornography is addictive to them, the research that I've read is pretty well

established. I think I think we can say it's addictive. Okay, I think it's addictive. No, it's

absolutely addictive. There are people that still argue that, oh no, maybe it's not. Why are they

arguing this? Because the porn industry is funding a lot of studies trying to show that it's just

entertainment. It's no problem at all. I mean, look at the, you know, back when tobacco, right?

It took 7,000 studies before we finally, the government finally says, yeah, this is, yeah, it's

probably causing lung cancer. The thing is, is when you do a study and, you know, people that don't

want to say it's an addiction, they say, well, this is just a correlation. It's not causation,

correlation. Well, you get so many correlation studies and you do a study where the more you use,

the more your brain is shrunk, that looks causal to me. So, we argue more and more studies

about the harms of pornography. And there's also the sexual dysfunction aspect, right? And then

there's also the horrifying thought about someone who hasn't gone through puberty or as, you know,

how does that even work? Yeah. So, if you start looking at pornography at a young age,

the studies show that you are going to have a much higher risk for mental health problems, mental

health, like greater levels of depression and anxiety and suicide, lower self-worth and all

of those things. So, it's really important to protect young children. But as far as like in their

future, it really can impact their future and you mentioned sexual dysfunction. So, there's this

thing called porn induced erectile dysfunction. And what happens is the brain gets so topped out

on viewing pornography and maybe even, you know, fetishes certain kinds, you know,

that when they're with, you know, a real person, they cannot become sexually aroused.

It just has stopped working and is a form of ED. What they find is that if they stop looking at

pornography and stop using it, you know, then they recover. I just want to comment here. I like

how you talk about this. You're a user of pornography. It's not just like you're watching a show or

something like that. No, you're a user. Well, you're using it to, you know, to get that pleasure,

to get that arousal. And it works. I mean, it works in the short term.

Problem is with everything that's addicting. In the short term, you know, having that drink

might help you deal with a short term problem. But, you know, my dad was an alcoholic and,

you know, it really, you know, ruined his life. So pornography in the same way ruins people's

marriages. It can ruin their job opportunities. It can ruin their families. And so it is something.

And I can't tell you how many people as adults come to me and said, I was showing pornography

at seven. I was showing pornography at five. And I felt compelled to keep looking for it and looking

for it. So children are being horribly hurt by pornography. And yet it just is being normalized.

And what I want to say is this is not normal. Children should be protected. We should have better

laws in place, obviously. But until we do, you know, we need to start giving kids a defense against

pornography so that they can grow up healthy and have healthy relationships. The other thing that

just struck me, we didn't talk about it. And I was shocked to this. I sort of assumed it was more

a boys issue. But it's not just a boys issue. So tell me about that. So one survey I recently looked

at was 44% of women look at pornography. Porn hub, if you want to believe them, they say 39%

of visitors are women. But I don't think they're taking into account all of the porn that is red.

Women tend to get into porn through reading because they're very relationship.

They're kind of extreme romance novels or something. So they're very relationship oriented.

So they'll read spicy romance, but you know, just outright. Like the 100 shades of gray. Was that

the film? 50 shades of gray. There were three of them and that was a huge success.

But that was the idea. That's what you're talking about. That kind of it's sort of a

weird answer that way. Yeah. It starts light. Yeah. And I think you have talked to Anna Lemke,

the dopamine nation. Absolutely. I keep thinking about her work as we're just talking about speaking

here. Yeah. She tells about her own story of getting hooked on reading these kinds of books

on her Kindle. And having to realize that this was a coming in addiction, just like she treated

in other people. And she had to pull back because it was really affecting her life. So yes,

girls receive deep wounds from pornography. And they're more ashamed because we have this

cultural method. Oh, girls, you know, are interested in sex. Let me tell you they are.

But when they see the violent porn, I mean, the violence

is mostly aimed at them, right? Aimed at women. And the most disgusting, degrading kinds of acts

that are happening to women. This is just common, common, common. And so yes, when women see that,

and then it normalizes it. So, well, that must just be normal. That must be what I can expect.

You know, girls aren't even, you know, they're being abused, sexually abused.

Not realizing that that's what's happening. Yeah. Because, oh, well, that's just what I see in

porn. So that's, so why are we teaching all these girls to accept sexual violence? It's, you know,

and wondered. The studies that show women that include women in the studies show that the women

are even more affected. Their mental health is even more negatively impacted by pornography

than the men. So that's why I wrote my good picture of bad pictures guide for girls.

Well, that's when I haven't seen yet. Yes. It's just coming out. It has a whole chapter

on objectification. It's the same format as the original. So it's a conversation. But there's

a lot more kind of girl-friendly anecdotes. We talk about these books. These books make pictures

in your mind. So it's just as powerful as, you know, watching a video. And then we talk also,

we have advice for parents about sexting because that makes girls so vulnerable. And yet, you know,

girls feel pressured to do these kinds of things in, you know, in their teen years.

And even younger. So, yeah, girls are vulnerable. And sometimes girls are even more vulnerable

than boys because parents are like, well, I think I really want to make sure my boy isn't looking

at this. So maybe we'll just give him a flip phone or, you know, but I'll hand my, you know,

12-year-old or 11-year-old, a full-on smartphone, iPhone, whatever. Because she'll be fine.

And she's not fine. She is not fine. So something just occurred to me, you know,

looking at the, our kids have, you know, screens. We're just beginning to realize

seriously how big a problem the screens themselves are. Yeah. And all the non-pornography stuff that's

as long as the impact needs to devastating, right? This feels like a sort of an augmentation of

the damage or something like that that you're describing. But there's also like just the places where

people will encounter this are places that you might not imagine. Like I was looking at one case study

which was, you know, the roblox, which is like a, you know, just a normal game where you build,

you can build scenarios and things like that. And probably millions of kids are using it. I don't

know. But you can also build really horrible scenarios apparently. So maybe tell me about that and

just some of the different ways that would might be unexpected. Yeah. Yeah. That they might encounter it.

Yeah. So anywhere there's a screen, kids can get to pornography, pornography can get to them.

So with roblox, I think what parents don't always recognize is that roblox is not just a kid's game.

It is a platform, kind of like YouTube, right? Where people can build all kinds of games

on there. And many of the games on roblox are absolutely not for kids. They're sexual,

they're called sex condos and kids, you know, there's no iron gates. So they can get on there.

And, you know, see people being raped and all kinds of things on roblox. So I'd be very careful

with any game where a predator also can use messaging and can basically talk to your kid.

That's very dangerous. I think the FBI a couple of years ago put out a warning saying that on

these video games like roblox, they had these professional predators basically coming in,

pretending to be other kids, identifying a victim and then normalizing, sharing, you know,

nudes and getting the kid to do things. This is grooming. It's extortion. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's grooming. And then it can lead to sex extortion.

Right. You'd sex extortion meaning you get a compromising image and then you.

And then they want money. Now this often happens with older teens that have more disposable

or access to money. But even getting a kid to give pictures, you know, that is a form

where they are giving pictures and then they're threatened.

Yeah, they can be blackmailed. Blackmailed into doing things.

To do in a video and people like these videos. So they get kids to do them.

It's total exploitation. And it can begin on these, you know, video platforms. So

if I were a parent of a young child today, I would never let my child on a game, no matter

how much peer pressure there is, where, you know, the whole world can get at them, right? I would

put them, make sure there are games. I think Minecraft is one where you can have your own little

server and limit who is on that game. So there are some games that are much more safe.

And, you know, we have information about that on defending minds as well.

But yeah, it's so access. So games anytime a kid is access to social media, one

study in the UK found that kids were really getting to porn through X or Twitter.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Snapchat, messaging app has really become a full on social media.

I had to, you know, I, on X on that point, this is an interesting way. I don't know how it is now,

but I had to turn on my, there's a, there's a setting for non-no-adult content or something.

It's problematic because though there's things that you want to see that are, you know,

would be only for adults if you turn it off. But, you know, literally looking for

very non-porn things, I would routinely, you know, get, you know, you're suddenly

see something and you're, you know, trying to frantically to get rid of it. It was kind of

shocking. It hasn't, frankly, it hasn't happened in a while, but I think it's because I put the

setting on. Yeah. You know, and- Which, you can put the setting on, but if a kid has their own

social media, like they can just take it off. Right, right, of course, of course. So social media,

messaging apps, anywhere there's a screen, Spotify, you know, music apps, the treadmill,

you know, a treadmill, and other children. That's why I say every school bus in America is a

triple X theater because children are showing pornography to other children on playgrounds and

buses. I've heard so many stories of five-year-olds getting shown hardcore pornography on a school bus.

But children, if you teach them what to do, they will respond. And you can help them. There was

a mother that put up on Facebook that her nine-year-old, she read him good pictures, bad pictures.

He went to school. Three days later, you know, somebody came up with a phone, one of his classmates

showed him pornography. And, you know, he recognized it. And he went home and he told his mom,

he said, I was scared, but I knew what to do. I was scared, but I knew what to do. Every child

deserves to know what to do when they see porn because they can't just, like, it's not easy for

them to deal with it if they haven't been barbed. Can you walk through with me kind of, you know,

short form as if you were reading to me the book? Okay. Okay. There's a walkthrough. I'm the kid.

You're the kid. Okay. All right. Well, you know, there are good pictures like we have in our photo

album or we have in our phones. We're good pictures of our vacations and time with friends,

but they're also bad pictures. Bad pictures are called pornography. And they involve

pictures, videos, even cartoons or descriptions of people with little or no clothing on.

Have you seen any of these bad pictures? You know, so we talk about...

I'm going to, I'm going to just, I'm going to be in character here for a moment saying,

well, right, but we had some of those pictures from the from the beach the other week.

Oh, pictures of people like with swimsuits on. Yes. Hopefully the swimsuits were covering their

private parts, but in pornography, those parts are for everyone to see. And we're not talking

science books, right? But we're talking pictures and videos that show the private parts of the

body. And sometimes seeing those pictures can feel like the pull of a giant magnet. But there are

problems when we, you know, start to look and seek after those pictures because it can actually

hurt the brain and hurt the way we see other people. So it's important that we see other people

as humans and not as objects. And it's also important that we protect our brain from addiction.

Because looking at pornography can become an addiction. So then, you know, an addiction,

we're going to talk about what an addiction is. And then after I talk, after I tell you what an

addiction is, I'm going to teach you about that you have two brains. You have a thinking brain

and a feeling brain. And they work together, but it's really important to keep your thinking brain

in charge because it knows right from wrong and it learns about consequences. And then after I

tell you about how that works, we're going to talk about your attraction center. And how that part

of your brain is really targeted by pornography. And it can become, it's something that is always

looking for something new and can become hijacked by pornography and this addictive process.

And then we're going to keep you a plan. So you know exactly what to do not only when you see it,

but when those memories keep popping back up because they can be very shocking.

So we're going to give you a plan. So you don't have to worry. You can just use this plan

to keep yourself free from the harms of pornography because most likely someday you might see it.

And I just want you to know what to do. And that you can come and talk to me and that I want you

to come and talk to me whenever this happens. I have to confess that I've seen some of this.

And frankly, it does keep replaying in my mind. And I kind of like it. Yeah.

Well, I'm really, first of all, I'm sorry that you've had to see it.

And I can tell that it has already affected, you know, how you're thinking. And when you say you kind

of like it, let's just maybe we need to talk about that. I would love to hear why you like it.

And, you know, and then let's have a conversation about, you know, what that is showing versus

what is really healthy and it's going to help you become a healthy adult who can have healthy

relationships. And maybe even someday have a really wonderful marriage. So let's just talk

about it openly. I'm happy to, you know, I want to know what you're thinking about this. See,

and at this point, I think most parents are going to feel really uncomfortable talking to their

kid, well, let me tell you what I, I mean, or the kid I don't, as a kid is the kid really going to

tell what they saw because you kind of, you know, just thinking back, right, thinking back to

younger life, you kind of knew this was forbidden stuff. And you're not really supposed to

casually talk about it with your parents, even when they're being very loving and so forth, right?

Like I'm just, this is, yeah, did your parents talk to you about it though? No, no, no. We didn't talk.

We didn't talk about anything like that. No, no. So you had a sense, it was forbidden, you had a

sense, it wasn't really appropriate for children. But you still, you know, you were so curious.

How I was, I was particularly interested in those things that were that, that society was sort of

telling you were the taboo were taboo. Yeah. Well, some kids are that way. A lot of kids are not,

but some kids are. And I would just say for the kids that are that way, I think it's even more

important to open this discussion with them. Because, you know, you can't just say, well, my

kids, you know, I'm going to find it and they're just going to, you know, you need to give them

your perspective, some education. I totally, I completely agree with that because it gives you,

even as your, you know, interest, you also know the standard or a standard or something like that.

Well, in the harms that can come to you. Right. Right. The harms. And do you want, I mean, in,

um, we have an article on defending kids are not going to figure this out on their own. That's

for sure. No. That's the point, right? So it might, it might not going to solve the problem entirely,

but it's giving them a leg up. I mean, I'm just, I'm thinking through what you're saying here,

because, you know, the, the, the temptation is to say, well, you know, this is, this is all,

this is all fine and nice, but kids are like, you know, they don't care about their parents,

they don't know, I bet. Yeah. But parents can have a huge influence. Oh, I'm sure. And the younger you

start the better and the more influence you have. Right. Because you're setting the context. And,

you know, uh, I want to tell a story of a, of a young man who, uh, he decided his parents had

talked to him and he decided that it wasn't going to be fair to his future wife

if he got involved in pornography. Because he was going to be looking at all these women and

basically having sex with them in his mind. And he didn't feel like that was fair. And so,

I mean, that does sound like a pretty mature child, but he decided from the time he was in

fifth or sixth grade that he wasn't going to look at it. But that strikes me as a powerful thing

to say, right? To, to young men that are, you know, maturing and so forth. Because that's obviously

true. Is this going to be fair? I think a lot of people would be like, hmm, maybe not.

Well, his, his friends showed him porn. This one that was a terrible

bestiality kind of thing. It was going around all the sixth graders and this years ago looking at it.

And, and they said, you know, you got to do this. You got to use porn. You know, you've got to do

this because, you know, and they had all these, like they had reasons why they thought they should

be using porn. That somehow it had a healthy benefit. And they were worried about him because,

no, no, no, I'm good. And he was good. And the day that I heard that he was getting married,

I was like, so happy for him and for his wife. She was lucky. And I think that children can be

persuaded. They can be taught. They can be educated. Educators call this developing a disposition.

So if you can develop a disposition in your child to see the problems with pornography,

the harms, the many harms, the toxic sexual scripts, and to guide them to wanting something

better in their relationships. You know, how you can have, you can now have sexual intimacy.

If you're mind, if you're using the script of porn, porn is not about intimacy. You know,

it's just about conquest. It's just about domination and violence. And so if you want happy

marriage someday, you better stay away from porn because porn is going to take you in the

opposite direction. And that's probably something that features in the new book of the girl's book

because I think girls are much more at an early age interested in things like marriage and finding

the perfect guy and having a good relationship and that kind of stuff. Yeah. We talk about that in

chapter about these romance movies and novels and such that we want something positive and

them to be able to have an intimate relationship with their spouse. And so there's every good reason

to begin these conversations with your son or daughter at an early age. And if we don't,

then we cannot get mad at them when they, if they stumble across it or you know, begin to use it

or to use it even in an addictive fashion. We have to, like, we have to open up that conversation

so that they can have some kind of a protection, a defense against it.

Are there, what is the legal, what are the legal legal realities around this?

Is it like any kid can see anything and that's always perfectly fine from the legal perspective?

So there are a lot of laws that are not being enforced around pornography. There's so many

obscenity laws still on the books and nobody's enforcing them. It is, in many states, it is illegal

to show pornography to a child. So there's laws, and there's laws against, you know,

I mean, sex scene. That's child porn right there. And some kids are getting prosecuted for that.

So that's a worry. If your kid has a device that you're paying for and they have images

that are tantamount to, you know, child sexual abuse material, see Sam. Guess who's responsible?

It's a person paying for that phone. That's the adult. So there's other motivations here to

keep this stuff away. Because you can easily imagine how this, something like this could end up

if you're watching pornography all the time, you wouldn't even necessarily know.

Right. But I think that another really good reason to, you know, parents buy a lot of body

safety books, right? They want children to be safe from predators. And I will say that children

who know how to reject pornography and why are safer from an actual hands-on predator.

A family with a six-year-old went to visit some friends for dinner. And the toys had been

stored down in the basement just temporarily. So the kids were run down the stairs, grab a toy,

and come back up. And so this little six-year-old ran down the stairs. He was deliberating, you know,

which toy he wanted. And a man came up with a smart phone and showed him gay porn and started

grooming him. Well, this little boy is mom would have read him good pictures, bad pictures.

I don't think she read it to him thinking this is going to save him from, you know, sexual abuse,

but it did because he ran up and told his mom. And, you know, he had gotten out of a situation

because pornography is a number one grooming tool of predators. That's what I was thinking as you're

talking to. Yeah. So if they know to like, hmm, I talked to a child advocacy center.

It's the number one. So there's actually this has been somehow

quantified that this is the number one grooming tool. Well, it's just what I what I meant

earlier is it strikes me as a powerful grooming tool. Yes. It's given everything we've discussed.

What else what else are they going to use? I mean, it's perfect. You know, it normalizes

children having sex. It breaks down barriers. So yeah, I would definitely say it's

the number one grooming tool. It is just there's nothing better. And so that's what he was using.

So I spoke with a woman who's, she had a case where there was a 12 year old girl

who had been sexually abused by her stepfather for years since she was 10. And when she was 10,

he started showing her pornography and then kind of getting her to have sex with him.

Now, all he had to say to her was, if your mom finds out, we're both in trouble.

And that kept her silent. At some point though, the mom found out, right? I asked the the case

worker if the mother had had this car and not to blame her, but if the mother or someone had had

this conversation with this 10 year old. Instead of anyone ever shows you pornography, you need to

come and tell me. Would solve a whole lot of these issues. Would absolutely save this girl from

years of sexual abuse, right? No, this is such an important point, actually, because if we,

let's say that it's right, it sounds right to me that pornography would be used as a grooming

tool often. The moment that people are alerting their parents or caregivers or whatever that

this is happening, that could stop a whole chain of effects, events, yeah. But kids don't,

if they don't have the whole vocabulary, if you have it open the conversation, they're very hesitant

to tell you. Well, everybody is very hesitant to talk about this stuff. I mean, this is part of

the reason why I think it's not better known. It's not, I mean, it's hard. We'll see what the

reception to this episode is. I'm very, very curious myself, but I really do believe that it's

such a serious issue in our society that we aren't dealing with. It's an epidemic. And it's like a

silent epidemic. Nobody wants to talk about it, but it's hurting children. And you're seeing it in

the mental health. Numbers, you're seeing, you know, all of that isn't just screens in social media.

A lot of his pornography. And so, you're just seeing lives ruined. I mean, you may not, when you

hear someone's divorced, you may not hear why. I have so many women coming up and telling me,

I'm divorced because my husband was addicted to porn. And I just couldn't handle it after a while.

He wouldn't get help, never worked. You know, I'm out of there because I feel so betrayed.

When that never mind the people that are in the industry themselves. I mean, and because there's

this hold, I mean, I remember there's all these narratives about how it's all consensual and

everyone's happy and all this stuff. And it just is not like that. I've read enough. I know

enough now that it's, I mean, it's been demonstrated that that's absolutely not the case. In fact,

it's a lot of people acting out sexual trauma, you know, abuse trauma and things like that. Yeah.

So it's, it's a widespread problem. But the good news is that there are tools out there now that

help parents begin these protective conversations, train their children, teach their children

to avoid all of these harms because they're probably not going to be able to avoid

seem pornography. But they can avoid, you know, just dousing their brain with it.

A final thought as we finish? I guess one of the most loving things that you can do for your child

is to help them, is to give them a defense against not only pornography, but all forms of sexual

exploitation. It goes deep and it doesn't always get resolved. I was flying to DC once and

to a symposium on child on child problematic sexual behavior. The guy next to me was a pilot.

And then, you know, he told me about his work and asked me about mine. And he said,

when I told him what I was doing, he looked down and he goes, that happened to me.

So he was abused by another child. He says, and I'm still not over it. I'm still not over it.

So if we can get in there early, when our children are first, you know, on the internet and prepare

a defense so they know exactly what to do and they're not alone because I don't know about you,

but I don't do very well when I'm caught off guard, right? They're not alone.

We can help assure that they're going to have a happy, healthy future and potential for a happy

healthy marriage. Well, Kristen Jensen, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you,

Jan. Thank you all for joining Kristen Jensen in me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.

I'm your host, Janja Kellek. Let me begin by saying thank you to everyone who's helped make my

book Kill to Order a New York Times and Publishers Weekly Best Seller. To folks in the Southern

California area, I'll be in San Diego and Irvine speaking at two live events about what we've

uncovered after more than 20 years of investigative reporting into China's organ transplant system

and how it affects each and every one of us in the free world. I'd love to meet you in person.

We'll have a live Q&A at both and I'll also be signing books after the event.

We decided to make these events free so more people can attend, but seating is limited.

You can find all the details and reserve your seat at my website,

Janja Kellek.com slash events or just scan this QR code here. I hope to see you there.