The Reality of Pornography

Was it

was

pretty late

How many people here took my mother class.

And it is really annoying thing that I do as well, where I don't start the lecture until I can hear the room floor. And

so the goal is that if there's somebody walking around outside,

we want them to hear the sound coming out. And

they're like, Whoa, what's going on there?

Wait again

until

Okay.

Now

I would like to take everyone together, go to a school, MSA, I think a lecture series like this or speaking about these topics. It's about time that we did something like this.

If I go back to before I left for Medina, back when I started, when I was actually new to Islam as well. It was unheard of that you have an event like this, where somebody would say, you know what, everything else is great.

That's fine. But let's take like these taboo topics. And let's have like an open discussion about it. Unless admit the fact that just because we're listening, it doesn't make us immune to other problems or problems that exist in the society that we live in. Because the reality is that we are all part of live in America as Americans. So a lot of the problems that this society has, it translates into the Muslim culture or western style, as well as the panel if you take a look at an issue like pornography. So this is an issue, which it's not only, like a worldwide problem, it's a worldwide issue. It's not just Muslims in America, all over the world.

Okay, so it's not only America, but all over the world. It's a worldwide problem. Every culture, every society is dealing with this issue of pornography.

And but the problem is us as Muslims, are we doing something to address this issue? And so I think talking about it, talking about the reality of what are the effects of pornography and all that is the very first step. So I hope it all works out. This is just a stepping stone for us to place for us to jump off from here and don't carry carry this discussion on further, where we actually come to practical solutions. And at the end of the talk today,

I will give you some pieces of advice on some tips that I have in terms of how to address or how to overcome pornography addiction. And as soon as I say pornography addiction of most people who view pornography, or who have access to pornography, most people don't view themselves as advocates, and to penalize the people that do not have counsel when people talk to me.

And they talk to me about the issue of pornography. It's usually at a state where a person admits themselves and say, You know what, I think I'm addicted to pornography. She helped me solve this problem, and somehow thought, there are so many people who haven't reached that stage yet. Or they might actually get this data but they haven't told themselves they haven't realized that they haven't. They have an addiction. It's a power issue.

Pornography it starts way, way, way before addiction. And it's how a lot you know, I, you know, I grew up in America. And I remember, like most people in America, especially young boys, we all can probably recall the first time that we were exposed to pornography, or nudity or something like that. And somehow I use it for most people. It's a strong memory, because it was such a shocking thing, where you're like, you're this young, innocent little kid. And someone says, Here, check this out. Right? And you're like, Whoa, that's strange. That's crazy. What is this one? All? Right. I

think a lot of parents, I often say, I remember a while back, I was teaching a class to what to do with people. It was, I think, anywhere from 11 to 14, low 14 year old boys and girls, and teaching this class, and we were talking about this.

And I started talking about the ins,

and the outs of the sin of adultery came up, and the punishment for adultery, and we discussed that issue. And to kind of let the very next day, I got a very angry email from one of the mothers of one of the young girls who's in the class. And she's like, you know, I don't appreciate you talking to my child about adultery, and sex and things like this. And I just had a lot like I was, first of all, I was very shocked that the mother would be offended by something like that. Number two, I actually felt really bad of how ignorant this child's mother actually were, this child thought that their 12 year old daughter has no idea what sex is, and their 12 year old daughter's idea was in

adultery and things like that. And I thought to myself in this panel,

as well. But I said, if we don't talk about these issues, if we don't address these issues, they're going to be left to other people. And if they're gonna be left to people who are qualified people have huge opinions or, or skewed perceptions about what this issue actually is about even something like sex. I am a proponent of you know, Muslims talking to their children about sex, before they ever are exposed to in any other way. Because the first impression that you have, or the first thing that you hear about sex and sexuality, or first impression could have been an organism that that was gonna be very, very strong. And for a lot of kids, that's how about that first impression, it

doesn't come from their parents, it's gonna come from one of their teachers or something like that it comes from their peers, right? And especially if you go to school, or whatever.

They hear things that you know, are very detrimental. How about, even in talking to

an ad, you get the chance, every once in a while to counsel people in marital in marital situation, people having marital problems. And a lot of the problems had a lot of what I found is when doing marriage, marriage counseling A lot of times, and I found that a lot of problems are not what they see. So for example, of a wife, sister husband, she thinks about her husband, that he doesn't care about me, and he doesn't put the effort into a relationship or whatever. And that's the surface level problem. But there are problems that have led up to that issue. And the power some of the problems go back to something like pornography. And, you know, especially when it comes to couples

counseling and things like that, men are very, very, very shy to admit that they do or not.

Pamela, I remember speaking to one brother, and, you know, listening to his problems, listen to issues, I thought to myself, I got a lot of these problems that you're having issues of intimacy and things like this. I said, in my head, I'm like, I know, these are stemming from pornography. And I was waiting for him to be like, okay, we're having an honest discussion here. We're trying to, you know, solve the problem that you have in relationship, whatever. And I said last week, I was waiting for him to say something about pornography. I said, You know what, yeah, I have an issue. And he never said anything. And at the end of this discussion, I spoke to him privately. And I said,

Listen, do you watch pornography? And he goes, No, No, I don't. And I said, Come on. Be honest with me. If you want me to help you with your problems, if you want me to help you solve the issues that you're having relationship, I need to know these things. And he goes, and then eventually, after I pushed him, he goes, Yeah, not really like sometimes every once in a while, but I'm not like a porn addict.

Right? And I thought to myself,

you don't know if you're most people who are more leading in life where they're where they will end up in addiction, in on that path, if they don't realize the path that they're on, right there in the state of denial. And I really have a push this brother came out by the end of our discussion, it came out that he used pornography at least two to three times a week. Right? And I said to Pamela you

You think that's not an addiction, the fact that you feel like you have to do photography two or three times a week or whatever, it's again, it's not a big deal. It's normal. Like, doesn't everyone do it anyway. And that is one of the big issues when it comes to pornography, the fact that it is widely accepted in our society, the fact that, you know, obviously, as you know, it's something just legal. Right. And so, you know, we, we tend to look at this issue and think of is not as this was not such a big deal. It's only now, so how long has this happening, it's only now that Muslim and non Muslim, especially non Muslim, when they go back to the research, and they they're doing a

studies and tests and things like this, now they're beginning to realize all problems that come from a society where pornography is rampant, and power, just just to start off, I have some facts and figures here for you 25% 25%, of what is online, so 25% of the searches are for knock.

Now,

take a second

to

in 2010,

they did a study, and they collected the data for the top 10 countries

that you can search for pornography.

And this is what they found out of the top 10 countries. Six of them were Muslim countries. And out of the top eight countries actually take out the last two, the top eight, six of the eight are Muslim.

Right. And if you actually think about

the fact that if you if you think about you know, let's be real here, most Muslim countries are not doing that well financially, and so on and so forth. A lot of people in Muslim countries don't even have access to the internet, right compared to the west, compared to like, you know, countries.

How many people must be viewing pornography, that even though they're small, it's just common philosophy had to be viewed, for them to jump up to like the number one, number two or number five.

Right? It's power. Anyone that actually read this, this study, but the details of the study, are more scary than than what's here. The details of this study say that Muslim countries lead in the most perverse terms when it comes to searching for pornographic terms or pornographic searches. So things like animals death,

things like a homosexual ask, even things like child pornography, that is the Muslim countries that lead and those types of like, this is a detail of

how this is the same study that found that if you take a country like Saudi Arabia, for example,

a Saudi distribution.

Okay, I spent I spent about seven years in Saudi Arabia.

And like every society, they have their good and bad, and I noticed how a lot of people, they tend to take two views.

The other thing Saudi Arabia is like the devil, right, where they think everything that happens is outrageous. And that neither of that is true. And obviously, that's a very extreme view when it comes to not only salary but any type of country, that they have their goods now that sounds like every single society. But one of the evils that they have, and one of the problems that they have, is when it comes to. So in this study, they found that 70% of the images that were exchanged on cell phones, were were pornography.

70%. So basically, here's what that looks like. If you take 10 people, and you line them up. Seven of them, are sharing pornography with other people. So there's only three people who are not sharing.

And there's not a lot even more scary than that Windows kind of on the road spoke about Arabic and how Arabic is a sacred language for Muslims. Arabic is language of the

Arabic is the language of the people of gender. Arabic is a language by which the way the revelation was preserved from Arabic, as the language itself is America.

But the second most used language, when it comes to searching for pornography is what

is

the first obviously is English, the second, the second most used language is Arabic, the language of the

right, and this, these are just just to sell faster, but if you actually read like the details of this study what they found here, it's very, very clear. It's very, very serious. How it

It's one of those issues, especially in local countries, and we don't want that to happen here. We don't want that to happen to us in America. But in Muslim countries, like this issue doesn't even get talked about. It's very rare that people hopefully talk about this issue. Right, and I hope inshallah tada at least us as Muslims living in America, we can we can have, we can save ourselves from that type of town. Right? Where Yes, you know, when when emails and scholars and all that when they talk about it, they talk about issues, especially on the phone, and they talk about things and lectures and all that. And all this stuff, they talk about

the need for everything.

But we need to have open discussions about things like pornography, we need to make it so that a person who feels like they have a problem with pornography, can feel comfortable coming to going to a counselor, or feel comfortable going to their their email or their champers at least someone that they look up to, or older brothers. So just someone, someone that they can talk to. And one of the problems that a lot of people have people we're dealing with in our prediction, right, is that they feel like they have no one to talk to their show. They're so ashamed of what they're doing, that they just keep doing what they're doing, and they don't seek out any help. Right? Did you just get

too afraid to kind of walk up? When someone comes up to me and they say, like, I'm addicted to pornography, I immediately have an immense amount of respect for this person. And I always tell this, and I say, Listen, you may you may think that because you came up to me, and you told me that you'd have a problem with pornography, or whatever. And I'm gonna look down upon you, I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. Right? Why? Because the same thing happened or similar thing happened at the time of the prophets that a lot, I think, there was a man mentioned he was

a young boy, and they say about this.

They say that he, he, he liked sleeping around. Right? He enjoyed women, this and that. And that's like all the power that he was dealing with. And so he came to the messenger home. And he said, O Messenger bot, he said, Can you make it permissible?

For or can you make adultery permissive? will make it permissible for me to commit adultery, or anything? Why is it that I have to be married to someone or have sex with them. And the prophet SAW send them it's very interesting that the way the person responded to this young companion, you know, in our time, you know, you may hear someone Someone said that to like a membership, whatever, they may see him like,

you know, you should be, you should be ashamed of yourself, and so on and so forth. Make this person feel extremely guilty, right to the point where the next time they have that issue, you're not gonna you're not even gonna talk about, right? But the Prophet sallallahu sallam, he put his hand on this young man's shoulder. And he said to him, he said, how would you like it?

If someone committed dinner? or adultery with your mother? Or how would you like if someone committed adultery with your sister,

your aunt, or one of your other female relatives? Would you like it for them? Would you like that? You know, I say it's permissible for someone to commit sin with your female relatives.

He said no. So there's no way I would accept that. And so the process and have said that if you don't accept it, for these for for your own relatives, why would you accept it for the women that you want to commit adultery? Why is it okay? Right. And then you've had a lot of profits, I set it up, put his hand on the shoulder, he made the offer. He said, Oh, wha, making cheese. And finally, if you look at the way the prophets I said, the proposal situation, there's a couple of things happening here. Number one, the President didn't make him feel guilty. But the profit center made him realize the dangers of what he's asking for. I need to realize the problem with Yeah, it's very

easy to say you know what, just do whatever you feel is good to you know, to do whatever feels good. It's about people who lead a life like that people would say, like, you know, just do whatever makes do whatever makes you feel good. Or like the the Irish

thing to have is he saying can be married for tomorrow, you will die and they were in support. Like I just like a bar champ or whatever. It's basically for you to do whatever you want, because you're going to

enjoy yourself, and just how to walk it's very easy to adopt that type of that type of phase of ethical lifestyle, because you just do whatever makes you feel good. But if you are just take a moment and think about the consequences of doing whatever you feel like doing whatever you want, you'll very quickly come to the realization that that's that's not a proper way to live your life and you're going to be causing a lot of damage not only to other people, but yourself as well. And so the profits will lessen that made you understand that made him understand the problems in doing some I'm making something like dinner or something like that. Daltrey making that habit, and that is

a proton and I believe in the last time he was busted

I think one of the approaches that we need to take to to an issue like to an issue of pornography, where it's not about, you know, of course, it's how there's no doubt about that. There is no difference amongst the scholars about the issue of is it harder to look at pornography, right? There's not a single scholar who said, You know what, it's okay for you to Well, maybe you can watch pornography, but it's okay for you to like flip through a playboy. Like there's no teller who says that. Right. And that also passes on the issue of like, masturbation comes up, and someone said, I had

someone come up to me, and they say, and they're like, you know,

you know, what's what's what's wrong with pornography? I didn't some scholars say that masturbation. Okay. Right. Is it a difference of opinion that some scholars? And I said, Yeah, of course, there's no doubt even though like majority scholars consider masturbation to be permissible. There are many scholars who said that if there's, if there's a need for it, that is permissible for someone to master. But that's not the problem here. The problem is was associated with masturbation. Right? It's very, very rare in our times where someone masturbate without any type of without anything there to help arouse. Right, it just doesn't happen. It's funny that even this college is that like

masturbation is permissible. what they meant was that you know, you're in a situation where you're about to commit adultery. Right and your your desire is that over overtaking you to the point where you cannot control yourself at this point is either you masturbate, or you commit Zina. And in that situation, yeah, okay, it's harder for you to

have freedom. And

it is disliked. Right? But it is permissive. Right. No one ever said, Yeah, you know, what, if you feel the need to masturbate, it's okay for you to go like, do porn.com, open up the website and be like, yo, let me go ahead and

like, I have to do the solid set, you have to go on the time of need after this. So this is a time of me. Right? So that's my issue. And like I said, the issue of health, I think, I think almost anyone you know, if you if you were to ask yourself,

ask yourself, right? Ask your heart. This does not wish to hear everyone understand that watching pornography is something which is not permissible in Islam. But the issue here is that putting it in context of or putting pornography, on understanding the harms and dangers of monography. Allah, if you were to actually do some research and look into the harms of Knock, knock, knock, the effect is, there is so much data out there, even if it's powerful preparing for this talk, I was overwhelmed with the amount of data that's out there, the amount of studies the amount of research that I've done, I guess a lot of people are concerned about pornography and masturbating stuff, right. So a

lot of research has gone into this. But it's out there, right now even even issue of how viewing pornography affects the brain. Like no, neurologists have studied the brain to see what happens in the brain when when a person

use pornography. And what they found is that just like, you know, when it comes to drugs and things like that,

just like when it comes to drugs and things like that, what happens is there is a chemical in the brain called dopamine. It's like the pleasure chemical, when you come across something which is pleasurable to you, dopamine is released in your brain. And that's the way pleasure works. And the same thing is true with food and things like that. And sex where you find something pleasurable, there is dopamine release in your brain. Now, when it comes to things like drugs, and especially being drunk, like cocaine, when you when you, when you take cocaine use cocaine, the dopamine, there's a there's an excess of there's a surge of dopamine in your brain, right. And this is why you

feel this immense amount immense amount of pleasure when you take that certain drug. And they found that this, the very similar thing happens when it comes to pronounce. And they you know, they stopped the people down, they hooked up some wires to their head, they said here, you'll love and what's important to us right now is that there was a surge in Doku. And this is why they found that, like drugs, pornography can very, very quickly become addictive, very, very quickly can become addictive, because the same thing happens just like you know, just like with certain drugs, it's very quick to fall into a to an addiction when it comes to drugs. Even a person who says you know,

I'll be okay, whatever, even that's how a person can very quickly become addicted to that type of drug.

So what they found is that not only is there a surge of dopamine, there are pathways that get that get created in your brain. So when you expose yourself to something, there's a pathway that gets created in your brain, and the more you expose yourself to it, the stronger that pathway that connection gets. What they found with pornography, is that when a person views pornography, where they view sexual images and things like that, that that pathway is extremely strong. Right very, very, very good.

For an impound lot, and even the issue with an RV is that it's not even an issue of like, if you view it. Like if you view pornography a lot, that's when you become addicted. What they found is that even if you view pornography just once, there's a pathway that gets created in your brain, and that in your brain, like, what happens is that that image is so strong for that individual, that it keeps repeating itself in their head. Right? And this is why if you ever looked at pornography, remember the look of that, again, it may be like a day later, two days ago, three days later, four days later, that image may still be playing in your head. And this is why when I said you know, if

you think about the first time we were exposed to pornography, I'm sure most people, if we don't, I'm not going to get my athletes Tell me. But if I were to ask you to, can you remember what that image was, or what was happening in that image, you can probably remember, right, and that shows you how strong that connection was when the person when the first one was exposed to pornography, just like other addictions. So you know, like I said, it can very quickly become an addiction, just like other addictions. There, they have certain characteristics. So number one, a higher tolerance and desensitization. So this is something that we see happen in other drugs, and we see it happen with

pornography, as well, that the more you expose yourself to it, the more you need to feel satisfied. And it's not only that it actually escalates to the more you watch pornography, the more you need to watch. And what they found is it's not just an issue of quantity, is actually issue of the type of pornography as well. So if you want like a certain type of monography, as a person, you know, possible someone starts out with something like softcore porn, right? They want some like that, the next time, you're gonna do something a little bit more exciting, something a little bit more extreme. And then the next time you watch it, you're gonna do something even more extreme, and so on

so forth. Because what's happening is that our brain, because of that surge of dopamine, we need to feel that same type, we need something else something novel, right? It's why, you know, the scientists are discussing, the issue of marketing, this is not just about the nudity is about the novelty, of pornography, the fact that a person can log onto the internet, and they cannot, it's not just they're watching one woman do one thing, they can watch multiple different women doing multiple different things. And this and that, and because of that novelty, you need that to feel that same pleasure. And you know, I have a couple of these studies here, because next slide, they did a study

in Australia, where once again, they got a bunch of men together. And they showed them pornographic images, right, but they only show them one image is like an image of one woman who's new to the earth, she was involved with some type of pornographic scene or something like that. And they showed it to the men over and over again, and they found is that their arousal, it kept getting lower and lower with the same image. But this point here, where it was where there was a spike, they found this spike when they changed the issue, as soon as they brought a new image. So they were shown this new type of pornography, immediately their arousal levels went up, right and even even study cheap.

And once again, what they found is that if they took it, they took a sheet, we took a male sheep, and they had to have intercourse with a female. And they and they found that each time that she could have intercourse, that the amount of time it took for him to reach climax or to to to ejaculate that it took longer and longer and longer with it with the same partner. But in the second graph here, in the second part about when they introduce different types of sheets, or the introduce sheet that was a different sheet wasn't saying even though all she probably looked the same to us.

Right?

What they found is that each of those colors is a new sheet, right? New female. So with a new female, they found that the time to ejaculation was shorter. Right. And so what happens is, the same thing happens and

what happens is, is the same thing that a person may do pornography, and let's say it takes them like three minutes,

which probably pretty awkward, three minutes, two minutes, whatever to get have an orgasm, right? The next time, if they were to look at that same image, that same video, that same scene or whatever, would take them longer than three minutes. However, if they're able to bring new images, and new videos and new things, then they're able to reach their climax in the same short amount of time that they weren't to before. And this is how what happens is that person goes from very something which is something which would be considered more normal in society and something which would be a lot more extreme. Number two, self deception. So with all other addictions, the same

thing happens here. Is that a person

It

will start to deceive themselves, they will start to tell themselves, you'll start to rationalize your your addiction. A person even may even say that I'm not addicted. Right? And this is very common a lot, especially with with porn addiction of most people are addicted to porn, they don't feel like they're addicted.

Okay, I don't have a problem, right? Write this column or other addictions as well. Or they may try to rationalize their addiction. So they may say something like, you know, while it's so difficult to get married in this day and age, it's okay, let me just do it now for a while, once I get married, I'll stop. Right. And there's a host of other problems that comes with that issue as well. Number three, loss of control with just like all other addictions, the person who gets addicted to pornography, they, they lose control of their own behavior. So a person may understand the consequences of this action. So they know all the harms and all the issues that come to a person in

their life, in relationships, everything that we know all the harms of pornography, but at the same time, they they they can't stop, right, they have lost control over themselves. Number four, a distortion of attention. And this is basically when a person

they have in their normal life, they give attention to certain things and certain people, but because of their addiction, their attention is change. Right? So for example, if a person a good example was the person say there's a brother who's married, if he did not have a pornography addiction, he may give his wife certain amount of time where he may have a certain amount of a certain type of relationship with his wife, because of this pornography addiction relationship is, is very, very different. Number five symptoms of withdrawal.

So just like any other addiction, if you were to cut this person off, but what they're addicted to, they would suffer the same type of a withdrawal symptoms, irritability, depression, and anxiety and things like that often occurs with pornography as well. pornography.

What we know from pornography, is that it does a very good job of changing what a person views to be normal. So if you take a look at person's life, before they started watching pornography, and after they started watching pornography, what they will notice is that what they viewed to be normal, has very quickly changed. And somehow it's actually it's actually very smart. How for movies and for industry actually goes about doing this. And when I when I read this, I thought this is really smart. And the way they get people to get addicted to these abnormal behaviors are they find it when they begin to find these abnormal behaviors attractive and good. And they begin to become aroused by

these abnormal behaviors? And the pattern like you know, I talked about, you know, that when it comes to the Muslim countries, one of the top searches was child pornography. Right? Now, we will look at tog Rafi and be like, That is disgusting. That's sick. How would someone in their right mind the arouse watch?

Right, and I'll tell you how it works. Here's how it works. The way the porn industry works is that they slowly not so slow, but they in a very step by step way, they desensitize you to these type of things. So the first time person, let's say they look at pornography for the first time, they may see a very a app that they consider to be normal. There's there's a guy having vaginal sex with a girl. Right? Nothing odd about that, you know, they do that to be normal, no big deal. But a couple things later in the same photography, this man begins to have a little sex with that girl. Right? And initially is like, weird, but then he notices that he was aroused to begin with. And now he

begins to find that arousing as well. Right? And then it goes further. And you know, other other things are performed, you introduce other partners, and listen that and you can even lead to things like, you know, we know the amount of craziness is out there. But you know, humiliation, beating, there's rape porn, child pornography and things like that. It's kind of like you were to take this person and the first time we show them pornography, you showed them something like that.

But the fact that it was gradual, they took something that they found to be normal, and they tackled the abnormal to that now they're in a situation where they find that to be normal. And this is very, very common. So first thing, they find themselves in a situation. And I noticed Pavlov's thinking is one brother. And he said to me, he said, you know, after I'm done masturbating, he said, I'm disgusted at myself. And he said, I'm disgusted at what I was looking at. Right, like I find it to be disgusting. He's like, I don't understand why before I had an orgasm that I didn't want to be discussing. It was turning me on. Right. And the problem here is that once again person is

desensitized, and not only were they desensitized, they felt like they needed

In order to be turned on, what they found as well, very finicky is that when it comes to relationships, it has, it's very detrimental to a person's sex life. One of the biggest issues is expectations that a spouse will have stole half from yourself. When a person watches pornography or they get addicted to pornography or they're exposed to pornography, they begin to view certain things not only, as I said, not only as normal, but also something that they need to be aroused. So they need a certain action to be aroused. And they may even turn their spouse to go to counseling, oh, let's try this something which is different. Right? And it may work for a lot, right? Maybe for

the first time to have sex for the second time, whatever it may work for about a while, but eventually, what they'll find is that they're not aroused in the same way that they were aroused when they were looking at pornography. Right? It's not the same, and just the fact that this person is having sex with a single partner, right? So for example, there's a guy who watches pornography or whatever, and his wife does, like everything, that this certain porn star doesn't know that porn video does everything. But the fact that she's one person, and she's not multiple partners, that may be enough for him to not be around not be turned off into power. Not only that, we have an issue now

of Ed, Ed is reptile dysfunction, basically don't know what that is. That's basically what a guy can get. Right. And in the past, what they found is that people who got erectile dysfunction with the older generation is one a person who got old. And because of physical problems, because of their age, and so on, so forth, they could not hold an erection.

And they never found it's very rare that someone under the age of like 40, or 45, who would have erectile dysfunction. Now in our times, they find that a lot of young people

30s and 20s, even in their teens, and people in their teens who can't get it.

Right. And the issue here is is not it's not it's not a physical problem, you know, you can't treat it with drugs, and it's a psychological problem. It's how they have desensitized themselves to, to these, how they desensitize themselves, and they need these these perverted, or do the extreme type of images to be turned on. Right. And what examples that I've heard about this is that if you would imagine that someone who stands up in there next to like, a fart, like literally on fire alarm, they're right next to the place where the sound of the fire alarm is coming up, right. And it's super, super, you ever been in a situation where there's a firework going off, it's super loud,

right? Extremely Loud, and this person covers their ears, because it's too loud. Now, well, person has their ears covered, if you were to walk up to this person and try to have a conversation with them, they'd be like,

like, they'd be like, I have no idea what you're talking. Right, they can't hear you. Right? The same thing with his analogy with pornography as well, where a person has brought themselves to a level where they have known their sense of them. And they know their arousal, where they need a certain level of certain type of images and certain extreme images before they can be around. Right. And that causes the person to have erectile dysfunction. Also, the fact that the person, as you said, neurologically, it actually alters pathways in the brain. Right. So a person, what they find, like, the way they get off was the way they're used to getting off because they do it. So often, it

doesn't sit by themselves in front of the computer screen or whatever. And they will have like, 20 tabs open, and they're going from video to video video, or whatever, different sides and all that and then looking at 10, different tasks monography. And they get off that way. Right. That's how you have trained your brain to be around. And you take that person, you put them in a situation where they're having sex with a real woman, for example, they cannot perform, right, and they will go to a doctor and be like, and I think I'm gonna tell this function giving drugs him supply or something like that, why are they not gonna solve anything in the situation? Right, this issue is that is the

point that they have

exposed themselves to, also we're finding now is that porn is linked to a lot of psychological illnesses, and to paralyze, it's very interesting how now what they're finding is that there are people who have different psychological illnesses, depression, anxiety, even obsessive compulsive disorder, and many other problems. For the longest time psychologists and psychiatrists, they were treating the problem, right, where somebody would be like, you know, having depression, so they give them like, I don't know, so often whenever they prescribe for prescription for depression, right? And they what they find now is that a lot of these psychiatrists are just trying to solve the

symptoms, because all of these things are happening are a symptom of their user pornography or the fact that they have viewed or pornography so much, and what a lot of psychologists are finding out is that

When they address the actual problem, the issue of their addiction to pornography, that a lot of these issues just go away on their own. Not only that, pornography also affects a person's self esteem or their self images in guys and girls. And by the way, I know like people when they think of pornography, they only think of guys. And it's true. It's more so the guys that view pornography, but it's becoming more and more culturally acceptable in our society, for women to view pornography as well. Right? I don't like guys, it doesn't make any sense. Like women are wired. Like, that's not how they work. Like I said, if you put the person in front of because of the surge of dopamine,

because of new brain paths being created in the brain, even date can be addicted to pornography, they can be in a situation where they require for longer. So when it comes to a person's self esteem, self image, here's a problem that a lot of guys are having. Okay? The problem is this, that, you know, especially young boys and girls, as I mentioned before, it's lunchtime. It's a young Asian actual, what the studies found that

most people are like the average age when most people first their first exposure to pornography happens around the age of 10. That's the average age remotely more exposure. So you take this young boy, and you show this young boy for an opportunist person has watched within our community, you know, there's, they feel aroused about it, so and so forth. Now, as they watch pornography, they begin to have a certain image of what normal is, right? So they look at this person, this porn star, for example, this guy who's been having sex for like, 30 4050 minutes, right? And he has an erection.

Right? And so this young boy, he begins to think of himself when he's actually married with a year later, when he gets married. He's in a situation where he cannot last more than like, four minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes. Right? You will look at that and feel bad about himself and say, You know what, there's something wrong. And even the opposite that is true as well. A girl or a woman, for example, who has, you know, who has watched a lot of pornography, she may turn her husband and be like, what's wrong with you? Why can't you laugh?

Right, that there's something wrong. Right. And that's her perception of what a guy's was to be like, as a young man. His his perception of what a young man is supposed to be like, and how they're supposed to act. Now this was inset. And so a lot of the sex that takes place in pornography, and the sex that takes place in real life is very, very curious. pornography is all about immediate pleasure. It's about shock. If you think about when people watch tomography, it's about fast forwarding, clicking through just anything to do to get yourself aroused, to have an orgasm as quick as possible. Real sex is not just about the organ, it's about human touch. It's about feelings. It's

about love. It's about correctly, just the fact that sex has everything to do with touch, the fact that you are aroused by touching, feeling the other person that's not found pornography. So this whole time lets his person do pornography for like, five or 10 years or whatever in their brain, the brain doesn't understand that touch. It's supposed to turn that feeling love and connection is supposed to change. They don't they just don't get that. And this one, like I said, they may not be able to perform. Because it's not the type of sex that they're used to. And even young girls, young girls and watching. Often we live in a culture where you know, and I know the whole time I've been

saying for documents we were thinking of like, as I said, like hardcore pornography is how we live in a time where there's pornography and like TV, right? You take, you know, a lot of TV shows these days. If you were playing like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, people would be like, this is porn, right? There's a show by the name of Game of Thrones.

You were like, No, we haven't heard about

Game of Thrones, full of beauty full of seeing the people having sex movies come out every day. And I remember a lot when the movie 300 came out. The sequel that just came out recently, whatever that I think came out about 510 years ago.

2008 2000 came on 2007. I remember back then had a lot people went to the theater. And they came out and like a lot of like, listen to want to go watch that movie. They came out thinking like, I cannot believe I just watched a poor, right? Because it was like nudity. There are people having sex and things like that. And to kind of like fast forward. You know, whatever. 510 15 years ago, people went to watch the new one. I'm sure there's I'm sure that's probably same type the same type of scenes in the new 300 that there wasn't right but often when people say I have tons of friends on Facebook. That's one of the ways where I keep my pulse on what's going on in the world when it comes

to young people, things like that. Not one post. I didn't see a single post on Facebook about you know what

Maybe we shouldn't watch.

Maybe we shouldn't do it because there are scenes with nudity and people having sex with

a single person that's just different between now and like 510 years. Right? And so as I said, even like women when they watch these movies and young girls when they watch movies, things like that, and you know, even in everyday society, like I said, you take someone, we take young pop stars, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, whatever, they're pretty much like almost, you know, we talk accents against this whole thing happened with Miley Cyrus or whatever he did crazy stuff, whatever. That is that a big version or not? Right? It's kind of like, if you go back to the first line, the definition of pornography, or where the word Nazi comes from? It comes from the Greek word

pornographic, which means writing about prostitutes. Right? So when you when you when you write about prostitutes,

in our in our, in our time, people say prostitution is the documentation of

pornography is the documentation of prostitution. Right, where a woman is being paid, a guy's being paid to have sex. And that is what the person is watching. Right? This is this, we documented it, we put it on screen or whatever. And it's got a lot of people who, you know, we're

fighting for the legalization of prostitution, one of the arguments that they use is, what's the difference? What's the difference in prostitution and pornography? Right, a woman and a man are being paid to have sex. That's what prostitution, right as a lot of these, you know, pasta or anything like that. This is the inventory young girls have. But in terms of even in terms of

what looks good, what is attractive. Right? So yeah, you have a young girl who says, You know, I need to look like that, in order to feel attractive. Right. And then a lot of excuses a lot of young people make is, you know, I'm just trying to express myself, right. And the common phrase that we hear people say, I'm trying to express my sexuality as a glorified way of saying iPhone.

Right? And that's a glorified way of saying,

he says, you want to want to walk around with without clothes and furniture thing or whatever. But don't tell me how to express your sexuality. Right? Come on. And like I said, there's, there's girls who can't look like that, right? And we put our stop working is the way you look. And this is another one a big and I gave a talk on this whole issue of self esteem and self worth or whatever. But you know, we live in a society we put so much of our self worth, into the way we look. Right? If you look good stuff, you don't look good.

Right. And there's definitely a separate topic, a whole nother issue. But there's another host of problems that come with that as well.

In another another study, I think is the last quote, by the way, they did a study where they studied

export losers, right? So they sat down, and they took them they took two people, they said, Listen, stop watching pornography for a certain amount of time. Right. And what they found is that, so they studied them to interview them. And what they found is that people who stopped watching pornography, that before in their life, they were having issues that they didn't even know about, right? issues like loneliness, issues, like procrastination issues, like not having drive in their life, and even other psychological illnesses and things like that. They found that the only factor that was changed in this person's life was that they stopped watching for now, everything else was kept the same.

Right? They just stopped watching pornography. And they found that people in these interviews people said things like, I found like I realized I'm capable of doing so much more in my life, I found that I stopped procrastinating so much, I found that a people kind of had so much focus, and I found this not because their whole state of mind actually change and analyze some people in the environment. There's a new trend these days, where like, non Muslims are quitting, you know, pornography, and masturbation, things like that. You know, and one of the biggest driving factors behind that is EDI. A lot guys are afraid. And this is a good reason. Right? All the other problems that mentioned the

psychological problems and problem relationships and all that, put that aside, just the fact that you will may not be able to get up one day. You know, for a lot of people it is enough. Right? But that should definitely that's at least one of the things that is causing people to stop. Now I want it to end until sometime tips

for how to overcome pornography addiction. Like I said,

I don't want people to look at this and think of someone and say, You know what? I don't have a pornography addiction. It's not me. It's

a lot of people when they're asked about their addiction.

an addiction is not the person is incapable of stopping. And people are in denial about their addiction. They will

And say something like, you know, if I wanted to I could quit at any time. Right? Well, once I get married, I'll stop. Right. And obviously, if the August thing we say to them is okay, if you feel like if not whatever you want, and stop now. And if you can stop, then you're not addicted. But if you can't stop, or you come back to that for a while, or whatever, and after a while, like, you know, masturbating so long, but now I'll be okay. There's a big sign that you are addicted. But some of these some of these points have

their advice. And this is this is compiled from a couple different resources and from a little bit of experiences in the counseling from young people as well. So if you don't have a problem with pornography,

but if you do, you can benefit from this. At the very least, if you're not dealing with this yourself, when people come to you for advice and challenge. You can talk to them and do some of the things you can get us some of the things you can buy them with when it comes to their problems with number one,

the brain can be rewired. Right. So what they found when they when they did like these brain studies and things like that, is that yes, pornography is very strong in creating those, those connections. But as opposed to some of the other addictions, it is possible for a person to rewire their brain meaning it is possible for a person to get rid of their pornography addiction. One of the things that they mentioned about pornography is that cold turkey works with

with a lot of addictions and may not work. Right? Well, addictions, like new take yourself off, whatever. But when it comes to pornography, cold turkey works, because that is a way that you can rewire your brain. Number two, consider the victims of pornography and porn industry. You know, the idea that the young man came to the prophet SAW, I sent them and said, O Messenger of Allah bacon, permissible for me to convince dinner, the process has

made me realize the effect of what he's asking for. Right? Likewise, we as Muslims, it's Yeah, it's about our relationships. But also we need to look beyond ourselves. We need to look at what we are, what we are contributing to, when we watch porn, and I know somebody said to me, they said, You know, I don't pay for porn. So I'm good, right? I just watched Risa catalog.

Whether you're paying for it or not, you're still contributing to keeping the porn industry. Important to keep going. The way things work is supply and demand. The more the more demand there is for pornography, the more pronounced resistance, but this is the way worse, when a person is one of the one of the advices I would give is it for a person who stopped struggling with a porn addiction.

Just take a moment to consider what's happening outside of you as an individual. Right? Even the fact that this woman that you're watching, this is someone's mother, or this is someone's daughter, someone's sister, right? And even how you would even say that the next time you sit and sit down and watch porn, say to yourself, what if this was my sister? And I know that maybe like, you know, to, to visual for something to make too much for some people, right? But sometimes, that's what you need. Ask yourself, would I be okay, with one of my relatives doing this? I would that would that be okay for me. So think of think of what's happening outside of just you as individuals.

We very much pay attention to what's happening to you. But it's not only do we not not want hard for ourselves, we don't want hard for other people as well, into power, even like the status of a woman in the sun is incredibly even, even even the Arabic term for a woman's Home, home, from what comes to harmony, someone who is sacred, someone who needs to be protected, someone who you hold at a very high status, right? Just the fact that a person opens up pornography and they watch these women being degraded and used. And this means that they don't value besides the besides the fact that

besides the fact that she's a woman, right?

That when you do that, think about that, listen, I actually helping degrade this, what I'm what I'm agreeing to what you're doing, I'm helping her do what she is doing. It's very easy to. And one of the things that happens is a lot and this is one of the tricks of SharePoint, by the way, is that he will cause us to look at our sins and kind of rationalize them. And, you know, especially when it comes to pornography, people have objectified the women that are in pornography, for example, even guards as well. But you may personally view pornography and look at this individual as just someone who's one damage, like almost like it's a fictional character. It's like animation, this person

isn't real, right? That they're just there to, to to provide you with some type of arousal, right? That's their only job. That's what that's what they're there for. And the reality is that this is a real human beings. They have a life just like you have a life. They may have children, they definitely she definitely has parents, right siblings, cousins, this and that. Right? So take yourself, put yourself in a position where you can look at the

Context number three as other than I was this before, but also take an objective look at yourself were

in our house and one of the advices that I give is, think of it as an out of body experience. Right? Think of yourself, imagine yourself sitting there. And you can do this right now, if you have an issue with productivity or you you pornography, just imagine yourself sitting there, by yourself in the dark or whatever, the room is locked or whatever. And you turn on this, this, whatever you log on, and you're still watching, and you pull your pants down, right, and you take out some loot, and you do this. Now, and I know most people like

to

even think about that. Yes, yes.

I'm glad one person.

You guys.

Love me, you think of when you think of adults in that position? Right? That's an honorable position to be. Right. We're like I said, you know, if you were to take yourself in and look back at our bodies, look into yourself, like that's what's happened. That can very much help as well, controlling one's gaze, obviously, and we no longer use controlling agents a big part of it's not it's a big part of our education, our morals, and part of who we are as Muslims. And there's a lot of love behind that. And it's, it's very interesting how much I believe it's a students know, what was

this tell the believing men to lower their gaze, right. And the very next is, is tell them leading women to lower their gaze. And that's how I know a lot of people tend to think lower engaged, just forgot, a guy should lower their gaze when they want, right? That's not how it works. It's for guys and girls. But what it says here is controlling your gaze other than porn, right? I'm not talking about lower your gaze when you're showing porn, right? Obviously, lower your cases, like, don't look at it, right? That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about in situations where it's not porn, but it's something that you shouldn't be looking at. Right? Whether it be TV, whether it be

movies, whether it be magazines, whether it be an article on Facebook, whether it be someone's profile picture that's like, you know, whatever, whatever it is, but something that will, that will cause you around something that you shouldn't be looking at. And one of the ways, one of the things that leads to pornography is, especially for people who aren't married is that they don't have like another, like a head on way to like to deal with their desires and stuff. But they may look at something very, you know, that most people consider very normal, right? This is this is just a woman on TV or whatever. And something which is not that, you know, she's not nude, but she's wearing a

bikini. And that may be the spark that leads a person to masturbate for a person to watch pornography, like an hour or two hours later, right? So making a conscious effort to be like, you know, what, think about the fact that this one image could lead you looking at for not just this one movie, or whatever the scene is, whatever it is controlling gaze, in that situation, even when you're out and about, I know, I'm the last winner right now. But summer is coming up, right? Especially those of you guys who go to college and things like that I was how much our practices now, I start proximus down when I was in college, and it was summertime. Right? And so a lot of

people have told me this, you know, you should worry gays, or whatever. And I was like good, gotta do it. Right. And I realized the blessing of lowering your gaze. When I was in College Park. during the summertime, how many people

here have been to University of Maryland College Park? What's at the center of the university?

It's a big old field. What do people do in that field as our girls do the field of

study

as well, right? A lot happens now. But even though right, just walking across campus and like that, even like you making a conscious effort to control your gaze, Laurie, it's not easy. I get it. You know, we live in a society where we're taught to make eye contact with people. We're taught to look at things. We live in a very important society. We're taught to look at people will look at people's lives, reality shows and this and that we're constantly looking at people. We're constantly interested in what's happening in other people's lives. Even if you look at Facebook and Twitter and things like that. What is that except a chance for us to look into people's lives? I wonder what

this person is doing? I wonder poster. And that's worse. That's, that's the type of society we live in. Or we're taught to look at anything and everything. Right? Everything is interesting for us. It's powerful. A good example of this was and I'm not just going to live the controversy up here, because I hadn't mentioned such a controversial

the whole thing that happened with Chevron kohteessa a couple weeks ago. How many people here know what I'm talking about?

Okay, that's not too bad. Actually.

Even this number here is too much.

Remember, if you don't want to talk about Don't worry about don't go look it up, please

go look it up. Don't go search Google.

But the point here is that some people and I got questions and messages and emails listeners out there, like, what do you think about housing? Do you think with

an artist and some of the questions people said, I don't know what the character is. But what he did is wrong. Right? A lot of people they jumped on, just because they wanted to see what's happening. The same reason why you're driving down for 95. And you see an accident and has nothing to do with your life. Right? You're actually getting late for work, but you slow down and look over and like, I wonder if someone died?

Live.

It we live in

celebrity culture is one thing that is very, very, you know, happens in a celebrity culture is that we love to raise people. We like to take like the dumbest stupidest people make us.

Not only that, but that's only half of the equation. Right? That's only half the other half of the equation is we like to raise people up. And we like to walk them crash and burn.

This is why you know, take Justin Bieber, take Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, I mean, whatever. People love it when they break down. Right? That's entertainment. Right? And the same thing I told you with just like,

jumped on board. Right? Like, yeah, let's see what happens ticket.

Like, get rid of a winner. And once again, I was like a lot of these people, right? who are who are really concerned as I was speaking to someone who was so concerned about what he said the thing he said, all the stuff that happened or whatever. And I and this is a brother, I know this brother, this dude doesn't even pray this prayer. He doesn't even pray like forget five times a day even pray like a single prayer. Right. And this is like the biggest issue and

I didn't know what

was going on. But he's like, so interested in hearing my opinion.

Once again, we live in a very, very sick society, we like to see things we like to we like to see people destruct and Bernie would like to see that, right. And so so I get it, I get it's very difficult to lower your gaze. But this is something that, you know, it takes patience. And it takes perseverance just like our whole lot. Just like with everything else that we're doing. And Michael comes to praying and he repeated to us kind of a tiara. When it comes to fasting. Later, whatever it is, there's no one who's perfect, right? Even somebody who's praised all of their five daily prayers on time, every single day, they pray, they pray, they pray, they know what to look for everything,

even a person, their prayer is not perfect. Right? At some point, they may have thought about something. At some point, something else may have happened, even approval will be lost. I did an authentic narration where

I was standing in my prayer, and I started to count the army, you start to count the number of people in this army. Right? And this shows that this is how human beings are. Right? We're not perfect, we are taught. By the way, one of the reasons. The hecklers about a little lost up after you finished grade is asked a lot to forgive you for the shortcoming that you have in prayer, because everyone has to come. Right. But just like this, just like you view your other actors, you do recognize that and all that kind of stuff, the same type of approach should be taken to lower your gaze, it's very easy and chiffons trick is to come to you and say you can never do. It's not

gonna happen. You know, it starts with it starts with district starts with people, you will come to somebody who's not practicing with a non religious Muslim thank, you can never do. You're just a bad person, you can never become a religious Muslim. You can never become a

person you know, you can never do you're not good enough to be comfortable. And, you know, why bother praying and to commit this introduction, whatever, right? But even when it comes down to the individual, since one will come to you and say you don't even bother, because you're never going to do right and even when it comes to pornography a lot. Don't let your bond get you to lose hope every time you come back and pornography make you competitive and make the intention to get rid of this problem. Of course.

Identify the emptiness that you are trying to fill with for

a lot of the things that they have found a lot of counselors they say that when people turn to something like pornography and even other addictions, whether it's drugs, or whatever it is that usually there's something missing in their life is an emptiness and

They're like they're trying to fill. And this is why they turned to things like this. Right. So once again, being prospective, and if you can't do it yourself, I would actually even say get counseling. Go speak to a counselor who speak just like characters, talk about your life, talk about your calls, talk about your issues, they may help you identify the emptiness of the hole in your life that you're trying to fill with pornography. Number six, identify patterns in your life. People who watch pornography and people who are in monogamy and stuff,

if they

looked at the patterns in life, and how they approached monography, it's easy to find those patterns. So one thing is a very common, most people watch pornography in isolation, right? They're not around other people.

around other people, so they're, they're in a situation where

they're by themselves, right, or they're, they're in a situation where it's usually after midnight, it's usually when this or that. So once you identify the triggers of your, what caused you to, you know, watch, or whatever, you can identify those things and stay away from those things. For example, for example, point number seven, spend less time alone, if you find that you usually watch pornography or whatever, when you're alone, then you need to start spreading the news topic amongst

yourself with things that will take up your time and take up your day where you don't have time to do nothing. Sometimes. Sometimes people turn to pornography, simply out of boredom. Right? they're bored. They got nothing to do. They turn

number

eight, faster, right? Had a lot. I remember speaking to one brother. And I said, You know what? You should fast. You're having to pronounce it? Because Yeah, that's

right. Yeah, I know, first that I've said the past, but that just, that just never works. Right? There's no proof for that, or anything like that. And Pamela says, How about the fact that the profits that have lost them advised that he believes in studying

whoever amongst you are able to get married, so they should get married? And if they're not able to get married? What should they do? They should pass. Right? And now, a lot studies are showing that

a decrease in calories, leads to decrease in libido. Right? So when you when you're hungry, or even use less food, and your body just does less of that it also kills your sex. Right? So a person is in a position where they they're addicted to pornography, or they feel like they must turn to pornography. What I'm not saying that's the solution. But I'm saying that all the stuff that I'm mentioning here is not that not all these points are not individually the solution they could be. But not the common thing here is definitely something that very much helps, right very much houses, how there's also there's a separate topic, but it's also very strongly, there's a lot that

overeating and obesity has in common with pornography, addiction, right? You know, we talked about increased dopamine in the brain. And when people overeat and things like that. The same is very similar the release of dopamine in their brain. And this is why it's just like, so many different graphy. Likewise, so many people are fat, right? Four out of five Americans are overweight, or obese. In parallel. I live in San Diego. And I know I don't have to get picked on Saturday a lot. Because I live there, I got to see like the inner workings of society stuff. It's even in Saudi Arabia. Now you see that more and more people are overweight food. It's like a big industry there.

Now, one of the one of the I was in a taxi once in Medina, and the taxi driver is talking to me, like where are you from this kind of stuff. And we were talking about something. And then he said, You know, my whole family, they run restaurants. He said, I'm the only one who tried to attack me. And I'm like, Oh, really, he goes, Yeah, he goes, they say salary visits, if there's one business that will never fail, it's a restaurant because people love to eat. Right. And so we see the same thing, just like we get into we, we get into our desires when it comes to pornography, and you know, the images and over sexualized images and things like that nudity, and all that kind of stuff.

Likewise, this person is also they will be likely to get into their desires when it comes to eating and stuff like that. And by the way, if person is able to control themselves when it comes to their eating, and they're able to calm their desires, this is actually a good sign. Right? This means that

the fact that you're able to do that with inshallah, we'll also be able to deal with your diction. Number nine openly address the problem attack it head on. This is something which I think needs to be like a community effort. We need to make it so that people who are dealing with like a porn addiction or people who are addicted to pornography and all that that they feel comfortable to address this problem head on, right that they feel comfortable talking to

Doesn't have to be love doesn't have to be shared. It just it can even be like what have you. The fact that you attended this talk tonight, you probably know more about the issue of monography than the average person out there. Right. And you have some solutions to the issue. Even you can advise someone to be like, you know what? pornography is dangerous. Is that hard to count your brain from your relationships? probably get tough, right? And here's a solution. Right? But the fact that we need to make it we need to make it so that the Muslim community is a place where people are comfortable talking about this product, these halls are comfortable talking about these issues.

Number 10. Fort Knox not an option.

Well, this is one of the things that I often tell people, someone who's dealing with addiction. I tell them, you have to get to mindset, where you tell yourself that I will never watch porn again. It needs to be okay with that type of lifestyle.

Sometimes people quit porn, you're like, yeah, y'all quit. But in the back of their mind, on a subconscious level, they're like, Yeah, but I mentioned

you need to make it so that pornography is not an option. And we talked about cold turkey design studies have shown that cold turkey works. When it comes to pornography culture, he works. Lastly, initially, lastly, we should be number one, but seeking

help, constantly being in a state of relying upon making the other one. And one of the one of the best things that we can do is to is to fix or improve our relationship with

the time that you're spending, improving your relationship with Allah to Allah is doing two things. Number one, using your time a better way to have less time to do things. Number two, you're putting back into your mind. And you have the blessing the cost times out of being there to help you and support you. It does not progress, any power, obviously. Right. But increasing your relationship is one of the first pieces of advice that I give to people who are dealing with NACA, whatever I say to them, how is your relationship with?

Is there a single moment in your day where you call out to your Lord?

people's eyes pray they do everything. But that question right there and tell us we can have a look at prayer is just like something you have to do a prayer, or saw the models, whatever you want to call it, it's a chance for you to

speak to us. It's a chance for you to ask for money. It's a spiritual moment. Right. So I asked him a question like, you know, what's that relationship? Like? Is there at least a minute of your day? Is how about you know, today, as I was leaving, to come here for this talk?

Right before Mother's Day, I got a text message from someone saying the hour before love it, it makes up my app, you don't have the time to read the hardware, except it is the hour, the last hour Friday or the hour before Monday. Right? And how about, I immediately start my thoughts, my thoughts on an emotion of getting ready to get out the house like Virginia, so far away from the topic, want to get lost gmu, also, all that happened was exceptional.

Right. But Alexis had a lot like,

if I'm not trusting, you know, what kind of data for me to get there. If I'm not asking a lot of help, for, you know, for all the things that I'm planning to do in my life. Like That makes no sense. Right? Just for a moment.

Right. But for that long pause, like everything, just my whole perspective on what I was doing in that moment is change. And that's what

it changes. And that's what the slot is supposed to do. Right? It's not supposed to be

five minutes from you just get it done. Right? No, we tend to think it's all like that.

I'm not saying that your prayer is not full of push really shouldn't pray, Alicia Frank, and in love both the prayers supposed to be is for you to take a moment and put things into perspective. Right? Connect with your Lord. Right. So improve your relationship with Adam. Lastly, I'll say

that

we're not sweeping this problem underneath the rug anymore. Right? I'm very, very glad. And I hope this is like one of many events, and then more and more people are talking about it. And this is one of the many issues that is plaguing Muslim societies and communities, also Muslims living in America.

I believe

that just because you speak about

domestic violence, right. Another issue, you know, all of these issues need to be addressed. They need to be talked about head on. Right. I'm really grateful that the NSA like this,

to reward them, and to give them the strength to continue and I asked was fantastic. Give us all district to address this problem that we're having our committee last week for the

Last slide. I'm sorry to go over. The last slide is some resources, some of the things that are helpful if you're interested in this topic or issue getting help and all that, number one, there's an awesome book called port advice. By Pamela Paul, it's an awesome book. After reading that book, it will just change your view of how hardcore pornography, right? This, how about this book is, is amazing. It's awesome. And I would say, if you're not gonna read the whole thing, at least skim through it, just take a look at some of the studies that have been done.

And you know, some of the effects that he talks about, it's a wonderful book. Second, secondly, there's a website called purifier, days calm. It's one of those websites where you can sign up. And basically, they help you deal with like your porn addiction.

And I have seen, a lot of people have said a lot of good things about it. They said that it's a community type of thing. And there's people helping you deal with your problems. I think it's anonymous and things like that. So the website

called your brain on porn, calm, there's so much information on there. There's a lot, there's a lot of good reading on there. The other one fight the new drug that work. It's actually such a movement campaign, to get like young people and actually like, everyone really, to quit pornography, and actually change our perception. Like I said,

many people, especially like in American culture, we don't look at it as such a bad thing. Right. And as time goes on, it's gotten worse, obviously, right? If you look at the waveform was before the record is now a separate issue, but pornography has gotten a lot worse, but this is a little bit to change people's perception about Naqvi. Also, if you're into like tech talks and stuff, I think it's like a 10 minute video. It's called the Great porn experiment by Gary Wilson. Wonderful. He talks about some of the studies that I talked about here

from scientific point of view. So those are just some of the things