TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: There Are Some Things It's Best For Men Not To See
Date: 02/27/26 Length: 00:53:28
Daniel Lapin 0:02
Greetings, Happy Warriors and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works, and one of the ways the word really works is that you sometimes have to peer into strange corners to see potent but invisible forces at work, and when we pull back the curtain, we do gain a deeper insight. And to help me do that, today is a guest that I fortuitously encountered, and he very graciously agreed to join us on the show. And I'm speaking with Chandler Rogers, the creator of an app called Relay. And perhaps the best place to start is please do a sales pitch for Relay.
Chandler Rogers 1:01
Well, thanks so much for having me on the show. Yeah, Relay is an app that helps men and women overcome unwanted pornography use and to find healing in their relationships and to become more connected to God themselves and others.
Daniel Lapin 1:17
And so there it is, and the website is Relay.
Chandler Rogers 1:21
Join the last few Yeah. Join relay dot app.
Daniel Lapin 1:26
Join relay R, E, l, a, y, join relay dot app, and it's a community with a very specific purpose. My sense is that there is an increase in the number of this type of community. And as an effective entrepreneur, you probably are happy to hear that there is competition, rather than to be dismayed by it. No competition probably means you're in a space that nobody really cares about.
Chandler Rogers 2:03
But yeah, we were one of the first
Daniel Lapin 2:08
and, but there are others aren't there?
Chandler Rogers 2:11
Yes, yeah, no, we were one of the first apps out there. We started about four years ago. But there's definitely been a change in the in the wind. In the last 12 months, it seems like pornography is no longer this thing that is as taboo or as docile as people once thought. And I think we're seeing a cultural awakening to the harms and the damages and an increase in the number of people that are seeking help, which is really encouraging to see
Daniel Lapin 2:38
Chandler back in 1994 an enormously popular president by the name of Bill Clinton had a Surgeon General whose name was Jocelyn elders, and she came up with A lot of very strange things. For instance, she spoke very disparagingly about Americans who still have a hang up about abortion. But that actually didn't get her fired. What got her fired was a speech she gave in 94 explaining that what old fashioned books used to discreetly call self abuse was a wonderful thing and that we ought to teach young people in America how to do this. I mean, the mind boggles when you wonder what exactly the educational program would look like, but that was what she said. And even for that era, and even for Bill Clinton, there was one bridge too far, and Jocelyn elders was out of a job. But why is it a bridge too far. Obviously, she thought it was a bad call, but she thought that there's really no big issue about pornography and masturbation, and that this was just something people should get used to. It's just a normal part of human sexuality. Obviously, most Americans didn't agree with her. Any sense of why this is different. Let me do it this way, if you don't mind, let me give you a summary of why I think it's different, why it's in a category of its own. And then I would love it if you shot me down or modified or reacted in any way, but here's what I understood was going on when Jocelyn elders lost her job, I said to myself, look, if I'm going to be late for. Meeting, or if somebody's picking me up for some event, and I say, Listen, swing by in about five minutes. I just have to shave. Or I'm in a shower and shave and get dressed, I'll be ready. So give me 10 minutes and pick me up then. But, and people might well say that, but nobody says, Pick me up in 10 minutes. I have to go to the toilet and I have to masturbate. Nobody says that. And here is my theory on this, and feel free to shoot it down. My goal is exploration and truth. So what I think is that we human beings have bodies and souls. We're different from animals touched by the finger of God, is something that I believe, but many of my listeners won't necessarily take that position, but that we're not only material beings, we're also spiritual beings that I can explain even in economic terms, because so many of the decisions we make economically are made not for economic reasons, but for what I call spiritual reasons. My wife likes driving to it, and she has apps that will tell her which gas stations have the cheapest gas. And if I launch into a dissertation on how much her time is worth and how much gas she's going to use to drive across. It doesn't matter, because buying the cheapest gas is not for economic reasons. It's for spiritual reasons. And so yes, we, spirit and body matter to us and that being the case, I think that people can do whatever they like with their bodies, but they'd be foolish to assume that their soul or their spirit is going to automatically agree and go along with it. And so I think that the human being is hard wired to be a giver more than a taker. I think being a taker corrodes our souls, and that's why welfare recipients, people who are on the dole, should be the most grateful people in the world. They are literally living a life off the sweat of the brow of their fellow citizens. But they're not they're filled with resentment, and that's automatically the case. We do better as givers than takers, and the only two activities that I can think of offhand that we human beings can do that benefit nobody else at all. Are going to the bathroom, and that's why it's called relieving oneself. It's not called relieving the world. It's relieving oneself and masturbation. These do nothing for anybody else, and I suspect deep down, we're embarrassed to do things of no value to other people. We thrive and are proud of things we do that serve other human beings. I, in my view, that's why those are two. I would never say, hey, you know, pick me up in 10 minutes. You know, these are the two things I have to do. That's, that's my theory. Blow me out of the water.
Chandler Rogers 8:46
Well, I there's a lot of that that I agree with, and I think, I think, at face value, a lot of people will hear kind of this anti porn movement and will assume one of two things. They'll either assume, well, yeah, it's a moral issue and it's a sin, so yeah, it's a problem. And some people will agree with that. But then on the other side of the camp you'll get people will say, well, that's just your personal belief that's not rooted in any sort of objective truth. What I think is interesting is as pornography consumption and the and I guess we can assume with that masturbation, pornography, whatever the umbrella of compulsive sexual behavior as that has exploded over the last 12 years. One study reports a 32x increase in pornography consumption in the last 12 years. 32x and even since the pandemic.
Daniel Lapin 9:40
Interrupt you there, please. Chandler, question, do you think that's because of expanded availability and more people on the internet and higher internet speeds and cheaper devices? Or do you think it's 12 years ago it was already the same number of people? As it is today, but the per capita consumption has gone up. No.
Chandler Rogers 10:05
I mean, as far as the data, I see it's unique people monthly consuming pornography has gone up, not time consumption, I'm sure both have gone up, but I think it's a little bit of everything. I mean, we could go back to before the internet, before Google. How could I go get pornography? Well, I had to go to the back of a store to get one of those magazines, you know, or one of those VHS tapes. And I had to really go and seek, you know. And I, I personally, was not even born yet, so I'll date myself a little bit. This was before the internet. You had to go out of your way, and Google changed that. Now, within seconds, this became widely available. So yes, I think that the internet, in the last 20 years, for sure, has driven the accessibility and the supply, but in the last 10 years, I think the second phase was actually social media, Instagram, Facebook. This was when I was a teenager, when I was in high school, Instagram was just barely becoming popular, and
Daniel Lapin 11:03
you saying that somebody is not even out there seeking it, but it's going to be pushed to him.
Chandler Rogers 11:08
And that was my story. I did not go on to Pornhub. I didn't go looking for it. Nobody gave me a magazine. It was slow, dripped content, sexualized content, and we're not even talking, you know, hardcore pornography. We as a society, if you look at just the proliferation of sexualized content, and not just on Instagram, but on any sort of media, right, that has exploded, but with a smartphone in your hand now as a 10 year old or a 12 year old or a 14 year old who's naturally, you know, biologically curious about this whole idea of, you know, for me, women and reproduction, it's where we're wired. Because I do believe sex is a deeply core thing to who we are, and that there are deeply healthy ways that that can be expressed, and that it's necessary. But, you know, as a teen, you know, pre teen whose brain is still very much forming, being exposed to that hyper stimulus, that extra dopamine, of you know, Ooh, what's happening? And we're calling this the male loneliness epidemic. We're seeing increase in male suicide rates, depression, anxiety, and it's not just men, it's women too. I don't think we can
Daniel Lapin 12:21
just put the moment.
Chandler Rogers 12:23
Yeah, I don't think that we can just blame everyone likes to blame meta, right? Facebook and Instagram. It's scrolling on social media that's creating this isolation, this disconnection, this depression. You can see plenty of data that when social media explodes, so does anxiety, depression, suicide rates and everything else. But I think with it, the same graph of porn consumption maps that, and porn is, in my opinion, just really a more extreme form of a dopamine hit than what you might scroll on social media. So it's this sliding scale. It's not really either this or that. It's all kind of worked in conjunction to yes hook people younger and younger, as young as 11 years old, is kind of what the latest studies are suggesting is when kids are being exposed to pornography and so that that shapes them as their brain keeps forming over the next, you know, decade until they're into their adult years. And I think it's foolish to assume that that has zero impact on their psychological well being, their spiritual well being, and their relational well being. So to come full circle, what I believe why this is a problem, and what we're seeing in kind of the awakening that I think is happening is not just people saying, this is a moral issue, this is a sin. It's people saying, I'm tired of feeling numb, depressed, lonely, because that's what I feel when I get done looking at that screen, or when I get done pleasuring myself, I feel more alone, more disconnected. It's synthetic. It's not real intimacy or real connection, which is what we were made for.
Daniel Lapin 13:58
I echo that we were made for connection. No, no question about it, and this is both the result of alienation and disconnection, but also it's a feedback loop. It's also a contributory mechanism. Am I right? Exactly? It's both.
Chandler Rogers 14:23
It's both driving the cycle on both ends.
Daniel Lapin 14:30
In in Alcoholics Anonymous, the genius of Bill Wilson and his mentor in this the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, they realized that something needs to be brought in to help take the place of. The alcohol that the member of AA is determined to banish from his environment. And they worked on the idea, and they came up with this idea of a force, some kind, some kind of outside force, additionally to that was also obviously connection, and so being part of a regular meeting, and having your group and having the people you talk to regularly and people you can turn to when you feel a relapse, is there a similarity here in the clinical process? Is there, for instance, would you say that if a person, and I want to say guy, but I caught your reference to women earlier, and I'd love to hear you tell more about that. But would we say that that what is missing from his life is not only connection, but maybe also creativity. And I say this because sex I see as the ultimate creative potential of which a human being is capable. And so is it possible that that if a person could find more satisfaction in work, more satisfaction, yeah, work in creative work, that he'd be less susceptible and less vulnerable to this?
Chandler Rogers 16:52
Yes, yeah, the short answer is 100% yes. That one of the first things we say when someone downloads the relay app, male or female, it doesn't matter is you don't really have a porn problem. You have a pain problem. This behavior that you that is causing some degree of harm or destruction in your life is not the problem. It's really a symptom, and it's a way of self medicating something deeper. And we got to figure out what that is. It might be different for each person, but often what happens as the brain is forming growing up, we believe, and this is kind of our approach with relays. It's not just you need a group and a community to help you get out of addiction. We do believe that, but we also believe in kind of the attachment theory in the field of psychology, which is that we are made for relationship, and we need to be seen. We need to feel known, having close, secure connection in our relationships, especially with our caregivers as young children, and then later in our social relationships as peers, and then later on in our romantic relationships, feeling like I can be. You fully see me, you fully accept me. I'm good enough how I am, like that breeds healthy attachment, and we all want that type, that type of attention, that type of attunement, that breeds the feeling that the fruits of connection. But what happens? Well, we all come from imperfect family systems, imperfect communities. And there's little ways right where, whether big or small, you know, it could be something like, my parents got a divorce, or, you know, abuse is a very real thing. Of course, there are certainly those capital T trauma moments where growing up, you can pinpoint that's where I didn't get those emotional needs met, and that's where my brain learned I can feel better if I soothe, if I turn to this over here, and whether it's porn, masturbation, video games, scrolling on Instagram. This is not an addiction thing. It's a human thing. We all find behaviors to cope and to deal with the pain of life when we inevitably, you know, have ways in which we don't get all of our needs met fully, but those things kind of carry on, and they go with us, and we as adults didn't learn to necessarily meet those needs on our own in healthy ways. And so yeah, that we get stuck in these cycles that aren't necessarily serving ourself. But how do we fix that? I mean, you brought up creativity and purpose, and yeah, it's we're filling this void with a behavior that is misaligned with our integrity or misaligned with our values, or it's just creating objective harm, or it's creating issues in our relationship. It's pulling us away from relationship and more into isolation. And so that's why the answer isn't just, well, stop doing the behavior you do have to create a more whole and healthy foundation. And I love that you talk about the five F's, right? It is five, right? On this show, that is like looking at a holistic view of our life, for how do we create purpose and momentum and passion? I would say actually, in my first program that I ever attended to get help for this, they talked about passion projects, and I was like, what is that they're like, You need to build a life that you're excited to live, because often we co. Back with our scrolling and our numbing behaviors when some other area of our life is off balance, and we got to fix those areas of our life as we do that, it gets so much easier to outgrow these old destructive behaviors.
Daniel Lapin 20:15
That makes a lot of sense to me, because I see our lives as complex systems, and in exactly the same way that the braking system and the engine system and the suspension system of an automobile need to work together, and they need to be designed to work together so similarly the different parts of our lives work together. And so I think I am repeating, I hope I'm repeating accurately what I think you've said, which is that this isn't a sexual problem, it's a life problem. It's yeah, and
Chandler Rogers 21:01
a lot of people think, well, if my wife just had more sex with me. And talking about couples, I know there's, I'm sure many, many women listening to this that are in relationship and might feel that pressure from from your partner. Well, I just need more sex. Patrick Carnes, one of the leading kind of grandfather pioneers in the field of sexual addiction recovery found that horniness is really it equals loneliness. And what he meant by that was that sex is not your true need. It's connected to some sort of deeper need. And so it's a fallacy to think, well, if I could just have more sex, right? Or if she would, you know, just treat me differently. We like to displace responsibility as human beings, and so I'm so glad you doubled down on that point. This is not a sexual problem. This is not a hyper sexuality problem. Well, a lot of people think, Well, I just like, I'm just attracted to really attractive people. Well, yes, your brain was designed that way. You're probably very healthy and very normal. But how do we channel that through, through ways where that can be expressed in ways that are connective and life giving and not disconnecting and isolating and empty?
Daniel Lapin 22:13
Um, Chandler, you used the word addiction before. Um, is pornography an addiction? This is highly to be an addiction.
Chandler Rogers 22:21
It's highly debated in the clinical field. If you ask me, from a decade of personally trying to quit and feeling just completely like I cannot stop, no matter what I do, I would say the answer is 100% yes. And I think that the fact that it's not a consensus yet by the American Psychology Association gambling addiction. They call it gambling disorder. Is something that you as a therapist can actually diagnose somebody for and use a billable code. It can be reimbursed with insurance. Oh, not anything. For regular reader,
Daniel Lapin 22:55
I read the DSM, the diagnostic Bill manual, and I'm fascinated how they change from the first edition all the way to five where we are now. But pornography is not listed as an addiction there. Why not?
Chandler Rogers 23:10
So, I mean, we can get really into a rabbit hole. But what I think is that people get very hung up, hung up on the pathology of it. Like, at what point is it like? Like, how much quantity, right, or how much time, or in what measures does it become? You know, this is diagnosable as an addiction. I almost think that that's like, you're kind of lost in the sauce at that point. You're way too in the weeds. And maybe it's, you know, that's somebody else's battle to debate. I'm not, I'm not the expert on that. What I think is, is simple, if you have a strong desire to change and you repeatedly have unsuccessful attempts to quit, then it doesn't matter whether we call it an addiction or a disorder or a problem or a habit. It does not matter to me. It's something that you should not feel shame about, and it's something you should be able to get help for without feeling like a broken person, and that's what I want to normalize, is it is like there are so many reasons why this issue is so much, actually more difficult than other addictions. And we have people in relay that come in and say, you know, I've quit smoking, I've been to AA for alcohol I've had and this is the hardest thing by far, and that the reason, I think that is because we talked about this. It's hyper accessible, like alcohol is not popping out of my Instagram. It's not popping out of my pocket. I have to again, I have to go out of my way, and I have to spend money to go procure other drugs, other substances, but not porn. It's just so everywhere, it's so anonymous, it's so affordable, and that's why it's so damn hard to quit. And so that's why the other reason is
Daniel Lapin 24:48
that, again, I don't like having my show in any way accessible only to people of faith, so I don't. Do that, but, but you know, everybody knows where I'm personally coming from and, and the fact remains that the
Daniel Lapin 25:26
uh, urge and I can well understand somebody saying that it is more difficult to get over than anything else. I totally get that is religion in general, is is that? Would you say that young men of a faith background are less likely to become vulnerable or not?
Chandler Rogers 25:51
No, there's actually been studies on this that you know Christian populations, or faith religious populations are not less likely to deal with pornography. They're not less likely to struggle with infidelity? Yeah. My view is that pornography and the porn industry is no respecter of persons. It does not care what you think about it. It does not care whether you think it is a sin or not. It will take its toll. To the extent that it will take its toll, it'll do what it does and I'm not here saying that it, you know, objectively, will create the same destruction for everybody, but I've heard way too many stories of what started with innocent garden variety, pornography. And I say innocent in quotes because I don't think it's innocent, because I know where it leads. It's a progressive disease. And what I mean by that is I need more to get the same level of satisfaction. And so now what happens is I find myself one day, I wake up and I'm married and I'm now on a site that I'm talking to other people online in like an only fans platform, if viewers or listeners are familiar with that. There's been an explosion of this spectrum of no longer is it images and videos? It's now you're engaging with real people, having kind of virtual sexual experiences that I think just objectively create a much more clear impact on somebody's relationships, especially in a marriage. And we're seeing the recent fallout of that 89% of Onlyfans subscribers are married men. According to one study, 89% you can't tell me that that is not going to create catastrophic damage, whether you're Christian, whether you're Jewish, whether you're non religious at all.
Daniel Lapin 27:33
I don't believe there's any man who does not know that pornography is a betrayal of the marriage. Guys know that. That's why they don't tell their wives about it. Yes. Oh, 100% Yeah.
Chandler Rogers 27:47
You wouldn't say, Hey, give me 10 minutes. Yeah, like you said exactly,
Daniel Lapin 27:51
yeah, for sure. Do you have children?
Chandler Rogers 27:55
I do. I have a two year old son and baby number two on the way. Congratulations.
Daniel Lapin 28:00
How wonderful. Please. Look ahead 12 or 13 years. How are you going to protect your son? This
Chandler Rogers 28:11
is a hard question. Now you're really making me think.
Daniel Lapin 28:15
I know you've done a lot of thinking already. Yeah.
Chandler Rogers 28:19
Well, a lot of my work in this field has really convinced me that I don't think it's possible, as a parent to prevent 100% of possible exposure. I think, I think people like to think, you know, if I just set up the right blocking system or filter on the internet for our household or for all of our devices, or if I don't give them devices until they're, I don't know, 16 or 18, you know, then they won't struggle. And I think that that's just not true for a lot of reasons. We could get into all sorts of different ways that, like, again, we can't just try to block access to this, you know, sexualized world that we live in. It's impossible, and I think it's important the way that I think ahead and think about my own son, I want to teach him that our sexuality is a healthy and deeply valuable thing core to who we are, and that this is something that we shouldn't be scared of. It's not something that we should be ashamed of. And there are ways that this can be utilized for good, for life, for connection, and there are ways that in context where this doesn't serve us, and it leads to pain, and it leads to a lot of potential problems down the road. And so I think that, like teaching from that sort of first principles and empowering, empowering him to be able to identify those differences, rather than kind of a list of rules and, you know, checklists and guardrails, I think guardrails are necessary and helpful for children to help them be successful. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I want to create an environment where he feels like he can be safe and talking to me about anything. Because what breeds this into just a an encounter with pornography, into a multi decade addiction, which is what we see all. Of the time through relay is they didn't feel like they could actually talk to anybody about it, or they felt like if I share this with dad, he's going to reject me, he's going to be ashamed of me, or he's going to get upset, or whatever it is. And I think from a parenting perspective, I recognize I'm young, I don't I have not parented teenagers, so this is me hypothesizing whether it's porn or anything else. You know. How do we create an emotional sense of safety?
Daniel Lapin 30:29
What I've learned from you, among other things already in our conversation, is so important, when you said it, that it's a spectrum. It's a spectrum of dissociation and alienation, of which porn is a part of that spectrum? You said it better than I did. Maybe just refresh that?
Chandler Rogers 30:48
Yeah, no. I mean, for me, I actually don't think I like viewed hardcore pornography for about two years. It started with masturbation and curiosity. I was like, What even is this like I I didn't know what was really going on. And I think, you know, through puberty there, there were some ways in which I felt like I could be open. My mom was a nurse, so she was the one to have some kind of sex ed conversations with us, and we had broached the topic of pornography, and I felt like I knew that side of things, but I didn't feel like I really understood what was happening with my own body and those feelings and what to do with that. And I did, think I felt a little bit of shame on the masturbation front, even before there was pornography attached, because I felt like, you know, my religious education in our faith upbringing was any sort of sexual feelings or expression should be reserved for marriage, in a committed relationship, and and I believe that, and I wanted that, and so it was kind of confusing, you know? And it was a spectrum of, yeah, was it soft porn or hardcore porn or just masturbation? It it doesn't really matter again. I think it was that there was a cycle starting to develop that involved shame. It involved some sort of behavior. And there was some sort of like reason that I kept going back to it that it wasn't just well as a as a man, you know, we just have sexual urges. No, it was, I think I was a, call it a very involved, high achieving teenager. And I think people would see me as, like, a very, I don't know, like performance driven individual, and for better or worse, like I was a straight A student. I excelled in piano. I was captain of our track team in cross country, played basketball like I had a bunch of different friend groups that I fit in with. And I think, you know, there was a shadow side to that, where I felt like I was working so hard to be enough, to be good enough for myself, that I think what got kind of connected together was some sort of outlet, some sort of relief or soothing. What brought me that soothing was these, you know, sexual experiences, alone, right? And then the shame reinforced that, you know, I must be broken, because I can't stop this, even though I wanted to. So something must be wrong with me, and nobody, if people knew that, they wouldn't see me as, you know, good enough or whatever. So, yeah, it's a spectrum. It's a cycle. It's nuanced state. And I don't think it's quite helpful when we just say, well, this is just bad. You know, porn is bad. It should be banned. Things aren't that simple. And I think for anyone listening that has experienced this sort of personally, like unwanted behavior in general, whatever it is. I think being able to have empathy and curiosity for ourselves, rather than harsh judgment, can be instructive, because it helps us get underneath, like the iceberg. I like to think of like an iceberg analogy, where we're only looking at the surface until we can step back and kind of get underneath and really try to see what's going on and that that tends to be more helpful.
Daniel Lapin 33:44
And Chandler, please give the website again, for people who want to know more about the app and about this, this whole world of restorative thinking,
Chandler Rogers 33:55
yeah, yeah. No, for anyone that wants to learn more about relay, like our doors are open, you can go to our website. It's www, dot, join relay. Dot app. We're also on the Play Store. On the App Store, if you just search relay, you might you might have to search like relay, quit porn or something. But again, when somebody actually comes into the app, we tell them you don't actually have a porn problem. We're going to help you build a more healthy and fulfilled life where you can outgrow these unwanted behaviors.
Daniel Lapin 34:24
You said, let me put let me put it this way, there was a time where one could safely say in the United States of America and also in the United Kingdom, that violence was a male activity. Girls who went off the track, passed bad checks and got pregnant, but violence was a male activity. That's no longer true, and my own theory on this is that you cannot teach girls for three successive generations that it's okay. Way to kill unborn babies without thinking that you are going to increase their capacity for cruelty and violence and so it would be hard to talk me out of the idea that there is a link between the prevalence of abortion and the sudden change in finding girls involved in acts of violence as well. I think again, it used to be fairly safe to say that, I think that girls were not drawn to some of these areas we're discussing. Is it possible that that's changed a little bit? What is your take on the gender distribution?
Chandler Rogers 35:46
Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think, I think this is absolutely shaping experiences for women as well. Just anecdotally speaking, we have groups within relay for women who are dealing with unwanted, compulsive sexual behaviors. And what I've noticed is they tend to feel a lot more shame, even more than men who feel a lot of shame in feeling like this is only a men's issue, and many of whom are religious or so, they feel kind of this like, deep sense of spiritual brokenness, of like, Was it what is wrong with me? One study indicates as high as 60% of women consume pornography monthly. That's the highest I've seen. I think the truth is probably somewhere around, you know, call it 20 to 60% is what I think so not. But in any case, even if you put it at the lower end of that range, one in four, one in three, one and two, it doesn't really matter. I think the truth is it's not a fringe like this is not something that that is only a man's problem right now. I think there's different like reasons that might be the case, but I think also just the idea that pornography is objectifying both men and women like I think it's clear to understand how it really objectifies women, but I think it also degrades men too, and in general, just distorts the whole idea of healthy relationships and the idea that we have worth outside of our bodies and that we are not people to be taken advantage of. There are so many problems, so many studies about how porn has contributed to violence, rape, sex trafficking, like so many things, but especially in just the gender split with women, I think it's not just that they're consuming porn, it's also they're being lured into things like only fans, where it's like, you should, you know, it's not, it's not like taboo prostitution. It's cool to like, you know, create sexualized content on social media, and, you know, start and only fans when you turn 18. And there's a lot of women that have left the industry, that have spoken out, and we've partnered with some of those people to help advocate, not just to reduce the demand and to for anyone consuming that content, to help them make a choice, to change or to break free if they want to but also, for those you know, mostly women who have gotten roped into that to help them realize that they are built for so much more than that, that they are beautiful human beings and that there's other paths. So that's, that's kind of my take on what is the when
Daniel Lapin 38:15
a person reaches out to relay for help in this area, is the help from teams? Is it from above? Is it from teams you've assembled and who feed guidance into the relay community? Or is the community itself? Or perhaps both? It's a
Chandler Rogers 38:36
little bit of both. We've partnered with therapists, where there's like a curriculum, so there's daily structure and actually things that we you know, every day you open the app and for 15 minutes you can watch a video, do some exercises and reflection questions. We've really structured this to try to help, help the brain rewire, because the brain has formed this association, this connection with porn, and that's what we're trying to change in the brain, so there's a neurological component and curriculum attached to that, but then, yeah, you're in a group of people, and so there's a connection aspect. And these are similar to AA groups in that it is all peer based. We don't actually we have some degree of moderation and structure to the groups, but it's not like any one person is designated as the leader, and we intentionally curate these groups within that with our algorithm to create a combination of people who are in the same boat have similar characteristics. So I might be with other guys who are young fathers, newly marrieds or I might be in a different group. And so we kind of let people choose what type of group they want to be in. And then there's kind of this daily accountability structure, and it's they're not just reporting whether they looked at porn or had a slip. They also track some of those things that you alluded to around the other areas of their life, so they can customize a set of we call them self care goals, you know, sleep, exercise, finances, relationships. How do. I want to show up and live? What do I want to move towards in my life? Every day, healthy habits, not just the habits I'm trying to avoid, to not do so they track those things individually, and then the group is able to see those things, and there's some transparency and some encouragement baked into it. So it's kind of a combination of all of those tools. Is what makes it so that people feel like, okay, I've got a plan, I feel confident, and I have a support system around me.
Daniel Lapin 40:27
And how, what is the age range of people who join relay?
Chandler Rogers 40:35
Yeah, it's kind of all over. We don't do, like, it's 18 and up, so we don't do any we don't have a track for teens, although that's something we will probably do at some point. We just want to do it, of course, in a way that's safe and legal and so, yeah, so it's for adults right now. We have groups for younger men, older men, younger women, older women. But it's kind of all over, like it's not just young people. You would think that our technology technologically inclined joining we get a lot of plenty of guys who have been married 2030, years, and they are like, you know, I've tried a lot of things, I've spent a lot of money trying to get out of this, and this kind of felt like maybe a missing piece. And so it's cool. We really do see a blend.
Daniel Lapin 41:14
And based on your research and your familiarity with the field, would you venture a ballpark guess? At what percentage of American Public School male students are in some way in touch with this world,
Chandler Rogers 41:34
like what percentage of young students are consuming pornography? Male high school students, yeah, male high school students. Oh, well, if you just look at the broader population, you get estimates again, anywhere from like 30% for males, you know, consuming pornography regularly, up to 90% for high school aged Yeah, up to 90% in one study somewhat recently, I think for high school age teenagers. I think I would put it up at the end of the range, yeah, I think above 75% for sure. And I think what it's doing is it's, it's diminishing their confidence and being able to pursue real relationships, to have real healthy relationships with their their female peers. I think it's, it's drastically kind of undermining their ability to feel happy, in control of their life. And so I think that's what I've seen from our younger like population who has recently been in high school, or that's kind of where the problem started for them. A lot of kids who were in high school during the pandemic, it got a lot worse. Like the porn industry, consumption exploded during the pandemic because everyone was isolated, like we talked about, it was part of the problem, and it was also driving the problem. Yeah, but I think now those people are in college, or they're in their young 20s, and they're feeling like crap. They feel like garbage about themselves. They're tired of the synthetic, you know, fake stuff, and they want to feel like they can get real connection.
Daniel Lapin 43:03
What you do so very well is make clear that we're not even going into the direction of this is a sin. We're not touching on that. We're not looking at the religion. We're not looking at the theology. There are. There's really ample good reasons why getting a handle on this is life improving. No question about that at all. It's really regardless of the faith background. But do you find in your work as you and you're probably involved in the financial side of the business, as well as the technical and everything else, do you run into people who automatically jump to the mistaken conclusion that you are on a religious crusade,
Chandler Rogers 44:01
yes, oh yeah, all the time. And yeah, we constantly have to correct that. And on the other side, we get people who are like, Why is this not more religious? Like, if you claim to be Christian, which I which I am, we know, why is this not biblical? Is sometimes a question will get asked. And Rabbi, I just feel like I have a nuanced view of this, where I believe, like you can and should bring your higher power into this, you know, if that, if that is, you know how you feel. And it also doesn't have to only be about that, like I think that there is a marriage between psychology and spirituality that can be really beautiful and harmonious. And so yeah, my motivation was never to cater to only one crowd or the other, but to create a platform where healing can be more accessible for all. And I think what I care most about that does connect to my faith is I care a lot about strengthening and healing families, healing and. Strengthening marriage relationships and with children, giving them a future with stable homes, with strong, you know, parents that are emotionally healthy and the importance of sexuality is so central in a healthy home, and how we treat that, and that's what I'm passionate about.
Daniel Lapin 45:20
Is there a point at which the sexualized content, which is mainstreamed everywhere from movie theaters to streaming entertainment and even video games? Is there a crossover point, or is it a very gradual and difficult to identify transition between the generally sexualized content and the point at which it becomes pathological. And my question may be wrong to begin with, but what do you think?
Chandler Rogers 45:59
Yeah, again, I think it's hard to create like direct causal relationships between any of these things, but I think it's a general correlation of as a society, we've drastically, you know, just heightened our acceptance of sexualized content in different mediums and normalized it without really promoting, I think, the true understanding of why, why sex exists in the first place, you know, to procreate and I think beneath that, to create real emotional connection and intimacy and so, yeah, hook up culture and dating apps and just general social media like TikTok. I think especially for the younger male population, it's like, everything they see on TikTok is kind of like, you know, I don't know the right way to say it, but just basically, like a lot of girls create sexualized content, and like, whether it directly feeds into pornographic websites, in my opinion, is kind of besides the point. We're just, again, we're creating this dopamine drip of, you know, this is entertainment. It's fun, it's harmless, and the brain wants more of it and it that's where it gets problematic, where, you know, seeking out more of it leads quickly down a path that gets unhelpful. Yeah, now it's
Daniel Lapin 47:15
incredible what you're doing. Join relay. Dot A P, P is, is the avenue as we start getting ready to bring it in for a landing. Chandler, What? What? What advice do you have for a woman who calls you up or meets you socially and discovers what you do? She says, look, what can I do to help my husband? His my husband is involved in this. He wishes he wasn't. I wish he wasn't. What? What can I do as his wife?
Chandler Rogers 47:47
Yeah, I think the most important advice there is to know that you do not need to be the main accountability partner for him. That's where every therapist I've talked to and therapists on our clinical advisory board say it just isn't healthy often for the spouse to be the main accountability person, and that's why self not selfishly, but I'm biased. Why what we're doing with Relay makes it so now he can get a support system of other people who are working towards the same goal, it actually makes it easier for him, because so I've been married for six years, and I have had still a little bit of ongoing, I would say, growth. In my journey with pornography, it hasn't been linear, I'll say, and with my wife, I've tried to be a take a stance of and we figure out what works for us, but being open about where I'm at and how I'm doing, while also not making her feel like, she has to wonder what's going on, right? Because that creates a lot of just a tough dynamic, but also not being overly like, every single time I've seen guys make the mistake of, I'm just going to be very accountable with her. I'm just going to tell her every time I might have any sort of temptation, and they're at a restaurant, they're at a gym, and they see someone attractive, and it's like, Hey, I just need to tell you. I just need to tell you, I think that person's attractive. And then she feels triggered, and then that explodes. And it's like, well, you know, dude, that's not that's not helpful, right? And so it's not about hiding stuff, but if there's been real betrayal, right? If this is creating real pain for you and your relationship, there is help available for you to help work through that. And actually, there's been great research on like, this is a real this is real trauma. And sometimes trauma gets thrown around and kind of the woke culture of today, but trauma is just a Greek word for wound, and when this kind of comes out in a relationship, especially for the woman, it feels like a wound, and that wound can be very deep and very sore, and that you need to, you need to seek help and support for that, there are more resources now than There even were a few years ago for couples that are navigating that healing from betrayal. So I think it's important. Just my summary would be, he needs to make a choice to kind of own. His healing and get his own support, and the partner, the spouse, should do the same to own her healing and her support, and both are important.
Daniel Lapin 50:13
Are there any interesting statistics that are coming out from the way you slice and dice the data of people who've joined relay. For instance, how does it shape internationally? Are there some countries more represented than others?
Chandler Rogers 50:34
There definitely are. There's actually a 2024, survey that I think it was like, n equals 82,000 and I can send this to you afterwards. I'm trying to look up what it was called, but it was for 42 different countries, and they surveyed a whole bunch of things, but they were using three, three different scales to assess problematic pornography use. And yeah, the short answer is, this is kind of a ubiquitous problem. It doesn't actually, you know, like it's, it's a problem in all countries, or it's a it's a thing, but it does, it does vary. Yeah, different countries have different rates. I don't have those data points memorized. Okay, yeah,
Daniel Lapin 51:11
gosh, Chandler, it's, it's such a huge topic, and you're so well informed on this, I really want to wish you every success with your company and with Relay. The good that it's doing that people are not alone in this pain is so very, very important. It really is. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you feel that our audience should know about, or you'd like them to know about before we wrap it up.
Chandler Rogers 51:46
I was just chuckling a little bit, because normally, if I get the chance to say one final thing, it's that you're not alone. So you took the words right, right out of my mouth, which is how, how I feel, and I'll say it twice. Yeah, I'll say it again, like if, whether you've been stuck in the cycle yourself, or you know somebody, or it's in your relationship, you're not alone, and there's a lot of hope. And again, I think it's less about changing a specific behavior, and more about becoming more healthy, more whole and more connected so that we can live the life we want to live. And yeah, I just hope everyone listening knows that, and can feel the sincerity like I come on these these shows, and I'm so grateful to be invited here to participate, because I want more people to know that this is not, not something you should feel shame about, and there's hope,
Daniel Lapin 52:35
yeah, I want people to know about it as well. It's join relay, dot app, and we'll have more information in the notes to the show. But this is Chandler Rogers, the founder of relay, and somebody who really does know what he speaks about on this topic. So thanks so much. I really appreciate it, and if there's ever any time I can be of any service to furthering your efforts. Be in touch. I love what you're doing, and I admire it, and I wish you
Chandler Rogers 53:06
well. Thank you, Rabbi. Appreciate
Daniel Lapin 53:09
it. So until next week, happy warriors, that's it onwards and upwards with your families, your faith, your finances, your fitness and your friendships. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin, God bless you.
