S07|12 - Teaching Our Kids About Porn: Shame-free and Sex-Positive with Sara Brewer

What do you do when your kids and teens are dealing with unwanted porn use? And how do you support yourself or your partner through the same thing? It can feel scary and overwhelming to deal with things like porn and sexuality, especially if you were raised in a conservative Christian home. 

On the podcast today we hear from Sara Brewer, a life coach who helps people quit porn. She’s the host of the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast, the fastest-growing podcast around quitting porn. She helps hundreds of people in her program and thousands in her podcast Overcome Pornography for Good.

What we cover in this episode:

• How purity culture can produce shame around sexuality, and how to start fresh when teaching our kids about sexuality 
• Shame-free sex-ed is the best way to prevent pornography use in kids and teens 
• How to support yourself or your partner when dealing with unwanted pornography use
• What to do when you find your kids viewing pornography (in a supportive and emotionally healthy way)

Links:

www.sarabrewer.com
Free Masterclass
Overcome Pornography for Good - Podcast
Follow on Instagram
Find us on Facebook

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Episode Transcript

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

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If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast. 

 

Welcome to today's podcast, Teaching Our Kids About Porn: Shame-free and Sex-Positive with Sara Brewer. 

What do you do when your kids and teens are dealing with unwanted porn use? And how do you support yourself or your partner through the same thing? It can feel scary and overwhelming to deal with things like porn and sexuality, especially if you were raised in a conservative Christian home. 

On the podcast today, we hear from Sara Brewer, a life coach who helps people quit porn. She's the host of the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast, the fastest growing podcast around quitting porn. She helps hundreds of people in her program, and thousands in her podcast overcome pornography for good. 

In today's podcast, you will hear about how purity culture can produce shame around sexuality, how to start fresh when teaching your kids about sexuality; shame-free sex education is the best way to prevent pornography use in kids and teens. 

We also talk about how to support yourself or your partner when dealing with unwanted pornography use, and what to do when you find your kids viewing pornography that's supportive and emotionally healthy.

 

What Sara Brewer does, and how she got started

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hello everybody. Welcome to today's podcast episode. I'm really excited to bring you my friend, Sara Brewer; and we're going to talk all about pornography – but specifically, with our kids and also a little bit with our partner as well. 

So, if you feel like you are struggling or you're loving someone that's struggling with unwanted pornography use, this is going to be a really great episode for you. And just also a quick little warning for little ears, that we are going to be talking about sex in a pretty frank and open way, just so you have that little addendum before this episode. 

Sara, will you do a little introduction? Tell us what you do.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah, for sure. Well, welcome. Welcome? I'm like hosting my podcast. I mean, thank you for having me on. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: You're welcome. 

 

Sara Brewer: Crystal and I were chatting for seriously, a half hour before we started recording…so I'm obsessed with Crystal. So, I own Overcome Pornography For Good; we do coaching, we do podcasts, we do free classes. There are-- I have four coaches who work for me in my program. And you know, the tagline is; shame-free, sex positive. The approach we take is research-based trauma-informed and works really, really, really well.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Yeah. I'm all about it. Like, my tagline is like, shame-free parenting. 

 

Sara Brewer: Oh, so good. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Get rid of that shame. And it makes such a big difference. So, that's why I love your approach so much because I think it really is the approach for everything. 

Like, it doesn't matter what it is that you're dealing in life; it could be money, it could be pornography, it could be kids, it could be health…it's always like, shame-free is going to be the way. It might not be the way that's like necessarily the quick overnight fix, but it's definitely going to be the most long-term and sustainable and helpful way. 

 

Sara Brewer: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, how did you get into doing this?

 

Sara Brewer: I started coaching returned missionaries in my community – because that's when I found coaching and it helped me so much, was after I did missionary work. And a lot of them, you know, after a few sessions and they're like, 'Actually, here's what I really want to talk about…I quit porn for my mission and then I came back and for whatever reason--I'm viewing again, I feel awful, I don't know how to stop – I just, you know, I'm the worst. I can't believe I came back to this. I thought I had quit.'

And so, that's what we worked on; and we did a lot of the buffering work. We did a lot of, you know, the sex positive work. We did a lot of the shame-free work, and it just worked really well. And I was like, 'You know what? This is-- this is where we need to head because there is a lot, a lot, a lot of people who are struggling and don't even know how to approach this in a way that's going to be helpful.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Do you specifically focus on faith-based then, like Christian? Or is it just kind of for anyone?

 

Sara Brewer: It's for anyone. Although a lot of my messaging is towards people who are in conservative religion or grew up in conservative religion because there's a lot of-- there's typically a lot of stuff to kind of rework and rethink about there that I like to talk about.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. So, for anyone that's listening to this, you can go back and listen to the episode that we did called Faith-Based Parenting, where I talk all about shame and God and our relationship with God, and that will explain all of that too.

 

Sara Brewer: Yes. 

 

What to do if we, ourselves, are struggling with pornography

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, Sara, I would love to dig into two things. One is if our self, either us personally are struggling with unwanted pornography use – or we're with our partner, like helping support them, what kind of steps can we take? What can we do? What would you tell us in like a short little episode that would really help us? 

And then also I would love to spend some time kind of digging into that with our kids.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I could talk about this forever – but if I'm thinking short, like the short biggest things…if we want to quit viewing porn, we've got to get to the root of what's going on. 

A lot of people will just focus on the viewing or like Band-Aid solutions that don't typically work; it's like filters, internet filters , accountability…just stopping, trying to distract themselves, sing a song in your mind – like sing a hymn in your mind, try to get out to your mind. Those are Band-Aid solutions that don't work long-term.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

Sara Brewer: To fix the root of what's going on, we've got to address the emotional management and the emotional regulation piece. So, porn is a buffer, which is something that we do to escape negative emotion. 

 

How purity culture can produce shame around sexuality

Sara Brewer: So, there's that part of the porn use. You know, that's why the shame is so important here because, especially--  

And this is what I see, people who grew up with heavy purity culture, beliefs, and, you know, and more Christian – or, not Christian, but like conservative religions that might have had this piece taught to them when they were young…the shame spiral gets really deep and people get really, really stuck in the shame spiral because, what happens? So, you view porn, you think, 'Oh, what's wrong with me?'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

Sara Brewer: You feel shame, you hide, you don't tell anyone you avoid, you don't want anyone to know…you hide from God, right? You don't want to pray. You don't want to approach God. You hide from yourself; you don't admit to yourself what's going on. And then you view more porn--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. 

 

Sara Brewer: -because you're using porn as a way to escape negative emotion; shame is like that, lowest is the ickiest feeling. If you don't know what to do with that, you're going to view more porn on, 'I already suck anyways…I'm the worst anyway, might as well just go feel good for a second.' 

And the spiral continues and continues.

 

How to overcome pornography use

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes. So, if it was-- If it's you, specifically – let's work on that one first – that's struggling with this, and you're like, 'I don't want to be struggling with pornography, I notice that I'm in this spiral,' what's kind of some steps that they can take?

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

1. Recognizing the emotion that you're escaping the porn with

Sara Brewer: So, the first is recognizing the emotion that you're escaping the porn with, and we're going to work through that; we're going to learn the emotional skills through that. We're going to really dive into that. That's number one. 

 

2. Learn mindfulness skills

Sara Brewer: Number two is learn mindfulness skills. So, mindfulness is shown through the research to be the best way to quit porn, way better than maybe the other avoidant stuff that we've done. And so, what mindfulness is, is it's simply accepting and allowing emotions and urges – not trying to push them away. 

And so, instead of, 'Oh no, I'm feeling a sexual urge…ah, go away, go away, go away, go away,' what that does is just makes it bigger. Any teenager will tell you that, right? 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Sara Brewer: Like, 'No, I'm not going to make out with this person. We're not, we don't-- we're not even going to think about it.' And then, it just like explodes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But you want it anymore. Yeah. Yep.

 

Sara Brewer: It's like the sexual tension, it just-- You know? Yeah. That's what happens. And so, instead we need to learn mindfulness skills, which is-- Simple way for me, just to teach you one skill right now would be; stop, drop, and breathe. 

Stop and tell yourself, you're to say, "Oh, I'm feeling an urge." 

Drop into your body, where am I feeling this? What does this feel like? Can I welcome this and breathe into it? 

And what that does is it allows it to pass through your body instead of getting pent up. And it's going to feel uncomfortable, but it's how to accept and experience those sexual feelings without reacting to them. Just like you would teach your kids with anger or other emotions.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, this is exactly what I teach parents. Yeah. I'm like; just pause, get into your body. I love that because it's so much more of a long-term thing than just going to be like; resist, don't eat the thing, don't watch the thing, don't do the thing. You're going to be thinking about it more; it's going to just amplify that. 

 

Sara Brewer: Right.

 

How to support yourself or your partner when dealing with unwanted pornography use

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, what if you're a partner? I've had a lot of people, you know, go through my programs or that I've worked with one-on-one who it wasn't necessarily their own personal struggle, but it was their partners' struggle. 

And I think that it was even more difficult for them because they came from more conservative backgrounds where it was so looked down upon. And so, when it's something that their partner's struggling with, even if their partner's not even struggling with it that much, it's almost amplified. Like, it seems like a really big deal. 

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: How would you, how would you help them?

 

Sara Brewer: I mean, so much we could say on this, I will say Lindsay Poelman is an expert in this. And I've had her on my podcast a lot of times to talk about that because that's a whole other ball game is if you're the spouse, there's a lot that can be going on. And there is so much love and validation for you if you are struggling with this, but, right? 

I don't know if you saw this, but when I was growing up, I saw some videos…you know like a guy who was-- It was in our church and a guy who, like, one scene, he was looking at a computer screen…and it was like he's watching porn – and the next scene, like his whole family's leaving him. 

And so, those messages have been really permeated into purity culture stuff for so, so long that it does feel like a big deal. It does feel extremely threatening, and there's also all the other beliefs behind it; what does this mean about me? Are they cheating on me? If they've been lying about it for a long time, there can be that betrayal trauma. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

Sara Brewer: And so, there's like so much love and empathy for you if you're going through that. Like, it doesn't have to be just a, 'Oh, it's not a big deal, don't worry about it.' 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right? 

 

Sara Brewer: You deserve the healing and like to look through this stuff and heal yourself here too.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And when you can find that self-- because what we're really talking about is self-compassion, right? 

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And when you can find that self-compassion for you – and kind of feeling more peace and healing for you – it will be so much easier for you to support somebody you love through that. 

 

Sara Brewer: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Instead of just trying to like push yourself into like, 'I should just love and accept and forgive everything right now.'

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the pain, is coming from those internal lies beliefs, typically. But there's also like, there is so much wisdom in your body. There is so much wisdom in your body. And with porn use, I think of it as a iceberg. The porn use is what we're seeing, but underneath is really the stuff we want to look at. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: And so-- When people ask me, "Well, should I get married to someone who struggled with porn?" 

I'm like, "Look at what's underneath." Like, are they honest? Is it like a buffering thing? Is it a shame thing? Is it just like a normal developmental thing? Or you know, is there lying? Is there coercion? Is there manipulation and maybe like, pushing boundaries – and are they not, you know, asking for consent?

There's lots of stuff going on underneath the surface. So, it's not-- If it's like a relationship issue, it's not as simple as the porn is the issue; there's a lot more underneath that we need to look at to make good decisions on how to move forward.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: That is so good. Because it can be so either-- Yeah, you just nailed it right on the head.

 

What to do when your kids are struggling with pornography & how to teach them healthy sexuality

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Let's transition to parenting because I think a lot of-- I do feel like a lot of people that struggle in parenting are also struggling in partnerships; so, I think that both of those things can be tied together. But I would love to really focus on how to support your children. So, how would you do that if it was your children, and kind of how do you--

What would you do-- In order to do it in like that shame-free sex positive, like we want to be teaching them healthy sexuality…what would the first step be?

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. So, research shows, and I'm sure you've talked about the prevention side, right? That sex education is the best way to protect your kids from porn.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: So, I'm assuming you've already talked a lot about that.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I've had a couple episodes on that, but let's cover it anyways just for a few minutes. 

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Tell me a little bit about what that would mean.

 

Sara Brewer: Well, so porn use will typically start with curiosity--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-hmm.

 

Sara Brewer: -for kids. And so, the more that your kids can know that you will answer their questions, that you are a safe person to talk to, and they understand the body and they understand sex…the more protected they are from finding out those answers somewhere else. Right? 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. 

 

Sara Brewer: If they understand what's going on in their body, I can't tell you how many people have said, "I didn't even know what masturbation was, I didn't even know that stuff came out of me." Right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Sara Brewer: I didn't even know. Like, the more that you can in age-appropriate ways teach about sex, the more they'll understand what's going on and not feel so much shame around it.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Sara Brewer: The more shame there is around sex and sexuality, the more likely there is to be issues with porn.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. And so, what about after the fact? So, if you're dealing with this with your children now, what would you say to do from then on?

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah, so remembering that if we grew up with purity culture belief systems, the big idea there is that sex and sexual sin and sexual actions are like the worst things. 

And so, that can be really scary as a parent, when we find out that our kids have viewed porn, we can tend to elevate it more than it really needs to be elevated. And when we're coming from those reactions, it can scare them and shame them. 

And so, that's, you know, of course my first thing is just be really aware of the fear and shame that you're using. Be aware too, that this is a really normal thing; it's a normal thing, especially for kids who are growing up with the internet. 

Now, just because I'm saying it's normal doesn't mean that it's healthy, right? Like, we can still teach our kids here. And so, I would have those conversations. I would first, you know, have those shame-free conversations just remind them, 'Listen, nothing's wrong with you…of course you're curious about this and that's okay. This is what your body's doing. Here are family values.'

And so, you know, if your family value is – whatever those family values are around masturbation…you can teach them how to do that in safe ways or how to, you know, not do that in safe ways. 

And then I would just have more conversations around them about sex education. So, 'Here's why we don't want to have you viewing porn at your age, here are the dangers of it.' 

And being careful that those dangers aren't like, 'Because you're going to lose everything, because sex is next to murder-- like, sexual sin is next to murder.' 

But like it doesn't teach healthy sexual actions. And so, it gives you like a view of sex that isn't healthy. I've heard people describe it to like Fast & Furious. If the only experience you have with cars is Fast & Furious, then you think fast and furious is how you drive. No, that's really dangerous. That's not--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: That is such a good analogy. Yes.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, kids who aren't exposed to-- like, that's their only exposure to sex, hoping they're not being exposed to sex in other ways-- But like we need to have conversations about what healthy sexuality is. 

What types of things you might be seeing that aren't safe, like consent? You know, there are body-- There can be body image issues. A lot of stuff is really not real, what you're seeing on the internet, so you just want to be really--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. It's all really altered. So, you're like, this is what a human's body is supposed to look like when you're like…is it really though? Yeah. I love that. And also, I think of like; what do you want in the future as far as a relationship and how will this impact having a healthy relationship? Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. And being careful too with that too, being careful because so many clients-- I know so many people who have been very, very scared that because they viewed it when they were a teenager, they were never going to be able to have a marriage that they loved and wanted…and that was good and healthy. 

So, yes, how this can impact this going forward, but also realizing people view porn and they have beautiful relationships in the future.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: And this is just a way, like you're learning and we're going to teach you emotional regulation – these emotional skills that we've talked about. We're going to teach you healthy things about sex – but you're going to have a beautiful life.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Oh, I love that. I love that idea because it's like, yes, what does a healthy relationship look like and how can we have that? But also, it's not just like, it's the end…like that video that you talked about where it's like, because you are viewing pornography, it means you can't have a healthy relationship.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. It's just like anything else, right? Our kids are-- Let's say they lied about something, you lie-- You know, you could turn it really big…like, 'You lied about this – if you lie in the future, you're going to go to jail.' Right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. 

 

Sara Brewer: Like, all these things. You know, these are the big consequences of people lying. 

Oh my gosh, I'm the worst person for lying, creates really big shame spirals. 

No, it's like a kid learning how to grow and how to be little.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Lying is really developmentally appropriate. Just like you said; pornography, masturbation and curiosity and sexuality…those things, it's not that they're necessarily healthy or the best – but that it is pretty like typical as you go through that development.

 

Sara Brewer: Yes, especially masturbation. Like I think every kid is going to masturbate and if we don't, if we are freaking out about that…like masturbation without porn, is what I'm talking about. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. 

 

Sara Brewer: And with porn, they're both just-- especially in our internet with our days, if, you know, your kids have smartphones and internet and all those things.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: And we can do things to protect them, 'Of course, I'm going to use filters and talk to them about it.' You know, but they're going to see it, and that's okay. And that doesn't--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: There is no one filter that just filters all the things. 

 

Sara Brewer: No, no. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I've tried it. I test it on my own computer. I'm like, 'Nope, there's not--' There's never been one thing where I'm like, 'Yeah, it will, for sure, filter things in all situations.' 

 

Sara Brewer: Right.

 

How to prevent pornography use in kids and teens through shame-free sex education

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I think it is like also just teaching them about that…like, about what to do. What do you say? Like, how would you-- Or, how do you personally teach it? 

I know your kids are a little bit younger, but what would be your plan as to, besides just teaching them healthy sex education and anatomy and how their body works, how would you specifically teach – I don't know how to say anti-pornography…but like, not viewing pornography in more of that shame-free and sex positive way?

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. We already talked about, you know, having the conversations and being clear on like a Why for both of you – that you both understand the why, and you're both committed to it.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay.

 

Sara Brewer: Your kids, right? Before our conversation we were talking about sleeping, right? And like, seeing what's going underneath. The sleeping--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, why they would wake up.

 

Sara Brewer: Why they're not sleeping. So, really looking at that; having conversations with them, getting on the same page with them about; what's healthy, what we want to be doing with our life. 

And then setting goals with them, especially if they're old enough to do that. Hey, I'm here to help you. We're going to be fine. This isn't like an all-or-nothing thing where if you slip up, you're going to be in trouble or you're going to be ruined. It's okay, but how about we do this? Let's keep our-- Let's make sure that we're only using electronics in public spaces. Make sure you have your phone to me by eight o'clock at night. 

All these things; not with like the fear behind it, but just that we're working towards a goal together. And like, you know, kids, they just need help with that technology. They need help with that.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Because there's so much, I feel like it's like hard for them to just like understand how to-- even just not pornography use, but like screen use in general…there's just so much there and it's hard for us as adults. So, I think teaching them those skills, I love the idea of having like; why, what's happening behind this? And then also setting a goal and helping them to achieve that.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. So, those specific like technology goals and then, of course, the emotional regulation…if you want to be teaching your kids this, and also show them how this is going to apply to sexuality. And so, because sometimes, you know, when you have those beliefs – sex is bad, we shouldn't be having thoughts about sex – it makes it so much worse. Right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: It makes it so, so, so much worse. So, teaching that sexual feelings are normal and good and fine. And you're having those because you're growing into-- you're a teenager and you've got hormones, and that's fine. 

Teaching them, 'If you have one, if you have a sexual thought, it's not a big deal; we don't need to push it away…we're going to stop, drop and breathe into it and move on.' 

So, I work on this with clients who, let's say…they're at the beach and they're freaking out because they see someone on bikini, they're having sexual thoughts. They're like, 'Oh my gosh, what is wrong with me? I'm a disgusting human.'

No, we're a normal human who has grown up in a really hypersexualized culture. So, I had a sexual thought – breathe, that's normal…and move on. Because what happens when we are like, 'No, no, no, no. Why did I think that? I'm so gross,' it gets bigger. That's when we make it a problem.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. That's so good. I remember hearing somebody say that they went over to Europe and they were at a nude beach; and they kind of initially just like freaked out a little bit, but then they looked around and they were like, literally nobody else here is freaking out, they don't even care, everyone's just walking around like normal. 

And they were like, we just-- I think, especially in North America, for whatever reason, have really hypersexualized bodies--  

 

Sara Brewer: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Like, naked bodies. And so, it's really hard for us when we feel that way because we're just like, 'Oh, naked body means like sexual urge.'

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: It was so interesting to hear that perspective of like, there's actually, you know, thousands of people that don't feel that way. They're all just walking around on this beach and everything's normal.

 

Sara Brewer: Which is why I think, you know, we have to be careful with our kids too. And this is something I need to think through a little bit more, but we have to be careful when we like label something as "good" and "bad". Like, when it comes to pictures, if you're like a bad picture is anytime you see someone naked…that's also teaching them that naked bodies are bad. You know? And so--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I've actually thought about this before because I haven't loved a lot of the pornography books that are catered towards that because there's like literally one called Good Pictures Bad Pictures.

 

Sara Brewer: That's the one I'm thinking of.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. But the way that I have heard of it in the past and talked to some other people in the past were, what's the intention behind it? Right? So, like, if you're going to look at a museum, and it's like naked art or sculpture or whatever – like it's mentally inspirational versus like, you know, pornography. 

And what really is pornography is the intention behind it. It's not just like a sculpture in like the Met. Like, that's not pornography. Right?

 

Sara Brewer: Right, right. Pictures in textbooks, we don't want to teach that girls wearing bikinis are pornography. Right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah, the intention behind it. And I guess, because I'm thinking of-- Like my kids are little, they're five and three. And so, I'm like, how would I teach? They're not really at an age where I think I could teach--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: -the intention, but as they get older, for sure.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Well, and also just normalizing their body. I remember living-- We move around a lot. So, we were living in another area of Canada; and we had friends where like…their like little kid bodies, they would mostly just run around naked mostly. Like they would have underwear on, but that was pretty much it. 

And especially they're like little girls and they didn't even care. Like the girls didn't care, like the little sibling. Like, it just wasn't so sexualized. 

 

Sara Brewer: Totally. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And as I've done that, I had the mostly boys, so that is what they would do. And then I had a daughter and she always wanted to. And like my husband was kind of like, 'But she should be wearing a shirt or whatever.' 

I'm like, 'But should she know like her body literally looks exactly the same.' 

 

Sara Brewer: Exactly the same.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: She like-- They're all just like wannabe wrestlers or whatever, like they're hot and they just want to take their shirts off – but like, she's not allowed. 

And I'm like, 'No, because we just feel in our culture that we have to sexualize this body, and it starts at such a young age.' 

 

Sara Brewer: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I've been really open to-- This might sound weird on the podcast, people are going to be like, 'Okay, you're a weirdo.' But really open to not having her just like, wear clothes all the time. Like if she just wants to wear underwear and it's hot…that's what she does. Like, I don't make it a big deal. I don't have that energy behind it because I don't want her to sexualize her own body and feel like she has to cover it up because it's just a body.

 

Sara Brewer: Right. And it's people who are taught to do that, that are the problems – not the little girls.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm. Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: Not the girls who are wearing-- the little girls who are, you know, running around in their underwear.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I'm like also asking like, what are you comfortable with? Right? Like when she goes to the bathroom, wants to lock the door…I'm like, 'Oh good, okay, that's--' At some point she didn't care at all, and then she did. 

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But just kind of respecting those little, like what feels comfortable for you. I feel this way strongly about modesty also. because a lot of conservative Christian religions will talk about what to wear and what not to wear; and we don't talk about what not to wear and what to wear, we talk about like, what do you feel comfortable and kind of what's the intention behind that. 

And like, what would you feel most comfortable in going-- If we're going on a hike or if we're exercising or if it's hot outside, we're going to wear something different than if we're like really cold and trying to bundle up. 

And that it's more about our comfort level, what's happening in my body…versus like, wear this and don't wear this without really any-- Because I felt like that was just so obscure, like without any real reasoning behind it. Because it used to be like that women would wear like these giant dresses and corsets and like everything was covered and like, you couldn't even have your arms showing.

 

Sara Brewer: Right.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And now, I don't know, I just feel like that changes so much culturally over time.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: Which is such a good point because so much of the conversation around porn is really also a conversation around purity culture and how much that affects like feeling like you're out of control with your porn use and unwanted porn use and all of that. Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Sara Brewer: And I agree with you. I was going to say, I have a friend who lives in France and she said that she was-- her daughter is elementary school age and it's just so normal for the girls when they're hiking just to, you know, take off their shirts like the boys do. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Wow.

 

Sara Brewer: And it's just like so normalized and not weird, which it shouldn't be. It should not be a sexual thing. How creepy-- When you really start to think about that, how creepy and gross is that to sexualize girls', like tiny girls' bodies like that?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. That is so interesting because like, even like as I was kind of like sharing that story, I'm like, 'Oh, people are going to think it's weird that I let my daughter do this.'

 

Sara Brewer: No.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right? And I'm like, 'But it doesn't ever feel weird.' It doesn't; it feels so normal. It feels so like, her body isn't sexual. Like it just-- It has just always--  

Anyways, there's a lot that I could talk about when it comes to modesty, but I think that the goal is to not hyper sexualize our own bodies, our children's bodies. And also, to be comfortable with curiosity – comfortable with like…yes, sexual urges are normal – and comfortable with our own personal sexuality. 

So, if you've been raised in a culture that was a little bit more conservative, it might be hard for you to manage your mind around that. Right? 

Anyway, so that's why I'm so grateful for conversations like these where-- even just it not being this huge deal, because as soon as we like freak out, if we know that our children are dealing with pornography or whatever, and we're just like, 'Oh my goodness, it's the end of the world.' 

We're not going to show up in the best way. We're going to go more into force and shame and coercion and control, which are never-- it's never the best energy to parent or make decisions from.

 

Sara Brewer: Mm-Hmm. And they're going to be okay. Like, they're going to be okay; they're going to be fine. They're not going to like, grow up into bad people or highly addicted people or--  

You know, they're going to be okay. They're going to be fine. They're just normal teenagers experiencing normal things; and we're going to work on it…we're going to teach them, but it just might take some time to learn too – and that's okay.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I feel like that's literally the perfect sentence to end on. I'm like, 'Yes, they're going to be fine…it's going to be okay.' 

And I feel like I love the energy behind how you said that because when we feel that energy about the situation, we're going to come up with really different ways of dealing with it and of – what even what we say or what we don't say will be completely different from that specific energy that you just said all of that in versus like, this is a big deal.

 

How to connect with Sara Brewer

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, thank you. Thank you, Sara for coming and imparting all your wisdom. And, why don't you tell people how they can connect with you, if this is something you want…they want to learn more about.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah. Thank you. There's a lot more for this conversation if you want to quit viewing porn, I've got a Masterclass that kind of talks about…the first three forces talking about all these things in depth on how we're going to get to the root of the problem.

And then the last little bit I talk about my program, if you want to come and join me. So, that's sarabrewer.com/masterclass. I also have a great podcast that gets raving reviews – super helpful, the best…like, I'm so proud of that podcast – it's called Overcome Pornography For Good. So, you can also go start listening to that if you want to learn more mindfulness skills and just the stuff behind it. Those are the two places I'll send you to.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I love that. Thank you so much, Sara.

 

Sara Brewer: Yeah, thank you.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me – send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.