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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is what addiction looks like. So many people are walking around in plain sight. Their life is on the floor. You create this duality of life in the dark and the projected life in the light.
Chapter 2: What is Ore Oduba's personal experience with pornography addiction?
We're talking about porn. We're talking about pornography. Introduced to explicit adult material at nine years old, it became a thread for my entire life for 30 years. This world only gets worse until we intervene.
All right. Thank you so much for coming on today. I am stoked. I saw you recently at the Watson Stage Awards. Yeah. And I was so grateful that you knew that you were coming on because I meet certain people and they're like, I saw them a few days ago and then they're suddenly on the podcast. I'm like, oh. I'm like, oh great, so people just don't know or don't realize.
This has been a long time in the making. Because your team got in touch with me last summer when I first started talking about addiction. And at that point, there was just a series of dominoes that were sort of rallying in my life that led me to the point of actually deciding I was going to start speaking about addiction. my addiction. And that was one of the early stages.
I was kind of gauging to see what the response would be like. And I remember speaking about saying I had lived for my whole life with this addiction and just reams of support, just messages of support saying, you're not the only one, you're not alone, incredible vulnerability. Thank you for speaking out. And I was like, that's weird because I haven't said what it is.
A lot of people are really supportive. I had thought for 30 years that it would be the opposite. So it was one of the kind of early signs that it might actually create a positive response. But your team got in touch.
And the reason I snubbed you, I snubbed the team because there was so much that I had to do to get to the point of feeling like I was ready to speak about what had been my entire life, a thread for 30 years through my entire life.
Yeah.
But I guess I always had this difficult relationship with being in the public eye, but I had no relationship with being an addict in the public eye. So coming on what I think, you know, you and your team, you have created an incredible space. It really is like the leading space in addiction.
You are an incredible voice and you're an incredible advocate and people feel safe coming to you and everything that comes out of your, your podcasts is so resonant. I was like, I don't know where I fit in that yet. I just need to find the place that I can blurt it out.
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Chapter 3: How does pornography addiction affect relationships and mental health?
Mm-hmm.
And I had already by that point been through a lot from two immediate family bereavements, divorce. But for me, speaking up about this was worth putting my career on the line for.
And I suppose, did you feel like that?
Did you feel like this could be a mistake? Oh God, this could have been the end. We had to have those conversations as a team.
about this potentially being the end of my career as it as it stood um but you know what the more i spoke about it with friends the more i spoke about it with employers the more i spoke about it with charities and people doing the work on the ground with young people like it was so obvious to me the message was abundantly clear
And I thought, if anybody doesn't get on the side of this, I mean, pray for them because this is something that affects absolutely everybody. Everybody connected to a device, but especially young people coming through. And I recognized at a time that I was kind of prepared to speak to my children about something that I had gone through. But when I came to understanding and there was a
number of things that happened last year from the online safety bill passing and vpn rate spiking to the children's commission publishing a report saying that kids as young as six are being exposed to pornography and then it was yesterday's fish and paper the next day i thought i don't think people are taking this issue seriously enough yeah and that adult material is filling the void
that our lack of communication is creating around what good, healthy sex looks like. And instead, fueling a lot of the negative, horrific things and issues that we're seeing in society, sexual crime, massive division between genders, volatility online, hatred and vitriol.
and so much of it fueled by sex and pornography and I thought I think it's all connected and I think if I can add a voice to it or if I can create a changing conversation around it then everybody who is invested in it from families to schools to like places of power and change then it might start to move the needle even just a little bit. And the reaction, the response immediately was seismic.
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Chapter 4: What role does toxic masculinity play in addiction?
At 10. That's when I discovered that. Oh my God. So when you know that that's what's at stake, but you find yourself in a world like this, no one is allowed to find out.
Yeah. I mean, I can just think of the amount of shame that must be put onto you. Yeah. There must be such a kind of secretive, kind of shameful side to what you're doing as well. It's so secretive.
Yeah, I think porn... is the last taboo I think so much of the world has moved forward that we do discuss we talk about people's problems it's hard for people to talk about their own problems but I think we're getting much better at it I think this is the last big one I think you're absolutely right I think I can't think of I can't think of another one that's that's that's
That's more of a taboo to talk about. Totally. Yeah, it makes people uncomfortable. It makes people uncomfortable. I thought people watching this, they might even see whatever title we put on this video. If you put the word pornography on that, people will be like, oh, don't make them uncomfortable.
Which is why we need to go adult explicit material. Adult explicit material, exactly. But no, I think because, you know, sex is such a vulnerable thing. Societally, even sex, good sex isn't talked about.
Yeah, yeah.
How often do you talk about sex in your house?
We've talked about porn quite a few times. You have? Yeah, we have. Yeah, because we did this documentary, Meanwhile I've Swiped, where we talked about phone use and kids. And we've got kids, so we talked quite openly about porn. We had a big discussion about it. What was their reaction? They were gobsmacked that we were talking about this.
I mean, I don't want to go into too many details, but they were kind of quite shocked that we were openly talking about it. But then... You know, they were really open with us about what they've seen and what they hadn't seen and how they felt about it and what kind of like, and what was being talked about at school. And I really wanted to kind of make them know that there is no judgment here.
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Chapter 5: How does grief influence Ore's perspective on addiction?
It was the only bedroom downstairs. And by this point I was fully addicted to gaming. There was broadband in the room, two doors along the hallway and pornography. So by mid teens, I'd be up until the early hours, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning playing games and downloading explicit adult material on the internet. That was a nightly activity.
I mean that's and the thing is that's how old were you then 15 yeah 14, 15 and then beyond yeah and like so not only is that affecting so many things but the thing about mental health that just lack of sleep alone because you've got to get up for school the next day feeling full of shame lack of sleep yeah you know all that kind of stuff I guess the other thing that's kind of sinister about it is I didn't know that that was a problem really
I didn't know that I was in the thick of something that had already gripped me. That's something that I had been reversing to as a kind of friend. Some kind of like where I went for trauma, where I went to feel, where I went if... You know, there'd been bad news, good news. If I was angry, if I was feeling lonely, if I was feeling depressed, I didn't know that this was my kind of, my go-to.
That is addiction.
And you know, it's also really quite sinister because I think there is a reciprocity. There's something reciprocal about addiction where you, whether you reach for the bottle or you reach for the drug, it's always kind of the friend that's kind of there.
One conversation really can spark change. Share this conversation with someone you know, it could be just what they need to hear.
This material has become so reciprocal, whether it's algorithms, whether it is kind of AI today, where you can literally create whatever it is that you want without the friction of a real person offering their own kind of retort, their own values, their own humanity. And that holds you. There's a kind of, there's a retention. There's a kind of like,
know i think so much of the model of today is about audience retention but i think this is based on addiction it's like we need to keep you here yeah and i think when you're so shamed you're so isolated and you know i can't talk to this even with my closest friends let alone siblings or family this is the only place i can go when they understand that you are alone
It preys on that shame and loneliness. It's almost like a discourse. We know how shameful and we know how disgusting you are. This is where you need to be. It's quite cult-like. And I remember feeling that even as a teenager. And thinking, well, I mean, I don't think I've got a problem, but I know that this is where I feel safe almost.
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Chapter 6: What are the societal impacts of early exposure to pornography?
that level of exposure could be a problem for absolutely anybody and i think when you understand that and look at how children are consuming it yeah how kids as young as six are accessing this accessing this kind of material the kids between 11 and 13 have all seen there's an average age of kids coming across pornography the 80 percent of it come across social media
that's when you understand that this is a public health crisis. This is, everybody can admit that no children should be exposed to pornography at any age. But when there is a majority of children that are accessing it and seeing it well before they're of any legal age, well before they've had any conversation about sex,
that years before they have their first sexual education class or discussion in family, they've already had years of exposure to this stuff online. That's a crisis because it's fundamental to how we exist in society. And if they're using this as their model, as an education for what sex looks like in their lives.
Fast forward 10 years and it gets to the worst that we're seeing in society today, but at an even more accelerated rate. You're right.
It's like, I remember when I was, well, I watched Grease and then, was it Grease or Grease 2? And they're putting the condom on the banana. Right. And they were all kind of just shagging everywhere anyway. So I was like, how ridiculous that they're doing this sex ed class when they're so old. You know, it's the same thing.
It's like you've been exposed to all of this and then you're going to try and teach kids about sexual education. But it hasn't changed.
My godson's 17. I was talking to him just this weekend about it. And he was like, maybe one class a term or a year. It's, I mean, you got to feel for teachers because they've been delegated this responsibility and most of the people in their class have not had a conversation with another adult other than them.
yeah and there isn't there might be like an element of it to the syllabus but this hasn't been taught this has been inherited yeah yeah and you know kids have already seen loads of it they're already talking about it there's an awkwardness they're sniggering in the classroom the attention just isn't there because by the way after this class is finished they're all going to be sharing it between them anyway they've already got their own subculture for what they think towards sex it's completely obsolete it's completely outdated um
And I think there needs to be a real structural educational change that really addresses an early look at how we talk about good, healthy sex for children and young people. Because people are getting more access earlier and earlier anyway. So we have to change the goalposts.
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Chapter 7: How can parents effectively communicate about sex and pornography?
But the retort was often, yeah, but Matt's a rock star. He's a pop star. There's kind of this accepted, thanks to a lot of work from people like yourself, accepted societal blanket that people who have been through drug and drink addiction we kind of know what to do with it. There's a little bit more of a societal acceptance.
Like, I mean, gosh, take this back decades and it wouldn't be the case. But thankfully, because of a lot of that work, because it's been in the public sphere, there is a little bit more of a template for what people do. It's incredibly hard to get out of it. But I was like, the issue is... Like, but this is what addiction looks like.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is like me, like so many people are walking around in plain sight. Absolutely. In their life is on the floor. They've already hit their rock bottom, but they don't think that they supposed to be stand up members of society have an image in my world, like a public profile. Um, and, and, and addiction doesn't, that's not you.
I was on Good Morning Britain the other day and lovely, gorgeous Kate Garroway was saying, she was like, I've known you for such a long time and I just, I would never have thought that you would have been someone that would have got into addiction like this.
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Chapter 8: What resources are available for those struggling with addiction?
And I was like, That's the reason why I had to say something. Absolutely. Because this is what addiction looks like. And it occurs in plain sight. You create this duality of life in the dark and the projected life in the light.
And of course, the only one that you know is going to be acceptable is the one that you are projecting, the one that is acceptable, the one that your family have known forever, the one that your new friends are engaging with. the ones that the public are aware of and are happy to accept.
But the one that's been crying and on the floor and has been devastated for decades will never come out and see the light. And that is so many people. And in this world, I'm aware that we've not talked about it. We're talking about porn, we're talking about pornography.
There's a part of me that doesn't want to say the word so much because on social media, they censor this stuff and this message needs to be brought out. And I've started referring to it as explicit adult imagery material so that it reaches all the ears that it needs to. I didn't think about that, but that's a really good point.
And then over time, this kind of this dark web, but it's not really dark web because it's all still mainstream. It exists in this void of communication and understanding. And so people find it, they migrate towards it, but they can't share it, can't talk about it. It becomes really isolating. Kids are engaging with it, sharing it.
And yeah, so the more we talk about it, the more we talk about what?
healthy sexual relationships and relationships with sex look like the more we can discuss how bad sexual relationships look like yeah and i think i think we have to bring that into the sphere so that's that's the discussion it's a long road it's a really long road mate and i'm but i'm i i thank you for taking on this road because it does feel like you picked up a bit of a baton does that feel do you feel like a bit of a do you feel like that you feel like you've kind of picked up the torch for this yeah
before I decided to say something, the reason why it was so scary was because nobody had done it. Absolutely. Yeah. And when you think about the sheer volume of people that are consuming this kind of material, like societally, I wanted to say something because I was worried about our kids and the world that they were going to inherit.
But I think we don't solve that until we agree and appreciate that societally we've got an issue.
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