Ep. 124: Porn, Marriage, Singleness, & Celibacy with Matt Dobschuetz
Ep. 124: Porn, Marriage, Singleness, & Celibacy with Matt Dobschuetz
LISTENER DISCRETION ADVISED: DON’T LISTEN WITH KIDS AROUND
Matt Dobschuetz is the host of Porn Free Radio, the top-rated podcast for motivated guys who want to quit looking at porn. His hope-filled approach to a subject many have trouble talking about has inspired a global audience of men to take action and transform their lives.
He is the author of the 2022 book, Porn Free: Becoming the Type of Man That Does Not Look at Porn.
From his home in suburban Chicago, Matt podcasts and runs a professional coaching practice. He is happily married to his wife, Janice, whom he has been friends with since college. Together, they have two sons in college. Matt is a diehard Chicago Bears fan, a coffee enthusiast, and a lover of old-school hip hop.
To learn more about Matt, his coaching, and his Rev Groups, visit https://recoveredman.com.
Resources shared:
Assessing Problematic Porn Use w/ Bill Herring
https://recoveredman.com/311-assessing-problematic-porn-use-w-bill-herring/
In recovery circles we often use labels rather than descriptions. Words like sex addict or porn addiction are hastily applied or adopted. But often we miss gaining a greater understanding of ourselves and the truth of our situation. Bill Herring, LCSW, CSAT joins Porn Free Radio to share his framework for assessing problematic sexuality. It can easily be used to assess problematic porn use. Bill’s common sense framework looks at 5 categories and uses 5 questions to assess problematic sexual behaviors.
Bill’s Questions:
Are you keeping your promises? (Commitments)
Are you OKAY with what you are doing? (Values)
Are you in control of yourself? (Control)
Is everything okay? (Consequence)
Are you protecting everyone? (Responsibility)
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10 Traits of the Mature Celibate
The former Catholic priest and psychotherapist A. W. Richard Sipe has spent the bulk of his career (approximately four decades) studying the practice of celibacy in Roman Catholic contexts, and he argues that genuine celibacy is indeed viable and healthy for those who attain it. But he believes it must be pursued. A large number of vowed clergy do live lives of disciplined sexual abstinence, according to Sipe’s major work Celibacy in Crisis, but what he refers to (unhelpfully) as the “achievement” of celibacy—in which the major developmental crises have been weathered and the celibate state has been embraced and is, for all purposes, irreversible—is more rare, according to Sipe.
He thinks this mature state of “attained” celibacy is virtually always characterized by at least ten traits:
first, by work (the productive use of time and energy);
second, by prayer (an active interior life lived in the presence of God);
third, by community (“people to whom [the celibate is] committed and people on whom they can rely”);
fourth, by service (some form of self-giving that takes one beyond one’s own sphere);
fifth, by an awareness of one’s physical needs and a willingness to fulfill one’s lawful hungers with gentleness and self-care;
sixth, by balance in the rhythms of one’s lifestyle;
seventh, by security in one’s relational and communal commitments (“all celibate achievers had someone to whom they felt that they had confided the essence of themselves”);
eighth, by order in one’s daily and seasonal life;
ninth, by learning and ongoing curiosity about others and the world one inhabits; and
tenth and finally, by an appreciation of beauty.
The one who undertakes this kind of celibate life must become intimately familiar with his or her characteristic patterns of desire, temptation, longing, and weakness.
10 points from book: A. W. Richard Sipe, Celibacy in Crisis: A Secret World Revisited (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2003), 301.
Quoted in book by: Hill, Wesley. Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality. Zondervan.
You can also watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IDB_Xmwz01Y
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