#90 - Porn Awareness on Campus | Lily Moric
The proliferation of pornography is one of the downsides when using the internet. Because of modern technology, it is accessible to anybody with a computer and an Internet connection. Pornography may be more acceptable in some cultures, but when one considers the messages and impact that it has, one may understand how troubling it truly is.
In this episode, we are joined by Lily Moric, who came all the way from Canada and works for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Lily started an advocacy group on campus throughout Canada, trying to change age verification and raising porn awareness on campuses in her country.
If you’re someone who wants to do something with your life and make a difference, be inspired by Lily Moric and her story of how she made a difference in her community in a very powerful and meaningful way. She has started her own initiative called Questioning Pornography where she’s helping to create awareness about pornography, its disadvantages and the harmful effects it can bring to a person.
Lily brings us along her journey on when, why, and how she started her vision to help inform others, started her own podcast, and her reason behind creating a club to gather people and share her advocacy in the form of a meaningful conversation. Listen to Episode 90 to learn more about her story!
What is Questioning Pornography?
Meetup Groups through meetup.com
Questioning Pornography Podcast
Creating awareness based off of a predetermined worldview
Why pornography is harmful
Challenging the status quo and getting people to actually think
A healthy way to create deeper conversations
The concept of sexual objectification
Pornography as a suboptimal expression of human sexuality
Different harmful effects that pornography poses to individuals and society
How conversations can get very polarized, emotional, and separated into ideological boundaries
How pornography is fueling sexism
Implementation of age verification for pornography
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love
Welcome back to Love, Life and Legacy, a podcast dedicated to helping you navigate these hypersexualized times of ours. And in today's episode, we have a special guest by the name of Lily Moric, who comes to us from Canada. He may know of his country, it's in North America. It's where I am from. And Lily is doing an amazing job. She's really cool. She came into our world via Pierre Beauregard, who was always on the frontlines of advocacy throughout Canada trying to change age verification and meeting some really cool people along the way, Lily being one of them. And Lily, herself, is such a powerhouse. She started an advocacy group on campus in spite of some friction with haters out there. She just kept on trucking, and now she's evolved her movement into a podcast. You can learn a lot from her. If you feel that you want to do something with your life, you want to make a difference then listen to people like Lily because she is making a difference in a very special and meaningful way. She's very well-spoken. I was so moved by how clear her mind is and her heart, and how she's moving her body into action. So everybody, please welcome Lily Moric to the podcast.
So welcome back everybody, it's me, and I'm not with Benjy today. I'm with somebody very special. Probably everybody knows Pierre, like everybody in the world. Pierre just knows everybody. He goes out and he makes it his point to meet everybody. And he introduced me to this young lady, woman, person, human, fellow human, all of the above, and her name is Lily Moric. If you're from the East Coast it's Moric. Do you have any French in you?
Lily Moric
I have French Canadian in me. But I think the name Moric probably comes from Slovakia, which is where my paternal grandfather comes from.
Andrew Love
So it's Moric, thank you. And so, she works for NCOSE for National Center on Sexual Exploitation. We already have Lisa Thompson, as you know. But she also has her own initiative called Questioning Pornography that I really want to get into. Because in High Noon, we started because we really care. But we started with a budget. We had some staff, but Lily is just a trailblazer who just really cares. And I want to find out what kind of person builds something on their own, because they care? And what makes her tick and why she's fighting this fight? Because she's helping to create awareness about pornography, and it's not for lack of a better term, the sexiest topic. But it's not the easiest to talk about. And it's definitely not for hobbyists. It's like touching on a nerve. This is like a cultural nerve that you're touching, and you're doing it because you want to. First of all, welcome.
Lily Moric
Thank you.
Andrew Love
Sincerely, we love having different voices here. And I want to get into this. What is Questioning Pornography? When did it start? What's the origin story of this thing?
Lily Moric
For sure, yes. We've definitely evolved. So actually how Questioning Pornography started was as a university club, because I was in a university at the time. And my thoughts on pornography were evolving out of conversations with my university classmates. I've always been a bit of an activist in my personality. And so, I already was involved in a couple of other university clubs working on different social justice issues. And then this issue of pornography was really getting to me through these conversations I was having. And then what happened next is I realized there was a lot of research on how pornography is harming people. And that's what really made me realize, okay, this is something we can talk about because it's one thing when people have their different opinions and their different intuitions about whether or not something is harmful. But when you have this massive body of research proving that it's harmful, that's when I realized, okay, we need to spread awareness about this. And we can actually move forward in these conversations, and I want to help instigate that.
So I decided, because I had background with running university clubs, I would start essentially a Pornography Harms Awareness Club on a university campus. So that's what I did. It definitely was a little bit daunting at first because as you say, it's not the sexiest topic. And I definitely was thinking about what are my friends going to think of me, all of that. But yes, I just went for it because I felt that, especially as I started reading the research myself and reading the stories of some of these people that had been harmed by pornography, it was just really bothering me, I guess you could say. It bothered me specifically that pornography was just so accepted as normal. No one ever really even gave it a second thought. So that's when I was like, okay, at least I want to start that conversation. And that's why I named ourselves, Questioning Pornography, because all I really wanted was to start that questioning. I didn't really even need to convince people right away that pornography is bad or anything like that. I just wanted to push back a little bit against the total acceptance of pornography, and at least get people thinking about it.
That's what I did. I put out some advertisements for anyone who might want to join me in starting this initiative on the campus. Gathered a few solid people. And yes, we just started having conversations on the campus. Prior to COVID hitting, those would be in-person conversations. So literally hallway activism, people are walking by the hallway. We'd have our little sign, "What are your thoughts on pornography?" and we just start those conversations. And we did get a lot of weird looks. But we also had a few very productive and fruitful conversations, and it was great. Of course, had lots of people tearing down our posters, and all those things as well. But that's how we started, on-campus conversations. And then COVID hit, so we have to move online. We transition to having online Meetup groups. So through the platform meetup.com, people can create different little groups designated to talk about different topics. So there'd be, I don't know. Let's say a group for Jordan Peterson fans or a group for Sam Harris fans, all these different things. And so, we just started a Questioning Pornography Meetup group. That's how we continued our conversations.
So that was really cool. And then the most recent evolution was when my friends who's been working on with me in questioning pornography since the beginning told me he thought I would reach a bigger audience if I switched from the Meetup group to a podcast. And at first that was really intimidating to me. I didn't think of myself at all as a podcast person. I'm not tech-savvy. I didn't think of myself as eloquent or someone who's able to think on the spot like that. But I decided to give it a go. And so, the latest evolution was we became the Questioning Pornography Podcast.
Andrew Love
Wow. So let me ask you, I want to dig into this a little bit, when you first started attracting people, you said, you've found some solid people. But what were people really looking for? Did they have a similar desire to want to unearth the reality of pornography? Or like, who is showing up to these?
Lily Moric
That's a really good question. We had a variety. I think, probably most people were people who had a previous experience with porn addiction themselves and had experienced it as being harmful to them. Sometimes there's overlap between these categories. But we had Christian people who were really concerned about how pornography was distorting the beauty of sexuality, I guess you could say. And then we just had some moved by some, I'll say one. He's the one who stuck around the longest. The one who convinced me to start the podcast. But one, just normal atheist guy or whatever who just found it a really fascinating topic to think about intellectually. Especially in considering the societal implications, I guess you could say. Things like how pornography has evolved over time back when in our parents' generation, for example. That would be the adult section of the movie rental store. And of course, kids wouldn't go there. But now it's just everything online, completely accessible to all these kids, and what are the societal implications of that? What damage is being caused to children because of that? So yes, we did have a bit of a range, if that makes sense. But essentially overall, it's just people who recognize that in some sense that pornography was harming individuals and society, and thought that there should be some pushback on that.
Andrew Love
So it seems more of a conversation and it didn't really start out as advocacy per se. It was more just the awareness, or what would you call it?
Lily Moric
I suppose it would depend on how you define advocacy. So maybe let's start with that. What does that word mean in your mind?
Andrew Love
I guess creating awareness-based off on a predetermined worldview. I think this, therefore, you should know this kind of thing.
Lily Moric
Yes. Okay. That's a good question. Would I have to find just advocacy? I think certainly, I had an established view on pornography that it was harmful. And ultimately, that was the message that I hoped to communicate. But I always find it more effective to bring people into a conversation where they feel that they're being listened to, as well, and their point of view is being heard as well. And so, in that sense, I suppose I framed my advocacy more as a conversation. I didn't want to just be trying to bang people over the head with my thoughts and my opinions. But I wanted to create a space where anyone could come and talk about pornography. And so that's why we would have things like the Meetup group that would be open to as many people as wanted to and as many varieties of perspectives as wanted to come, and we would just talk about it. The thing is, when we have those kinds of conversations, people do end up realizing, not everyone, but many people do end up realizing over time that it is harmful because we do have the research on our side. But ultimately, like I said, the main thing that bothered me at the beginning was just that it was completely accepted as status quo, and no one even questioned it. And I think that that's why I just wanted to get that ball rolling where people could at least question it, and could at least think twice before just being a part of normal life. Everyone does it. It's fine.
Andrew Love
Yes. No, I love it. I love challenging the status quo and getting people to actually think. It's like raising awareness of the idea that there could be an alternative. And so, was there pushback? Like you mentioned, people ripping down posters potentially. But did anybody show up looking for a fight? Or has it been generally attracting reasonable people?
Lily Moric
Yes, there has been some pushback of different varieties. Definitely, when we were on campus, there was some, like the tearing down the posters perhaps the most clearest example how... I remember I would start out going all the way around the school putting up posters, but by the time I circled back to where I began, those posters already be gone. I just kept chasing myself around in a circle. The posters might stay up for a few minutes and that kind of thing.
So definitely people, they vandalize it right on our posters like eff offs, worse, that kind of thing. So there was that. We got a little bit of hate mail. But ultimately, when we move online and started having discussions online, people would only come out to that if they were actually interested in having a discussion. So that helps a little bit at one point, it unfortunately got really bad where people were sending us child pornography through our Facebook page. So that injured for a number of months. But that seems to have died down by now. So that's good.
Andrew Love
First of all, sorry to hear.
Lily Moric
Thank you.
Andrew Love
That's so lame. But what I'm really inspired by is the fact that you're still here. And there's clearly a passion. So like, in all of this through the initial reason for you to start this plus the fact that you've been going deeper and deeper through conversations, what is this passion that's like, what do you feel that is so egregious about porn or so worth fighting? I'm very curious about the drive. What drives you? Because it's not typical. I would love it to be typical. Again, it's not you bashing people over the head with your opinion. It's like, hey, this is important. Let's talk about it. And you're willing to stand your ground until other people are also willing to have that conversation. I think that's the healthiest way to do it, instead of going around shoving your opinions into other people's faces. And also, the opposite of that is to just remain silent. Is this really a healthy medium where you have a particular worldview, but you want to talk about it and hear other people's point of view. So I want to know what drives a person like you to do this?
Lily Moric
I think that when I think about what draws me to tackling these difficult issues in general, there are a few things. Number one, I've always been drawn to topics that no one else is, not no one, but few other people are willing to talk about. Because I feel that there's a greater need there. It's not that I think necessarily pornography is more damaging than cancer, for example. But we have a lot of people who are willing to tackle cancer and are willing to raise funds to do research on cancer cures. And yet, there are a few people who would be comfortable approaching the issue of pornography and talking about the harms of pornography. And so, when I feel that there's a hole where no one really wants to go there, that's when I'm like, okay, someone has to go there so I will if that makes sense. So that's what draws me to these controversial, I guess you could say, topics. It's actually not that I'm confrontational by nature. Some people say like, oh, you just love confrontation. I'm like, I actually hate confrontation. It's pretty hard for me to overcome. But I do it because I think it's important. If the topic grabs me, then I do it.
The other thing that I think draws me to approaching topics where I think a positive change can be made, or where I think there's a lot of damage being done, I think it can be captured in this quote from a Cat Stevens' song actually. Do you know the song by any chance, Father And Son by Cat Stevens?
Andrew Love
Yes, of course.
Lily Moric
Beautiful, beautiful song. And I distinctly remember one time listening to it, and realizing that this line captured how I feel about the pornography topic and other topics. So well, the line is simply, "It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it." So when it comes to topics like pornography, I feel that there's a lot of damage being caused to people. It's hard to talk about that. And it's hard to research that 24/7. It's a seedy area. You know, it is hard on mental health. But what's harder for me, personally, I understand not everyone is built like me. But it's harder for me to ignore that and not do anything about it. And so there's a sense in which doing something about the topic and trying to move the world towards improvement and a better place. It's almost a self-therapy. Because I find that when I ignore it, I go absolutely crazy. And I remember for the first month or so, when I was learning more about just how damaging pornography was and not doing anything about it, I was going crazy. I was walking around like a zombie and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is horrific. I remember almost getting into a car accident because I was so distracted and thinking about all these horrible things I was reading. So I have to do something about it. Yes, just to feel like at least I can move the world towards something better, and not just sit in this horrible mess, if that makes sense.
Andrew Love
I would love to stop and let everybody breathe that in. Because there are a couple of things. First of all, just the fact that you can be so self-aware that you can say, I don't like this. I'm not comfortable with this. But I'd be less comfortable if I just left it alone if I just let this thing exist. But the other thing is, you obviously are attuned to the suffering of others. You're empathetic. And there's a wide array of topics that you could tackle. And somehow you ended up here. By your categorization, there are many topics or issues in this world that people don't want to talk about. But still, somehow you chose this or it chose you. How did you narrow it down to be like, okay, and you just accepted it? And the reason I'm asking this is that I know there's a lot of people listening that have a lot of things pulling at them. They're looking at this world, they're like, I would love to live in a world that's not completely dying. But I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. But how do you narrow it down to a cause? Because this is in many ways consuming a large majority of your time with Questioning Pornography and NCOSE combined takes a lot of your bandwidth. So how did you narrow it down? Did you just let go and let it choose you? Or did you just have to throw everything away and just gamble on this? How did you choose?
Lily Moric
Yes. It's a really good question. And before I begin answering it, I will just say that to the people who might be struggling on narrowing down issues. One thing that my friend said to me, which was helpful was he's like, you could do this work for 10 years, and you'd still only be 33. And then you could work on a different issue, and it's fine. And so, it's not as though you have to commit to one issue for the rest of your life. Many people do, and I'm at with this issue for the rest of my life. I could definitely see that happening. But I also could start working on a different issue in 10 years, and that's also fine. So I will just say that first. But then in terms of why did I pick this issue at the time being? I think there were a lot of things in my past that primed me for this issue.
So for example, the concept of sexual objectification and just how suboptimal that was, also optimal of a way of viewing other people that has always been something intuitive to me and that resonated with me emotionally. I have a very distinct memory of the first time I was cat-called, for example. I was in grade eight. I was walking around in a library. And then these two guys just started following me and making strange noises, and I didn't know what they were doing. And then eventually, I clued in, and it felt really horrible. I remember saying to my friend afterward when I was talking about the experience that I felt dementored. What I mean by that, that was a reference to the dementors in Harry Potter. Because what the dementors do is they suck out the soul of people. And so whether you want to use the soul, I know that that has religious connotations, whether you want to use that word soul or mind, personality, whatever you want to use. Basically, what I felt is that those guys were viewing me just as an empty shell of a body. And that there was nothing more to me than that. And I really didn't like that. It felt very off. And it felt like not the right way to view people.
So from a young age, that seed was always in me for whatever reason of knowing that people were meant to be viewed and seen as more than just a body, more than just a sexual object whose primary purpose is to give you your orgasm and that kind of thing. So that was always in me. I guess I was just always attuned to how sexuality can be used in a really beautiful way and to foster love and meaningful intimacy. And then how it can be used in a manipulative way or in a way or in a selfish way, how we can use other people solely to fulfill our sexual appetite, and the drastic difference between those two approaches to sexuality. So I was always attuned to that. Again, from a young age. And what I saw in pornography was a very clear example of how sexuality was very self-oriented. There's no relationship involved in pornography. It really is just about that person on the screen or whatever. You're using them as some tool to give you your orgasm. And of course, there's no expression of love there or anything like that. And so it was fairly clear that pornography was just a suboptimal expression of human sexuality. I felt that it was a barrier to more meaningful relationships and more loving ways of engaging in sexuality. And also, just more authentic ways of viewing other human people as more than just body parts and more than just sexual objects.
And so that was my base intuition on pornography that allowed me to see it from the beginning as something very suboptimal. But then as I briefly alluded to, at the beginning of this conversation, it was really when I discovered the body of research on pornography that I became motivated to do something about it. Because like I said, I had these intuitions and I would have some conversations with people about pornography. But again, when our intuitions didn't match, there wasn't too much I could do. There wasn't really any way to move forward in that conversation. We've just talked ourselves into philosophical circles. But when I stumbled upon the research archives on the Your Brain on Porn website, I was so blown away just seeing all these collections of studies on all these different harms that pornography poses to individuals and society. And I was like, what, there's science behind this?
And so that's when I was like, okay, first of all, I need to learn. I need to read all this stuff. And second of all, I need to bring this into conversations because there is a way for it. There is a way to move beyond just clashing intuitions. And we can say, no, this is the fact that this is actually damaging to relationships. It's actually damaging to people's views of women, for example. There's science behind this. So that's what clinched it for me, was when I realized there was a huge body of research. I was like, okay, this is my topic. I'm going to run with it.
Andrew Love
Yes, that's really cool. I really liked that perspective as well. I guess we're somewhat brainwashed through the educational system to be like, this is your vocational track, and so you're committed to that. But the world is clearly going through a transitional period where you realize that your interests can be fractured. They can be segmented. And you can compartmentalize them. You can wrap them up. You can move on. You can pass them on. And you can contribute to a cause, or to a vocation, or to interest for a period of time. But you also don't have to stick with it for life.
That's a very healthy way that you're contributing to this body of work, to this momentum that can be continued beyond you. And I think that's almost a healthier way because then you don't have this superhero syndrome where you feel like the whole world is on your shoulders like, I have to go save the world, again. That's not productive energy. It's like, okay, I have a lot of fire in my belly, and I can contribute to this cause. So long as I have this fire, I can productively contribute. I really like that. It sounds like you've been ruminating on sexuality and the implications of selfish sexuality personally, and how you've been impacted by others on a personal level. But then when he saw that, at scale, how damaging this is that we need to talk about this, that you did something about it. It's really cool stuff. And yes, kudos to you again.
I know everybody's struck at some point by some righteous indignation. Some sense of like, this is the line in the sand, and I won't let you go beyond this line. But then some voice in their heads says, no, you don't have the power. You don't have the strength to start a cause or to do anything meaningful. And I think that's where a lot of people stop. They get this feeling, but then they don't do anything with it. They don't invite people to the conversation. They don't tell people, they don't even let it come out of their mouth. This is what I think. Kudos to you. And also, anybody listening, let that be infectious. Let's stop being infected by stupid viruses. And let's be infected by each other's desire to want change and to create change. So thank you.
And so, what have you learned? Since you've been having these conversations, you've obviously learned a lot through all the research that you've been doing. But also I'm sure you've learned a lot about other people's perspectives and other worldviews through all this. So how is your own understanding of this issue evolved since you started this project?
Lily Moric
That's a really good question. I would say that, first of all, I learned a lot just about how to approach these conversations. Conversations can get very polarized and very emotional and very separated into these ideological boundaries with everyone judging the other side. I learned a lot about how to move past that a little bit.
Andrew Love
Meaning? Can you just specify a little bit? What does that mean?
Lily Moric
Yes, sorry. I was about to get there. So basically, I think that where I've grown, is being able to identify where other people are at. And then take the conversation from there, and slowly inch it forward from there. In the beginning, it was very tempting to just dump all my distress about pornography on the person right away. And say, it's horrible in this way, and this way, or this way, or that way, that way, that way. And they just weren't ready for that, because pornography was a part of their life or they considered it to be totally normal. And you just come across as this extremely disturbed emotional person that isn't worth their time of day. And so what I've learned is to be able to first listen to the other person and their thoughts, and then having identified where they're at and move them in baby steps, or try to move them in baby steps. I don't need to convince them in one conversation of everything about pornography that I think is wrong. But what I can do is start them along that path of questioning.
And so yes, it's really about identifying if they're in this place over here. Can I get them one step further? Because if I tried to rush them from where they are all the way to the finish line, they likely just won't be receptive to it. So that's like strategic things that I've learned. I would also say that, again, in trying to move past these polarized ideological conversations, I've learned a lot about just how important intellectual honesty and nuance when it's called for is. Because it is very tempting when I feel very strongly about a topic, to always pick the worst most extreme stories or exaggerate facts a little bit, or do a tiny bit of cherry-picking. That's all very tempting. Not that I ever really went down that route, but I think I may have dabbled in that a little bit more at the very beginning. But I soon then realized that if we want to build credibility and also build a space where people feel like this is a conversation that's open to them as well. And this is just about getting them to really be thoughtful and consider things as opposed to, it's about activists trying to bang them over the head with their views.
Being able to be very intellectually honest and identify nuances where they exist, and not just always try to paint everything as completely black and white, or painted as the worst possible. I think that approach is really important. And it's also just important for self-respect, and integrity, I think. So those would be some things that I learned. I think I also just learned a lot about people's experiences of pornography and also, people's experiences of quitting pornography because I myself was never a porn consumer. So partnering with those guys that I mentioned in the university who had been there, and then seeing their evolution since they quit, was really insightful to me. And I could see even more. I see even more how pornography was harmful to them because I could see the change in them. Some of them, I actually journeyed with from when they were consuming pornography up until the end when they quit.
Seeing the transformation and seeing how they suddenly were able to look at women a different way, they were able to enter into more meaningful relationships. It really just shed even more light on what pornography is doing to people when they don't even realize it. It's like they have these sunglasses on or whatever. But they're used to seeing the world as all shady, but then they take it off it's like, what? That kind of thing. And then just also again, through partnering with people who had previously been important consumers growing in compassion towards porn consumers, and being able to understand what people are up against when it comes to the attraction of pornography and the widespread availability of pornography, and just how easy it is to get caught up in that. I think that I've been able to grow and empathy with that as well. And that's become a focus of the conversations I've had. Whereas before, it would have been more just about like, look how pornography is fueling sexism towards women and violence towards women. But now I've taken more into account how pornography is harming the consumer as well.
Andrew Love
Yes, putting a face to all these statistics and stories. Yes. I hear you. That's really great because when you get into ideological discussions or debates, it's easy to stop seeing the humanity of the other side as well and where they're at. So your compassion put yourself a little bit closer to where somebody is at and view the world through their lens and hear what they need to be able to convey what you think they need to hear where they're at, is really, really helpful. Because I think a lot of people make issues that they're really passionate about very unrelatable based on how they present it and how zealous they are. It's gross. Your thing's cool. You're passionate, but it doesn't attract anybody. So that's a great approach. I like that.
Lily Moric
Yes, I like that word you used, "unrelatable." And that's exactly what I've been trying to overcome. When I talk about identifying where people are at and meeting them there, it really is about trying to make the conversation and make the issue relatable and have it resonate with the broader culture. I don't want to just attract other anti-porn people and teach to choir. I want to be able to resonate with the rest of the world. And so with that, it really is about finding ways to be relatable to other people. So thank you for that word.
Andrew Love
Yes. No, thank you. I think it's also what you exude at any given moment. And during a conversation, whether you're really there to listen and help them empty out, and whether you're just trying to fill their cup up even though they're already full. And it's a losing exchange because you want to give them something. They're not able to entertain new concepts because their minds are already full, their hearts already full. But they need to be able to express themselves. First, get out of their viewpoints. And it takes a level of maturity as somebody who's holding court, somebody who's hosting these events. They can give people space to, even if what they're saying sounds ludicrous, that you don't tell them that. You allow them to come to their own conclusion that they're not as informed as you might think. That takes a lot of maturity. So that's really cool that you've been doing this. How long, you said?
Lily Moric
Only two years. Not even two years actually. Just coming up on two years.
Andrew Love
Incredible. So really deeper. I thought you were going to go with all like, you learn different facts about pornography. But you went much deeper, so I'm glad.
Lily Moric
I could go with the facts if you want to.
Andrew Love
No. No, that was way better. So since you've been doing this for two years, I'm sure you've run into dealing with some heavy hitters here. We're dealing with cartels, we're dealing with big-budgeted conglomerates. You're in Canada where Pornhub is from, and we're seeing how much they impact culture and policy and all this stuff. So what intimidates you about this discussion? Is there something that the boundaries of a conversation, and when you start to reach those boundaries, you start to get that nervous feeling that you're going to get pushed back where you're entering the lion's den? Is there something in particular that intimidates you about the work that you're doing?
Lily Moric
Yes, that's a good question. I think, in general, I am always a little bit intimidated. And that just goes back to what I said earlier, of not actually being confrontational by nature. And the reason why I'm doing this work is really just because I think the topic is so important. But I don't actually thrive off of disagreeing with other people. And that's fair, and I don't really thrive off of heated debate or anything like that. So I do always have the temptation to, I guess, what's what I'm looking forward to softening my own thoughts to be more palatable to other people. Not in the correct way that I talked about before meeting people where they're at, but I'm almost ashamed of my own thoughts because other people just agree away.
So that is always a bit of intimidation for me, especially when it's a face-to-face dialogue with someone. But I've managed to, for the most part, get through that. Because again, I do believe I have the truth on my side. I have the research on my side. So I think my feet are on solid ground so that helps a little bit with the intimidation. In terms of moving beyond general terms and what specifically intimidates me most, I mean, certainly, in that period of time when we had pedophiles sending child pornography, that was a little intimidating. Just not realizing that okay, now I'm not just dealing with an angry college student. But this is someone who is okay with committing criminal acts. Where else is this going to go? That was a little bit scary. And I took some steps for personal security. But after a while, I realized that the chances that someone is going to move beyond harassing people on the computer and actually do something more dangerous are quite low. And so mainly got over that. But yes, overall, I just think that, I don't know. I don't know that there's too much else that intimidates me, actually.
Andrew Love
Fantastic. Thank you for your candid response. When you get struck by that righteous indignation that I was talking about, it's like you want to go straight to the main bad guy in the movie like the big dragon or whatever. But you don't know that you're not ready for that yet. And so, it's a process of building character, building strength, going through a series of smaller challenges to get to the big one. But at the moment, when you do get hate mail or that kind of stuff, it really feels so big. Even though from an objective standpoint, it's just some lonely person on a computer, press a couple of buttons and sending it to you. It's more like the intent that you can see that the darkness and a human that's willing to do that to be able to overcome that is no small feat. So again, I appreciate you for overcoming that. And for anybody listening, you have to expect that. If you don't receive hate mail every once in a while, you're probably not doing anything too meaningful.
You're not angering the bad guys, which means that they don't even know you exist. So wonderful, and I'm glad it stopped there. Now conversely, and to end on a happy note, what really excites you and what inspires you about the work that you're doing and the progress that you're making? And do you see cultures getting better? Are you hopeful for any particular reason?
Lily Moric
Yes. I think one of the things that have been really exciting to me, especially lately, is just seeing global efforts towards age verification for online pornography. So recognizing the gap that I previously talked about, where in previous generations, porn was not accessible to kids. It wasn't just said to be an 18+ product, but you couldn't get a pornographic magazine or DVD without giving your ID. And so kids did not have access to porn. As to digging up a couple of magazines under their dad's bedroom, I can only go so far. But now, it's a totally different ballgame. And so I think countries, including my own in Canada, are starting to catch on to this problem where there is no barrier between kids and this 18+ product. And so they started looking at solutions for that. There are methods for verifying people's age for online content. For example, in the UK, they've had online age verification for a while for online gambling. And so, we started to look at expanding that to online pornography. There's been a bill going through the Senate in my country, Canada, on implementing age verification for pornography, online pornography. I'm really hopeful about where that will end up.
We do just have an election, so things have to start from the beginning again. But I do think it'll get back to where it was before, which is it had passed in the Senate and was just about to go to the House of Commons. So I think that will make a big difference for the amount of kids that are exposed to this content just way too young. And I think that will be a really good thing, so that gives me hope. And just in general, it's an indication that the culture is starting to catch on. That this content is damaging for kids and we need to do something about it. So that's awesome.
The other thing that gives me hope is just always, always, always hearing about people's success stories, I guess, when they quit pornography. And it does go back again to what I said before about those sunglasses coming off. Seeing how people who maybe didn't even realize the way that pornography was negatively affecting them or their relationships when they quit pornography, how much more meaningful their relationships become, and how much better they're able to love people, and how they're able to view women in a much more healthy way. That is always so extremely encouraging to me. Every time I hear a story like that, it really just gives me, like putting a rocket pack on me, and I just get a big boost of energy. Because ultimately, that's what I want. Like I said, that something better is what I want to push the world towards. And it really is about being able to enter into more loving, meaningful relationships and interactions with the opposite gender. So when I see that with the pornography variable removed in a person's life, that something better is attainable, then I'm like, okay, this is exactly what we're shooting for and we can shoot for this on a larger societal level as well. So yes, hearing people's individual stories in that regard is super, super hopeful for me.
Andrew Love
Wow. That's both very personal and very broad like the policy and the person. That's cool. Thank you. I don't want to overinflate your ego, Lily. But I just do think it's really cool what you're doing. Especially since it's self-initiated and also self-perpetuating because it's hard to start something but it's harder to continue something, especially for a few years. So I really appreciate that. And you're making a big difference because on college campuses, there are so many people suffering, but we're so good at doing this work. I'm sure you've recognized the fact that people are really good at acting like they're okay, even when they're not. And you can see that a lot of people are suffering and they don't know how to cope. And porn is just this mask-numbing agent that society's adopted that, that's not helping at all. It's hurting, and you're helping. You really help to alleviate a lot of people's pain. I'm sure, by having these conversations that are not happening otherwise. So I really appreciate your work. And I really wish you the best, especially you're from my native land of Canada. They need all the help they can get. You and Pierre are on opposite coasts, fighting crime like superheroes. It's pretty cool.
Lily Moric
Yes, it's pretty great.
Andrew Love
It's pretty awesome. He's relentless. I'm glad he's on our side. So yes, thank you for your time. And thank you for being an incredibly wise person. I don't want to say for your age, I just mean, in general, you're a wise person. And it's very nice to pick your brain. Do you have any last things? Do you want people to contact? Don't you have a website?
Lily Moric
We have. So where you probably want to go is just our social media, and then that will link you to our podcast as well which is our main initiative right now. Do you have show notes for this podcast? I could send you those links.
Andrew Love
Yup.
Lily Moric
Great. So yes, I guess people feel free to check out our podcast. I alternate between having interviews with people that I would consider as some kind of authority on this topic. And then on the other side of that alternation, I would have a research highlight episode. So it just slowly picking through the hundreds and hundreds of studies that are out there, and I'll highlight one every couple of weeks and be, here's what this study found about how porn is damaging.
Anyway, so feel free to check out that podcast, and there's also on our social media. Of course, there would be ways to contact me just to our Facebook page or on Twitter, or even in Anchor, the app through which I distribute my podcast. There's a messaging function there as well. So yes, by all means, if you want to reach out for whatever reason, I'd be happy to receive that.
Andrew Love
Amazing. Yes. So we will have your links in the show notes. Everybody, just thank Lily for all the work she's doing. She's making the world a better place. Thank you, Lily.
Lily Moric
Thank you as well, Andrew. I'd say the same to you. You're definitely making the world a better place.
Andrew Love
Awesome.
Andrew Love
I hope you found that episode enjoyable. And before we go, I wanted to challenge you to take your life on. To take your life to the next level. And if you're struggling in any way with pornography, with masturbation, with issues of sexuality that just are not helping you at all. If you want to reclaim your life, reclaim your eyes and ears, your time, your energy, then take our free 15-Day Challenge. If you go to highnoon.org, you can find our 15-Day Challenge right there on the front page. Take it. It's absolutely free. No strings attached. We've designed it to help you gain some level of momentum in your journey of sexual integrity so that you can take the next step, whatever that may be. It could be to go to our deeper ascend program, which is a 90-day program we have. It could be to reach out to that accountability partner. It could be to just take whatever steps you need to take in your journey to build the life of heavenly sexuality that you deserve. So go to highnoon.org, right now. If you want to break up with porn and start to get engaged with the life of your dreams, and eventually marry it. Doesn't it sound nice? So go to highnoon.org to find all of those resources and more. It's been a slice.