Husband Material
So you want to outgrow porn. But how? How do you change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship? Welcome to Husband Material with Drew Boa, where we answer all these questions and more! Each episode makes it easier for you to achieve lasting freedom from porn—without fighting an exhausting battle. Porn is a pacifier. This podcast will help you outgrow it and become a sexually mature man of God.
Husband Material
How To Guard Against Sextortion (with Chris McKenna)
What is sextortion, and how can we guard against it? Chris McKenna shares the dark reality of sextortion, why men (especially young men) are most vulnerable to being sextorted, and what we can do to prevent it.
For more information, read this article:
What Is Sextortion? A Prevention And Response Guide For Families
Chris McKenna is the founder of Protect Young Eyes. He is a leading digital safety advocate, advising legislators and emerging tech companies. His impactful 2019 testimony before the US Senate initiated a series of hearings to further online child protection policy.
Under Chris's guidance, the Protect Young Eyes team conducts presentations worldwide to parents, professionals, and schools, They gained recognition by being featured in the Childhood 2.0 movie. The Protect Young Eyes website, courses, and private parent community show caregivers how to prepare and protect their children in digital spaces.
Resources For Parents:
- Start here! (Do these 3 things)
- 5 Habits of a Tech-Ready Home (Course)
- The Table (Private Community)
Take the Husband Material Journey...
- Step 1: Listen to this podcast or watch on YouTube
- Step 2: Join the private Husband Material Community
- Step 3: Take the free mini-course: How To Outgrow Porn
- Step 4: Try the all-in-one program: Husband Material Academy
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go. Today's conversation with Chris McKenna is full of statistics and wisdom and advice about how to guard against the threat of sextortion. So if your particular version of sexually acting out has included sexting or webcamming, or you want to protect your kids from some of these things, listen to this whole episode. Chris is full of wisdom and this is just one of the topics that you can learn a whole lot more about at Protect Young Eyes. Today, we get to hear from Chris McKenna, who's the founder of Protect Young Eyes, and we're specifically talking about sextortion. Welcome to the show, chris.
Speaker 2:Hey Drew. Yeah, thanks for having me. Really, you know, I'm looking forward and I also say that with I really wish this wasn't a topic we had to talk about. Can we just erase this issue from planet earth and make it something that we don't need to have a podcast about? Can we please do that Right?
Speaker 1:That would be best and, unfortunately, since we can't do that, the best thing we can do is informed and learn some of the ways that we can protect ourselves and others against it. So, chris, why are you so passionate about this topic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know there's a whole bunch of issues. And, drew, to go back, I was exposed to porn as a young boy. It led to all kinds of unhealthy, unnecessary curiosities inside of me that my brain just wasn't ready for. Right, this is when we're in an analog version, mostly of pornography, and then you evolved to the spot where you're sneaking VHS of fuzzy Cinemax and things. But that's like the extent of it. Right, fast forward to the internet. Right, internet comes out and that allows me then to have this quote, secret issue that I'm sure many men can relate to right, that triple A engine of accessible and anonymous and affordable right All in our face, right there. And that became a real problem for my life and I, through coveted eyes and accountability, was able to put that behind me. But then, about 10 years later, I watch us put that monster in little devices in kids' pockets. So all of that is a backstory. To say, protect Young Eyes came out of what I felt was a gap that existed between amazing parents and amazing kids and technologies that really weren't designed for them and really don't care about those amazing families and those amazing kids. So I started to educate and inform parents of my own youth group back in 2015. That led to the launch of a website, and now I have a team of presenters. We do hundreds of talks amazing kids. So I started to educate and inform parents of my own youth group back in like 2015. That led to the launch of a website, and now I have a team of presenters. We do hundreds of talks. So now I'm doing full-time.
Speaker 2:I left a good job that I went into at Covenant Eyes actually, I went to lead their digital marketing department for a while, drew. That's actually where I came across you and your name initially, and now I'm doing this about a year now into doing this full-time again educating legislative work, testifying, traveling and speaking and these aren't issues just for kids. The name protect young eyes was created to help families with young kids, but when you think back to when this started about 10 years ago, right now we're talking about things that have been around that well into your mid-30s now, and technology doesn't really care whether you're 13 or 30. There is a business design, there are algorithms that identify our vulnerabilities as humans and have a way of well pressing into those, no matter what your age, and so I find myself in conversations with moms that are trying to protect their kids, with dads who are trying to get out of porn, with wives who are sometimes married to a spouse who maybe is struggling with porn, like all these different angles.
Speaker 2:Educators who are struggling with kids in their class who don't know how to handle their devices. So all these audiences because technology is a bit of an equal opportunity destroyer at times. So that's a long-winded backstory, but I think all of it just adds color and context to sort of the last 20 or so years and why I feel so passionate about this. It was my own issue. I've got my own kids. I'm just watching so many parts of our world falling prey to the lie that everything technology is better and it's just not that everything technology is better, and it's just not.
Speaker 1:One of the issues coming up is sextortion. How would you define this term?
Speaker 2:As a transaction. Sextortion is when somebody gets access to compromising digital information about us, mostly inappropriate or explicit videos or images that we have sent because we've believed that somebody was good and was going to have an exchange with us. So they lured us into sending something right. We sent that thing, whatever, and then we discovered that that person who made me a promise is a criminal network called the Yahoo Boys over in Western Africa, for example, which is pretty common. I'll talk about that in just a minute. And now they're extorting me, promising or threatening, I guess, to send that information, that compromising information, to people that I know and love. They've already done all their research on my profile. They know who my family is. They start name dropping, they start talking about where I'm going to college or if I'm a teenager, or scholarship I want to get, I want to go. So they're going to send it to my coaches. Like all these things prey on our fears in order to send money, and that's so. Extortion right is using leverage over someone to get financial resources out of them or something out of them. Right is sextortion because it's attached to an explicit piece of information that they have with us that we, out of shame, don't want anyone to see, and so they threaten, and we send money, and it goes on and on and on. That's the transactional part of it, like that's what it is sort of by definition. Well, over 90% of the time that sextortion occurs, it is a young male, a man of some kind. That is the one that's being sextorted, that's the victim, because this is primarily what I'll call a limbic system issue. So this gets into the why. There's a neurological reason why men, young men, teen boys, are more vulnerable to the issue of sextortion than others, right?
Speaker 2:So our brains have three functional areas, drew, as I'm sure, just in dealing with addiction and pornography and other issues, these are topics that your audience, listeners, those who have taken your course, are probably at least loosely familiar with. Right, we have three functional areas. If I could just summarize them, we have the part of the brain that keeps us alive, the part of the brain that wants us to stay connected to others, like our species, and then the part that is thinking and processing and analyzing and making logical decisions, right? So? Reptilian, limbic and neocortex. Those are the three parts. Now, fortunately, the reptilian part of our brain is just working all the time, we don't have to think much about it, I don't have to tell my brain to keep my heart beating, I don't have to tell my brain to release neurochemicals to do whatever, right.
Speaker 2:But then there's that part of the brain, the limbic system, that is a mammalian. Stronger in mammals that want to be around others like them, right, so pods, groups of animals in the animal world. But for us humans, right. And this is the part of the brain that, for teens during adolescence, explodes with activity. Right, reptilians always been there, but there's an explosion of relational desire, connection. Where do I belong? Who are my friends? Who do I want to hang out with? This is why young people press away from their parents and press toward their peers because of limbic activity, and that's a good thing. We want to be connected to others. There's a relational part of being a human that's better for us both professionally, personally. We need to be connected to others and that's the part that's on fire during adolescence.
Speaker 2:And it's also the part of the brain where our dopamine reward system lives. Right, all of these impulses, right, it's where fight or flight or freeze, all of those impulses, those feelings. That's the feeling center of the brain and because, kind of anciently look at us as our sort of createdness, however long you think that is. We feel things and act a whole lot faster than we think about things logically right. So we respond to our feelings because in a fight or flight, sort of, am I going to die or live in this situation, I think God made us to want to feel and respond quickly to things, right. So there's a long-winded way of saying our feelings often cause actions long before we've thought about the logic or the goodness in those actions. And this is where sextortion becomes so toxic, because if somebody whether it's a hot female or whoever it is you think that that person is going to send you something that is going to charge up your dopamine reward system and you're motivated to get that, you'll send something long before you've thought about whether it's a good idea. Like I said, it's 95% males because when it comes to the typical scheme, it's typically somebody pretending to be a hot female of some kind. I'm stereotyping a little bit. These are just the cases, right. As I talked to, nick make the national center for missing and exploited children or law enforcement. This is the typical transaction, but it doesn't always have to be this way, because if they can see things in your profile, then they will customize the lure according to who you are. And these networks these are criminal networks.
Speaker 2:Telegram is an app that I'm sure some of your listeners are familiar with, but those who are watching this? Telegram has been in the news recently because it is an end-to-end encrypted, basically criminal, network of information because nobody sees anything into it. There's all kinds of child sexual abuse material and illegal content that is being shared in there all the time, all over the world, and so it's under a lot of scrutiny right now for not doing its part to remove, once it even knows about it, to remove this content. And the reason I'm sharing that is because these criminal networks that I'm referring to Drew, literally networks of people that exist in order to identify vulnerable, primarily American teens and young men, because we're on our devices all the time. There are playbooks 100, 150, 200 page playbooks that give step-by-step instructions as to how to carry out a sextortion transaction that are shared all over on Telegram and all these other encrypted networks that are out there.
Speaker 2:What to say, how to say it, what actions to take Now with AI, what to do with images, how you can fake voices so much that you can do with deep fakes, right To pretend to be somebody and then to scan someone's profile and see where their friends are and threaten and do a countdown in the DMs to threat, right. It's all based on fear. If you can get somebody's cortisol fear response to kick in, they'll do almost anything because the brain doesn't want to live in fear, it wants to get out and get relief, and so if you think relief is sending money, then that's exactly what you'll do. Now, that's not what you should do, but that's what the brain wants to do. So it's a long setup to the issue, but I think again, it's important to understand what and why, so that we can step back and go whoa, whoa, limbic system Pause. Let me think about what's about to happen and do something different.
Speaker 1:And for me it was really helpful to hear a specific example of how that can play out. Can you tell the story of what happened to Jordan DeMay?
Speaker 2:I'm in Michigan and Jordan is a story that many people around the country, not just in Michigan now, are aware of Drew because of what has happened sort of in the wake of Jordan's story. So Jordan was a senior in high school football player, homecoming King. He's a great guy with tons of potential, right, and knew he was going to college right, had great loving parents, right. I know his father, john, who actually had done a lot of the things that we teach around protecting kids and, you know, having all the right conversations and all those kinds of things. And one night on Instagram received a message from somebody who kind of looked like a friend, convinced him that he was someone he could trust. And Jordan sent a compromising video and within three or so hours had felt so much just pressure. They were extorting him for money, they were threatening him with all kinds of actions around what was going to be shared. They did all the typical things that are in these playbooks counting down, telling him it doesn't matter if he dies, it doesn't matter, we just pay us, pay us and Jordan ended up dying by suicide that night, like within three hours, kind of start to end, of this sextortion scheme from taking place.
Speaker 2:They were actually able to identify three individuals who were a part of this. Two of them are brothers and they were from a network called the Yahoo Boys. They primarily operate out of Nigeria. They're in Western Africa, but they're all over and they were able to extradite them. This is what's unique about this story where they found them. The FBI extradited them to the United States. Two of them, I think it's been recently. The brothers were sentenced to 17 years in prison and I know that because the federal court where it happened is here in my hometown, here in Michigan. I've met John, his father, know John and now we're in kind of a connection with each other, trying to do more in this space to raise awareness.
Speaker 2:Obviously a tragic story, but it's not an uncommon story right now. Drew, that's the worst possible outcome. I'm glad that they identified and put him in prison, but that doesn't bring Jordan back. That's actually quite rare. That hasn't happened in any of the other documented sextortion schemes Gavin and Walker and others. If you were to, you were to find them. You know representative Guffey down in South Carolina whose son was sextorted, and same same outcome. Right, they haven't found them.
Speaker 2:So on the you know other side of that, there's sometimes a glimmer of hope where we can stop the transaction. Literally, people will be listening to this anytime, but three weeks prior to this conversation that you and I are having, I received a frantic message from someone in my community whose son had slipped into a sextortion scheme. They were right in the middle of it and they wanted to know exactly what to do, and that's where I think you had found what we had written about this. There are ways to prevent this from happening. Right, just in terms of guarding our own privacy and steps that we can take. Again, whether you're 14 or 35 or whatever, right, there's some steps that we can take to prevent this issue. Also, just kind of understanding the issue, like we've talked about here.
Speaker 2:But then let's say it happens for whatever reason it happens, there's also things that you need to do in that moment. Also, things like I worked with this father and his son on, which is specifically to cut off conversations immediately. Like you cut off the conversation right then and there, no matter what they're threatening. You cut it off Because what's the worst that can happen Right now? They're preying on fears. What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen Right now, they're preying on fears. What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is they could send it, they could follow through on the threat, right.
Speaker 2:But now we have, I think, as a society, a bit of plausible deniability, right, because of generative AI and because of deep fakes and because of these things that can be used against us, you kind of have the yeah, that's not me. I mean this will sound sort of like a double standard. Am I telling people to lie if that's what happens? No, but I'm just saying that I think, as a society, the fact that somebody has something inappropriate shared about them with others sadly isn't as big of a shock as it used to be when you step back and think about it. That's really what I'm trying to communicate here. But in the moment, the fear is I don't want that to happen. Right, your cortisol is making your decisions, but when you step back and go, wait a minute this is what I used to do at Ernst Young, right, when I was in risk consulting you always asked in a situation what's the worst that could happen, and then you put controls in place to get that back from the worst to the. This is an acceptable outcome and I think that's what we have to do here, what's the worst that can happen. So we always tell and this is based on law enforcement and other counsel you always stop.
Speaker 2:You never pay a penny, no matter what they've threatened, you don't pay and you wait them out. Because here's what's probably going on. They probably sent out a hundred random messages right in order to identify 10 who flinch and within the 10, they're looking for one that will pay up. To use a fishing analogy, right In that moment there's likely a number of individuals who are quote on the hook at that point in time and all they care about is the money. They're going to focus on the person that's paying attention to them and seems to be reacting, who's the most afraid, who's the one that's engaging, and they will quickly move on. Most times I can't promise any outcome, but they'll quickly move on if you're not cooperative, because time is money to them.
Speaker 2:Now, it sounds so transactional at that point, but it is. That's why I'm trying to get the conversation into the thinking part of the brain and get it out of the feeling part of the brain, and when you get to the thinking part, you're like well, no, I'm not sending you anything, just go away, focus on someone else, you block them, you stop, right. You take screenshots of everything. You don't send them any money. You report them through whatever app you happen to be in and then you delete everything that's there, right? And then, if you are connected to anybody say a significant other or anybody else you make sure all of their accounts are private too, so they're not dragged into this, that their information can't be weaponized against them in some way because of their association with you.
Speaker 2:I tell parents it's sometimes a good idea just to delete their kid's account. I don't care what history you've got on Snapchat or Instagram or whatever. Delete the account and start over Again. Weigh the risk, right. Weigh it. I would rather you just start fresh than risk keeping that account around, right? Sometimes they've got your phone number, so you change your phone number. These are things, right? You can share in the show notes with these 10 specific steps right, that you can take in that moment, because you need to engage the thinking part and get out of the feeling part and follow the checklist.
Speaker 1:Right and Chris, you have put together some really great checklists and an article on the Protect Young Eyes website, so I'm going to share the link to that as well. Some of the men in our community are specifically struggling with the temptation to send naked pictures of themselves or to get onto a webcam conversation where they are on a live video and they have this unwanted behavior that they really want to overcome, and yet it just feels irresistible to be sharing their bodies and to be looking at the bodies of others, live or through images. My heart really breaks for these guys. What counsel or advice would you give to somebody who's putting themselves at risk of being sextorted?
Speaker 2:give to somebody who's putting themselves at risk of being sextorted. Well, you're speaking my language, which is why it was important to kind of lay out that history of where I've come from, because every single time we get online, whether you're just a participant in something or a parent in something or whatever, there's a risk that you have to be thinking about, right Again, I just think it's always helpful, before you click on something, to ask the question what could go wrong? What could go wrong? Let me say it again, what could go wrong? And if you come to the conclusion that the worst possible outcome has a probability that you're not comfortable with, then you have to accept the risk that comes with that.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing about the quote the internet, right, this worldwide web. We don't even talk about the three letters, the WWW, anymore because they're not necessary, but like let's never forget, like when I'm speaking to kids and teens and we do presentations all over, like we remind them that every single thing you do on a device has three letters World Wide Web, it was named. The thing that we have to consider every single time we get online that we're connected to the world in some way and you can feel invincible and you can feel like you don't have to worry about that anymore when you're an adult, but it doesn't change the fact you're still connected to a lot of people who really don't care about you. You're connected to a lot of places that weren't designed with your uniqueness, the awesome ways in which God made you and some of the unfortunate vulnerabilities that we have. I guess what I would say is, if that's the temptation, then there's three ways to go about it. Right, there's the pray it away. There's a spiritual component here and, yes, we do pray against the powers of darkness that are all around us. Right, but you can't pray away some of these problems. It's necessary, but you can't do that alone. We also have to bring in both relational and technical that's like the three-pronged powerhouse here against these things and just constantly be surrounding ourselves with individuals who are going to help us.
Speaker 2:Ask the what could go wrong question, to engage the thinking part of our brain before we go to a spot where we're only listening to the feeling part of our brain, because we are really bad governors for our own behavior, right, why? Because we're feelings driven and there's survival reason for that. But everything online, every social media platform, everything that we love about being online is based on our feelings, right? It's based on a feature that maximizes the feeling we get out of it, right? So there's a reason why Snapchat and Instagram release the features that they do.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why webcams pull on us the way that we do, because they're tapping into ancient created things that we're supposed to be attracted to, that we're supposed to want. We're supposed to want to see things that excite us sexually. We're supposed to want to be connected to others like us and, deep down, we're supposed to be connected to others, but for the right reasons. Right? Is it a loneliness that's pulling us into those sorts of spaces? Because technology will do a really good job of solving that for you. So that's where the why and the feeling, all these things are interrelated. We are complex beings. We are mind, body and spirit. You can't just tackle it by saying, well, I'm not going to go there, I'm going to filter that out. Well, that's a technical part of it, yes, but there's always a way around that. So who's the logical voice, when your feelings are out of control, to speak into that, right? So it's just, it's kind of all of those things. It was a long-winded way to answer your question, because it's a complex issue and every person is going to have sort of their own reasons why they're drawn to those places, why they're drawn to those places, which is why your platform exists to give you know men, a safe spot to unpack all the reasons why we feel and do the things that we do, which is just a awesome but complicated mess of thread that you got to undo one little thread at a time. But I know I tend to live sort of in that camp and this is what we tell parents all the time. Right, there's a spiritual component and, yes, we pray for the hearts of our kiddos, or we pray for our own hearts to be directed in the way that they should go, but we've got to stack a bunch of practical things on top of that, otherwise the opportunities are always going to be there. Yeah, yeah, can you say a little bit more about how you help parents navigate these issues? Information that we share about Our most popular presentation is Digital Discernment, the Five Habits of a Tech-Ready Home.
Speaker 2:After hundreds of these and all over the world, there are certain habits that, when those are done consistently and persistently, you tend to have young people who learn how to use technology in good, positive, god-honoring ways. It's modeling the right behaviors, pursuing authentic connection, encouraging work and play, delaying addictive technology and diligently preventing harm. And there are like micro tactics in each of those five sort of macro habits that we talk about, just to give parents really practical things that they can do. So that's our live presentations. We also have an on-demand version of that that parents can take, because everybody can come to a live talk or schools can't always bring us in, so that's what can be done. But we have a massive amount of free information, self-help kind of information. That's how you found us right In this post. We have app reviews, device reviews, how to set things up, how to put some of those layers of protection in place, right, some of the software and hardware that works right. So that's the learning part, right. So you need to be live, on-demand, self-directed. All of that is available and that's on our website, protectyoungeyescom. Then we also have a community. So, like you right, the power of community of relating Some of these issues are difficult.
Speaker 2:You know, technology is not a simple thing to unwind in the lives of our kids, right, it's on their school issued devices, it's on the thing that we just want to know where they are at their friend's house, yet it also gives them access to all these other things. How do we control that? Right? So we have a community called the table. We want people to come to the table to have these conversations. We built this. It's not a Facebook group. It's not any kind of Instagram thread or anything. It's our own private community that we've built. That we own.
Speaker 2:We don't have to put little asterisks on things like we do on Instagram when you talk about certain topics.
Speaker 2:I actually got banned for three months on Instagram because of a post I did specifically on sextortion and specifically on a case where it wasn't Jordan's case, specifically his situation, but I said the word suicide in the reel that I made for Instagram, and I was restricted for three months where I wasn't allowed to do collaborations because I said a word that is against their community guidelines.
Speaker 2:Right, it's that kind of nonsense, right? Your Instagram is the reason Jordan DeMay is no longer with us and yet they won't allow me to educate parents and others on this issue. The irony there is just so sickening. But that's why we built our own community, because a lot of these other digital spaces have a whole different agenda than we do. So it's through those two primary sort of ways that we want to educate and equip and make sure that when you've got hard questions, you don't know what a router is or what it's good for, or what screen time is on an iPhone which is good for 14-year-olds and 40-year-olds, right to filter out some stuff. Then we want to be a spot where you can get some of that help.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome so you can learn more at protectyoungeyescom, and there is a wealth of resources and community and, chris, I'm really excited about what you've built For you personally. What is your favorite thing about freedom from porn?
Speaker 2:It's having my brain back right. If I could just be real practical for a minute. You know it's because, man, I can look back on things again and the moment you see it's so fuzzy you just don't see the world the way that it's supposed to be seen, right. I remember a very specific moment One of my children I won't say any more specifics, but one of my children. I was specifically in charge of giving this child a bath, their evening bath. They were an infant and I remember being annoyed because I would rather have been looking at porn, and in the moment I didn't really realize what that meant.
Speaker 2:I was just annoyed because porn is a selfish bastard. It only wants your full attention, it only wants all of you, emotionally, psychologically, relationally, spiritually, if you can call it. It wants every piece of that, the brain right, and I was willing to trade that time with a child, at least in my head. I wanted to right. And so there's a clarity that comes from things. When you remove that supercharged monster, not that I mean the impulses are right when they're directed in honorable ways, but when it's supercharged and weaponized against us, it does a lot of bad things to our decision-making. So, man, there's a clarity. There's a. You know just obviously the freedom. Use that word, but I think that's, that's a part of it. You cannot be your full max, thriving self while also looking at pornography. It's impossible.
Speaker 1:And, on the other hand, it is possible to thrive and to be your authentic self, also to be safe online. So thank you for helping us do that.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. I know not everyone that listens is a parent, but chances are whether it's helpful for you which I hope some of it is for those listening or watching. I also bet that many of you listening or watching, even without children of your own have young people who you can influence, and sometimes the best teacher for us is to be a teacher for others right, and so learn and maybe share with nephews or nieces or others right that are within your circle of influence, and I think some of that splashes back on us to help our own digital habits to go. Yep, I'm motivated to choose differently because I want that for them too. So there you go.
Speaker 1:Chris, thank you so much, and, guys, I would highly recommend protectyoungeyescom. Always remember you are God's beloved son. In you. He is well-pleased.
