One of the most persistent myths promoted by LGBT advocates is that sexual orientation is fixed and cannot change. Research and clinical experience suggest otherwise.
In this episode of The Dr. J Show, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse interviews Dr. Floyd Godfrey, a clinical sexologist and Christian counselor with decades of experience helping individuals overcome pornography addiction, unwanted same-sex attraction, and sexualized attachments. Dr. Godfrey explains how many of these issues stem from emotional wounds and disrupted attachment patterns—conditions that are treatable through compassionate, evidence-based therapy.
The discussion explores the concept of sex addiction as an intimacy attachment disorder, the development of the arousal template, and the role that trauma and early relational dynamics play in shaping sexual behaviors. It also contrasts mainstream therapeutic approaches with those rooted in a biblical worldview, showing that faith and science are not at odds when it comes to human sexuality.
Dr. Floyd Godfrey is a seasoned Mental Health Consultant, Speaker, and Educator with over two decades of clinical experience. He offers consulting services to individuals, families, and professionals, addressing complex issues related to mental health and human sexuality. Dr. Godfrey holds credentials as a Clinical Sexologist, Certified Sex Addiction Specialist Supervisor, Certified Christian Counselor, and Certified Mental Health Coach. His educational background includes degrees from Arizona State University, Ottawa University, and the International Institute for Clinical Sexology. Early in his career, he worked at Tempe Social Services with children and facilitated after-school programming, which deepened his understanding of family dynamics and child development. Building on this experience, Dr. Godfrey dedicated over 20 years to developing comprehensive sexual addiction programming for various populations, including adults, couples, young adults, and adolescents. His approach integrates a biblical worldview, blending academic rigor with practical expertise to create impactful interventions for mental health and human sexuality concerns.
00:00 – Introduction 00:00
02:00 – Introduction to Dr. Floyd Godfrey
07:03 – Understanding Sexual Addiction
10:45 – The Role of Attactment
16:43 – Contrasting Approaches to Sexual Issues
22:59 – The Arousal Template Explained
28:37 – The Confusion of Identity & Sexual Orientation
35:37 – Mainstream Psychology
Transcript
(Please note the transcript is auto-generated and likely contains errors)
00:00:01:11 – 00:00:27:03
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Can people change their patterns of sexual attraction and behavior? This question is becoming more contested every day. New South Wales and Australia recently banned any efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity, including prayer. Here in the United States, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider a challenge to a Colorado law that bans what it calls, quote, conversion therapy.
00:00:27:06 – 00:00:51:19
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Whatever answer you may give, the fact is that many men and women around the world, for a variety of reasons, passionately hope that the answer to this question is yes. Changing sexual attractions and behavior is possible. Hi everyone, I’m Doctor Jennifer Roback Moors, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
00:00:51:21 – 00:01:16:12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
What can people make lasting changes in their patterns of sexual attraction and behavior? And how do these patterns form in the first place? Can therapists help? And if so, how? Today, I’m delighted to have a guest who can help us with these important questions. Doctor Floyd Godfrey is a clinical sexologist, board certified Christian counselor, and a certified sex addiction specialist.
00:01:16:14 – 00:02:00:14
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
He has over 20 years of experience helping people address pornography addiction, intimacy disorders, gender confusion, and unwanted sexualized attachments. Doctor Godfrey equips churches, therapists, families, and individual clients to navigate the complex intersections of sexuality, trauma, and spiritual identity. I know you’re going to be fascinated by this conversation, and you’ll want to share it with your friends.
00:02:00:16 – 00:02:04:17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Doctor Floyd Godfrey, welcome to the doctor J. Show.
00:02:04:19 – 00:02:07:11
Floyd Godfrey
Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.
00:02:07:14 – 00:02:24:01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Well, you know, you and I met at a meeting of the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice over in Poland. And I was not familiar with you and your work. And I guess that’s one of the virtues of a conference like that is you meet people from different disciplines and different parts of the world and so on and so forth.
00:02:24:04 – 00:02:46:09
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
But you, your main, one of your main stage presentations was on the science of sex addiction. And I found that to be very fascinating. So let’s we’re going to start with that. First tell us a little bit about your professional background. And then give us some of your highlights about how you view sex addiction and how you treat it.
00:02:46:12 – 00:03:15:04
Floyd Godfrey
Sure. You bet. Professional background I, I was a licensed clinician for 23 years. Working with people who had all kinds of sexual issues. Working in social services for about 30 years. My, degree is in psychology, professional counseling. And then I have a doctoral degree in, sexology, clinical clinical sexology. So, I guess a little historical background.
00:03:15:04 – 00:03:44:18
Floyd Godfrey
I started I went into the counseling field. I wanted to work with families and kids. I just I’ve always loved kids and started working with, children, doing play therapy and experiential techniques and and whatnot. But, but of course, with my degree and my experience, I had several priests and, and some other religious leaders referring clients to me because they didn’t know where else to send them.
00:03:44:18 – 00:04:05:21
Floyd Godfrey
They knew I was faith based and wanted to send clients who might have been struggling with a pornography addiction or a same sex attraction, or some sexual confusion piece. And of course, I knew a lot about that topic, and so I would have a lot of success with those clients. They would do quite well, and they would go back and tell their priest or their, their pastor.
00:04:05:21 – 00:04:29:28
Floyd Godfrey
And and before I knew it, that was my full time caseload. So after a while, that’s all I was doing. Was was sex a logical issues? So, 23 years of that, then we developed a sexual addiction, program at the office there. We’ve served about 1600 clients men, their wives, who have struggled with that and developed a youth program and a young adult program.
00:04:29:28 – 00:04:39:06
Floyd Godfrey
And so we’ve helped a lot of a lot of people with a lot of experience, working with, especially sexual addiction and what that looks like.
00:04:39:08 – 00:04:42:06
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so, so don’t you have a degree in sexology?
00:04:42:08 – 00:04:46:24
Floyd Godfrey
I do a my doctoral degree is in human sexuality or clinical sexology.
00:04:46:27 – 00:05:00:14
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Okay. And so when you describe the field of sexology, I have a vision of Alfred Kinsey or something, you know. So why don’t you just tell us a little bit what does that field encompass? What does it mean to have a doctorate in that field?
00:05:00:17 – 00:05:21:27
Floyd Godfrey
Yeah. Well, you’re not not too far off with that. The field is quite liberal. There’s a lot of liberal ideas in the field of sexology and the study, and it’s a, generally speaking, the study of human sexuality. So, so we would be working with, issues related to, for example, sexual abuse and victims of abuse. We’d be working with offenders.
00:05:21:27 – 00:05:47:08
Floyd Godfrey
And what dynamics create an offender profile. And you’d be working with people who are confused about their gender and have transgender sort of confusion, or you’d be working with people who had a sexual addiction or compulsive sexual behaviors or, you know, so all aspects sex therapy, sexual dysfunction, all aspects of human sexuality are really encompassed within the field of sexology.
00:05:47:10 – 00:06:02:02
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Okay. All right. And so, that that gives us a range of it and kind of how you, it sounds like you kind of backed your way into it. It wasn’t really your plan at first. Counseling with your first love and your caseload just.
00:06:02:05 – 00:06:02:14
Floyd Godfrey
Yeah, I.
00:06:02:14 – 00:06:03:00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Think it.
00:06:03:07 – 00:06:30:11
Floyd Godfrey
God sort of opened the doors and the floodgates opened. And I was able to help people in that way. And, and of course, I have a love I worked with so many, I probably after a few hundred adults, men who had sexual addictions ranging from pornography to prostitution, all kinds of things. Story after story telling me, I wish I had more information when I was a teenager.
00:06:30:11 – 00:06:47:28
Floyd Godfrey
I wish that when I was younger, somebody had stepped in to guide me. And so that really opened my interest as well. And working with young men and teenagers who are struggling. If we can nip it in the bud before it becomes so out of control or so problematic.
00:06:48:01 – 00:07:00:06
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
No. Well, you know, I have your book that you sent me your workbook, and at some point we’re going to talk about this because this is the outgrowth of that work. It sounds like that’s where this all came from.
00:07:00:06 – 00:07:02:11
Floyd Godfrey
But yes, that was one aspect.
00:07:02:14 – 00:07:27:10
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yes yes yes. But but I really like to start with sex addiction though, you know, because the way you describe the process of sexual addiction. And then how that process, how that addictive process plays into a number of other things that have different labels, but that there’s some there’s some commonality amongst a lot of these issues. So just give us your the brief rundown on how you think about sexual addiction.
00:07:27:13 – 00:07:50:26
Floyd Godfrey
I would think of sexual addiction as an intimacy attachment disorder. So it’s unlike any other addiction. You know, you might think of alcohol addiction or you might think of gambling addiction problems like that. And of course, there’s addictive components to it. The areas of the brain rewire. And so your prefrontal cortex will rewire. And it has some major changes there.
00:07:50:26 – 00:08:19:08
Floyd Godfrey
Doctor Emin has done some good scans on, you know, people who compulsively use pornography and how it rewires the brain and creates different, symptoms for that. But generally speaking, there are going to be attachment issues related underneath to the addiction. So attachment wounds or attachment deficits, difficulties attaching. And that’s one common thread that weaves through every sexual addict story.
00:08:19:10 – 00:08:42:20
Floyd Godfrey
They had they had trouble connecting with their parents, or they had trouble connecting with their friends, or they had trouble connecting at work or, or, or disruptions where they had wounds, you know, they might have been wounded in relationships. And so the sexual addiction really becomes a sideways effort of the brain to reconnect. It’s trying, you know, an attachment is wired in to us by God.
00:08:42:21 – 00:09:07:06
Floyd Godfrey
God wired to be attached, to connect with one another and to bond. So when those bonds are disrupted, the brain is still seeking a way to connect. And pornography or sexual addiction happens to be a very, toxic form of sort of, you know, trying to connect your brain, trying to connect.
00:09:07:08 – 00:09:16:07
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
There’s an attempt to do something good, but it’s so twisted. It’s so distorted that it it can’t do the job. And so you just keep doing more of it. And then the the addictive process kicks.
00:09:16:07 – 00:09:18:12
Floyd Godfrey
In a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:18:14 – 00:09:38:06
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Do you know, it’s interesting to me. Not long ago, I interviewed a psychiatrist and she and I were talking about, attachment. And honestly, Floyd, the first way that I got into all of this material on the family was way back when, when we adopted a little boy from a Romanian orphanage. And so. Yeah. Right. Your eyes go.
00:09:38:06 – 00:10:01:12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Okay. Like, like we had no idea what we were getting into in 1991. And, you know, I’m an economist, not a therapist. My husband’s an engineer. You know, we were not prepared at all, but but we learned very quickly just how serious it was, what had happened to him, you know, and just how fundamental it is, what the mother does with with the baby.
00:10:01:14 – 00:10:07:27
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And so, this is not the time to talk about Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, unless you want to, unless you want to.
00:10:07:28 – 00:10:30:12
Floyd Godfrey
Well, it it definitely applies. That was groundbreaking work. You know, Ainsworth and Bowlby talking about how the need for attachment will drives a person to all kinds of places because ultimately you have to bond you. It’s it’s DNA. It’s wired into you. It’s God’s designed for you to bond. So yeah, it was fantastic work.
00:10:30:14 – 00:10:52:10
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right? Right. You know, in the Bible it says it’s not good for man to be alone. My rewording of that is it’s not even possible for a man to be alone, you know? And the baby, it’s not even possible for the baby to be alone. So it’s a very fundamental reality. And so. So what would be what would be the kind of story that you would hear from somebody, you know, somebody comes into you, they’re presenting problem.
00:10:52:10 – 00:11:06:09
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Maybe is pornography addiction or sex addiction or something. And you talk with them for a while and you discover this attachment story. What kinds of stories would you hear from people that would be maybe typical or composite story?
00:11:06:11 – 00:11:34:08
Floyd Godfrey
Yes. Well, there’s always a range of stories and the ways of disrupting attachment can I can be a thousand fold, you know, so I’ve heard stories from men and young men where they were sexually abused, and it caused such a reaction from them that they were afraid to connect. They don’t know how to connect or, you know, they they’re afraid of romantic relationships because of abuse that occurred.
00:11:34:10 – 00:12:01:01
Floyd Godfrey
I’ve also talked to men and young men who remember growing up and then were bullied. They never fit in. They never had a group of friends. They never had a place where they felt like they were just accepted for who they were. And sometimes even those those stories, even, you know, there were even in church, church communities or schools, you know, scouting places where kids are supposed to connect and they and they don’t.
00:12:01:03 – 00:12:26:26
Floyd Godfrey
That’s another aspect of bonding. We don’t always recognize. We often think of bonding as with a person. And, something I like that, Doctor Clark said when I was doing my dissertation is that the need to belong is the greatest motivator of human behavior. And this need to to belong in community. And it’s almost like a, a bonding factor that’s communal.
00:12:27:00 – 00:12:50:10
Floyd Godfrey
And in other countries where mothers and fathers are a little less involved in the community is more involved. African tribes, some of the African tribes, for example, the need to belong to the tribe is essential for survival. So if you just pull that back and you look at U.S, Canadian cultures, North American cultures, kids need to belong in school.
00:12:50:10 – 00:13:16:06
Floyd Godfrey
They need to have a place where they fit in, families, where they fit in a church community where they fit in. So they need to belong. I’ve heard a lot of stories about feeling misfit, not feeling like they fit in there. Sometimes disruption in marriages where? Where the the husband, usually the addict is the husband and he’s struggling and doesn’t know how to connect with his wife, can’t connect with her well, and it starts to lead him in other places.
00:13:16:08 – 00:13:39:22
Floyd Godfrey
And then you discover he never connected with women, ever. Well, and, so so it could be all kinds of stories from ranging from abuse, manipulation to not ever fitting in to, I’ve also heard stories of, of illnesses. You know, a kid grows up and he or she is sick all the time, struggling. And so they don’t have a chance to fit in.
00:13:39:22 – 00:14:09:22
Floyd Godfrey
They don’t have a chance to go play. They don’t have a a, you know, or people are looking down on them and not not bringing them into, the group or mom didn’t want the child. You know, kids pick up on these things and leave them with a longing, an ever unsaturated need to connect, a hunger, boys whose dad left sometimes because he had to Vietnam or something like that.
00:14:09:22 – 00:14:30:17
Floyd Godfrey
Or because dad died. He was killed. Or sometimes, in some cases, dad didn’t even care. You know, he didn’t want kids. He didn’t. In any case, the child feels that, and the longing persists and the longing doesn’t go away. And the longing is looking for resolution. And suddenly you have, you know, a teenage girl who that didn’t even want kids.
00:14:30:17 – 00:14:57:22
Floyd Godfrey
And she’s starved. She’s like boy hungry, and she’s all over the place with all the boys. And, so you can usually, pin some of these compulsive behaviors back to emotional roots. And that’s one thing that I like to teach the clinicians when I’m training them, the what people are attracted to in their compulsive behaviors, what they’re looking at, who they’re looking at, who they do things with in their fantasies.
00:14:57:25 – 00:15:21:18
Floyd Godfrey
These are all related to emotional underpinnings. There’s always an emotional, foundation under there that created this sexual compulsion. So what does it tell you? You know, what is the fantasy telling you about the client and who they are and what they’re struggling with? So it’s really ultimately sex addiction is an intimacy attachment disorder.
00:15:21:21 – 00:15:46:01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
That’s very interesting to me. And the the meeting where we were was focused a lot on, but not exclusively on, people dealing with unwanted same sex attraction and ways of assisting those people. But what what was so interesting to me about your presentation is that you were looking not simply at that issue. That’s one issue among many which have a kind of common root.
00:15:46:03 – 00:16:09:20
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And I’ve noticed our friends, I don’t know if you know, this group of people, the people in, in who were based in Kansas City, desert streams, Living Waters and Minsky and those guys, that’s a 40 year long ministry. And, I thought that was a thing for people with same sex attraction. But he said, really, in their groups, it’s about a third of the people who are dealing with same sex attraction.
00:16:09:20 – 00:16:18:00
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
The others are dealing with pornography or sex addictions or these other things. So that’s why I was so interested in your in your analysis.
00:16:18:03 – 00:16:18:25
Floyd Godfrey
00:16:18:27 – 00:16:38:18
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
The way the modern psychology profession deals with these issues is not that, you know, I mean, you’re you’re way of looking at it is that there’s a there’s a common thread with a lot of the sexual issues. But it doesn’t have to do with people being born that way. Sexual orientation doesn’t get you very far in understanding it.
00:16:38:18 – 00:16:52:02
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And the genetic part isn’t that interesting. You’re you’re looking at something very different. Would you spend some time contrasting your approach with what I guess you’d call mainstream or I don’t know what you’d call it. You call.
00:16:52:02 – 00:16:52:29
Floyd Godfrey
It a you.
00:16:52:29 – 00:16:55:23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Know what I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about. Yeah.
00:16:55:26 – 00:17:21:07
Floyd Godfrey
Well, you know, some of the approach to some of these sexual issues really depends on the organization you affiliate with. So, some of the worst outcomes, would be with working with sex offenders, because the entire approach is just stop it. You know, you should stop it. You can’t you can’t offend people. You can’t offend against children, you can’t cross that line.
00:17:21:12 – 00:17:53:00
Floyd Godfrey
And so everything in the therapy mandated by the court is just to stop the behaviors. So so then the tragedy is that you never address any underlying emotional issues that created those, those attractions or those feelings or the if you look at Doctor Patrick Carnes work with eTap, the eTap organization, he’s written for years about how the arousal template is developed over time, from childhood experiences, from emotional experiences, from psychological dynamics, family dynamics.
00:17:53:02 – 00:18:08:07
Floyd Godfrey
There’s some good research on that. So if you if you have an offender, for example, and you never address the dynamics, the created that template, of course, he’s always going to struggle his whole life. And all you ever going to do is tell him to stop it. So, other organization.
00:18:08:09 – 00:18:12:24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Or incarcerate him, separate him from the public so that he doesn’t hurt anybody.
00:18:13:01 – 00:18:13:18
Floyd Godfrey
But yes.
00:18:13:25 – 00:18:15:22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
But that doesn’t get to the.
00:18:15:22 – 00:18:35:20
Floyd Godfrey
Problem. No, no. And so really, you have someone walking around in misery all the time. Whatever emotional attachment, wounds, deficits needs they have going on, they’re just walking around like a zombie and don’t even realize they these need. They’re like a pressure cooker. And it’s always happening and they’re always triggered and they’re always acting out. So you’ve got to address that.
00:18:35:20 – 00:19:03:11
Floyd Godfrey
I think some organizations like eTap do a better job. Also, Ace act with, Doug Weiss does a good job of talking about underlying emotional issues. They tend to talk about it more in the realm of pornography or sexual addiction than they do in other aspects of sexuality. And what are some of those root causes? But even then, some of the treatment modalities are just about stopping the use of pornography.
00:19:03:13 – 00:19:22:07
Floyd Godfrey
And I agree that’s good because it’s not it’s not healthy for you psychologically, mentally, spiritually it’s not good. So you do need to stop. But if you never address why it became compulsive, the emotional undercurrents, then the it’s always going to come back. At some point you’re going to get triggered and they’re going to relapse and they’re going to have some struggles and it’s going to come back.
00:19:22:07 – 00:19:51:06
Floyd Godfrey
So. So mainstream is a lot of just stop. And then but the other side of that coin is that much of mainstream now says don’t care. So it doesn’t matter. You know you pornography doesn’t matter. Affairs are common. You know pornography is not that big a deal. And so the other aspect of worldly counseling and non-biblical advice would be, you know, just don’t despair over it.
00:19:51:06 – 00:20:17:00
Floyd Godfrey
Don’t worry about it. You know, try your best, but don’t care about it. Well, that’s not healthy either. Some of the research about what I’m talking about is it’s these are not my ideas. These are things I have learned over three decades of working with different people and and then other colleagues professionally and other Christian counselors and psychologists and even some of the atheist colleagues I’ve had that have taught me some of these things.
00:20:17:02 – 00:20:37:09
Floyd Godfrey
And I just can’t understand sometimes why we’re not spending more focused, more time publicly talking about the emotional undercurrents that create some of these problems, because you could dissipate. You get that the compulsive nature of some of these problems would dissipate if you would focus on it.
00:20:37:12 – 00:20:56:23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And it’s odd to me that the fact that many of these behaviors that we’re not supposed to be judgmental about, but a compulsive behavior can’t be fun, you know, I mean, I don’t know how you could think that healthy or okay, even if you’re not thinking about in moral terms, you know, how could you, how can you how can you feel like that’s okay, where are we?
00:20:56:24 – 00:21:13:24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Where would the American Psychological Association stand with something like pornography addiction? I know I’m very familiar, of course, with what they have to say about same sex attraction and and their views about that and so on. But but what do they have to say about pornography addiction or compulsive sexual behavior?
00:21:14:01 – 00:21:36:22
Floyd Godfrey
Well, there’s a lot of debate going on about that. They’re trying to show that it’s not a problem. And you have a lot of infighting over that. You know, what’s whether it’s addictive or not addictive. The problem is the research every year comes out stronger and stronger, even down to the brain scans. You know, the same areas of the brain that will light up with cocaine use, light up with pornography use.
00:21:36:22 – 00:21:58:19
Floyd Godfrey
Right. And so, you know, you’re seeing some of that. And I think it’s getting harder and harder for them to say, no, it’s not. And then the Iqd, which is the international equivalent of the DSM for the American Psychological Association, has now classified it. Just a year or two ago, they classified, compulsive sexual behavior as a problem.
00:21:58:19 – 00:22:28:10
Floyd Godfrey
So so it’s it’s starting to move a direction. They just can’t deny that on some level it becomes highly addictive. And the other thing that that also that they’re catching up with it, Jennifer, is that the way pornography is produced now is not what it was 20 years ago. I mean, teenagers can view in ten minutes more content and graphic toxic material than I could have seen in ten years as a teenager.
00:22:28:10 – 00:22:41:15
Floyd Godfrey
Right. And so it’s highly, highly addictive. The dopamine spikes, the oxytocin spikes, watching pornography are very different than looking at a Playboy or something old fashioned like that.
00:22:41:18 – 00:23:16:12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
I see what you mean. So in other words, you can. But by looking at the just the physiology of how people react to it, you can already tell it’s more intense. It’s not. It’s not just a, over grossed out more. That’s not the point that that you can really tell that that’s true. You know, in some of these interviews that I’ve done with people who have journeyed away from, from an LGBT identity, one guy I talked with, he he attributed his the origins of, of same sex attraction for him seeing gay porn when he was eight years old.
00:23:16:18 – 00:23:16:27
Floyd Godfrey
Yes.
00:23:16:28 – 00:23:28:17
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And it scrambled his brain, you know, it’s like it’s like it just it it disrupted his development. And and now what? Based on what you’re telling me, it probably complicated his ability to attach to people properly.
00:23:28:20 – 00:23:29:13
Floyd Godfrey
Yes, yes.
00:23:29:18 – 00:23:33:01
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
In ways that an eight year old couldn’t sort out.
00:23:33:04 – 00:23:53:02
Floyd Godfrey
Yeah. I would suggest that this particular client, I don’t know who it was, but I would probably guess that he was already struggling a little bit. He might have been already on the edge of struggling with feeling like he had friends, or feeling like it was connected to men or his father, or feeling masculine. Something along those lines.
00:23:53:04 – 00:24:17:23
Floyd Godfrey
And then the pornography introduced into his mind a new off set, a new way of sort of finding some of that. And it clicked, and I moved that way. I’ve had many clients that way. The teenagers, you know, I run a teen age group for boys who are addicted compulsively using pornography. And I can’t tell you now, over the past five years, I’ll hear them say, Doctor Godfrey, I never was attracted to that.
00:24:17:25 – 00:24:32:09
Floyd Godfrey
And then I saw this and I couldn’t get out of my head. And then I got more curious. And it is definitely impacting their arousal template and what they’re attracted to by simply in surfing those images into their mind.
00:24:32:11 – 00:24:52:24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yes, yes. Let’s talk about the concept of an arousal template. Of people who follow this channel may have heard me converse a bit about this with Andrew Rodriguez, or some of our followers may follow Andrew also, you know, but that’s like the sum total of what I know about an arousal template. And, and my understanding is that it’s something that develops.
00:24:52:26 – 00:25:01:28
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
It’s not something you’re born with, you know, and so, yeah, just explain the idea of an arousal template and we’ll, we’ll see where that takes us.
00:25:01:28 – 00:25:25:16
Floyd Godfrey
Yeah. Again, Doctor Carnes is the one who talked about the arousal template and, really the easiest way to think of it, if I go to my computer and I want to type up a term paper for school, and I, open my word document, it defaults to a certain kind of document. And that’s what your brain is doing with the arousal template.
00:25:25:16 – 00:25:48:05
Floyd Godfrey
It’s defaulting to the original arousal point. So, if you consider that arousal is something that developed, attractions are something that are developed if you have an emotional pattern first. So so maybe if I just illustrate this for you, if I, if we have a young boy and he’s not getting any attention at home, dad is always working.
00:25:48:05 – 00:26:07:28
Floyd Godfrey
Maybe mom is not available to him and he’s always at school and he starts to become the class clown. And he he gets attention that way. And so he creates this this pattern, this emotional pattern. He gets attention being the class clown. It’s disruptive, but he does it anyway, goes home, doesn’t get attention. His needs are starved there.
00:26:07:28 – 00:26:31:05
Floyd Godfrey
So he goes back to get attention at school being the class clown. If if that persists, that’s what we would call an emotional pattern. If then you have in this boy’s life, perhaps an older teenage boy who inserts himself and gives the boy attention, and maybe they start some sex play or something happens. Inappropriate. The boy molests him something like that.
00:26:31:08 – 00:26:58:21
Floyd Godfrey
Now you interject into the dynamic a sexual arousal piece so the boys need for attention, for affection, and it gets injected with sexual activity. And this older boy. And so now he’s his brain is is seeing the attention connected to the sexual piece. And they interweave together. And now when he wants attention, he starts to feel sexual and maybe even sexual about this other boy.
00:26:58:23 – 00:27:29:04
Floyd Godfrey
The more he interacts with this other boy or when he starts to look at pornography, and reinforces that what’s now an arousal pattern, it’s not just an emotional pattern now. It’s an arousal pattern that imprinting of that arousal pattern, the injection of the sexuality into the emotional piece is the arousal template. So now what he’s originally aroused by is this older teenage boy or certain activity that becomes sort of his arousal template.
00:27:29:04 – 00:27:47:23
Floyd Godfrey
It’s a thing his brain will default back to as sort of remember, boring. And the more he, memorizes it, the more he repeats it, the more he looks at porn about it, the more imprinted it becomes, the more of a template it is and the harder it is to change. So sometimes people will come into my office and ask, how do I change this?
00:27:47:23 – 00:28:10:28
Floyd Godfrey
I want to change my arousal template. Well, it doesn’t exactly work like that because once you’ve memorized it, your brain memorizes something. How do you, memorize something? You you can definitely allow it to atrophy. You can forget that by focusing on something else. And that would be the goal. So if I’m going to marry my my beautiful bride, I’m going to focus on her.
00:28:11:00 – 00:28:37:19
Floyd Godfrey
I’m going to continue to, you know, be intimate with her and sexual with her and in appropriate ways and keep that pattern going. The more I do that, the more that imprints while the other is forgotten, then atrophies. You can’t really switch one for the other, though. And so an arousal template, very simply put, is the original arousal piece that gets imprinted in your mind, in your brain.
00:28:37:21 – 00:28:41:25
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And how does this compare with the concept of sexual orientation?
00:28:41:27 – 00:29:12:07
Floyd Godfrey
Yeah, there’s some overlap there. I really think that term is going to be retired soon. I hope, the real conflict comes into play, because activists would like to convince the scientific community and people at large that you’re just born with an arousal template, you’re born with this arousal, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And this is why there’s a thousand genders, you know, you can be this gender or that gender, because, no one is born that way.
00:29:12:13 – 00:29:42:26
Floyd Godfrey
You’re not born with an arousal template. The sexual orientation piece is where generally you, your attractions or your focus, your emotional focus would be. The problem there is that you do have people who have left the gay lifestyle, and then they marry into the opposite sex. And and so their orientation clearly has shifted or changed, you know, through through therapy, God’s grace, the things that they may have worked on over their lifespan.
00:29:42:28 – 00:30:03:06
Floyd Godfrey
So an arousal template is what you’re attracted to. A sexual orientation is generally the kinds of people, places, person that you’re attracted around. And they would generally say your identity is more around an orientation and how you identify orientation wise versus a sex attraction.
00:30:03:08 – 00:30:29:10
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yes, yes. The identity piece to me is the most problematic from a philosophical perspective and from a moral perspective. The idea that this is your idea, that who you’re attracted to is your identity is a true thing about you. But that doesn’t make it central to your identity. And I think a lot of the confusion and, discussion arguments within the Christian community is on exactly that point, right?
00:30:29:10 – 00:30:47:28
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Is that, it can you be a gay Christian? Well, you know, when when I know a lot of the people that I talk with here, that they don’t like that terminology, you know, they reject that terminology, that you’re you’re a Christian who happens to experience a certain set of feelings, but that’s not your identity. You know, they looked.
00:30:48:01 – 00:31:18:23
Floyd Godfrey
You know, we did a lot better job in the counseling community back in the 70s and 60s. We knew it was just a fact. You knew that when a boy was sexually abused, that one of the most prominent symptoms of that was his confusion about his sexual orientation and his attractions. Always. And so part of the counseling was how do you help him identify his identity, that that’s a feeling he’s having because of the abuse, not who he is.
00:31:18:25 – 00:31:40:07
Floyd Godfrey
And somehow we strayed away from some of that basic common sense. And instead of telling a child now that this is this is who you are, this is you, and you have attractions that have sort of taken things in a confusing direction. But that’s not who you are. And, and you can still pick up books that talk about, you know, working with kids who’ve been sexually abused.
00:31:40:14 – 00:32:02:11
Floyd Godfrey
And it’ll say in the book that confusion is one of the most common symptoms of having been sexually abused. And we just ignore that. We need to talk about it more with the kids, in my opinion, especially from a biblical standpoint and my clinical work over 30 years. If you are biologically a boy, you are wired dynamically to be heterosexual.
00:32:02:11 – 00:32:30:10
Floyd Godfrey
If you were a girl, you’re wired to be heterosexual. You biologically are heterosexual. But it’s true. Your your mind, your feelings, your attractions may be pulled off course because of trauma or different dynamics that have gone on, but that doesn’t mean you’re not, biologically a boy wired to be attracted to other girls and moving that direction. Instead were, you know, the left is trying to move towards an identity.
00:32:30:10 – 00:32:36:04
Floyd Godfrey
Well, if you feel this, you must be that way. If you feel that, it must be that way. It’s just so unhealthy.
00:32:36:06 – 00:32:54:22
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Well, and, you know, one of the confusions is that that there has been this idea that children are sexual from birth, you know, and this is one of the things that Kinsey did give to us was the idea that children can experience orgasms, and children are sexual beings and, you know, all this type of thing. We really have redefined childhood, in my opinion.
00:32:54:22 – 00:33:13:19
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And this takes us maybe further down the track than we than you and I want to go today, but, I mean, I, I have long felt now that the way in which we’ve redefined the meaning of human sexuality has had the consequence of redefining what it means to be a child, because children, we don’t think of children as helpless beings who need their parents.
00:33:13:23 – 00:33:30:08
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
We think of children as autonomous sexual beings who need privacy. So they can have sex. You know, this is Vilhelm Reich’s idea. This is Kinsey’s idea. You know, the kids need their own apartments and this type of thing. And this is the United Nations idea, you know, to be honest, this is what the United Nations is, is promoting.
00:33:30:08 – 00:33:53:14
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
So, and that gets parents off the hook because of parents want to want to, get divorced and remarried and shuffle out the sex partners. The kids will be fine because they don’t really care. They don’t really need us, you know, as adults. So we’ve we’ve done we’ve done all created a lot of confusion about the whole issue of being a child and and developing over time.
00:33:53:17 – 00:34:17:03
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Here’s my theory. Not it, not if not a psychologist, okay. Just watching you guys try to figure out your work. Everybody’s born, as you say, with a sex, the sex of their body and with the potential to be attracted to a person of the opposite sex. But this is a developmental task to get from babyhood to mature man or mature woman.
00:34:17:06 – 00:34:36:12
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
That’s a task it has to get done. And it’s not automatic. There are things that make it easier that are built into us and stuff, but it can be derailed. And if it gets derailed, you’re arousal template can go all over the place. Is that roughly correct?
00:34:36:15 – 00:34:45:03
Floyd Godfrey
Yes, I would say that’s 100% correct. And, and that all of the research supports what you just said.
00:34:45:05 – 00:35:15:27
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Yeah, yeah. But but you know, what do you well, I don’t want to put you on the spot. Well, maybe I should put you on the spot. You know, my my colleague, you know, my colleague, Father Paul Sullins. You know, we’re very concerned about this whole issue of counseling freedom. As you know very well that there are jurisdictions that are trying to control and regulate what goes on in a therapist’s office because they’re operating with a certain theory about how people really are, you know, and their theory is you’re born gay and you can’t change that.
00:35:15:27 – 00:35:36:29
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
And anybody who tells you that is lying to you and is hurting you, you know, and that’s getting written into law, you know, and and the fact that some people do change and change successfully and live for a long time with an opposite sex partner and so on, so that we don’t have to talk about that, you know, that’s, that’s a problem.
00:35:37:01 – 00:36:00:05
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
What do you think is going on with, like, the mainstream when the American Psychological Association. This is what I’m thinking when I say mainstream, this is what I’m thinking. The American Psychological Association issues these statements about same sex attraction, gender identity, that type of stuff. Are they aware of this other research that you’re talking about, about arousal templates and compulsive behavior in that kind of stuff?
00:36:00:12 – 00:36:13:08
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
It seems like they have that. Do they even study that this is a completely different group of people? Yeah. And these one kind of reports and people, you know, working with compulsive sexual behaviors, what’s going on there, Floyd?
00:36:13:11 – 00:36:37:21
Floyd Godfrey
You know, I, I would say that there are many who are aware of the research, but there are individuals, I think, that ignore it. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the committee, the APA subcommittee that decided to address this whole conversion therapy topic, and they created a statement that says, we don’t know completely what causes sexual or attractions and up at the.
00:36:37:22 – 00:37:11:16
Floyd Godfrey
But and, but, you know, conversion therapy is harmful. And they listed a bunch of things. Well, 11 of the 12 of the people on the committee were gay activists. So, you know, you have to start to wonder to yourself, this is I’m not sure it’s so much as an organizational belief as it is individuals who have, a world view, who have positioned themselves into leadership positions to influence their worldview on everyone around them.
00:37:11:23 – 00:37:45:18
Floyd Godfrey
I mean, 11 out of 12 people on that committee to write that decision that that is so absurdly biased. And I know that there are people on the Alliance and other organizations who offered to be on that committee, and they were just turned down people who would have been objective about it. So so I think it’s a personal I think people have personal world views insert themselves into leadership positions for the sake of promoting their own position, moving away from biblical concepts and science.
00:37:45:20 – 00:37:46:11
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Moving away from.
00:37:46:17 – 00:37:48:18
Floyd Godfrey
Science? Yes, yes, yes.
00:37:48:24 – 00:37:51:19
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Which science and the Bible line up?
00:37:51:21 – 00:37:52:15
Floyd Godfrey
Absolutely.
00:37:52:16 – 00:37:55:16
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Haven’t gotten the memo. Okay.
00:37:55:19 – 00:38:04:22
Floyd Godfrey
I have never seen I’ve never seen a good piece of research that did that. They didn’t that didn’t line up with like, the values and teachings.
00:38:04:22 – 00:38:05:14
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right.
00:38:05:17 – 00:38:28:01
Floyd Godfrey
Which then leads me to believe, from my Christian perspective, that anything God has taught us in the Bible comes from his love to help us be happy, healthy individuals, not because he’s punitive. This is don’t do this. Don’t do that. It’s because he’s he’s saying to us, I designed you this way. This is the healthiest place for you to be.
00:38:28:01 – 00:38:42:07
Floyd Godfrey
This is the healthiest choice for you to make. Don’t make that choice. You’ll be miserable and unhappy. Don’t do the big. And those are the commandments. That’s everything, he says. And yes, I’ve never seen any good research that didn’t have biblical congruency.
00:38:42:10 – 00:39:03:24
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Right, right. And I’m a Roman Catholic, and you probably know that among Roman Catholics this is a very deep, very old position. That truth is, is one whole thing, you know, and that if what it is revealed through nature, and what is revealed through the Bible and through church tradition, those things all cohere. And if they don’t cohere, you made a mistake somewhere.
00:39:04:00 – 00:39:16:18
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
You know, it’s not that God is at odds with himself and so. Right, right. It doesn’t make any sense, you know? So.
00:39:16:20 – 00:39:18:23
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
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About the Ruth Institute
The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.
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