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Sex, Story, and the Hope of Healing with Sam Jolman
56 Plays12 days ago
Y’all… we’re blushing just a little over this one. Because today, we’re going there — with therapist and author Sam Jolman, who joins us for a gracious, grounded, and yes, occasionally awkward conversation about sex, story, and the deep hope of healing.
Sam’s new book The Sex Talk You Never Got is the kind of resource we wish we’d had at 13, 22, and honestly, last week. We talk about what we learned (and didn’t) growing up in the church, how shame got tangled up with desire, and what it means to honor our bodies — and each other’s — with curiosity, reverence, and kindness. Together we explore consent, deep wounds caused by “purity culture,” emotional regulation, co-regulation, and the quiet ache for connection that often lives beneath our behaviors.
Whether you’re parenting kids through the thick of it, untangling your own story, or simply trying to feel a little less weird about the fact that this topic still makes you squirm, we hope you’ll feel seen, safe, and invited. Because this part of us — our longing, our tenderness, our capacity for joy — was never meant to be shut down. It was meant to be restored.
Check out Sam's book at samjolman.com.
Connect with Wendy on Instagram: @nurturecounselingnc
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
So this week, we have taken on a sensitive but very important topic. You can say that again for sure. We are talking to Sam Joelman, who is a counselor based in Colorado, about his new book, The Sex Talk You Never Got.
Why is Talking About Sex Taboo?
00:00:23
Speaker
I really love that title for a book, particularly on this topic, because a lot of books that I've had occasion to read that are about challenges with sexuality or brokenness in sexuality, a lot of them you're kind of almost embarrassed to be holding or to say, yeah, I'm reading this book, because they're sort of aimed as if there's just a dark side and that's all there is.
00:00:45
Speaker
And I like the way he frames this topic Because he's basically saying, can't we all relate in some way to not having been given good guidance about what sex is or what it should be? Newsflash.
00:00:58
Speaker
Every human being is sexual and no one wants to talk about it. Right. So our parents are too awkward to talk about it. We're too awkward to talk about it. We talk about it if we think there's a problem.
00:01:11
Speaker
And so, yeah, it feels like a really important thing to normalize, to normalize that we all have stories around how we learned about sex, how we engage with our own bodies as sexual bodies.
00:01:26
Speaker
And what we don't realize is we're ceding the territory. We're giving up ground to ah the rest of the culture by sort of putting this kind of on a shelf or saying certain things about it, messaging it certain ways.
00:01:39
Speaker
People are going to get their information from other sources, and they're doing so. And a lot of that source has been, were reading just a good article in The in the um Atlantic recently talking about ah pornography is what has educated people it has educat is It has educated a generation, and that's something that we will take on later.
Meet the Hosts of Surviving Saturday
00:01:59
Speaker
But right now, we are just thrilled to have a conversation for you guys on a topic that is really hard to talk about. Welcome to Surviving Saturday, ah podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons.
00:02:18
Speaker
Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead. That Sunday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God.
00:02:32
Speaker
But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us His peace and His presence at times when He feels distant or even cruel.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
Sam Joelman's Personal Journey and Book Motivation
00:02:57
Speaker
Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new.
00:03:14
Speaker
Welcome back. We are here today with author and counselor Sam Joelman. Hi, Sam. hi Good to be with you both, Wendy and Chris.
00:03:24
Speaker
You too. i would love it if you would introduce yourself. Like we're here to talk about your new book. So tell us the title then tell us who you are. Yes, The Sex Talk You Never Got is the title of the book.
00:03:38
Speaker
And in some ways that reveals part of who I am right from the word go. The journey into sexuality is certainly part of my story, as it is for all of us, right? What do you do with this part of you that awakens in life? But I like to say I'm a lover, right?
00:03:56
Speaker
I'm a father, I'm a therapist, and now an author, kind of in that order.
Men's Sexuality and the Church's Influence
00:04:01
Speaker
I'm a lover of Jesus and have been since probably mid-high school when i was moved by God.
00:04:10
Speaker
yeah More than just the intellectual ascent, really felt taken by him and with my own experiences of and and I'm a lover to my wife of 22 years, and we've very much grown up together into our journey of our stories and our sexuality.
00:04:28
Speaker
And I'm a father to three boys who are coming of age, which was part of the compelling to write a book, to have something to say to them. What ages? What ages are they? They're 13, 11, and 8. Oh, you're so yeah in the thick of it then. Yeah, we are, we're in it and it's really good and redemptive. And of course, also overwhelming to walk the next generation into, into sexuality, but hand, I'm a therapist of 20 years and, and then now an author as well.
00:05:01
Speaker
I thought in the beginning you were going to say, and i don't know if this would be a cultural reference that you'll get or not age-wise, but thought you'd say I'm a lover, not a fighter. Yeah. The old Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney song.
00:05:15
Speaker
Oh, yes. He says, Paul, I think I told you I'm a lover, not a fighter. That was our you. That was our you. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We grew up together. We met in that awkward stage of adolescence. 13, 14. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
Okay. So why did you write the book? Other than your sons were coming of age and you needed something to tell them. But what else led you to write this?
Unhealthy Narratives of Masculinity
00:05:39
Speaker
As a therapist, there's...
00:05:41
Speaker
These, as I'm sure you experienced, there's these places when you sit with people and you hear just the same themes that come back to you are the same place.
00:05:53
Speaker
You start to learn the shape of the human heart, you know, which to each of us comes very mysteriously. But from the seat of ah of a therapist, that front row seat, you get hear the same kind of binds.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I was finding that as I was sitting with men, There was struggle. It felt like the only way they could think about their sexuality as I'm being careful or I'm not saying. So just like I'm doing OK.
00:06:23
Speaker
And especially in the church and growing up in the church, the sense of I'm not screwing up. and yeah And that was like, you're good, right? They're coming in expecting a sense of shame. And you're going to have these categories of ways that you think about me.
00:06:37
Speaker
And you're wondering what I'm up to. And just so you know, I'm behaving or I'm not behaving. And then the instant sense of shame and ah the bravery of the confession. And now what? And I'm going to do better.
00:06:50
Speaker
That kind of scolded boy, shamed boy state. And I found, man, i mean, that's an important category, right? What you're doing with your sexuality. Jesus certainly talks about lust and objectification, but...
00:07:06
Speaker
What about the rest of actually seeing this as like an integrated part of your life and that it's actually can be a gift? Yes. That you being a lover in the world is actually a good thing.
00:07:18
Speaker
and And also just for men understanding that your love of sex is far more than just, oh, I just need sex as this body behavior.
Generational Views on Pornography
00:07:29
Speaker
And I found that that men would also say sometimes things like,
00:07:33
Speaker
I feel like I'm more like the woman in the relationship because i actually want the emotional stuff. Yes. Which reveals so much, even just in that the way that it's been sort of dichotomized and like, well, if you want this connection, you must be more like a woman. Which is like, whoa, hold, hold up.
00:07:47
Speaker
If we believe the whole thing is designed for intimacy and for all that we're trying to bring in a marriage, then where do we get that and get that skewed like that?
00:07:58
Speaker
And like, why does a man have to come in almost apologetic or like, right? Like, ah just, you know, don't tell anybody, but I actually want to, I like relationship and I want to talk with my wife and I want the emotional stuff and I want romance. Right.
00:08:11
Speaker
Now I'm curious, was there any, you talk about, you know, having this experience, know, with clients you're sitting with. That made me think of a couple of things. One, was there any particular demographic or would you say this was something that was age agnostic? Like any man sitting with you would have some variant of this kind of confusion or like inhospitability to the topic sort of like shrouded with shame and thinking about it in terms of a prevention of my danger kind of thing. Yeah, I think
00:08:43
Speaker
I would say it's across the board. Yeah. All men that I sit with, but the difference being the younger men now of this generation, they there's a little more, would I say? The struggle with pornography, right? Online pornography is just a little more...
00:09:03
Speaker
There's a little more freedom for them to talk about it. Okay. There's a little more sexuality isn't quite as faux pas. It's not, oh, it's not taboo as much. and there There's some comfort. There's been some breaking with, to some degree, but some of the purity culture messages that...
00:09:20
Speaker
Definitely
Biblical Narratives and Sexual Shame
00:09:21
Speaker
steeped. We were in high school in the eighties and college in late eighties, early nineties. And we were maybe, I don't know, a little ahead of that. Some of it got worse and weirder after we were there, but the messaging of your sexuality to me as a man is dangerous and it's fire and you're going to burn like a fire and oh, but it's better to marry than to burn. And there's no concept, and not no, but, but it was hard to internalize and miss those messages of shame and fear and the damage you could do.
00:09:48
Speaker
Hard to internalize this is a good gift, steward it. And don't be ashamed of the fact that you have and a bodily organ that gets an erection. That's a good thing. This is all of you is good, at least from the male side. What would you say on the female side, Lynn?
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, it was all about that's dirty. Don't get pregnant. Guys will stare at your body. Like it was very scary in presentation. Like periods weren't discussed. Sex wasn't ever mentioned in my home. Like think people didn't know what to do with it. But one thing that struck me near the beginning of the book that I wanted to ask you about that.
00:10:25
Speaker
I often feel that when I read the Genesis story and they were naked and now they're ashamed of it. And so what does God have to do? Conducting the first sacrifice to get clothes on the people.
00:10:39
Speaker
And I'm like, it just, it's always confused me a little. Yes. They were blessed naked, like, in you know, so talk about that little. Yeah. The idea is,
00:10:50
Speaker
It comes across and it always has come across to me of, again, their bodies are <unk>s shameful.
Reverence in Sexuality
00:10:55
Speaker
ah And so they needed to be covered up. and And as I say in the book, I actually think after looking more thoroughly at the story that there was an intent to soothe more in the gift of clothing and in the sense that glorious things in the Bible are the things that get covered, not shameful things.
00:11:19
Speaker
Oh, that's a great a really good point. Like the temple and the tabernacle instead. Yes, right, exactly. The Holy of Holies gets covered. Moses' face when it's glowing.
00:11:30
Speaker
That paradigm's shifting. yeah Yes. It's absolutely paradigm shifting, dude. i To me, I was like, oh my gosh, This isn't about your sexuality is dirty or, oh, it's shameful and you need to be scared of it or just don't talk about it.
00:11:46
Speaker
But that actually there was something around life after the fall. I think it was just too much to bear. Right. The naked glory of the human body, as was true with Moses. They said, please cover your face. It's too much. We can't bear it. Yeah, we can't bear it.
00:12:05
Speaker
The glory fatigue or overwhelm. Yeah. Yeah. Like when there was the Shekinah glory. We used to hear Tim Keller talk about the Shekinah glory of God. Do not underestimate. This is weighty. This is. Yes. It's why all the angels had to say, don't be afraid.
00:12:21
Speaker
I'm here. And they're like, whoa, no. Oh, thank you, Omar Carr. And I think that's actually best way, the the healthiest goal of our sexuality is that we can hold it with a kind of awe, which is both this kind of pleasure and reverence.
00:12:38
Speaker
Yes. That it's not to be discarded and treated cheaply. like pornography or ah hookup culture, but it's also not to be terrifying that we just scared and we can't talk about it and need to put it over
Cultural Narratives on Sexuality and Vulnerability
00:12:51
Speaker
here.
00:12:51
Speaker
That's meant to be, as you said, that thing that both leaves us a little bit knee shaking, but draws us to want to move towards it. Yeah. That's a corrective one. I was remembering, I remember a conversation I had with a colleague at my very first law firm I worked at in 1995. He wasn't a believer. And I forget why we were talking about sexuality, but I was giving this metaphor, which is probably what I had me given. of It's sex is your fine china.
00:13:16
Speaker
You don't bring it out for a casual picnic or pizza. Like you save it for a special occasion. I was trying to grasping for a metaphor. Yeah, but it's still this... fragility in that. And it's more of this, oh, it's fragile, not it is so glorious. It's only like a fine meal. It was more like, don't break the good stuff, but you're likely to break it.
00:13:40
Speaker
Right. More of the underlying premise, which I never thought about. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I was thinking as we're talking to feel safe in your own body and with your sexuality and to feel safe with the one that God has given you to and to you. You also have to feel safe with God at the beginning.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. And when we go back to get clothes on the people and their bodies are shameful, I can look back with some tenderness at my 22-year-old self that wore clothes in the jacuzzi on our wedding night.
00:14:12
Speaker
hey It was a bathing suit. But that there was this covering out of shame, not out of protection of glory. yeah But I look back, and I neither felt safe in my body.
00:14:26
Speaker
I had a lot of sexual abuse I had not contended with, didn't even know existed. But then didn't feel safe with a male when I had been told in the divided sex ed classes, be careful.
00:14:40
Speaker
And then there was this confusion to me as much as I wanted to love God and wanted him to love me. ah had not been able to really internalize that at that point. And so it was more of a, I've got to protect rather than the glory is so great.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yes. That's a really important shift. Right. that's Yes. And in other words, the the researchers have appreciated this definition of awe ah because it's helped me to understand what you're describing so well is that awe is on the upper reaches of pleasure, they say, on the edge of fear.
00:15:17
Speaker
And we we think instantly, isn't fear a really bad thing connected to sexuality? And I would say in abundance, yes. yeah If there isn't some sense of safety, some sense of containment, yeah some sense of I can be well in my body, there can't be pleasure.
00:15:35
Speaker
There will be threat. But at the same time, I would say if you remove all fear, if you remove all danger, you have no vulnerability. Because vulnerability is, i would say, probably the best way to think of it. It is and right literally means able to be wounded.
00:15:52
Speaker
Meaning I'm going to open up to you in a way that if you are not kind, could harm me. And so something's on the line, yes but I'm not in a state of threat, right? and And what you've named well is if you haven't addressed...
00:16:09
Speaker
What are the things that have and brought shame or brought fear or brought harm to my sexuality? You can't both be well with your own body or with the pleasure of somebody enjoying, right? Unveiling your body to them. Somebody got me thinking about this differently recently as well.
00:16:27
Speaker
In saying, and this was speaking to a
Gender Dynamics and Consent
00:16:30
Speaker
group of men actually at a Samson event, where the message was, hey, men with our sexuality, with the genitalia we have, it is externalized. It is outside us.
00:16:40
Speaker
And therefore, it's kind of, we don't want to get hit. We're not going to get harmed, whatever. But it's very external. And so the sex intercourse itself is you are essentially, nobody's taking anything of you or coming into you versus sex.
00:16:54
Speaker
They were, and this person was pointing out, we did an exercise of just having men their eyes closed feed some food to each other. And like, how do you feel about having somebody put their fingers around your mouth and all?
00:17:05
Speaker
And we're like, ooh, that's a lot. Like some, some guys hands are, and then they're like, yes, but what does a woman ask to do? in the Sexual Intercourse Act. It's to be, to take somebody, the body part's doing their job, but feel how invasive that could be. If you don't hold that reverently, if you don't realize that, that in and of itself is a bigger deal and we don't consider it that way. And it also, the person was making the point of women, because of the way that biology works, have to be more in tune with their body and what are its rhythms and what are its cycles and how it work.
00:17:37
Speaker
And we don't get that as men. We don't get any sort of, you need to tend to this party, this part of your body, manage it well, steward it well. Talk about that a little bit. You feel that dynamic kind of comes in into play. Yeah. I think you're naming well, what does it mean for a woman to receive? And you're naming that invitation into the body, yeah right? For a woman. and We got people blushing already, by the way, yeah rights already but it's okay, folks. We're going to get through this.
00:18:04
Speaker
And like got you're naming, well, there's a vulnerability to that experience. I would say for a man, there's something around the obviousness of his arousal that can feel like exposure.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yes. Oh, that's so brilliant. If you are not integrated with... I'm well, it can feel like, see, it's the enemy. Yes. I can't hide it. That's a good point. Whereas actually with what nobody I felt like prepared us for either is you won't necessarily know with a woman one way or the other.
00:18:36
Speaker
Without communication, without verbal naming of, yes, that's good, no, that's not. it does Not that the body doesn't respond, but it's a different, if it's a whole different process.
00:18:47
Speaker
And that the slow they told us maybe a little bit, the slow burn versus the we heat up right away. But again, that was sent with a pejorative aspect, with sort of a... You're bad, you're ready to anytime with anything.
00:18:58
Speaker
So you're actually dangerous again, was the message I got as opposed to takes a woman a while and needs to be cared for. and you know, that there was a little judgment I felt in that.
00:19:09
Speaker
We were even reading something other night that made us laugh. Just it takes us into this place of sex and sexuality are for the man. and the woman will endure at best, maybe occasionally enjoy. And we were both taught in middle school that even in conception, it's the fastest sperm that wins.
00:19:28
Speaker
Right. And he's going to go and find an egg. So even as a woman, it's the thing's going to be done to me. But really, it's the egg who chooses and she'll take out the sperm she doesn't want. Right.
00:19:39
Speaker
Which would have made a lot of difference. And it totally changes the game when you're like, that egg is the power. actually right which She's the queen. And I think that's new research. Like, at least I've come across it within the last year, that yeah research about actually the egg's participation in that.
Family and Cultural Influences on Sexuality
00:19:54
Speaker
Yes. And I think you're naming well, right? There's a already you're describing a sexual narrative that's being brought to us, right? Which is it's immodest if you are a woman who has sexual desire and doesn't take a more passive role. And something's wrong with you as a man if you don't always just want sex yeah and are always just ready. And if you actually want engagement or relationship or if you're the receiver,
00:20:24
Speaker
of advancement, right? As a man, right? Or if you're the initiator as a woman, that can start to feel like unmasculine or unfeminine in some way, right? And even there, right, are the stories that are brought upon our sexuality that shape us and narrate how we relate with our bodies.
00:20:45
Speaker
Okay, so another thing I'm curious about is the way that sex can become a power struggle. Okay? So you mentioned, i think, in a job out of college, you were, don't know, working on the roof. I don't know. You were up high.
00:21:00
Speaker
yeah And there were men who were commenting on women's bodies. And you noticed it was not the awe that you spoke of a minute ago. It was dissection or dismemberment.
00:21:11
Speaker
And they were acquainted with particular parts of the female anatomy and felt as if they had the right or the authority to rate it as she went past.
00:21:23
Speaker
And you also talk in the book about consent and it not being even to be dumbed down as permission, but it is an invitation. And if a woman cannot authentically and enthusiastically usher a yes,
00:21:40
Speaker
then her no is meaningless. I don't know you put it that way, but the intersection of those, because this comes up a lot. I see teens and adults. I see kids too, but these conversations don't happen with the kids.
00:21:53
Speaker
But with teens, they come up a lot. And they do with adults as well in my room. So I think I would just love for you to talk a little bit about this idea of sex being about power over a body. Yeah.
00:22:08
Speaker
And where consent comes then, wherever that might take you. Yeah, I think couple of things. there There is in male culture... The way that sex can be used as ah false initiation.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yes. This like passage. If you've done it, now we're going to make you a man. They literally have used people have used that language. Now he's a man. like And again, horror stories of fathers that I read a story of a father who told his son was in a long term relationship in college.
00:22:41
Speaker
And he said he was angry at him and said to him, I'm not paying this much money a year for you not to be getting some. Are you serious?
Stereotypes of Foreign Women and Media Influence
00:22:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:51
Speaker
Whoa. In other words, can you start here? There's a culture about this is a kind of ego stroke sexuality. Yes. Which is like I'm I'm feeding something in me that feels powerful, powerful and feels more affirmed and powerful.
00:23:07
Speaker
If I have power in sex and it's not the power of vulnerability, it's not the power of having good relationship and moving and creating a space for a woman to say yes and want you and want to engage with you erotically or romantically. It's the power of I can take.
00:23:25
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I can violate and I don't have to be vulnerable. Even, yeah, even the phrase that you highlighted that the dad used, get some, like it's depersonalizing. It's some. Yes.
00:23:35
Speaker
whatever, and it's get, and and it takes you to like the male pursuit, which is almost like, how do I get this to happen? Which in extreme form is, of course, you got stuff like roofies and rape culture and things like that.
00:23:49
Speaker
But I love the way that you you highlight the phrasing of that even. it It was, and I think of the movies that I grew up with in the very sexualized 80s, which was every teenage boy movie, centered movie was about that con, or not every, but a lot more about that conquest.
00:24:07
Speaker
And it was rite of passage. It was, we're all celebrating. And the female characters are just... They're props, essentially. And that took me while to realize i did that that I had that mindset. I think one thing that I realized in and later in adult life was, why do I have this expectation that women from other countries are ready to go for sex and they're so exotic?
00:24:31
Speaker
And I was thinking back to how many movies it was like, oh, the Polish girls are here. You know them, they want... It was... There was this fetishization of, oh, there's a foreign woman. She does not know our ways. We can seduce her.
00:24:42
Speaker
And I'm like, wait, you're telling, that's not all foreign. That can't be. Every woman from a country, it's not, but they they look a certain way and they're appealing to a certain dynamic. And I'm like, that that got in my brain. Yes.
00:24:54
Speaker
And again, even there, you start to hear how there's a phrase, and I can't remember the author, who said the exotic becomes erotic. And there's a sense of even a kind of racism yeah right in the power of lust, which is this, you're exotic and we're going to treat you as other and foreign, but an object again, an object of intrigue versus...
00:25:20
Speaker
The deep knowing, right, of genuine love and romance. And I remember and eighth grade standing at the vending machine and I had an upperclassman come to me.
00:25:32
Speaker
And I had just started going out with an eighth grade girlfriend.
Societal Pressures and Sexual Misunderstandings
00:25:36
Speaker
And he came up to me and said something like, so did you get some? And he had gotten word that I was dating this girl. And he knew that I had spent the weekend hanging out with her.
00:25:50
Speaker
yeah And we went to the mall. Yeah. And we watched a movie, a 90s movie. All good stuff, yeah. And we snuggled on the couch. And I held her hand.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah. and But he was like... And I remember feeling in that moment that pull to this culture, this masculine culture of taking. Yes. My gosh.
00:26:11
Speaker
And again, i think, as Dan Allender says, do you receive in sex? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Are you, right? Are you receiving something? Yes. Are you getting something? I guess you could say.
00:26:24
Speaker
But you're also giving, right? As Dan Allender says, love is the giving and receiving of pleasure. To the glory of God. Yeah. And I think as a woman who is a girl coming of age in this culture, it felt a lot like much will be taken from. Okay. So what the guys I'm hearing the message was, will you take?
00:26:47
Speaker
You're also being told you're bad because you want to enjoy sexual pleasure. which is where the mark gets missed. But for this girl, it felt like I was being set up for something to be taken.
00:27:00
Speaker
So it didn't bear the safety any more than it did for y'all, but it put me on the vulnerable side. Yeah. And I would want to ask you, what did that as a woman, how did that register in your body then?
00:27:12
Speaker
um that threat. Yeah. Oh, okay. So when we first started dating, Chris rightly named me. It was playful, but I was very frigid. Like we danced at the prom this way.
00:27:25
Speaker
Like we were, yeah there you could have fit a person in between. For the Holy Spirit, as some people would say. That's right. You could have fit Jesus right there in the middle. And in context too, we were good friends. oh We got to be friends. We met when we were 13 or 14. We were friends.
00:27:39
Speaker
And by the time we went to probably each other, we went to each other's proms as juniors, we would say we were good friends because we felt safe enough. Yeah, go to prom. And I thought, of course, when I asked her my prom and she asked me back to hers, I think that's the way. I'm like, I'm in. gosh, we're going to date. Not in a sexual way, but like, it would be great if we date.
00:27:55
Speaker
And then, so when we went from being friends and having this intimacy and laughter and all to actually dating, I'm thinking that's the part, that's the only part we haven't had because we get along so well. We're such good friends. Now we're going to kiss and snuggle and not necessarily, so again, we were both trying to wait for marriage and all, but I was expecting now we're going to hug and kiss and that's going to be a defining feature, but it didn't come real easily. It took a while.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah. So I would say it showed up in my body. My body was very contained. So my body would not emit tears. My body was very tight.
Lack of Guidance in Sexuality Education
00:28:29
Speaker
The average person would it not have known just how contained. They would just think she's very even keeled. And she's funny. And that probably would have been very funny, very witty.
00:28:40
Speaker
But otherwise, i was just your even keel good girl. But between us, sex was very fraught because my body was very scared. i I was thinking something before we got to where we're dating Mary. Remember, we also realized recently we were talking about how many boyfriends you had were unfaithful in part because speak to that dynamic.
00:29:03
Speaker
I think they knew that sex was not going to be a possibility. And so they wanted me, they would say, one in particular, i was marriage material, but then would cheat. Now, I did break up with them when I found out. Oh, yes, yes.
00:29:19
Speaker
But they were doing it for a while. that But then I remembered when I was... in school at a women's college. And so i had friends at a nearby co-ed college.
00:29:31
Speaker
And I started dating a guy there and went to his family's house with him one weekend and got to know his parents. And anyway, he said to me at one point, my mother says, it's only a matter of time until you will have sex with me.
00:29:49
Speaker
And I remember feeling so jolted, but also who betrayed. I'm like, his mother? Yeah. One, what does she have to do with this? But two, she assumes I'll be worn down, just waited out.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It never happened. We broke up. But so, yeah, my body, I think it was taking in messages. It had experiences it didn't remember, but it showed up as very contained and very difficult for us to be intimate. That was a journey because my body has needed to learn what safety is.
00:30:25
Speaker
yeah, my goodness, you made it as an aside. We ended up breaking up. But like, you're just marking the need to be guarded yeah so powerfully and by saying contained, right? And again, back to that sense of how important safety is yeah to be able to relax into your body out of hypervigilance and for a man as well to feel something of I think what you described, Chris, is I would say a lot of men end up feeling, you know, you're you're scripted as an animal.
00:31:01
Speaker
Like you can't really control it. This is just who you are. There's not much more to you. You're just fairly two-dimensional. And if you don't marry, you're going to literally burn with lust.
00:31:13
Speaker
As if all sexual desire, i got I felt this, I think, all sexual desire must be lust. Nobody said it that expressly, but it was like, oh my gosh, I have an
Parents' Role in Sexual Education
00:31:24
Speaker
erection, that's lust.
00:31:25
Speaker
Or I'm thinking that somebody is pretty. And I'm not saying now I will have her, now I'll come for I'm just going, my body's just reacting to what I'm seeing. That's not inherently bad. It's the taking the desire, but nobody's there. And again, I grew up without a father. I should say my dad was off the scene, lost all credibility by the time i was seven or eight and was out of my life essentially by the time I was 10.
00:31:47
Speaker
ten And so I got nobody stewarding this and saying, hey, this is what this your anatomy is like. This is what sexuality is like. Nothing. And so I'm literally being educated by these 80s films.
00:32:01
Speaker
And then the church, which again is in the danger camp. And so I can remember, I can feel my body right now, the duality of hearing these people in my world and friends sometimes, even friends from youth group talking about their sexual conquests.
00:32:14
Speaker
And I'm not having any, but boy, I'd kind of want to, but then I don't think it's right. And I'm getting the message from the church, you're dangerous. And the message from ah culture, go get some and that's how you know your man and all that. And it was just torture as I think back on it. Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah. You're both so vulnerably capturing how storied our sexuality is, right? theres There's both two things, right? The lack of a narration of the healthy story, right? The lover story, the story of romance.
00:32:46
Speaker
And then also the intrusion of stories that that imprint that Right. And mark us and can invoke shame and danger. Right. And so by the time you come to embodying your sexuality in romance, in marriage, right, you so much has been written and imprinted in yeah in your sexuality. Yeah.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah. So I had a kind of a, this is a whimsical question. If you don't like and you don't want it aired, we can edit it out later. But I'm curious about, i don't know if your parents are alive and what they think about you writing a book that says, here's the sex talk I never got, which is a little bit of a, hey folks, so you kind of missed it. is Has there been dialogue around that?
00:33:29
Speaker
And my other question is, what do your kids think about you having written this book? That's totally separate. Yeah, my parents are alive, but it is it's been a journey with them. I share some of my mother's story in the book.
00:33:40
Speaker
And I think I would say beginning to just understand my parents had a sexual inheritance. Yes. They had a story that set them up.
00:33:51
Speaker
And I knew i've come came to find out that story later, more of their story, both for both of them and their story together to understand that the topic of sexuality held shame for them.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yes. Right. And so it wasn't necessarily they just don't care. Right. Oh, yeah. About my
Disconnect Between Arousal and Desire
00:34:12
Speaker
sexuality. It was largely the sense of silence shuts people down. Yes. And so to come talk to me They had no idea what to do with it.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. And so I think just understanding in no way was there evil intent. Oh, but was there a perpetuation of shame? Yes. Meaning through silence.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. And I would say in so many ways, you know, why the sex talk you never got titled because so few of us. Got that. We have so little inheritance here. Yeah, the title is I've already found to be a great conversation starter with other men. Hey, what do you think of this book title? And they're like, yeah, that sounds right. Oh, wait, yeah got what I got one on my wedding day, which was this he was a little late and wrong.
00:34:55
Speaker
I was thinking it brought to mind, again, my dad is gone, discredited. There was unfidelity and all kinds of stuff. My mom, what I remember is she gave me one of those. There are these clinical books. They look kind of like Reader's Digest condensed books or something. It was a doctor talks to 12 to 13 year olds or 11 of 12 year olds about sex.
00:35:14
Speaker
So it was like, here, read this. No Q&A, because I wasn't about to do that. But it was just, here is some clinical information. But the interesting thing I realized recently was, so I remember where that book was kept. It was at my grandmother's house in like her bureau drawer.
00:35:30
Speaker
Why at grandma's house? I'm not sure. But catty-cornered to that was my uncle's room. And my uncle had some, shall we say, instructional material there of a different variety.
00:35:41
Speaker
which I was exposed to and shown, which I didn't have a category for. I'm just like, oh, this feeds my curiosity. But it was very different. It was his Playboy stash that he showed me. And he was, I realized at some point time in my healing journey, like he was the closest thing I had to a an instructor or a guide because mom said, here's a book, but didn't really talk about it.
00:36:03
Speaker
And then he's showing me, well, here's the bodies, but in this manufactured for consumption way. So I've been able to give myself a little bit more grace and real and and and kind of, is it any wonder that I got things really mixed up in my head and did not know what to do with anything?
00:36:22
Speaker
ah Trying to be good, but but all that's in me is lust-driven. Does that make any sense? Oh, yes. In other words, what you're naming is, which is so common, it can feel passive and it can even feel like you're culpable.
00:36:40
Speaker
And moving towards the pornography. But so many men, that story of being introduced to pornography is one of sexual harm. Yeah. Just by the nature of the passive kind of cavalier way of leaving pornography out to be available. Yeah.
00:36:56
Speaker
And your autonomy is taken is a way I've learned to understand as well. yeah you If somebody's not coming as a guide and to steward it then it's just, even if you're invited to it, it's still, there's an involuntary aspect to it. I like your word passive. You what's coming Yeah. You don't know what, you can't know what's coming.
00:37:15
Speaker
That sense of arousal can feel like the condemnation. Yes. Right? Of like, well, um yes I must have wanted it Yes. Yeah. Because look, my body responded with arousal.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah. Right. And as we know, arousal through arousal, non-concordance, arousal and desire are different things. Yes. Your sexuality, your arousal is just there as a radar. It's letting you know that sexually relevant things exist.
Sex, Emotional Regulation, and Awareness
00:37:42
Speaker
are happening. yep And it not a statement of desire. And it's not inherently you now want to take or conquer or you are bad because you're feeling this because the language is either not there or wielded fearfully and non-healthily.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah, there are so many good things in here. So i want to jump to a different one. Yeah. But this idea of sex being a need rather than a desire yeah and the need really being more for emotional regulation than actually for the physical act of sex could relieve tension. Great.
00:38:19
Speaker
But really, the person is craving presence and and regulation. yeah And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that because what you wrote in the book was felt very important to me.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah. I think when a man says to me, like, it feels like a need. yeah Why? You know, I can say, well, it could just be the unfamiliarity with strong desire, right? Desire can be very strong and very compelling in your body.
00:38:46
Speaker
And so it could just be, yeah, desire can grip you, but it can also be The need for the body, meaning you're dysregulated, you're overwhelmed emotionally, and you are trying to find some form of soothing. yeah I had a client, and she's given me permission to share this, to say, I always knew what kind of day my husband had based on how he made love to me.
00:39:13
Speaker
And there were days at night, and she said there were days where he came home And I felt like the thing he needed to conquer.
00:39:24
Speaker
gosh. Because he had a bad day. Yeah. And she said it felt awful because it wasn't really with me, nor was it about my pleasure or even an awareness of my body. But he had to get off. He had to get released. And, yeah you know, I would say, you know, I've thought about that guy just...
00:39:46
Speaker
the harm to his wife, but also just what would it have been like if he had said to his wife, i had a bad day and I need to talk about it. Yeah. I just, I need to, I'm not doing well.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah. Can you give me some care that you are voluntarily participating in and and give me attunement? But again, you're in territory of, like I think, where some of the sexualized socialization that we got as men as men. That feeling stuff, you know, that's for that's for girls. What are you, a girl?
00:40:16
Speaker
You have these soft feelings. I know I got that message. And I was a sensitive, kind of tender kid at times. But the messaging is... Toughen up. Man up, to use a phrase. Right.
00:40:28
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Like you are being needy or weak, right? If you can't handle your day. I think it's author Sue Johnson who writes on adult attachment. And she says she says something like, I have compassion on men.
00:40:44
Speaker
who who when a couple comes in and it it says it, the man says or the wife says it, feels like you only just want sex. And she says something like, I would too if the only place I was allowed to get touch was the football field or sex.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, wow. Especially if you're not a guy who's going to survive on the football field. If you're like me, you're like 5'2 and getting used as a tackling dummy. I don't want that touch. so And I was not athletic either. And so yeah the sense of that ability to need yeah and to be overwhelmed in your body as a man yeah um is not something we have a lot of room for. And so I think a lot of guys...
00:41:25
Speaker
I actually don't think that pornography, a pornography struggle, a compulsive behavior like that is rooted often even in sexual desire proper per se. It often starts as I'm just overwhelmed. yeah yeah i want I need soothing. I need ah comfort.
Co-regulation in Relationships
00:41:44
Speaker
Well, any yeah. Yeah. I couldn't name that as an aspect of my struggles with pornography lust until in my fifty s I think. I couldn't name that I was overwhelmed as a category because I was so determined, oh, no, I will never be overwhelmed. I got this. I'm the duck who's chill up top and then internally spinning furiously.
00:42:05
Speaker
And for me to even get a category for, i credit, and I know you're a fan of Jay Stringer's book, Yes. Wanted. Yes. Listening to your lust. What are you after? What are you going and realizing? And what are the precursors? What are the times and places where you are vulnerable?
00:42:20
Speaker
And I started to identify, oh, there's this state of overwhelm that I get to that my body doesn't know what to do with. i don't have a healthy outlet for. And I'm literally looking, I'm only looking to check out. I actually, the way my situation goes, I don't look for sexual release.
00:42:34
Speaker
I just want distraction in the brain. I'm trying to get dopamine. I'm trying to go on a hunt or whatever. And realizing that overwhelm was what got me there was huge because I did, I would never appear maybe to those who love me as an anxious person, but I very much did not want to identify as an anxious person because of how anxiety was wieldy. It was,
00:42:56
Speaker
Women were anxious and men were tough and confident. I had some bad models of that. So to name and identify overwhelm. Yeah. And then I'm like, oh, so this is a self-soothing thing. And it's actually weirdly not exactly about sex. It's not sexual. Right. not i'm saying it's not bad and objectifying the wrong.
00:43:13
Speaker
Right. But that helped. And so what else? It changes the conversation. What else could re-regulate me that isn't destructive to other people? Does that dynamic play out in wi and how you work with people?
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah. And that can be in the present, meaning what do I need to engage in the present right now yeah in my environment? do I need... How can I get a healthy version of ah of regulation? Being able to just even name yes I'm overwhelmed or what I'm overwhelmed with.
00:43:40
Speaker
yeah right It can also be, right, I have past trauma or something that has dysregulated me from the past, meaning it's not necessarily – just I'm overwhelmed by this, but like I'm triggered. Yes. And that's can be where sexualization and where Jay Stringer's work is done so well, right? Yes. In other words, something in the present is reenacting.
00:44:04
Speaker
Yes. Something that's bringing my arousal into the Into the sexual realm. Into the sexual realm. There's a reason I go to a particular mode of trying to soothe this way. Well, and, you know, to state the obvious, but to regulate emotions, you've got to own that you live in a body that is feeling the emotions.
00:44:25
Speaker
Right. And so we've got to own all that comes with that body, a feminine one, a masculine one, and the arousal, the fear, the hope, the trauma, all of that.
00:44:39
Speaker
But that reminds me of where you say in the book, the two becoming one. and we got some of that wrong. Right. Yes. And that there have to be two selves that can come together. Right. Even in the idea of co-regulation.
00:44:55
Speaker
If I need Chris to help regulate me, I have to admit I'm in a body that needs care. And his body can offer something, whether it's a handle on my shoulder or rubbing my back or taking a walk with me or sex.
00:45:10
Speaker
But that there is a way that two bodies can regulate each other. Yes. So I think it's Stephen Porges. I think I'm pronouncing his name. Yeah. Who was the guy who discovered polyvagal theory, which is the theory of how the body regulates itself, how it processes danger and threat and how it soothes and comes down from those states.
00:45:32
Speaker
And he would say that the most regulating thing above all other things for the body is co-regulation. yeah Meaning you can find ways to self-soothe. You can learn breathing exercises. You can do exercise.
00:45:48
Speaker
You can take hot baths. You can take cold showers. You can, there's all kinds of things and they're helpful and we all need them because sometimes we're just alone with our bodies. Yeah. And you've got to have something. You can pray, you can meditate, and I certainly don't want to you know miss the co-regulation with the spirit.
00:46:06
Speaker
yeah But body to body, being near somebody in a vulnerable way, yes yeah in a safe place where you can open up and feel connected yeah and attached. Yes.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yes. yeah Regulates the body faster and more effectively and more long term than anything else. And it can be non-sexual. Yes. Even between man and woman, but also like between men, like real bro hug, like a real hug with a real man where you are feeling each other's strength is very empowering. Right. And there's a safety feeling.
Conclusion and Future Discussions
00:46:42
Speaker
And we were socialized, though. Watch out for that. There's something dangerous. Right. But yeah, every but every male female relationship, there can be care and kindness and even co-regulation to some degree. That's not of a sexual nature.
00:46:56
Speaker
And right. And ah in other words, you know, the example I gave of that couple with the guy that had a bad day and would come home and make to love to his wife in a conquering way. That guy could also call a friend.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yes. It doesn't have to be that he just talks to his wife. It could be or it could be that he has to endure some sort of self-care to regulate. But it it could be that if he tried to just lying down with her and saying, hey, can you just hold me about this? Might have had more good power.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah. Except for the power dynamic he's trying work out. But Sam, I could go on talking. to you. But thank you for this. dear I'm going to make sure people know where to get the book.
00:47:38
Speaker
I'm going to make sure in the notes people know where to find you, which is Colorado, but you're also available online. yeah um' And there's some quotes from your book that I'm just going to share because i just, I think there's a lot of power in here. It's not just a talk for kids. It's It's a talk for those of us who were once kids and have lived ah so as a sexual narrative now into adulthood and need to continue to understand and grow. So thank you for being with us and thank you for your work.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, Lenny, Chris, this has been very rich. I could keep talking and I know that we need to end, but maybe we'll do a follow up somewhere down the road. Yes. We're going read the book a little bit more. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to try to experiment with like, how how do we live this? Because the purpose, it's not just a book about a talk.
00:48:25
Speaker
yeah It's a book about how do you reorient your life to sexuality in a God-honoring, but safe and healthy way. So maybe there'll be a part two of, hey, what about this? But right, we tried a different mindset.
00:48:37
Speaker
yeah And here's what happened. what do you think about that? Yeah, that'd be great. All right. Happy weekend to you. You as well. Okay. Thanks, man.