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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
The Sex Talk I Never Had with Sam Jolman - Part 2
00:00
Sam, I've appreciated some of your language and some other spaces about the need to mine the desire that we have, like sitting in the space of like, what is the desire and actually wondering like, what is at the core of that? Like not just sort of writing it off in this sense of like, oh, it's just about meeting my need, but it's actually like, no, can we sit in the place of wondering like, what is the deepest desire of what I'm actually after? Like when we're willing.
00:26
to sit in that space or willing to engage it from that framework? Like what happens? What are we opened up to when we're able to engage it from that posture? Yes. Great question. You know, when you, when you begin to engage it as desire, you can engage sexuality more in its meaning and your own personal depth. So a lot of places this shows up, right, is in guys exploring and reflecting on like an urge, let's say for.
00:55
porn use, like porn and masturbation ritual. A lot of times, I think guys treat that as like, oh gosh, it's my sin nature, it's my body, I'm just feeling aroused and sort of like, man, there I go again in my sin nature and just in my hormones. And it kind of stops there, maybe with prayer, but probably a lot of shut down shame. I don't know why I did that, but I prayed and…
01:24
gosh, I hope next time it doesn't happen again. But there's not much curiosity about, wait, what just happened? And I think that's where that drive model can set men up to not really be curious much. It just, well, it's sin. What is there to talk about? But I think the gospel gives us great permission to be curious, and I think even calls us to be curious about our sin, right? So, you know, oftentimes, the question of like, well, what preceded that urge?
01:54
to go look at porn and masturbate is often not a question that's asked. Or even further, what did you look at? What's the symbolism in what you looked at? To say, well, I looked at porn is sort of like saying I ate food. If somebody asked you, well, what did you eat last night for dinner? Well, I ate food. Okay. But what? Porn is this huge world of
02:22
in Google if they struggle with it. It's usually a particular thing, right? Like a particular fantasy. And so I think your statement about, you know, what is engaging as desire allow us, it allows us the ability to enter both our own hearts and our own story more. You know, I tell the story of a guy in the book, and this is a client who gave me permission to share this in the book. And he was, he's a guy that I had worked with for a while, but he talked about
02:51
You know, he, after work, his wife asked him to go to the grocery store, get a list of things. So he went to the grocery store, got the things, forgot something. He's on his way home and his wife gets angry with him because he forgot the, the, one of the things. And he hangs up with his wife and he instantly feels an urge to look at porn. Right. And he acts out and, um, feels immense shame. And that was kind of the starting point is I acted out again with porn. You know, we started to explore it.
03:20
And I, so I asked him, well, what did you look at? What did you search for? What was maybe what, not what you typed in even necessarily, but what were you kind of hunting for, what was kind of the crux of your arousal in that moment? Um, and he sat back for a second and he said with tears in his eyes, I was looking for a woman with a really genuine smile, that that was the heart of his arousal in that moment. And he started crying.
03:49
and talked about, I just wanted to feel liked and that somebody was happy in me. So can you start to hear the setup of his wife's angry with him? He's looking, he's not just looking for sex, he's looking for a woman with a genuine smile. We took that further and I won't step fully into that, but that ache for delight had a lot of roots in his story. That ache for a smile, somebody being pleased with him.
04:18
had a lot of roots in his wounds.
04:22
And Sam, what I'm hearing you say is that it's both current in the current present day, but it's also like that ache is ancient in his life. It's not, it's not just about his wife. It's about all of the aches that he's had from boyhood on for someone to like him. Yes. Exactly. And in that, what I'm hearing you also then say is that part of his sexual formation is
04:52
the stories like that, that then, you know, somewhere along the way as a boy, I'm sure pornography availed itself. Yes. And he found an answer to his heartache. Yes. Or a pseudo answer to his heartache. Yes. Yeah. So one of the, you know, as I have a chapter on kind of walking through your sexual formation through three categories, and one of those is attachment, your attachment story. And that ache for a smile.
05:22
was rooted in his attachment story, a relationship with his mother and the only time he ever felt pleasing to his mother. And how that got sexualized in his relationship with his mother, that it involved him giving her massage, right? And that was a time when he felt like he was actually pleasing to her and got her smile. But can you start to hear it was, there was a portion of that that involved him.
05:50
having to care for her body, and how that started to shape his sexual formation. When we talk about the roots of our sexuality again, it's not just, well, what are the things that happen to you sexually? As I, you know, well, I don't, I was never sexually abused, you might say, although it's way more common in men's stories than men are prone to admit. That often gets buried. But it's also your attachment story. How were you loved or not loved?
06:18
but also your embodiment story, your relationship to your body. How is your body treated? Where your play treated? So I'm convinced, and I wrote a whole chapter on this in the book that what is the essence of sex? Is sex the essence? Some people feel like sex is the essence. It's its own thing. And what is the essence of sex itself? I'm convinced sex itself is a form of play, that it actually follows
06:46
the nature of play and sort of the rules of play, right? Like what makes good play is what makes good sex. So I think that our, like you think of, let's take even just the category of consent, right? We talk about how important consent is in sex. And not just no means no consent, but yes means yes. In other words, that desire is present for both people. If you think about it, like one of the questions my youngest son asked me, I think literally every day,
07:16
Dad, wanna play? Right? What's he doing? He's inviting consent, right? Do you wanna play with me? Is how all childhood games begin, right? Children just know to ask for consent. Do you wanna play with me? It's such an invitational and vulnerable and consensual question. So, I mean, just that as an example of how sex is a form of play. But...
07:46
In terms of, you know, your body, the story of your body, right? Like how your body is narrated to you, how your body is talked about in your family, like that matters. But also, I think just were you invited to be embodied as a boy? Were you, how was your embodiment and kind of your virility, right? Your energy, your masculine desire to run and jump and play swords and wrestle, right? Like all of that.
08:16
helps you develop a good and alive and blessed relationship with your body that I think then can carry into how you carry your body into sex. Would you say that physicality is another way to understand embodiment? I don't wanna say physicality is embodiment, but for me, embodiment's a word I've heard a lot and I probably have a pretty fuzzy definition on it. But as you're talking about that,
08:42
How was your embodiment invited as a boy? Like is physicality another word to be able to, to maybe understand that? Yeah, I would, yes, I would agree with that. Like, for example, I'm in a, I'm in a men's group and I have permission from, I've been in a men's group with a group of guys for a number of years. And one of the guys was a really good athlete growing up. Like he was always the kid in the neighborhood that you wanted on your team because he was really good, but also because he just had, he just loved it.
09:11
He just loved that experience of being physical and athletic. And so, but he tells the story of like, when he was in college, he didn't know this at the time, but his coach came and told him he was like the three point shooting leader in his league division, whatever in college, he played college basketball and he was like, Whoa, like he was good, but he just loved it. Right. He loved the physicality of competition and athleticism, but his coach.
09:40
And here's where I would begin to, here's a story of sexual harm that might come through an avenue that doesn't feel like, you know, through your sexual story. But he had a coach that when they would lose, he played for a Christian college, when they would lose, the coach would come to the guys and say, there must be sin in the camp. I mean, he spiritualized the loss, right? Not like, hey, we need to work on layups or something, right? But like there must be sin in the camp. Who's sinning?
10:10
Right. And there was this pale of shame, right. And the implication was like, you guys are probably having sex with girls. And him as the captain of the team got a lot of that shame and he would really second guess all of his interactions. Like his, he wasn't, he wasn't sleeping around, right. But there was this sense of like, you know, my attraction to women, like, am I lusting?
10:39
you know, am I causing my team to lose? Can you start to hear like, and he would shut down his body and make him feel like he could play less vigorous, you know, less, less in his physicality. And so I think that story plays out in all men's lives. Yeah. Maybe in a different way. What an unassuming way that the sex talk was had, like I say unassuming, like you don't assume that that is a sex talk.
11:09
Right. Right. But it was a sex talk. It was a talk saying that anything having to do with your masculine virility is causing a detriment to the community. And so therefore, get it in check, figure it out, slow it down, shut it down so that the community is not harmed. And I think what you're inviting us all to consider is that the actual
11:35
God-honoring, awe-inspiring, playful space that sex is designed to be is in its fullness, not in its limitation. And it's coming forth in a way that says, hey, there is poetry that is to be written in this inspirational space rather than for it to be decimated and diminished and pushed away. Now, obviously, there's some ways to hold that.
12:01
that remain in the honoring of consent and the other and the mutuality of those kinds of things. And what if a generation of men actually have this kind of sex talk that you're suggesting? Right, right. What happens then? Right, right, because I think, you know, I think a lot of guys end up repenting of having a body, right, in their, when they do feel caught in, let's say, sexual sin or lust or, oh my gosh,
12:30
You know, you're standing in Starbucks and you you're next to a beautiful woman and something stirs in your body, right? The assumption is, oh my gosh, I'm lusting. And I would say, no, you're probably not. In fact, Sheila Ray Gregoire, author of a book, The Great Sex Rescue, she did some research on, you know, is lust every man's battle. And she asked men like, has lust every man's battle and like
12:56
80, 78% I think it was. So like close to 80% of men said yes. They self-reported that they struggled daily with lust. But when she researched, like asked questions that would back that up, like that would validate that there was behaviors, right, that indicated lust. Only, I think it was only 33% of men actually struggled with any kind of
13:24
discernible lust on a daily basis. So 80% thought they were lusting. Only 33% actually had a daily struggle with lust. Her conclusion was probably what's happening is these guys are feeling guilty for being moved by beauty. In other words, arousal is not lust, right? Arousal is what you were made for. You were made to be moved in your body, right? Lust happens in the heart. So can you take it further?
13:54
Could you do more with what moves in you next to the beautiful woman in Starbucks? You could, right? You could take that to lust, or you could take it to, wow, she's beautiful, thank God for beautiful women, or bless her beauty, I don't know, or like, wow, like you would with a beautiful sunset. Yes. So I think a lot of guys end up repenting of their body feelings. And I think too, maybe along with that,
14:22
You know, you talk about physicality and the idea that we need. I'm convinced that most guys like masturbation pornography rituals, if they struggle with that, has more to do with emotional dysregulation. It's probably 90% that. In fact, probably begins as I'm emotionally dysregulated in my body. I'm overwhelmed or I'm shut down.
14:48
So I'm overwhelmed with anger or shame or stress, and I don't know how to cope. And we aren't trained as men to really honor that, our limits, we're asked to push through a lot of crap as men, right? Keep going, work, work harder, work harder. It's common for men to say, I'm fine, I'm fine. And when I ask men in counseling, what are you feeling in your body? They often will say, I'm fine.
15:18
I don't even know what you're asking, right? What do you mean? What am I feeling in my body? Right? So that's, it's, I think that's another way that men, we often just say, well, I've lusted and, and leave it at that, but don't ask the question of like, but what was I overwhelmed with? Yeah. Yeah. What was the emotional experience that preceded the moment of that lost? Yes. Yes. Well, Sam, I feel like we need to have you like,
15:48
talk for a whole weekend on these kinds of things. And join us as a restitution project and do a whole like workshop on on the sex talk you never got. So that would be amazing. Tell us where people can find you, where people can find the book. Yes, that kind of stuff. So you've aroused our curiosity. So. Well, you know, when you talked about the subtitle of the book, I had asked the publisher to put the word roused.
16:17
Rousing the Heart of Masculine Sexuality. Instead they put reclaiming. So I do hope that the book rouses you. Rouses the heart, yes. Rouses the heart. And stirs you up to want more for yourself. So samjolman.com is the best place to find me. S-A- Right now the book is on pre-order. So if you go to my website, you can get some pre-order bonuses, including a book club with me, How to Give a Sex Talk ebook.
16:46
if you're a parent or just want to find out what you missed. And then you get a BOGO offer from my publisher. So if you buy the audio book, you can get a paperback or you can buy a second paper or get a second paper back for a friend. But all that is at samjolnman.com. You can also sign up for my sub stack there too. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, to all of you listeners right now, I hope that you go get this book. I hope that you go.
17:14
learn from Sam and his wisdom, his humility, and also just kind of let yourself come back to your body. Let yourself come back to your masculine body that God has made and God has given you, that he wrote your body into existence just as much as he wrote your soul into existence, and he desired on purpose to make you masculine. And so like what about that can be either reclaimed or roused?
17:43
as you enter into that. So Sam, thanks very much for being with us today. It's been great to talk with you. Jesse, Chris, thank you so much. I've enjoyed this. Thanks, Sam.