Hey Tabi!

The Hidden Crisis in Male Sexuality with Sam Jolman

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 8

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Is male sexuality really just about lust—or have we been sold a lie?

In this deeply vulnerable episode of Hey Tabi, licensed trauma therapist Sam Jolman joins Tabitha Westbrook to uncover the untold story of male sexuality, emotional connection, and healing. Together, they expose how purity culture, porn exposure, and spiritual distortion have warped men’s understanding of their own bodies and desires, often with devastating consequences.

Whether you're a man trying to understand your sexual story, a woman wondering why your partner shuts down, or a therapist supporting clients through sexual trauma recovery, this episode will reshape how you think about intimacy, identity, and embodiment.

You’ll learn:

  • Why men were taught to fear their sexuality and how that harms everyone
  • How emotional disconnection sabotages intimacy in marriage
  • Why “lust” isn’t the real problem (and what is)
  • The difference between consumption and connection
  • How the Church has often failed men by oversimplifying their struggle
  • What healthy, heart-connected sexuality - the poetics of sex - actually looks like 
  • Why healing is possible, even after trauma, shame, or years of struggle

This is the conversation we should’ve had decades ago, but it’s not too late. Men were made for more than performance. They were made for love, tenderness, and true intimacy. It’s time to reclaim that.

🔗 RESOURCES & LINKS
→ Sam Jolman’s book: The Sex Talk You Never Got - https://amzn.to/4ogAohx
→ Sam’s website: https://www.samjolman.com/

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome to Hey Tabi
01:20 Meet Sam Jolman & his journey
05:23 Purity culture myths & male shame
08:47 Mechanics vs Poetics of Sex
13:37 Healthy masculinity & emotional intimacy
20:41 Marriage, trauma & knowing your partner
29:43 Pornography exposure as harm
35:10 How men connect emotionally
41:59 Why safe touch and community matter
50:10 The church’s silent role in sexual harm
56:33 Reclaiming pleasure, play & healing

Wanna say hi? Send a text!

🎧 Subscribe to Hey Tabi for more expert conversations on trauma, faith, and healing.

Order Body & Soul, Healed & Whole: An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control

📩 Connect with Tabitha:
💻 Tabitha's Website - www.tabithawestbrook.com
📲 Tabitha's Instagram - www.instagram.com/tabithathecounselor
🎙️ Podcast Homepage - https://heytabi.buzzsprout.com

💻 The Journey & The Process Website - www.thejourneyandtheprocess.com
📲 The Journey & The Process Instagram - www.instagram.com/_tjatp

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🚨 Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and is intended for educational purposes only. If you're in crisis or need therapy, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now let's get going. Welcome to this week's episode of hey Tabby. I am super excited. This has been a long time coming and I am glad that we are finally here.

Speaker 1:

I am going to chat today with Sam Joelman, and Sam wrote one of my favorite books of 2024, and we are definitely going to talk about that. Let me tell you who he is. He is a licensed professional counselor and trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience specializing in men's issues and sexual trauma recovery. 20 years of experience specializing in men's issues and sexual trauma recovery. Being a therapist has given him a front row seat to hear hundreds of men and women share their stories. His writing flows out of this unique opportunity to help people know and heal their stories and find greater sexual wholeness and aliveness. He received his master's in counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and was further trained in narrative-focused trauma care through the Allender Center at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and y'all know we love some narrative-focused trauma care up in here.

Speaker 1:

Sam lives in Colorado with his wife and three sons, and together they enjoy exploring the best camping spots in Colorado in a pop-up camper. Sam goes to therapy, loves fly fishing and can often be found trying to catch his breath on the floor of his local CrossFit gym. I could not do that. We're going to read more about Sam at his website, on his sub stack and in various places, but all of his links will be in the description Sam welcome.

Speaker 2:

Tabby, it is so good to be here. It has been a long time coming. And I'm equally honored to be here because I am a chapter into your book and, oh my goodness, as we talked beforehand, I'm loving it. It has such gravitas, such a deep dive and I'm already feeling invited, challenged, cared for in chapter one. I'm equally honored to meet you. This has been a long time coming because we also share a writing coach. We do who has helped us birth books, which has been super meaningful. Yes, shout out to our friend Ruth.

Speaker 1:

She is incredible. I love her so much.

Speaker 2:

She's incredible.

Speaker 1:

I want to hear about how this book came about for you, and one of the things I love the most about it is its invitational nature. You tell stories so well and it is so gentle, yet also unapologetic, in beautiful ways. So tell me, how did we get here?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, you know my whole life right At some level. I'm writing this book, as we all do as authors to some degree, to ourselves. And so there's I'm writing this book to my younger self, the young man that didn't get a sex talk, and in all the ways that did not go well in my life, all the ways that I had such a wildly ambivalent relationship with my own sexuality and in many ways felt like I was set up to believe my sexuality is the enemy and that it is inherently bad and that it's inherently lustful. As a man. And I can remember when I, for example, when I met my wife, feeling like she was too attractive and believing like that can't be good, because I feel so excited about her, I feel so aroused by her, I feel so attracted to her, that can't be good. Right, that's got to be bad, because God doesn't do that. And when she said yes and things worked out with her and we had our own journey to getting from that moment of me meeting her to marriage, but it felt like this is too scandalous and what is that right? What was that in my story that was driving me away from my sexuality, away from a good expression of it.

Speaker 2:

So that was a moment right that inspired me to write this book, because I did have a few places where that sexual aliveness was being welcomed and affirmed, primarily through being in a therapist's office, a few pastors, a few guides in my life, mentors but it was rare, and it felt like a lost understanding of how to embody sexuality well on men as well, through this disclosure and connecting to stories of abuse anywhere from the.

Speaker 2:

You know what we might call the more daily quote, unquote, minor, obviously not minor cat calling sexualization of men right To outright, you know, sexual trauma and abuse. And there was a question of like is this just male sexuality? Is it just this broken? Is it just this monstrous? And obviously, being a Christian and knowing this is a creation of God's, there's no way. This is it. But what is the vision? How do you embody this well as a man? So again, trying to speak to that young man but also then feeling this call to invite men to a greater vision of how do you embody sexuality well, how can it be a gift, not just to you but to the world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that is one of the things that I loved about it is that, you know, I think in the church we language it in a couple of different ways. Right, Men are nothing but their lust. This is what purity culture taught us, right.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you know you can't help it. If you don't have sex every 72 hours, you will explode, and my friend Jason Van Ruler has reminded us all of this. This is my favorite fact of 2024 that I learned the only mammal that can die if they do not have an orgasm is a female ferret, and that is factually correct. It is my favorite fact of all time at this point, wow.

Speaker 2:

I did not know that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it is the best. And I told him I was going to use it in everything, and I do. But like we've distilled our brothers down to nothing but their lust, and that is not what God says about men.

Speaker 1:

He says that they are image bearers of the living God, just like women, and we've distilled women down to well. I'm my brother's gatekeeper and so if I don't dress a certain way, give it up a certain amount of times, whatever, and I don't please him sexually, then he is just going to be given over to pornography or affairs. And none of that is true and none of that is biblical.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And it has harmed us both so much.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, right. In other words, you know to accept that you're an animal as a man, right, that's all you are, is just an animal and you're. You know it's every man's battle and you'll just barely be able to fight lust your whole life if you can even do that. And, like you said, right, you need your daily or 72-hour vitamin called sex, and that a woman has to give it to you. In other words, that it's not even mutual right, that it's something you have a right to. Even it's awful. It's a horrible story for men and women. I would agree.

Speaker 1:

It makes us opposed to each other, it makes us afraid of each other and it harms the brother sister relationship in the body of Christ too, which is ridiculous because, you know, I actually was leading a group last night and we were talking about male female friendships together, and one of the things that we were talking about is if we are the body we, men and women, are the body of.

Speaker 2:

Christ.

Speaker 1:

Aren't we cutting off half the body if we focus on one to the exclusion of the other?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And that is such a pale version of what God has called us to and it's such a beautiful version when we are allowed to flourish and we were all created sexual beings, like it is part of our creation.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, right, and it's a witness to something right, not just for, as you said, the act of sex right Alone. It is a witness that you are wired for pleasure, right. Research would say you have 8,000 to 10,000 nerve endings, both men and women, in your genitalia. That's a witness to something that God wants you to experience pleasure in his good world. You also have 4,000 taste buds, right, and this is a God who wired you for pleasure. That's not a part of the fall. You're meant to enjoy the world, you're meant to enjoy relationship and, yes, including sex itself. But I think it's also that it's a witness to something about God's heart. You know, our friend Dan Allender would say that love is the giving and receiving of pleasure, to the glory of God, which I've loved that definition, that love in itself is a pleasure that we're meant to experience, not just the act of sex, you know, not just an orgasm or release.

Speaker 1:

Right, there's so much more and you and I talked a little bit about this before we even started. But I'm with who are caught in compulsive sexual behavior because they have been so habituated in such a wrong way and they're using it in a way for comfort and it's obviously harmful to them, harmful to their spouses. But this is the quote. Authentic sexuality requires a connection to your body and self so that you can tune into your partner. Without sensuality, sexuality does not work. Everything goes wrong. The mechanics require the proper poetics and I love that the mechanics and the poetics of sex the way that you language.

Speaker 1:

That is so helpful. You say it becomes about getting an orgasm when we're just looking at the mechanics. I'd venture to say that sexual sin is not about too much desire, but rather too little sensuality or, as I said in the introduction, too little heart. And I was like, yes, absolutely so. When you really just focus on the practice the penis and the vagina then you lose the heart.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, right. So you know, I'm borrowing that line from author Esther Perel, where I first got it, which changed my life when I heard it the poetics of sex right, the mechanics being like how the plumbing works, which probably left out women's pleasure altogether because it was named a penis and a vagina, not a vulva, right. And so even there the setup is already against women. But nevertheless, that's the mechanics, how it fits together, which even that in itself is already a more complex conversation, because 85% of couples at some point in their marriage have physical sexual dysfunction, let alone the emotional struggles and relational struggles of intimacy. But yeah, but Esther Perel talks about the poetics of sex is the realm of desire, what's running the show right, what's bringing the mechanics together and what's animating it.

Speaker 2:

And as I say in the book, you know, I believe all sexuality lives in a story. It is always telling a story, it's always being driven by a story. It's never just a bodily function like a sneeze or a cough or using the bathroom. It's a function driven by your, the story. You're living the intimacy, you're living the day you're having right, as you've named right, that pull towards comfort and seeing sexuality as an act of comfort. Right, and that's where I think we need to begin to ask the question what's going on in your heart, not just what's going on in your body. What's driving it, what's animating it?

Speaker 1:

And I love how you talk about desire, because for so many people, especially survivors of abuse, desire is a four-letter word with more than four letters, because it feels like you're not even allowed. Like what am I even saying? Especially for women. Women are told we're not allowed to desire anything, we're just supposed to like lay there, which is ridiculous. But you know, I think for men oftentimes desire and consumption have been intertwined and they are not the same right. Lust is consumptive. That's where Jesus talks about adultery and lust being the same. And it is not because you want something, it's because you want to consume someone. Yes, and you're using them for your pleasure, without any focus on their well-being, their pleasure, their desire, their anything.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so I say basically that when a man looks at sexuality that way that they basically are seeing their partner as a blow-up doll with a pulse, and that is not the way that it was intended.

Speaker 2:

true desire is for connection, not consumption. Yes, right, right, I mean adam in the garden of eden, right, the first person to meet another person naked eve, right, while he is also naked, right. The first thing he does is not simply procreate and go for sex. He waxes eloquent in poetry about their I've met my person, right. The intimacy that's now possible, the sense of belonging he felt to her. In other words, he starts with all the intimacy he's anticipating with her. You're bone of my bone, you're flesh of my flesh, you're my people, you're my person, right. And when you leave that out, as I'm sure you experience in the safety of a counseling office, I have men all the time say to me I hate sex, that's just for sex.

Speaker 1:

Men all the time, say to me I hate sex, that's just for sex?

Speaker 2:

Right that they. But they feel like they have to kind of hide that. Like I had a man who literally does counseling and I have permission to share this from the cab of his construction truck, on his lunch breaks on the job site and he says you know, as a man I know I'm supposed to always get it up and just be ready to get it up and that's all I want. Right, it's just be always ready. But he said I actually he was grieving how much he missed romance with his wife. It had been a season they couldn't date because of life circumstances. They just hadn't had time for that connection. And he said I think I'm really missing that.

Speaker 2:

I actually want the emotional stuff, but again feeling like he has to confess it, like in the secrecy of a counseling office, right, what is this image of masculine sexuality that we've created? That all men want is just an orgasm. They just want to get off right Food and sex. That all men want is just an orgasm. They just want to get off right Food and sex. Just give them food and sex and that's all they want. It's so minimizing. It's so minimizing Both to men and to women, obviously.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it doesn't represent the good brothers that I know at all. Yes, the only men I have ever seen who have said I just want what I want are destructive men, the abusers of the world the coercive controllers of the world.

Speaker 1:

And they do not see their partners as humans, Honestly. They do not see them as image bearers of God. They see them as an object to serve them, and that's a whole other mentality. That is a problem. But most men the ones who are not coercively controlling abusers they are wanting that connection, but they've never been given the words and the language and the invitation to be there. And one of the things that I always found fun in couples counseling I don't get to do it as much anymore but is I have the power to make grown men cry, apparently, and I'd have wives go. What did you do? Like I've never seen him cry and all I did was see his heart and say, oh, you have such desire.

Speaker 1:

There's this tenderness there, and then all of the walls just start to crumble and they're like you must be piping in tear gas and I'm like no man, you're just seeing.

Speaker 2:

You're just seeing yes, Right, Right, no man you're just seeing. You're just seeing yeah, yes, right, right, and you know. Again back to what you named, which is the church sets up the vision of men, which is that picture of the abuser, the guy who just wants sex. I think that's well said. Those are the most haunting experiences I've ever had in counseling as well. Those are the most haunting experiences I've ever had in counseling as well, when I'm sitting across from somebody that's abusive and you get that haunting feeling of you're here to control.

Speaker 2:

You're not here on the same terms as your wife, are you? You're in this for something more than intimacy and again, unfortunately, that's often the script. The church writes that men are, and so we become blind, as you named so well then, to seeing that as no, that's actually an abuser, that's not the image of God in a man. I say often like and this feels revolutionary, but it's just truth that men are equally as capable as women at experiencing emotional connection and attachment. There's nothing different in a man that prevents him from experiencing healthy emotional attachment and secure attachment, Right, but even that we're like. What Really, Men want? That stuff, yes.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Men want that stuff all day. That's what I sit with when I sit with men.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and men when they are invited into a safe space to express it and to start to get real about it and to start I call it family of origin rules, right, like so the things that we were maybe grown up with that grown men don't cry, you know? I mean, this is baseball. There's no crying in baseball, right From League of their Own, that kind of deal when we invite men into that different place to go. No, like, what does it mean to truly be an image bearer? And Jesus wept right my favorite verse in the Bible, super easy to memorize. But also he already knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew what was coming and he still felt the pain, he still felt the compassion, he still wept with people and it wasn't like a sniffle, sniffle it was wailing yes and yes when we invite our brothers into those spaces of all you were created to be.

Speaker 1:

Let's get familiar with those deep places and that deep well within you, Gosh man. That's where healing takes place, Right.

Speaker 2:

It's almost like if you just tell a man this is in you, right, then they feel free to go there finally and admit it. You know, my publisher, my editor, was hesitant at first with my use of the language of lover, right, my first chapter is you are a lover. And I came out of the gate hoping you know to get punchy with we're going to go here. And my publisher was like oh man, my editor especially like I hope men connect to that. Are men going to connect to that? And ultimately they agreed and said let's go for it. And he said I think they will.

Speaker 2:

But we had that conversation and it's been amazing, a year in now to the book being launched, how deeply men connect to that word. It's been a gift to me to notice like, oh, you get it right, it's in you, it just has to be called out of you and initiated. And I talked, you know, in that first chapter about how I felt God initiated the lover in me, or a couple scenes of that. But, right, it's almost like if you just tell men, this is, you're fully capable of this, this is God's image in you, then they feel empowered to go there more. But if you tell them. No, you're just a lustful animal. All you really want is the sexual release. The romance is for the women. What a dumb thing. How did we?

Speaker 1:

get there. Right.

Speaker 1:

We have like Song of Songs which is erotic love poetry, yes, which is all about romance and both the man and the woman are writing it to each other and they're both desirous, they're both talking about desire, they are both together and they're boundaried right at one point she says no and he leaves and she's like, oh, you know, and I think like the Song of Songs has been one of the worst books taught ever, because it's always used for premarital counseling and it's like so your wedding night's going to be this, and I'm like, oh for the love. First of all, I'd like you to talk about what the marriage is going to be like and how do we have a conversation, and there's a lot more to it. But how do we have real intimacy? And I think it was Sue Johnson who created emotionally focused couples therapy, that said it this way. Intimacy means into me, you see, and everybody needs to be seen, both men and women.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, that that word in Genesis of Adam and Eve Adam knew Eve, right, Seeing sex as a knowing right. And I know Sheila Gregoire has pointed this out that that same word is used in Psalm 139, right, where David is talking about you search to me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar, right, and you can almost hear that as like lovers saying you could finish my sentences, right. You know what I love and what I don't like. You know my deepest hurts, right. That's the kind of intimacy that's intended. I love that language from Sue Johnson.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and you know, as you're talking about that, it reminded me of the love maps from the Gottmans right. This is your baseline of knowing your partner what makes them them and Diane Langberg talks about that Like as when she's training counselors, like the first thing you're supposed to do is who is this person in front of me, what makes them them right? And that should be the first thing in marriage, because that matters.

Speaker 1:

And so we're teaching people go have this raucous wedding night and having these ridiculous bachelorette parties. Some of the bridal showers I've been to in the evangelical church are suspect because like, here's a lingerie party and it's like this is, this is not no ew. It's like you're distilling down the entire marriage to the wedding night, which often doesn't live up to what people expect anyway, because, especially if you did wait till marriage, you don't know what you're doing. No one knows what they're doing, and if it's your second marriage, you still don't know what you're doing because you don't know this person and so you know leaning in and going, what do I like?

Speaker 1:

And we are not teaching that, we are not teaching what is comfortable for you and that comes out of intimacy and knowing your partner, just knowing them in general, outside of intercourse and sexual contact, but then also knowing them in terms of how can we have these conversations about what's okay and what's not okay here? Yep, and if there's been sexual harm in this day and age, one in six men and one in four women have been sexually harmed in some way, and that's probably low on the statistic. Right, how are we entering in together to say let me be tender with you. Let me know you so that we can come together well.

Speaker 2:

Right, Right, I love that what you're saying there, In other words, to know each other's stories in a way that would say I know your triggers, or I can at least anticipate what experiences might be tender for you, and to be able to have you know the possibility that we can always stop right. Sex can always be stopped. The play of sex to address what's happening in your body that might be painful, right, or whether we stop altogether or we pause, but right, where there's that tenderness to say bringing you along with me is the point. It's not to get to some physical release, you know which. Alexandra Katahakis, I think I'm saying that, right, Yep.

Speaker 1:

Alex Katahakis.

Speaker 2:

Okay, who says you know? Sex for some men becomes a kind of almost autoerotic thing. It's not even partnered right, it's not even dyadic, it's just simply your, as you named. You're a blow up doll that's going to get me off. And again, it's so degrading to women, it is so degrading to men as well. Yes, that's all you are, rather than actually. You're a really good lover who can read and attune to your partner and you'll be able to stop and address her pain Right, or your own.

Speaker 1:

Yes, or your own, because men have pain too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, right, you know I tell some of this story in the book that I did not know, that I had a story of sexual harm when I went into marriage. But what I knew is when my wife would initiate intimacy in our first couple of years of marriage, even if it was just affection in the kitchen, like a hug, my whole body would bristle and tighten up and I would lock up like a board and she would obviously begin to read my body. Something had changed and I was not enjoying this and she would back away and it felt very personally, rejecting, understandably. And I remember in our first couple of years of marriage she said to me Understandably, and I remember in our first couple of years of marriage she said to me I need you to do something about this, like what's going on? And I didn't have an answer. I didn't know what was going on in my body when she would hug me and again, if I initiated, it was fine, right, because again I had power, I felt I had agency. But if she initiated, my body would bristle and my body was telling my story and so that's, you know, at that point in our intimacy I went into counseling, really with an unknown. I don't know what I'm addressing. I just know my wife experiences this. I love her. I don't know why I'm doing this. I enjoy her. I don't know why I'm doing this. I enjoy her.

Speaker 2:

And it was it began my journey into a deeper dive of my own story, my own sexual harm, to begin to an overt story of sexual harm, right of sexual abuse. But it's highly likely. It's possible one in six. But men are notoriously less outspoken about their abuse, so it's probably higher. Men tend to take it as I must have been perverted or I must have been weird. Obviously women take that as well, with that belief. That's how we bury our stories of abuse. But you have stories that have shaped you sexually. There's an ongoing story and it's probably a silent one. It's probably an unspoken one. That's in the subtext. Yes, those stories show up when you try to move towards intimacy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, those stories show up when you try to move towards intimacy.

Speaker 1:

They do, they do, and you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about this that for those of us that did grow up in the evangelical church or in the church in general, I wonder how much covert sexual abuse, or sexual dysfunction at the very least, has been languaged just in what men say and, like you had mentioned earlier, the phrase every man's battle, which makes me unnaturally mad because of the book of the same name and the wickedness that I believe that perpetrates.

Speaker 1:

And just looking at that and telling men well, you're going to struggle with lust and struggle with porn and that sort of thing, when that is not in fact actually true. And how many guys have been sexually abused through someone showing them pornography or something similar, or having it languaged, or having a youth pastor that was talking about it or that made sexually suggestive comments? I mean, we have pastors that get up whose sermons are on the Internet talking about their smoking hot wife. That is not about her personhood, that is about her body and what they can get from it, and so I wonder how much, if I'm being just really brutally honest, the church has perpetuated sexual harm.

Speaker 2:

Right Yep.

Speaker 1:

And I love the church. Don't get me wrong. I love Jesus, I love the church. I think that it is a beautiful place, but I do think that we have to recognize spaces of brokenness.

Speaker 2:

Right, and there's something about the minimizing as well of, as you named, like, oh, you know how we just say, well, it's just lust.

Speaker 2:

We tend to put it in these categories that are often spiritually bypassing of it. You know, to say, well, he struggles with us, or that pastor stumbled, or right, whether it's even in the teaching or just in how we script. When harm does happen, right, as we don't use the language of trauma and abuse, we'll say it was sin or it was even you know he struggles with lust, and but we don't understand, even there, that lust is primarily about power, yes, and so again, we think of it as it's just an overabundance of sexual urge, that sort of spilled over right, like and how could you blame them? Right, the cup's full he's. It just spills over the side sometimes, right, and and rather than seeing it as a very intentional act of grasping at power, of ego, stroking right, that's what lust is. It is not primarily about sexual release, it isn't that, but more in the name of the ego and the ego's pride. So again, yes, we don't, we don't look darkness in the face, um, and we should be the bravest ones, as our friend dan allender says, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And you know, I think about some of the things that Dan has in Healing the Wounded Heart, which is one of my favorite books for sexual harm of all time.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And even in that, because of the time period when he wrote it, even the 20-year update that he speaks mainly to women's harm in a lot of ways, and there is a lot of harm for women. But as we're thinking about this, I'm like well, how many men were invited into pornography and sexual dysfunction by their own fathers, by uncles? Oh hey, watch this with me, this is what we do, you know, while you have a beer when you're 13 or whatever, and that is such a form of harm.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Right, right. It's breaking my form of harm yes, right, and it's breaking my heart right now.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, you know most men hold that as their shame. Well, I looked, I looked at porn, but they don't ever stop to wrestle with the setup, as you're naming so well. So many men's first experience of pornography is actually a story of sexual abuse, of sexual harm, where you were sexualized by somebody, even if that was quote unquote passively, by a father who left his pornography in the garage or in the attic or by his nightstand. Right, and this is back in the time of more magazines were more popular, but also including, you know, the kid that says, hey, come look at this on his phone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, before you know it, you're watching a scene of sexual, of sex, of porn. Right, that's a form of sexualization. Somebody sexualized you, somebody invited you in without your consent and you need to be informed. To be consensual, you also need to be an adult. So again to say you don't know what you're consenting to if you're under 18 right, yeah, you don't you can't your prefrontal cortex is not wired together.

Speaker 2:

You can, yes right, right, yeah, yes, yeah. And again I would say you know to men that hold so many men I talk with, hold that story as I was perverted. I looked, I was curious and again feeling the contempt for their own perversion or their own arousal.

Speaker 1:

We're meant to be curious. You know, all of these things desire curiosity. That you talk about the play of sex in your book, which I adored, especially for so many trauma survivors. We have had play stolen from us in every realm, you know, including relationships and looking at the overall play of sex and going. This is meant to be delightful. This is meant to be delighting it is meant to be good.

Speaker 1:

God created it as good, and you know to invite people into that place. And so when you are exposed to something you shouldn't be and look man, people who create pornography. Their goal is to keep you stuck because that's how they make their money. Let's be honest, follow the dollar. And when we look at that and we go, you know of course your desire was played upon, your delight was played upon. Of course it was, and we need to hold the purveyors of porn responsible, not the little boy that looked and was drawn in, especially little boys with trauma.

Speaker 2:

Right, yep, right. I had a couple come to me and they have given me permission to share this story. Their watching old son came to them and said mom, dad, I've been struggling with pornography and they were heartbroken, you know, and and thought they had the filters up and everything right. And he told the story of what happened. And he had been at school and he'd listened to some of his friends talking about girls they were interested in and he realized he didn't know how to kiss a girl Right. Which purely innocent, what a beautifully innocent curiosity how do you kiss a girl? And so he went to Google, typed it in how do you kiss a girl? And again, because, as you've named well, pornographers are looking for their next customer right, and if they can get a lifetime customer, even better. And pornography showed up in the search results. And he stumbled down that dark path and he felt too ashamed to bring it up for a while because it felt like it was his fault. Yeah, but what could be more innocent than a question how to kiss a girl?

Speaker 1:

Right, which is such a reasonable question for a teenage boy?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Girls have these questions too. We don't talk about them as much. We all need to be talking about this stuff because and as a parent myself and you're a parent like it can be awkward to talk about things with your kid and they also. They feel awkward, everybody's awkward together. But when we are languaging these things and also delighting in the desire that God created for them, of course you're going to feel this way. Of course you're going to desire, first of all, intimacy in general. You're going to desire to be known and loved. You're going to desire physical contact. You're going to desire pleasure. Those are beautiful things. We want to keep them in the right guardrails, of course.

Speaker 1:

But, what if we celebrated that that desire was there?

Speaker 2:

Right, right, right and blessed the lover. Yeah, right, blessed the lover and that young man, that 14-year-old, and his curiosity and desire to kiss. Well, yes, right, that's a sex talk right there. It is Conversation yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and such a beautiful one One of the things that I talked about in my book was the healthy, non-sexual intimacy in relationships with the opposite sex. Again, a place the church has not gone as well as they would have hoped, right, or at least as I would have hoped. But how do we begin, as friends, understanding intimacy with the opposite sex in non-sexual ways that you know eventually then lead into that, so that we have that more fulsome understanding of what it is to be connected humans?

Speaker 2:

fulsome understanding of what it is to be connected humans. Yes, right, right, yeah, you know. Back to Sue Johnson, and particularly around men. You know Sue Johnson has this quote where she talks about, you know, when a couple comes to her and the wife says, you know he's really into sex. Why is that? And she says something like you know, I would be into sex too if it was the only place other than the football field where I got touch and held, right.

Speaker 2:

And again, what you're naming is like how we're set up, right, for a man, obviously that's a cultural thing. Sex isn't meant to be the only place you experience touch, right, you know, other than the football field, right, but like you're naming, like the ability to even receive healthy touch, hug right, affection, right, Sometimes that's the only way men know how to ask for that and I'm not saying this is an excuse, right, because they need to grow in this is by saying I want sex, yeah. And often then, when I ask men, well, what do you love about it? Right, they'll say things like I love feeling desired, I love feeling wanted. It's one of the only places I feel wanted, is the only place, one of the only places I can feel like I can get touch and comfort, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so the question becomes what if you could take those again? That's awesome. You want those in sex, right, those are good places for it. But what if you could take that into other contexts? What if you could own? You want to be pursued. Maybe you need to talk about something. Maybe you just need to emotionally connect.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, absolutely yeah. I think about Kirk Thompson's quote we all come into the world looking for someone, looking for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that ends Like ultimately, we find that in Jesus, of course, but that's also not the only answer. Right Like, that is an answer. It is a wonderful answer. There are those of us who are single, who. That is where we are going to get that right now, in lots of ways it's that depth, but also he created us in community for community, and that is such an important thing.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And so we should be getting touch. I know, you know, lori Wilbert, that Ferguson, ferguson. Wilbert. Anyway, love her book. He you know Lori Wilbert, is it Wilbert?

Speaker 2:

Ferguson, ferguson, wilbert. Anyway, sure Handle with care.

Speaker 1:

Love her book. He, you know, talks about what if we all understood the need for touch in the church and that desperation for that. Because you know, I think about, as a single woman, the good friends that touch me when I go to church and sometimes that's the only physical contact I get, but there are friends that look for me, to hug me, and that's beautiful. There's nothing at all sexual about it, but it's deeply connecting. And what a gift we give to each other when we are seen.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, yes. You know, I can remember when I was single and I was on this camping trip with this, like we were doing like a camping trip slash, like therapy, dive experience, and I can remember it was it was men and women on this camping trip and we were sitting around the fire and I was processing something really painful and I still, I mean it changed my life. But I remember one of the women reached her hand over and just started rubbing my back. I mean it was like what? It felt so safe and so good and it was so not sexual, it was simply an offer of comfort in my pain. Oh, you know the body's need for that and how that can speak love, yes.

Speaker 1:

Yes, one of my friends calls it skin hunger.

Speaker 1:

We all have it you know, and I think we've distilled it down through some books and things like that oh, you want, you know, acts of service or physical touch. It's like no, no, no, we need all of those things. You know, we may have preferences for maybe something over another thing, but we need them all and we are desperate for each other in relationship and when we're in an intimate relationship. I think that that's an even more important, you know, factor. It's not the Jerry McGuire. You complete me. I do not need someone to complete me but I do need someone to connect to me.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, yeah, well, said, yeah, yeah. And again I'm leaning a little bit here into Sue Johnson, but I know Sue Johnson mentions something like everyone has touch hunger. She marks that, you know, little boys are held less as infants than girls are. In other words, there's an inherent kind of touch deprivation that men go through possibly Again, I'm not saying man for man, but in general, so, especially as a man obviously that's my audience in my book the importance of learning to find places and learning to know how to ask for touch, because sometimes what's being asked for in sex is just that. You know, I can think of a woman who I quoted in my book and again, this was not a good thing in her life. She described to me I always knew what kind of day my husband had, based on how he had sex with me that night. And she said sometimes I could tell he had a bad day because I was the thing he needed to conquer at the end of his day and she said it was awful.

Speaker 2:

It was not intimacy, you know and I've reflected on her experience which would be a form of harm uh, you know, long term for her to experience that. And I've thought to myself what if that man could just say hey, honey, I had a bad day. Can I talk about it? Yeah, right, and actually got intimacy? Yes, rather than being stuck in his ego or his thirst for power right, I've got to conquer something. What if he could just accept it's okay to have a bad day, right, and you're still lovable. Yep, right. What a gift that could have been to his wife as well. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I could talk to you all day.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

All the things, gosh, what a beautiful life, giving conversation, and this is one of the things, honestly, that's most important to me, even though I often work with women who have been harmed. You know, and I do work with batterers and I invite them into change. I invite them into accountability and change because they are missing such important things. But and there's a whole other group of men out there that I work with, that you work with, that are none of those right. They're not batterers, they're not coercive controllers. They're men who have never been taught to really truly walk in the fullness of who God created them to be in all their parts and ways.

Speaker 1:

And so I love that your book invites us to something there, invites us into that space, and I will commend it to everyone, whether they are a man or a woman. I've given this to plenty of women. I give it to all the guys. All my guys get this as a referral. I'm like you need to go read this and we're going to talk about it, but for all of my ladies as well.

Speaker 1:

I often encourage reading it because it presents a different picture than maybe they have even heard about men, and it is so beautiful, and so thank you for the book, thank you for spending time with us here and for this conversation, and we 100% have to do it again, really, really soon.

Speaker 2:

Tabby, I would love that. I've loved this conversation and have loved my journey into your book as well, and would love to come back. It's very, very mutual.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much, Sam, and all of your information will be in the description so people can find you, and thank you for hanging out here again on hey Tabby. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrookcom. Forward slash hey Tabby. That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

People on this episode

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Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

Host
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Sam Jolman

Guest