"I’m getting a boner — what’s she going to think??"

So begins the conflict for a lot of boys and men have around their cock. From a young age -- basically from the time boners start to be a thing, "It’s like a lot of men are constantly tracking, ‘Am I having an erection and if I do, how do I hide it?’"

The thing is, hiding and secrets go hand-in-hand, and they generally don't go anywhere good. The fact is, especially during teenage years, boners aren't even always about turn-on. As one man put it, "NRBs are a thing!" (No Reason Boners).

We're on a streak here talking about how to overcome sexual shame (see what I did there?). Here we delve into the complex relationship many men have with their sexuality, and in particular to their erections.

Related questions:

• How do you even know what healthy sexuality is if you've never seen it role-modeled?
• What is a boy supposed to do or say if he gets a boner at an unexpected time?
• How do you teach boys and young men that getting a boner, rather than a source of shame, can be a source of pride?

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good. (We've worked with a lot of men who grew up LDS or with other religious backgrounds, so if that's you, we're here.)

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

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Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "Our turn-on is visible from the outside."
• “It’s like what my body is doing is wrong.”
• "Men mocking men when they get hard creates a deep inner conflict."
• "The antidote to shame is connection."
• "Men having an erection is a sign of health."
• "What that shame is teaching is us to be in opposition to what we are."
• "‘If he gets a boner, he’s going to try to fu**.’"
• "I have a choice in what to do with my sexuality."

Did you grow up with a religious background? Then congrats, you likely experienced sexual shame! Perhaps you still do to this day.

The truth is, it's deeply confusing to grow up having completely natural sexual urges, but be told you're bad or wrong for having them. In the words of the panelists:

• "For a long time I thought, 'What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get over this?'"
• "I was taught, 'Don’t touch, don’t look, don’t think, don’t act.'"
• "As a teenager I thought, 'I’m going to go to hell and there’s no way to get around it.'"

Here, a panel of four men, three of whom grew up in the Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS, aka the Mormon Church), and one who grew up Catholic/Christian, discuss their journey from religious programming to a more full, rich, and healthy sexual expression in the world.

But it doesn't stop with healthy sex. Because one of the effects of feeling blocked, ashamed, or perverted for having natural sexual desires is that you tend to have a lot of trouble relating with those with whom you want to have sex.

This begs the questions: What is healthy sex and sexuality? What is healthy connection? According to one married man, "It took us 32 years of our marriage to be able to unravel and untwist this trauma."

Religious deconstruction from LDS and other religions is real, and it's doable. You can overcome sexual shame, religious indoctrination, and more.

If you want to go from being afraid to connect with women to having the healthiest relationship of your life, listen on.

If you're looking for inspiration, hope, and dare I say an experience of transcendence, listen on.

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good. (We've worked with a lot of men who grew up LDS or with other religious backgrounds, so if that's you, we're here.)

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "As a child, we were taught that sex-related sins were worse than murder."
• "I grew up with a daily sense of guilt and shame, and, 'I’m so dirty or gross, why would they want me?'"
• “I felt like God set me up to fail.”
• "The sexual experiences I’ve had since my divorce have been unbelievably healing for me."
• “The more we talk about it, we expand ourselves and it does something in our own nervous system.”
• “Now I can find some freedom in it. It’s OK to have sexual needs.”
• "I’m horny as hell and excited to have a fun Friday night!"

"Needing space within a love relationship is crucial for maintaining my identity ... It’s not merely about taking a break; it’s about preserving a sense of self that can slowly wither in the absence of such space."

So says one of our clients, eloquently speaking to the need and also the cost of not getting space when it's required.

Here we discuss both sides of the need for space -- what it's like to need it (and how to ask for it), as well as what it's like when a partner names that need. It can be confronting or even scary when a partner needs space, especially if we have a fear of abandonment. We delve into this, and how to reframe giving space as an act of love (it's said that space is the sixth love language).

We also touch on the fact that some people know when they need space, while others aren't even necessarily aware that that's what they're needing; they just know something is missing, or that they feel lackluster.

Romantic relationships tend to have certain unwritten or unspoken rules or norms, and one of my goals is to bring these into the light. I want to facilitate conscious relationship, and meta conversations (meaning talking about how we relate to one another). I hope this one sparks something in you, and look forward to hearing about it. You can always get me at dearmenpodcast at gmail dot com.

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "It was hard for me to ask for space because I felt like I’d be hurting her."
• "Having a space of no demand on our attention is deeply restorative."
• "They have no space for themselves and wonder why they’re not feeling alive."
• "What do we want the culture and the values of our relationship to be?"
• "I trust that you’ll come back."

When you were a boy, did you feel comfortable being your full self?

Did you feel at ease around becoming a man -- like you knew what that meant and smoothly moved into that identity?

We live in a world where boys and young men often feel like it's not safe to be themselves, and where it can be confusing to grow into manhood.

According to Nat Damon, who runs Reach Academy for Young Men, "what boys need is to be seen and heard." And for boys who need healthy role models in terms of what it means to be a mature, healthy man, places like Reach are lifelines.

Reach Academy gives boys a place to learn, grow, express themselves, bond with peers, and learn about leadership in a grounded way. Mentors there ask themselves questions like, "How can we help them to see the positive elements of being a man, while at the same time addressing the roots of toxic masculinity?" And, "How do you create a hope-filled atmosphere?"

It's more important than ever to have places where people who identify as boys and young men can take the pressure off. Where they can get attuned support, and experience healthy leadership. And where they can be witnessed in whatever it is they're going through.

If you're raising a son or sons, or if you have someone who identifies as a boy or young man in your life, you won't want to miss this.

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "Boys are growing up feeling more self-conscious and seeking more ways to escape the judgment put on them."
• "Being a mature man is this ability to be listen and be non-judgmental."
• "Being interested in other people is fundamental to leadership."
• "The topic of loneliness is something that we’re trying to address head-on."
• "We were able to exhale."

Mentioned on this episode:

• Reach Academy: reachyoungmen.org

What if you could read about the sex that affected someone so profoundly they were never the same? What if you wrote about the sex that changed you in that way?

If you're turned on by audio porn, ASMR, or sexy stories (either reading them or them being read to you), you're not alone. While we seem to be fixated on men being obsessed with visual porn, according to research nearly one in three listeners of erotic audiobooks are men. According to another poll, men now account for 18% of romance readers.

This is a good thing for several reasons, including the fact that so much romance is written by women. If you're a man who's attracted to women and want to know what gets them hot, reading or listening to erotica makes a lot of sense! Bonus: It's likely to get you going as well.

Here I interview Carly, creator of Aurore, a collection of literary erotica. The twist? All the tales are true. In Carly's words, "These are stories mostly written by women about what turns them on and what gets them off."

Intrigued? Listen on.

---

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• “In each city in Europe, I decided to go on Tinder and interview people about sex.”
• “I wanted him, but first I had to leave the marriage that I was languishing in, bored and ignored.”
• “Even though I loved reading erotica, I was turned off by the aspects that weren’t relatable.”
• “We women were having interesting sex, and were profoundly affected by a lot of the relationships we had.”
• “Write your own story; that’s the only one you can truly tell.”
• “I find that writing this kind of real erotica is a lot like therapy.”

---

Mentioned on this episode:

• Aurore: readaurore.com

"As men, it often feels like we should just know how to succeed in a relationship, how to be great in bed, how to be successful in life, all under the counterintuitive expectation that we figure it all out on our own and never ask for help."

Part of our my intention with this podcast is to help men succeed in sex, dating, and relationships with women. And a large part of the gap that I seek to fill is due to exactly what this client of ours shared -- the unfair and often unnamed expectation that men should "just know."

You shouldn't! It's totally normal to not know. And in my opinion (and that of most of the women I know), the most mature, healthiest, and sexiest men are the ones who are leaning into learning.

In the learning and growth process, you're likely to come across both therapy and coaching. They're similar but not the same, and it's an art to know when you need which.

Many of the men with whom we've worked have experienced both therapy and coaching, and I polled them before this recording so I could include their lived experiences. Here, we go over the differences between them, and share some real-world examples.

Whether you're working on your sex, dating, and relationship life, or becoming stable during or after a period of anxiety and depression, there's something for you here.

---

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• “I couldn’t take certain forward-facing actions because I had these wounds from my past.”
• “I might always have some of these old injuries or tender spots, so how do I move forward working with that?”
• “Coaching in the community normalizes my experiences instead of isolating them to ‘it must just be me.’”
• “I needed both, and one is not better than the other.”

A lot of our clients crave more intimacy or closeness with their wife/relationship partner. Often this includes a longing, or a sense of something missing. As Lucas, our guest here, put it, "The feeling I recall most strongly was a sense of loneliness."

Have you ever felt lonely in your relationship? If you’ve wished you and your partner were closer, or yearned for a breakthrough but didn’t know quite how to get there, you’re going to want to listen to this.

Psychedelics like MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin (the active component in magic mushrooms) are in the process of being re-legalized. And for good reason —they have incredible potential when it comes to alleviating suffering and boosting connection. Paired with quality guides (the right mentors or therapists), they can help us gain a deeper sense of love, trust, and belonging in the world.

But it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Doing medicine (which is how we phrase it, rather than “doing drugs”) is only truly responsible when it’s combined with quality inner growth work. One of Lucas's realizations, for example, was "I was the source of some of my own pain." While in a way upsetting, this was also liberating, because it meant he had control over addressing the pain. "It was a letting go of my conviction that I was right, and being open to something new."

It's worth noting, as well, that these kinds of therapies don't have to be reserved for relationship distress. As Lucas put it, he and his wife sensed "There's an opportunity for even more for us."

So: Can you use MDMA therapy to deepen love with your wife, regardless of where you're at in terms of level of fulfillment already? Yes. Listen to hear more.

---

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "My need to be loved by my wife was preventing her from loving me the way she wanted to love me."
• "She was aware of a certain graspiness from me."
• "What kind of life could I live if I were never afraid of being alone?"
• "I didn't feel a sense of, 'I need to solve this right now' or 'I'm a bad person for having done this.'"
• "Suddenly everything came into play because we'd touched on the scariest thing."
• "It was really meaningful to feel her move towards me."
• "The difference is that now it feels really good to do the work together."

Would you ever consider using a matchmaker? In a world of dating apps (and let's be real -- those are rough for a LOT of people!), not to mention a whole lotta ghosting, matchmaking is an appealing notion for many.

Plus, matchmakers play a unique role in that they speak to both parties, before and after dates. They're able, therefore, to give people honest feedback about how they're coming across, and help them make adjustments.

Here I chat with Anika, a matchmaker for Three Day Rule, about how we can all get more honest in dating. We also talk about how men and women differ when it comes to their must-haves and dealbreakers -- as someone who has spoken to hundreds if not thousands of people by now, that's actually quite interesting. She also shares some memorable matches she has made over the years. This is a sweet one!

---

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "There are women who wonder why they’re not being approached, but they don’t have an approachable aura."
• "Success means different things to different people."
• "Dating really is a numbers game … the more conversations you have, the higher chance you’re going to find someone you want to move forward with."
• "Some people have told me, 'I’ve gotten deeper with you than I’ve gotten with my therapist.'"

---

Mentioned on this episode:

• Anika's site: askanika.com
• Anika's Instagram: @nikarashaun

This episode is pulled from the podcast Ask Women, where I myself was the guest! We delve into my sex research here, in which I asked over 1,065 women about the men who were best in bed.

But this isn't just about finding the clit. It's a deeper conversation about how to talk about difficult subjects. Why is hard to talk about what we actually like or want in sex? Why is it so hard for a woman to tell a man that something isn't working sexually? It's actually the same reason it's hard to tell a colleague that something they do bothers you.

If you want a woman to open to you sexually, and make sex great for her (whether you're dating someone or in a committed relationship), it's helpful to know how to set things up. Among other things, you want to know how ask the right questions in the right way. And it's always helpful to hear from women themselves about what they crave, what delights them, what turns them on, and what works for their specific body. Learning to be skillful in asking is part of becoming the unstoppable, sexually empowered divine masculine.

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "I was like ... what?!"
• "Sex is important to human beings."
• "I almost feel like telling a man the sex isn't good is a mortal sin."
• "He played me like a fine instrument."

Polarity can help you have a hot sex & dating life, not to mention a stronger love relationship overall. And like many things in life, it's not a perfect concept; there are issues with it.

"In what ways have you found polarity to be useful in your sex and relationship life? In what ways have you found it to be off or problematic?"

I posed these questions to our clients in an effort to help shine a light on the problems with polarity. I believe polarity can be hugely helpful in understanding sexual attraction and heat, as well as trust and fulfillment, in both short- and long-term relationships. I also believe it can help us understand ourselves better as human beings in our own rights, not just in interpersonal dynamics.

Becoming skillful with polarity is a valuable goal, and including its flaws in the conversation is important. Here we delve into what we see as the top three problems with polarity, and how to use it as a force of good in sex, dating, and relationships.

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

---

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "Alpha is often observing and omega is being observed."
• "Things can be in opposition without being in conflict."
• "Polarity is not an excuse for abusive behavior."

---

Other helpful episodes on polarity:

• 181: What exactly is polarity? We break it down. (ft. Violet Lange)
• 103: Reverse polarity can kill your sex life as a couple -- unless you do this

As a woman, I sometimes feel like saying to all the Nice Guys out there: We need you!

We need you on the court, in the game, on the field of Life. We need you not just as romantic partners (though we do desperately want you there), but as fathers, as colleagues, as teammates.

And we need you to be in your power. We need you to be able to speak up for yourself, to tell use the truth (even if it's uncomfortable), to come towards us sexually, to set healthy boundaries. We need your full self.

If you identify as a Nice Guy, it's likely that you're working on stepping into your power. And we want to support you in that. Here, we don't just talk about what it means to step into your power, but share success stories of men we've worked with who've gone from feeling disempowered/unable to take up space ... to asserting themselves in healthy and deeply satisfying ways.

Memorable quotes from this episode:

• "When I’ve been out of my power, it’s when I’ve lost connection to myself."
• "It was easier to just let her control everything, and not assert much agency, let alone power. This worked for a while, but eventually blew up in my face."
• "I’m happy to interrupt people now (in a way I did not used to)."
• "I often used to fall into others people’s desires or wants."
• "In relationship it’s, 'Here’s my truth, what’s your truth, and then how can we empower each other?'"
• ---

Work with us

Want to go deeper than the podcast? Jason and I are ready to work with you! We specialize in helping men break old patterns and transform their sex & love lives for good.

To see if there's a fit for our flagship program Pillars of Presence, book a call here. Start anytime. (https://evolutionary.men/apply/)

Other episodes related to this one:

• Episode 239: Realized I’m a "Nice Guy." Now what do I do about it?
• Episode 6: From "Nice Guy" to Confident With Women & Married to a Goddess