SAM JOLMAN | The Sex Talk You Never Got (Ep. 676)

0:00 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.

0:24 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.

0:26 Our guys, we got a special guest on the podcast today.

0:28 His name is Sam Joelman.

0:29 So he is a licensed professional counselor and he's the author of the new book called

0:33 The Sex Talk You Never Got, Reclaiming the Heart of Masculine Sexuality.

0:38 So I'll tell you right from the beginning here.

0:39 I was a little worried about this interview.

0:41 And the reason was because when I was reading through this book, I had a lot of problems

0:44 with it.

0:45 Like there were a lot of things I didn't understand.

0:46 A lot of things are very confusing and some things that I thought were just flat out egregious.

0:49 We'll get to that.

0:50 But it's like, crap, the foreword was written by John Eldridge.

0:53 John Eldridge is a mentor of mine, so I don't want to [inaudible] off John.

0:56 But I was kind of getting some Crispin Mayfield vibes, so for those of you that are not familiar

1:01 with that interview, go back to undaunted.life/crispinmayfield.

1:05 So you'll be able to find that and see what I'm talking about.

1:07 And so I had got some advice from some other people and had them give me their thoughts

1:12 on some of the content and then I gave them my thoughts and we were kind of going into

1:15 this.

1:16 But I told Sam off air, look, I want to kind of tug a little bit at some of your thoughts

1:20 and I really want to dig in because I want to understand.

1:23 So I came to this with intellectual honesty and curiosity.

1:26 And I could not be more thrilled with how the conversation went.

1:29 So I think he enjoyed the conversation as well because he was also intellectually honest

1:33 and he was welcoming kind of the tug of war over the content and the phraseology and different

1:38 things like that.

1:39 And certainly there are still things that he and I disagree on, but we were really able

1:43 to dig into why did he write a book about sex?

1:45 Why did he feel the need to be the one to write this book?

1:48 What did 20 years of counseling other men kind of lead to this type of thing?

1:52 What that looks like, but we got into the sex talk.

1:55 How most of us, if we got a sex talk at all, it was just once and it was basically birds

1:58 and the bees and nothing else.

1:59 But how parents should really have hundreds, especially fathers, we should have hundreds

2:03 and hundreds of talks with our kids, even miniature talks about sexuality, but the overall

2:07 heart of sexuality, male sexuality, what's the difference between sexual and sensual?

2:12 It seems like those things are synonymous, but they really aren't, but then we started

2:15 digging into some, some things that I really didn't understand, which, you know, was his

2:19 overall ideas on awe and beauty and how men are basically, you know, rewarded for being

2:25 warring and getting things done on the worksite, but not really for anything sensual.

2:30 Then we talked about, you know, temptation and lust and, you know, there was a lot of

2:35 confusion over his phraseology on what actually leads to lust and how can we look at something

2:40 that is beautiful, like a woman and not lust after her and those types of things.

2:45 And so we really dig into a lot of the hardest quotes from his book, the stuff that I have

2:49 had the most problems with, where I thought he was being very dismissive of like things

2:53 like the Billy Graham rule or guys that are doing actively, doing things actively to flee

2:58 from sexual immorality, like bouncing their eyes or not watching certain movies or things

3:03 like that.

3:04 So we really dug in there.

3:05 But then also we, we talked about the purity culture, he had a lot of problems with purity

3:08 culture.

3:09 And just so you know, that was kind of the 1990s, early 2000s, worth the weight, true

3:12 love weights.

3:13 But I kind of talked about in the interview, like, look, when I was 15, I got the worth

3:16 the way ring and I'm wearing this ring around basically telling everyone, I've still got

3:19 my V card and I'm going to keep it.

3:21 And you know, here I am having only ever had sex with my wife.

3:24 And it's like, well, that was a good thing.

3:25 I don't see how people can look back and be like, Oh, I was traumatized by the purity

3:29 movement.

3:30 And so we really dug into that.

3:31 We got into virginity and how, you know, if you lose your virginity, is that ear ear,

3:35 like irreparable, can it be repaired, you know, or is it just something that's irredeemable?

3:41 So we really dig in there and then we got practical at the end about, okay, so what

3:44 are our dads supposed to do, what can they do to make sure they're having these appropriate

3:49 conversations with their kids at an appropriate time and at appropriate volume.

3:53 And so again, I was worried going in, but I was, I was thrilled with how the finished

3:56 product turned out.

3:57 So guys, welcoming to you this spot to this podcast, again, I'm thrilled that it went

4:02 the way that it did.

4:03 So I'm not going to keep them from you any longer.

4:05 So without further ado, let's get into it.

4:08 Sam Joelman, welcome to undaunted life of man's podcast.

4:10 Kyle, it's awesome to be here.

4:12 Thank you for the invitation.

4:13 Now, I will say this from the beginning, you kind of flexed on me off air because I told

4:16 you we have a mutual friend and John Eldridge and you go, Oh yeah, he's been my friend for

4:20 like 25 years and he's only been my friend for like five years.

4:23 So why did you do that?

4:24 Why did you get us off to such a bad start?

4:25 Dude, I wasn't trying to be punchy.

4:28 I John actually was a surrogate father for me when I was in my early twenties.

4:34 So yeah, he's been a good man.

4:37 I didn't know I was flexing.

4:38 I didn't know you.

4:39 It felt like it wasn't meant to be a flex.

4:41 Okay.

4:42 The reason why it's a flex is because I've said this over and over.

4:45 So we have a book list on our website, the 100 books, every modern Christian man should

4:48 read list.

4:49 And then I've got kind of my top 10.

4:51 And I've said before, the reason why no other men's ministry books sell is because two reasons.

4:56 One, people suck at writing or two, they're trying to rewrite wild at heart.

5:00 It's like, you can't rewrite wild at heart.

5:02 Like you can't, you can't remake gladiator, even though they're trying to do a sequel

5:06 right now.

5:07 Like, you know, you can't do that.

5:08 It's against the rules.

5:09 And so that's the thing is like, you know, someone's like, when I took a picture with

5:12 John and posted it online, someone's like, Oh man, that guy is, you know, one of the

5:16 kings.

5:17 And I'm like, no, he's not one of the kings in men's ministry.

5:18 He is the king of men's ministry.

5:21 So I have, I have an incredibly high view of him and the work that he's done via ransomed

5:25 hard and wild at heart.

5:26 So that's why it was a flex Sam.

5:28 That's why.

5:29 Well, I hope you know, well, you do know this.

5:32 John is an endlessly generous man with whoever he sits with.

5:36 So, you know, five years, 25 years, it doesn't really matter.

5:39 He's a really kind of good man.

5:40 And he's really stepping into that sage place.

5:44 You know, he's really passing on to the next generation.

5:49 So the fact he would write a forward from my book was super kind and I'm grateful for

5:54 it.

5:55 Well, very good.

5:56 And we will get into the book here in just a second.

5:57 But before we get there, kind of give us like a little bit of a primer, you know, kind

6:01 of what's your professional background, what, what kind of, you know, what led you to being

6:05 like a professional counselor and then kind of getting into the areas of interest that

6:08 you're into now?

6:09 Yeah.

6:10 So I was 19 years old, struggling with depression and my mom, as I mentioned in the book also

6:18 struggled with pornography at the time.

6:20 And my mom said, what do you think about going to see a counselor?

6:23 So I went to counseling at 19 and met a really, really good man.

6:28 And that changed my life.

6:30 And I felt like he did magic.

6:32 Like what did you just do?

6:33 You know, I thought he was going to kind of, you know, get on my case and kind of take

6:38 me on and confront me and get, you know, kind of challenge me.

6:43 But he was really, really kind and that undid something in me.

6:48 And I found my tears again at 19.

6:51 And that was an amazing experience to find my heart again.

6:55 And I sat back with this sense of like, wow, something of God's kindness came through this

7:00 guy.

7:01 And I remember saying to him, like, what did you just do, right?

7:05 What just happened in this session?

7:08 And you know, he just said it, you know, I'm just being kind, like I'm just taking you

7:13 to your own story.

7:15 So that really led me to this, like the magic of sitting well with a person and pursuing

7:20 their heart was like, man, if I could do that for a living, I would love to do that.

7:25 So I've been doing that for 20 years now as a counselor.

7:28 I'm a father, a dad of three boys.

7:31 So one of them now 13 becoming a young man and a lover to my wife, 21 years into marriage.

7:41 And now an author.

7:42 So wrote my first book, The Sex Talk You Never Got.

7:45 All right.

7:46 Let's talk about that.

7:47 The sex talk that you never got or the sex talk you never got.

7:49 I added a word in there, the heart of masculine sexuality.

7:53 So just overview, we're obviously going to dig into individual quotes and things from

7:57 the book.

7:58 But what is this book about?

7:59 Why you?

8:00 Yeah.

8:01 So, you know, I think for most men, sexuality is probably the place they had the least meaningful

8:07 conversations in their life.

8:09 Maybe we got a purity lecture or, you know, kind of a basic shoddy anatomy lesson.

8:17 And that's about it.

8:18 And the implication there, right, for men then is this is just supposed to run itself, right?

8:23 Well, you just, once you know the plumbing, it just works.

8:26 And you just go, you know, it just, it functions.

8:31 And that's not true for all men that I sit with.

8:35 And I've so sitting as a counselor with a lot of guys who would come in and kind of the

8:39 only way they knew to think about their sexuality was am I behaving or not behaving, right?

8:46 Am I, am I, am I doing good or not good?

8:49 They didn't know how to enter into their, their story of sexual formation or into deeper

8:53 conversations, including things like stories of their own sexual harm or how to engage

9:00 their bodies well or the relational side of sexuality, romance and love with their wife.

9:09 And so I was like, man, we've got to write something that helps men walk into this better

9:13 than, you know, sex jokes and locker room talk, which gets us nowhere.

9:19 So, you know, as I say, men are pretty over sexualized in our culture.

9:24 We think we'll often say things like, oh, you know, men just want sex and that's all

9:28 they need even, right?

9:30 Just give a man his food and his sex and he's good.

9:33 And that's so trivializing to men.

9:36 It does not honor that you have a heart.

9:39 And there's a lot more to you than just that.

9:41 So that's what led me to write the book.

9:44 Okay.

9:45 Well, let's go and start digging into some of the concepts of the book and you kind of

9:49 alluded to it there in your, in your answer, but it's, you know, parents talking to their

9:53 children about sex and even colloquially Sam, we talk about it like it's the sex talk,

9:58 like it happens one time, like the resurrection or the Super Bowl, like it's, it's like a

10:03 thing that happens one time.

10:04 I want to read a quote from the introduction here, a study from 2014 revealed about 82%

10:10 of parents have given their children some sort of sex talk, yet a Harvard study released

10:14 in 2017 stated that 70% of young adults aged 18 to 25 wanted more conversations with their

10:20 parents about sex and romance.

10:22 That's a huge discrepancy.

10:24 It shows that what parents are doing is not enough.

10:26 We need more.

10:27 As mentioned above, we don't need just one conversation.

10:30 We need hundreds.

10:32 And so I will say for me, I got the sex talk.

10:35 I got the Super Bowl sex talk.

10:37 That's all I got.

10:38 And then neither one of my parents are believers and, you know, got divorced it when I was

10:42 14 and, you know, all that type of stuff, there was no talk of sex.

10:45 There wasn't even a talk of you better not have sex or, Hey, if you're going to have

10:49 sex where a condom, there was none of that.

10:52 There were a little comments here or there that I kind of picked up on, but, you know,

10:55 I was one of those guys that just kind of had to try to find it out on my own as I became

10:59 a Christian as a teenager as well, which will probably come up again later as well.

11:03 But why is that?

11:04 So I get why it's important, but please elucidate that for us plainly so the audience can understand

11:09 why that's so important.

11:11 What you think about it, right?

11:12 If there's something in your life that doesn't get talked about, it inherently gets this kind

11:18 of pale of shame over it, right?

11:20 Like we don't talk about that, right?

11:22 So, you know, sexuality, if it doesn't get talked about, it leads you with this sense

11:27 of, I guess that's something too shameful to bring up or something, right?

11:32 And so you've got to figure it out.

11:33 But, you know, I think of some clients that have a 14 year old son and they gave me permission

11:40 to share this story as I share in the book, you know, their son was talking to some of

11:44 his buddies at school who were interested in girls and he realized, oh my gosh, I don't

11:51 know how to kiss a girl.

11:53 And so he went to Google, to Google, how do you kiss a girl?

11:59 And instantly what came up was a ton of pornography, right, sites that were search engine optimization,

12:07 you know, targeting him.

12:09 And so you think about, like, how to kiss a girl is such an innocent question.

12:14 That's one of the hundreds of sex talks you need to give to your sons or your daughters,

12:20 right?

12:21 Is how do you, my sons asked me the other day, like, how do you ask a girl out?

12:28 Right?

12:29 Like, I mean, that's a sex talk, right?

12:32 And again, you might be like, well, it's not about the plumbing, right?

12:35 But as I say in the book, there's the mechanics of sex, but then there's the poetics of sex,

12:40 which is the realm of desire.

12:42 It's the story that sex was meant to live in.

12:45 And that's the stuff that we often get.

12:47 Don't get.

12:48 Like, you know, I was just on a walk the other day with my boys and they saw a bumper sticker

12:53 on a minivan or sorry, not a minivan, a car that said condoms save minivans, right?

13:01 And they're like, Dad, what's a condom?

13:04 I don't, you know, that was a one minute sex talk explaining what a condom is.

13:09 Right?

13:10 And so you think like, um, if your kids don't get answers from you, they're going to go

13:16 somewhere else.

13:18 That's the key.

13:19 I think that's the key that you're, you're linking in because I, so I think about something

13:22 like that, but there, there are certain point where you can't put the toothpaste back in

13:25 the tube.

13:26 An example I've used on my show a lot where I talk about, you know, some of the dangers

13:29 of the, of the government school system is, you know, I'm, I'm in deep red Oklahoma, right?

13:34 In a very, very red conservative town and in the middle school, close to my house, a substitute

13:38 teacher came in one day.

13:40 They identify as non binary, which is not a thing.

13:42 They go up on the board and they write, they them on the board.

13:45 And as opposed to saying, Hey, what page did you get to in Lord of the flies yesterday?

13:49 It was high.

13:50 My name is such and such.

13:51 So and so I'm non binary.

13:52 Does anyone have questions?

13:53 And so a middle schooler, you know, 12, 13 years old goes home and they're like, dad,

13:57 what's non binary?

13:59 Like what, what does that, what does that mean?

14:00 The toothpaste is out of the tube at that point.

14:02 Now it's damage control.

14:04 The problem, Sam, is that a lot of men will get that sexual question and they'll run

14:10 for it from it or they'll be like, I don't worry about it.

14:13 Or I'll explain it to you later.

14:15 And you know, I guess that kind of gets into really the heart of male sexuality, which

14:20 here's another quote from the introduction.

14:21 And you've you've thought you've alluded to this as well.

14:24 The problem isn't too much sexual desire, but rather too little heart.

14:28 There is nothing inherently wrong with an aroused man, but somewhere along the way we

14:32 lost the heart of male sexuality.

14:34 I think part of it is because sexuality has been stunted.

14:37 Part of it is because we get our cues from pornography.

14:40 And so why are 15 year old girls showing up to the ER with anal fissures from very violent

14:45 anal sex because young boys see these men giving anal very violently penetrative anal

14:51 sex to a woman and they see the woman moaning and enjoying it.

14:54 And the girls also watching the same porn and thinking, I'm supposed to be enjoying this

14:58 as she's being torn to pieces, right?

15:00 And so I think all this kind of is circling the drain of the heart of male sexuality.

15:05 So talk a little bit about that as well.

15:07 Yeah, you know, it's easy to see sexuality as initiation.

15:13 So you know, for a male sexuality to capture this idea of it's a place I'm going to feel

15:19 power, right?

15:21 So the young man that sees that same pornography and thinks that's what I got to do to feel

15:26 like a man.

15:27 Look how that guy's scoring, right?

15:30 Look how he's he's getting some, so to speak, that you know, without a fatherly voice, sexuality

15:39 is going to take the place of initiation to where that will be what will make him feel

15:44 potent and powerful rather than a father blessing a young man's heart and saying your

15:50 heart is the center of your power is nothing else.

15:55 Everything else radiates from your heart.

15:57 So everything else you do in your life, your work, your war, everything will come from

16:04 that heart.

16:05 So without that blessing, right without that understanding that your heart runs at all,

16:11 you're going to get things like that kind of initiation where boys go to their buddies

16:17 and think that's how I'm going to get initiated and feel powerful is who I score with.

16:25 Yeah, I think initiation, that was not something I really thought about when I was reading

16:29 the early part of your book, but I wish I would have because I would ask you about it, but

16:32 you brought it up.

16:33 So I'll just go ahead and talk about it.

16:34 Like the initiation thing I talk about that.

16:36 If you we don't do writes a passage anymore, and so if you don't initiate a young man into

16:40 manhood, he will figure it out a different way.

16:43 So maybe it's when he gets jumped into the gang.

16:45 Maybe it's when he, you know, has sex with a girl for the first time.

16:48 Maybe it's when he leaves home.

16:49 Maybe it's when he gets his first job, buys his first to make it up.

16:53 You make up when manhood starts and then you hear about these horrible stories of these

16:57 young boys.

16:58 I mean, young boys like less than 10 years old, having sex with grown women and dads

17:02 maybe buying a prostitute for their young son to like, all right, well, you know, let's

17:06 make you a man.

17:07 It's almost like a macabre version of the boy named Sue Johnny Cash song where it's

17:11 like, yeah, I'm not going to be around.

17:12 And so let me make you a man real quick, even though I'm basically giving you the keys to

17:17 a sports car and you've never driven anything before.

17:20 But it also kind of gets into the, the dichotomy, I guess you could say, or maybe the opposing

17:24 forces or maybe not opposing forces, but things that should work in concert that we don't see

17:28 in concert.

17:29 And that's the difference of sexual versus sensual.

17:32 So I do want to read a quote.

17:33 I think this is from the introduction as well.

17:35 We don't often talk about sensuality in this way to, or in this way to easily making the

17:41 mistake of equating sensuality with sexuality, but they are different.

17:46 All of life can be sensual, not all of life can be sexual.

17:50 So what did you mean by that?

17:51 Yeah.

17:52 So you know, your senses were given to you by God to explore the world.

17:57 And obviously some of that's for survival, right?

17:59 That you know, so you don't freeze to death.

18:01 You can feel when you're cold, right, or you don't eat rotten food, right?

18:05 Because it smells nasty.

18:06 Like that sensuality is for survival, but I believe it was God given also for your pleasure.

18:12 This place, this place was meant to lead you to fall in love with God, right?

18:18 As a worshipper of God, so you know, you think of like a good cigar.

18:23 What is a good cigar?

18:25 Why would somebody enjoy that, right?

18:27 It's all sensuality.

18:29 It's the smell, right?

18:31 It's the taste.

18:32 What makes, you know, the difference between a convenience store cigar and a really good

18:37 one, it's all sensuality.

18:40 You have to become an aficionado, so to speak, right?

18:43 Or how do you know when a steak is like, well done, just right, not well done, but done

18:48 well, right?

18:49 Amen.

18:50 It's taste.

18:51 Hey, hey, well done medium rare is what you're trying to say.

18:54 There you go.

18:55 Exactly.

18:56 I am a medium rare guy.

18:57 So, you know, like I went to a friend's graduation party for his son this last May, and he had

19:03 smoked all the meat for the party.

19:05 And I was like, dude, you did well.

19:07 This is really good.

19:08 And he's like, it's okay.

19:10 And I'm like, it's okay, you know, that's an aficionado.

19:14 He knows he knows he can nail a little better.

19:17 Yeah.

19:18 Right.

19:19 That's sensuality.

19:21 You know, you have 4,000 taste buds in your mouth.

19:24 And those were given by God so that you can enjoy the pleasure of food.

19:28 You were given eyes to see, right?

19:32 So that you can enjoy things like sunsets and sunrises that God does every day for you,

19:37 right?

19:38 But that sensuality, and I think as men, we don't, you know, we're so used to soldering

19:44 on and pushing through and getting things done that it's hard to stop.

19:50 And I find, you know, for men to have rituals of rest and pleasure, right, good pleasure,

20:00 it's hard for men to find their way back to healthy sensuality in their lives.

20:09 Yeah.

20:10 You know, living here in Colorado, we have ghost towns, right?

20:12 And I've walked several of these.

20:15 And you know, the bygone era of the Gold Rush days.

20:18 And you know, I mean, talk about hardworking men, right?

20:21 You see like the mountains of rock these guys literally dug out with pickaxes.

20:28 What was given to these guys for rest, for restoration saloons and brothels.

20:34 Yeah.

20:35 Yeah.

20:36 Right.

20:37 That's not, that's not healthy sensuality.

20:38 They didn't get restoration.

20:40 They got numbing at a saloon or, or, you know, a lady of the night.

20:45 So I'm, I'm inviting men back to, if you're going to find the heart of your sexuality,

20:50 you've got to find that place back to, you know, what I call in the book, the lover within

20:57 that place that enjoys the sensuality of life, the good, the beautiful moments of life.

21:02 Um, you know, a beautiful sunset or, um, beautiful sacks with your wife.

21:09 So I think that's an important thing because I've thought about before, Matt Chandler was

21:12 actually the, the first guy during a sermon he talked about, do you know how crazy it

21:15 is that we have taste buds?

21:17 Like the, because it's not just, we're not just eating and it's going into our bodies

21:21 and it's sustaining us for until the next meal.

21:24 It's like, no, when you drink that Pappy Van Winkle 20 or have that, you know, cigar from

21:30 cigars.com, the undaunted life cigar, which is the best one when you're having that and

21:33 tasting it.

21:35 It's like that is, that is a thing that is literally there for your pleasure.

21:39 And then you'll have, you know, evolutionary biologist, I'll be like, well, actually it's

21:41 just a sweetness that's going into your blah, blah, so that you'll seek out the next thing.

21:45 But isn't it so interesting, a, you know, person that thinks we're, we're just, we're

21:50 just beings dancing to our DNA.

21:53 They never can answer why human beings gaze at the sky.

21:57 Because like birds don't look at the sky and look at the, the wonder of the sky.

22:01 They don't look up and, you know, think to themselves, Oh, I can't believe, you know,

22:05 lines not like I can't believe I ate a baby zebra again.

22:07 I just can't believe I did that.

22:08 Hopefully the thing up there is, you know, actually not going to judge me for that.

22:12 But like as humans, we can see things right up close, but we can also see things far away.

22:17 And evolutionists is like, well, we can see, you know, the, the moose far away because we

22:21 need to kill that so we can sustain, but it's like, but it doesn't answer the, the greater

22:25 questions that kind of go outside of like the why.

22:29 It's like you can describe the what kind of, but science still can't explain yawning and

22:33 y'all are trying to explain to me why, you know, if something came from nothing, it's

22:37 like, give me a break.

22:38 Right.

22:39 Yeah.

22:40 You know, there is a scientific name for that emotion that you're describing.

22:43 It's called awe and awe is this studied emotion, but you're right.

22:48 There are not other mammals don't experience awe, like humans do.

22:54 But every human feels awe, you know, it's a studied emotion that's on the upper reaches

22:59 of pleasure and on the edge of fear, right?

23:02 That, that sort of trembling, but being drawn to something that God made us to experience

23:09 in the world.

23:10 I actually think sexuality is also meant to be an experience of awe at its heart.

23:16 Yeah, very good and, I mean, I understood as you were going through, you do talk about

23:21 awe quite a bit in this book, I'm going to circle back to something, because again, you

23:25 know, 95% of the people listening to this podcast are men right now.

23:29 And so if they were to read this section here, it was a, I didn't really quite understand

23:32 your points.

23:33 I want to see if you could maybe like dig down and help me a little bit.

23:35 I'm going to read a quote here.

23:36 I'm not sure from what chapter, chapter one or two, men are not honored for being sensual.

23:41 So this goes back to what we were just talking about.

23:43 We are honored for our suffering and working and warring.

23:46 That's what the world expects of us in the mash of its gears.

23:50 We need to produce, meet that deadline, shoulder the weight of leadership, take no breaks.

23:55 When do we have time for the beautiful?

23:57 So I was somewhat confused because even when we see in Genesis 1, so I'll read Genesis

24:01 126 here, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them

24:07 have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the

24:10 livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

24:14 So from the beginning, you know, we see God creating man to work, to have dominion.

24:22 So yes, I think we should honor men for working, warring, producing, meeting the deadline,

24:27 shouldering, the weight of leadership, all that type of stuff, but it, the tone of that

24:31 paragraph, it almost sounded like you lament that we do that.

24:34 So why is that?

24:36 So tone, I would change their, no, I'm, I'm honoring that.

24:40 What I'm not honoring is when there's no space given for a man to stop and rest.

24:45 So I was at a men's retreat.

24:46 Is that, is that back to the thing you were talking about with like the saloons and the

24:49 whiskey like that?

24:50 That was the only thing.

24:51 Exactly.

24:52 Then for a hard day's work.

24:53 Okay.

24:54 Right.

24:55 So, you know, I was at a men's retreat recently a couple of weeks ago and I was teaching on

24:58 healthy sensuality.

25:00 How do you find healthy rest in your life?

25:03 And I asked the guys to raise their hands.

25:04 How many of you eat through lunch or how many of you don't stop for lunch?

25:09 Yeah.

25:10 Right.

25:11 Or, you know, you think of the guys, you know, the iconic story of a man who works until

25:15 he's 65 and retires and a year later he dies.

25:18 What is that?

25:19 Right?

25:20 That, that a man has worked himself to the bone and he doesn't stop to be, to actually

25:25 take in and experience, you know, spirituality with God, let alone healthy sensuality in

25:33 his life or connection with his family.

25:35 Right?

25:36 I'm trying to get at the forces that come against a man's ability to stop and rest well or take

25:44 in healthy sensuality.

25:45 No, I am absolutely honoring.

25:47 It is good.

25:48 It is a good thing that a man feels the weight of meaningful work in his life.

25:54 I'm just lamenting.

25:55 If that's the only thing we celebrate a man for, something's missing.

25:59 Hey, guys.

26:00 Real quick.

26:01 I've heard me describe before I am incredibly conservative about the supplements that I

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27:33 Yeah.

27:34 I think that's actually helpful because most men will go where the atta boys are available.

27:40 And so if you're highly conscientious, okay, so like for me, if I got bees, I was grounded,

27:47 right?

27:48 And so if I got A's, I also didn't get pets on the head.

27:51 And so I had to search for atta boys somewhere because it's like, "Well, I'm getting all

27:54 these A's."

27:55 And so I got some of the atta boys from teachers or professors or something like that because

27:58 I wasn't getting it from anywhere else.

28:00 So that is actually very helpful.

28:02 That makes way more sense than the way that I read it.

28:04 So I appreciate the clarification.

28:05 So I want to get into another quote here.

28:07 So this is two quotes that are in the same chapter, but they're on the same theme and

28:11 then I got some questions here.

28:12 So furthermore, given that men on average have a higher sex drive, i.e. a more frequent

28:17 desire for sex, a woman may feel pressure to give a man his required, you use that in

28:22 quotes, required dose of sex.

28:24 It is sometimes even said that if she doesn't, he will succumb to the temptation of porn or

28:28 seeking another woman to meet his need.

28:30 This mindset, mindset obligates women to a duty and keeps men immature and at the mercy

28:36 of an urge.

28:37 And then a little bit later in the chapter, you say this, the church is often guilty of

28:40 perpetuating this drive, model drive and scare quotes for understanding sexual desire, reading

28:46 it into Paul's words to husbands and wives and first Corinthian seven, five do not deprive

28:51 each other.

28:52 This perpetuates what author Sheila Ray Gregory has called the obligation sex message, which

28:57 teaches that we must never say no to our spouses express interest in sex.

29:02 But if no one is dying from the lack of sex, Paul's instruction against deprivation reads

29:07 a lot different with the proper context of sexual desire rather than the drive model,

29:12 not depriving each other still leaves lots of room for saying no.

29:16 So as I read through that section, I was kind of pondering it and I read on my, I have,

29:21 the publishers are awesome because they send me PDFs and I uploaded into my iPad so I can

29:25 just write all over it because I can't write in a physical book.

29:27 It brings me like physical pain.

29:29 So thank you for all publishers that do that and thank you to your publisher.

29:32 So I think if a wife were to read those passages in your book that she might come away feeling

29:39 justified in not meeting her husband's sexual needs or desires or wants or whatever you

29:45 want to call it.

29:46 And really the truth is, especially with the men that I talk to is that when their wife

29:50 is not satisfying her husband sexually and what I don't mean is Cirque du Soleil sex

29:54 or the same sex that they see in porn, but when they're not getting sexual release and

29:59 not getting sexual connection and perhaps not even trying to, their wives aren't even

30:03 trying that it 100% leads to more temptation for these men, temptation to look at porn,

30:09 temptation to, you know, have lunch with that gal at work or to have an affair.

30:13 And you know, first Corinthians seven five, I do want to read the entire reference here.

30:18 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may

30:22 devote yourself to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt

30:27 you.

30:28 So that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control.

30:31 And so I don't want to belittle men and say, Oh, you haven't had sex in three days?

30:34 Yeah, you should probably go look at porn and jerk off.

30:36 But I do know guys that are in, you know, sexless marriages.

30:39 So maybe they're having sex four or five times a year or their wives are using sex as a weapon

30:44 to control their husbands or things like that.

30:47 And so I was a little bit concerned with that section about a woman coming away being like,

30:51 Oh, I'm actually justified in this because he's not going to die.

30:54 He like blue balls aren't going to explode and he's not going to bleed out.

30:58 But it does have a real mental impact on men, specifically men that I know personally.

31:04 So so give me some more on that.

31:05 If you don't mind.

31:06 Yeah, you know, the premise there is obviously that no one dies from lack of sex.

31:11 So this idea that we call it a drive, I'm just trying to mess with the language there

31:15 that because a lot of times this is how we also over sexualize men.

31:20 We think like, Oh, you need sex and food and you're good, right?

31:23 Back to that.

31:24 And oftentimes when a man says to me, you know, he needs sex, right?

31:28 I feel like sex is a need for me.

31:30 It's often a need for something else in his body that he's getting through sex.

31:36 So often some sort of what would be called emotional regulation.

31:40 So I'm just trying to invite men out of the body confusion of you're going to die if you

31:46 don't get sex.

31:47 This is a need.

31:48 This is an urge.

31:49 You can't resist right into the understanding.

31:52 This is desire.

31:54 You can play with it.

31:55 You can mess with it.

31:56 You can talk with it.

31:57 You can also grow in it, right?

31:59 And back to that, the passage you read, you know, the Paul's section, he ends by saying,

32:06 you know, that you'd be tempted because of your lack of self control.

32:09 So inviting men, obviously that we all need to mature into self control that you can't

32:14 say, well, my wife didn't give me sex.

32:16 And obviously I hear you agreeing with this, you know, you can't blame your wife and say,

32:19 well, she didn't give me sex.

32:20 So I had to go somewhere else, right to say like, that's not how it works.

32:25 Sorry.

32:26 And I'm not a good man would not say that.

32:29 So I understand most men won't be saying that, but, you know, I think if sex is mutually

32:37 pleasurable, emotionally connecting and intimate, it will it, and this is coming from Sheila

32:45 Gregoire, it tends to take away the issues of desire discrepancy.

32:51 So a woman, you know, the idea at the premise that you have there is that a woman doesn't

32:55 want sex.

32:56 And I would say if, if sex is mutually pleasurable, right?

33:00 And an intimate and connecting that it desire discrepancies tend to take care of themselves.

33:09 So I'd probably say like, I don't think women are trying to not have sex, right?

33:13 Just just to torture their husbands without it.

33:16 Now, are there marriages that are sexless?

33:18 Yes.

33:19 Are they painful?

33:21 My goodness.

33:22 Yes.

33:23 Because it's, it's not just that there's a lack of sex, there's probably a lack of romance

33:27 and intimacy.

33:28 Sure.

33:29 That's backing that up, right?

33:30 Like what's in the way?

33:31 But I also sit with just as many women who say to me, my husband never has sex with me.

33:36 He just has sex with porn.

33:39 So I, in fact, I have more women coming to my office saying that.

33:44 Why doesn't my husband pursue many in any more sexually?

33:48 Sam, I've heard of women that are literally, this is so heartbreaking, like it literally,

33:53 I'm like trying to control even just describing this.

33:56 I've heard of women that will hold the phone above their head with porn on it while their

34:04 husband is having sex because he can't maintain an erection otherwise.

34:08 Think about the level of evil and depravity that is going on there because she's, you

34:15 would think, I'm assuming here, she's trying to do the right thing.

34:18 You know, she's trying to give access, but it's vaginal masturbation that that's happening.

34:24 And she's, she's helping facilitate that and like, my goodness, but anyway, go ahead.

34:27 I was just like, right.

34:29 It gets, it mushrooms out into a way worse, worse thing than we can even imagine.

34:33 Right.

34:34 And I mean, that's back to the, you know, the poetics of sex.

34:37 There's the mechanics, right?

34:38 But the poetics run the whole show.

34:40 The poetics is the story.

34:42 It's the story that's animating your sexuality, right?

34:45 If you get used to porn scripts, right, then you do need, you know, a porn script literal

34:52 porn to be able to be sexual and stay aroused, right?

34:57 So I'm inviting, you know, a conversation back to, you know, what's animating your sexuality?

35:04 And again, I would say if it's mutually pleasurable, right, and you have the capacity as a man

35:11 to be intimate and emotionally connected to your wife, because sex is a skill-based activity,

35:16 right?

35:17 We don't talk about it.

35:18 It takes growth into how to be a good lover to your partner.

35:24 But if you engage that well, right, it tends to invite.

35:28 And again, I'm not saying that's marriage for marriage here, right?

35:31 There might be other issues going on, but generally speaking, a good woman would want

35:37 to show up to that.

35:38 Sure.

35:39 Okay, can I ask you a controversial question, potentially controversial?

35:43 Okay, because I've had this thought.

35:45 I don't think I've voiced it before.

35:47 Maybe I have.

35:48 Maybe I haven't.

35:49 It just went under everybody's radar.

35:50 So everybody focus in, clip this and put this on all the websites.

35:54 Okay, when a prominent Christian pastor falls sexually, they are rightfully so just dragged

36:03 for it, right?

36:05 And you know, we might get into some of those examples later, but just think about it.

36:08 So everybody looking right now, think about it, you know, over the last 20 years, you know,

36:12 prominent pastor who destroys her life because I'm going to fare or something like that.

36:16 It's not the first thing I think about Sam, but one of the first things I think about

36:20 is I wonder if anyone is going to ask his wife how she feels about it and whether or

36:28 not she was trying to meet his sexual desires or needs.

36:34 Because and again, I'm assuming a lot in that question, but I'm just being honest about

36:37 where my, where my mindset goes because even if she's completely locked down, right?

36:42 Chastity Bell, you as a man still have to control yourself because you can't go to heaven

36:48 and be like, well, why'd you give me this woman?

36:50 Let's go back to the garden.

36:51 Like you can't blame God for giving you the woman.

36:54 You can't blame the woman for you abdicating your responsibility, right?

36:57 I get it.

36:58 But we, why don't we ask if the wives are doing their duty as a dutiful and loving wife?

37:07 Why is the focus only on the man?

37:09 And even as I'm asking it, I know the answer that I would give, which is the man is responsible

37:14 for his own actions.

37:16 He can't point at somebody else, but why don't we ask the question?

37:19 Like why are we so like, you know, gun shy about that?

37:22 Well, again, I think at some level it's good.

37:25 We don't for this reason lust is about power more than it's about sex.

37:32 So acting out like that is often a script of power back to what we talked about.

37:38 Right.

37:39 If you don't get initiated in a good fatherly way, sex becomes this really powerful and

37:46 but unhelpful substitute a control mechanism of some kind, maybe, well, again, you said

37:51 like self regulation type thing.

37:55 Yeah.

37:56 So what I'm trying to what I'm trying to honor there is that initiation without initiation,

38:02 you're going to look for something else, right?

38:04 And sex becomes that place to feel power.

38:07 So I, you know, I think when we think about like pastors or leaders that that sexually

38:13 you get caught in a fair, oftentimes there's a power differential at play, right?

38:18 That it's not just about the feeling of I needed sexual release.

38:23 There's also this sense of I needed to feel power.

38:26 I needed the attaboy somewhere, right?

38:29 It's often what lust is about more than it's about, gosh, I just, you know, I just am lonely

38:35 for sex.

38:36 That's just not the picture of lust that I would paint.

38:41 The other thing I'd want to honor is again, back to yes, you know, where is this guy going

38:48 to get care would be a question I would want to ask.

38:52 So maybe that's connected to what you're saying.

38:54 Like where, where can he be off the clock?

38:57 You think of a powerful, you know, a pastor or leader, right?

39:01 It'd be hard to have friends because everybody's going to look to you to be the man, right?

39:07 Do the thing, do the magic trick, right?

39:09 You're the powerful pastor.

39:11 Say the thing that's going to change my life.

39:14 Where's that guy got?

39:15 Where does that guy have to go fall apart?

39:17 Yeah, be a mass and get care.

39:19 Dude, that's a good word.

39:21 That's a good word because I've heard Matt Chandler and Joe B. Martin, two good buddies

39:24 of mine and good friends of the show.

39:26 Talk about, Hey, man, it's monies and honeys.

39:28 That's what's taken down.

39:29 That's what Satan's using to take down a lot of these pastors.

39:33 And a lot of these guys is because they are completely insulated.

39:36 They don't have elder boards.

39:37 They have a board of directors and this board of directors can't vote them out, right?

39:40 They can't even vote them out of their ministry.

39:42 They can't bring any type of accountability for any of their actions.

39:46 And so the person is insulated and here's the other thing is I try to surround myself

39:51 with people that do not that are not very impressed by me, right?

39:55 So I've done some pretty cool things and I have kind of a unique job, but I want people

39:58 that are okay interrupting me.

40:00 I want people that don't laugh at my jokes that aren't funny.

40:03 But if you're the guy, right, you know, you're selling all the books and you're doing all

40:07 the thing and you just don't have guys like that around you, gosh, it's potentially deadly.

40:12 But you brought up lust there, Sam.

40:14 And so I want to park there for just a second because I want to get into a deeper conversation

40:18 about that.

40:19 So let me read a quote here from the book, it gets worse.

40:22 There are other ways many churches have driven a wedge between us and our sensual connection

40:26 with our bodies.

40:28 If you got a sex talk at all or found one in a Christian book on male sexuality, there's

40:32 a good chance that you were heavily warned about the terrifying nature of sexual lust.

40:36 Don't get me wrong.

40:37 Lust is a real thing.

40:38 Jesus warned strongly about it, identifying it as a form of covetousness in Matthew 527-28.

40:45 We should be on guard against it, but what is lust?

40:48 It's rarely defined outright in many religious contexts, it's implied that lust is a feeling

40:52 you get whenever you see a beautiful person.

40:55 If an attractive woman stands next to you at Starbucks and you look at her and feel good

40:59 feelings in your body, you've lusted and the solution is usually some version of run,

41:04 flee, bounce your eyes, shut it down, never be alone in the room with a woman, freak out.

41:09 And by the way, the teaching goes since lust is also every man's albatross, you can be assured

41:15 you are guilty.

41:16 So aside from the fact that no one should ever go to Starbucks because they give a ton of

41:19 money to Planned Parenthood, which kills all the babies, we'll leave that aside for now.

41:22 Everyone gets the colloquial reference there.

41:25 But I'm a little confused by the quote for a few reasons.

41:29 So you say that most men were warned about the terrifying nature of lust.

41:33 And I would say, yeah, I think we should be warned of that because lust is a sin in and

41:39 of itself and it very often leads to sexual sin.

41:42 So you mentioned Matthew 527, 28, you didn't quote it there, but you say it's a form of

41:48 covetousness.

41:49 But if you read that passage, it's you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit

41:54 adultery.

41:55 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed

41:59 adultery with her in his heart.

42:02 And so it seems like covetousness is like the secondary sin if you could rank order that

42:06 the primary sin is sexual, but coveting another man's wife would kind of be secondary.

42:11 And then it also seems Sam, and again, I'm teeing you up to try to help me understand,

42:15 you seem to be somewhat dismissive of attempts by men to keep from lusting after women.

42:21 So you say, run, flee, bounce your eyes, shut it down, never be alone in a room with a woman.

42:26 But going back to scripture, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 618, flee from sexual immorality.

42:32 Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person

42:36 sins against his own body, so sexual sin is not in the same categories other sins, according

42:42 to God, it is wholly different.

42:44 And yeah, for me, it's like, for sure, let's bounce our eyes like you have guys that you

42:50 have guys that'll say like, I'm having trouble stopping looking at porn and masturbating.

42:54 But part of the problem is because they'll see women in public or on the internet, and

42:57 then they succumb to the temptation to masturbate to the point of climax thinking about those

43:01 women.

43:02 They didn't flee from the temptation, they didn't bounce their eyes, they lingered.

43:05 And as we just talked about, um, a lot of pastors have violated the Billy Graham rule.

43:10 A lot of modern people are really bad about the Billy Graham rule.

43:12 They think it's terrible, never be alone with another woman.

43:15 But just this year, Sam, uh, it was discovered that three huge guys in Christendom have completely

43:21 blown up their lives and their ministries because of sexual immorality.

43:25 So we have Tony Evans, which as far as we can tell, it looks like he just had sex outside

43:29 of marriage.

43:30 We have Steve Lawson, who just came out recently that he was having an extra marital affair

43:34 with a woman that was more than half a century younger than him.

43:37 He was basically leading a second life with this woman.

43:40 And then Robert Morris was discovered allegedly to be a pedophilic rapist.

43:44 And so this isn't just a big deal.

43:47 It's an enormous deal.

43:49 And I guess these guys, you know, really appreciates these guys fleeing from sexual immorality

43:54 and bouncing their eyes and never being alone with another woman.

43:57 It's their wives, right?

43:58 I bet Billy Graham's wife really loved the Billy Graham rule because she never had to

44:02 worry.

44:04 So with that said, Sam, I know that was kind of a long tee up, but I'm just trying to

44:06 like even verbally process as I'm saying it out loud.

44:09 I don't really understand the point because I came away thinking that you were minimizing

44:14 lust in not really helping me understand what lust actually is.

44:18 So help me.

44:19 Yeah.

44:20 What I'm trying to do is invite men back into their bodies.

44:23 So this sense that oftentimes I think when men repent of lust, they actually repent of

44:29 the flesh, they actually are repenting of having a body.

44:32 So I'm trying to engage this idea again, there was a study done that, you know, asked by

44:38 Sheila Gregor that asked, is lust every man's battle?

44:42 And 80% of men self reported yes, lust is my daily battle.

44:48 But when she actually asked questions that would clarify, right, and give validity to

44:52 that, the, you know, the integrity of that, that answer from a research standpoint, she

45:00 asked a bunch of questions that would, that would seem to validate that.

45:03 And she found that only 33% of men showed any discernible lust behaviors from the experiences

45:10 they were calling lustful, meaning her conclusion is these guys, you know, 33% did disclose

45:18 they struggled, but the, you know, 80% or 33% showed they did have some lust behavior,

45:25 but 80% said they struggled.

45:28 So what's going on there, her sense of the discrepancy, which is a big one, right?

45:32 50% was that these men were just experiencing and being moved by beauty and misunderstood

45:41 it as lust.

45:43 So what I'm inviting is, for example, I had a friend that said to me, he said, I liked

45:47 this was back in March.

45:48 I really enjoy watching Caitlin Clark play basketball.

45:52 Yeah.

45:53 Well, she's now in the women's NBA.

45:55 This was March Madness for Iowa.

45:59 And she said, he said, like, I don't think it's lust, but I'm really drawn to her.

46:05 What is that?

46:06 Right?

46:07 It doesn't feel sexual.

46:08 I said, I think you're being moved with awe.

46:11 I think you're just being moved by, she's an incredible athlete.

46:15 And she has finesse on the court and watching her drill a three right from like 35 feet

46:21 out is incredible to watch in itself.

46:24 So what I'm inviting is again, you know, I think there's a way in which a man can just

46:31 assume and almost be terrified of his own body that anything that moves in me must be

46:37 lost.

46:38 And so I need to be terrified of it.

46:41 And I'm trying to invite a more mature engagement with your body that it is possible to simply

46:48 be moved by the beautiful in another person and not go to lust and that can be a form

46:55 of maturity.

46:56 All right.

46:57 Pretend I'm on your couch in your office at this point because as I've, as I've told

47:00 people before, I'm not drawn to the chemical.

47:02 So like alcohol is not a problem for me, like illicit drugs.

47:05 It's just never been a pool for me.

47:07 My pool 100% is less and so if I was in part of, you know, that that woman study or something

47:13 like that, I would have been in the 33% that said, not only do I struggle, but I got the

47:17 receipts, right?

47:18 So there's a section of the book where you kind of get into purity culture and we'll

47:21 talk about that more, you know, overall here in a second, but you talk about a man, turn

47:26 a member exactly, but there was a man and a woman sitting at, you know, coffee or dinner

47:31 or something like that.

47:32 And the man tells the woman that, Hey, babe, I've gotten my lust under control, like whatever

47:37 that means, whatever they meant in that time or however he said it.

47:40 But then an attractive woman walks by their table and his wife, I guess, you know, testing

47:44 him obviously asked her husband if he noticed the woman and he said no.

47:49 And then you actually write this.

47:50 Here's a quote, something in this man had died on his path to purity.

47:55 This is the fruit of the church's obsession with sexual purity, which we'll get more

47:58 into here in a second.

47:59 We teach women that their bodies are scandalous and that men's desires must die.

48:05 But the thing is, is I would say men are desires and I guess this is the key point, Sam, is

48:11 our desires for women who are not our wives should die.

48:15 Absolutely.

48:16 And for me, and again, this is a man's podcast.

48:19 So guys, like we may get a little crass here, but you're 45 minutes into a podcast about

48:24 sex.

48:25 So if you're still listening with your kids, what's wrong with you, weirdo?

48:27 But back in the day, like 15 years ago is when I got porn and masturbation, like out

48:32 of my life, right, and if I saw an attractive woman in public, it was, it was going to be

48:39 almost impossible.

48:40 And again, guys, I'm warning you ahead in advance, like this is going to seem crass,

48:45 but I know a lot of guys in my audience will understand it was going to be almost impossible

48:48 for me to log that to not log that woman in my spank bank for later, right, to not think

48:53 about that woman and what if we got in my car and what if we did this and what if like

48:57 all the things that guys do when they get, they go from voyeurism to fantasy, right?

49:02 Yes.

49:03 And so for me, I literally could not look at women in public and not lust after them.

49:09 And I think a lot of guys heard me describe it and they're like, dude, me too.

49:12 I thought I was crazy.

49:13 I thought I needed to be institutionalized.

49:15 And so that's the thing for me is I'm like, if a guy's like, Hey, I'm going to bounce my

49:19 eyes and I'm not going to check out any women.

49:21 I'm like, Amen, brother, and I bet your wife's going to love it.

49:24 So, so help me understand because I'm like, that's what got me out of the, the rotation

49:30 of looking at the woman, lusting after her and then masturbating.

49:33 You know what I mean?

49:34 Yeah.

49:35 So what I would want to invite is behaviorally, right?

49:37 You might be able to stop, but what I'm most curious about and where I think you need to

49:42 do, you know, a guide in this case, obviously you described this as 15 years ago, but a

49:47 guy in this case, the, the question is, what's the story you're writing in your head?

49:53 What's the fantasy that you're writing?

49:55 That's where you need to go and be curious.

49:58 That's how you're going to be set free.

49:59 Because that script is something about your life, right?

50:04 That is being almost like a dream, right?

50:07 You have a dream.

50:08 I had a dream that I, you know, was in a war the other night, right?

50:12 I didn't wake up, you know, confessing my sins for shooting a bunch of people, right?

50:17 I was in a war and let's say, deserve it.

50:20 Right.

50:21 Right.

50:22 I didn't wake up saying like, oh, God, forgive me, you know, for murdering a bunch of people

50:26 last night in my dream.

50:27 I woke up saying, whoa, what was that about?

50:31 Right.

50:32 Like do you have some pent up anger?

50:34 What showed up in my dream, right?

50:36 I was paying attention to the script of the dream.

50:39 Well, it was me and two other guys and we were clearing this, this section of woods in this

50:44 town.

50:45 You know, I think I would just read something about the war in Ukraine.

50:48 And so I was like in that zone before I went to bed.

50:51 Right.

50:52 My question is what's happening the hour before you had that struggle with lust, what's going

50:58 on in your life or what's the script?

51:02 So I tell the story in the book of a guy.

51:04 He's driving home from work.

51:05 He calls his wife to ask her, you know, if, you know, it does, does he need to pick anything

51:12 up from the grocery store?

51:13 She gives this list of things to pick up from the grocery store, grocery store.

51:17 He forgets one.

51:18 He gets home, his wife's disappointed that he forgot something.

51:21 It was for the meal that night.

51:23 So they're struggling.

51:25 Um, relationally, she's disappointed in him that night.

51:30 He looks at porn.

51:31 He comes in the next day and tells me, um, this story, uh, you know, he confesses like,

51:38 yeah, I looked at porn and which is always a brave admission from a man.

51:42 And then he says to me, um, well, what I asked him was, well, tell me what happened.

51:48 And he tells me the story of missing the, the item from the grocery store.

51:53 And I asked him, what did you look at?

51:57 Like let's talk about what you actually look at porn is a very general statement that describes

52:01 something.

52:02 But what were you looking for in pornography?

52:06 And he says to me, well, I guess I was looking after some reflection, I guess I was looking

52:11 for a woman with a really genuine smile, whoa, right?

52:17 In other words, what did he bring to pornography?

52:19 It wasn't just lust, right?

52:21 Like, Oh, I just have an overactive sex drive and I was just struggling.

52:25 It was, there was a whole story that led up to that moment.

52:28 He was looking for kindness, a woman with a really genuine smile in his pornography, right?

52:35 That was all about, um, what he had been not gotten in his marriage.

52:39 And again, bringing it to pornography is not kind to his wife.

52:43 It's, it is a form of adultery and he's not bringing, he, you know, that could have been

52:48 a conversation with his wife about what he really needed, like, Hey, honey, um, I feel

52:53 like I've lost your affection, like how do I get, you know, I'm sorry about the, the

52:58 missed food, but that led even deeper for him as we talked.

53:04 You know, it wasn't just what, what he missed that night in his marriage, but we started

53:08 to talk about, you know, he said, the only time I ever got my mother's smile is when

53:15 I was giving her back rubs and she got to lament all her heartache about my dad.

53:22 Yeah.

53:23 So that, that search in pornography was about so much in this guy's story, right?

53:30 So what I'm inviting is when you said, like, I was going to go back to my car and write

53:33 a whole fantasy where I'd want to go, you know, call us to say, well, what was the script?

53:40 What was the fantasy?

53:41 And what does that tell you about what you really need, right?

53:45 My, my sense of Jesus is he was always so very kind and curious to the sexually broken.

53:53 He sat with them and asked them really curious questions.

53:56 He was kind to them.

53:59 And I think he wants to do the same with you.

54:01 So it's, it's not just, hey, shut it down.

54:04 Shut it down.

54:05 Shut it down.

54:06 Shut it down.

54:07 Shut it down.

54:08 I'm saying be curious.

54:09 Be curious.

54:10 Be curious.

54:11 Be curious.

54:12 What?

54:13 It's not just, oh, you're just have an overactive sex drive.

54:14 It's what are you bringing to this moment?

54:18 What story are you writing in your head about that person you just saw?

54:22 That's beautiful.

54:23 What's the fantasy?

54:24 Let me ask you a follow up question on that because that that's actually very helpful

54:29 because I obviously didn't, didn't get that whenever I was reading.

54:32 So, so let's just, let's just take a scenario because I'm, you know, I get, you wouldn't

54:36 believe some message I get from guys, it's like, dude, I don't know you.

54:39 Why are you telling me these things?

54:41 But yeah, let's say a guy's in your office and, you know, you, you same scenario with

54:46 that other guy talks about masturbation and then you say, hey, you know, what were you

54:49 thinking about?

54:50 What happened beforehand?

54:51 All that type of thing.

54:52 And let's say in his fantasy, because I know guys that fantasize about their wives, about

54:56 the things that their wives won't do.

54:58 And so guys, use your own creativity, use your own imagination.

55:01 And I think you can fill in the blanks for me.

55:03 But these are guys that are literally masturbating or just daydreaming, thinking about their

55:07 wives, not doing things that they would like to try in the bedroom or things that they

55:11 would like that would feel good to them.

55:13 And they think it's anathema to even mention it.

55:16 Like how would you help that person like, because that probably needs to be a conversation

55:21 with their wife.

55:22 You know, I had a guy the other day.

55:23 I'm trying to remember the circumstances.

55:25 But I think his wife is pregnant and there was some sort of complication that was going

55:30 on.

55:31 So they weren't going to be able to have vaginal sex.

55:32 And vaginal sex is the only sex that his wife was willing to give.

55:36 And so he asks me, Kyle, is it okay if I masturbate thinking about my wife and my wife only?

55:41 I was like, well, first of all, if you can masturbate and only think about your wife,

55:45 you're like a super stud mental person because like if things don't drift, but it's also

55:50 like sex outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is sinful.

55:55 So having sex with your left or right hand is also inherently sinful.

55:59 But how would you help a man like that?

56:01 I guess Sam worked through those feelings or maybe have that conversation with his wife

56:05 and say like, Hey, babe, I'd really like to do this or try this.

56:08 And it's not because, Hey, I saw this in a porn and I always wanted to try it.

56:11 But it's like, Hey, I think this would make me feel good.

56:14 And you know, keep me from from fantasizing about doing it if we actually do it.

56:17 If that makes sense.

56:18 Yeah, you know, the first thing I'd say is actually not a conversation with your wife

56:23 as much as can you journal about it?

56:26 What is it about that act that would feel good?

56:29 What would you love about it?

56:30 Right?

56:31 So that you are sifting some of your own erotic like scripts, right?

56:37 What has shaped that in your story?

56:39 What is shaped that in your life?

56:40 Is there something connected there?

56:42 Because I mean, as a counselor, of course, I hear the same sorts of things like guys,

56:46 you know, that fantasize about, you know, other people involved, right?

56:51 And they're like, what do I do with this fantasy?

56:53 Like, I know it's wrong, but I feel like it, it grips me.

56:58 And I'm like, explore it, explore it with God in a journal, right?

57:03 Not literally in person, but to sit with what would that give you, right?

57:08 What would that feel like?

57:10 So that I would start there, but then I would also add, you know, sex at its heart, I believe

57:16 is a form of play.

57:18 It is a place our romance is meant to play.

57:21 Now, again, it's not the only place I think you're meant to play in your marriage, right?

57:25 I do think like playing my wife is a very competitive card player or basketball player.

57:33 So when we play, right, it's fun because this competitive side of her comes out and it's

57:38 a totally different way of us relating than like the tasks of the day or the hugs, right?

57:44 Because I see more of her in our play, even in like a basic card game, right?

57:49 So that's a place our romance plays, but sex is meant to be another place you play together.

57:55 So I think if it's introduced as, hey, this, you know, this is a place I'd love to play,

58:02 right?

58:03 Obviously, consent is essential.

58:05 So if the person says, I'm uncomfortable with that.

58:08 Yeah, right, right, but, but, you know, wonderful that you can try to bring, you know, to your

58:16 sex life, playfulness so that it's not just again, the dutiful, you know, I have a need

58:23 and let's get it done.

58:26 But that it actually is a place of play.

58:28 You think of like, you know, song of songs, the are erotic Psalter as one writer described

58:37 it, right?

58:38 It's just a bunch of erotic love poetry, right?

58:41 This is a couple that play, right?

58:44 He is writing very descriptive things about his wife's body and what he's doing and what

58:50 she's doing to his, right?

58:52 They're playing.

58:53 You know, again, they're not just playing with their bodies.

58:56 They're also playing with romance and settings and, you know, literally writing poetry to

59:02 each other.

59:03 So my invitation is, yes, it'd be wonderful if you're bringing in a playful way that allows

59:11 the other person to say no, if it feels uncomfortable.

59:15 Okay.

59:16 If we had more time, I'd want to dig into that, but I think it's important to move on.

59:19 But that is helpful to kind of think, okay, how does the script work?

59:23 Are you lacking in play?

59:24 Just imagine being a kid or even a dog that's like not able to play like what that would

59:29 do mentally.

59:30 Like we've all seen a sad puppy towards like, well, they're not, they're not playing.

59:33 They're not able to run.

59:34 They're not able to do all those stuff.

59:35 I mean, I know we're not dogs.

59:36 Guys don't send me emails.

59:38 But I do want to back up and talk a little bit about purity culture because the sense

59:42 I get is that you just weren't really a fan of purity culture at all kind of the, the

59:46 worth the wait, true love waits thing that that was really popular.

59:49 And then you have what the guy that deconstructed that wrote, I kissed dating goodbye.

59:53 And so it's like, was that guy ever even a Christian or did he just sell a lot of books

59:56 for Christian publishers?

59:57 But I want to read a quote here from the book, making purity, the goal of your sexuality

1:00:02 is, is a really bad idea.

1:00:05 Purity is not in service to all, oh, sorry, purity that is not in service to all, bludgeon's

1:00:11 a person's body and being.

1:00:13 So many men and women in the church were traumatized by purity culture, which I believe

1:00:18 is inherently abusive.

1:00:20 It violates the very glory of God within us that our beings are made to be moved, aroused

1:00:25 and odd.

1:00:26 And it disassociates people from their bodies, setting them up for further sexual abuse and

1:00:31 violation, because they no longer know their bodies.

1:00:35 So just to be honest with you, Sam, like the word I wrote in the margin after I read that

1:00:38 paragraph was egregious, like there was so much in that paragraph that I somewhere between

1:00:44 didn't understand and vehemently disagreed with.

1:00:47 So my church that I didn't grow up in church, but I started going to church in middle school,

1:00:50 because that's where all the girls were girls were all and then when I was 15, you know,

1:00:55 this hell fire and brimstone preacher came in and I accepted Christ and all that.

1:00:58 And apparently we couldn't afford the true love weights guy, so we got the worth the

1:01:02 weight guy.

1:01:03 And so here I am 15 years old, having never had sex and I've got my purity ring and I

1:01:07 go up there and I, you know, I signed the pledge and do all that.

1:01:10 And for me, I've only ever had sex with my wife.

1:01:14 And it's partially because I wore a dang wedding ring that said worth the weight around my

1:01:20 entire teenage years and then I got married when I was 22 and now I get to have sex with

1:01:24 my wife.

1:01:25 And so I think when people look back on the purity movement or whatever company that they

1:01:29 brought to their church and they say, oh, it traumatized me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, trauma.

1:01:34 You were traumatized because, you know, purity culture encourages girls to keep their legs

1:01:39 closed and encourages boys to keep it in their pants until marriage.

1:01:43 I don't see how that is in any way abusive because unless you are sexually pure, unless

1:01:48 you are having sex within a covenantal marriage of one man and one woman, you, you're not

1:01:53 honoring God with your sexuality.

1:01:56 And I think when you say it's setting people up for further sexual abuse and violation,

1:02:01 I was like, whoa, like it seemed like you went from third gear to 18th gear with that

1:02:06 question because it's like, it kind of puts the onus on the person that, Hey, if you bought

1:02:11 into this purity culture thing, you actually opened yourself up to sexual exploitation as

1:02:15 a man that has never experienced sexual exploitation from either side.

1:02:20 You know, I'm not speaking from experience, but for me, I just like, I didn't get the

1:02:24 point of the paragraph.

1:02:25 I just didn't really come away with the conclusions that you did there.

1:02:30 So I know there's a lot there in that question and a lot there in that paragraph and you're

1:02:34 even giggling when I started to read it.

1:02:36 So it's like it expected me to ask about it.

1:02:37 So let's go.

1:02:38 Well, I'm laughing at myself more than anything like I went for it.

1:02:42 I did go to 18th gear as I hear myself.

1:02:45 I'm like, wow, you know, I'm laughing, not in any way at your question.

1:02:50 And I do want to clarify that.

1:02:52 It's a very, it's a very, I'm literally a redheaded step out.

1:02:56 You can laugh all you want.

1:02:58 No, I'm laughing at myself because I swung for the fences there.

1:03:04 And like, wow, I, you know, I'm being invited to sit with my own words.

1:03:08 So that's what my laughter is.

1:03:10 And rightfully so.

1:03:11 I'm glad you're inviting me to sit with my words.

1:03:13 I'm very okay with that.

1:03:15 You know, I, I would want to honor the purity movement was well intended as a response to

1:03:24 the sexual revolution.

1:03:26 It was an attempt by the church to create some sort of sexual ethic, right?

1:03:31 That's different than the culture of free love and, you know, do what you want.

1:03:35 So, you know, I, and obviously I had a different experience clearly, you know, my wife and

1:03:41 I did read Josh Harris's books on purity and it was damaging to our relationship.

1:03:49 And it, it took a lot of years for us to unwind a lot of what was said there.

1:03:54 And I think what I'm addressing is this idea that women are responsible for male lust and

1:04:02 they have to dress modest that they need to bear the responsibility of not being seductive.

1:04:07 And that men are animals with urges that can't be controlled.

1:04:11 And that you really have to fight that.

1:04:14 I think those two things are what's damaging because it put the weight, it puts the weight

1:04:19 of not being, you know, seductive on women.

1:04:25 And it puts this idea that you're an animal on men.

1:04:29 And I think that creates body confusion for men and it creates inadvertent shame for women.

1:04:34 Jesus said, if you're struggling with lust, right, he went as far as to say, gouch out

1:04:39 your eye.

1:04:41 It wasn't go tell women to dress different.

1:04:44 It was deal with yourself and grow up.

1:04:47 But with that, Sam, like you would encourage a woman to not dress with a plunging neckline

1:04:54 shirt at church and a short skirt, like that's a good idea, right?

1:04:59 Like, because their modesty is a biblical value.

1:05:03 If if it's an honoring and owning of their own body and the value and worth of their

1:05:08 own body, right?

1:05:10 So what I'm inviting is that bodies are not inherently shameful in themselves, right?

1:05:16 God did not give us clothing.

1:05:18 I believe because our bodies are shameful.

1:05:20 He gave us clothing because our bodies are sacred that they are, it is glorious things

1:05:26 in the Bible that are covered up, right?

1:05:28 Moses faces veiled, right?

1:05:30 The temple, you think of the arc of the covenant is covered.

1:05:33 The temple has a, you know, the curtain on it.

1:05:36 So what I'm inviting is it is glorious things that are invited to be covered in clothes.

1:05:42 So if we can start with honoring, the body is a glorious work of art.

1:05:48 And then from there, invite a woman to think, how do you want to veil your body as a glorious

1:05:54 thing?

1:05:55 If you start with saying cover your body, you're, you're scripting shame to a woman.

1:06:02 If you don't say your body is amazing and the work of art.

1:06:07 Now, how do you want to engage that work of art?

1:06:09 Okay.

1:06:10 This might get a little bit granular, but I, but I totally mean it because I want people

1:06:13 to have things that are actionable that they can take away from this, whether they have

1:06:17 daughters or sons or they're looking at themselves or their spouses.

1:06:20 But there are women that it's almost like no matter what they do, they're not going to

1:06:25 be able to hide what mama gave them or what God gave them.

1:06:28 Right.

1:06:29 And so that is a struggle, but I've heard women before say something along the lines, I'm,

1:06:34 I'm, you know, just getting to the end of the point here, they're like, look, I know

1:06:37 I'm hot, but I don't want to lead men into temptation and I don't want men to lust after

1:06:42 me.

1:06:43 And I don't want unwanted attention from gross men.

1:06:45 And so I'm going to dress modestly because that's what I feel comfortable doing.

1:06:50 And it also makes me feel good that I'm not tempting a man at church when I walk by.

1:06:54 Okay.

1:06:55 Now I've also thought about this, and I say this literally in all humility, but you know,

1:06:59 even though I'm kind of an old man, I'm 38 years old, like I'm in really good shape.

1:07:02 Like, and I've, I've been in shape since I was, I was really, really fat kid.

1:07:06 And then I started getting in shape in my later teen years and all that.

1:07:09 And so my body doesn't look gross, right?

1:07:11 I don't have a repulsive body.

1:07:13 Now when I speak live, or especially when I speak in mixed settings with men and women,

1:07:18 I am very aware of my body and what I look like so that I don't tempt a woman, right?

1:07:25 Because like women are, you know, you're attracted to what you're attracted to.

1:07:28 No one's attracted to redheads and all that.

1:07:29 I get it.

1:07:30 My wife's a weirdo.

1:07:31 But like, I am also very conscious about being modest and not like, I don't go to mixed

1:07:37 pool parties where I'm walking around with my shirt off and, you know, got people looking

1:07:41 at my body, you know, asking questions about my tattoos and all that.

1:07:44 Like, so I try to be modest, but I'm doing that.

1:07:47 Yes, to honor God with my body and my modesty.

1:07:51 But at the same time, if there is a woman that is potentially attracted to me, I don't

1:07:55 want her thinking about me in any way that could lead to lustfulness.

1:08:00 So kind of help me understand the practical, like every day, like how do people dress in

1:08:05 a way or can port themselves in a way that is God honoring in all the ways that we've

1:08:10 kind of alluded to or discussed?

1:08:11 Yeah, you know, you know, the Israelites, when Moses comes down from the mountain after

1:08:18 communing with God and getting the 10 commandments, his face is glowing.

1:08:23 Right.

1:08:24 And the Israelites literally say it's too much for us cover up, right?

1:08:30 So I think there is a way in which, you know, if you can begin to see clothing as a way

1:08:35 of helping people cope with the glory of God and who you are, great, right?

1:08:42 But if you're coming at it as my body is shameful, that wouldn't be good.

1:08:48 So practically speaking, there's a tension here, right?

1:08:51 Because at some level, people are going to experience you and take you in, whether that's

1:08:56 your face, right, or your body.

1:09:00 And so how are you going to invite people to bear the weight of your glory and your

1:09:04 power?

1:09:05 Because again, we're talking about, you know, two dimensional views of beauty, right?

1:09:10 Just physical beauty.

1:09:12 And what I want to say is what about lust for somebody's ability to speak, right?

1:09:17 There's somebody lust for somebody's capacity for empathy, right?

1:09:22 Or lust for somebody's leadership qualities, right?

1:09:25 There are other ways to lust for people's glory.

1:09:28 So what I want to invite is at some level, you need to be able to be shrewd as a snake

1:09:33 innocent as a dove.

1:09:35 How are you going to let people bear the weight of who you are is what we're talking

1:09:40 about?

1:09:41 And like you're saying, there are ways in which you need to know that you have power.

1:09:47 And how are you going to bring it to others?

1:09:50 And I would also want to honor, you need to be able to grow up as a person, as a man,

1:09:55 and being able to take in the power and glory of another person without lusting, with being

1:10:00 moved with awe, right, like, you know, the disciples when Jesus is transfigured, right?

1:10:08 And he's glowing and they fall down, freak out, right?

1:10:14 Like they are overcome with the power of Jesus' presence.

1:10:17 So how are you all of us, says Paul, can with unveiled faces, you know, reflect the glory

1:10:24 of God?

1:10:26 So my sense again is we're talking about, you know, a two dimensional view of hot people.

1:10:31 How do you cope with hot people?

1:10:33 But I would say that such an emaciated view of beauty in the world.

1:10:36 You are a glorious person.

1:10:37 There are no ugly people, no ugly people.

1:10:41 Everyone bears the glory of God.

1:10:43 Yeah.

1:10:44 I get there are some people who are hiding it and not stewarding it, right?

1:10:47 Yeah, yeah.

1:10:48 There are some people who are forsaking their glory and they might look ugly to you, but

1:10:52 my challenge is they're just hiding.

1:10:55 They're just hiding, even if it's behind how they cope with or present their body.

1:11:00 So back to again, it doesn't get you away from how are you going to deal with glorious

1:11:04 people who are moving?

1:11:08 You've got to find a way to be able to be an awe of people and not lust.

1:11:12 And that is the maturity that we all need to be able to grow into.

1:11:16 Okay.

1:11:17 Very good.

1:11:18 One thing I want to talk about in terms of that is, okay, how do we look at purity?

1:11:22 This is still in the section talking about purity culture, but there's a quote from the

1:11:25 book where you say, we equated virginity with purity and losing one's virginity was often

1:11:31 described as irreparable damage that is a devastatingly destructive message.

1:11:37 And so, you know, virginity is equated with purity, but theologically speaking, you know,

1:11:43 why was it so important, you know, for Jesus to be born a virgin?

1:11:46 I think there's certainly discussion there.

1:11:48 And I would say that if you give up your virginity, if you choose to give up your virginity,

1:11:51 that you have done irreparable damage, but it's not irredeemable damage, right?

1:11:55 Because you can't get your virginity back.

1:11:57 So it's irreparable, but it can be redeemed.

1:12:00 So as I said earlier, you can't really put the toothpaste back on the tube, but there's

1:12:03 a little quote a little bit later and this gets back and it's kind of the lust conversation.

1:12:07 So let me be clear, sexual arousal is not lust.

1:12:10 It does not make you impure.

1:12:12 Sexual activity does not fundamentally ruin your body or your sexuality.

1:12:16 It does not make you dirty, nor are virginity and purity the same.

1:12:20 And then a little bit later, but the real danger here is that we actually repent of our

1:12:24 sexual desire, fearing that our sexuality is inherently dirty and broken.

1:12:29 So we've kind of talked about a little bit of the same.

1:12:32 Now, I would obviously argue that sexual arousal towards a person that is not your spouse is

1:12:36 indeed lust in the sexual type of lust, not lust for money or position or stuff.

1:12:41 And it does make you impure, but you kind of also say that sexuality outside of marriage,

1:12:47 that it doesn't make you dirty, where I would say it makes it way worse than that.

1:12:51 And so Joby Martin, his latest book run over by the grace train talks about how sin doesn't

1:12:55 make you bad.

1:12:56 It makes you dead.

1:12:57 Like that's what sin does.

1:12:58 It doesn't make you bad.

1:12:59 It doesn't make you dirty.

1:13:00 And so like if we belittle our own sin nature to the point where we don't see ourselves

1:13:04 as hopelessly depraved, then we really don't understand the full weight and glory of the

1:13:09 true gospel.

1:13:10 And so like virginity and purity are one and the same, they're not the same, but they

1:13:15 are one and the same.

1:13:17 And so I guess I'm wondering how do we apply this idea of all but separating it away from

1:13:26 lust while understanding that, look, if you've given yourself to another person sexually,

1:13:30 you can't get that back.

1:13:31 Now it can be covered by the blood of Christ.

1:13:33 That means it's redeemable, but it's not reparable.

1:13:37 How do we turn that into, how do we turn that into an ethic that we could share with our

1:13:43 kids?

1:13:44 Yeah, you know, I think I would start with saying nobody's pure, right?

1:13:49 We're born impure.

1:13:51 That's the basis of our whole religion as Christians is that you need a God that will

1:13:55 make you pure again.

1:13:56 So the idea that you have purity and you can lose it is already dead flat wrong, right?

1:14:02 Like no one's pure, purity is what we get at the end of time when we meet Jesus again

1:14:07 is what I would say.

1:14:08 So this idea of saying like you have purity and you can lose it by your virginity is already

1:14:13 a broken script because you don't have it, you're impure.

1:14:17 That's the whole point, right, is that you need Jesus.

1:14:20 So I would start with saying that.

1:14:21 The other thing I would say is the idea that again is, is something lost in giving away

1:14:28 your virginity?

1:14:29 Yes.

1:14:30 But the idea that you're now damaged goods and man, you're a dirty individual.

1:14:37 I think is wrong.

1:14:38 It's wrong.

1:14:39 Right?

1:14:40 There is such a thing as sin, but we so often, you know, equate what I'm trying to address

1:14:47 there is people that bear sexual shame and this sense of, you know what, there were all

1:14:54 kinds of bad analogies in my youth group, at least, you know, of like, you know, now

1:14:59 you're duct tape that lost it's sticky side, right?

1:15:02 Which is not how attachment works anyway.

1:15:04 Right?

1:15:05 Like, no, you can actually attach really well to other people still that you don't lose

1:15:11 your ability to attach, right, you, you can grow numb in ways through sexual activity

1:15:18 and sin, but you can get that back too.

1:15:21 So what I'm trying to invite is I talked with a pastor when I wrote that section who

1:15:28 helped me to think how to language that.

1:15:31 And he was the one that said, you know, I sat with a woman that came up front at during

1:15:36 church to confess her sins.

1:15:38 She said, I had sex with my boyfriend and now I'm impure and God, you know, like, I feel

1:15:43 it.

1:15:44 I feel so dirty.

1:15:45 And his point was you never, you were already impure.

1:15:49 This didn't, you didn't lose your purity in this moment.

1:15:53 Purity is something that is our will, will come to us at the end of time when God finally

1:15:58 sets us free, right?

1:16:01 So I'm just trying to take it out of, um, it kind of sexualizes purity in a way that

1:16:09 I just don't think the biblical text does fully as, as if sexuality and purity are the

1:16:14 same thing.

1:16:15 Okay.

1:16:16 But it would be, it would have been appropriate for that pastor in that moment to say, looks

1:16:21 sweetheart or whatever you would call this young lady.

1:16:25 Look young lady, um, from a physical standpoint, you have lost your sexual purity.

1:16:31 But the, the truth in grace of the gospel is that you can't do anything to earn it and

1:16:36 you can't, you know, white knuckle behavior way into getting it because that's one of

1:16:40 the reasons why rail on pastors that won't talk about abortion from the pulpit because

1:16:43 they're afraid of the women in their congregations that have had abortions.

1:16:46 I'm like, no, no, no, no.

1:16:48 That might be your road to the gospel for that woman because when they realize, Oh, no,

1:16:53 I murdered an image bearer of God for the reason of convenience.

1:16:58 And then at that moment, they understand they're depraved and they understand, Oh my gosh,

1:17:02 I need a savior and the savior is not me.

1:17:05 So I guess like it would be okay to say, yes, you have physically from a sexual standpoint,

1:17:10 made yourself impure.

1:17:11 I don't know why we would avoid saying that.

1:17:14 Um, I, you know, what this pastor did say, he did confront the sin and say, you know, he's

1:17:21 not making light of the sin of sexuality, what, um, what he's inviting is just thinking

1:17:29 of purity only in sexual terms as if, um, you know, you had it and you lost it versus,

1:17:35 you know, what God, you needed it from the birth anyway, um, is, is the point he's making.

1:17:41 And he did not make light of the sin of sleeping with her boyfriend.

1:17:46 He did say, you know, your sins are forgiven.

1:17:48 This is obviously what this woman is upfront confessing, um, but he's inviting her to accept

1:17:53 the grace of God in that moment, um, and not see like, well, you're now damaged goods and

1:17:58 I'm sorry, um, you know, you know, there's no hope for you.

1:18:03 So, um, trying to pull apart again, this idea of what I think can become the damaged goods

1:18:10 sexual shame, um, conversation like, yeah, you're, you're dirty now.

1:18:19 And, um, I just don't see that being the heart of Jesus when he sits with people.

1:18:24 All right.

1:18:25 Very good.

1:18:26 Well, let's go and get into our last question of the day.

1:18:27 I think this kind of crescendos or I guess bookends what we talked about where it's like,

1:18:31 hey, we need to have these conversations.

1:18:33 We need to have them with our kids and we need to do them the right way.

1:18:35 So this is a quote from chapter five called the wounded lover.

1:18:38 As I've said, the sex talk is really hundreds of sex body and romance talks.

1:18:43 Parents need to build with their son an ongoing conversation about his life, his identity,

1:18:47 his heart.

1:18:48 And within that conversation of life comes the conversation on sexuality.

1:18:52 These are usually basic and short when they're young by older childhood, most kids are ready

1:18:57 to know the basics of sex, but of all times to be invited to know your sexuality and your

1:19:02 body.

1:19:03 sexuality provides this rite of passage, marking a moment to get more intentional with these

1:19:08 talks.

1:19:09 So a natural rite of passage is puberty, which regardless of what a satanic doctors are doing

1:19:14 is not something that can be paused or stopped.

1:19:17 But in these types of settings to that parent out there, that's got the 13 year old like

1:19:21 you.

1:19:22 That's now, hey, we're on that short march to manhood, right?

1:19:25 And it's time, or maybe they're already in the throes of manhood and addiction, a body

1:19:29 changing and a hair growing in places and all that kind of stuff.

1:19:33 How do we as fathers, because you're talking to a bunch of fathers right now, and this

1:19:36 is your last salvo.

1:19:38 How do we have those hundreds of conversations effectively appropriately spaced out in the

1:19:45 right amount, which coincides with the personality of the kid and what they can handle and shoulder

1:19:50 at the same time?

1:19:52 How do we practically do that from a kind of a high level view?

1:19:56 Yeah, well, you know, I would say to wherever you are in the journey with your children,

1:20:04 it's never too late to start.

1:20:05 So you can always step in, even if your son's out of the house, right, you can come back

1:20:10 to him and say, hey, there's some things I didn't talk to you about, right?

1:20:14 But I would start with, you know, the first thing that I would say to parents is you've

1:20:19 got to deal with your own sexual shame, your own sexual story.

1:20:23 How have you dealt with what's in your own body from your own formation?

1:20:28 Do you know the top 10 things that shaped you sexually, right?

1:20:32 Have you have you thought about those stories so that you're not bringing to your children

1:20:37 your own unprocessed stuff, right, of your life?

1:20:42 Have you engaged what shaped you sexually would be the first thing I'd invite parents

1:20:47 to think about so that, again, you know, it's often not a lack of desire to have these

1:20:53 conversations for parents.

1:20:55 It's often something else that keeps them mute or makes them too hesitant to go there.

1:21:01 So I think that's often their own shame from their own story.

1:21:04 So I would start there.

1:21:05 The second thing I would say is, you know, be a place that's safe for their curiosity,

1:21:13 right?

1:21:14 Are they, do they feel free to talk to you about their bodies, about what things they've

1:21:20 heard people talking about?

1:21:22 My son brought to me the other day, my 13 year old son dad.

1:21:25 I heard somebody give a that's what she said joke.

1:21:30 What is that?

1:21:31 Yeah.

1:21:32 Right?

1:21:33 That was a one minute sex talk.

1:21:34 So I talked to him about what is a that's what she said joke, right?

1:21:38 And why those aren't good, right?

1:21:40 Why those make light of something that's meant to be, you know, sacred.

1:21:44 So I mean, that's one place is just meet them in their curiosity.

1:21:48 The second thing I'd say is read your kids, try to be a half step ahead of them.

1:21:54 And you're not going to nail it, right?

1:21:56 There's no like, try something, just try and guess, right?

1:22:02 Like I think, you know, gosh, you know, your kid is being curious about where babies come

1:22:10 from, right?

1:22:12 Like, okay, I think it's time for us to tell them the basics of sex, right?

1:22:17 This is where babies come from kind of meet them at the level of their curiosity would

1:22:23 be the best thing to do.

1:22:27 And then, you know, again, using what's around you, you know, lyrics in a song, a news article,

1:22:38 you know, like I said, the conversation that my son overheard with his buddies, right?

1:22:42 Like when they talk about things that they're hearing at school or at youth group or with

1:22:49 their friends or in culture, talk about that stuff, go there with them.

1:22:54 And I think they'll continue to bring their curiosity to you.

1:22:59 I want to echo that last sentiment there, the curiosity thing, but also I believe this was

1:23:03 in the intentional father by John Tyson, where it talks about when your child is first exposed

1:23:09 to porn, it doesn't matter what filters you have or all the stuff that you have in place

1:23:13 at home.

1:23:14 Even though I'm pro all of those things, they're going to see it somehow.

1:23:17 It's either going to accidentally find them on the internet because porn is like a heat

1:23:20 seeking missile, especially for children or if they see it on a buddy's phone in the hallway.

1:23:25 Another reason why no school should have like a no cell phone policy, so you're not so they're

1:23:29 looking at porn in the hallways, but the first time they look at porn and they come to you

1:23:33 with that or you catch them, that is a very, very important moment in that kid's life.

1:23:37 And then y'all's understanding because if they, you know, feel just completely demoralized

1:23:42 and shamed, even though I do think shame is a tremendous motivator, man, are they ever

1:23:45 going to come to you and talk to you about things that they're curious about or things

1:23:48 that they're wondering about?

1:23:49 And then if they don't come to you and you have a fully fledged philosophy on a biblical

1:23:54 sexual ethic and they don't feel like they can talk to you, well, they're probably not

1:23:57 going to talk to the youth pastor now.

1:23:58 They're probably not going to talk to the main pastor now.

1:24:00 They're probably going to talk to one of their idiot buddies or they're probably going to

1:24:03 let TikTok teach them about sexual ethics or they're going to let porn hub teach them

1:24:08 about sexual ethics.

1:24:09 So I think that's a very, very important thing.

1:24:11 But Sam, we've gone everywhere in this conversation.

1:24:13 I appreciate you letting me kind of like tug and pull on some of the things that you said

1:24:17 can help me really understand your thesis a lot better.

1:24:20 But that is all for me.

1:24:21 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

1:24:23 No, Kyle, this has been great.

1:24:25 I so welcome the tugging employee.

1:24:27 I mean, this is sexuality, one of the most sacred parts of you, right?

1:24:30 So don't, don't take my book as the ultimate, right?

1:24:33 You've got to, you know, tug and pull on it, throw it against the wall.

1:24:37 If you don't like it, I mean, this is meant to be a conversation.

1:24:40 So thanks for having that with me.

1:24:42 Great to have you, Sam.

1:24:44 Our guys, I hope you enjoyed my time with Sam, but before we let you go, we are going

1:24:46 to do a quick resilience boost at Indaunted Life, where mission is equipping men to push

1:24:49 back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:24:53 So the link I've got for you today is to Sam's website.

1:24:55 So if you want to pick up his book or check out anything else he's doing, you can do it

1:24:58 there.

1:24:59 If you're listening to this podcast, wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,

1:25:02 rate and leave us a positive five star review.

1:25:04 If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email

1:25:07 to info@udonton.life.

1:25:09 That's I-N-F-O @udonton.life.

1:25:12 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,

1:25:15 including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.

1:25:18 Just go to www.udonton.life and as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing

1:25:23 us to use their music for our content.

1:25:25 The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album

1:25:29 on Face Down Records.

1:25:30 The links are in the description.

1:25:31 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:25:33 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:25:40 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:25:59 [end]