Community Unity in Sexual Attraction

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast , where we help Christian men outgrow porn . Why ? So you can change your brain , heal your heart and save your relationship . My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go . Today , we are talking about the beauty and the challenge of being in a community with men who experience various attractions , specifically men who are sexually attracted to women , men who are sexually attracted to other men . Let's start by introducing ourselves . Henry , jason and Jordan , why are you here ?

Speaker 2 0:42

My name is Henry Brown and I'm the Director of Operations and Support for Husband Material , and I'm here because I handle a lot of the mediation behind the scenes when members have conflicts with each other . I identify as opposite sex attracted , although I have a history of gay porn a little bit . Thanks , Henry .

Speaker 3 1:04

Well , my name is Jordan Castile . I am a husband material coach and I run my own coaching practice called Castile Coaching . I've been involved in the husband material community for over three years now and I experience same-sex attraction . I have a history of viewing gay pornography .

Speaker 4 1:26

Yeah , hi , I'm Jason Pidcock , jasonpidcockcoachingcom , and I'm a longtime husband , material community member , and I identify as opposite-sex attracted , which I was in the episode two episodes ago before this on that topic with the stereotypes . And so just coming into this conversation here to kind of bring it full circle and have some interaction between the two episodes .

Speaker 1 1:53

Awesome . So , as you can tell , we have a variety of experiences represented here . My name is Drew Boa , I'm the founder of Husband Material and while I primarily experience opposite sex attraction , I do have a sexual fetish for braces . That often feels different from just being attracted to a type of person , and essentially it's being attracted to a type of appliance or an item which is a little different . So when someone asks me if I'm straight , there's a part of me that thinks well , is anybody really straight ? And yet , at the same time , my experiences do tend to fit more toward being sexually attracted to women , although they occasionally do go toward younger women as well .

Speaker 1 2:48

So age is a part of my arousal template , and the reason for this episode wrapping up our three-part series is to open up about the beauty , the goodness and the value of having men who have very different sexual attractions , living and growing in community together , outgrowing porn together , and also the challenges , the difficulties we face and then some of the limitations of that in terms of what's appropriate and what's not appropriate . So here's my first question in the husband material community , we are more integrated than any other community I've ever been a part of , in the sense that we have a lot of men who experience sexual attraction to women and a lot of men who experience sexual attraction to men and all kinds of things that are very particular and specific , and there's something beautiful about that . So , guys , what do you love about being in a community like this , where you're coming into close contact with guys who are attracted to something different than what you deal with ?

Speaker 3 4:00

Well , I think I can start us off , drew . In my own struggle with same-sex attraction there's a lot of shame I experienced and a lot of yeah , just not feeling like I belong to men in general , part of husband material community . You're able to really connect with other men in a way that's actually very healing and helpful to this part of my soul . What I experience .

Speaker 2 4:34

And I would say the beautiful thing about the integrated community is that we are together for what we are pursuing and we're not separating ourselves based on our other differences .

Speaker 1 4:50

No matter what type of images or videos or in-person sexual experiences you're trying to be free from .

Speaker 1 4:59

We're united by what we're pursuing and I find it to be so healing for a lot of guys who experience sexual attraction to men , because a lot of ministries are siloed in the sense that sometimes guys who are struggling with gay porn are the only ones in their group who are struggling with gay porn , are the only ones in their group , or sometimes guys are in a ministry that's only for men who experience that , when what they really long for is to be one of the guys , to be a man among men , regardless of who those men are . So I see a lot of beauty there of guys feeling like , wow , I belong , and not just with the other guys like me . For myself , I find so much value in getting to know my friends who experience SSA , because they are vulnerable in a way that challenges me to be vulnerable , and when they open up about the specifics of their story , it gives me more grace and more space for myself , with the specifics of my story , even though my attractions are different , even though my fetish is different .

Speaker 4 6:11

First of all , just like in almost any area of life , I just feel like there's a beauty in diversity . Like you know , that's just a general principle and I think that is , you know , the case in our personalities and our sexualities . That principle carries through just in and of itself . And then there's something about uniqueness . There's kind of a pro and a con to it , if you will . It's like we're all individuals and we're all unique and we're all different from the guy standing next to us .

Speaker 4 6:47

That can sound scary until you realize that like it's okay and the goal is not to be like everybody else and not to have a bunch of mirror images of you . And so I think , like in a lot of our stories , being other than you know resulted in a lot of trauma and a lot of rejection , a lot of deep senses of pain . But there is a paradox here , where it's like the recovery road is is logically and rationally , you might think it is becoming , you know , integrating back into the community , but it's actually like there's a , there's a . There's a strange mix here of like actually embracing your individuality and I think it's a really tough thing to get , to get both how you find the safety in the individuality , but and that's what I appreciate- about the husband , material community is that it encourages the community with within , with a bunch of individuals , if that makes sense .

Speaker 4 7:36

So you're kind of capturing both sides of that paradox .

Speaker 1 7:40

That totally makes sense to me Because even though I've never met another person who has a sexual fetish for braces , I still feel like I am one of these guys . I don't feel like that makes me other than the community , because when guys share their thing that no one else that they know struggles with , I still feel a connection with that .

Speaker 4 8:09

A lot of times what I see is like guys who experience SSA . There's like a deep desire to be more like OSA guys , and I feel like a dual response to that . One is like we are so much alike , like , look , I can sit here for the next six or eight hours and outline 4 million ways , the way that you and I are just alike . And then there's another part of me that's like don't try to be like me , don't try to be like any other guy . This is just your preferences , or your preferences , your weaknesses , or your weaknesses , your strengths or your strengths . So don't try to be like . I don't want to spend the next six to eight hours covering all these different things in the way we're alike . And I feel both of those at the same time as I interact with guys .

Speaker 3 8:59

Yeah , I think , jason , you know a lot of our brokenness can be actually pretty similar . Jason , you know a lot of our brokenness can be actually pretty similar . You know you have father wounds you have , you know you're picked last in a sport or just different things in our childhood can be very similar when , for whatever reason , your arousal just goes in a different direction than what it went in . For me and yeah , I really see that at play , especially with some of the different men that you know they're opposite sex attracted I'm their coach and I'm taking them through things and I'm just like I'm really resonating with your story and what you went through in your past story . I think we have a lot more in common than I would say is opposite of the feeling that we experience , the feeling that we experience , yeah , and so I love this double truth that we have so much more in common than we think .

Speaker 1 10:13

And also , it's good to just be you and not have to be like anyone else .

Speaker 2 10:27

And it's good , because it's difficult to hold those two truths at the same time a lot . This is a place where people are accepting of each other for both their commonalities and their differences .

Speaker 1 10:32

There are times in a small group or at a retreat or in this community , where I think to myself do I really want to get that vulnerable ? Because I don't fully know if these guys can handle how ? And I'm consistently met with curiosity and compassion , so healing .

Speaker 4 10:56

Yeah , that's something that I've really appreciated about the husband material community is with this diversity . I've been here for four or five years now . I'm sure it's probably happened somewhere , but in all that time that I've been very active I've never heard somebody overtly shamed for their fantasies or their preferences , and there's people all over the map in here and all you know , all over the spectrum , and it's been a really safe place in that regard .

Speaker 1 11:24

What we find when guys really open up about the particulars of our porn fantasies is that the categories of SSA and OSA are way too broad . When you say I'm attracted to women , well , what kind of women ? How old , what body type , what personality Like , in what kind of situation , how many at one time ? I mean there is any number of infinite combinations . And same with men . You know . If somebody says , oh , I'm sexually attracted to men , it's like you kind of think you know what that means , but you probably don't until you really find out the details . And when we find the details it's like actually two men who seem to experience the same thing have a very different way that that looks . It's like when you look at the number of categories of sexual fantasy out there and types of porn that people are dealing with , I find that it's helpful to go . We're not siloed .

Speaker 2 12:22

There is the opportunity to learn that we wouldn't normally have .

Exploring Sexual Diversity and Identity

Speaker 2 12:43

I've always found it helpful in other coaching environments to not be segregated into a certain type of group and I'm thinking of business coaching into a certain type of group , and I'm thinking of business coaching because I've learned valuable things from people that are totally unlike me , and that applies in this arena as well .

Speaker 4 13:05

Yeah , I feel like I've really been like my just understanding of the broad range of preferences and arousals out there has just been really blown apart , because when I first came into husband material , um , I didn't even know what ssa was . I had to have somebody explain it to me and then I immediately thought I knew what it was . But then over the years it's like my gosh , I mean , you can't even say that , that term same-sex attraction to two different guys who both experience that and necessarily be talking about the same thing with them , because for one guy it just looks so different than the guy standing right next to them even though they're both taking the label , and that's taken me a long time to really realize , like man , that like that term is very valuable for like understanding a kind of a general demographic and like also there's a lot that has to be . You know that I need to be curious about when I hear that if I really want to know the guy and understand what's making him tick .

Speaker 1 14:02

For some guys , what they're attracted to in porn is totally different from what they would be attracted to in person . Let me give you an example . Humiliation has been a big part of my sexual fantasies and the types of porn that I would find particularly arousing . The thought of actually being humiliated or humiliating someone else in real life , like in person , is appalling to me and it's disgusting to me . Yet at the same time , that's what I would masturbate to . So when we say what am I attracted to ? Even , am I attracted to it ? Yes , in some context . Yes , I'm also repulsed by it at the same time , and that dissonance within me makes it hard to say like well , am I attracted , am I not ? Ultimately , this is not who I am . This is a part of me . This is part of my story . It's what happened to me . I'm no longer asking myself what's wrong with me . I'm asking myself what happened to me . Where does this come from in my story ?

Speaker 4 15:15

It's . It's interesting even just in light of this , this episode , where we're kind of like you know , comparing same sex attraction , opposite sex attraction . It's like even in that story there , drew , like as you , representing the other part of OSA , in this , in this episode , it's like man . I actually I don't , I don't have anything that I pursued in in this episode . It's like man . I actually I don't , I don't have anything that I pursued in in my addiction or in pornography or whatever that I wouldn't pursue in real life .

Speaker 4 15:41

So , even like you and me , it's like there's , there's things that's just like , it's okay . So it's totally different . I can't make certain assumptions about you and I just learned something about you that's different than me and I think that that's you than me and I think that that's you know . Again , back to that diversity , just it's a beautiful thing and you and I are not , you know , just another half of this conversation , like we are , you know , we splinter into different parts ourselves just depending on our woundings or stories or whatever happened in the past whatever happened in the past and as a result of this , there is grace and space for any sexual story in the kingdom of God , and I hope our community is becoming more like that kingdom of God .

Building Acceptance in Same-Sex Community

Speaker 1 16:24

Henry , could you speak to some of the challenges that we face in trying to form this type of community ?

Speaker 2 16:30

I think the challenges are that we stereotype as a protective mechanism .

Speaker 2 16:36

It's just the way that God designed us so that we can see patterns , and so we make these assumptions about people like Jason was talking about .

Speaker 2 16:45

And I've had men tell me you know , I've came into this community to develop relationships with opposite sex attracted guys , but they always find themselves with same sex attracted guys , and part of that's a protective mechanism , because I don't want to put myself in a position where I would be bullied . I don't want to put myself in a position where I might be embarrassed or humiliated and that sort of thing , and it takes a risk to do that , and so that's one of the challenges we face . Maybe some guys that come in that identify as opposite sex attracted , they're like they have that thing that anybody that's same sex attracted they're attracted to all men and they might be attracted to me , and so they avoid that . Some men that come in they're like opposite sex attracted men can't understand my issues and so I only want to be around same sex attracted men . And so there's a lot of different nuances that are challenges to what we face that are different than what we are building .

Speaker 1 17:52

It's uncomfortable what we are building . It's uncomfortable Sometimes you're not sure if somebody else in the community might be having sexual feelings for you or if you're having sexual feelings for someone else , and we want to try to help you guys process that in a healthy way so everyone can stay safe .

Speaker 4 18:11

Yeah , and I just want to add to into this like I know , one of the big fears that I hear a lot of times from guys who experienced SSA is that an OSA guy is going to feel like you know , they're coming on to me , like I might have that in my head , I might even read into something and I might read into it incorrectly and come to that conclusion , and it's like I hear it spoken of as , like you know , nightmare that , that , that I would think something like that of them , and I can just I can say from from some of my own experience that like um , that can actually like very easily um be dealt with if we're willing to engage in a little bit of conflict around this .

Speaker 4 18:55

I can think of when I first came into HM , there was an exchange that I had with somebody and it left me feeling on guard . I was like oof , I don't know about this guy , and I actually engaged him with it and I said , hey , here's how this made me feel , I think , like you know , maybe just a little bit like , if we can back this up a little bit . You know and I'm leaving a little bit vague on purpose just to for anonymity sake but what happened was and I thought for sure , I kind of had this idea like this guy was just gonna like be like you know done and be like you know write me off or whatever and maybe rage at me for for assuming something incorrect , and instead what he did was he actually responded really , really well and he was like , oh , I am so sorry , like , by all means , like you know , whatever you need , or like whatever , and and he just like backed up , like like right away and and without any like large ego or anything involved . And when he did that , I had this like oh well , that's that's the reaction of a safe person . When he did that , I had this like oh well , that's that's the reaction of a safe person .

Speaker 4 19:57

And so , even though I just had this thing that left me feeling a little bit unsafe , and in this interaction he was very safe and like within , like like right away . We started building , you know , a relationship together that lasted for several years , where we were talking back and forth and I really looked forward to talking to the guy you know on a regular basis , and that came right after this exchange that a lot of guys , I mean , you know it would just blow them up because it's literally like one of their largest fears , and so I just tell that story . To say like this does not have to be as scary as we think it is . It just takes a little bit of honest interaction and willingness to engage in some conflict with each other .

Speaker 3 20:37

I have a great church community and I've had just lots of really deep , meaningful friendships with you know OSA guys and they know about my same-sex attraction and my same-sex attraction and really like it's . It's not that big of a deal . Um , you know , I I kind of will , let's will sometimes get past this hurdle of like , okay , I deal with this thing , how are you going to respond to me ? And majority of the time it's not a big deal . And I think the same thing in the husband material community For most guys , wherever their arousal sends them .

Speaker 3 21:23

We're just men and there's brotherhood . We have the same mission at the heart of it to outgrow porn , to be men that follow Jesus and to push each other in that direction . I don't really think this needs to be such a big deal and our triggers , our insecurities , they're going to come up . But the more and more we become comfortable with each other , I just think man , God , can really do something powerful in that . I also just want to say I think there is so much more to a person than you know their sexual struggle . It's just one part of who you are as a person and the way that God created us and designed us and our personalities and the way that we connect with people , and it's just so much more .

Speaker 1 22:28

Yeah , I totally agree , and not just opening up about what I'm sexually attracted to in porn , but also opening up about how we feel . Maybe there's a part of me that is afraid of what this other guy might think . Maybe there's a part of me that's ashamed and wanting to hide . Maybe there's a part of me that's ashamed and wanting to hide . Maybe there's a part of me that's aroused and we want you to find a place to process those feelings so that you can not let that get in the way of a great friendship . One of the challenges we come up against , no matter what our sexual attractions are , is this thought that somebody who's different won't really get me Like . Can they really understand me if they don't experience exactly what I experience ? Can you really know what it's like to be me and to go through my struggles and to deal with my sexual arousal template ?

Speaker 4 23:29

In my experience talking with guys with SSA consistently , repeatedly , I can connect with so much more of what they're experiencing than usually they realize up front and there's some things that I'll never fully understand because I did not go through them myself .

Speaker 4 23:51

So there's some both here where it's like we are different and will never be the same in certain aspects and there's like a ton more typically that we can connect over than what it seems like most of them realize .

Speaker 4 24:09

Deep into some of these things I find consistently , over and over and over again , their pleasant surprise at how much I understand what's happening inside of their head and their heart , not because I'm a guru on same-sex attraction , but because I know myself and I know my own sexuality and I know arousal and I know fear and I know all of these same elements that like we're all mixing different recipes of these things together and it just has to do with you know which particular group were rejected by or which particular group were aroused by or both . If it's the same thing . It's really truly like been enlightening to me and exciting to me to realize how many people that I can connect with on deep , deep , deep levels , even if maybe like a label that we , you know , put on our forehead or whatever looks different on the surface , I think . I see , when guys come into recovery , they'll often have , you know , a lengthy list of ways that nobody's going to understand them or they're not going to be able to connect or they're going to be rejected or whatever .

Speaker 4 25:18

There is another lengthy list that exists and I watch guys build this in recovery and that lengthy list is how they can connect , how they can be accepted , how they can be understood .

Speaker 4 25:30

It's painful to watch a guy come in and only have the one list and some of those things are true . Like I will never know what it's like to experience something very specific the way another guy did , even if the same exact act happened to us . I won't understand , because there's so much more foundational things going on there between his personality makeup and how much that affected him . It might be different than my experience affected me , but either way , building that second list in recovery and watching that first list shrink because , quite honestly , a lot of things start getting eliminated off of that list and you know , a couple years in , or many years in , when you begin to see the one really growing robust and that first one , which was all you had to begin with , really shrinking down , it's amazing what it can do to somebody's heart and relationships when they start orienting themselves towards others . You know , after that's had some time to to heal and to flip-flop I think it's so true , jason .

Speaker 3 26:31

I think of the first time that I shared about my struggle with viewing gay pornography . I mean I was frightened , scared like , afraid of rejection . And I just remember , you know , the person I shared with just really receiving me , person I shared with just really receiving me , and I mean it was , it was very powerful because he just didn't make it into this whole big thing and in my mind it was going to be this whole big thing and just the more and more I did that , that it was like the recovery elements were becoming bigger in that second list than the first list of all of these . You know the way that I see myself and the way that I , you know , experience life . I'm the only one and , yeah , it's a big transition that can take place over time and be very healing , mm-hmm neuroplasticity yeah , it is is a very much a neuroplastic way .

Speaker 3 27:44

You know that God created our brains for rewiring and when we have new experiences of love , acceptance and brotherhood where we had trauma , you know , over time that helps with our healing process is really , really great .

Speaker 4 28:07

Yeah , it's an interesting thing to think that the one list that we originally come in with we build that well . I come in with , we build that Well . I was going to say we build it on our own . I mean , other people , unfortunately , you know harmful people help us build that , but in that sense of isolation and aloneness , we've built that list and the other list . I have not seen a guy yet who could build the other half without community , when he was just on his own , when he was just in his trauma or just beside his trauma , but still by himself . It takes the community to build that second list and I think that's why it's like it's kind of cliche , you can't do this alone , and it's like this is a reason why it takes a community to help you build that second list .

Speaker 1 28:52

It takes a community to help you build that second list . No-transcript .

Speaker 4 29:01

Oh man , yeah , yeah . So I had a really , really , really profound experience . So a lot of my history and story is spiritual abuse and particularly the way that has manifested in my nervous system is on Sunday mornings , during a church service which we had at the HM retreat . It was about as perfect of a church service as you could get , in the sense that the music was amazing , the preaching was wonderful . There was nothing content wise that I could point to . That was a trigger . But what I noticed is , as the sermon went on and we got close to like that ending and the music started coming back in and , you know , communion was offered um , my nervous system just started going back into an old pattern of like , oh , I know what this is like every sunday , every , every day , at chapel or whatever . Um , this is the part where , like , the guilt and the shame is in a crescendo and I'm falling on my face before Jesus to save me from , you know , all of these things and I'm going to be like , I'm going to mean it this time and I'm going to do it different next week , and it is that cycle and it was just like going right through my body . Um , sunday morning in HM , I grabbed a couple of buddies and I was like , can you guys hang out with me for a little bit ? So we went outside and , um , they , they were with me and I ended up doing some more work later that day .

Speaker 4 30:31

Um , the next day a guy came up to me and he said um , what do you think about going up there and just sharing , like you know , um , what you experienced , and asking for help to have a different , a different experience imprinted on your system ? And I said I'm going to think about it . But I already knew I was like I need to do this , I want to do this . And so I went up before I don't know how many guys were in there , 60 , 70 , 80 guys at least and I just walked through what happened with that and I asked at the end I asked for I said for anybody who'd be willing and it feels okay would you come and give me a different experience inside these four walls , up here , on this stage , and just give me a hug , affirmation like whatever .

Speaker 4 31:16

And man guys popped up out of their seats and came up and I can honestly say and I'm like trying hard not to choke up at the moment I've never had an experience like that inside of church , where I just got to tell what was going on and everybody was able to crowd around me and just hold me with whatever craziness was going on in my body , whatever craziness was going on in my head , whatever you know conspiracy theories and traumatic memories and all kinds of things , and it was a beautiful , beautiful , just imprint on my nervous system of a new experience and I was so grateful for it . There's not a there's not a way in the universe I could have done that on my own . I needed the other men around me to do that .

Speaker 1 32:04

That was a profoundly , profoundly moving moment that I trust I'll never forget it was beautiful to see 30 or 40 guys around you All speaking those words of affirmation .

Speaker 4 32:18

Yeah , as soon as they started coming up , my head went down and I was crying like immediately and then , like after a few minutes , I popped up and I couldn't see the backs of the faces . I was crying like immediately and then , like after a few minutes , I popped up and I couldn't see the backs of the faces . I was like whoa it was ? It was really jarring , but in a wonderfully pleasant way . Just to so everybody who gathered around me that that evening man , if you're listening to this , thank you so much . I mean some of those guys I didn't even know , but just the sheer magnitude of people that came up to me . Every one of them just imprinted on my heart and a way brings

Navigating SSA Friendships With Boundaries

Speaker 4 32:53

a smile to my face now and , I'm sure , well for a long time .

Speaker 4 32:53

I want to add to Jordan's point earlier that he was making a little bit like this stuff's not a boy . He was saying something like this stuff's just not really that big a deal Like think . In that moment what was happening for me was like I could not have cared less if somebody's sexual arousal or whatever was the same as mine , different than mine . It was like there was so much healing and so much like love being transferred . In that moment I couldn't possibly have cared less who was hugging me and what the preferences were . It's such a small thing in that moment and almost nothing yeah .

Speaker 1 33:29

Everyone was ministering to everyone . Everyone was able to give and receive the love of God . I love that so much . It's not about the OSA guys rescuing the SSA guys . It's not about the SSA guys helping the OSA guys get more comfortable . It's about everyone being loved .

Speaker 4 33:55

Yeah , to have made it about those things would have been to cheapen that moment and that experience so much , and I think it would have been the same for so many other experiences .

Speaker 1 34:04

Jordan as a man who experiences SSA , what are some of the challenges that you've faced when making friends with guys who don't experience ?

Speaker 3 34:16

that Normal beers , or is this , you know , is this guy gonna like me ? Is he gonna be this guy gonna like me ? Is he gonna be afraid of me ? Am I gonna be too much or am I gonna be too little loud or I might be too quiet ? Um , and you know with my , my sexuality , that that definitely can be a a bit of a fear , but I I would say that at times , you know , that's , that's in the back of my head , but I typically have been able to not make that kind of at the forefront of my mind and like , oh , if he really knew what I struggle with , or oh , I kind kind of am finding I might have a little bit of a man crush on this guy . And if I told him that , what would he think ? And it's just like so many of these things running through your mind , normal insecurities that any human being on this earth experiences . Jordan .

Speaker 1 35:30

I hear you saying that the challenges you face are normal challenges in any friendship . Yeah , so there are limitations and there are boundaries to how we go about forming friends and community with men . In this context of outgrowing porn , especially when some of us are attracted to other men , that does create a complexity .

Speaker 2 36:02

So what are some of the recommendations that you guys might have to keep these friendships appropriate ? I think one of the first things is to wade into that relationship . Develop a relationship with a guy by conversing in the comments to a post first , before you send them a direct message , and then continue to grow that relationship and direct messages before you exchange telephone numbers . Wading into that instead of diving in is better than diving in , because that is when we tend to feel unsafe . It's just like , oh , we're in a different environment and what just happened here ?

Speaker 2 36:32

The second thing is to be sure that the person that you're sharing with is comfortable with the information you're about to share . Guys come into our community and they are so amazed at how open everyone is and how refreshing it is to be able to share this information without being shamed or humiliated or someone outing them about something that they are attracted to , and they tend to overshare and that makes you feel uncomfortable because it's like whoa , I don't know you that well , I don't need to know that about you yet . And so they tend to overshare just because there's this radical new environment that they're in . And making sure that the person that you're sharing with is comfortable with what you're sharing . That's so good .

Speaker 3 37:23

There's a lot of wisdom in what Henry is saying , that let's build into a relationship , give it time and then , as you know , you have more and more conversation . I mean , I think , even to just say , hey , I really feel like I need to share something . I'm a little afraid to share it as part of my story and be vulnerable and just even asking the other guy like is it okay for me to share this with you ? And if they're like you know , I'm actually not that ready for that Like being like okay , we can , we can wait , and I think that's a really healthy and good thing to do .

Speaker 1 38:08

I love that advice . You don't have to share absolutely everything right away . You can gradually go deeper and get more vulnerable as time goes on . That's safer for you and it's easier to receive for the other guy too .

Speaker 4 38:28

Yeah , I feel like this is such a . It's such a hard thing sometimes because we come into recovery and it's like we've just crawled out of a desert and we're asking a guy to like drink water slowly . It's like , yeah , right , but so it's understandable why the compulsivity is there . But I would just echo all of your guys's feedback as far as , like , the time factor and slowing it down .

Speaker 2 38:52

I see a lot of times guys come into the community that are not safe , that they ask a lot of questions but they don't share about themselves . But they don't share about themselves . And that's so important as well , because you get so accustomed in the community to being open and sharing with men who are safe that when somebody comes in you don't often realize at first hey , wait a minute , they're not sharing anything with me , they're just taking from me .

Speaker 4 39:25

Yeah , and another piece too , in all this time you know , kind of conversation is like how long has the guy been a part of the community ? Check out his profile . If he's been here for one month , proceed , you know , with more caution than if he's been here for four years . You know , because it's like we we really practice safety really hard in HM and a really unsafe guy is just not going to make it , you know , several years around here before somebody's reported him or something's come out . So even just little things like that , it's just like they can give you a little bit of , you know , actual rationale to gas or break or , you know , just depending on what you find .

Speaker 1 40:00

It's really good . I got an episode called how to Escape a Creepy Conversation Before Sexting , which is full of good advice if you want to learn more about that and some of the warning signs to watch out for .

Speaker 2 40:12

You know , drew , one of the things that a lot of people talk about is missing out on childhood experiences , and they tend to fixate on certain methods of that . Tend to fixate on certain methods of that . I find , in talking to men that experience SSA , they tend to think they have the corner on that , that there are certain experiences of being inducted into manhood that they need to recreate . And I know for me in the last year and a half it's just really come to me that there are OSA experiences that I didn't have growing up that I need to grieve . I can't recreate those experiences now as an adult because they're inappropriate , because they're inappropriate Just the same way that the experiences that some guys not all of them tend to fixate on and one of them is communal nudity that are no longer age appropriate , and we've got to learn how to grieve those experiences and not try to replicate those experiences .

Speaker 1 41:31

The healing is found in that lament , not in the duplication . Yeah , and we have an episode on appropriate nudity between men which can talk about the potential for healing and the potential for harm and how we think about that as adults .

Speaker 2 41:42

When it comes to communal malnudity , there are some men that find that healing and some men that find that triggering and avoid it at all costs .

Speaker 1 41:49

And there are some men for whom voyeurism and exhibitionism is their specific struggle . Yeah , so that makes it really complicated . Jason , one time you and I were talking about how do we navigate all of these relationships with guys who experience SSA , and you said something that was so clarifying for me , which was guys can be doing the exact same thing in an addictive cycle or in a healthy cycle . That was so clarifying . You could be trying hard to make friends as part of an addictive cycle or as part of a healthy cycle . You could be experimenting with physical touch , trying to find the version of it that will satisfy your desires , in an addictive cycle or in a healthy cycle .

Speaker 4 42:41

Yeah , yeah , definitely , yeah , yeah , definitely .

Speaker 4 42:48

And I mean , I think of even just how that's happened my own life , where you know a behavior not even talking about a sexual behavior necessarily but you know , let's say like 10 years ago , that I was doing compulsively to try in order , like because , because I had so little of myself , I'm trying to do this and I'm trying to do that , I'm trying to do this and I'm trying to performing all of these different things in order to like , like be okay . Um , but none of those things were meant to make me be okay . Fast forward through like 10 years worth of recovery and hard work and and , and finding my okayness and all the ways that I needed to find my okayness . I can now go back to some of those same activities and they're really fun and they really add to my life , but at the time they were just , they were just completely empty because I was , I was using them in a way that they weren't meant to be used . I was using them to try to heal something that they just didn't have healing power .

Speaker 2 43:40

And I would add , jason , something that may be healing to you may not be healing to someone else , and so we need to be careful making those assumptions that , oh , you need to do this because I really found help with this . That's different than saying I found this helpful . You may also .

Speaker 1 43:58

Our stories are different . Our healing is different . We still have a lot in common at the core . Different , we still have a lot in common at the core . Husband material is a place where these stereotypes about ssa and osa are being broken down . We're learning to see each other as individuals and also as brothers in christ . Henry jason j , thank you so much for sharing and for your wisdom . We've talked about the value and beauty of being in community together . We've talked about the challenges and some of the needs for safety as well . We're continuing to co-create something that is bigger than any of us and big enough for where each of us can belong

Deep Friendship Bonds and Vulnerability

Speaker 1 44:46

. Gentlemen , what is your favorite thing about deep friendships ?

Speaker 2 44:51

Being able to take a deep breath and not worry about what the other person's thinking .

Speaker 4 44:57

The feeling of being at home with another person .

Speaker 3 45:03

I would also say that just being known and getting to know the other person , you know that maybe someone else in their life doesn't .

Speaker 1 45:13

For me , it's the freedom to be super vulnerable , super intense and then completely silly . Intense and then completely silly in the next moment , going back and forth between the heights and the depths yeah , that , that is one of my favorite things too .

Speaker 3 45:37

Drew , and we've experienced that some yes and that's it .

Speaker 1 45:42

Thank you for listening to this whole episode . We welcome your thoughts , your questions and your honest , unedited feedback in the husband material community which you can join at husbandmaterialco . Always remember you are God's beloved son in you . He is well pleased .