SPEAKER_00: 0:00

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. Hey, my name is Drew Boa. I'm the founder of Husband Material, where I help men outgrow porn. I want to start today's episode with a question. When you were growing up, did you have a safe place to receive accurate information and support and guidance about healthy sexuality? When I asked that question to men at the husband material retreat in September, every single person said, No, I didn't have that. And then my follow-up question is, do you wish that you did? And every single person said yes. That is why we're having today's conversation about sex education for adult men. And it's not just about learning what you missed out on when you were a boy, it's also about getting the information you need now as an adult man in order to understand your body and sex and sexuality as you get older. I have never seen a single podcast or course or book from a Christian source on the topic of understanding male sexuality in adulthood in the process of aging. And I'm so, so grateful for my friend and mentor and board member, Doug Carpenter, who is a wealth of knowledge and compassion on this topic. So in this episode, you're gonna hear why adult men need sex ed, not just boys. You're gonna learn about the changes that happen to a man's body as you get older, how aging affects sex, some of the common myths and misunderstandings about things like penis size or sex in porn versus sex in real life, and also testosterone, prostate. I didn't know a lot of this stuff before talking with Doug, and I'm still learning. And although I am passionate about this topic for my own learning and for all of you, this episode comes with a trigger warning. We are going to be discussing genitals and anatomy and sexual processes with specific technical terms. So if that might be uncomfortable for you, or if it might be triggering, I encourage you to either pause the episode until you feel safe, or maybe even skip it. You may want to listen to it with your wife or in a safe group where you can have the regulation you need to stay safe. We certainly don't want to put anyone at risk of a relapse here. So please check in with yourself. And if at any point you feel like this is getting too graphic, it's okay to stop listening. So I invite you to join me on this journey of sex education for adult men. Enjoy the episode. Today I am thrilled to welcome Doug Carpenter back to the show. Hey Doug.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

Hey, Drew. It's always so good to be here. No place I'd rather be than working with you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

It has been too long, way too long, since you have spoken on the Husband Material podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 3:46

Yeah, well, so much of what we've done together has just been in person and been live, so we haven't recorded many podcasts. So it was time to do some.

SPEAKER_00: 3:55

It's time. And God has done so much during this time. He has. You've become a board member of Husband Material Ministries. We've done healing weekends, we've done retreats. And today we're going to talk about one of the topics that we dove into at a recent retreat that we will be also offering at the next retreat, which is sex education for adult men. Yes. This really surprised me. Why do adult men need sex education?

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

And I talked about this at the beginning of our live sessions. How this came about was at the last several ret retreats, the staff had just gotten so many questions about sex, about the male body, about the female body, that it just became very evident that there were there are so many men who've never had mentors or people in their lives to talk about this subject with.

SPEAKER_00: 5:12

And under 42.

SPEAKER_01: 5:13

And under 40, depending on the settings that they were in. But definitely like in school and things, people over 40 may not have ever really been given that experience. Where people under 40 have been more likely to encounter some type of sex education in class unless they were in a private school or homeschooled. So it just became evident to us as a staff on HM that there are so many unanswered questions that this is something we need to take seriously and we need to address. And so that's how that came about. And it's why this podcast came about because we need to provide a safe place for men to talk about this.

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

And I was one of those men who was asking questions that I felt like I should know, but I didn't know. I did not know what the prostate was. When I heard the word prostate, all I thought of was cancer.

SPEAKER_01: 6:07

Right. Because you hear certain words associated together. And so that's what you think of when you hear those things. A lot of men don't know about the prostate and the healthy aspects of the prostate or how that impacts sex and what you have to do with that as you age. And so there's just so much information for us to know now. We know so much more today than we've ever known about our bodies and medical and health and psychological. And so we, HM, just definitely want to share this information in a loving, caring way, in a very open way. So men have their questions answered in a safe place.

SPEAKER_00: 6:43

Yes. And one of the reasons why we wanted to do this at a retreat in person is to increase the level of safety involves. Because sometimes when we talk about specific sexual things online, like in private chats or even on a video call, it can feel less safe or, you know, it has less boundaries around it. You know, I don't necessarily know what the other person is doing on the other side of the screen.

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

And it's hard to convey some of these concepts maybe online. Like I'd rather talk about this and in person so we can put it within a specific context of how the material is being delivered.

SPEAKER_00: 7:21

Yeah. And be able to support people in the moment when they get triggered, because this is such a triggering topic, too.

SPEAKER_01: 7:29

It is. It can be very triggering. And you may even be triggered today as you listen to Drew and I. And you may have a whole range of emotions come up. Um, when I say triggering, I don't even mean that this conversation might be arousing or triggering for you to want to go look at porn. We had so many men have emotional reactions during the sessions because they came to a certain level of awareness, or they came to an awareness of how much they've been hurt by sex or the lack of knowledge about sex or the myths that they believed. We had a lot of emotional experiences around this. So you may be triggered on multiple levels through this conversation. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:19

Pain that you didn't have a father or a mentor or someone who guided you through this process. There's there's an aspect of recognizing your aloneness in this when you haven't been provided that mentor, the mentorship that maybe you needed as a child or an adolescent. So definitely our goal today and our goal at the retreat and our goal at the upcoming retreats is to provide a very safe environment where men can ask questions in a sexual realm about their bodies, women's bodies, their functioning, anything that is related to this topic that they don't understand or have a question about. We want to provide a safe place for you to do that and a place that doesn't feel embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

Initially, I thought we would primarily be talking about the basic sex ed that we needed as boys but didn't get.

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

It also turned into a very timely intervention for the things we need to know about our adult bodies as they get older.

SPEAKER_01: 9:28

One thing that came up with that is understanding the role of testosterone as we become older. When does that start to decrease? What are the effects of that upon our bodies? And so in each session, I had the typical medical questionnaire and I went through that with each session. So people could identify, hey, if I have three or more of these, then you know, I need to go see my medical doctor about this because my testosterone levels are changing, which typically happens at age around age 45. So yeah, the questions really took on a lot more about how do I care for myself as a man as I age and what do I need to watch out for? Which I was very happy to see that men are starting to pay more attention to this area.

SPEAKER_00: 10:12

In addition to low testosterone, also known as low T, what are some of the changes that happen to a man sexually as he gets older?

SPEAKER_01: 10:20

Well, there were a lot of questions about sperm production and sperm development. So your sperm tends to decrease in quality and mobility and functioning, probably at the age of around 40. So there's higher risk, just like with a female with egg production, of having deformed sperm or sperm that's not functioning the way it could. It can increase birth defects if you're trying to father a child after 40. So that's something that you have to be aware of. And then, you know, men continue to produce to produce sperm throughout the rest of their life. Sometimes it can begin to shut down and become less and less and less as you age. Some men stop in their 70s or 80s, but it's really about the quality of it. And so you have to be careful after age 40. And then we also had several questions about why I am 30, 40, 50 years old and still having nocturnal emissions or what's called wet dreams. And so we had to have a big discussion about what your body does with sperm? You know, your sperm is produced in your testicles. It takes about two weeks for sperm to be produced. Your testicles are made up of tiny little tubes that are all wrapped together. And if you actually took that apart and stretched it, it would span three football fields. It's like a giant, giant conveyor belt that creates sperm over the course of two weeks, takes them from what we call couch potatoes to Olympians. Okay, and it's like a huge conveyor belt. And your body produces up to 375 million sperm a day. So at the end of those two weeks, your body has a chance to either use that through ejaculation when you're being sexual, your body can just absorb it if it's not being used. But if it's not being used and your body's not absorbing it as quickly as it needs to, your body will find a way to eliminate it itself. And that's what happens during a nocturnal emission. When we sleep, our frontal lobe kind of shuts down. So all our all our inhibitions are down. And so that's why we might have sexual dreams, we might have wrecked erect a lot of erections throughout the night. Just there's lots of other reasons for that too, based on hormones. But your frontal lobe shuts down, goes to sleep, allows your body to heal and restore itself. And part of that is possibly having nocturnal emissions if your body can't absorb your sperm fast enough. And so that's why we continue to have wet dreams or nocturnal emissions until your body doesn't need to do that anymore. It's just your body's natural way of getting rid of the fluid. And also there was some confusion, not confusion, just lack of knowledge about sperm only makes up about 10% of your ejaculate. The rest of it comes from your seminal vesticles and about 70% of it comes from your prostate. There's that word again. It's part of the purpose of the prostate is to produce a significant amount of the fluid that the sperm is dumped into and then propelled out when we ejaculate. The prostate is a very important part of sperm development and then delivery. And so many men don't think that. They think, oh, all this came right from my testicles. Actually, no, only about 10% of it does where the sperm is at. And then it's like ingredients get added on the way out. And many men don't understand that that process. So as a man ages, your prostate tends to thicken and it becomes more enlarged. And that can cause problems with urinary flow, is one of the big things because your urethra, which is the tube that goes from your bladder out through your penis to allow you to urinate, passes through the middle of your prostate. So as your prostate enlarges, your tube gets tends to get squished. It's more tightened. So that's why you may pee more often as you age. You may not empty your bladder as well as you age. And so you have to go more frequently, or there's more urgency to go, urinate more frequently, or you may have low flow. And the larger the prostate becomes and more pressure it puts on the urethra, your flow is going to slow down and not be as strong. And so that's why you may dribble more on the floor when you pee, because it actually runs underneath the head of your penis and drips while your stream is coming out because it's not coming out with force. So I always tell people, men, as you age, you need to get over the toilet when you urinate, not stand out in front of it like we used to, because we used to have like a fire hose. And it's no longer like that as you age, because that stream becomes less strong because of the pressure of the prostate being put on it. So, men, as you age and as you notice some of these changes, it's important, probably starting around the age of 40, that you have your prostate checked. And there's a few different ways that you can do that. Number one, you can, as part of your hopefully annual blood workup, which I encourage all of you to get an annual physical or an annual blood workup, they can check your PSA level. And that's the chemicals that they measure related to your prostate as you age. And so your PSA level can indicate that there might be a problem. But the best way to also also check is through a digital exam where the doctor will insert one finger into your anus and about two inches toward the upper side of your rectum. He can fill your prostate. So he can feel if it's thickening, if it's getting in larger, if it's hard, if it's soft. And that can give him some indication about how you're functioning well. So I know it's an uncomfortable test. It really takes three to five seconds. I think you can endure that for the overall sake of your health. Prostate cancer is one of the most curable cancers that are out there for men, but it needs to be caught early to have the best outcome. And so, as part of a yearly exam, you either need to have your primary care physician give you a prostate exam and do a PSA check with your blood panel, or you need to see your urologist once a year for an annual physical as well, where that will be done and checked. That's very important.

SPEAKER_00: 17:14

I had never heard this before you and others talked about it at the retreat.

SPEAKER_01: 17:20

One of the, I think the greatest compliments I got was from a young man who was like, I think 28. He came up to me and he said, I am so happy that I set through this because I had not even stopped to think about how my body's going to change as I age and the things that I need to watch out for. I would have been taken by surprise by some of these things and thought, well, what's wrong with me? Yeah, nothing's wrong with you. This is a normal part of aging, but you have to maintain your medical health, your annual visits to know these things and to have someone explain them to you and to stay healthy. And so it was great that young men were saying, I'm so glad I know this now and I know what to expect.

SPEAKER_00: 18:03

And also as a way of reducing shame. Absolutely. We know shame is a huge part of what drives people to porn. And many of us feel shame about what we don't know or what we might mistakenly think about ourselves as I'm not masculine enough because I don't have this sexual thing going on.

SPEAKER_01: 18:24

Right. Well, one thing that I definitely want to say this morning, because we work in the area of outgrowing porn, is that as men age, their sex drives tend to decrease, and the strength of their erections tend to decrease, and maybe the amount of sperm production is decreasing. And so you're noticing all these sexual changes. And if you don't know what's going on, you can misinterpret that. Am I not attracted to my partner anymore? Is our sex life just too boring that I can't get aroused? And so I find so many men who come into my office around age 40 to 55 relapsing into porn or using porn thinking, I'm missing something sexually because I'm not functioning right. And so they go to this almost as a treatment, like, I need to see if I still got this. So I'm gonna go use porn. And that's problematic for then relationships because you're misperceiving the natural changes in your body and trying to turn to something outside of yourself to bring a level of arousal that you used to once experience when you were 25. And you have to understand that's gonna change, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 19:35

And you're still a man, you're not lacking anything.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

Yes, and so another area that how we talked about with your annual check with PSA and prostate, you need to also, once you get to about 45 years or older, or if you have some of these symptoms prior, you need to have your testosterone levels checked. A man's testosterone should be somewhere between 300 and 800. Most studies say between 450 and 550 is where a man really feels kind of good or at his best, but that tends to decrease as we age. So one of the questions that came up at the retreat is all this stuff about testosterone and people taking testosterone is should I do this? Is just is this just a trend? Is it a fad? And so I was able to explain, no, this is a natural part of a man's body and the changes that he goes through. And it then it has to be monitored around age 45 and after. And if you don't have enough of that, then it needs to be supplemented with either an oral pill, a shot, the gel that you can rub on your shoulder, some way to intake levels of testosterone to keep your levels at a normal level to where you're optimally functioning. And if you look at the medical, the 10-panel medical questions that are offered, only three have to do with sex. The rest of the questions on there have to do with mood, your muscle strength, your just life endurance, your tiredness. So there's so many things that testosterone affects. It's not just the arena of sex. These can be signs that you're having low testosterone. And this is the typical questionnaire that we would give a man if he's coming in for an examination to see if he potentially has low test. Number one, do you feel a decrease in your libido, in your sex drive? Do you lack energy? And that's not just sexual energy, that's energy, period. Do you have a decrease in this in strength and endurance? So, like your ability to play sports. Are you finding it harder to have an endurance to play or to do or achieve what you used to be able to do? Are you losing height? Have you noticed a decrease in your overall enjoyment of life? Do you feel sad and grumpy? Are your erections less strong? Have you noticed a recent deterioration in your ability to play sports? Are you falling asleep after dinner? And has there been a recent deterioration in your work performance? Notice how many of those were about sex. Only two or three. The rest of those are about your normal daily functioning. And if you're noticing changes in those, so many men will come in around this age and they will say, I'm just grumpy. Like I'm I'm fine when I'm at work, but the minute I get home, I'm just exhausted and I'm grumpy and it's causing problems in my relationship. And they'll they'll say, My partner's telling me and I'm I'm depressed. And I will say, When's the last time you had your testosterone levels checked? Well, I have it. Well, you need to, because these are all signs pointing toward low testosterone that manifests itself in a level of low depression and grumpiness. Wow. And so that's why it's important that when you definitely when you get 40, 45 years old, that you have these annual checks with these blood draws. And the testosterone level is not a part of a man's normal blood draw. So you have to request for what's called the man panel. Like you need to have your PSA check, your testosterone check. You need to ask for these things to be part of your blood draw panel is part of your annual physical, so you can track and understand these things.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

So this is not necessarily going to happen automatically.

SPEAKER_01: 23:32

It is not going to happen automatically. These are things you're going to have to request when you get to a certain age. Now, hopefully, your primary care physician, or definitely your urologist, will know once you get to a certain age that they need to start doing this. But a lot of men have to request. I will make sure to tell men go and request specifically that your PSA and your testosterone levels are checked.

SPEAKER_00: 23:55

This might seem like common sense to some of you guys, but it's new information for me and for so many of us. What are some of the most common other misunderstandings people have about sex and sexuality as we get older?

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

We could talk for hours about this. Misconceptions. We are a society now that has grown up with porn, and so many men and boys think that the actual act of sex should mimic what they've seen in porn. And that is so far opposite from the truth. Sex in porn is for entertainment purposes. The information that you learn from that is very inaccurate. Another thing that men think from watching porn is that women should have these toe-curling orgasms from intercourse. Well, there's a couple problems with that. 70% of women, lots of studies have shown that up to 70% of women do not have orgasm through vaginal penetration or intercourse, that it takes clitoral stimulation, which is a bundle of nerves that actually sits above the vagina on the outside, that has to be stimulated for them to have an orgasm. So 70% of women don't experience that. It takes multiple forms of stimulation. We had so many questions at the retreat about I've never had a simultaneous orgasm with my spouse, meaning that she's having an orgasm, I'm having an orgasm at the same time. Okay, that is so rare. That really rarely happens because we, most of us, cannot specifically choose the timing of our orgasm. And so your partner's body is not that in sync with your own body where this simultaneously happens. It's portrayed in porn, but it's very rare in life.

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

And just kind of assumed. I mean, as a kid with no sex education, I just thought that it would happen at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 26:03

Right. And it rarely ever happens at the same time. And so men have all these myths that they believe about sexuality. Another myth that is believed is penis size. This is a big issue. Where men need to understand that anywhere from four four to six point five inches is where 95% of the population falls. And that is considered completely normal in an erect state.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

I think even two inches is normal, not in that erect state.

SPEAKER_01: 26:40

Not in a flaccid state, yes. But in an erect state, 4 to 6.5 is 95% of the population. There was a huge study done, and it's in the British Journal of Medicine, where penis size has been identified as the average erect length is 5.125 inches. And then we have a standard deviation of about three-fourths of an inch. So, like I said, from 4 to 6.5 is completely normal. You're going to have 2.14% of the population that's less than 4 inches, and you're going to have a little over 2% of people that are above 6.5 inches. And of course, those are the people that we see in porn. It gives a really false indication of what's real and what's actual. Here's another thing that I really focused on telling men at the retreat is the only person concerned about the size of your penis is you. Women care more about the man that's attached to the penis than the penis attached to the man. And we have to know as men, and we don't know this, this is something we've had to been told and taught is that the majority of the nerve endings inside of the vagina are in the first third of the vagina. That's why intromission or entering, and then the back and forth motion of thrusting is pleasurable for the female because it's all in the first third of the vagina. Once you get past that, there's not a lot of nerve endings that experience pleasure. It's more they feel pressure, or if it's if it's if you're too large or being too vigorous, they experience pain. So it doesn't matter really the size of your penis. It's it's how you use it and that you're stimulating that first third of the vagina, which is also where the G spot is on the upper side of the female vaginal wall. And it's only about inch and a half in at the top. And so that's another reason why the thrusting in and out is pleasurable. It's not about how deep you can go, how much you can fill them up, all these myths that men hear about penises and size and how to use it. Those are all myths.

SPEAKER_00: 29:16

If anything, having a very large penis can be uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01: 29:22

Can be very uncomfortable. A woman would much prefer a guy who's a very average size because the vaginal canal itself is anywhere from four to five inches long. And it's made of elastic material or flesh, so it can expand to accommodate other sizes, but to be comfortable, their body was made to fit our body. But porn has told us that our bodies are not adequate enough to pleasure them. 95% of us fall within that range.

SPEAKER_00: 30:00

Of compatible sexually with our partners. I know this is rare, but I also feel like we should talk about men who might be concerned that their penis is too large.

SPEAKER_01: 30:13

If you're above six and a half inches, you're definitely on the larger side of things. And so when you're having intercourse or interactions with your partner, you may have to be careful about how far you can realistically insert it into her, or there may be certain positions that cause her more pain than others. And so you have to become sensitive about that with her. But the greatest thing you can do, and this was the theme of every session that we had, is communication. You can't be scared or afraid to talk about sex. I use this analogy with the guys. I said, if you sat down and gave your wife a massage, you would be asking her, Does this feel good? Do you like this? Am I in the right spot? Is this too much pressure? Is it not enough pressure? Do you want me to do this harder? Do you want me to do deep muscle, you know, massage? Do you want me to back off? Do you need a lighter touch? You'd be asking all these questions so she could have a pleasurable experience. But yet you go into sex thinking, I'm supposed to know everything and supposed to do it exactly right. No, you have to pretend like you're giving a massage and you have to ask all those pertinent and important questions of your partner to make the situation, the experience enjoyable for both of you. You have to learn her body. Her body's extremely different than yours. She responds very differently than you do. Men tend to like a more aggressive touch on ourselves because that's we've grown up masturbating, and there's, you know, we could talk a lot about that, but we tend to enjoy more pressure and maybe more faster or harder rhythms, where a female may not enjoy that at all. And so you have to take the time to learn your partner's body and what they like. So I just tell men use that massage thing as an analogy and ask all the kinds of same questions that you'd ask somebody if you were gonna give them a massage or rub their feet or right.

SPEAKER_00: 32:27

And keep in mind that women are different, and just because someone else's wife responds a certain way doesn't mean that yours will.

SPEAKER_01: 32:34

Absolutely. I I told the men this at the retreat that every woman is different, so they're gonna like different degrees of touch or firmness or or whatever. But also your wife, your partner has a hormonal cycle that also changes and impacts her ability to experience pleasure or be sensitive in certain areas, like a woman's nipples are very sensitive depending on where they're at in their menstrual cycle or if they're between cycles. So what worked last week may not work this week. And you're like, I'm so confused. And that's okay, that's very normal because women's bodies they change throughout the month, and you have to learn to be accommodating and adjust your technique with them. But that's only going to happen through communication. I don't think any of us would tend to know our wife's exact hormonal cycle. And so it's up to her to share with us when things are more sensitive, or if we notice that, we need to ask how they're feeling. How does this feel? We need to ask all those questions and open dialogue, open dialogue is so important.

SPEAKER_00: 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:48

Sex changes in a way that men tend to become more intimacy focused. Like as men age, we want it less about the mechanics and we want it to be more and more about connection. So, in that, with a man's body changing the way it does, orgasm needs to become less and less of the focus as you age sexually. It needs to be more about sharing, connecting, communicating, sharing levels of intimacy versus acts of sex or performance-based sex or the less goal achievement. The goal here needs to be a connection of intimacy, not a performance rating. That shows actually the health of a relationship and the health of sexual sexuality, and sex be tends to become more meaningful as we age.

SPEAKER_00: 34:50

It's okay to not have an orgasm during it.

SPEAKER_01: 34:52

It is completely okay. And sometimes as you age, you'll even realize I don't even need it to have really enjoyed my time with my partner. And that that may sound weird to somebody who's 25 right now, thinking, oh my gosh, I think that would drive me crazy. Well, it probably would if you were 25, but when you're 55, 65, 75, your body changes and it doesn't require the same things. And it it becomes a different focus. And that's okay and very healthy.

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

Yeah. Doug, you are such a source of wisdom about sex and sexuality. And you have a tremendous amount of experience and skill and knowledge. So what do you wish more men knew about sex?

SPEAKER_01: 35:38

Well, I think the reason that I know so much about sex is just because I'm a clinical psychologist. I've studied it. I have looked at how my male childhood sexual abuse affects sexuality functioning in adult men. And so I've had to help a lot of men grow and learn about what healthy and normal sexuality looks like. And then I've helped a lot of couples coming through that and through addiction, learn what healthy sexuality looks like and how to have that. The main thing that I wish more men knew is that lovers are not born, they are made. You have to read about this, you have to study it, you have to communicate with your partner to make this work well. This is not something that you're supposed to be naturally born how to do and do it right. I mean, instincts take over to a degree, but there's so much more intricacy involved. I mean, look at the Song of Solomon and the descriptions that are in that book of the Bible. There's so much more to sharing intimacy with a person than just the act itself. But you have to learn that. You don't walk into adolescence and go through puberty and then just suddenly are top-notch A plus sex machine. That's just not the way the world or the situation works. It's something that you have to practice, you have to communicate, you have to learn to be good at. You know, can you offer me some information about this or where can I look? Talk to your doctor, talk to your urologist, or come to a husband material retreat where we talk about these things in a safe, open forum and in an appropriate way, with a little bit of humor added.

SPEAKER_00: 38:02

Just a little bit. Or a lot of humor. What is your favorite thing about healthy married sex?

SPEAKER_01: 38:14

The intimacy, the connection, the warmth, the I'm not alone. I get to share in this with a complimentary human being that was designed just for me, made just perfectly to fit with my body. The emotions that you can have through intimacy and connection are just something that's indescribable. You know, I think true intimacy almost like a true relationship with God is something you just can't put into words. It's something that you have to experience. And that's the beauty of what God created when He created man and woman and created us as sexual beings, is just that beautiful connection that we experience that we can't experience with anyone else except your chosen partner. Very playfulness. That's good. Sex is not all about just being serious. You can have a lot of fun with it and to be very playful. You know, there were a lot of questions about at the retreat: is this okay? Is that okay? Should we be doing this? Honestly, it's between you and your wife. Anything that you two consent together to be playful, to have fun, to bring pleasure to one of each other, to each other, that's between the two of you. God put you together and has ordained you to enjoy one another. And that just makes sex beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 39:46

Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for coming back to the husband material podcast. Always. I love coming back to the podcast. And if you're listening to this and if you have questions and you want to learn more about some of these things, of course, we could have conversations about it in the husband material community or in private messaging to a degree. But in order to really preserve the sense of safety and to be able to fully support each other in this, it's really best to be in person. So I want to invite you guys to come to the Husband Material Retreat in Georgia. We are coming east for the first time in April, April 24th to 27th. And we would love to see you there where we will have one sex ed session for adult men. Doug, thank you so much. Guys, you can connect with Doug at the links in the show notes and get his books on childhood trauma and the non-alpha male, on Secret Shame, Male Survivor's Guide to Healing from Sexual Abuse. And come back next week for another interview with Doug, where we are talking about one of the most powerful things that I have ever seen, where we will be talking about Doug's unique approach to helping men heal that he has trained me in, that we practice at husband material. It's a form of psychodrama that I'm not sure anybody else does it quite the same way. So come back next week and always remember you are God's beloved son. In you, he is well pleased.