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. Thank you for listening to my interview with Tom Zuniga, the director of Your Other Brothers, a place where Christian men integrate matters of faith, sexuality, and masculinity together. It's especially for men who experience sexual attraction to other men, where you can get podcasts, blogs, community, retreats. This is a great organization that I'm excited for you to learn more about, as well as what Tom and I talk about today, which is friendship, brotherhood, why it's not peripheral or optional, but absolutely essential. Men need men. And yet our culture is structured and set up to prioritize romantic love and marriage as the primary place where people experience connection. So in this episode, you're going to hear about the challenges of singleness, the beauty of friendship, and what it looks like to follow Jesus in community. Enjoy the episode. I am simply delighted to be with Tom Zuniga, the director of Your Other Brothers. Welcome, Tom. Thanks, Drew. I'm delighted as well to be with you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27

We just recorded an episode on your podcast, which was awesome. And now I get to introduce everyone to you. And I wanted to start by asking about your story. Why did brotherhood become such a passion for you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

Yeah, in many ways, it's like the opposite story when I think about my life. Like, how in the world did I create a community for men? Like that was the void of my life for pretty much my entire middle school, high school, and pretty much college years as well. Like it just wasn't present in my life. I was always the loner. I always was, I always just felt different from the other boys, generally more independent, way more like quiet and sensitive and creative and just not as athletic, not as brute force, not as like what I saw in all the other boys around me. And so so I knew from a young age that I'm just different. And this was long before I started to process sexuality, even during puberty, wasn't something I was consciously processing. Sex and sexuality was always it felt off topics or off limits. It wasn't something that felt comfortable to ever talk about, whether at home or at church or school or pretty much anywhere. So it wasn't something that I had permission to process. So that only added to feelings of separation because I am a man attracted to men. I've never been attracted to women. And so that adds more complexity to my story as far as why do I feel so disconnected from other, from the other boys growing up and then the other men when I became an adult and tried joining churches and joining small groups. It was just like there was just such, I felt like such a chasm between me and the other men. Whereas women were safe, like I generally hit it off pretty well with women, similar sense of humor, similar energy, similar wavelengths. And so it just was always the case for me. It was like for 20-something years, it's just like not that I am a woman, but I definitely have more female similarities than male similarities, to truth be told. And so I've been a journaler my whole life. This goes back to being independent. Like I would spend hours just writing journal entries, writing about my day, and you know, talking, talking to a book when I didn't have anyone physically to talk to, or kind of praying to God. It was sort of like pseudo prayers in a journal. And I always kind of danced around the topic of sexuality. Like I would always kind of mention something I was struggling with or something that felt like it wasn't going away, but I wouldn't name it because I was afraid my parents would find my journal. I was afraid, I think truthfully, I was afraid I would just like see the words on the page myself of what I was dealing with. And I just didn't want to didn't want to see it, didn't want to name it, didn't want to put words to it. And basically lived 19 years of my life convinced that I'm gonna go to my grave, never telling a soul about my sexuality. Like that's just not something that can ever come out. It's not something that I can ever bring up with anyone. When I first started getting into gay porn, that was in many ways, I'm thankful for it because that was the thing that finally woke me up to the sense that, oh shoot, I gotta like talk about this because it's gonna destroy me. It just was such a jarring experience to go. I think I did pretty good. Some people don't make it 19 years without seeing porn for the first time, but I made it to 19 before I like encountered that for the first time. And it just blew up my world for a few weeks. And and so I told my parents and told my siblings in the next couple of years and kind of kind of what the game changer for me though was. It was awesome to be able to bring in my brother, my brother and sister and my mom and dad about my sexuality and to tell them what I've experienced my whole life. But then to go to the internet and look for help. And I did a Google search that changed my life because I found a bunch of men blogging authentically about their experiences with faith and with sexuality and about being a man. And yeah, it changed my life because I just I was convinced, as I'm sure many people feel, with whatever your sexual proclivities are, whatever your hangups are, you feel like you're the only one. There's no one else like me. And so when I did that Google search, I definitively like debunked that claim. I found all these like 10 or 15 guys that were like me, and it changed my life forever. So so long story short, like fast forward seven years, like I developed all these friendships with some of those guys, met a lot of them in person. I moved across the country, and so I got to like sleep on their couches and meet up, meet them all across America. And a bunch of us co-founded Your Other Brothers in 2015. We just celebrated 10 years of existence, actually, as of this recording. So a whole decade, yeah, a whole decade of of a community of men who have this historic ethic about sexuality and marriage. But like the whole point of it is following Jesus and believing that he has a specific plan for our sexuality and seeing at least a glimpse of that plan, which is the beautiful community and friendships that are forming because we found each other and we're in this, we're in this thing together for for better or worse, mostly better, though. It's been it's been such a joy of my life for a decade now.

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

I love that so much. And I also know that even when you have incredible friendship and brotherhood and connection with men, there can still be so much heartache and loneliness and being single in the absence of romantic partnership. What are some of the thoughts and feelings that that you often find guys having about that?

SPEAKER_01: 6:59

Yeah, I didn't notice it as much when your other brothers started. Like when we started the community as 28 years old, there's a lot of 28-year-old single men out there. Like that wasn't that uncommon, you know, a decade ago for to me to be just another single late 20-something. It's just more noticeable that, oh, now I'm a late 30-something single man. And that's not as common as a late 20-something single man. And so, so I feel like I do stick out more as something that I've noticed over the last decade. It's like, okay, when I was in my late 20s, young 20s, mid-20s, late 20s, like who in their 20s knows what they're doing with their life? Maybe some people out there do. Maybe, maybe some of your community members know what what their life was all about in their 20s. But it was like, I was still figuring out what I was doing. I was stringing together all these part-time jobs. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, honestly. And then this Your Other Brothers thing happened. And even for the first few years, it was a part-time gig. It was not a full-time job in any capacity. And I was still trying to figure out not only vocationally what I wanted to do in this life, but also relationally and socially, where do I fit in? Like what kind of church do I want to join, or what kind of community do I want to be a part of? And so as my late 20s have become my late 30s, I definitely recognize the challenges of like being in the American church, which is largely catered to married people and young families. Like I go to a great church, I don't want to diss my church at all, but you know, my church is probably, I'm making up a number, but I think it's somewhat accurate. It's probably like 80% married, 80, 85% married. And a good number of those congregants are younger married couples with two or three kids. And so there's a lot of kids running around. Services are very wiggly, as my as my pastor says. There's a lot of wiggles and and random bursts of noise that come from the toddlers. But there are times where it's like, yeah, I from something as simple as where do I sit? Like, where do I sit in the sanctuary? Because like everyone has their little, their little cluster of four seats or five seats that they find. And I have to be like, Yeah, well, there's plenty of single chairs. Do I just get one by myself or do I sit next to a family or sit next to a couple? Like, what do I do? And so that's like kind of this mild crisis that I face when I go to church. It's like, where do I even sit? Because I everyone, everyone has their spot, their designated spot. And it kind of is a is a manifestation of a bigger picture of like, yeah, where do I fit? Where do I sit in the greater church? And that's where I'm grateful for a space like Your Other Brothers and in other ministries online, virtual spaces where it's like, okay, where it feels like the American church is largely catered to that. It's like having these spaces where I can be more of an equal or find more guys like me and my situation, regardless of sexuality. You know, Your Other Brothers is a largely unmarried community, although we have some married guys in our midst as well. There's some solidarity there, which I which I appreciate. But I'm not gonna lie, like as my late 30s, I've thought about this. As my late 30s turn to my late 40s and turn to my late 50s, if if indeed I'm remaining single in my pursuit of following Jesus and what I believe he's leading me to do and how to steward my sexuality, then I can't pretend that that brings like a ton of optimism. Like I have hope that God will continue to provide friendship and connection with within my church locally, whether you know I'm still at this one or if I move on somewhere else in the future. But that hopefully an online space like your other brothers or other online spaces where I can find other singles, other unmarried folks following Jesus, like there's there's always going to be some level of solidarity out there. But yeah, I mean, it can be discouraging. It's something that comes up in our community a lot of like, what do the next 20, 30 years look like? I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 10:32

It seems like in the culture we live in, the primary place where people find consistent intimacy and stability is in romance in their romantic sexual relationships rather than family or friendship or even the church. It's like I see over and over again how our society is just structured for that. And the picture of sitting in church of like, where do I sit? Where do I fit? feels so real.

SPEAKER_01: 11:09

The concept of family, you know, so your other brothers is now part of a greater network. Uh, the the singular nonprofit ministry that we have now is called your other family. And something I love about our community is the concept of chosen family, where it's like essentially doing exactly what Jesus did, which is like Jesus at the cross told John that his mother was now your mother, and telling his mother that John is now her son, like totally redefining what family is to that culture and even today's culture. Like that seems so out of left field. It's like another dimension of like someone who's not blood related is now your family. And that's like what the church is. Like the church is a family that isn't tied by biological bonds or blood. And there's something really encouraging about that, that it's like even if you're an only child, or if you never have children, or if you never get married, that that you still have a family. And on my better days, like that's that's really encouraging and that's really like life-giving. And then on, you know, I'm not going to pretend, especially during the holidays or other festive occasions, like that can be highlighted, like, oh shoot, I don't have what most people have, or what this type of person has, or these people have. So that is encouraging, though, to know that the family that Jesus mentioned in his life, like that is what we're trying to live out all these millennia later.

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

Amen. And as one of my favorite psalms says in Psalm 133, how good and pleasing it is when brothers dwell together in unity. That is amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 12:46

I'm glad you love that verse too. That's an awesome one.

SPEAKER_00: 12:48

So good. So why do you believe that friendship love is not below romantic love?

SPEAKER_01: 12:56

In many ways, I feel so blessed by my sexuality. Like there are challenges to it for sure. Like everyone has their own cross to bear, whatever you're whatever cards you were dealt. But that one of the main gifts that I point to with my sexuality is like ever since finding that community of men, blogging, and certainly ever since Your Other Brothers was was started a decade ago, there's just been something in me that's like it is a good thing to find other men to lock arms with, connect with, look across the the coffee table face to face, but then also hike them out and shoulder to shoulder. Like there's something that feels so natural and correct about that. Whereas I feel like there are lots of straight men out there, probably lots of gay men too, for that matter, but lots of straight men in particular who just like whether they're married or pursuing a dating relationship or marriage, they are not as like aware of the need to have other men in their lives. And that's been such an obvious thing to me for years now, years and years and years now, like pretty much my entire 20s and 30s. And I that is such a gift, it's not something I want to take for granted that yeah, I have this natural awareness now that I need other men in my life and that it is a good and beautiful thing. And and it just feels accentuated when I see all the stats about like 80% of suicides are from men, or there's all this talk about the the loneliness epidemic and how men in particular, women too, but men in particular have this loneliness that they're facing and that it's like literally killing them. It's it's really heartbreaking. And so there's there's something in me that's grateful that I'm aware of my need for relationships with other men, friendships with other men. If marriage is not in the cards for me, if marriage is not something God has for me, there is there's just like all the more reason for me to stay connected with with other men in my life.

SPEAKER_00: 14:46

Yeah. Not as a consolation prize, but as an equally beautiful, valid way to live the Christian life.

SPEAKER_01: 14:58

Right, exactly. Exactly. And so there is part of me, I don't necessarily want to be the trailblazer or want to be the person that's doing something different. There is part of me that delights in that. But part of me has always been like, can't somebody else do this? Like, can't somebody else be the single person, whether they're gay or straight or anywhere in between, like, can't there be another like single man going from his 20s to his 30s to his 40s, 50s, 60s, you know, writing about friendship and love and stewarding his sexuality well and doing life with other brothers? Like, can't someone else do that? And I'm grateful that there are other brothers in my community who are helping me and and and I'm not doing this alone by any means, but but there is part of me that that does relish the role that feels like my suffering or my proclivities like have a purpose, like there is a point to it. And I'm discovering it more and more every day, every year, the importance of friendship and like not belittling marriage either. Like there was part of me that for years I think kind of kind of was cynical about married people who have it all together. I always had this kind of this bent against people who are married because I just thought that they they didn't appreciate how easy they have it. And what I've learned in being in relationship with men, with married men in particular, is like, oh shoot, marriage is really hard. It's not that sounds really, really hard. It's not like a cakewalk just because someone is married or because someone is straight, even that marriage is just like, you know, this beautiful epic thing, despite what Instagram says or Facebook or whatever, like like being in some small groups with men who have just been so open and vulnerable about fights that they've had or lack of sexual activity or separation or divorce, even like it's really like moved my heart to people who are married or striving for marriage. Like, and so that's been another part of my story too, is not only lifting up friendship, but also not bringing down marriage because marriage is a really beautiful vocation as well. And the sweet spot now, my hope for my late 30s into my 40s and beyond is like like having lots of awesome unmarried friends, but then also having lots of awesome married friends and recognizing that we all need each other, we all complement each other, and there's just something beautiful about getting a bunch of diverse people together in a in a space to be friends together. Like I think that's a a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:16

Yes. And while marriage is beautiful, there are some things it can't quite do. I mean, the core of marriage is friendship, and a good marriage is built on a good friendship. Yeah, it's uh hard for me to describe, but uh there is a sacredness with male friends that uh can't be replaced. Men need men. We were created for that. We were created for same-sex connection. Yeah, that can still be really difficult, especially because men often struggle to connect with each other.

SPEAKER_01: 17:54

Yeah. And again, the gifts of our community and lots of men in our situation, it's like there is, I don't want to say it's easy, but there's it just feels like there's less hurdles to get to the deep end with other people and just be like, look, let's cut, let's cut to the chase. Let us, let's, let's skip the sports talk and let's skip the what are you doing with your house and backyard and you know, all that's all that stuff is great. I mean, I don't want to belittle that either. That's the there's a time and a place for that. But like, let's talk about like what's going on. Like, what's what's hard, what's challenging, what's hurtful, what what do you still wrestle with? What anger do you have? What sadness do you have? Like, what are your fears? There's there's so much richness there of just authentic relationship that that my sexuality has in part lended to, which I'm so grateful for because I just I've always been wired that way. Even when I was a little kid, like it's kind of funny in a cute way. Like I see all these pictures of me as a kid, and I'm always looking so somber. Like there's just like a somberness on my face. Like I never showed my teeth. Like I was just whenever I smiled, it was just like a soft smile. And it was just like, I've always just been kind of wired to like, even though I am a silly, I can be a silly person. Like, there's this desire to like go to the deep end with people and like let's talk about what actually matters and and spur one another on, encourage one another. And and that's such a such a gift, and it's so needed in in the church at large, but especially with men, because for whatever reason, there's just like I've encountered it in my one of my men's groups that I'm involved in. It's like there's I'm seeing walls come down, but I'm noticing it so glaringly. Like there's people that just haven't talked about things for literal decades, and how how do we start talking about it now? And and what an awesome thing when safety is created and you can't start talking about things that you never thought you could. Like what a beautiful, what a beautiful concept that is.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

And that's part of why husband material outwardly focuses on freedom from porn. But when you actually come into our community and we start uh going deep, it's not about that at all. It's about everything underneath attachment to porn. It's about what our sexuality takes us into, which is our hearts, our relationships, our wounds, our spirituality too. I mean, porn is just the entry point into this deeper, more fulfilling, connected life that we probably never would have pursued if we didn't have some kind of deep-seated struggle that we felt like we had to work on.

SPEAKER_01: 20:24

Yeah. And we sort of touched on this a little bit on the podcast that you did with me. So maybe I'll push the envelope a little further on this podcast. People are gonna be so confused if you don't listen to the other one. So I guess we just need to encourage people to listen to both, listen to both podcasts. Yeah, on the podcast you did with me, I talked a little bit about this. I guess it's a fetish. I don't know, I don't know if that's the right word or not, but like I've always been more dominantly attracted to straight men than I ever have been to gay men for whatever reason. That's not to say that I haven't found certain gay men attractive, because I certainly have, but by and large, like it's tilted way in the direction of I just find straight men generally more attractive to me to use some language of like that you used on our podcast, irresistible. Like there's an irresistible component with straight men attraction that I have versus gay men attraction that I have. And a lot of that just goes so much to my youth. Like being a kid, I was a kid in a super athletic class growing up, and I was constantly surrounded by all these presumably straight men. I'm I'm gonna just assume that the vast majority, if not the entirety, of those guys that that I found really attractive and irresistibly so. Like they were always so distant and disconnected, and they looked beautiful, they had amazing muscles and bodies, but then they also felt unapproachable too, on top of that. So like I literally would sneak glances at them in the locker room as we're changing for PE or changing for cross country. I did cross country for a few years, but but like that was such a metaphor for me. It's like I would have to sneak the glances because that's the only like opportunity I had to like have this connection, this this intimacy, this connection. Connection with another man, and particularly with another straight man. And so that's something that's followed me like my entire, my entire life. Like that's not something that has gone away. And I think there are steps I've been taking, you know, a lot, a big shout out to your book because there's so much language there about loss and connection and shame and glory, about going to a gym and feeling welcome there and feeling included there, even though my initial guttural response when I walk into a gym is, I do not belong here. What am I doing here? I certainly can't go into the locker room and change because that's awkward and I just don't belong in that space. And so, like training my mind, training my body to do those things and be connected. I've definitely made a lot of progress, I would say, in couple in a couple of years' time. But connecting with straight men is still something that feels like constantly feels like my next frontier. Like we have this awesome community of mostly non-straight men in your other brothers, but like to connect with straight men who are who are safe, not just any straight man, but straight men who are safe, and there's a good number of those, is what I've learned, is that there are a lot of straight men out there actually who are who are who do want to be real and aren't like the unapproachable ones that I previously had back in high school.

SPEAKER_00: 23:11

And there's my situation where I'm sexually attracted to women, yet when I walk into a gym, my stomach sinks and I just want to leave.

SPEAKER_01: 23:22

Not that I'm glad you feel that, but I am glad I'm not alone. I am not alone in that. So I know, I know that that's true. Thank you for sharing that with me.

SPEAKER_00: 23:31

Yeah. I'd rather just go onto a trail.

unknown: 23:34

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 23:36

So what a gift that our sexuality has implicitly invited us into a life that we didn't know we needed. A life of really connecting with ourselves, with each other, depending on the Lord in ways we may never have done. And as you've been cultivating community between men, what are you finding that is working the best?

SPEAKER_01: 24:08

For me, something that I really value is consistency and regularity, you know, in your other brothers from a virtual context, because we're a virtual community. We have people all over America and all over the world. One of the things I'm most proud of over a decade's work in Your Other Brothers is regular Zoom calls. Like we put a Zoom call on the calendar at most every two weeks, usually every week or at most every other week. But but having these regular opportunities to see each other face to face or face to screen. We are staying connected, you know, and it's and it's not something that's just been going for a month or two at a time, or then we take a summer break. One of my biggest pet peeves are like churches that take summer breaks. It's like, does life not still happen during the summer? Like, do you not still need that regular connection? But to have that regular connection is so huge from a virtual standpoint. But then, like again, this another men's group I'm involved with locally where I live in in North Carolina, we generally meet every Thursday night. And to have that on the calendar where it's happening, you know, there's an opportunity to connect. And and this particular group in that I'm referencing, like it was started by a therapist, but it's technically it's not group therapy, and but it's very therapeutic. It's hard to describe. But it's like we basically just check in with each other. We do some breathing exercises, we share what we're feeling and where we're feeling it. And then we have like this system in place where if you need to share, like you have the floor and you can share as long as you as long as you need to. And sometimes you might show up and you're just there to support and you don't need to share, you can just listen and offer input if the other man is is open to requesting it. But I just find that so beautiful to have that intentionality in place, the consistency, because different personalities are different. But I'm somebody that thrives on a schedule and thrives on that calendar being in place, because if relationships are more spontaneous and it's just like, oh, we'll hang out or we'll talk whenever, whenever it's convenient. Like sometimes whenever just doesn't ever happen, or it takes six months or it takes nine months to get together and do something. So that to me is so huge to have the the regularity, both in person, you know, and I definitely will prioritize in person over virtual. Virtual can be a nice supplemental resource. I always tell guys that join our community online, like we're we're happy to connect some dots and fill some space, but like it really is helpful, like really, really helpful if you have something face-to-face and in person. And I know not everyone's in a situation where that's so obvious to find, but if you can, if you can find that and do the work of finding that in person. And then maybe having the internet as a supplemental community resource too. I think that's a that's a beautiful thing to fill all the all the space that we're not in person with with other people.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

Yeah. That's really well said. Uh Tom, what is your favorite thing about friendship?

SPEAKER_01: 26:59

Well, I love that you can have more than one. You can have more than one friend. If I think if you're following Jesus in romance, like you have to choose one. And to have like more than one friend is like it's not cheating on your other friends if you hang out with your other friends. Like, there's there's this beauty that, like, man, there's there's such availability there. Abundance. Abundance, yeah. I mean, looking at Jesus too, of like where he deposited his time and having these 12 disciples following him around, and all these women following him around, and all these other people that aren't named following him around, and and then having subsets of those people that he hung out with maybe a little bit more than others. And I don't know, it's just such a beautiful, beautiful example of someone who never married and someone who had lots of friends and and spent time with them intentionally in different settings, different groups. I'd like to think that if I ever did get married to a woman, that that is that would be a non-negotiable with with my future wife if that ever happened. Like I have to have my male friends, like I just have to. It's it's if you marry me, you're marrying my other brothers too. Like we're a package deal. We gotta, we gotta have friends in the equation too. But that's something that I've really grown to appreciate in my singleness of just having this availability and having a heart for married guys too, just recognizing the limitations that people who are married, especially if they have kids, that there are just practical limitations there for how much time or how much availability they have beyond those relationships that they have to steward. But but as it is, as a single person, having the availability, being able to go to all these different groups and being able to be a friend to so many different types of people, both both virtually and then locally, is is has been such such a blessing that I'm that I'm grateful for.

SPEAKER_00: 28:39

Awesome. So, Tom, for anyone who wants to get connected with your other brothers and your other family, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

Yeah, if you're a man, which I imagine the vast majority of your listeners are, you can just go to your other brothers.org. We also have a women's community, yourother sisters.org, for women, also processing faith sexuality and femininity. In your other brothers, we process faith, sexuality, and masculinity. And then our single nonprofit ministry, which encompasses both of the men's and women's communities we have, is called Your Other Family. And so you can go to your otherfamily.org to learn about that. All three of our websites, like there, we we got this awesome web designer that linked them all together. So they all look very similar. And one give link that goes to the same place, and you know, there's a lot of consistency across that. So if you find one of those, you'll find all of them. So that's that's it's not like three different websites that are disconnected. So so yeah, check out. We have we have blogs, we have podcasts, we have all kinds of content for men about all a whole range of subjects relating to face, sexuality, and masculinity that goes back a decade now. You can truly get lost in the blog and the podcast. You can spend hours of your life. And I know for a lot of people, I know I speak for myself. Like that was something I ate up when I was a starving 21-year-old, desperate for stories like mine. Like I spent hours late into the night reading blogs, and that was such a joy for me. And brings a smile to my face when I still hear those stories today of someone, someone emailing me and being like, I've been reading your blog nonstop for seven days, or I've been listening to 30 podcasts back to back to back to back to back. I was like, that's that's awesome. I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 30:13

That's so great. I hope there's a lot of crossover that comes from this episode between our communities. And thanks so much for being with us.

SPEAKER_01: 30:21

Absolutely. Anytime, you're always welcome back on your other brothers' production as well. It was so great to have it, you drew.

SPEAKER_00: 30:28

And so, in honor of this theme of friendship and brotherhood, I'm going to slightly adjust what I say at the end of this episode. Gentlemen, always remember that y'all are God's beloved sons. And in y'all, he is well pleased.