Sex and Porn Addiction

Welcome to the game and going deeper podcast, a podcast by the gay men’s brotherhood, where we talk about everything, personal development, mental health, and sexuality. Today, we are joined by Dr. Joe. Kort welcome. It’s good to have you here. Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. So I’ve been wanting to do a podcast episode on porn and sex addiction for a while now.

And I thought there’s probably no better person to bring on the new cause we can talk a bit about addiction and debunking some of the myths around sex addiction and really getting a clear definition of what this is and how this shows up in the gay community. For those of you who do not know Dr. Court, he is a psychotherapist and a clinical director and founder of the center for relationship and sexual health in Royal Oak,

Michigan. He is a board certified clinical sexologist author of four books, lecture and facilitator of therapeutic workshops throughout his 36 years of private practice, he successfully has utilized varying therapy modalities to help hundreds of individuals and couples improve their lives and strengthen their relationships. Dr. Cortes specializes in marital problems and conflicts, mixed orientation, marriages, male, sexuality, and sexual health concerns,

sex addiction out of control, sexual behaviors, sexual identity issues, tiled sexual abuse, LGBTQ alternative therapy, and a Mago relationship therapy. So you bring an extensive background into this conversation. So this is why I kind of hand picked you for this conversation because you have yeah, like an extensive resume, but I know that you have a lot of experience in this field and I’m looking forward to unpacking this,

this with you. So yeah. W why don’t we start off because you know, when, when I’m reading your, your bio, the word addiction is in quotation marks. And I’m curious about that. So yeah, let’s start there. I think that’s a good place to start. Sure. I put sex addiction in quotes on my website because that’s what people are looking for.

Right? It’s the low hanging fruit. When you get into some sexual problem or sexual issue that people grab onto, it’s a culturally created term. It is not a real term. There is no science behind it. It’s not in the DSM diagnostical diagnostic statistical manual, and it’s not in the ICD 11 for therapy for psychology. So, but the culture,

when somebody has a problem and they’re doing it too much, or they’re disgusted by it or whatever, they go right to that. But so I keep it on my website to bring in the people so that they find it. And then I, I educate them. Yeah. And I think that’s smart. And that’s why this podcast is going to be titled porn and sex addiction,

because I think that’s what people are going to understand. That’s going to bring them in and then we can help educate them in what this actually is. So, you know, my background is, is in addiction. It was addiction and a mental health and addictions therapist for 10 years. And now I’ve got into life coaching and working with gay men. So I have an extensive background in addiction as well.

And I’d love for us both to kind of define what addiction means. Like what does, so what does addiction mean to you? So the problem is that a lot of, I mean, I don’t have the, the, the literal definition in front of me, but you know, when people say you’re doing it more than you want to do it,

you can’t stop. It progresses. It escalates, you can say that about a lot of things. And, and I think gay men let’s think about being gay men. We could, people could have, and they do get misdiagnosed as sex addicts because you know, they’re having gay sex when they’re in heterosexual, heteronormative, heterosexual relationships, they’re doing it when they don’t want to,

it’s escalating it progresses. It’s not an addiction. So the men, it’s a metaphor really of true addiction is to a chemical outside your body period. It’s being your brain being wired toward that chemical because the chemical has taken you hostage, that it can not be something that is on screen or in a piece of paper or a chemical in your own body.

Okay. Yeah. Interesting. My training, my background kind of, I look at four different factors. So you have frequency, you have intensity, you have duration and you have intention behind the behavior, right? So if you look at frequency, we’re looking at how often somebody engages in it. You look at intensity how much they’re engaging, duration,

how long they’re engaging. And then the intention behind the behavior, I think is one of the biggest things. And it’s something I’d love to unpack further with you here in this conversation, because the intention behind why gay men are engaging in sex and porn in compulsive ways, I think is really the question that we want to unpack here, because that that’s really gonna look at,

you know, we’re going to be moving over into the realms of intimacy disorders and things where people are experiencing emotional avoidance or not able to be vulnerable. So they’re overindulging in certain behaviors that are perpetuating relief from some of the things that they’re experiencing. So if we’re, if we’re looking at addiction and we’re looking at compulsion, right. Cause that’s, that’s the term you prefer to use over at sex addiction.

You prefer to use the term sexual compulsion, correct? Yes. And that’s the science is behind that. Yes. Okay. So can you help, can you help the listener and viewer understand the difference between addiction and compulsion? That’s a great question. I don’t know how to tell them the difference. I can only tell you that compulsion is that you’re doing it against your own will.

And no matter how much you try to stop, there’s some kind of compulsion. And really, I like to call it out of control, sexual behaviors. That’s really what I call it more. And oh, CSB is what we call it in the sex therapy field. And the person defines it for themselves. I don’t like that. Other people are trying to define it for somebody.

And it’s this much, it’s that much, it’s this, because that may not be true for that person. It might be true for several people, but this several other people, it may not be true. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you look at the other aspect of, when it, in, in, in my training where it comes in and it falls into the area of addiction would be when your major life areas are significantly impacted.

So your work, your relationships, your finances, your health, these areas start to become infringed upon in, in your life. This is the territory where you start to look at whether there’s addictive behaviors, there’s compulsive behaviors, whatever it’s, when there’s infringement upon your own quality of life. Is that, do you agree with that statement or not? I mean,

I do, but then I agree that anything that is interfering with your legs should be looked at, I just, don’t always, I don’t agree, cook to call it an addiction, you know, to call it because, so then what the problem, see, I, I was a sex addiction therapist for over 20 years. And the problem is,

is that then they, when you slip on the addiction model, it most likely doesn’t fit for so many people who aren’t really addicts, right. Who are engaging in the behaviors against their own will, but it might be because they’re have erotic tension with their values, with their religion, with their partner, with their culture, with whatever their morals. And I mean,

that’s all legit. I just think when you start to slip on an addiction treatment model, it’s it can be, do some harm, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting to look at that. So, you know, process addictions is essentially a behavioral addiction, right? And substance addiction is addiction to a substance. So based off of your training and the science that you,

that you support, you don’t believe that there’s such things as processed addictions. Is this true? Yeah. I believe that people can get habituated to things. So for instance, people will say, well, you can be addicted to dopamine. No, there’s no science behind that. There’s lots of research that show you can not be addicted to your own chemistry.

You can be habituated. So there are people that are dopamine addicts, let’s say, right. But people call them that. So they want to jump out of planes and they make, you know, they do it all the time. They spend weeks climbing mountains and people are like, oh, that’s so interesting. Did you like it? How do you do it?

People pay to watch this sometimes. Right. And watch movies about it. But if the same person were naked and masturbating and jumping out of that plane and climbing up that mile, we would go, oh, I think he’s a sex addict. He told the only way he can get off is to climb that mountain. And like, are you kidding?

You know, like, it’s like, it’s such a anecdotal, judgemental thing to say. Yeah. So there’s a strong, what I’m sensing is there’s a strong kind of moral thing here. Like you’re not wanting to pathologize people. You’re wanting to really be able to look at the individual and separate them from the, the behavior or the problem they’re engaging in,

which I think is good. I think it’s really good because I’m not a huge fan of psychiatry and being able and pathologizing people in slapping labels on people. Cause I think those are really hard things to work your way away from. Yes. I’m really curious though. You know, you talk about habituation, I’m curious the difference for you between addiction and habituation,

then like what, w I’m still wanting to really kind of help discern and pull the pieces apart between addiction and compulsion or habituation. Well, okay. So I don’t know that I can say it the way you’re asking. I think about when, well, so when people used to come into my office and I was a sex addiction therapist, I would look at the way you’re looking at it.

You know, like, you know, use those markers, but as a sex therapist. So, and by the way, just so you know, most sex addiction therapists are not trained in sex. They have no sexual health training. They have to go outside of that arena and get the sex therapy training, which is crazy because you’re dealing with sexual disorders.

It’s one thing when it’s couples therapy or it’s addiction therapy, you know, there there’s no training in sex that makes there should be, but that makes more sense to have people that are a body of work, where you’re dealing with sexual disorders. So today, when someone comes in and tells me they’re having a sexual problem is what I call it. Then I look at why are they sexually dysregulated?

What is contributing to being sexually dysregulated? Is it an intimacy disorder where you sexually abused and traumatized? Do you have a kink? Do you have a fetish? Are you a gay? Is there some kind of erotic interest? I mean, we can, we already have well-established reasons about why people do this. And so over time I started realizing why are we slipping on another label to this there’s whatever there’s other,

there are other reasons for why people are engaging in out of control behavior. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I feel like we’re, we’re more on the same page than actually I think we are, because we’re talking about just language, how we frame something, but we still see that the compulsive behavior is problematic and it needs to be addressed. And I think that’s really where I would like to take the rest of this conversation because I think that’s where the meat is and that’s where we can really provide the listener and viewer some,

some value here. So the next, the next question that I had for you was why do gay men tend to struggle with sex and porn compulsion or whatever, however you want to use the language for, for yourself. Why is that an issue for, for us as gay men typically? Well, I mean, I feel like in the straight community,

what I, what I see is that they don’t have access to sex as much as men do gay men do. Right? So in fact, a lot of straight men who have sex with men will do so because of access to men in a way that they don’t have access to women in terms of transactional sex, quick, you know, hookup, sex,

or whatever. And so I feel, and I also, you know, and with gay men, we’re not taught intimacy skills. Males are not taught dummy skills, intimacy skills. In fact, we’re taught to stay away from intimacy, right. Stay away from vulnerability. So I feel like what then gay men get on these apps, or even before the apps,

you know, I’m 58 years old that were bath houses or parks, you know, rest areas, just the ability to hook up so quickly and not have to say a word. It makes the, it, then you ended up having to rely on your own internal controls, which a lot of people don’t do. I’m saying a lot of things, but I want to just add one thing that I think a lot of the hookups are amongst gay men is pseudo intimacy.

Feel like you’re connected to somebody, but you’re not. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s such a beautiful way to put it. And I think I do a lot of work in the area of authenticity and shame. And I see that a lot of gay men have a lot of unprocessed shame and even trauma attachment trauma, interpersonal trauma. And I find that it’s,

you know, you look at the four domains, we have our spiritual, we have our psychological, we have our emotional, we have our physical. And when we are rooted in shame and we don’t like practicing vulnerability, the one area though, I find a lot of gay men are safe to explore is the physical right. Which I think there is a heavy reliance on meeting the needs we have as,

as human beings, attachment needs for intimacy come in the physical realm. And I see this. And I think that, that’s why I think a lot of people describe the gay culture as hyper-sexual, because there’s a heavy reliance on meeting need in the physical domain. Yes. I like that. Yeah. So what can we do to, to, to bring gay men,

to be able to explore these other three domains and create intimacy within the community, which is something that I think is greatly lacking in the I did, is it’s always been, and it’s, it makes me sad to think that even today, the younger generation is still lacking this, but, but we’re still males and we’re still raised as males. So,

and we’re, and so it’s really a call upon ourselves to make sure, like I, as a therapist and having been in therapy, most of my life got my relational skills from therapy, from female colleagues, that’s therapist. Right. And I’m glad that I have that book. If you don’t go seek it, we’re not, you’re not going to get it in the gay male community.

So I feel like the call is go out and seek relationship skills. Yeah. I think that’s huge and communication skills. And there’s so much value to, in connecting with heterosexual men. I found in my own personal experience, because you take the equation out of, of, of that, of, of intimacy sexual intimacy, and you can form intimacy in bonds with so a lot of my,

my, my male friends are actually heterosexual and I have a beautiful intimacy with these guys and there isn’t that element of, of sex that has to become in and inundate the relationship. So that would be one of the things that I think is important. I think that’s also why we’re also able to be best friends with straight women take that physical out. And you’ve got a friendship and deep friendship love.

Yeah. Yeah. Most of my friends are women too. I love, I love women. Okay. So I want to touch on, we’ve used the term intimacy disorder here a couple of times and for the listener and viewer that has never heard that term before, can you help them understand what that, you know, what are some of the, the important things in that realm?

What does that mean? I think a better way to probably have say that said it is people would understand this attachment disorder, excuse me, a rupture in their attachment to another person based on something that happened in their childhood. Something had happened with their primary care caregiver. Yeah. And how does that impact how we relate with each other as gay men?

I think that, well, I think that males are taught not to be in relationship with other males and turn their back on vulnerability. And that the only way that men can really relate is through violence together, sports work and sex. Right. And on top of it, oh my God, I’m forgetting what your question was. Oh, on top of it,

as gay men were taught to run away from each other. So in addition to being males taught to nap, turn our, our faces toward each other, we’re taught to not only turn away from each other, but to run from each other. And I think that’s, that’s our imprint. Yeah. Yeah. What’s coming up for me is the term emotional avoidance.

And you know, you’re looking at attachment styles. Avoidance is, it is an attachment style. And I think a lot of, a lot of people who, you know, have a fear of intimacy are people who are avoidance. So you look at an intimacy disorder for me, it’s, it’s just somebody who is afraid of intimacy and, or the,

the th the unconscious fear of that is likely a fear of abandonment. Right. We have intimacy and then we experienced rejection in it. And then we were left, were abandoned. And that’s where I think a lot of our core wounding is as gay men, because we experienced, we do experience a lot of rejection and oppression and these things early in our years of development.

So it’s like, how can we trust the world around us when our early experiences are that we’re defective or we’re disgusting, or we’re, we’re whatever the story was we bought into as young gay boys, right? Yes. And it’s really low hanging fruit that we can connect by sex. You know, sex is easy. You don’t have to have many relations skills,

relationship skills, hardly at all. And really, sometimes I’ve even called it. I’m not against it. I think it’s great that, that we have that opportunity that straight men don’t have, but it’s really like a higher form of masturbation. It’s really, self-pleasure in the presence of another person. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s pretty profound because I think a lot of people are gonna relate to that sentiment.

And I’m, I’m the same as you I’m pro sex. I’m also, demisexual newly found demisexual of two years. And I was very hypersexual in my twenties and my early thirties. And now I’m like really in this area, in this space of wanting a lot of emotional connection in my, in my intimacy and almost like a prerequisite for, for sexual arousal is to have emotional connection.

So I’m wanting to invite more gay men in, in this world because it’s so rewarding and fulfilling when we aren’t just masturbating with each other. We’re, we’re actually, you know, connecting in our heart and soul in a way that intimacy can be so healing. Right. And I think our community needs a lot more of this. We need more bonding and connecting and,

you know, empathic with each other. So we can, we can truly start to heal some of the things that are healed in relational dynamic, which is shame and trauma. And we need each other, we truly need each other to do this healing work. Yes. And w but we’re not there for each other. It’s really sad. And I’ve have found that even worse.

The generational gap is even higher today amongst gay men. Where if an older guy says to a younger guy, you’re a handsome guy. I just think you’re an attractive guy. He feels like he’s been not just hit on, but groomed. I I’m w I’m hearing this a lot. Now that man just started to groom me and exploit me. And all he did was give you a compliment.

It’s just so sad. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. I wanna, I want to pick your brain as a psychotherapist, because I know you do a lot of really beautiful work. What is, what would be a common course of treatment that you would take somebody through as a psychotherapist in treatment? Like if somebody comes to you and they’re, they’re sexually compulsive,

they’re watching a lot of porn, but, and they’re wanting, they’re wanting support. What would you, what are some things that you, you help them with? First of all, I’m really glad you said watching porn and not using porn, a lot of people say using porn, like it’s a drug, you don’t use porn, you watch it.

So thank you. It’s a movie, right? It’s like, you know, so people will say, you know, I watched Netflix all weekend and I didn’t do anything. I lost the whole weekend. And it’d be like, oh, what you watch? But if someone said, I lost the whole weekend, I was on porn hub all weekend.

People would be like, what’s wrong with you? Oh my God, what, what do you mean? You’re on boring? You know? So, all right. So if someone comes in and they tell me they have a sexual issue as a therapist, I want to rule out any sexual trauma history. Right. Because that can cause hypersexuality, particularly in males,

from childhood, I want to rule out any kind of medication as you, you know, any kind of, you know, chemist, chemical, physical, anything like that. But once you rule all that out, I, I asked the client to tell me, what does it mean that they’re out of control? Tell me what that means to them.

You know, and people also like the sex addiction model, because then it’s not like a conscious thing, but it relinquishes responsibility that wasn’t me. I didn’t make that decision. Yes, you did. Well, yes, you did. You made, like I had a client once say to me, I wasn’t, I was working all week. I was on a plane home and I thought I’m just going to get in a warm bath and go to sleep.

And the next thing I knew, my car turned into the bath house and I was there until four in the morning. And I’m like, no, the next thing you knew, that’s the next conscious story. If I was on the plane next to you, when did you make the decision to go to the bath house? Because, and when would you have turned to me and said,

Hey, Joe, I’m no longer going to take a warm bath. I’m going to the bath house. And he was able to pinpoint the day that, you know, the time, the moment. So I really try to help take responsibility for the decisions they’re making and no shame, you know, and shame reduction. A lot of people have a lot of shame about what they’re doing.

And that’s the main thing I feel like every day I’m ashamed reductionist. Yeah. Yeah. That’s huge. I think that’s where a lot of our work crosses over why I’m relating so strongly to what you’re sharing here. And I’m probably why the use of labels is not something you’re in alignment with. Right. Because it reinforces shame. W this is a bit of a side question,

but I’m curious, are you supportive of the 12 step model? Cause I know that’s a big model and I know that’s a big question probably for you, but yeah, Go ahead. I was going to say all answered as well, because I have my own, my own, my own views a bit as well too. So, So I don’t,

I’m not against it. I just think I don’t like to paint a broad brush on everyone like that. So not everybody responds to those 12 steps. I think there are great cognitive, behavioral tools, life lessons, life norms. I love the all that, but it doesn’t help everyone. It just doesn’t. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I’m not a huge fan and this is why I never use the model myself for my own addiction issues was because you have to stand up 30 years later and say,

hi, I’m Matt. I’m an addict. Right? Where I think people can liberate themselves from addiction. I really truly don’t believe people are pathology or, you know, like pathologically stuck in addiction for the rest of their lives. I really don’t believe that. So again, it’s part of that, that model. Okay. You said that trauma sexual trauma is a,

is a precursor for sexual compulsive. Can you share a little bit more about that? How does that show up for people? So what happens is I call it returning to the scene of the sexual crime. So whatever happened to you in childhood, now you recreate as an adult. So I had, I’ve had clients who were sexually abused in the bathtub,

right in there as a child. So now they go to bath houses or they go to restrooms or they’re going, you know, or they there’s something about, excuse me, recreating that same scenario, but in a compulsive way, you know, in a way that make, it feels like it’s out of control, they’re just associated. And when they’re sexually traumatized as children,

they don’t have sexual urges. They’re having trauma urges. Those are different. And it’s not that they can’t have sex. It’s sexualized urges that aren’t sexual. So what I, I mean, I know we’re talking about gay men, but I see a lot of straight men who have sex with men. And the primary reason in my office that we find is sexual abuse by male perpetrators.

They’re just returning to the scene of the sexual crime and it’s compulsive and that’s the problem. So then it, and they’re doing it and they’re violating their relationship contracts, violating their own moral contracts, violating whatever it is about themselves. But it’s in the interest of their brain saying, Hey, we got to heal this. And if you’re not going to heal it,

I’m going to force you to heal it. And it never gets because you re you returning to it, but never solving it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s huge. And I think that’s in the realm of sexual trauma. Do you think that could play out even in like something like attachment or interpersonal trauma, let’s say with a father, father figure who rejects you in your early developmental years or abandoned you,

is this something that can play out A hundred percent? I’m an Tomago therapist and that’s what we believe that we’re drawn to familiar love. So when you returned to the scene of the relationship crime, I’ve never said it that way, but that’s really what that is. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. I, I think a lot of, a lot of men are going to relate to that because I think we often seek out people who are like our fathers,

right. And possess the same attachment style as our fathers. Like I have been seeking out the avoidant attached man for so much of my life until I started to work on my relationship with my father. And then guess what happened as soon as I started to heal my relationship with my dad, I started attracting more secure men or, or at least men that are able to kind of talk about their avoidance and not just fully run.

Right. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It’s been pretty profound and I love the term returning to the scene of the crime because that’s where a lot of my stuff came from, was within my father wound. So I, I’m a, I’m a huge proponent of spirituality. I teach it. I, I love it. I think it’s really therapeutic and very valuable.

Is there space in your work or in this realm of, of work for, for using spirituality as a means to, to healing or do you see maybe compulsive behaviors as yearning for something more? I support any, anyone who’s on a spiritual journey and once you use religion or spirituality or anything, I don’t use it myself. I don’t believe in it.

So it doesn’t, it’s not been helpful to me. I’ve tried. I, I even tried Orthodox. I’m a Jew, you know, I went to Orthodox Judaism about, okay, let me go to the top and see what they, if they can help me, it didn’t work for me, but I support people for whom it does. Yeah.

Wonderful. Yeah. And I just want to preface by saying that it’s not, yeah, for me, religion and spirituality are two very different things. I see them as very different. Okay. So back to the question around like treatment, what’s one thing, someone with struggling with sex important compulsion’s can do to support themselves, Be kind and compassionate to themselves and not make a big deal about it.

If you go to war with your sexuality, you will lose and cause more chaos than you started with. So you don’t want to be against it. We know this is gay men, you fight it, fight it, fight it, it grows and grows and grows. And then, then compulsivity, this is why I don’t like addiction terms for, for behavioral,

because it’s not an addiction. You’re fighting something that’s innate in you. And the more you fight, the more you resist it will persist basically. I mean, I’m using language, but it’s true. So it’s really about understanding and, and having some self-compassion. And one of the ways I help people have self-compassion is understanding. I call it cracking the erotic code,

trying to understand where does this come from? Not everything has a reason, but most of the things we get off on and the things that we are finding rousing and erotic come from our past. And once you know that it’s, it’s easier to have some self-compassion. Yeah. I agree with that. And I think, you know, I framed that in the sense of shadow the shadow self.

I think we often, you know, gay men grow up and we, a lot of us hide our sexuality. We hide these really deep dark desires to want to have sex with other men. And then we come out, right. And we have all this stuff that’s kind of stored in our shadow self, our psyche around like these desires that we want met.

And those are the things that ended up manifesting themselves as what people would classify as sex addiction. But we’re, we’re terming it as, you know, compulsion’s or this overuse of these things because it’s coming from the shadow self. So is there anything that you would, would, would recommend as far as treatment modalities for people that have these shadow selves or these,

these split, these, these things we’ve split from about ourselves? Yeah. To reclaim them. There’s several really good books out there. One’s called the erotic mind by Jack Morin, who talks about understanding the underlining meanings of what, why you get off on what you get off on so that you can understand. So people will say, well, that’s not me,

right? I’m in sex addiction. They would say, if this, this is what you get into and it caused you problems that got you in trouble, then you shouldn’t get into that anymore. You better find something else to get into. Well, that’s conversion therapy. We don’t want to do conversion therapy. Right. We already know what that’s like.

We have a sexual orientation to whom we’re attracted male, female, both multiple, neither, but we have an erotic orientation. What gets us off? What brings us to orgasm? And sometimes the erotic orientation doesn’t match up with our sexual orientation. So some gay men think about women. Some women think about other women, you know, some straight, some straight men think about other men.

So era it really in doing this, separating this out is really having a better understanding and understanding of the shadow that our shadows, as you know, are parts of us. It’s not separate from us. Yeah. Yeah. This is why the, you know, a major knock on, on, and this is where I would agree with you on process addictions.

If you look at Mo the Truman model for most addictions, it’s abstinence, right? How can you be abstinent from food, from sex, from these things that are human human needs. Right. So we need to be really mindful of that term. Have you heard the term porn literacy? Oh, I love that term. Yes I do. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Do you want to explain it to the listener? So they, they understand that. I mean, my understanding of it is that you’re really understanding what you’re looking at and while you’re looking at it at what point is really all about and seeing the real, making it more realistic to you, I that’s how I see it. How do you define it or understand it?

It would be exactly that. And also being really intentional with it. Like, you know, if we’re, if we’re compulsively using porn, it’s like one of my things that helps define addiction is what’s the intention behind, why am I doing this? Am I using it to escape? Am I using it to numb? You know, what, why am I using it?

But I think porn has a place and it, and it can be used to create, you know, more intimacy and it can be used to help you understand your body. Like, I do think that what we need to be, we need to be really deliberate with how we’re using these sort of things. So I think porn literacy is a term that’s used to describe how we,

you know, can engage with something that can have bring us value. But you know, in when not used with intention or great intention, it can become really problematic. So, Right. And I would say that this is where as a sex therapist, I’ve been challenged around. Anything could be problematic. Hulu can be problematic. Netflix can be problematic just watching TV and getting,

you know, dissociating. So I don’t know that porn is any more or less than if you were watching Hulu or Netflix. I know that people like to say that, because again, it’s the moral or the discomfort that I might regulate myself by watching porn. I might spend a day watching porn and get off on it. And it’s a, it’s a sell a day of self pleasure a day of self-care,

but it’s not often looked at that at that way. Why do you think that is? I think it’s a right of phobia. I think it’s the idea of people, fear of, or disgust of sexuality and that, you know what you should, it’s a, we’re a culture. And even as therapists, it’s kind of upsetting that everything should be about attachment.

Everything should be about relational. No, that’s great. But not everybody asexuals. Don’t always want that people on the spectrum don’t always want that. And, and neuro-typical people don’t always want that. It’s kind of nice to use a vibrator, watch a porn thing. And you’re just, you’re your own person. You start and stop it whenever you want.

It never says, no, it doesn’t judge you. And there’s no, there’s no shame in that. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And I think, you know, my answer to my question would be you look at why people shame other people for the things that they’re engaging in. It’s usually because there’s some sort of unreconciled or unintegrated shadow aspect of their self that they have yet to integrate.

So maybe they haven’t integrated their, their erotic sense of self. And when they see it being displayed in somebody else, it, it it’s, it makes them want to project their self judgment onto the other person. Or I think that, yeah. Yeah. So if you were, I don’t think this is even a term, but like intimacy, literacy,

what are some tips you could share? What are some tips you could share with, with the listener on intimacy literacy? Because, you know, I crave intimacy. I want more into me. I want more men in our, in our community who have capacity to share intimacy. Right. And sex is part of that for sure. But I want more,

I’m craving more. Right? So what are some things we can share with the listener around that? Well, one thing I wanted to say, I forgot to say it earlier. If you want a date, I’m a gay man who has good relationship skills, date one, who’s been heterosexually married. I’m going to tell you that right now, because a woman has taught him how to be in relationship.

They are the best I feel of all the gay men. They’re the best. It builds a relationship because they’ve been trained by a woman, you know, but intimacy. So Esther Perel, if you don’t know Her, do you don’t to love her? Yeah. She’s so good. She’s so good. We all love her. Well, not everyone loves her,

but I love her. And so she says this great line. Tell me how you were loved as a child. And I’ll tell you how you make love as an adult. And I love that line because it’s the same thing about, tell me how you were loved as a child. And I’ll tell you how you love as an adult. So to really understand your intimacy literacy is like you just said,

you had a father who was a certain way and you were attracted to men as her way. Now I would say, as a therapist, it’s not gender. So I had a mother who was horrible to me and I was, I am attracted to men who are horrible to me. So it’s not about gender. I didn’t marry. Thank God I married a guy.

I was more conscious of my twenties. I had no idea how that happened, but I was like, okay, I can’t, I’m attracted to narcissists, right? Because my mother was narcissistic. My all my, all my family members were. And I remember thinking, this is not going to work for a long-term relationship. I need to find a different level of love.

And then I met my husband, Mike. So the narcissists are like, make my heart go like this, like made my heart go like this. And I was like, this is fine. This is good enough, 29 years. It’s been fine. Now, does he have narcissistic narcissistic tendencies that drive me crazy. Yes. But that’s, that’s familiar love to me,

you know, so, but it’s not about my dad. It’s about my mom. And I think people don’t need to know what w how was I raised and what am I recycling in my current relationships? Okay. So what I’m hearing is a lot of, self-awareness just really digging in and asking yourself, you know, how was I developed into the person that I am in the realm of intimacy,

right. And that’s, that’s going to be a good starting point. Yes. I asked my clients, you know, to tell me how adjectives that describe your mother as a child or mother and caretaker. Tell me the adjectives that describe your father and caretaker. What were your best memories with both? What were your worst memories with both as I do this,

I help them see that they’re recycling a lot of that in present day, which you can’t do that without putting those two things together and just juxtaposing them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s wonderful. I think that’s the individual approach. And, and I want to wrap up by just talking a bit about the, the collective approach, because, you know,

we are, I am a firm believer. I’m a, I’m an individualist by nature. That system can only change when the individuals that make it up change. But there is this element of like, when does the, when does the tide turn, right? When do we, as gay men start to show up for each other and hold space for each other to be the,

the demisexual or the asexual or the person that’s not wanting, the things that we’ve been taught and conditioned to only want, right. And while we fear the other things. So is there anything that we can, that you think needs to be done on a systemic level to help people start to move through some of this stuff? I, I have to say that as you’re asking me this,

I, I feel incredible sadness because I have tried my entire career to make that happen. And my experience has been, I would love for this to change is that gay men don’t want it, or won’t do it. I used to do retreats. I used to do go to SLN and create like a, a week long thing or weekend thing. And gay men I’m being sweeping generalization,

but they’re like, I’d rather go to Chicago to the white party, then sit and look into the eyes of another gay man. And I mean, I spent so much time in so much energy and I did a really good job here in Michigan. We w we really did work at it, but it was, it was too hard. I had to let it go because I didn’t,

I there’s, no, I couldn’t figure out how to make gay men and get gay men to do this. I mean, I think that the way it’s going to have to happen is smaller circles. You’re probably making really nice smaller circles. Yeah. Yeah. I had the same, the same visceral response that you had when I shared it. My heart kind of sunk when you said that,

because I’m like, oh, it felt a bit deflated, but you know, I look at it is like, it is trauma healing. Really. We have so much unprocessed trauma as individuals, but collectively as a culture, we have trauma. And I think we really need to get, get in on that. And we really need to start talking about it and having these conversations and having smaller,

intimate circles where we feel safe to be able to show up, take our masks off and have it. Cause I think for me, like once I had that taste of connection and that taste of intimacy, that’s all I needed, but I had to first open my heart wide enough to be able to taste it. Right. But it’s, so I want to just be a,

you know, a conduit to help men have a taste, that’s it. And then let that taste kind of saturate itself and let them find what they need to find along their journey. Yeah. So maybe, maybe there’s an opportunity for us to co-create or do something in the future with, cause it sounds like we both have that as part of our,

our, our life purpose or our life mission. We want to see more functionality and intimacy in the gay community. So who knows, maybe this is the beginning of something. It would be nice. I’ve been waiting a long time. I’d like to not die and not have this happen. I’d like to see it before I go to my grave. Yeah.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Any final words before we wrap up here? I know what you’re, you’re tight on time. So what, anything you want to say to wrap up? Just that I think that we’re all, I think there’s so much good in the gay male community. There’s so many, so much talent, so much inspiration. I don’t know.

There’s just, I think we’re fierce. I mean, I hate to use the straight words, but we’re fierce. Right. But we’re not toward each other. We’re mean, I think we’re meaner than women are to each other. I really do. I don’t understand why it’s so mean or why it’s so, you know, and I, I’ve been more involved on a tic-tac in social media and there’s so much nastiness between gay men and it’s like,

it’s I really agree with you. It’s unresolved trauma and there’s no working with somebody if they can’t recognize their own trauma. So my hope is that gay men can do that because if we could bond and really love each other, we would be even stronger as a community. Yeah. Yeah. Threat threat tells us the world around us. Isn’t safe. So that means if our trauma came from within the gay community,

gay men, aren’t safe. So what do I do when somebody is not safe? I, I demonize them. I, I judgment or I throw my projections onto them and then we create more and more divisions. So yeah, continuing to look inside of ourselves and saying, what aspects of me need to be integrated so that people around me, aren’t going to trigger the fuck out of me.

And then we can have more compassion for other gay men as opposed to looking at them as the enemy, because they’re inciting something in us that hasn’t been resolved yet. So yeah. I have a lot of hope. That’s really how I want to leave this conversation as I have a lot of hope and yeah. Yeah. I feel good about The jaded old queen.

Yeah. Well, there’s a place, there’s a place for you in this work to like, and I know that you’re doing a lot of beautiful work truly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for making time to come on here and unpack this with me. I do have a good feeling that maybe there are going to be an opportunity for us to co-create in the future.

We’ll see what the universe has in store for us, but yeah, really. Thanks a lot for, for giving us your time today. Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah. You’re welcome to the listener. Thanks for tuning in listening on your favorite podcast network, please subscribe. And for people that are following along on YouTube,

watching us feel free to drop a comment or a question that you might have for myself or Dr. Court. And I will make sure the questions get to him and subscribe and hit the bell icon. So you’ll get notified when we release new content each week. Yeah. That’s it for? That’s all. Have a beautiful day guys. And thanks again,

Dr. Court. Thank you.