Your Sexuality Is Worth A Better Conversation
It's book release day for THE SEX TALK YOU NEVER GOT and here's the heart of the heart of why I wrote it.
I walked into the Verizon wireless store, which is what one does when you’ve got a problem and customer support gets you nowhere. I just wanted to talk with a face-to-face human. Evan, a young twenty something behind the counter, stepped forward eager to help. And in the course of our conversation, as a good salesmen attempt to sell me a business line, he said, “Can I ask what you do for work?”
“I am a therapist and an author.” I said.
“Like you write books or something?” he said, while typing away.
“Well, my first book The Sex Talk You Never Got comes out in June.”
No longer looking at his screen, I had his full attention.
“Huh. I never got a sex talk,” he said with a laugh. “My mom handed me a book and told me if I had any questions to ask my brother. My dad wasn’t going to say anything. Funny thing is I did ask my brother and he got the anatomy wrong.” But now he wasn’t laughing. I got a sense his sexual journey didn’t stay so funny.
Yet I could hardly believe it. Here we were sitting in a Verizon store talking about this young man’s sexual formation. Yet, once given the opportunity, he poured out his story, maybe without knowing how much he wanted to and needed to talk about it. Which is why I could absolutely believe it too. Men are left to figure so much of their sexually out on their own.
Though men are over sexualized in our culture, a man’s sexuality is often the most neglected part of his development. It’s the place we’ve had the least meaningful conversations in our lives. Few men got an adequate sex talk, maybe a simplistic anatomy lesson or a purity lecture, if they got anything at all. When nothing else is talked about, it often leads men to assume sexuality is meant to just work and run itself. And when that doesn’t work, men bury their sexual struggles in silence and shame. Or worse, act them out in a spiral of sin and self hatred. It’s left men so underdeveloped and stuck.
If anything captures the reason I wrote this book, it’s for Evan. Because that man is nearly every man I meet. There’s always something a man needs to talk about here. Men hold so much silence and shame for the story that never happened and for the story that took its place. Because our sexuality does not remain unformed. It gets malformed.
And so I also wrote this for the guy I saw in Home Depot with the I love MILFs T-shirt (a reference to porn). This man was so desperate to talk about his sexual story, especially his sexualized mother issues, and yet was so utterly stuck in his own struggle. So he silently screamed his need to talk on a T-shirt. Can you imagine that? It’s so over sexualized and pornified and entitled and yet wildly under sexually nurtured and bound. And I doubt he knew much of this, let alone had the courage to face it. I truly hope this man reads my book.
And I wrote it for the guys who are already in the trenches of healing and growing and being good men.
A few years ago, we attended a “Friendsgiving” feast with some other families. I hadn’t seen a few of the other dad’s in awhile. And while catching up about life, I mentioned I had started writing a book for men on sex.
And man for man, as I brought up this book, they leaned in real close and their faces changed to somber. “Can I have this book right now?” said one man, “Do you know how much I need this?” Another said, “Sexuality has been the place of greatest struggle in my life and marriage.” These are really good men who have the courage to do their inner work and care about their impact. It’s clear these guys had been suffering in relative silence. Because it’s personal and private and vulnerable and where does one go to talk about this?
We need a better conversation.
It’s absolutely true that the world has suffered the harm of broken male sexuality. But I also want to make clear that men suffer in their sexual and romantic lives a lot more than we care to admit. Here’s what I write in the introduction to my book
“As men, our sexuality is one of the most neglected and abandoned parts of us. Despite the overwhelming ways our culture elicits and arouses male sexuality (often to sell us something), most men live with enormous sexual malnourishment. We don’t nurture our sexuality at all. We don’t cultivate it. We assume it runs by itself, I guess. Or we treat it like the lions at the zoo and spend all our effort caging its wildness. That’s about it.
Our sexuality needs to be cared for, nurtured, and blessed. The absence of care in this area is worse than mere neglect; something like a curse lands on our hearts. When we don’t talk about or acknowledge something, we make a statement about its value— or lack thereof.”
That’s why I’m fighting for in this book. To reach those men stuck not just in sexual struggle but sexual silence and shame too. The silence sufferers. Those guys who want to find a way to embody sexuality well and be a really good lover.
“You need to know that your sexuality never lost its original blessing or its capacity to return to its original glory with the help of God. Believe it or call me a liar, but your sexual aliveness and innocence can be recovered. It’s actually one of the most important things you can do to change the world for good. The world needs men who’ve recovered their sexual aliveness and, with it, their awe and innocence.”
When a man discovers that true virility arises not from the loins, but from a his heart, his life can change and so can the whole world. That’s what I want to reclaim and rouse with this book.
And as of today The Sex Talk You Never Got is the one we can now have together! My book is available wherever you buy your books.
Thank you for being a reader and supporting my work. And thank you to all those you’ve already purchased or replied with your encouragement. It means so much to me.
One of the greatest gifts you can give an author is a review of their books. It truly speaks so much. I’d be so grateful if you write a review for The Sex Talk You Never Got. Here’s a short tutorial on how to write reviews (disregard the launch team mention). You can write the review here: Amazon | Goodreads
Yes and amen!
Hey Sam, I am loving your new book!
I just posted my first Substack publication, it's about political humility. Would you give it a read and let me know what you think?
Here's the link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-145617991?r=10irue&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web