What can sexual fantasies teach us? How should we analyze them? In this episode, Drew and Doug vulnerably share and analyze each other's sexual fantasies so you can understand what this work practically looks like and how to do it well.
The best place to start is Husband Material Academy, which opens up on January 1.
Learn more at joinHMA.com
Take the Husband Material Journey...
Thanks for listening!
What can sexual fantasies teach us? How should we analyze them? In this episode, Drew and Doug vulnerably share and analyze each other's sexual fantasies so you can understand what this work practically looks like and how to do it well.
The best place to start is Husband Material Academy, which opens up on January 1.
Learn more at joinHMA.com
Take the Husband Material Journey...
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go. Today we are going to demonstrate how to analyze a sexual fantasy. I will be sharing one of my sexual fantasies in vulnerable detail, and Dr Doug Carpenter will be doing the same, because as you open up about the specifics of your sexual fantasies with a safe person you can trust, there's so much healing, insight, redemption and freedom from porn that can result. So if you've ever wondered, what does it actually look like? What do they do in Husband Material Academy, this gives you a little bit of an example and if you love this episode, then you will really love Husband Material Academy, the all-in-one program for Christian men outgrowing porn, where we go in depth into helping you analyze your specific sexual fantasies. Enjoy the episode. I'm here with my friend, dr Doug Carpenter. What's up, doug?
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm just happy to be here with you today and do another podcast.
Speaker 1:This past year, doug and I have gone a lot deeper together, especially in husband material groups, sharing some of our specific sexual fantasies. This is not a new journey for us. However, it is a journey that goes deeper and deeper. In this episode, we want to show you guys what it is like to face your fantasies and analyze them so that you can understand what is at the core of your deep desires, underneath your sexual arousal. And as we do this, it is going to be extremely vulnerable.
Speaker 1:We have talked about this with our wives. We are not sharing absolutely everything, and we want to model what it's like to do this without being too graphic, without getting into the energy of something erotic, but simply talking about it in order to understand it and find out what is really driving us, because when we do this, porn has so much less power over us. We've both experienced that. We want you guys to experience that, and my hope is that, as a result, you will feel more encouraged to talk about your own fantasies in a safe environment like what we are creating at husband material. We hope that you'll have some new insights and breakthroughs into understanding yourself and that you will feel less self-contempt, more curiosity and compassion and, ultimately, that you'll be able to accept your fantasies without being enslaved to them. Doug, what would you add to that?
Speaker 2:Well, I've been studying sexual fantasies for many years, even before I met Drew. This was something that I had been reading about, studying, about working with, because it has such a strong representation to the underlying wounds and needs and issues that a person carries, and to the point where, with with any client, if I feel like I have enough rapport with them, I might ask them can we talk about something that's very vulnerable? Can we talk about your sexual fantasies and I know that may seem weird, that I would want to talk about that with you but it is one of the quickest ways for me to really understand what are the core issues that are driving you, because how we use sexual fantasies to bring what we think as repair to our situation.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Even when it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't bring that, but it will tell me so much quicker what the underlying issues are, and usually people are amazed if they will be vulnerable and tell me the specifics of their sexual fantasies, my interpretation of them and usually they're not sexual at all.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And then they're blown away like I don't know how you got that from me just telling you this, and then I walk through them and explain it and they just gain so much insight from the process and I think I have so much insight about myself by analyzing my own sexual fantasies that it's just been so enlightening and healing for myself and it definitely changed the way I think about my own issues of sexuality and sexual issues and pornography that I just want to be able to share that.
Speaker 1:It is one of the primary skills that we teach at Husband Material to help you outgrow porn and concepts. But today we're not talking about ideas. We are going into the real deal. Like what is it actually like to face a fantasy? What kinds of things do you say? What kinds of insights do you discover? We're gonna demonstrate that You're going to get a taste of what it's like to be in a Husband Material level, one small group where we share these things with each other. So here we go.
Speaker 2:Here we go. I'm gonna start with you. Let me just say this is incredibly vulnerable of you to do this and of me to do this and to open up our hearts, so the men listening to this podcast can do the same.
Speaker 1:And we're not telling you to go talk about this with anyone in a safe, professional one-on-one setting or in a really supportive small group or maybe even with your spouse. You need to find a context you can trust and we don't think everybody should go make a podcast like this.
Speaker 2:No, definitely not. You need a lot of background of understanding this and psychological principles and symbolism to be able to fully understand this, but we definitely want to get you on a path of curiosity and where you can approach yourself in a courageous way, with compassion and curiosity, to try to understand why is this there for me and what does it mean for me?
Speaker 1:And we never stop learning about these things. I'm always discovering new layers that I didn't see before, and you will too, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or if I notice that, even if there's just one little tweak in my sexual fantasy, I go why did that happen? Yeah, what is that connected to? I start pulling on that thread and what's coming behind it, because even one little change can have some significant meaning.
Speaker 1:Very true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, drew, are you ready to start this process?
Speaker 1:I'm ready enough, ready enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So, in this much detail that you're comfortable with and you feel is appropriate, tell me about one of your sexual fantasies.
Speaker 1:When I was a teenager, masturbating to my typical sexual fetish of girls with braces. Eventually it got boring and I needed to find a way to make it more exciting and my fantasies escalated and I discovered certain details and certain scenarios would really turn me on even more and they got a little bit darker and more violent and really the most shame filled fantasy for me involved being in the position of an orthodontist. There is a beautiful woman coming into my office. She's already had braces twice before. This is her third time and that detail just ramps up the arousal for me and she's feeling self-conscious about it, frustrated, ashamed and humiliated.
Speaker 1:The humiliation piece really oddly gets me, and I've found that this can be the case for braces Someone needing to wear glasses can have a similar effect. But if they feel humiliation and it's on their face, that hits me for some reason and I proceed to put braces on her teeth and she gives me oral sex. She is feeling violated and horrified, but in the end she really likes it and in the end, while she's feeling so bad about herself, I tell her I love you, I accept you, you're beautiful to me and by the time that comes around, typically I've already reached the most exciting and explosive part of the fantasy. So by that time it's all over. But if I ask myself, well, how would it end Then? In the end we would become a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend. And there you have it.
Speaker 2:To some listening to your story it may just kind of sound like a simple fantasy, something that you would see in pornography. There's a lot of service industry porn where Dr, patient, Pool Guy, ladies, home, whatever a lot of service industry porn. So you might think that this is just kind of average and normal and simple. But I heard so many different layers as you were talking, and so I would like to kind of start examining some of those layers with you and just see what we can uncover. So when you first started this story you talked about it being a girl and then later you switched to the word woman. I'm wondering if you could just walk me through that a little bit. What do you see? Is that person?
Speaker 1:The women were younger. However, I often noticed that it would also work for an older woman. It didn't have to be someone my age. It was typically someone my age. However, even the idea of a mother type person in that role was also appealing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it sounds like you have both, or you have had, depending on where you're at at different ages in your life, which is very appropriate. Like, teenagers will often look for teenage porn because that's who they relate to. But you know, sometimes men find themselves attracted to teenage porn and sometimes that just represents that trauma is stuck at that age and so that's what pulls you back there. But for you, with it sometimes being maybe teen girls and other times being adults, I would wonder if you have had issues or been hurt by adult women and you were hurt somehow also by teen girls in your adolescence?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's spot on.
Speaker 2:Where this person coming to you could be young or old, that there's some kind of wounding there.
Speaker 1:My mother my aunt, my grandmother, all invaded my face, they kissed me and I would have a bright pink lipstick spot on my cheek.
Speaker 2:And what was the feeling that you had when you had that bright lipstick on your face? Total humiliation. Right.
Speaker 1:Like emasculated. I'm not even a boy. I have lipstick on my face. I remember theater when I was in high school but I could never, ever have makeup. I just couldn't do makeup at all, and I think part of it goes back to that. There was even one time when my grandmother licked me and even as an adult, I remember my aunt calling and saying Drew, I'm so hungry for you, I haven't seen you in so long. Oh my, this enmeshment, ickiness. It was disgusting. And I remember just being so afraid of girls growing up and this sounds really weird, but I could never typically be attracted to somebody who I knew liked me. That never felt safe. But if somebody was indifferent toward me or I knew they didn't like me, that would be more attractive and I think that gave me a bit of safety. And for the role of the orthodontist, it's like this person has no sexual energy toward me at all, which makes it safe somehow Right. And then I go from being the villain who she doesn't want to being the hero who rescues her Right.
Speaker 2:Yes. So see, you're already having a lot of insight into this on your own, without you even guiding you there, some of it because you've processed before. But I think it's important that the listeners understand how you got there. So let's back up a little bit. What I hear is I hear there's a projection of your own humiliation, of how you felt with your mother or your grandmother and the lipstick on your face that now this girl is coming in and she has a sense of humiliation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you said that that was kind of her main feeling. Right through all of this or at the end of this, there was a sense of humiliation before you became boyfriend and girlfriend.
Speaker 1:The detail of her needing to get braces three times was huge for me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I remember when we were in this small group together. I was puzzled about that and you helped me realize. That's basically what I went through over and over again, not just one time. This was throughout my growing up years. This is just what the women in my family did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that lipstick was put on you several times. Yes, and you felt humiliated.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh and it was like what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in your fantasy this girl's coming to you and somebody has messed up her teeth or her braces over and, over and over, and now she's coming to you for it to be corrected.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think there's a big projection of yourself and your own image on her. You felt victimized through that. She's now been a victim.
Speaker 1:Right. So in the fantasy I consciously identify with the orthodontist and I picture myself in that role. I actually am also the girl.
Speaker 2:Your shadow. You identify most with the girl, but you've always wanted to be the orthodontist. Because the orthodontist? What does he represent in this fantasy? Tell me about him.
Speaker 1:He's powerful, he's confident, he's successful. He's financially successful, he's successful, he's respected. Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:He's not just a dentist you use the word. He's an orthodontist, he's an expert. I think he also holds longings that you want that. You want to be helpful, you want to be an expert. You want people to come to you for help and for healing, which are beautiful sides of you. I adore those parts of you that want that and it's part of what makes you into who you are. So you've got a mix of your kind of golden self and your shadow self here. In your own fantasy, the girl represents this wounded part of you. The Ornithodontics, a Donus, represents kind of a savior part of you or somebody who's going to have all the answers.
Speaker 1:And that savior part of me also developed very young, Because while I was moving around so much growing up, my mom was very lonely. She carried a lot of shame. My dad wasn't there and I felt like it was my job to help her feel better. So as I've sat with this fantasy, I see that part of my deepest goodness and strength is being able to remove shame.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And my mom's shame is where that started and the fantasy after taking this girl to a very vulnerable and horrible place, the Ornithodontics removes her shame.
Speaker 2:Right, he does remove her shame, he rescues her.
Speaker 1:He is with her and he wants connection in the middle of her shame. I think that's probably more accurate because you know she's still in pain. She's still just got braces again, right, she's not okay. And he is offering himself to her and she receives him. And to me that's another layer of it, because the oral sex piece to me symbolizes being received in my masculinity.
Speaker 2:He becomes a hero to her, and then she rewards him through oral sex, and that's the taking in. She accepts him, she somewhat, maybe, unites with him in this process. You have healed me. I now want to please you.
Speaker 1:Some of that resonates with me, some of it doesn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, what parts resonate?
Speaker 1:It's not really a sense of like you have healed me. Now I'm going to do this for you. Part of what used to be arousing for me was her protesting.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. What did that protest sound like?
Speaker 1:Well, in the fantasy she didn't want to give me oral sex, but then later she decided that she liked it. Okay, she rejects him and then later accepts him. You know, like the rejection makes it feel real. That's because I was so rejected.
Speaker 2:Was that a pattern for you with girlfriends that at first they would reject you and then later become your girlfriend, or was there any part of you from the past that resonates with that cycle and that pattern?
Speaker 1:That's interesting. It was actually that I would start to have some flirtation and hope of becoming boyfriend and girlfriend over and over and then it got cut off or got shut down or she would reject me. And sometimes that was because I moved, sometimes that was because I would be giving her this really clingy, needy energy and she did not want that. So maybe it's a reversal in the sense that I would be excited about acceptance and then get rejected. But in the fantasy I'm rejected but then I accept it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has the Disney ending.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's very much a Disney ending.
Speaker 2:Right, it comes back around in what you said earlier and now we're boyfriend and girlfriend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, it's true, love's first kiss. In a very strange way.
Speaker 2:Right, but through oral sex and on a kiss.
Speaker 1:You know what? The thing that I wanted the most during my teenage years was first kiss. I would be looking at my birthday candles each year thinking, oh, not this year, maybe next year, maybe next year will be the year when I have my first kiss.
Speaker 2:You're longing for a first kiss. Do you think that has anything to do with the part of a female that you kind of became obsessive about? Was the mouth Like there's something about getting a kiss from this girl that would make you feel accepted or you know? It was what you longed for as a teenager, but something you weren't getting near your ear.
Speaker 1:The mouth obsession has been there for a long time.
Speaker 2:Well, I think from grandma, from these women using their mouth to kiss your face, you know. So there's been a lot of issues around the mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That, I think, makes sense of why it plays into your sexual fantasies.
Speaker 1:And there are other stories I could tell that shaped the fear and arousal and shame that I have.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think the oral sex part again is using your mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It involves the mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is there any parallels between the person who comes in needing her braces done for the third time and how she feels about how she looks, and how you felt about your own looks as a teenager?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I used to spend embarrassing amounts of time in front of the mirror popping zits and obsessing over my own teeth. And then, when I got braces, I thought maybe that would fix something for me. And sexually, I thought maybe then finally I won't think about this or focus on this so much. But in the end I just started masturbating to myself.
Speaker 2:So it kind of deepened your own getting braces, almost deepened this entire sexual fantasy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so sometimes I would be the villain, sometimes I would be the victim and by and large, I have felt like the arousal of being a victim has stayed with me more since this first became a part of my arousal template.
Speaker 2:OK, so at this point in these fantasies, who do you identify more with? The girl or the orthodontist?
Speaker 1:I guess I see both now, both parts of me. There's the drew who is becoming an expert and helping people understand their sexual shame, and then there's also the drew who still feels shame and who sometimes feels powerless and humiliated as well.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I definitely think both of these hold a part of you, and I actually think the orthodontist holds some healing parts of you and represents something that you're aspiring for.
Speaker 1:It is amazing.
Speaker 2:That expert, the person who can turn pain into pleasure or walk you from pain into no shame.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you had to pick out a few words to describe the orthodontist at the end of the fantasy, when he walks away with the girl, how is he feeling?
Speaker 1:He's feeling accepted, connected, happy, fulfilled, received. It's almost as if that power and domination was ultimately about equalizing things so that I could get to a place where I can actually connect with the feminine, instead of feeling dominated when I was in school, feeling like every single girl that I like is totally out of my league through this experience of equalizing. Now I'm good enough, I've risen up and she has been lowered so that we're together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's interesting while ago that you used the word you would become clingy and needy and just kind of with them. Well, I also think it's interesting too that you use the word forceful and violent when you're the orthodontist of getting the braces on and then forcing the oral sex, but then in the end you walk away with equality and acceptance. And I wonder if that also represents your journey, that you went through a period of life where you were clingy and needy and tried to force girls to like you and make them come into your life and be your girlfriend, and just you forced them, forced them, forced them, and now you're learning to be loved in a healthy one, oh Doug.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, yeah, that was so spot on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where you don't have to have all that force for people to love you and accept you, and that's a process that you're learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got me.
Speaker 2:How do you feel about that part of you that was trying so hard to force someone to love you?
Speaker 1:I feel sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that part may still need some healing, or maybe it's in process of being healed, or maybe it's been healed and you're able to find you know, feel love from other people, and that it doesn't have to be forced or twisted or manipulated or even violent Although you can hug pretty hard sometimes but I think it really represents your journey.
Speaker 1:It totally represents my journey. It symbolizes the story of my life.
Speaker 2:Wow, and in the end you find complete approval and acceptance, which were some of your core issues, because as a child you've talked about having to move around so much that you never could maintain lifelong friends or girlfriends, or it was constantly a battle of acceptance and connection and fitting in because your world constantly changed.
Speaker 1:Yes, and being constantly misunderstood and harshly criticized in my ADHD. Yeah, so just all of the rejection that I faced at home as well as at school, moving around elsewhere.
Speaker 2:And is there something meaningful or powerful for you that this girl comes in, feels humiliated, feels ugly? You're forceful with her, but in the end she improves you, she connects with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And again, I think that may somewhat fit with your story, your storyline. Has this fantasy changed over time for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would actually say this doesn't really arouse me anymore. I mean, there are aspects of seeing somebody with braces that can trigger me, or aspects of somebody wearing a lot of makeup, and I recoil and feel some of that PTSD. However, no, I mean, the more I've talked about this, the more we unpack it, and just even today, seeing that it is a symbol of my whole journey is incredibly healing and I feel a lot of peace about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it shows your growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is some tension in the fact that teenage girls are involved. For me, that was always social media as my porn, rather than a porn website depicting children, right, so you probably picked up on earlier. I was just feeling a little bit tense and not sure whether to call them girls or women.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think that happens with a lot of men, because oftentimes your trauma with girls starts in adolescence and it's like your brain searching for a way to repair that trauma that happened at that age, and so that's where your thought goes back to, because that's the origin story of that trauma. You know the people who are attracted to female girls. I think in their mind and in their fantasy and that's why it's called fantasy these things often just stay in fantasy. We play out the fantasy, maybe at the age or with the people of the age of where the trauma began.
Speaker 1:Right, and porn depicting people of that age is technically image based child abuse.
Speaker 2:Right. It's interesting that you talked about, or that, when I ask you if this fantasy had changed for you over time, and you said yes. I think that shows the power of once we understand our sexual fantasies and even our sexual behavior, like once you pick apart and understand a certain fetish and what it symbolizes and what it represents, just that insight can change the way you feel toward that actor. That fantasy, you know, it was just like for me when I recognized the kind of porn I was attracted to was really just replicating my child sexual abuse. It became yucky instead of attractive, you know. And so these things can change for you over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this has allowed me to not only understand my fantasies, but appreciate the experiences and desires behind them, instead of hating myself and keeping it a secret forever.
Speaker 2:Yes, because I think we have a strong tendency to label ourselves with bad labels. Because I have some sexual fantasy or thought, when really fantasies are just like dreams. They're full of symbolism.
Speaker 1:And this is all really good data that we can use to figure out where we need to heal, and I love Jay Stringer's language, saying that our sexual fantasies are a roadmap to healing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think if you chase the meaning of the fantasy, you can find the road that will take you to the healing for sure.
Speaker 1:And, as our friend Eddie Capparucci says, the road to recovery goes through your childhood.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And some of our strongest sexual attractions and fantasies can be traced back to those childhood experiences, just like what you're seeing now, as I share and as Doug will share. Doug, thank you so much for helping me unpack that.
Speaker 2:Well, you're welcome. As you can see, there's lots of layers and it represents different time frames, different ages, different issues that all get wrapped into one fantasy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not like there's one thing that caused the fantasy and it's not like everybody who experiences the same thing will have the same fantasy.
Speaker 2:Right, they're going to be very individualistic and in my case, I was aware that I had multiple sexual fantasies, but when I sat down and analyzed them, they were all the same theme, which gave me a lot of insight into what it was that I was dealing with.
Speaker 1:Okay, Doug, are you ready to share one of your fantasies?
Speaker 2:Sure. So my fantasy would involve another couple. The man is usually disabled in some way, usually in a wheelchair, and can no longer have sex with his wife. She's usually younger, very pretty, very attractive. They're very wealthy. Through some kind of means he ends up hiring me and I come to his house thinking that I'm going to do some kind of labor type work. But his hiring of me is to really have sex with his wife while he watches, so that she can receive pleasure, and then he receives pleasure by her getting pleasure. Then at the end I've done such a great job that he gives me a bonus and asked me if I'll come back and do it again. So that's the gist of the fantasy, without getting too graphic. So I'm always praised for doing a very good job.
Speaker 1:Doug, what do you see in this fantasy?
Speaker 2:There are multiple points Throughout my life I have struggled with feeling like I was not very attractive, that I'm not the kind of guy that women swoon over or think, oh, I want to go out on a date with him. So this couple seeing me, admiring my body, admiring my looks and wanting me kind of speaks to that wounded part of me of not feeling very attractive.
Speaker 1:I want to highlight the word see. They see you.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's very important In the overall fantasy. That is, the theme is to be seen.
Speaker 1:Right, so they see you and invite you, and then the husband is seeing you with his wife.
Speaker 2:Yes. So for me that piece is another crux of the fantasy and the theme of my life is that as a child and adolescent I never had anyone who confirmed my masculinity. I was in mesh with a mother. She doted over me but taught me all kinds of things that a girl should know how to cook and clean and so but I had an absent emotionally absent father who didn't teach me really anything. So I never felt like my masculinity was affirmed or confirmed to me, or even seen, or even noticed.
Speaker 1:People just viewed you like a girl.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I was brutally teased and bullied through mostly elementary school for being too effeminate, so my masculinity was not confirmed there. I didn't have male friends, I wasn't boy enough, I didn't like to play ball, I wasn't coordinated, all those stereotypical things that a boy who's not athletic can struggle with at those ages. So I didn't feel seen, I didn't feel affirmed in my masculinity. So in this fantasy I think being seen and being affirmed from my masculinity is the whole theme that I'm attractive, I get the attention of this couple. The lady wants to have sex with me. The man thinks I'm worthy of having sex with his wife, that I do a good job. And he watches and often in the fantasy, when I look over at him, he's given me a very approving look like I'm doing a good job. So I'm definitely a words of affirmation person. So that speaks to needing and wanting and longing for the approval of others, and not just the approval of others but the approval of my masculine self.
Speaker 1:And approval from an older man.
Speaker 2:Yes, an approval from an older man, I'm sure, represents a father figure for me, and I think there's another layer in there that it really took me a while, because of the way I was raised and then mesh with my mom, to see women as sexy. And so in this dream, this woman is amazingly sexy and she wants me. In the fantasy she would be more my age, but she's married to that older man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can give her something that he can't give her.
Speaker 2:Right, right. But he's not angry about that. He's very pleased that I can fulfill this role for him. I'm almost like the perfect specimen to do this for him.
Speaker 1:So there's something in you that wants to be pleasing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely To my father and to my mother and to women that I'm attracted to or that are attracted to me.
Speaker 1:I think that's part of your glory delighting others. Whenever we're together, you light up the crowd. You're the life, you're the delight. You bring so much joy to people, thank you. And you're always scheming about how to make other people feel valued and loved and you're always affirming others. I feel like that is who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is very important to me. I think one reason I became a psychologist is because I can relate to the pain of other people and I want them to know that they're not alone and that someone sees them.
Speaker 1:Okay, going back to the seeing part, I wonder if the watching aspect of it relates to some of your first sexual experiences of watching and being watched.
Speaker 2:Well, some of that was I never felt like I had anyone who I could tell, and so no one was ever going to see that my sexual abuse involved a lot of masturbation.
Speaker 1:And watching right.
Speaker 2:Watching and being watched and looking down and watching it being done. So there's probably some layer of trauma that comes into play there, with that whole needing to be seen.
Speaker 1:Does that resonate with you?
Speaker 2:A little bit. It definitely does with the type of porn that I was attracted to. There's definitely some relation there, but for myself and this sexual fantasy, it's more about someone seeing and confirming and approving of my masculinity, like wow, you are like really good at this, you're really masculine.
Speaker 1:And I have to say you are like you are a sex therapist for a reason. Out of all the skills and competencies in life that one could have, you have really invested in your sex life.
Speaker 2:I have majorly invested in my sex life. I do sex therapy with people. I teach people techniques, how to understand and deal with the female body to yield the best results, and for me that plays into affirming my masculinity. I've told my wife before I think the time in my life when I feel the most masculine, just like I'm fully embracing my masculinity, is during sex with her.
Speaker 1:So there's something really beautiful and glorious in your strength as a sexual man.
Speaker 2:Very much so.
Speaker 1:This fantasy feels like a picture of that.
Speaker 2:I would agree. I would agree, and there have been times that that fantasy has changed and it was even shocking to me. I think I've moved from not being so preoccupied of what men think of me now and if they think I'm masculine enough. I think the focus has shifted from women noticing me in my masculinity, which has been an interesting shift.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that sometimes a fantasy gets tweaked or something changes. Is this an example of that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because in the fantasy the fantasy has twisted before where it's two lesbians who have been out and have seen me and thought oh well, let's have one night of heterosexual sex and let's pick him where. Then I'm being confirmed, affirmed by two females, and that was shocking for me, that that was began to take a twist in my fantasies.
Speaker 1:How do you make sense of that Then?
Speaker 2:I'm less and less conscious of what other men think about me and how they perceive my masculinity, that I feel like I've stepped into my own masculinity and that I don't necessarily need another male to affirm me that I'm masculine and part of the boys club. I'm a card-holding member, so I can stop trying to impress you and my wife does see me like that, and I guess I'm more focused on really what she thinks of me and how she perceives me, because I can tell her my weaknesses and she's like I just don't see you that way. I see you smiling. I think that I'm really happy in this journey where I've spent enough time analyzing all these things for myself.
Speaker 2:And when I went to ask her about this podcast, I said, drew and I want to do a podcast about our sexual fantasies. She's like, oh, about you wanting to be seen or watched, that you want to be watched. And I said, yeah, and she's like okay, but you're okay with that. She's like, yeah, I'm okay with it Because, well, and that was how I said earlier that all of my, when I sat down and really analyzed the four or five sexual fantasies that tend to pop in my head, they were all around being watched by someone, and that really came down to my need for someone to affirm my masculinity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe even going back to that early experience of someone to know about what you are feeling sexually.
Speaker 2:Right. And what better way to affirm my masculinity by watching me have sex. I'm being a total man at that point.
Speaker 1:In the fantasy. You are a badass and everybody knows it. Yes and one's more of it. Yeah, that was a big detail. At the end, the husband gives you the money, gives me a bonus, that's right. He gives you a bonus and then he invites you to come back again. Yes, how do you feel when he wants you to come back?
Speaker 2:Like a stud, like very affirmed, very I almost want to say very alpha male-like, yeah, in a healthy way. In a healthy way that I'm very effective, strong, powerful, good at what I do. It kind of represents all those things. But in the fantasy I'm not arrogant about it and I don't ever want to come off that way In the fantasy. I'm still grateful that someone is acknowledging me and affirming me for the work I've done.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yet even that is less than what you want most of all, which is to be affirmed and loved for who you are. Right, you have to do this work, you have to ace it, you have to be an A-plus success, just to be affirmed, just to be seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well and that's one thing that I've been working with my own therapist around is calming down my driver. My part of me that holds all my drivenness, and so that's the part of me we've been working with is to just be able to settle into who I am and not have to push so hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or being overachiever to get to where I want to go Right, and I've been a massive overachiever, which there are themes in the fantasy about that too Like I way overachieve with his wife the excellent job that I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know I have to go above and beyond.
Speaker 1:So in that I hear your beauty and strength as an amazing man, and also your suffering at feeling like the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:I feel like I need to do three times what other men need to do to prove their masculinity, and so I've always been in hyper-overdrive to present myself as knowledgeable, as smart, as strong as competitive, able to keep up with other men.
Speaker 1:And so, with that in mind, when I first heard this fantasy that you have, I asked you a question and I said, doug, is it possible that part of you feels like the older, disabled husband?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that goes back to that part of me that maybe doesn't feel like an enough man. Am I ever gonna be enough? Am I ever not gonna have some kind of disability in being masculine enough, you know? I also think, though, that that older man does represent my father. My father was very broken in his ability to communicate and affirm my masculinity. He had been really abused by his own father, and maybe that's the symbolism of the wheelchair and the disability. There was a part of my dad that was broken and couldn't deliver to me what I needed. It resonates more around my father issues than me directly. There's some sense of what the man in the fantasy me, that he kind of can't believe this is happening to him. He's incredulous, yeah, and that resonates a lot.
Speaker 2:Like wow, like the fact that this couple would want me is kind of like really, I thought I was here to do like yard work or something.
Speaker 1:You thought you were gonna be a servant and you ended up as the star of the show, right.
Speaker 2:I began to notice that through all my fantasies, with that theme being the same theme that I needed to stop trying to seek so much of that approval from other people, that I needed to settle into myself and find that sense of affirmation and comfortability with who I am, no matter what your appraisal is of me, that I I'm not a person, that I am fully comfortable in my own skin and affirming my own masculinity and, honestly, the only person I care about seeing me as masculine is my wife. It's allowed me to let go of so much of what the world and other people think about me. When I realized all these fantasies were about someone can affirming my masculinity, it just changed Like, okay, how do I really need to get that affirmation? And I need to get that through my spouse and I do. I do get it from her.
Speaker 1:Praise God.
Speaker 2:So I think all that illustrates the power of understanding your sexual fantasies and the enlightenment, the insight it can bring to you and how it can help mold your future, your next steps where you need to grow, things you need to accept. It can be very powerful.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. Once you understand your sexual fantasies, what do you do?
Speaker 2:with them. Number one I think it's good to verbally process with someone because I think you need to talk about it. You need to talk about okay, here's what I've discovered about myself. And then how do I take this discovery and put it into some kind of action plan for myself? That's in a healthy way, that's gonna meet this need in a healthy way versus pornography or fantasizing or acting out sexually or whatever. How can I get this need met in a healthy way? What do I really need here? It's just like when somebody calls me and says I'm on the verge of acting out. What's going on underneath this? What's the underlying dynamic? What do you really need? Right now? You know and analyzing your sexual fantasies gets you to that what's the underlying need? And then how am I going to address this appropriately?
Speaker 1:Exactly, and in HMA we teach you how to understand your fantasies and then what to do with your sexual desires in relationship with God, others and yourself.
Speaker 2:The complete reason why I jumped into HM is because I believed in the message of what you were trying to teach and teach men, because it's what I had been doing in therapy for years and I think this program is the most effective thing out there to treat pornography and unwanted sexual behavior, because it gets at those underlying needs that we all have and we all have needs. They're all different, but usually they're around intimacy and connection and acceptance and approval. We're not all that different. The avenue that you go through may be different, but when it comes down to the core needs, we're often all very similar. And then we have to navigate how to get that need met for you individualistically, in a way that's healthy for you.
Speaker 1:And that's why HMA not only includes group calls but also one-on-one hot seat calls, where you can witness somebody else getting in touch with what he needs and then finding it fulfilled in community and oftentimes healing trauma over Zoom. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:It is very amazing.
Speaker 1:So if you're interested in going deep into your story, into your sexual development, and you want to outgrow porn without fighting a frustrating, exhausting battle, then join HMA. The program opens up on January 1st. We opened it up twice a year so that new students can have an amazing experience together. I would love to have you there. The best way to get started on this journey is in Husband Material Academy. Go to joinhmacom.
Speaker 1:The best way to continue and go even deeper in a high-intensity experience is in our Level 2 small groups, which Doug and I are doing both in-person and online. You can come to an in-person weekend where we will spend four days together, or you can join a Level 2 online group and we will spend 12 weeks together. Both are incredibly powerful ways to do this work, with guys who get it in a safe, supportive environment with a professional leader. And if you're interested, go down to the links in the show notes. You'll see a place to join HMA and you'll also see a place to apply for one of our private groups, either in-person or online. Doug, what is your favorite thing about analyzing sexual fantasies?
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, it is speed. It's the speed at which you can get to the point of understanding your core needs. If I can build enough rapport with a person that they're willing to share their sexual fantasy, I can usually get to their core need much quicker than just listening to story after story after story of what's been done or happened in their life. So sexual fantasies, I feel like, are just like an elevator that goes down to the basement level and I open the door and there are the core needs that we need to work on. That's the beauty of this work is just how it can take you right to your core needs and you can start rebuilding.
Speaker 1:And some of you guys might be thinking, oh well, I don't have any fantasies, I don't have something as developed as what Doug and Drew shared. Well, that's okay. You can just start with an image or maybe a video or something that you've imagined and let it play out like a story and just notice what little details make it more appealing to you and then start to notice how that makes you feel, start to notice where it would go from there, how that connects to your story. And it's really really wise to do this not alone, but with other people who can hold that space with you. We are not asking you to sit in the privacy of isolation watching this video or listening to this podcast and to start thinking about all of your fantasies. No, no, no. We're hoping that this is a doorway for you to take the risk, to talk about it and to think about it with people who can be there for you and hold up a mirror to show you what you can't see. Gentlemen, always remember you are God's beloved Son. In you he is well-posed.