#98 Paternal Workshop: Sex and Intimacy

NICK FIRCHAU: So if you're a regular listener to this show, you probably know by now that over the past two years or so, we've been doing something a little different with our episodes from time to time here on Paternal.

Of course, we're still featuring conversations with various men about what we call the brotherhood of fatherhood. And on the final episode of 2023, you're going to hear some excerpts from the best conversations of the year.  And we'll be here with all new episodes beginning again in January.  But on this episode, we're going to return to our Paternal Workshop series, where we discuss various issues affecting the social construction of masculinity and its effects on men's mental health. 

Now, we've done this a few times before and we've received tremendous feedback from listeners and so much of that has to do with the guest we feature on these episodes. And that's Dr. Michael Addis, an award winning research psychologist who specializes in the links between social learning and the social construction of masculinity, as well as the ways men experience, express and respond to the problems in their lives. He's also a father, an author. and a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

Dr. Addis initially joined us on episode 40 of Paternal and discussed a variety of topics focused on how men deal with issues in their lives. And we've also called on him in the past to discuss how men relate to anger and shame. And he's also discussed how to handle that one guy in your group of friends who just can't stop saying offensive things.

Sometimes Dr. Addis and I really have to work to focus on the topic for these episodes, but in other instances, he or I can start a conversation in a heartbeat. And that was the case with this episode. When I reached out to Dr. Addis recently about connecting again for a workshop episode, he immediately, without hesitation, Suggested the topic for this show, sex and intimacy. 

Now, if you're a regular in this show, you might remember that we've discussed sex on this show a few times in the past, including when nationally recognized sexuality counselor Dr. Ian Kerner appeared on episode 46, and discussed, among other things, how most of his male clients are raised to succeed in just about every facet of life, but they're often ill equipped to have open conversations about sex. 

DR. IAN KERNER: Guys who are like, hey, I'm ambitious, I'm going to succeed in life. And they, you know, had some kind of parental figure who was like, oh man, I suck at math. Well, let's sit down and do the problem together. Let's get you a tutor. You know what? We, we should look at colleges, or, uh, Hey, you're having issues playing soccer? Um, let's get, let's go out there and play. I'm basically saying guys who are scaffolded at every point of their life, but not in the area of sex, right?  

NICK FIRCHAU: I was also thrilled to welcome celebrated sex educator and author Cory Silverberg on the show, back on episode 71 to discuss how men approach talking to kids about sex. 

CORY SILVERBERG: Yeah, I mean, I think among straight people who are kind of gender normative, there's still these expectations that like a woman is the one that does this. They're gonna be, she's gonna be better at it, and men don't know how to do it. I, I don't know what this generation of kids is gonna be like, 'cause there are a lot of men that are, that are very active parents.I think I'm experiencing, I'm noticing a change.  

NICK FIRCHAU: You can find each of those episodes in our archives, but this episode is a little different. Because this episode focuses specifically on how our social construction of masculinity affects sex and intimacy. And this is a topic that, I'll admit, I was a little hesitant about discussing because to me it feels like anger or shame are much easier to examine than sex. 

But it was one Dr. Addis wanted to dive right into because if one of the objectives of this show, and specifically these paternal workshop episodes, is to help men develop the language they need to discuss the issues in their lives, then sex and intimacy is as good a place to start as any,  because most men simply don't know how to begin the conversation. 

Here's Dr. Michael Addis on Paternal. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: I think it's because it's a topic that as men, we really don't talk about much at all, especially with other men. And as soon as I say that, you know, I have to back up and say, well, wait a minute, who's going to believe that men don't talk about sex with other men? You know, the stereotype is we think about sex and talk about sex all the time. There's those images of men's brains where 75 percent of it is based on sex.

But in my experience and in our research, we only see men talking about it in a very narrow way, having to do with performance, with the frequency with which you're having sex, with, you know, complaints about your partner, you know, that sort of thing. What isn't talked about is all of the aspects of emotional intimacy, of vulnerability. Of what our actual true desires are, not what we're told they are by the stories of masculinity in our culture, you know, all the stuff that happens as part of being a normal human being and, you know, having a sexual experience with another person, so much of that is remaining hidden and silent in men's conversations.

So for me, it's one of the number one things guys need to talk more about, but more honestly.  

NICK FIRCHAU: We had a sexuality counselor on the show awhile back who discussed how your relationship to sex can be a direct result of the type of home you were raised in, right? And whether or not your parents or the people in that home talked about sex in a negative, positive, or avoidant way. I was raised in a sex avoidant home, largely. So in those cases, sex isn't a good thing or a bad thing, you just don't really talk about it.

When it comes to sex and intimacy specifically, is it safe to assume that if you were raised in a home where there was very little intimacy on display, right, like not much open affection and vulnerability, you're more likely to struggle with that aspect of a sexual relationship when you're older? 

MICHAEL ADDIS: Sex is one of many ways in which human beings engage in an intimate connection. And I think it's really helpful to think about it that way, you know, as opposed to the way I was taught to think about it growing up, was it's this amazing, powerful, mysterious force experience you have to have and get it over with, and then get more of it.

It's this thing unto itself, right? And now, you know, at 58 years old, I'm thinking, what a false narrative, you know, to me. What is it about? And I think this is well supported by research in the medical and social sciences. This is, you know, first of all, it's reproductive, right? That's part of it, but it's also this emotional intimacy, right?

It’s a point of connection between people and like other forms of intimacy, it requires  us to expose ourselves to vulnerability. You know, how we approach vulnerability is an intimacy or very much learned, you know, from an early point in our childhood, not just from parents and siblings and family culture, but also from the larger culture around us. 

If you grow up without a lot of intimacy in your environment to model emotional intimacy, you know, if you're not seeing your parents express affection, either physically or verbally or or in other ways, if you're not hugged a lot yourself, this doesn't mean you're screwed up for life, but it does mean that that connection and physical and emotional intimacy and verbal intimacy are not going to feel as common or as comfortable to us.

And that's an individual difference that occurs across gender, right? It doesn't matter whether you're male, female, both, somewhere in between, or neither. Some people have more exposure to intimacy as they develop than other people. The thing about being a man is that in addition to whatever we witnessed, in our family, we have male peers, video, film, music, you know, media. 

And what is it that as men we're taught about emotional vulnerability and what to do with it? And I think that has a huge influence on how we approach sex.  

NICK FIRCHAU: You mentioned the other influences on men when it comes to, you know, where they learn about sex and intimacy. In the absence of that information from your parents, media, TV, films, music, they'll fill that void for men. And they do fill that void for a lot of men, whether it's healthy or not. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: Oh, without a doubt. You know, this is what humans do, right? We create stories in our heads from what we see around us. And sometimes we do it, you know, in ways that perfectly match what we see around us and other times we modify it and we incorporate things in.

And so when I think about young men in our culture, growing up, trying to figure out sex, right, I think, well, where do we get our information from? So if you're fortunate enough to grow up in a family with a lot of really clear, transparent communication, great. But we know that's not as common as it could be. 

One of the aspects that boys learn about early on when it comes to movies, porn, talking to friends as a teenager, whatever it might be, is the idea of performance. Like, nothing is more important than performance. And it feels like men have been fed that message for a long time. 

NICK FIRCHAU: Can you talk about that focus on performance and what it might do to affect the way a boy, or, ultimately, a man?

MICHAEL ADDIS: Yes, I think this is one of, one of masculinity's greatest hits, right? I mean, this is, this, this is just a perennial thing. You know, thinking from a heteronormative perspective for a second, right? Thinking about what do boys first learn about sex with girls, and I would say the dominant message that you get, and I would include things here from things like Disney films, teen sitcoms, all these things, is, if you're a boy, number one, you should be extremely interested in sex.

Number two, you should try to get it as soon as you can. And as much as you can. Number three, it's all about you. But then as you get a little bit older, you start to internalize this idea that no, it's about your partner too, but your partner's sexual enjoyment is a measure of your performance ability. It's a measure, ultimately, of your masculinity.  

If you add that all up, you have a lot of us who as males have internalized the idea that sexuality is a performative sort of thing for your enjoyment primarily, and other people's enjoyment is really a measure of your ability as a lover. So now your partner's enjoyment is a scoreboard for your prowess rather than something that, you know, is equally as valid as your own enjoyment and influenced by as many diverse factors as your own enjoyment is too. 

NICK FIRCHAU: And when we were emailing about this topic, you brought up the idea of a man's body as a performative machine, which I thought was interesting, but I was hoping that you could flesh it out a little bit here. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that term, by a man's body as a performative machine?

MICHAEL ADDIS: Yeah, I mean, the metaphor of men's bodies as machines has been with us in Western culture since at least the industrial revolution, if not before. So you know, this idea that masculinity is totally tied up in your ability to get things done physically is a very, very common idea. And with sex, the idea that your body is a machine, I think really takes one's attention, one's experience away from the connection, and puts it on productivity, performance, achievement, some sort of metric, you know, ultimately to my mind, masculinity.

And I think one of the consequences of the emphasis on the performative machine is that a lot of us men are unaware of how our broader well-being, our broader life experience, affects us sexually -stress, conflict, financial difficulties, everything that goes on in our lives affects our comfort level during intimate moments and our comfort level during intimate moments is totally linked to our performance. 

If you want to look at it that way, or just our enjoyment in our partners’ enjoyment. So taking care of and attending to our emotional well-being, all those issues we've talked about on this program, are absolutely connected to the quality of our sexual lives. 

NICK FIRCHAU: Okay. So I'm with you on that idea of the performative machine idea. That feels very familiar, actually. That definitely makes sense when I think about the messages about sex that I've received, or I've seen in films or television or heard of music, whatever it is. 

You know, to be fair, I understand why a man would think it's far more comfortable or familiar to think of sex as an act in which I need to perform, that feels far more familiar, far more comfortable, far more one dimensional than thinking of sex as an intimate moment that requires me to be vulnerable.

MICHAEL ADDIS: So the idea that sex is about performance and achievement  creates this very narrow focus on erection, orgasm, right? Yours and your partner’s. And that's all it's about. And there's nothing wrong with that aspect of sex, right? 

But if you think about it more broadly, you know, what is sex about, my God, it's, you know, you're looking into someone else's soul, if you want to look at it that way. You're touching someone else's body. You're allowing yourself to be touched. You're opening yourself up to whatever you might be feeling, everything from joy and passion to fear and anxiety. And your partner too. So it takes a tremendous amount of trust, I think, to really allow ourselves to be present.

I think that's why it's more familiar, is because if you focus on the performance, then the interaction becomes a job to be done. A fun one, hopefully, but a job to be done.  If you focus on,  yes, sexual gratification, yes, sexual enjoyment, but also emotional connection, you actually open yourself up to a whole wide range of experiences that are far more gratifying.

Like, for example, let me throw one that might sound totally foreign to you. Not every guy wants to have sex all the time. How many guys feel like they can say to their partner, ‘I'm not into it, but I'd like to be held or, um, I'm turned on, but my body's not really responding right now.’ I'd like to please you.’ 

You know what? All of these are what I call in our research script incongruent experiences. In other words, there are things that happen that are incongruent with the conflict with our script about what's supposed to be happening sexually, but they happen all the time. So what do you do right then?

If you're having a bunch of experiences while engaged intimately with someone and you think I can't be having this experience, this doesn't fit with being a good, desirable, well-performing male, all of which gets in the way of that broader connection.  

NICK FIRCHAU: We'll have more from Dr. Michael Addis on this special episode of Paternal in a second. But if this is the first time you've listened to the show, I wanna let you know that you can find all of our previous episodes featuring conversations with great men about the Brotherhood of Fatherhood on our website, at paternalpodcast.com, or they're in your feed right now.  You can check out the archives to listen to past episodes with three time FIFA World Cup veteran Landon Donovan, CNN lead anchor Jake Tapper, comedian and filmmaker W. Kamau Bell, New York Times Chief Theater critic Jesse Green, and New York Times bestselling author Andre Dubus III on something most men are much more comfortable talking about than sex: fighting.  

ANDRE DUBUS III: And it, and it makes me wonder about the performance I took on as a kid, and it was clearly a particular performance. It was Chuck Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Billy Jack. It was, a man is one who protects and defends his family. A man is one who can kick the ass of the bullies and the victimizers. You're forgiven if you try and get your ass kicked or you get killed. You get total credit for the bravery to stand up. But if you don't stand up, you're not a man. 

NICK FIRCHAU: You can find that episode and all of our other episodes dating back to 2017 in our archives at paternalpodcast.com. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening, then keep an eye on your feed for new episodes. 

I'm Nick Firchau, and this is Paternal. Let's say you've listened to one or a few of the previous Paternal Workshop episodes with Dr. Michael Addis in the past. My hope is that those episodes help provide some of the language to talk about some tough topics related to men's mental health. I know in making them, I've become more comfortable, more capable of talking about some of those issues with my male friends. 

But the topic this time around is different. As Dr. Addis said in the beginning of this episode, sex is such an important aspect of our lives, but so many of us struggle to have real conversations about sex, either with our partners or with our friends. 

And that's largely the focus of the second half of this episode. To start this part of the conversation, I told Dr. Addis that for all the practice I've had in discussing complicated subjects on this show, anger, violence, addiction, poverty, death, you name it,  I've still never had a candid conversation about sex with my male friends. 

And I'm not sure I want to. That feels like a bridge too far to cross, and in my group of male friends, we're all okay with that. So the question to Dr. Addis - why?

MICHAEL ADDIS: I think this falls under this sort of very broad mandate that we face as men that has everything to do with masculinity, which is have your shit together and don't have problems. And especially, especially don't have problems in areas of life that are central to your competence as a man. And what is more central to your competence as a man than society's notion of what you're supposed to do with your genitals? 

I mean, it's funny, but it kind of comes down to that, right? So, like, I'm trying to think how many times have I had a very frank, open, inclusive conversation with a man about sex. I think one time I heard an adult guy and a group of other men ask a question and the question was, ‘Hey, have you guys ever had the experience where you couldn't stop being hard?’

That's interesting, right? Like that's, you know, so, so he's asking about an experience that's deviant in some way, not deviant bad, but like unusual, but it fits with the dominant script, right? You don't hear guys going, ‘Hey, look, I'm having a hard time getting it up or I'm not interested in sex, or sometimes my partner's sexual desire intimidates me. And I wonder if I'm enough for them’, right? 

Or any of these things, which, you know, if you're in the field of psychology and clinical work and counseling, you know, this stuff exists and it's far more common, but we just have a really hard time sharing it with other guys because of the same fear that we have about sharing anything vulnerable with other guys, which is, we'll find out we're weird,  that we're different, right? And our status will go down and we'll be rejected. 

NICK FIRCHAU: And we talked about this before on previous episodes, that we as men are mindful of the group dynamic, right? Like we don't want to be rejected. And sometimes we look out for each other's masculinity too. Like, we protect it. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: Exactly. It's the policing of masculinity. That's right. We take a shared interest in it as a group. 

NICK FIRCHAU: So on the flip side of that, then I have to admit that even if a guy, a male friend, came up to me and had the courage to start a conversation about sex, I don't know that I'd feel comfortable with it. Like you and I can have all these conversations and we're cool with people listening in, but to be completely honest, like I'm not sure I want a male friend talking to me about sex. And most of them don't want me talking to them. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: The thing is, when you're not used to talking about something, It's going to make you anxious to hear it if it's at all a sensitive topic. So, you know, I work really hard to be open to all kinds of conversations about issues related to men and masculinity.

And I still get shocked sometimes or things make me uncomfortable or a guy opens up about something emotional and I find myself tightening up and I think it's better to be aware of it than not. And we can also choose at that point what to do, you know, so if a friend is disclosing something about his, you know, his experience with sex and it's making us feel anxious or weird, like we want to change the topic, we can say to ourselves, all right, let me just hang in there for a couple more minutes, right?

You know, and, and maybe just say, ‘Hey man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you're going through that.’ Or, big risk, If it's something you can relate to, you might say ‘that's happened to me too.’ Because ultimately that's what we all need, right? We all need to know as men that our experiences and our feelings and our thoughts about sex are far more diverse than society would ever lead us to believe.

So we all go around thinking that if we have experiences that don't fit into that script,  it must make us weird because no one's talking about those experiences. We all need to feel like we're normal.  And I think as men, we're especially anxious about feeling normal as men.  Like, our masculinity is okay. So anything that happens that makes me feel like, ah, maybe that's really a weakness as a guy is going to be more powerful in shaping my behavior than, you know, anything else I might be anxious about. 

NICK FIRCHAU: So let's talk about some solutions here. And the first one to consider for me is to consider where you're getting your information or your models about sex and intimacy. Like, what were the influences that shaped how you think about sex? What's it supposed to be? And then consider if those models were helpful or not. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: I think that's absolutely the first step, is just beginning to reflect on that. And I think a lot of young men, if they're being honest with themselves, will tell you that they're getting their ideas from porn or from other guys.And as it turns out, neither of those sources are a very reliable way of communicating the actual facts about the diversity of people's experiences with sex. I mean, guys lie to each other about their sexual exploits, and porn has a very narrow, very specific kind of story, on average, about what's supposed to happen.

So, I suggest that men ask themselves that question: Where am I getting this information from and how is it impacting me? I think that's the first step. And do I want to get some information from somewhere else? Like, there is available information about men's sexuality from reliable sources, like the National Institute of Health, or the Psychology of Men and Masculinity's webpage, Division 51 of the American Psychological Association. You know, there are places to go where more reliable, more valid information is available. 

And then the next thing, I think the next step is to begin to have conversations with other men, to have the courage to share your real self. Maybe you start in small doses. ‘You know, this person that I went out with, I didn't connect sexually with.’ And you know, when, when somebody says, ‘Oh, were they not, you know, were they not hot enough? Were they not into it?’ Maybe instead of saying, yeah, you say, ‘no, you know, it's just, it was very fast and aggressive, and I don't like that. I tend to be more tender,’ you know, I'm just making up this example, but it's the sharing of that which is not supposed to be shared that creates a better world for everyone involved. 

The more I hear that you're like me and you're not like me, and the other guys I hear from it, they have different experiences. Some of which I share, the more I begin to really, truly believe. That I've been sold a bill of goods here  and that there is actually a, you know, a more flexible way of being. 

NICK FIRCHAU: And the other thought that immediately comes to mind here, but it's easier said than done in a lot of relationships, is an open conversation about sex with your partner. 

MICHAEL ADDIS: Absolutely. There is nothing like open communication with a sexual partner to increase the quality of that connection. You know, let's talk about what kind of conversations you might want to have, right?

So it's sort of a trope for guys to say, ‘So like, was that good? I always ask my partner, were you satisfied?’ That's a question about your performance, right? And maybe there is some insecurity about that and that's okay to ask about once in a while, but I think what you and I are talking about is a much broader series of conversations about how you feel our sex life is going.

Are there things that you would like to do differently? What do you enjoy? How can I communicate to you what I enjoy in a way that is useful for you to hear? What am I not telling my partner that would be helpful for me to tell my partner?  Like, for example, I think it's not uncommon in sexual relationships sometimes for people to not know at a point in time what it is that they're looking for, or what is pleasing to them.

And I think it's really useful for men, for all people, to be aware that our bodies and our minds change over time. What we liked in our 20s may not be what we like in our 40s and 50s. What we're able to do in our 20s may not be what we're able to do in our 40s and 50s. I think the dominant narrative for men and sex and age is one of loss, right? The older you get, the less powerful you are sexually and therefore, the less enjoyment you're going to have and the less enjoyment your partner is going to have. 

And I don't think there's any evidence that that's true. I think that's very much a cultural stereotype and one we need to work to deconstruct because the other thing that happens to men as we get older is we get hopefully more emotionally intelligent, more interested in and aware of our own emotional responses and those of others, and that actually facilitates intimacy and safety within a couple relationship, and that enhances the quality of the sexual connection. 

Bringing the humanity into it, right? Rather than like I started, the idea that this is the ultimate sort of performative experience here.  

NICK FIRCHAU: Here's the last one, and it's related to a theme that has come up, I think, a couple of times here. And the idea that, you know, not unlike some of the other topics you and I have discussed on this show, the more we can talk about how the social construction of masculinity can sometimes limit what a man can be, the easier it is to let go of some of those hangups about, you know, quote, unquote, being a man.  

MICHAEL ADDIS: Yeah, I think that's right. When we can begin to realize that our experiences are really heavily influenced by our inner voices, by, by what we say to ourselves about what should be happening and who I should be in this moment, as opposed to who I am.

And I think that a lot of men never realize that their expectations for themselves are so heavily shaped by what they believe they should be as men by their concerns about their masculinity and letting that go, it's not going to fundamentally change who you are, but learning to let go of the anxiety about how am I supposed to be because I'm male allows such a greater array of experiences into your life. 

Like we've talked about in many episodes of this program, right? Like whether it's deeper relationships, being able to address misogyny and homophobia in your friendships. Coping with depression and anxiety, better communication at work, or in case of what we're talking about now, better sex. 

NICK FIRCHAU: That's research psychologist, author, professor, and father, Dr. Michael Addis. He also offers personal coaching and consultation at michaeladdiscoaching.com. And we'll put a link where you can learn more in the show notes for this episode. 

Paternal is edited and produced by me, Nick Firchau. You can email me at nick@paternalpodcast.com, or I'm on Twitter, at nickfirchau. The Paternal logo was designed by Trevor Porter.  

I'm Nick Firchau, and this is Paternal.