The most devastating marriages aren't the ones without sex, they're the ones with duty sex. I was on Melanie Curtin's podcast recently talking about something that affects so many men I work with: the painful reality that your partner's body can be present while her desire, her heart, her full presence is completely absent. This disconnect, I've discovered, often wounds men more deeply than complete rejection because it creates a confusion between physical availability and true intimacy that leaves them questioning their own reality.
We covered a lot of ground in this conversation. The cultural and religious conditioning that shapes how we see sexuality. The accumulated pain of rejection and how it literally registers in our brains the same as physical injury. How for so many men, the lack of sexual connection becomes deeply tied to our sense of worth and identity. We talked about the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire, and why understanding that matters so much for creating the conditions where real connection can happen.
One thing I really want men to hear: this isn't just about being some horn dog who only wants one thing. Sex is deeply entwined with our ability to open and feel connected. Not having that full connection, that mutual desire, that real intimacy is a big deal. And it's worth working on, both in terms of what you need to take responsibility for and what your partner needs to step into.
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Melanie Curtin: No, you're on a roll. Go ahead.
Jason Lange: Sometimes I go back to things, but, you know, there's just this other thing that I think you were mentioning too. One of the differences between often males and females, some of it cultural, some of it biological, is just self relationship to pleasure and sexuality. And what I mean by that, right, My wife Violet's been on here a lot. You've already mentioned it a little bit here today. You know, unfortunately, the way our culture is set up and even the kind of traditional relationship structure, for a long time when marriages were like more of an economic function than anything else in a large part of the world, a lot of women haven't necessarily ever had the opportunity to build their own relationship with their sexuality that is not about pleasing someone else, but is about self exploration. And, you know, the stat I saw was at least here in the US among adolescents 14 to 17, you know, it's basically just under 75% of boys had reported ever masturbating in barely half of girls. And that's gone up in the recent years. And my guess is even that number is a little different because the type of people who are willing to be interviewed and report about that are probably even a little more open than a lot of people would never answer the phone or just never even fucking talk about sex or masturbation or that kind of thing. So point being, you know, a lot of times us boys, we're just more familiar with our equipment and it's kind of harder to ignore. You know, you just wake up one day and you're like, what's that going on down here? Okay, well, that feels good, right? It's a little different for women, right? It's like if, you know, my wife has certainly talked about, like she didn't even know what was going on down There, Right. Like that there was something down there for a long time. Because how would you know necessarily, it's not exactly as visible as with men. So this, this desire thing and connection to sexuality, I think is an important thing. And I, I just don't think all men necessarily understand that the experience of where women are coming from and this is, again, you know, sexless marriage is a big deal we don't want to minimize. And it's just so complicated in that often both partners really have some responsibility in terms of how things are playing out. It's not always the case, but it is often the case.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, that reminds me of a quote by Mama Gina, who's an author and an activist, and she says women learn to compromise before they learn to come.
Jason Lange: Yeah, there you go.
Jason Lange: Sex.
Melanie Curtin: That is not, that is not true. So I guess just to be really explicit, it's normal, it's healthy for you to want connected sex and you can have it and may take some, some, you know, some doing to get there. So as we start to wrap here. Yeah. If you are interested in our work, you can go to my site melaniecurtain.com or Jason's Reach out to us. If you go to Evolutionary Men apply, then you can book a call and see if there's a fit. And we would love to, we would love to have you. We are ready to work with the men who are ready and you don't have to stay stuck. Anything to add?
Jason Lange: No. Okay. If anything was going to come, but.
Melanie Curtin: Okay. And if you have any questions or comments, you can always get me@dearmen podcastmail.com It. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.
