Performance Anxiety? Porn, Stress and Your Pelvic Floor

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everyone. I am very excited today to once again be joined by an amazing guest. And today I have Rahi Chun, who is a California State certified somatic sex educator and genital de Armouring specialist. He has an MA in Spiritual Psychology and is trauma informed and has training in tre and Neuroaffective touch. And he studied Taoist energy cultivation with Mantak Chia. And he has over 30 years of practice, has worked with hundreds of clients, and has trained practitioners in over 20 countries. And little tidbit, I don't even know if Rahi here knows it. There was a time in my life I was leading a lot of authentic relating. About a decade ago, Rahi was the very first person I ever circled in a public circle, which is a group, group training, kind of connection practice that I still remember the moment so much sitting in our friend's apartment all those. All those years ago.

Rahi Chun: All those years ago.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Really special connection to me of like, oh, that was. That was the first time. Something I've done quite a bit since then. But super excited to have you here today, man. Thank you so much for being here.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, Jason, it's great. It's great to just sit in kind of our own virtual circle here of two men and invite audiences in and, yeah, I'm really excited to just, like, dive into whatever, you know, topics and conversation wants to unfold between us. This is.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And part of, you know, what you and I were just chatting about before we hit record here is, you know, I'm in men's work. I support men in coaching and growth and change. And much of the work I do for focuses on kind of relationships, dating, et cetera. Because out of all of the things that will, in my experience, actually get a man to reach out for help and admit, hey, something in my life isn't working. It often shows up in the realm of intimacy. Right. In terms of just, I can't get into the kind of relationship I want, or I'm in one and there's a lot of friction between us or. Or there's physical disconnection. And so it's a broad spectrum. And what I've liked about witnessing your work from afar, and my wife's gotten to do some personal work with you before, is the way you kind of bridge all of these things as related. Right. That physical intimacy is related to emotional intimacy for both men and women, which I think is a huge misconception that hurts a lot of us guys, that it's only women who need emotional connection. Right. For to have good physical intimacy, which has not been my experience. But so I'd love, yeah, I'd love for you to just share a little bit about your journey and kind of what brought you into the work you do and how you've been serving these last years and what lights you up.

Rahi Chun: Sure, sure. Thanks for the invitation. Yeah, it is really fascinating. Like, my wife Ariel and I just finished holding space for a couple's retreat. And it was a really wide range. You know, there was a couple married 30 years and a couple just together for two years. And to your point, the, it's all of, it's so interconnected. You know, the, the emotional trust and safety, particularly in female bodies, really lends itself to the depth of erotic and sexual pleasure that's available in their bodies. You know, the way, the way where our nervous systems are either hyper vigilant or really relaxed. But in answer to your question about how I got here, you know, honestly, it was just like following my curiosity. But I think it started like I've always been fascinated with the body. And so all of the trainings and healing modalities I've been drawn to have tended to be body based, somatic modalities. You know, you mentioned neuroaffective touch, which is all about how the body holds childhood and infant trauma through unconscious guarding patterns in the body. And then tre is a brilliant way of releasing what's held in, you know, trauma that's held in the psoas muscles through involuntary trigger response. But I've always been drawn to like ecstatic dance. You know, I was a performer for years and so I just kind of like followed my curiosity. And you know, sexuality is just one of those topics that I think I've taken a particular fascination to because like when I came out of my mom's womb, I came out with crooked legs and she massaged my legs every night for three years, which had them grow out straight, you know, and it's one of those things where I know how, how much healing can happen in touch, you know, in intentional touch. And so that kind of led me down a rabbit hole of like, well, what other kinds of touch can heal the body? And I just ended up being fascinated with what can enliven and open up the pelvis. You know, in all, in all genders, how much unconscious holding and guarding do we have in the pelvic bowl? That may be sexuality related or not, but definitely affects our sexuality, whether it's blood flow or, you know, sensation. And so I, I ended up developing this expertise in a phenomenon called genital de armory. And so that's a little bit of, of how I ended up here. And you know, I, I teach genital de arming internationally and my wife and I have a body of work called Divine Union for. For lovers, which, you know, we love working with couples. And I find that sexuality is almost like this portal into a person's soul or their soul's journey. So it's endlessly fascinating.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love that. And maybe you could give just a little high level overview here for guys that are maybe new to this around, you know, what exactly is kind of somatic sex education? And then. Yeah, what is that? De armoring in particular?

Rahi Chun: Thanks for those questions. Yeah. So somatic sex education. So sex education is essentially what was missing in most of our teenage years. Right. You know, most sex education in this country is about abstinence and STDs, but there's nothing around pleasure, nothing around consent, nothing around intimate connection. And what the somatic is, is it. It really refers to body based sex education. So rather than teaching about sex education, you know, through. Through a book or through learning, we do it through the body. So touch based. So clients can really feel what feels good, what doesn't feel good, understanding how to give voice to their body's consent and boundaries. So it's very interactive and. And it involves the body, which is the somatic part.

Jason Lange: And then it's very experiential in that sense.

Rahi Chun: Yes, yes, that's a great word to describe it, experiential. And then the genital de armoring it refers to. So genital armor refers to the unconscious, often chronic guarding that the tissues and fascia respond to, to protect itself. So it can be in response to an active threat, like a violent partner or a perceived threat. So it could be someone who's got an anger issue. And you know, as a child, you know, I experienced some violation. And so even at the hint of aggression, my pelvic bowl will contract. And this can create a desensitization within the genitals. So de armoring is simply releasing that from the body, the physical tissues of the genitalia as well as the psychological body.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And those two are deeply linked.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: As far as my understanding, this is part of some of the work my wife did, I believe, with you.

Rahi Chun: Yeah.

Jason Lange: In the woman, I think it's the cervix.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: Tends to be a place where a lot of that armoring gets concentrated. Specifically, is there an equivalent in men? Like. I don't actually know.

Rahi Chun: I'm realizing yeah, it's actually the prostate. Yeah. Yeah. So for men, we hold a lot of our. You know, it's really interesting because the tissue of the prostate and the tissue of the. The cervix and uterus, you know, all represent kind of a birthing canal, you know, and so for men, a lot of our unrealized dreams, unbirthed visions, can live in that prostate area and start getting inflamed, or there's unmetabolized emotion a lot of times, sadness and grief for, you know, what we have yet to birth in our lives that we've, you know, been wanting to give birth to.

Jason Lange: That's fascinating.

Rahi Chun: Isn't that fascinating?

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just in, you know, as I'm approaching middle age and prostate awareness is, you know, now part of my thing, and this kind of belief, at least, I seem to have absorbed from the culture that's like, live long enough as a man and you're probably going to get prostate cancer. Like, it's just a matter of kind of when. But, you know, obviously it's not always a direct correlation, but realizing there's so much tied up in that area then makes a lot of sense to me from what you're speaking about.

Rahi Chun: Yeah. And then where the prostate is positioned anatomically, like in the center of the pelvic bowl, and I guess more specifically, right. Right above, like, our pelvic floor muscles, if we have a lot of tension in our pelvic floor, it's going to press up against the prostate and not give room for proper circulation of blood, of energy. There could be coagulated semen, things of that sort, which can contribute to its going down an unhealthy road.

Jason Lange: Yeah, well, and just while we're on this topic, I'm curious, what would be some of the signs or how would a man know that maybe something might need some attention down there for himself?

Rahi Chun: It's such a great question, Jason. You know, the most obvious thing is, like, a difficulty emptying your bladder. Right. So, you know, like, you know, there may be a sense that, oh, there's. I know there's still urine in my bladder, but why isn't it coming out? Difficulty peeing or, like, not being able to empty it? Because essentially it's. It's right up against the bladder, and when those pelvic floor muscles are pressing against the prostate, it can constrict that urine flow.

Jason Lange: Wow. Yeah. So big, big one to look out for, guys.

Rahi Chun: And exactly.

Jason Lange: Does. Would this show up or how might, you know, tension down there or armoring down there. Can it impact sexual function in terms of how a man performs?

Rahi Chun: Yeah, I mean, especially around erections. So, like, essentially, if you think about any kind of tension, you know, in your arm or your leg or your pelvis, it's going to restrict blood flow, you know, and. And it's gonna. It's gonna create numbness or desensitization. So, you know, like, if your erections are not as healthy, if your morning wood isn't as vital, you know, it could be. There's nothing. It could be. There's nothing wrong, you know, with your penis at all. It's just a matter of releasing that tension in the pelvic floor, you know, which will support your prostate health as well as strengthen your erections.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Okay. And starting to connect some dots here for myself around, you know, one of the other things we were talking about is I work with a huge range of men, and I've gotten to talk to some amazing practitioners like you, and a number have commented that one of the biggest changes they've seen over the last decade is a lot younger men showing up with ED or PE or DE and not really being sure why. And, you know, I think we're certainly a projection on my part, but culture is at a very different place right now than it's been before. And I think a lot of the structures that used to just keep us, I don't know, connected and whole as humans have really been stress tested. And, you know, we'll get into loneliness and men and all of these things that I imagine are part of what starts to accumulate there in terms of, my God, these tensions we feel.

Rahi Chun: Jason, you're hitting it right on the nose. It's like, you know, the pelvic floor, you know, it's the root chakra, so houses issues related to our safety and our security and our sense of belonging. Right. And so these are all the issues you're talking about. I mean, there's a disintegration of our societal community structures, you know, and so with that, you know, I think a lot of, you know, people of all genders are really seeking connection. You know, that was kind of a byproduct of our society certainly when I was growing up, you know, and I think more so, you know, when my parents were growing up, you know, neighbors knew each other's name by name. You know, people would share bread with each other, you know, that kind of thing. Now we're so isolated, and there's more of a sense of, like, how will I survive if something happens? You know, human to human connection. That's like we're a social species. That's like our breath and our blood, you know, is human connection so absent that, the pelvic floor isn't going to feel as safe or secure and so it's going to tense up. So I'm. My guess is if we were able to see kind of like, you know, the condition of pelvic floors across generations, I guarantee you it's much tighter, there's a lot more armor, and it's resulting in less blood flow. You know, the other thing you mentioned, premature ejaculation. When there's so much tightness and there's a build of erotic energy in the pelvis, it's going to shoot out quicker than if there's a relaxed pelvic floor and the energy can actually move around. So it's both premature ejaculation and erection issues that a tight, tense pelvic floor will contribute to.

Jason Lange: Okay. Yeah. This is really key, I think, in putting language to. I think, the inner experience I've had of men that don't necessarily correlate the stress I'm experiencing in life and how my body is going to adapt to that. Right. Particularly in. In like the pelvic floor region here. And, you know, I think this gets into one of the most sensitive things I work, you know, as I work with men around sexuality about is how much self worth gets tied in as men. Right. To perform. And we'll kind of get into porn culture and all that, but that, you know, just to maybe speak to a little bit here, like, for a lot of men who might have these issues, know that it's not necessarily because there's something defective around you. We're also living in a more uncertain environment. And it's not that there weren't times of great challenge and stress in the past, but I think you're right. There was more social cohesion to help deal with that stress. So, you know, is the world better or worse than 200 years ago? I don't know factually, but what I do know is, yeah, a lot of these close tie connection systems have evaporated, particularly here in Western culture. And I think particularly for men, which is part of. Part of why I have a job and all the things I do, which we'll get into.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're right, you know, like, if you think about us, you know, the male lineage, you know, we used to, you know, as cavemen, we sat around fires and told stories, you know, and a lot of you know. Yeah, yeah. I was just talking to someone yesterday and he's like, you know, I just like going fishing with my guys. We don't have to say anything, you know, but they were, there were these traditions that men did together, whether it was chopping wood or hunting or, you know, I mean, you know, like when I was growing up, like I, you know, like late night poker games was a thing, you know, and people would just stay up till three drinking beers and shooting the. But there is something about men getting together with men that enlivens us in a way. And I, I, I fear that that tradition is like slipping away somehow.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think it has. And the statistics and research point pretty clearly to the damages that that's causing. And male loneliness is going up and there's a little bit of back and forth online right now of, well, is it just men or is it men and women? And I think it is both. I think the challenge with men is men are even less likely to self report that I'm lonely because of what that means.

Rahi Chun: Exactly.

Jason Lange: So I think some of that data has to be kind of taken with a grain of salt. But that, yeah, you know, at least here in the west, right. Suicide rates are three and a half to four times higher for men. Men die of heart disease earlier, which, there's plenty of research you can connect to loneliness and being part of a group. And some, you know, beautiful work. I can't remember the author's name but had the book around bowling. I can't remember. It's really great, like a decade ago of just like. Yeah, yeah, be being part of a bowling group where you see the same people once a week increases your lifespan. Yeah, right. Just like simple structures like that that are fading away for a lot of

Rahi Chun: men in, well, you know, I saw this statistic, I think it was a Scott Galloway statistic that Amongst men ages 18 to 23, you know, 22% of them could not name like a close person that knows them. They don't feel seen, they don't feel. And you know that, you know, like as a human species there, there's a primal need to know that you're a value and you, your existence is acknowledged. And so I really do, you know, it's a big concern, it's. And you know, you, you see this amongst the, you know, like I'm curious with, amongst the men because I know you work with a wide range of different age groups, groups like, do you notice a difference amongst the younger men that you work with around loneliness and isolation.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think, you know, even older men can often locate a previous time in their life where they. They knew what the experience was so they can remember. I know what I'm missing. Like, oh, yeah. Like, I used to have my guys and my frat or in my sports team. And it's not that some young people have that, but more and more, the nature of connecting online and work from home, it's just all very different. And it's just striking me. Something we'll get into here is certainly my generation. I was like, high school, right. When broadband Internet hit, which was basically the tidal wave of instant access to porn that's only gotten now in your pocket any time of day, anywhere you are. And in a way, I think what kind of online porn did to intimacy and sexuality. There's a way, I think, that kind of social media culture does to relationships. Well, it feels like we're friends, but what we're actually cultivating is an external experience.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: And we're not having to reveal the tough inner experience and actually be in relationship. You know, there was some research around. I can't remember what they called it, you know, weak tie, connections or something Ezra Klein wrote about, which was like, yeah. Back in the day, you'd live in a neighborhood, Right. And there'd be the kind of guy down the street who's, you know, a little different, collects some weird stuff. His house has a weird energy, but he's in your neighborhood and you see him every day. So you're like, in relationship with him.

Rahi Chun: Exactly.

Jason Lange: And then we sprang into online, where in some ways, it's a gift. You know, everything becomes interest and value aligned. So I can. All of my online relationships can be with people who think and breathe the exact same way I do. So we lose the vulnerability of having to stay in connection when we don't. Totally aligned with someone.

Rahi Chun: Exactly. Yeah.

Jason Lange: In. In. And then we optimize for, well, here's what my life looks like. And we assume everyone looks like they do on Instagram. When it's like, no, everybody's in pain, but we're just not putting that online. Right. Like, people are struggling, so it just. Yeah. I think all this swirls together. And then. Yeah. Where I'm curious to kind of take this then, is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about men's groups and. Right. I. You and I were talking about some of your experiences, and they align with mine where I tell guys, like, you want to have a better intimate relationship, get into better relationships with men, and they're like, what? Why is that going to be better sex? Why is that going to be better relationship? And one of the biggest ones I've seen is it takes so much pressure off our intimate relationship, particularly as men, because so many men, because we don't have a lot of male friendships, because homophobia is still unfortunately real in our culture. So it's like, well, I can't get too close to Rahi. Certainly I could never touch him. Right. Like that. That. That shit's still out there. And what that leaves men with is, well, the only place I can get touch or connection is sex. Right. And it puts a lot of burden in pressure on that.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, it's a lot of pressure on a partner, on a girlfriend, on a wife. And it's kind of like, I mean, you know, this, this. You know, this started to happen in my. In my marriage early on, too. It's like I started kind of being like, my mopey boy would come out and, you know, Ariel would be like, hey, I'm not your mom. You know what I mean?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Rahi Chun: It's not very sexy. You know, it's not sexy in the bedroom. And so it's very, very true. And I forget what this statistic is, but it's some high. Like, I forget what the statistic is, but a very high percentage of men have nowhere else to process their emotions except for their part.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Rahi Chun: And it is part of the. It contributes to the unsexiness or the strain of intimacy in relationships to have all of that burden on your partner, you know, who. Who, you know, loves you but, you know, doesn't want to be your mom, essentially. Right. I have found my Men's Group 1. It's so great to see other men having similar struggles in their relationship. It's so great to see men who have more experience than me, you know, point out, like, you know, like, give me, you know, constructive criticism or suggestions. And it's also really valuable to be held accountable, to not collapse or not to, you know, to stand my ground when that's necessary and to show up in the ways that, you know, I want to show up. It's. It's really invaluable. I totally agree.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And it strikes me just, even with what you were just talking about, if one of the kind of teachings I've been going on rants on lately is, you know, part of my trainings in polarity and masculine feminine dynamics. And, you know, it's super fun. It's super sexy. It goes well on Instagram. Like, people get really into it, and then the longer I've been in relationship, I'm like, oh, my God, that's actually kind of easy. You can kind of learn to breathe like the mountain and move your body in a weekend, like in a. In an online workshop, really. It's like, not super complicated. But what gets in the way is all the bodily tensions, traumas, habits, attachment, wounding from childhood. What I'm just connecting the dots on is even on male performance, right? The so much pressure on guys to be able to have erections, have them on demand as long as they want. And it makes sense to me now where I'm like, well, if the only place I can potentially get some emotional connection, touch, connection is in sex, I really want it to go well, right? Because if I'm not getting in there, I'm not getting anywhere else. And that's another one of those tensions I imagine would be very easy to kind of pack down inside, build up in the body, and then, you know, it's actually getting in the way of the very thing we most want in a men's group. Is certainly my prescription for one of the easiest ways to have somewhere else to get to bring our burden. Intention and yeah, my mopey boy, my little boy, my whiny boy, the parts of me I want to honor, but that, yeah, my wife doesn't always want to be the one nagging me about or holding space for. Because it's different, right? It's not that she doesn't. She's not up to doing that sometimes, but it's very different when I've been in and out of groups before and, you know, it's very different when she feels me being held by men. Yes. Then it's like, oh, well, now I can just kind of pour love into him, but I don't have to be the one tracking him and his wellness.

Rahi Chun: Exactly. Oh, my God. It makes such a huge difference. And I feel like what you just touched on, I feel like is the. Is the intersection of a lot of these themes, which is that when men have been socialized, when their nervous systems have been wired by porn around their sexuality, and then sex is the only time they feel connected. And yet their bodies are trained to go fast and hard. And for result, there isn't. They don't end up connecting in to the. The connection doesn't happen in the relationship. You know, it's like oxytocin, which is the bonding chemical, needs a parasympathetic, relaxed nervous system to really bond. And yet porn trains the nervous system to go fast towards a Result performance led. And it does. It cannot coexist with oxytocin, which is that loving bonding chemical. And that's. That's what's accentuating this kind of tragic epidemic. You know, to your point, if. If our partners in a heterosexual relationship, if our women are the only place so many men can go to, and yet their bodies have been trained in a way that doesn't foster that deep connection, it's going to lead to a lot of dissatisfaction.

Jason Lange: Yeah. That. That tracks with so much of. Right. Porn. And, you know, we can kind of talk more about that. Right. That. That sympathetic kind of quick activation then often coupled with. And I got to do it quick. I got to do it in a way no one sees.

Rahi Chun: Yes. Right.

Jason Lange: Because I don't know, you know, mom might walk in or whatever. So it's kind of clouded a bit in shame. You know, what we're teaching our nervous systems every time we engage like that is this. Is. This is what it should feel like. And then we get in with a partner and it's a very different experience. It's a very different pace. And I think creates some of that pressure. In addition to, you know, for so many men, myself included, you know, early on, that is sex education. Right. It's like maybe a crappy health class in high school where there's some pictures, but then it's through porn and access to it that most men are getting, you know, what they think is an understanding of what sex is, you know, which I think it gets. We get a lot of. I think there's maybe a little more awareness to how damaging it is in terms of unrealistic expectations of women and their bodies and how they work and what they're open to. But I think it's also quite damaging. I found for a lot of men because they have this expectation that I should be able to get hard on demand whenever I want and go as long as I want with any kind of partner. And they don't see all of the fabrication.

Rahi Chun: Exactly, exactly. The real behind the scenes reality of these guys popping meds to get erect and taking three days to shoot one scene and all of that.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And then again, it leads to that pressure, which totally. Oh, my God.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, I want to share.

Jason Lange: I can't do this. I'm not a man.

Rahi Chun: Totally, totally on that point. Jason, the research I've done shows that not only is the damaging effect, you know, what. What you shared, but it's really in. So statistics show that it's ages 9 to 13 that most young people are exposed to porn. So 9 to 13. Now what's really startling is that the average age a young boy gets exposed to porn is usually 3.2 years before their first intimate real life encounter. Before holding hands or exchanging love notes. This is three plus years that their nervous system, system is learning to wire for speed, performance, you know, results. And what's just as damaging, perhaps more damaging, is this the identity that a young boy takes on. Because, you know, I don't, I think all young boys emulate, you know, their superheroes or being a man, their father or their big brother. They want to be a man and they're learning, they're, they're learning through porn. Oh, this is what it means to be a sexual, you know, sexually virile or sexually competent. And the younger kids are exposed, the younger boys are exposed to porn, the more they interpret it as an experience of dominance. Dominance.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Rahi Chun: Right. Because like a 9, I mean if you're 13 or 15, there's some emotional maturity. If you're 9, there's, there isn't the emotional maturity to know what they're doing. It just looks like dominance. Yeah. And yeah, this is, this is what we're having to deal with is like, okay, not only are nervous systems wired for this, but there's a sense of identity of like. And you know, I don't know about you, but I remember this in like junior high school locker room, you know, like all the, the jocks and the, you know, it was all in sports analogies. Are you going to score this weekend? I got the third base and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was like, whoa, you know, you, I want to be cool like these guys. And that's the, you know, that's what we're, we're facing as a society. Yeah.

Jason Lange: I had never. So interesting to hear you say that because I'd never really put the dots together. You know, there's a lot of the work I'm involved in is right alongside the. Yeah, the boy crisis and the rites of passage crisis and the lack of mentorship and modeling. But I honestly hadn't seen that glaring, obvious thing you just pointed to where porn is, where a lot of men are. Young boys are getting an expectation of not just sexually, but like what a man is. He comes in and he does this and he's able to have sex with a woman like this. And there's a, there's actually a lot more to it than I was realizing in terms of that dominant positioning that gets escalated there in the lack of, you know, then when you Tie that, I guess I would say to both in porn itself, because it is an actual functional shoot that is done in a very specific way. And then in, you know, as someone who had been addicted to porn previously, you know, my relating to porn though, what it does not do is it does not create attunement. I'm not having to attune to another body, right? It's just me. It's just me. And that's an object over there that I get to use for my pleasure. And then, you know, it's kind of the porn shoot itself is that. And that lack of attunement and actually having to respond to a human body that moves and breathes and closes and opens and withdraws and feels. It's like we're training an army of young boys and men to be unattuned sexual creatures and then wonder why we're having all these issues downstream of that in our culture right now.

Rahi Chun: Dude, you just. Now, I mean, that is it, you know, we're training an army of boys to be unattuned sexually. That's exactly what's going on, right? And then on top of that, like, you know, the nature of porn is that you're wanting higher, intense, you know, squirts of dopamine. And so it's, it's creating higher intensity fantasy and like a fake actor's female actors responsiveness that can't be simulated in real life or doesn't get simulated. And so I'm, I'm kind of, I'm really sad for a lot of men or boys who are disappointed with the real thing because they've been trained, you know, by these screams, you know.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. I can feel the, the loss of that. And I think that's showing up in what's happening with relationships. We were talking about fewer, fewer men are even trying to have sex and approaching. And I think it's, you know, now I can see in a way too, it's like what an interesting bind it puts a young man in. Where I've been raised by porn to some extent, you know, maybe from nine years old. And so here's the experience and transmission of this kind of dominant sexuality that has been the main thing pointed to me and that frankly, I've probably most of my pleasure has been driven off, right. Interacting with this kind of porn. And then I'm in a culture where, you know, even just this year we had the rape academy where we've had metoo rape Academy. We're just seeing the. Okay. And this is the evil of what this kind of pathologized sexuality can do. And so just feeling what that would be like in my nervous system. Oh, my God. This is how I feel pleasure. And they're saying that's toxic and wrong. So I just. I'm not gonna touch it. I'm not going to actually touch a woman or approach her because I'm toxic.

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: It just. I had never really thought of it from that kind of identity place that you talked about before.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: What a challenging place that puts someone.

Rahi Chun: Oh, my God, Jason. It just. It leaves a young man so confused about what he is, you know, I mean, it's exactly what you're saying here. You have a young man who's. Whose nervous system and identity has been training him for this, and then all of a sudden they realize, oh, this is harmful. Well, what do you do with a nervous system that's been trained for this and an identity that's been trained for this? And, you know, it sounds like what you're seeing is young men who are just pushing all of that down or shutting their energy down because they don't know, like, what's right. So. So, you know, they don't know. I mean, we had a. We had a guy recently where he is being. So he's afraid of essentially hurting his wife, you know. Yeah. By being too dominant or too, you know, aggressive. But his wife wants to feel his confidence and his presence and it's this bind, you know, like he needs to get over the past conditioning and come into his authentic masculine, you know. And once again, this is the real value of getting together with other men, you know, other role models, other positive, you know, like, supportive energy so that you see the example and you feed off of that, you know, and can replace the toxicity that, you know, is. Is infiltrating our young people.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And, you know, obviously the population I work with of men is kind of self selecting in a sense, because of the work I put out there and what I talk about. But I will say it's way more common in the men that show up to me. I tend to work a lot more with. And I consider myself this kind of more the nice guy, the. Oh, my God, I do not want to cause any sexual harm. I do not want to objectify. I do not want. Want to just be, you know, using a woman for sex. And so that part of them, you know, that lower chakra, all of that energy down there is pretty much offline and it's held in shame.

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: Of like, well, I can't bring that out. And then they wonder why they have a hard time having connected sex or their partners are actually asking them like, no, I actually want to feel more of your, your, your, your, your healthy desire in animal. And they haven't been able to disentangle the two yet. That oh, you know, the energy itself is sacred. It's beautiful.

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: Literally what creates life. Right. What we do with it. And you know, certainly how I work with men, it's just. Is the heart online? Like that's it.

Rahi Chun: It's the heart online.

Jason Lange: Is your heart online?

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: Which means you're connecting to your partner as a human being, not just a sexual object.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: So much is possible then. But a lot of men don't have that modeling because yeah, they're raised by porn which shows heart offline connection.

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: That's all it is. It's just right body parts, you do this thing, you get to this objective, etc. But that learning to trust that energy I imagine is part of what you get to work with couples and men on experientially.

Rahi Chun: Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Before I get to that, I want to just allude to what you shared before, which is, you know, now that young people are on screens and not interacting person to person, you know, they're not. People need to apply for jobs and get turned down and go through that. They need to ask a stranger on a date and get the no thank you and deal with that to recognize that. Okay, you know, you know, you can be bummed for a little while but you move on. But you're going to be okay. You're gonna be okay. That's perfectly fine. It's perfectly normal. There's nothing wrong with you. But you know, the, the going back to what you were saying when, when they don't have those experiences and they venture out, I think there's a lot more anxiety, you know, and a lot more at stake in their minds, you know, and a lot more devastation when, you know, you appear really cool on social media and in person you get a rejection and it's like, what's going on?

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's well put.

Rahi Chun: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And kind of pivoting a little bit here. But I'm just curious, I'm going to ask you a very open ended question here. You know, can draw on everything we talked about, but like in the work you've done now, like what do you think, what do most men get wrong about sex? Like what preconceptions do they have or what are they bringing to the table that they're just, it's kind of going to create challenge for them from the get go. Just because of all of this stuff we carry in our sexuality as men.

Rahi Chun: Yep. I would say two things. And they're connected. Love the question. So most men, what they get wrong, especially when they're younger and they're venturing out into the sexuality world. But honestly, even couples that have been married 30 years, I mean, this is what we see the most. Right. What we see the most is, you know, men being trained to go fast, goal oriented results. They're looking for the formula of getting it right and pleasing their woman. Right. Yeah. And right. So that, I mean, it's so male. It's such a male engineer's brain. Right. And the woman is like, no, where are you? Come connect with me. You know, so the statistics. There's a study that was done in America where the average Woman requires between 20 and 45 minutes of foreplay, 20 to 45 minutes for their full erogenous capacity to come online. And the average lovemaking session in America is somewhere between like three and seven minutes. Right. So they've done these studies in hotels where the porn channels click off after like five to seven minutes. Right. So that's so, you know, to your point, we were trained, you know, not to get caught masturbating by our moms. You know, I had my Penthouse magazine in my bathroom. I'd lock, you know, that kind of a thing. And, and so we're, we're trained to go fast. And most men, when we first get into the dating world, but once again, we've had couples married 30 years who still do this. They assume that the female body, the arousal system of the female body is just like theirs. And they're like, whoa, she's not, you know, she's not getting wet fast enough. Or like, you know, she's taking too long. And then it gets. Because we do live in a patriarchal society, women think there's something wrong with them. You know, like they think a comment I hear so often is, I think my is broken. Why? Because they're not getting lubricated. Because. And why aren't they getting lubricated? There's all this pressure to like, you know, come on, get ready, you know, and you know, like, why isn't your body ready? And so I would say most men assume that women's arousal and pleasure journey or mechanism is similar to theirs when it's a completely different thing. And you know, the tragedy is most couples, they're deeply wanting to connect. They've just been given like totally different nervous system, like gears, you know, so they're not, they're not connected.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I often, as I work with guys kind of talk about. Yeah. What kind of feels like a tragedy sometimes because it's just this. Yeah. That slightly different like gear that for a lot of men, we're wanting to use sex to feel more connected.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: And often for the female body, connection is what allows her body to open to sexual.

Rahi Chun: Absolutely.

Jason Lange: It's like both partners want the same thing, but they're coming in from two different directions. And this is where I think there is a tremendous amount of leadership we can bring as men, which is to understand that different sequencing and system. And even as men, I think, like I said, part of what I've been shocked about is I've worked with men to help them understand that, you know, sometimes edp, all of that. Obviously there can be physiological related things there, but oftentimes if you focus on the connection, literally just the connection, it actually matters less than many men think. Is my dick hard or not? There's lots of ways for eros and love and pleasure to flow, but because of all that context we talked about, there's so much pressure for men. And now I'm getting. It's like if I am anxious about my capacity to hold an erection in any way, I'm going to want to get in there as quick as possible. Right. So I don't have to be confronted with what happens if my body doesn't respond. And then. Yeah, there's pressure for that speed in a sense that I've never really kind of connected in that way before. That just makes a lot of sense to me that. Yeah. How important it can be for men. And then, I mean, the other thing I love that you said is because, man, I used to be the dude, you know, like, oh my God, I get to get the book or the thing. Like, what's the special technique? If I just master like A to B to Z, like it's going to all work and it's just not how it works. It's not paint by numbers, it's. It's a. It's an exploration in any given moment. And different day to day. Right, right. Different hour.

Rahi Chun: Yeah, yeah. And that's like, you know, I mean, if you can learn to kind of flow with the dance, then it becomes this fun dance of attuning to what how the energy wants to move, you know, rather than needing it to like be like how to put together a car.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rahi Chun: But yeah, You. You really. I mean, that's it, man. It's like both people are wanting deep connection, but the way of getting there, we're wired differently to get there in different ways. And, you know, again, this. This really threads back to every sub, every topic we've talked on, you know, like how porn wires the nervous system, how our goal orientation, how, you know, and plus, we live in a society that rewards men for results. I mean, we are just wired for that, you know, and. And it. It really does a disservice to us and to our partnerships and. And to pleasure when it gets to the bedroom.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And, you know, we could probably do a whole podcast on this, but I would love to just get your take, because in some ways, I think it's related to so much of what we've talked about. But in terms of what you've seen, you know, in the culture and with men in particular, you've worked with. Yeah. How do you see male sexuality and shame relating or, you know, as the kind of. Do the. Are they in. In ways that might surprise men?

Rahi Chun: I mean, that's really. I love the question, Jason, because it's a really deep question because it's. I believe it's profoundly related. I think, you know, I think there is an. I think there's a primal animal in masculine energy, just as there is in feminine energy. But for men, since we're talking about men, there's a primal animal that wants to devour, that wants to take our woman, that wants to, you know, consume. And I think there's, you know, like, you mentioned the Me Too movement. And I think there's like, a real kind of schizophrenic messaging that our bodies are getting as men. You know, we're being told, you know, like, portrayals of that primal, desirous energy being mischanneled. You know, there are just plenty of horrific examples of that. So I think there is shame. And, you know, of course, we live in, you know, like, a colonialist, patriarchal society, you know, where we raped and stole from Native Americans to be here. And, you know, all of this, the history of the world is all about colonizing. So I think there's something about, like, there are parallels that can be drawn between that and sexuality when there's that devouring, primal nature. And so I think it's up to each man to come to peace in celebrating, accepting and honoring that beautiful primal energy that wants to devour something beautiful, you know, as well as recognize, like, how that can go toxic when it is unattuned. And when it is unpresent and when it's coming from a hungry ghost place. But shame and sexuality, it's a deep topic, I think. You know, we talked about how young men shut down. I think there's a lot of shame, you know, around men being like not sexually virile, not having an erect penis, not having, not, you know, lasting long, all of those things. That is really sad because it, you know, it, it comes into the bedroom in different ways and a lot of women will assume it's their fault that the man isn't, you know, like having an erection or feeling withdrawn or not coming after me or, you know, so it becomes this whole distorted energy within the world of intimacy.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Oh yeah, there's. It's like a contagion in a way I hadn't thought about. If I'm feeling shame around my ability to perform as a man, particularly, you know, often shame means I don't want to talk about it.

Rahi Chun: Right.

Jason Lange: Because I'm ashamed to even talk about it. Which then leaves this gap of interpretation for my partner as to what might be going on, which might then trigger her shame, of course, which means she wants to withdraw more. And then, yeah, yeah, we're getting pulled apart, even though we might be right next to each other in a lot of ways. And yeah, as we wind down here, I'm just curious for a man out here listening that maybe this is his first time hearing about somatic sexual body work and de armoring and all the things we've been talking about. What have you seen becomes possible for a man as he engages at this level with the work and his sexuality?

Rahi Chun: Sure. Well, you know, it was really beautiful. Like recently Ariel and I have worked with several couples. And for example, you know, one couple, a man was able to let go of his goal orientation in lovemaking, which is huge because this is, you know, a middle aged man who's very, you know, driven in the kind of business world. And for him to really let go of it, because that's all his partner ever wanted was his presence. He's always like three steps ahead and not present with her. Right. And so for him to just release that goal orientation and find that, wow, there's a lot of sensation here by letting go of that pressure. Right. Something like that can happen. Or, you know, another, another couple we worked with, he was really fixated on what we were talking about. Like a man needs to be erect to please his woman, you know, and for him to let go of that and allow his penis to get erect and then Go soft and then get erect again without getting hijacked mentally with the state of his penis. That was a huge win for him, you know, and then there was another couple where. He's finding his power, you know, and it's something his partner has just yearned for because she's been kind of wearing the pants, you know, in that relationship, and she doesn't want to. She wants him to take charge. So for him to realize, okay, he can be his aggression, it doesn't mean he's a toxic man because he's present and aware of it. Let me explore being in my power and taking charge. That was like a game changer for them. So, you know, like, there's something. This work in exploring the embodiment of your sexual energy that can offer some breakthrough or new discovery for anyone. But those are a few examples.

Jason Lange: I love those. Well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time today. I feel like we could probably do a million more of these, so we'll have to do it again sometimes. Lots of things to talk about, but. Yeah. What's the best way for people to follow up with you or keep track of you and your work and everything you and your wife are up to?

Rahi Chun: Sure. My website is rahichan.com and all of my work is there. I am working on a men's sexual wholeness course. So it'll be called Sovereign, and it really speaks to how, you know, we need to be sovereign within our. Within our own sexual energy and not need anything from somebody else. Right. Then we show up fully in our presence, in our wholeness. So you can go to rahichand.com, get on the E list. My wife and I have a separate body of work called Divine Union for lovers, and it's divineunion4lovers.com for couples and partnerships.

Jason Lange: Super cool. Well, thank you so much once again for being willing to be here and share all your wisdom. I hope men out there feel a little more relaxed and compassion for themselves in terms of maybe what they've been struggling with and know that, you know, the. The. It can change. Right? All this stuff can change. You can engage with the work in the body, and you can really have some pretty deep transformations. And, you know, I think the. The amazing thing, right, about sex is every time I'm like, I don't think I could ever have better sex than that. It's like, wow, it can just keep unfolding.

Rahi Chun: Exactly.

Jason Lange: Unbelievable.

Rahi Chun: Yeah. It's unending, Unending new discoveries. And before we sign off, Jason, I want to really acknowledge you for all of the work you've been doing with men. Holding space, really holding a safe space, a compassionate space for men to show up exactly as they are. Because that's what's missing in our world. All these societal expectations make men feel like they're always falling short, you know, and you being such a compassionate heart and, you know, having that safe space for men really transforms that for, you know, the men you work with.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Thank you for seeing that. And thank you. Glad to know I have such a powerful ally like you out there as. Yeah, we all need the support from each other and to keep extending the support to other men.

Rahi Chun: Yes.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Thank you so much, Rahi.

Rahi Chun: Thanks, Chase.

Jason Lange: All right, until next time, guys.