Most men think porn is about pleasure, but here's what I discovered after years of struggling with it myself: it's actually a regulation tool, a way to numb out and avoid the uncomfortable realities of life. I shared this insight during my conversation with Melanie Curtin on her podcast Dear Men, where we dove deep into what porn use actually costs men and why so many of us get trapped in patterns that have nothing to do with sexual satisfaction.
We talked about how porn becomes less about pleasure and more about regulation. For me, it was the go-to tool for numbing out, managing stress, changing the channel when life felt uncomfortable. I'd stay up late for hours, foregoing sleep I desperately needed, just to get that hit of relief. The real wake-up came when I was in relationships and still reaching for porn, realizing something deeper was going on.
What shifted for me was filling my life with actual nourishment instead of numbing. That year I made massive changes, meditating every morning, hitting the gym five days a week, writing, men's group, building real community. I also did a no-release practice, went five months at one point, and honestly felt unstoppable. The energy and presence that came back was incredible. It directly led me to meeting my wife.
The thing is, when you stop dispersing all that energy through porn and constant release, it actually demands something of you. It builds heat in the kettle. That fire has to go somewhere, and the proper expression is creativity, action, showing up in your life differently. For a lot of men, myself included, porn was a way to avoid that demand, to keep sheltering from the world.
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Melanie Curtin: That sounds exciting. Like, as the feminine, I'm like, I want to be around that guy. I want to be around the guy who's like, got the fire and is like, you know, turning up the heat and, like, the kettle's going off and it's like, he's gonna take action. I'm like, ooh. Hey, guys, just a quick note before we start. I just wanted to acknowledge that I had the idea that I was gonna do a theme of the month, and I was doing that for a while with the podcast, where I would do a survey and I would survey my big sexy dataset, which is the group of people that I survey for my sex research, which you can always join, by the way. Email [email protected] and I will add you to the big sexy data set. But I just wanted to acknowledge that I'm not going to be doing a theme of the month for a while because I found that it was inhibiting me putting out new podcasts. It wasn't really fitting with the flow of the podcast. So what I'm going to do instead is I'm just occasionally going to send out a survey. It's probably going to be around once a month. That's going to have something to do with one of the episodes of that month. So, again, if you'd like to join the big sexy data set, I would love to have you just email [email protected] and I will be not doing theme of the month for a while. We'll see if maybe someday we'll bring it back. Okay. Welcome back to another episode of Dear Men. I am thrilled to have you back, Jason. You are always a favorite. Thanks for being here. So today we're talking about what can be kind of a sensitive subject, which is porn addiction and how to overcome it. So quitting porn addiction. So we're talking about porn addiction, but also how to recover from it if that's something that you're struggling with. And we're also going to cover how do you know if you are addicted to porn? So, yeah. So if you could just tell us, Jason, a little bit about your journey pre all of this consciousness and transformation around pornography. Like what, you know, what was your experience growing up with porn and then like, in your 20s, just, like, paint us a picture of your relationship with it.
Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. I think mine was fairly typical in that started early. I get. Well, maybe not typical in the sense of. Was right on the generational gap. I think of, you know, when I was young, young and hung out with kids a little older than me. It was, you know, rating dad's Playboy stash was the thing, like physically acquiring nudie magazines and porn and whatnot. But by the time I became, you know, a teenager was right when the Internet, so to speak, and broadband was really taking off. So I kind of came of age with access to easy digital pornography and used it a lot. For those that are regular listeners and know my story a little bit, I was a very, very late bloomer. Didn't have sex, didn't really even kiss a girl, didn't kiss a girl to college. Didn't have sex till well into my 20s and was pretty locked up and frozen when it came to relating to women for many, many reasons going into my childhood and just ways of being in the world. And so, you know, porn was something I just got hooked on early. It was instant, it was available and it was very exciting. You know, it was definitely probably my first. Well, not entirely, but in a large way. You know, my sexual education had sex ed in school, but, you know, it was kind of PC Midwestern sex ed. So it was more mostly like hand drawings of. Of anatomy and this goes in that. And that was about it. But so very early on for me, it became, you know, what it really was for me was a way to numb out and a way to regulate high levels of stress and uncertainty and discomfort in my life that I think a lot. A lot of men I know have experienced at some points. And, you know, it was pretty prevalent for me. I mean, there was time probably in my early 20s. You know, I would go on marathons. We're talking like six, eight hours of downloading and watching content, not, not obviously masturbating the whole time, but like significant investments of time, often late at night, which would then exhaust me for the next day, which is, you know, something. We'll kind of be talking about the energetic costs of this today. I think in some ways that woke me up in some important ways in my life. But it was something I frequently used, battled for a long time and invested quite a bit of my life into quite simply.
Melanie Curtin: So can we back up a little bit because I'm interested in this. You know, you mentioned using porn as a way to numb numb out. So would that be. Look like you're in college and you have like a hard day, like something happens that triggers you, like maybe, I don't know, a girl you thought was cute, you felt ignored by her or something like that. Would that trigger, like, I'm feeling a lot of Feelings in my body, I don't really want to feel them. So I need a way to numb. I'm gonna go. Go, like, jerk off to porn for a while. Like, was it A equals B like that? Or. Can you explain a little bit what you meant by numbing out?
Jason Lange: Yeah, definitely. Definitely that. You know, that would happen sometimes. Other times it would be, you know, as I maybe got a little out of. Out of school and into my 20s and more into the working world. Totally a way to regulate after, you know, working really hard, actually, like, so taking on a lot of work, having really long days, be it, you know, when I was web coding or on film sets and being, you know, it's both the solution to, in some sense and the creator of the pretty intense experience that, you know, I've certainly had my nervous system and I think a lot of listeners maybe had of the tired and wired. It's like this kind of wired, energetic state, but also being really tired. And this can very much prolong that in both ways. But, you know, really what it was most often for me was the way to come down at the end of a day. So, you know, particularly when I was in college, I didn't really have that much privacy in that sense. So it was more, you know, slipping it in when I could, so to speak. But as I got my own space, you know, that was kind of how I transitioned into bed and ended the day in a lot of ways. And so when I say numbing out with it, you know, it was a way to create pleasure and sensation in my body when my life maybe wasn't full of it, if that makes sense. So when I say numbing out is, you know, it's a strategy. The other thing, you know, the other way I'd like to put this is it's just a way to regulate. I definitely used it to regulate when I was stressed or out or I was anxious from too much work or something didn't go right with a woman, or I was just feeling super, super horny.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I think it's good to unpack that word a little bit of. What does it mean to regulate? Because I imagine you're talking about regulating your nervous system so that when there's a big spike, you can bring that spike back into the range of what feels safe in the body. Is that right? Or do you want to say anything else about what that means?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think it's. It's a way a. It's a way to have a little bit of control over the state in my body. Right. It's a way to. Whatever's going on in life, I know I can create this window and have this experience, and then, yeah, it's a way to relieve pressure. You know, I think that's one thing for a lot of men, or relieve stress, or at least we think it'll relieve the stress. Right. I think it's more like sugar than real nourishment. But in a way, it. You know, it's a way to regulate in the sense of switching the channels of what I'm experiencing or not. I think that, you know, if it was a TV station, it's like, oh, my God, I had a hard day, or this thing's going on and I don't want to think about it, or I don't want to feel that boom, here's this instant way to change the channel and have a different experience that I have control over. That brought me, you know, some relief in some sense. And then oftentimes would be the thing that would shut down my nervous system so I could, you know, fall asleep.
Melanie Curtin: That's a great metaphor, the changing of the channel. So, okay, so now you're in your 20s and you. Are you aware that you're. Would you. Would you say at this point that you are addicted to porn? How. How did you know? And how would a man know if he's. If he is addicted to it?
Jason Lange: Yeah. You know, at that age, I don't know if I would have thought I was. Used the word addicted, but I was definitely investing a lot of time in and would have preferred to have been with actual partners. You know, I can say that, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't the optimal experience I was wanting to have in the world and how I was spending my time. It wasn't until I later got into relationships in my mid to late twenties and noticed I was still using it, that it kind of. I clued up to, like, okay, there's something else going on here. Right? Because I have a partner I can have sex with, and I'm still reaching towards porn. So what's up with that? And that's where I kind of really started to become more aware of it and the impact. You know, I think the other thing I noticed was just, like, so many things as I got older, there wasn't necessarily that abundance of youthful energy I used to have and really noticing the impact it had, you know, a, just ejaculating and B, particularly that pattern I got into of, like, staying up late and what that would do for my health and, wellbeing, because. Right. I might work really hard all day and actually be exhausted the moment I got home. But it was so ingrained into this pattern of, like, reward and release. I would stay up an extra two or three hours, which, you know, with some of the time. Some of the periods of life I was in that was, like, really precious sleep. I was foregoing really for nothing, you know, that brought me any. Any real rejuvenation.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting several things that you said, but one that jumps out is still using porn when you're in a relationship. Because I think that the discussion we're having is interesting, right. Because sex actually hasn't come up very much in this discussion. And I think when a lot of men think about porn, they think about sex like, oh, I'm using it instead of, you know, if I had a woman I was sleeping with, I wouldn't be using porn. Or there's a. It's, like, associated with. With sex. Which makes sense, obviously, that's tr. But actually, in the discussion we're having, the things you've been mentioning have been much more like a way of regulating my nervous system or a way of numbing out. And you mentioned sugar. And I think that it's worth mentioning people use all kinds of things to do those two things. To regulate their nervous system and to numb out. Some people use alcohol, Some people do use sugar, 100%. Some people use exercise. People use all kinds of different things. But part of the reason we're doing this episode is that you and I have seen porn addiction as a major pattern in our clients. I would say it's a majority pattern in a lot of the men that we see. And I think a lot of men are contending with this. And I really was struck by what you said in terms of you didn't necessarily think it was a problem or an issue until you were in sexual relationships with women and you were still reaching for porn. And then you were sort of like, oh, wait a second. Maybe this is about more than sex going on here. I'm wondering, yeah. If you can sort of walk us through. Like, once you sort of woke up to, like, huh, I think there's something else happening. What happened next?
Jason Lange: Yeah, well, it was, you know, for me, the real shift came in between two major relationships. But, you know, before I met my wife and after I had split up with my last partner, where it had been a constant source of. It had been a constant presence in my life, even when I was in a relationship. Right. Even when I Had a sexual partner. And so that was the first really long term experience I had like that. And that was where I kind of woke up to like, wow, something else is going on here. And in general, at that time, I was just a very unhealthy place overall. I had. Was not physically fit, was not sleeping well, was not exercising, was jerking off too much, watching too much porn. And, and so, you know, when I left that relationship that time, like I think it is for a lot of men when something ends or they end something, or a marriage ends or, you know, these different transition points, there's like a, oh, okay, I'm going to change my life, you know, make some of these deep changes that I think will lead me into a healthier place, which I was aware of by then. So that, that became kind of a journey for me where I was like, okay, I got to, I got to cut this out. You know, I tried to cut it out other times in my life, which is, I think when that happened repeatedly and I noticed it kept coming back is also when it was like, oh, maybe there is more of a problem here than I thought. And so I kind of, I went cold turkey, you know, while I was doing a whole bunch of other things. And that process, you know, was definitely challenging, but started to shift because I kept filling my life up with other things that were meaningful. And then eventually I got into, you know, an amazing relationship.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I want to just jump in here because I, you know, you mentioned filling your life up with other things and I think this speaks a bit to, you know, the dynamics of addiction are pretty intense and intricate. And one of the components is it's actually not that realistic to just quit with nothing with no backup. Right. Because there's a reason that you're using the substance or the television, whatever it is that you're using. There's a reason. There's a valid reason. There's sometimes trauma underneath, but there's a reason that you have come to this as a self soothing mechanism. It's not like random. Right. Especially in what you said. If, like it came back, you know, you tried to kick it a few times and it came back. That's an indication that like you. Yeah. You're using it as a way to help your nervous system regulate. So can you, can you say a little bit more about what else you did to kind of replace that? Basically replace the need for it in terms of your body's health?
Jason Lange: Yeah. And totally. It was a bunch of things that came together for me that, that year and I Think part of what I want to mention is context for some of this and how you and I work with some of the men we work with around this. It is actually part of what we go in deep with men about and we kind of label it with just this general idea of self soothing. What are the different strategies and mechanisms we use for self soothing or regulating? You know, like we, like we said, and now that's a whole spectrum. There's healthy things on that spectrum and there's unhealthy things on that spectrum. And so, you know, you and I by no means are like anti porn people, but like everything else, there's a huge spectrum of health when it comes to that. Most people are on the less healthy side of porn use that I've met, particularly men. Right. And that part of why, you know, I turned to these things was because I did not have a very well regulated, grounded nervous system that had learned to self soothe growing up. Right. I had a kind of a gaping hole in the way I was raised when it came to comfort, connection and regulation. So I didn't really know how to do this. You know, my strategy at best was to kind of numb out and shut down something like porn was one of the first tools. I found that even though it was an unhealthy way to do it right, it allowed me to kind of bring some control and regulation to my moods in my states. So what shifted for me when it came to that self soothing was, you know, the year of my kind of massive transformation was a year I got very, very disciplined with some other things. I started creative writing every morning. I started going to the gym five days a week. I was meditating every morning. I was in a men's group. I was leading co ed authentic relating events at the time. So my life was actually just very full in a way. Like I had community through my gym, through my coffee shop, through my authentic relating, through my men's group. And a lot of my time and energy went into that. And I was very committed to getting up and meditating every morning at am, which means which to do that successfully, I had to actually go to bed on time. And so staying committed to that early morning kind of, you know, shifted how my whole day went and supported me going to bed early and on time and to be well rested. So I would get up and meditate and could go to the gym and felt strong. So I started to replace that more numbed out strategy, so to speak, by doing things that were actually good and nourishing for My body, I was eating much healthier. This was a time I was personally doing a lot of plant medicine. I was doing a lot of different things to get more into my body, get more comfortable with myself, feel more grounded in myself. And that were actually deeply nourishing me, not just kind of allowing me to numb out in the moment.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I really like that distinction of numbing out versus nourishment. You know, there's a lot of research around addiction and connection that actually addiction is not. What's it called, Abstinence, but rather connection.
Jason Lange: Yep.
Melanie Curtin: And it just, yeah, it occurs to me like the, that often the strategies that numb us out are consumptive, meaning we're consuming something. So we're consuming weed or alcohol or Netflix or porn or there's something we're consuming versus self soothing. Strategies that are generative, meaning they are nourishing, are creative, meaning like going to the gym, you're creating something, there's an act of creation, playing the guitar, you're creating art, creative writing, like you said in the mornings, the creation. And they both start with a C. Right. Consuming versus creation is that spectrum that you mentioned of sort of healthy self soothing versus unhealthy self soothing. For me, I, at least in my patterns around this, I try to notice, like, am I consuming? Like am I self soothing with consuming chocolate for example, or am I creating? Am I, you know, I'm a writer, so writing a poem or writing something is another way for me to run that energy that wants to move. There's something in my body that wants to move and I have a choice about how I handle that. I can handle it by consuming or I can handle it by creating totally.
Jason Lange: That's something I think every person should have in their lives. Finding a way to create art, some kind of self expression and creativity is a way to start to channel that energy, which again is a thing we, we strongly encourage the men we work with to do because it becomes so important. And you know, I think we've talked about her before, but Brene Brown was one of the first people I read that really kind of broke down the numbing versus nourishment thing. And she always used a really simple example that I really liked. When I talk about the spectrum of how almost anything that changes our state, depending on the orientation we use it from, can be a healthy expression of nourishment or sometimes, you know, the least less healthy numbing. And that was her thing, was just like chocolate bars. She's like, I can be, you know, crazy stressful week And I just grab a chocolate bar and I stuff it down my face just to change my state, to regulate, to help me get through a long day or I can have worked really hard all week really taking care of myself. And then it's Friday night and I create a ritual out of deeply enjoying a chocolate bar for a half hour, really savoring each bite as nourishment to my soul for all I went through that week, which it's the exact same thing, but the orientation to it is so totally different. And learning to distinguish that orientation I think is so important. And for most of the guys we work with and I coach, the way to learn to distinguish that is to actually cut it out at first and notice the difference impact our body has, right. Our state of being has when we're not just turning to our numbing thing or our kind of creature comforts and our self soothing in that way. So again with all these things that we tend to work, I tend to work with and we tend to work with guys around the big ones of like alcohol, weed, TV and yes, porn. It's not like, oh my God, you can never do this again for a lot of people. But it's hey, what's the real cost this is having in my life and you know, the new inquiry I like to give men and that I had to sit truthfully with in my life of will this lead me closer to the life I want to be living? Like just. And that has been a really useful inquiry for me in terms of what where is this impulse coming from on that spectrum between healthy self soothing and the kind of less healthy numbing, you know, staying up late till 2am devouring hours of porn every week for me was not leading me towards the life I wanted to be living. That was like a wake up I had to have.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I, what I, what I heard in that, especially around the chocolate bar example, which I loved, was how much consciousness is here.
Jason Lange: Totally.
Melanie Curtin: Am I unconsciously stuffing a chocolate bar down my face or am I consciously breathing in my body like I had a good week, I did a lot this week. I'm proud of myself, I'm celebrating, I'm celebrating, I'm aware of the chocolate, I'm here for it. Rather than just like, ah, I'm kind of out of control and I need something to kind of bring me down. Regulate is the word I think of the podcast. But the part that you just mentioned about cost, I want to go into that a little bit because you mentioned an energetic cost. So for you it sounds like, part of the cost was sleep. Literally, this is taking up hours of my night and it's costing me energy the next day. Right. I'm less present, I'm less available, I'm less productive. I'm imagining just, you know, when you don't get sleep, just everything else just sucks worse. You know, just sucks worse. But then also, I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to energetic costs in terms of your energy as a man, your masculine qi, basically, because there's quite a bit of research around this, particularly around ejaculation and what that does to a man's nervous system. But I'm wondering if you can speak from personal experience about your. Your. The cost to you in terms of your energy.
Jason Lange: Yeah, you know, for me, it was a kind of deep general level of fatigue and just like being worn out all the time that I noticed, you know, and is something I still, you know, dance with, but for different reasons now. But then it was deeply wired into this pattern of addiction in my life. The staying up late, the ejaculating to porn. And it was just kind of a tiredness that I constantly got stuck in and, you know, the periods I was single with it. And this is a trap where I see a lot of men get stuck. And while I'm not totally anti porn, like we said, I do think there's a real cost here and a real impact it's having on a lot of men. They don't necessarily realize is right. And most of us men have had this experience. When we ejaculate, there's like a total release and kind of emptying of energy. We'll often kind of get tired, we'll often kind of get sleepy. We'll often kind of quiet down a little bit. And, you know, like you said in the Chinese medicine tradition, we'd kind of call that qi, you know, our fire, our energy, our inner heat. And when that gets depleted, it makes it really hard to get fired up to go out and meet a woman. For me, that was a big part of it. Like, literally just having the energy to get into dating, to get out there to feel so horny that like, okay, I'm going to walk across the room and I'm going to talk to this person, right? There's an actual useful piece of that, right? That's like, wow, I need to move this and I want to go talk to someone. And just having the constant ease of access of it, you know, be like, ah, you know, I was going to go to this party with people, but I'm just too tired. I'm going to stay home tonight. And boom, porn's right there as an instant relief. So it's a way to kind of shelter. For me, it was a way to shelter from the world and actually prevented me from getting into situations sometimes where I would even meet possible potential partners to date, you know, and it kind of has an isolating feeling in that sense, you know. One thing I think there's some research on this we could probably find. I definitely know is my experience, and I've talked to enough guys that I feel like it's true. I swear to God. There's a direct correlation between how much porn a man is using and his levels of eye contact. Even. Even like as a conscious man. Like the difference between watching porn one night and jerking off and my presence in the world the next day. Even just beyond, you know, like the energetic costs or the things going on internally, there's just like an actual way I don't. Wouldn't interface with the world in the same way. And I've seen it in a lot, a lot of men that when they kind of cut it out, they suddenly reconnect to people and particularly to women. They're able to look at them again and be more present and make eye contact again. So it had tons of costs for me in terms of just being energetically drained and worn out all the time, not getting out into the world as much, and then just getting stuck in that tired and wired loop that was so, so debilitating.
Melanie Curtin: And.
Jason Lange: You know, for me, the shift to moving away from it. And, you know, I've always liked the frame of one of my teachers, Robert Masters, that was like, it's not that we, like, cure our addictions, right? It's not like they just go away, but like the experience I had of filling up my life, it's more we kind of outgrow them. And there were periods I had that year where it was like, oh, wow, I haven't even thought about that for three weeks. So it wasn't like every day I was even, you know, having to be super disciplined about it. It was just my life had such a momentum and different energy that I was starting to outgrow it in that the kind of structure and system and nervous system system states that brought me there just weren't happening. So I kind of outgrew it in that sense.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I also really like the story that you tell of when you. You were doing no release, which I imagine was linked to no porn. So no release and you had more energy, you had more vitality. You were walking around in the world. And repeatedly, people were like, have you lost weight? They could sense. They could feel the vitality. They could feel your beingness and your presence more. And you stood out more. You were more vivid. All of those good words, but they didn't have a frame for it. That was the only way they could think of to notice the difference in you was like, oh, hey, have you lost weight? And of course, it's not really socially acceptable to say no. Actually, I'm practicing semen retention, and I've given up pornography. Like, you can't say that to, like, you know, your barista, at least not yet in our culture. But here's hoping that someday soon. But I always like that as a story, because it is. It's true. You know, the men in our program that choose to practice no release and no porn, man, they get a lot of energy back. Like, then they gotta regulate figuring out all of this energy that they have. Right. Like, it's repeated, seeing the impact on men. And we're not even talking about that long. We're talking 14, 21 days. You know, like, it's like you can notice a difference pretty. Pretty drastically, pretty fast because of exactly what you said of. I don't think it's a coincidence that chi, the word chi, is related to fire. Right. A man's masculine essence, his fire is related to, Is related to this. It's in here. And I thought it was such a poignant example you gave of, like, yeah, I mean, I could go to that party, but I'm kind of tired. I think I'll just stay home and jerk off instead. It's like all of those missed opportunities, right. Of like, you know, connections that could have been made or things that could have happened are gone. And I know we're living through Covid, but there are. But there are online events too, that you're like, I don't really. I don't really want anymore. And it's like, but you could have met someone. Like, there's literally opportunity cost to having low energy. And then there's also the added cost of, like you said, all of the accoutrement around it, such as sleep.
Jason Lange: Yeah. And I think that's a good way to tie into some of what I was talking about with, like, the. The. The piece of me that would make less eye contact. I think the deeper thing of that I didn't really mention is like, for me, it was kind of a general antisocial. Right. Like, if I was a jerking off for three hours to porn the next day. I wasn't like super inspired to go hang out with people, you know, like, and actually be in people's presence. Whether it was a little shame or the energetic cost, like they just don't go particularly hand in hand to me. And so, yeah, you know, in the program we do with men, I challenge guys to 30 days because that's, it's a challenge for many men. Some men, they've never done that. They've never gone that long before since, you know, they were teenagers. And it's also doable for any man. I really do believe with the right structure and it's long enough that you will notice an energetic contrast. And the whole idea with that is to have just an embodied experience of it. So then when you do make choices, they're far more conscious. And you know, the thing I've noticed about it, you know, in the no release part of the practice, right, Another frame on the regulation or the healthy nourishment versus kind of numbing is does this help me feel more or feel less? Right. Most of the times I was turned into Little Caesar's, pizza, video games or porn. It was so I would feel less, feel less anxiety about where my life was, less discomfort about choices I was or wasn't making, less pain in my body sometimes, whatever that might be. The more numbing orientation is in my experience, always about feeling less, right. It's like I don't want to feel this, so I'm going to control this small sliver and just feel this other thing instead. Versus, you know, the giving up porn and doing the no release challenge for me was a conduit to feeling a lot more. I was feeling way more in my body. So, you know, in addition to the glow, so to speak, that I've told you about of, you know, I, I had two. I had a streak of four months and then another streak of five months. So five months was my longest. And I mean I was just like, I felt unstoppable in that five months, right? Like I was work, I was doing twice a day workouts. In fact, I was doing weights in the morning and then I was doing wind sprints in the evening. Like I had that much energy and juice in my tank, so to speak. I was meditating every day. I was writing, I was kicking ass, I was paying debt down. Like I felt really strong and present in my body in a way that directly led up to me meeting my wife. And it is a lot of energy though, if you've never dealt with it before and that energy can be too much. So, you know, in the work we do, we help men create more robust nervous systems to be able to hold that energy and not just immediately disperse it, right? Not immediately get rid of it because the while it is awesome and strong and powerful. One of the reasons I believe men often turn towards these more numbing, self soothing things is when we hold our fire and don't disperse it, it actually demands action. It demands action in our lives and in the world, right? Like oh my God, if I don't numb out, I'm really going to actually have to feel more. And if I feel more, I'm going to really realize it's no longer integrity for me be at this job or I'm not okay being single. I have to go out and ask that girl for her number or I've always wanted to move this place and now it's time. Like there's an actual destabilizing factor I think to that level of energy in that it actually requires action. Like that's the proper expression of it via creativity, via life choices. So I like to think of it as, it's like when, when we, when I challenge men to do this in our program and you and I support them, it's like, it's kind of like turning up the heat on the kettle. And most guys aren't used to that, right? And so it starts to get a little hot and so I'll disperse a little energy here and then I'll disperse a little energy here. And porn is a fantastic tool for doing that. And then what we find is we're just in the same place. Two years later, I'm just not happy with my life. Things aren't going where I want and then to take that away and you know what I found is it's easiest to do them hand in hand. In my experience. You can still have a masturbation practice if you're not watching porn, but it's pretty advanced level stuff. So for most guys I'm like just cut them both out initially and just allow that kettle to kind of build up heat to the point where it is going to kind of steam, right? The kettle is going to go off. And that going off, so to speak, is going to be you taking some kind of action you've needed to take in your world. Like a demand to live differently, to be differently. Which was probably at the source of the discomfort that had you turning to the porn in the first place. It certainly was for me, yes.
Melanie Curtin: It's interesting, too, because when you're describing it, I'm like, that sounds exciting. Like, as the feminine, I'm like, I want to be around that guy. I want to be around the guy who's like, got the fire and is, like, turning up the heat and the kettle's off and it's like he's going to take action. I'm like, ooh. Like, I can feel like a sunflower turning toward the sun. I'm like, that's interesting to me. There's energy there, there's vitality, there's fire. There's like, totally.
Jason Lange: It's restorative. Yeah, that was the other thing. So when I say, like, for me, it was actually part of a healing journey that year where it was restorative. I mean, I had, you know, I was a little overweight at the time, and I was having just massive lower back problems, like, you know, brutally painful sciatica and things that were just crippling me. And I. Part of me just kind of intrinsically knew, like, man, if I don't release some. Something, it's going to be like, baking my system. I don't know how to. How to say it, but, like, seasoning a pan and it really restored a whole aspect of my lower body in my experience and. And kind of brought back some energy to my life and helped me feel a lot of things I needed to feel at that time, you know. The other part I forgot to say was I was doing all this stuff, right? And the other story I've told you was that whole time as well, I'm going into the gym, I'm working out, and I'm pushing iron every day, and I'm just bawling, just crying, just bawling. Two, three, four times a week. Every time I go to the gym, I'm just like, the whole year, I'm just real releasing so much emotion from my previous relationship, from all the relationship I didn't have, about how, you know, all the things that were making my life feel stuck. That same kettle, so to speak, that cooker, it was forcing me to feel things that I had been avoiding before, through porn, through numbing out with food. And there were things I really needed to feel like I needed to grieve. And I was much more alive as a result. I was much more present. And I do think I was much more dynamic and interesting to be around because I actually had, like, some fire in my body.
Melanie Curtin: And I think it made you more trustable as a man. Like, when I. When I hear you talk about the grieving and, like, crying while you're at the gym. I'm like, that's a man I would want to be with. Because that man is moving through his trauma and he's releasing all this old, old gunk, like all this old stuff, like cleaning out the pipes, basically. And then you end up with this clear and present who can run energy and emotion through his body because he's clear. He doesn't have, like, we call it, like, emotional constipation. I'd say, like, most of the clients we work with come in with, like, quite a bit of emotional constipation because our culture really doesn't support men. It really doesn't support men in processing emotion. It just shuts it down. Like, you know, be a real man. Don't feel like. Don't be a sissy. Not using the other word, because I don't want to use that word in this context. But it's like that, that is the culture of, like, the, you know, American man. I'd say mostly Western man, but a lot of cultures kind of pound that out of men. And that's a. There's a huge cost because you can't be a human being and not have emotion. So what are you gonna do with it? You're gonna stuff it, right? And you stuff it and stuff it and stuff it. And men do that for years and then there and then. Yeah, like you said, like, they have lower back pain and there's all this stuff going on.
Jason Lange: It's totally gonna show up in your body. Like, 100% will, like chronic or if it doesn't show up in your body, it's going to show up in your mind and you're going to be depressed. Like, you know, we see that a lot of times, too, and it kind of just gunks up the whole system.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. So it's, it's. It's interesting to hear, to hear that part of your journey. Because again, as the feminine, I'm tracking, like, the response. My response is on, like, oh, that's the man I would want to be with. Like, that's interesting to me. There's a man who's willing to run emotion through his body as he's working out. That feels trustable. That feels like a place I can go where my emotions will be accepted. It feels like a place I can lean on. It's like, I want to be around that. Right. It's. There's something exciting about it that is life giving. So, okay, so we're going to start to wrap up Here. But I just, I want to ask a little bit if there is a man listening, for example, who's resonating and is like, yeah, man, this sounds like something I should probably do. I should probably stop watching so much porn and, or jerking off so much. I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to your experience in terms of being in community around it. So if a man's trying to do it alone, what's gonna happen versus being with tribe or community of some kind around it?
Jason Lange: I think community makes all the difference. It's something I didn't have for many, many years. Like, I wasn't comfortable talking about this part of my life really till that year, you know, of my major shifts when I had the right men's group and I was feeling solid about who I was. And that makes it a lot easier because like you said, one of the great medicines and antidotes for all the reasons we turn to self soothing and numbing agents is connection is like, I got more connected that year. I had a lot more connection. So I didn't feel the same need to regulate in the same ways. And you know, the paradox for a lot of our men and for a lot of us, just as human beings, is when we're feeling low energy and not good, that's. We tend to withdraw into ourselves for a lot of us, when that's exactly the moment we need to be reaching out for connection, the thing that will actually help us regulate in a healthy way. So finding men you can really reach out to. And in times like, hey, I had a really hard night. Do you got five minutes to talk on the phone? Sometimes that's all it takes. Like, I'm really struggling. Like, this girl asked her out, she said no, da, da, da. And you know, our brother's there to kind of hear you through that. So finding some community, you know, there's definitely online community. There's, you know, the whole no FAP culture on Reddit is dedicated to this, which has really emerged in the years since I did it and gotten very popular. But also, you know, I think tying it into your deeper purpose in life, like, who do you want to become? Where are you going? You know, that's, that's something that's not necessarily present in some of the other avenues for this online. But I found it much easier to do that when I was, you know, lining it up with my deeper life's purpose. Like, oh, this has a reason. I want this energy for a reason, because there's things I want to do. There's things I want to create. And the truth is, without some kind of structure and system of practice and community around us, it's really hard. You know, the. Whether it's porn or, you know, sugary and salty foods, you know, they call these things supernatural stimuli. They're things that our nervous system haven't actually evolved to self regulate around.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah.
Jason Lange: Because there used to be a geographical restraint, seasonal restraints, like back in the day. Right. You could only see or have sex with so many women. Now you can sit there online on your computer and have an literally an endless stream of new tantalizing content in a way that was just never possible in history unless you were maybe Genghis Khan. And you know, in such a position of authority, you could just dominate, dominate, dominate. But our nervous systems aren't actually wired to say no to some of this stuff. That's why I think it's really important to create structures in your life with community, with direction, with orientation, with connection that remove some of the choice around this to some extent. Right. When we get so full with other things, our energy system doesn't drop to a low place where we feel like, oh, I need to turn to porn right now. Just like, wow, I feel, I feel good right now. So I'm just going to go to bed. You know, that was kind of what happened to me. And suddenly it was like, wow, I haven't thought about it for this many weeks. That's such a different shift from oh my God, I got to not do this tonight. Yeah, that was the kind of outgrowing orientation of it. And that was where, you know, having a system and support structure in place really made the difference for me with my men's group, with getting more aligned with my purpose and with knowing I was, you know, wanting to do some deep healing. And this just intrinsically made sense to me.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. You know, you mentioned men's groups. It's Covid and in person stuff. A lot of in person stuff has moved online. So there's actually even more opportunities, I would say now for something like men's groups. And you do. Are you still doing the drop in men's groups every other week?
Jason Lange: Yes, I do do. Just a kind of a taster, as I would call it, drop in Men's Group 2 Monday nights a month, which anyone can join right now because they're on zoom. They used to be in person here in la, but we had someone join from Scotland the other week, which is pretty wild in Hawaii and all over the place now. So that's a good Example. Right. So it's kind of a tricky time because it's easier than ever to reach for connection, but there's also more isolation. So I imagine this is a time I would not be shocked. Right. If pornhub isn't having the best numbers they've ever had in the history of the Internet. In these last months of COVID with all the disconnection and like, this is the thing people can turn to. And when you don't know that there's other structures available that can support you even virtually, I think I could see how easy it would be to fall into those traps.
Melanie Curtin: So if a man is interested in that men's group, how does he find it?
Jason Lange: Yes. So the drop in men's group, easiest way to find it is just go to my site, Evolutionary Men and click the men's group links and it'll be there in that menu. And you can find with how to sign up through meetup.com we have one coming, coming up soon. And like I said, twice a month. And then if you want to go a little deeper, you know, Mel and I have a program which you'll hear a little bit about at the end of this episode.
Melanie Curtin: Yes. So, yeah, so as we, as we wrap up, I would love to hear just a brief sort of like, where are you now? Like what? You know what, what are your practices now? What are you. I think you probably moved more into sexual mastery from, I don't know, scarcity or. I'm not really sure what the pre. Word would be. But what. What's your practice like now?
Jason Lange: Yeah, you know, now my practice is I'm married, so it's creating a long term, vital sexual relationship with my partner. And, you know, porn's come up a couple times for me when I've been really low energy or stressed out as like, wow, hey, I noticed that urge is there and that's something I want to do, but mostly it's just not part of my life anymore because there's so much else part of my life. And you know, one of the things you and I talked about on our last call for men, that is also a thing I've noticed as one of the differences between some of my previous partners and my current partner is I am emotionally available now, you know, she might argue not as much as she likes all the time, but much better than, you know, I've ever been before. And that has changed the, you know, the way I relate to physical intimacy and what I've noticed, you know, and I have this belief that I Don't have any science for anything. It's all anecdotal at this point, but that there's a spectrum of the energetic cost of release for men. And on one end of that is the quick, totally numb, disconnected porn masturbation, which is, for me, was always the most depleting. I mean, just like hit by a Mack truck. I'm done. I'm, like, out. I'm drained. I feel fried. 2. Like, really good, emotionally available, connected intimacy with a partner I care about and trust. I have noticed there's much less of an energetic cost for me versus other partners who I didn't have that emotional connection with. And it was a little bit more like, you know, what we might call porn sex, where I'm just having my experience and taking, and she's just kind of having her experience and taking. So where I'm at these days, it's being very conscious of it. You know, in my relationship, particularly as I get older, there's. It's way different.
Melanie Curtin: Looking at 40 it right now, what you're referring to is ejaculation. You're referring.
Jason Lange: Yeah, sorry.
Melanie Curtin: If you release with porn, that's the most depleting. And then second most is with a partner. But sort of like porn sex. Yeah.
Jason Lange: Where it's just disconnected, where it's just the physical or the taking or there's just not that. Like, there's no eye contact. There's no hard openness. There's no, like, just feeling each other as human beings and actually exchanging that energy. You know, there's. There was a way. My first. Many of my first partners, because I was so, you know, locked up and numb in so many ways in my life. I kind of had. I still kind of had numb sex. Right. I wasn't actually available or open to my partner. It was kind of like this narrow range of experience I was allowing myself to feel because my heart is so closed that it wasn't very rejuvenating versus, you know, what I've grown into with. With my wife, where there's. Yeah, there's just a lot more space for that. So there's a lot more energetic exchange, which is much more nourishing. And, you know, if I'm in a period in my life where I know I need a huge project coming up or something's going on, I will practice retention. You know, there's ways. There's ways to be sexual and just not release. And I found that to be probably the most generative place I've ever been of, like, wow, I really need some energy. It's, it's, it's to have sex and not release for an extended period of time. Then it's kind of the best of all worlds with a connected partner and it's just like a spiral up of energy. And you know, there's a lot of different sports traditions and indigenous traditions that would, that would practice those kinds of retention for important moments. Because the idea is you just want to have as much fire in your system as possible. And so that's something I still consciously can dabble into when I need. It doesn't mean I live my life like that all the way, all the time, but it's a tool I have now that I'm really grateful for.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, it feels like advanced sexuality for men. I don't think I know anyone that's a man who's practicing advanced sexuality who isn't using retention as a strategy. That it's a pretty big deal in terms of energy levels and yeah, how you show up in the world and yeah, it seems like a powerful tool and one that I think more and more men are waking up to as a part of their practice. Especially kind of, as you pointed out, as they're growing older and noticing the effect. Yeah, 100%. Because, you know, we take these five hour energy drinks and stuff and it's like, well, if there was this other thing you could do, they would have you feel more alive and awake all day without caffeine and without the crash of all, you know, that other stuff like that sounds interesting. That sounds like something. If I were a man, I'd be like, oh, I'd fuck with that. You know what I'm saying?
Jason Lange: Totally. And it's something that becomes easier to notice. You know, I certainly experienced as I aged. You know, there's kind of a, just an overabundance of a certain type of energy when we're young. So, you know, like I said, the costs weren't immediately clear to me at first what was really going on with my nervous system because I kind of had like a buffer, so to speak. And as I've gotten older and that natural like buffer of just, you know, youthful energy, qi has kind of gone away. It's like, wow, this really does impact me significantly. So I'm much more conscious of it now and think, you know, most men that want to, you know, I would argue if you want to have a meaningful impact in life at some point, you're probably going to need to cycle through this and have this experience. The other reason I encourage men to do it is because it's a great way to feel powerful again, to just actually have an embodied experience of what it means to feel powerful in your body. Which, you know, for me was not something I really had because I was always so depleted and worn out from this. And so just as an experiment, just as an experiment of contrast, of, like, how is it possible to feel in my body, to just do something like a no release challenge and give up porn for 30 days can be a total game changer. To know, like, oh, what I thought was a baseline, this is how it is, is actually not at all how it is. Right. I can. I can live a very different experience.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of like, when your refrigerator is humming and so annoying and you're just living with this refrigerator hum all the time and then you miss it and the hum goes away and you're like, oh, much better. This is so different. Yeah. So we're gonna wrap. I do want to just drop that URL again. If you're interested in the drop in men's groups, just go to Evolutionary Men to find those men's groups. And if you're interested in our presentation, Jason and I have a presentation that you can access for free there. Just go to Evolutionary Men Dearmen, and you will get taken to that which is about taking control of your dating life. So would love to hear your thoughts. If you do watch that and or participate in a men's group, you can always get me@dearmen podcastmail.com.
Jason Lange: We look forward to hearing from you.
