7 Things I’ve Learned as a Men’s Sex Coach

These points are, of course, not meant to apply to all men. They are what I’ve seen in my particular clients over the years. I tend to work with smart, spiritually-curious men with a background in STEM.

And many of these issues are what motivated me to start my business — so they didn’t come as a surprise, though my understanding has deepened through listening to the experiences of the brave, curious, open-hearted men who come to work with me.

1. Men love to LOVE, but feel disconnected from their emotions. Many men come to work with me because they want to love more deeply — they want to be connected with their partner, they want to be great fathers to their children -and they want to open to their emotional world in order to do this. They often find themselves facing lots of shame and internal resistance when it comes to reconnecting with the body and respecting their emotional intelligence. It’s courageous work.
2. Men’s sexuality is rich and complex. Contrary to media portrayals of men as sex-crazed machines, sex works best for many and is most fulfilling when the connection involves emotional depth. Also, men experience a broad range of sexual problems that can have complex causes, tied to physical health, trauma, emotional health, mindset, nervous system function, and relationship health. Additonally, men have the ability to experience sexual pleasure and orgasm that is not dependent on ejaculation.
3. Men are longing to be met by women who welcome their desire and masculine power. To be fully received. The men I work with care deeply and are terrified of hurting women. But this has caused them to disconnect from their strength, self-worth, and sexuality. They desire sexual partnership that celebrates rather than shames them, but they are afraid to ask for what they want and instead keep doing what they think will please women, which of course turns women off.
4. Men feel stuck between the conflicting desires of sexual variety and committed relationship. They both crave exploration with different partners and feel unfulfilled without emotional depth. Men have been taught to get their sense of self-worth from their sexual conquests while at the same time being shamed if they are not completely loyal partners.
5. Men have the capacity to be as energetically sensitive as women, and it’s beautiful — irresistible, even, to witness the contrast of depth of feeling combined with male physical power.
6. Men and women (and all genders) have deep shared humanity. The ever-popular and lucrative gender wars (and associated unfortunate books relegating the sexes to different planets, with gendered brains) keep us thinking about ways men and women are different (and ignoring other genders entirely). But men and women both need to reconnect to the body, allow themselves to heal from trauma, learn emotional intelligence and conscious communication, and have a good cry once in a while. We all need connection in order to thrive. Emphasizing culturally-conditioned differences as biologically pre-determined hinders connection — which I see over and over in clients who pedestalize women or make them a mysterious, unreachable ‘other.’
7. We need better education about sex, emotions, the nervous system, communication, attachment style, and trauma, much earlier in life. I started my coaching business because it’s outrageous we don’t get a basic education in these areas, and the result is widespread toxic relationships, long-term pain, and wounded generations of kids who may grow up to perpetuate more of the same.

Want more? Let’s connect in my Facebook Group: Passionate Relationships for Powerful Men.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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