23. Why Men Use Sex (Porn) to Avoid Pain w/ Mark Groves

Are you leaking sexual energy all over the place, at the store, gym, work, online? Could you be using sex or porn to avoid shame, or avoid intimacy, or live up to some outdated model of a man? Could you be using orgasm to self-soothe because you rarely received emotional soothing as a child? Mark Groves is the founder of the popular and inspiring instagram page, Create The Love. This is a little different than most episodes of Men, This Way, in that Mark is a repeat guest and we’re drilling down into a specific topic – essentially, how men use sex to avoid pain and what to do about it. It’s a subject both Mark and I have a LOT of personal, painful experience in. We both used women, used sex, used porn, used orgasm to avoid a lot of underlying issues that just perpetuated disconnect and suffering in both ourselves and in our partners, even despite all the pleasure and good feeling that sex and orgasm and intimacy absolutely offer, too. Since we both have also been on profoundly healing journeys around all this, awakening to and practicing what it takes to create healthy relationships, not just with another person, but with ourselves, and with our own full, rich sexual drives and desires, too, we decided to record an episode on this for you. It’s filled with the life-changing insights and practices we both discovered on our respective journeys, including my experience doing a 30-day sex, dating, flirting, hunting, and hoping diet a few years ago, which profoundly shifted my relationship to sex, and intimacy, and really paved the way for the exquisite relationship I’m in today. Definitely listen to the end of this episode of “Men, This Way,” where we give you our best practices for learning how to use sex, not as a crutch to avoid pain, but rather as potent fuel for creating more vitality and deep connection in your life. Alright … Let’s dive … SHOW NOTES 5:58 ~ Mark Groves’ experiences with sex and emotional pain 12:08 ~ Seeking sex for emotional comfort 14:54 ~ Sex as validation 25:36 ~ Porn and its effects on men today 34:40 ~ Managing our sexual energy, and what draws from it 47:28 ~ Performance and validation 52:09 ~ The danger of making orgasm the point of sex 56:39 ~ Shame and sexuality 1:03:31 ~ Going on a sex diet 1:09:57 ~ Facing our pain, rather than avoiding it OTHER LINKS AND RESOURCES Find Mark @ www.MarkGroves.tv The Mark Groves Podcast @CreateTheLove on Instagram Also … Do your own “Sex, Dating, Flirting, Hunting & Hoping Diet” @ www.BryanReeves.com/DatingDiet