December 2, 2024 • 40 mins
When emotional energy and sexual energy fuse together, sexualized attachment is the result. In this episode, Dr. Floyd Godfrey describes the dynamics of sexualized attachment and his personal story of healing and recovery.
Dr. Floyd Godfrey is a Clinical Sexologist, Certified Christian Counselor, Certified Sex Addiction Specialist Supervisor, and Certified Mental Health Coach. He is often known for research and intervention with those who struggle with sexualized attachments and eroticized emotions. Connect with Floyd at FloydGodfrey.com
Buy Floyd's recently published book (this is a paid link):
Healing & Recovery – Perspective for Young Men with Sexualized Attachments
For more research on sexualized attachment, visit sexualizedattachments.com
To learn more about the licensing hoax mentioned in the intro of this episode, listen to the AACC Ethics Podcast where Floyd tells this part of his story.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Hey man, thank you forlistening to my episode with Dr
(00:21):
Floyd Godfrey.
It was quite, quiteenlightening for me to hear his
wisdom.
We're talking about sexualizedattachment, what it is, how it
works and what healing andrecovery look like.
You're going to learn a lotabout how emotional energy and
sexual energy often become fusedtogether and why it's so
(00:43):
important for us to meet theunderlying needs below our
feelings and behaviors.
Some of you may be aware thatthere was a hoax last year in an
effort to discredit FloydGodfrey, and if you want to hear
more about that, I've includeda link in the description where
you can go down and hear thefull story from Floyd directly.
This episode is a wonderfulsummary of his research, wisdom
(01:08):
and experience about sexualizedattachments and the emotions
that are often underneath ourservice-level sexual attractions
and behaviors.
I think you're really going toenjoy it.
Today I'm hanging out with DrFloyd Godfrey, who is the author
of Healing and RecoveryPerspective for Young Men with
Sexualized Attachments, andyou're going to hear a lot more
about what that means.
(01:28):
Floyd is a certified Christiancounselor, sex addiction
specialist supervisor, mentalhealth coach and he's also a
clinical sexologist.
So welcome to the show, floyd.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you, drew, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And in your book you say one of the most exciting
discoveries in my personalrecovery is that obsessive
sexual attraction had developedthrough a process of sexualizing
attachment needs and wounds.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, that's actually a lot more common than people
would know.
A lot more common than peoplewould know.
And society has sort of boughtinto this myth, drew, that
orientation and attractions arejust something you're born with,
and I think that's been more ofa political move over the years
.
But the research doesn't reallysupport that.
(02:20):
The emotional factors, theemotional underpinnings of what
causes someone to be attractedto this or that there's a lot of
emotional undercurrents to itall.
And healthy development andeven the emotions underlying
what we would consider healthydevelopment that's under there.
There's a lot going on for it,and so it's very common for
(02:46):
children and youth to startsexualizing things that are
originally emotionally grounded.
These are emotional issues thatbecome sexualized over the
course of development, andcertainly that was an epiphany
for me and learning about thatand then going to school and
(03:06):
through master's programs andthen later and having a great
deal of discussion withcolleagues about sexualized
attachments and they're morepronounced and easier to grasp
(03:31):
when you're talking about thingslike sex abuse.
It's easier to see it in thosekinds of situations, but that it
does occur.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So what exactly is sexualized attachment?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
who might be in trouble for rape, maybe they're
a sex offender and they havejust this obsessive need to be
in control.
And when you look clinically atsome of those guys, there's been
this emotional, ongoing need tobe in control.
Their life has often been outof control, control their life
has often been out of control,and so this ongoing emotional
(04:30):
need to control things aroundthem, to be in control, to
regain control, often takes asexual, you know sort of a
sexual feeling to it and itreally comes back to this
emotional root of longing forcontrol.
Root of longing for control.
So this high intensity ofemotion that then sort of gets
(04:52):
magnetized to this sexual pieceand you fuse together the rage
with the sexuality and now youhave eroticized rage which then
plays out as rape or high levelsof sexual manipulation.
So it's the fusion of emotionalenergy and sexual energy.
I don't know that it matterswhat kind of emotion we're
(05:13):
talking about.
It doesn't have to be rage, itcould be any form of emotional
energy, and the stronger theemotional energy is, then the
stronger the sort of magnetismbetween that and sexual and the
stronger the fusion becomes.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So we're talking about things like fear, shame,
loneliness, envy, yes, so all ofthose things can become
sexualized.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And, on a lighter note, youdon't have to talk about rage or
rape.
For years I've run an addictionpornography class for teenage
boys, specifically forpornography.
They're addicted to pornography.
It's not just a habit, butthey've become addicted to it,
(06:07):
become addicted to it andfrequently you see that these
boys have sexualized thisloneliness piece and then they
go to pornography as a way ofsort of compensating for that
and so they feel lonely and nowthey're sexualizing some of that
loneliness and it becomes thisaddiction, with the pornography
as a way of trying.
Their psyche is trying toresolve the loneliness.
And you're looking at someoneonline, you're interacting with
(06:29):
somebody online, even if it'sjust a video of pornography.
It's sort of like a fake sortof kind of connection and so the
brain is sort of taking it thatway.
It's sort of a counterfeit wayof taking it that way.
It's sort of a counterfeit wayof sideways way of connecting,
but it's not a connection and sothat's why it becomes
(06:50):
compulsive and addictive innature and they keep going back
to it.
So loneliness, rejection,sadness you know it doesn't have
to be a trauma, repetition,things that are obviously
sexualized attachment it couldbe more subtle like that.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
What are some of the symptoms that I might have a
sexualized attachment?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So symptoms might include things like unwanted
attractions, you know they mightinclude even things like
depression and you might beaware of the emotional factors
and those feel like symptoms.
So I'm lonely, I'm depressed,I'm anxious.
(07:32):
I've experienced a lot ofrejection in my life and I would
say the typical symptom wouldbe confusion over sexuality and
guys, men, women, youth askingwhy would I be attracted to this
or that?
Or I'm so confused about why Ican't stop this or that, and it
feels so far outside the norm.
(07:52):
What's going on?
And I think this is also whyyou have so many people talking
about multiple genders andmultiple attractions.
And multiple attractionsbecause your sexual energy can
go any kind of place, dependingon the emotional energy
underneath it.
And so then you have eternallyall kinds of never-ending
(08:22):
genders and attractions andorientations.
It's not because there are thatmany, it's because your sexual
energy can go almost anywhere,depending on your emotional
energy.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
That makes sense.
What would you say is thedifference between a sexualized
attachment and a sexualaddiction?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Sexual addiction is more of using sexual activity to
escape pain, distress,whatever's going on.
But you use that to the pointthat you grow a chemical
tolerance to using it.
So there's chemicals produced.
It's considered a processaddiction, like gambling or
(09:01):
something like that, and you usethe substance or the
pornography, the acting out,whatever form that is, even
masturbation.
You use it to a point thatyou're raising your baseline of
chemicals.
The dopamine, the serotonin,the norepinephrine, all these
chemicals, they go up.
Oxytocin goes up almost 500%,we think.
(09:21):
And so when you raise that levelof chemical for so long, your
body's baseline, where it'ssupposed to be here for normal
brain function, it's now here.
And so when you're addicted youhave to keep doing the activity
to raise that chemical level tofeel normal again.
When you stop that activity,that chemical drops even below
(09:45):
what's normal baseline.
And that's when guys havewithdrawal symptoms.
They feel depressed, they havea hard time sleeping, they have
difficulty with you know, theyget moody, eating problems, skin
sensitivity, genitalsensitivity, blue balls.
You know that sort of thingbecause they've dropped it below
the baseline and then they'lluse again to pull it back up.
(10:07):
But again it goes back up towhat the body wants, that
heightened baseline way up here.
So when you have withdrawals,that would be addiction going on
.
Some guys also act outcompulsively and that's not
sexual addiction.
I might have emotional stuffgoing on and I need the sexual
(10:27):
interaction to reduce thatcompulsivity.
It helps, whatever the anxiety,whatever, but I'm not addicted
to it, so I haven't grown atolerance to it and I keep
raising that chemical baseline.
I can just stop and resolve thecompulsive piece.
But when someone's addicted,yeah, they have some
biochemicals going on.
That's making that situationmuch, much worse.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, it sounds like attachment is often at the core
of an addiction or thecompulsive behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Definitely and especially for sexual addiction.
So you're talking about youknow Alex Katahakis has talked
in her work about sex addictionas an affect disorder.
You have Dr Philip Flores who'stalked about it as an intimacy
disorder.
We're coming back to attachmentaffect kinds of issues related
(11:21):
to it, not just somebody wholoves sex, somebody who's using
it as a way of coping for theseunderlying issues.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You've expressed a concern for boys and young men
growing up and viewingthemselves as abnormal or broken
based on their sexual thoughtsand feelings broken based on
their sexual thoughts andfeelings.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, to me it's a concern that what is often
normal boyhood or adolescentexperiences even as a young
adult in college what might benormal experiences get
misinterpreted or mislabeled assomething different, something
wrong, something broken.
Social media makes it worse.
(12:09):
So, as an example, maybe 10years ago I had a client who's
going into ninth grade, so he'sprobably about 14.
And he was just in tears, justsobbing because he was gay.
He thought he was gay and hedidn't want to be gay, and it
took us a while just to calm thetears a little bit, his panic,
(12:32):
even talking out loud about it.
And as we got to the story youknow, school had just started a
couple weeks ago he's now in anew high school and he's seeing
his friends from junior high andso they're interacting through
the halls, passing each other,and hey, buddy, and they're
(12:53):
hugging each other.
Hey, how are you?
Oh, my gosh, this is soexciting.
We're in high school and as he'swalking to class, some group of
older boys starts harassing himabout hugging these boys, these
other boys.
Why are you hugging those guys?
Do you like that?
Because if you like that, thatmeans you're gay.
(13:16):
You must be gay.
Did you know you were gay andreally coming down on him,
really coming down on him.
And so here he is sitting in myoffice describing himself as
gay, because he had seen all hisold buddies in the hallway and
they're all hugging each otherand excited to be in high school
.
And he's telling me Floyd, I dolike to hug my friends, I do.
(13:43):
Does that mean I'm gay?
The misinterpretation of what'snormal and legitimate.
So now they create these labelsand misperceptions.
And I don't think it's anaccident that the rate of
transgender diagnosis has goneup 300%.
(14:04):
I mean that's statisticallyunreal.
That's not because it's 300%.
More Kids are identifying that.
Kids are confused about wherethey're at, are identifying that
things.
The kids are confused aboutwhere they're at.
So so that's what I mean, Ithink, when we talk about
confusion, about about where thekids are at.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, that story of the 14 year old boy is so
heartbreaking and it shows howhe had this normal need and
desire to bond.
He had this normal need anddesire to bond that was then
labeled as sexual, when at thecore, no, it was emotional.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I run a pornography addiction class for
boys, teenage boys, and we haveone for young adult men.
The amount of times I'm hearingthem come in and tell me that
they never even thought aboutthis or that until they saw it
(15:04):
on porn.
I was at summer camp with Biblecamp, church camp, a few years
ago and I had a 14-year-old inmy group and we were processing
as a group.
You know the struggles theywere having in life and this is
just a Christian group, itwasn't therapy, just a group,
and the kid was just bustingdown in shame.
He could hardly control hisbreathing.
(15:25):
He's crying so hard andultimately it was because he was
looking at tranny porn.
And this is an athletic popularkid, horn.
And this is an athletic popularkid.
And he's saying to me why, why,why am I having this attraction
and the confusion even thatpornography is introducing and
the kinds of pornography?
And nowadays I don't know thatsome parents realize pornography
(15:49):
viewed online is not like aplayboy.
These are live graphic,dopamine-inducing oxytocin 500%
increasing interactions that arenovel, that create a
spontaneous rush.
Even if it's a little gross tothe kid, there's a rush about it
(16:12):
.
It leaves an imprint and thenlater they're going back and
they'll report in my group thatI went back again to see what I
liked about that or to see why Iwould be curious about that.
And what are they doing?
They're reinforcing theimprinting, and then the more
they do it, the more it imprints, and then it just gets worse
(16:32):
and worse and worse.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So that sexualized attachment is not who they are.
It's what happened to them.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yes, something happening to them.
It's something they'reexperiencing, something they're
feeling, and when they keeplooking at the porn or they keep
experimenting with the guys, orwhatever they're doing, they
are reinforcing the pattern, andso now the attraction keeps
coming up, or now the confusionstays unsettled and it keeps
(17:01):
coming back, and so, again,that's where recovery comes into
play.
So I can help the kid at campwith the tranny porn and we can
resolve the healing.
And well, this is what's goingon, and you were lacking this in
your life and whatever.
But he still has to stoplooking at it, you know.
You still have to stop viewingit, and so you're going to need
(17:22):
to have some buddies in placethat you can be accountable to.
You can be honest and tell themhey, dude, I'm so horny today.
I really need help, I need toget through the day.
You have to push through andshow some grit, or you're going
to keep memorizing the samepattern and it's going to get
stronger and stronger andstronger.
My heart breaks for some of theteenagers, drew, because
(17:44):
they're reinforcing thesepatterns, memorizing them
subconsciously, and they getstronger and stronger and
stronger, and then they'regraduating high school wondering
why the thoughts won't stop,and that's, you know.
Two plus two is four and sadlythey're just going to have more
work.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
They have to do to get over it?
Yeah, you've talked about theimportance of attachment with
parents and also with peers, andhow when there is not a safe
connection, we often willsexualize it and seek out a
(18:26):
sexual version of therelationships that we really
need.
How did you personallyexperience that growing up?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So when I was leaving about fifth grade, we started
moving.
My family would move and wemoved so often.
Up through high school I hadattended by that time, seven
different schools.
So fifth grade was a school,sixth grade was a different
school, seventh grade was adifferent school, eighth grade
was a different school, ninthgrade and then finally high
(18:55):
school tenth grade differentschool.
And so I had a very difficulttime staying connected to
friendships and some of thatongoing longing to always have a
friend who was there, a longingto belong, to fit in.
That created a lot of confusionfor me and I think the longing
(19:16):
in retrospect, the longing waslegitimate, but always moving
and always never having anyconsistent way of connecting
with buddies, consistently,getting to know girls.
It created a lot of confusionand I started to question myself
and who am I?
And I think that's also anormal part of adolescence and
(19:37):
young adulthood.
Trying to figure out who youare and so never feeling like I
had a permanent place to settlein and learn who I am was
confusing.
Pornography certainlyintroduced confusion.
It was a little harder back inthose days to get pornography.
You had to randomly find it orsteal it at Circle K, but some
(20:02):
of that added some confusion tothe mix.
My father was always verydistant.
He may have been a little onthe spectrum, I'm not sure Very
hard to connect with too, nothaving a lot of guidance from an
adult mentor or male.
In my life I didn't have a placeto have questions answered.
(20:24):
You know, is this normal?
What's normal, what's not?
What's it supposed to be?
Like, you know?
And puberty.
So I had a lot of questionsthat were difficult for me to
resolve and gratefully, later incollege I found some mentors
and I found some people.
(20:45):
I started getting some goodcounseling from a man who was
able to answer some questionsfor me and help me work through
some of my own issues and thenalso to see what's legitimate
versus what's confusion, becausesome of my own confusion was
coming from all these unmetneeds and lack of information
and not knowing so to have acounselor sitting in front of me
(21:08):
saying you know, floyd, it'sreally normal for men and young
men and teenage boys to want tohave their pack, to have a group
to fit in with, to feel like aboy and wanting to know what
that's like.
That is very, very normal.
And having him help me andmentor me into scenarios where I
could find what I was missingwas life-changing to me.
(21:30):
I didn't need to seek it out inunhealthy ways.
Here's what underlying needsare going on.
Here's what your brain reallywants, and in my case, faith was
always really important to me.
I was always faith-based.
Even with all the confusion, Ialways believed in God.
I felt like that was important.
I believed he was there.
(21:50):
I just didn't know why.
I was so confused, and solearning how to ask God to teach
me where can I find some ofthose friends, god, where can I
go to get some of those needsmet?
And having God help me to seewhat was really going on was
invaluable to me.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Thank you for sharing , and there's a whole lot more
in the workbook.
But what would you say yousexualized, and how did you find
those needs met in real life?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I just mentioned the need to belong.
I mean, that was a big one,because moving so much.
So when I was in college andstarted to get some counseling
from a counselor and let me tellyou too, he was the free
counselor you go to at campus,and so that's.
I couldn't afford anything else, but he was open-minded enough
(22:42):
not to take a certain politicalperspective on anything.
You know, I would say to him Ijust don't think this is who I
am, this is certainly not who Iwant to be.
Help me to, can you help mefigure this out?
And he would read the bookstogether with me about
attachment.
And so I'd come back tosessions and he had read several
chapters and I would read achapter and we would talk
(23:03):
through it, which was really,really good and helpful.
And so, talking to him aboutthat, one of the main things I
realized was I never had a placeto fit in.
I didn't know where my buddieswere.
I didn't know where I could fitin.
So in college, that was mycounselor's first recommendation
to me.
Okay, we've discovered thisabout you, floyd.
(23:25):
Now, where can you find that?
I want you to start prayingover that.
So, instead of asking God tomagically fix you.
To take this away, god, he saidstart asking God to magically
fix you, you know, to take thisaway.
God, he said start asking God.
Now that God showed you thatyou're longing to fit in
somewhere, ask him where to go.
Where to go to find that?
(23:46):
Where are the guys you canconnect with?
Because you can't connect witheverybody.
And he was very honest with me,you know.
He says I don't connect witheverybody.
There's people at my church Idon't like, I don't necessarily
jive with, and you have to findthat for you.
Where can you find it?
And so I started to pray overthat, god, where can I go?
And sure enough, I found somemen in my major, in the
(24:08):
department I was in.
I was also involved in acollege choir, started to really
connect with some of those guys.
I was so blessed with threeroommates and I started to be
more open, more transparent.
That was part of my recoverytoo.
I remember telling God I'm soalone, I feel so alone, and God
(24:30):
sort of slapping me on the faceand I could just hear deep down
in here God saying to me Floyd,you never talk to anybody.
And I remember arguing with God, saying well, but nobody wants
to talk to me.
And God, sort of chuckling andsaying well, how can you know
that you don't talk?
You don't tell anybody.
And so I realized I got to betransparent and I started to
(24:52):
learn, and recovery requirestransparency.
And so I started to open up.
I opened up to one of myroommates because he noticed I
was depressed one day and hesays hey, he said what's wrong,
what's going on.
And so I revealed a little.
Everybody's going to thefootball game.
I don't even know how to playfootball, I never played
football.
And he says oh, I playedfootball.
(25:14):
He says let's go together,let's go together, I'll take you
and I'll tell you.
And he sat next to me that gamethe whole time and explained
everything.
This is what a down is.
They have to hit 10 yards.
They have, you know.
And he explained it all.
And I'd ask well, why are theystarting over?
Well, they didn't hit.
You know, they didn't hit themark.
Now it's the next team's turn.
He explained everything and thenthe next night took me out to
(25:37):
the football field to throw theball, to show me how to throw
the ball, and then after a fewweeks, we're all going to the
games together, all theroommates and a group of us, and
I kind of understand what'sgoing on.
And so anyway, just as a recap,god told me to be more open, be
more transparent, and in theprocess of that I started to
(25:58):
relay to roommates you know,here's what I need, and then
they were able to meet some ofthose needs.
Now I find a bunch of footballfriends and get out to the games
.
So learning how to meet some ofthose needs emotionally which
was the whole issue all alongstarted to decrease the
(26:22):
sexualization of those needs.
I was sort of feeding thehunger, feeding the need, and
then the sexual peace sort ofwent dissipated and went down.
It wasn't so obsessive anymore.
Of course I'm a boy, so I stillhad sexual urges and wanted to
(26:43):
date and things, but theobsessiveness over some of the
attractions and the weird placesthey would go was calming down.
It was dissipating as I met theneeds.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Those sexualized attachments started to lose
their power.
Yes, someone in our communityrecently shared that underneath
every behavior is a feeling andunderneath every feeling is a
need.
When we meet those unmet needs,it's so much easier to navigate
the feelings and behaviors.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yes, absolutely 100% agree.
I think that guy's right,whoever it is.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, totally.
You talk about healing andrecovery.
What is the difference betweenthose two things?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, I titled the book Healing and Recovery
because I think there's a bigdifference between the two and
the healing involves, in my mind, the kinds of stuff we're just
talking about Someself-awareness, some personal
insight about what's underneathit all, whether it's the need to
belong, to fit in, to bond withother men, to feel safe around
(27:53):
women, whatever the emotionalneeds are about to address that
in healing ways.
That's all emotionally-basedkind of stuff and in some cases
trauma-based.
If I was sexually abused, if Iwas emotionally manipulated or
(28:13):
abused, all those things needsome healing.
You have to work through that,sometimes with a counselor,
sometimes with with my roommates.
That freshman year of collegemy roommate was so mature and
patient with me for years andwould talk to me, and even when
(28:36):
I was kind of a jerk or snarky.
But then the recovery piece Ithink is a little bit more of
what we would think of in termsof addiction recovery work.
I think there's also some hardwork that has to go into play
here.
I can do a lot of healing work,but it doesn't magically change
the fact that I have anaddiction and I have to learn to
(28:56):
stop.
So I can do all kinds ofhealing work, but if I don't
learn to stop viewingpornography or hooking up
randomly with people or whatever, stop drinking.
If I don't stop those things,I'm going to keep the other
going.
I'm going to perpetuate it.
You're memorizing it.
So if I have some random sexualattraction in this case towards
(29:20):
something off the wall, and Ikeep going back to it because it
feels good or it's fun or it'san escape from reality just like
I was drinking alcohol orsomething my mind keeps
memorizing that same behaviorover and over.
So you have to stop andrecovery is hard and there's
(29:40):
times where I needed not just aroommate buddy to put his arm
around me and give me some loveand affection.
Sometimes I needed anaccountability partner who says
Floyd, I want you to throw thisaway.
I want you to come to me everytime you're tempted.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I want you to attend this 12-step group so you have
some accountability partners tocheck in with every week and it
takes grit, so there might besome really tough decisions like
getting a different phone ormoving to an environment that's
more supportive and lesstriggering all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yes, a new job.
You know that's on a differentside of town so I don't have to
drive by certain streets.
You know it could be adifferent roommate because the
one I had and in my case I had afantastic roommate, I'm not
talking about him, but I hadbuddies in recovery and their
roommates had porn all over theroom and they were hooking up
(30:37):
with girls and there was allkinds of problems there.
And why would I want a roommatethat's not helping me.
I can be nonjudgmental andstill move out and go somewhere
else.
So, yes, changing behaviors andletting someone feed into you
where you're messing up, Dude,you have to stop.
You have to get rid of things,you have to push yourself
(31:00):
through discomfort and stop.
And there's no quick, easy fixto that.
In my case there were somesituations that were easier.
When I met the underlyingemotional needs, when I resolved
some of the trauma, thetemptation went down, but it
wasn't gone completely and I'vehad guys who will say it is for
(31:21):
them.
For me I had to learn how tothrow some stuff away, get an
accountability partner, not goover here anymore, not do that
anymore, because it's toodifficult, it's too teasing,
it's too difficult, it's tooslippery, and in AA they call it
a slippery slope, and I justlearned to avoid the slippery
slopes, and from a faithperspective, for me that's
(31:44):
important.
I really appreciate thescripture that says flee from
sexual immorality, becauseyou're sinning against yourself.
In other words, you're makingyour own life worse.
That's how I see that scripture.
I'm making my own life worsewhen I just put myself in
teasing, difficult, edgingsituations.
(32:05):
So that's recovery, so twopieces, and I think they have to
go together.
You have to work on both thatyou're going to be successful.
The guys who aren't successfuland long-term successful
recovery, they've missed onepiece or the other.
You know they're either tryingto stop cold turkey, do all
recovery work, just be sober,but then they never address the
(32:25):
emotional stuff and then itbubbles up like a pressure
cooker.
Or all they do is the emotionalwork, you know, but they don't
stop their habits and theiraddiction, and so then they keep
falling back into these oldhabits, which brings all the
feelings back again.
And you gotta do both, yougotta hit both ends of it yeah,
that is so wise.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I love the way you just put that, because I see
both all the time.
Yeah, men who feel like they'vetried everything but the
emotional healing hasn't beentouched yet, or they've done so
much emotional healing and yetthe habits have not shifted at
all, or they're still living ina toxic environment.
You wrote a sentence thatreally stood out to me strong
(33:07):
emotion and attachment.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Drivers are like magnets attracting themselves to
sexual energy yes, so it's apsychological phenomena that we
haven't done enough researchabout.
There are some organizationslike I tap and a set that will
talk about it.
Jay Stringer talks about it insome of his work kind of stuff.
(33:32):
Attachment has a psychologicaldirection for connection.
You're talking about survivalby being a part of the pack,
being a part of the tribe.
So psychologically I'm going tobond with my mom, my dad,
others around me, my peers, andso that attachment energy that's
(33:55):
the drive is for survival, toconnect.
Sexual energy has a similarobjective to connect, for
survival of the species, tosexually connect, to physically
connect, and so they both havethe same directional objective,
which makes it even more likelyas to why these two things can
fuse and become one, becausethey're so parallel in the
(34:18):
direction that they're going.
It just so happens they becomefused over time and it becomes
more and more it feels like thesame thing, and so I feel lonely
because I want to belong to theguys and now I'm feeling
attracted to them.
But really, underneath thatthere's this longing to belong,
(34:39):
to connect, to be one of theguys.
It's a legitimate emotionalneed.
It's just getting sexual.
It's almost like the sexualenergy is hijacking,
piggybacking onto this need tobelong.
So that's kind of what I needor how I would describe that
sort of magnetism that occursbetween the two.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That makes so much sense.
I've never heard anyone put itquite so clearly.
That blows my mind thatemotional attachment and
connection, as well as sexualenergy, are all about survival.
Yeah yeah, whether individuallyor for the species.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and I wish I could take credit for
it, for the idea.
But again, others have talkedabout it before.
It just gets downplayed.
It's not always politicallycorrect to bring it up, it's not
always as dynamic as a topic totalk about, but it's there and
it's been talked about for yearsand just maybe not highlighted
(35:39):
like we needed to.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, this is awesome .
What is your favorite thingabout freedom?
Healing, recovery.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I haven't struggled with pornography in a long, long
time, meaning I haven't had aslip in a long, long time with
that, nor have I been compulsivein years and years with it.
I feel free, I feel like I havechoices and it's not always
easy, because now I have toreally talk to my wife.
If I'm mad at her, you know, Ican't just avoid it.
(36:12):
So there's a liberation,there's a freedom in it.
I feel more connected to Godthan I did before.
I feel more in tune with Himthan I did before.
I feel like a better father.
When difficulties come along,it's painful because you have to
(36:32):
actually deal with thedifficulty, you have to actually
deal with the truth, and on theother hand, I can, and it goes
away and eventually you fix itand resolve it.
I didn't realize the lack ofintimacy in my life, and it
wasn't until I got into recoverythat I started to discover what
(36:52):
real intimacy is, and not justwith my wife and our sexual
relationship, but also withbuddies and friends.
I wasn't having sex with them,but I was definitely intimate
with them and they were sharingback.
Hey, floyd me too.
Hey, I've struggled with thattoo.
(37:13):
Hey, I've been lonely too, orhey, I know what you mean.
And to have a buddy.
I remember one of my roommateswas going to leave mid-semester.
He had some things going on athome.
I was helping him take stuffout to his car and it was just
me and him.
The other guys had classes andwhatnot.
And so he's loading up his carto leave and I'll never forget
(37:35):
how he turned around as he's allset to go and just gave me this
big old hug and he wouldn't letgo and I'd never had another
peer hug me like that before.
And I remember him saying Floyd, I love you, man, you've meant
so much to me in my life.
And here we are, two20-year-old kids, and it's the
(38:00):
first time I actuallyexperienced intimacy with a dude
in a way that was so healthyand connected.
I had not experienced thatbefore.
So those kinds of experiencesare liberating, but they're soul
filling in a way that I wouldnever have achieved through
sexual random behaviors.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So beautiful Sounds like you were receiving a hug
from God in that moment Idefinitely felt that way, for
sure, yeah, yeah, awesome thereare so many other great stories
from your life in this workbook,as well as insights, questions,
journal prompts, healing andrecovery perspective for young
(38:47):
men with sexualized attachments.
You can get a copy of it at thelink in the description.
You can also learn more aboutFloyd at floydgodfreycom.
Speake (38:57):
Sexualizedattachmentscom is another place they could go,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Awesome To get more research, education and to
connect with you.
Floyd, thanks so much for beingwith us.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Thank you.
Just as a final concludingthought, drew, I would just want
to say to you or your listeners, there's hope.
If you're struggling withsexual confusion or sexual
addiction, if you've been avictim of sexual abuse, whatever
your situation is, there ishope and there are answers, and
(39:31):
the best thing you can do foryourself is to keep looking,
keep looking, keep praying.
Seek support Podcast.
I know, drew, you have aweekend retreat that men can
attend to do healing work.
Keep looking, don't give up.
The answers are out there.
It might not be easy, it mighteven be painful, but there is
(39:53):
hope and there's freedom inrecovery.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Amen, awesome and gentlemen, always remember you
are God's beloved Son and you heis well-pleased.
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Hey man, thank you forlistening to my episode with Dr
(00:21):
Floyd Godfrey.
It was quite, quiteenlightening for me to hear his
wisdom.
We're talking about sexualizedattachment, what it is, how it
works and what healing andrecovery look like.
You're going to learn a lotabout how emotional energy and
sexual energy often become fusedtogether and why it's so
(00:43):
important for us to meet theunderlying needs below our
feelings and behaviors.
Some of you may be aware thatthere was a hoax last year in an
effort to discredit FloydGodfrey, and if you want to hear
more about that, I've includeda link in the description where
you can go down and hear thefull story from Floyd directly.
This episode is a wonderfulsummary of his research, wisdom
(01:08):
and experience about sexualizedattachments and the emotions
that are often underneath ourservice-level sexual attractions
and behaviors.
I think you're really going toenjoy it.
Today I'm hanging out with DrFloyd Godfrey, who is the author
of Healing and RecoveryPerspective for Young Men with
Sexualized Attachments, andyou're going to hear a lot more
about what that means.
(01:28):
Floyd is a certified Christiancounselor, sex addiction
specialist supervisor, mentalhealth coach and he's also a
clinical sexologist.
So welcome to the show, floyd.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you, drew, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And in your book you say one of the most exciting
discoveries in my personalrecovery is that obsessive
sexual attraction had developedthrough a process of sexualizing
attachment needs and wounds.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, that's actually a lot more common than people
would know.
A lot more common than peoplewould know.
And society has sort of boughtinto this myth, drew, that
orientation and attractions arejust something you're born with,
and I think that's been more ofa political move over the years
.
But the research doesn't reallysupport that.
(02:20):
The emotional factors, theemotional underpinnings of what
causes someone to be attractedto this or that there's a lot of
emotional undercurrents to itall.
And healthy development andeven the emotions underlying
what we would consider healthydevelopment that's under there.
There's a lot going on for it,and so it's very common for
(02:46):
children and youth to startsexualizing things that are
originally emotionally grounded.
These are emotional issues thatbecome sexualized over the
course of development, andcertainly that was an epiphany
for me and learning about thatand then going to school and
(03:06):
through master's programs andthen later and having a great
deal of discussion withcolleagues about sexualized
attachments and they're morepronounced and easier to grasp
(03:31):
when you're talking about thingslike sex abuse.
It's easier to see it in thosekinds of situations, but that it
does occur.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So what exactly is sexualized attachment?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
who might be in trouble for rape, maybe they're
a sex offender and they havejust this obsessive need to be
in control.
And when you look clinically atsome of those guys, there's been
this emotional, ongoing need tobe in control.
Their life has often been outof control, control their life
has often been out of control,and so this ongoing emotional
(04:30):
need to control things aroundthem, to be in control, to
regain control, often takes asexual, you know sort of a
sexual feeling to it and itreally comes back to this
emotional root of longing forcontrol.
Root of longing for control.
So this high intensity ofemotion that then sort of gets
(04:52):
magnetized to this sexual pieceand you fuse together the rage
with the sexuality and now youhave eroticized rage which then
plays out as rape or high levelsof sexual manipulation.
So it's the fusion of emotionalenergy and sexual energy.
I don't know that it matterswhat kind of emotion we're
(05:13):
talking about.
It doesn't have to be rage, itcould be any form of emotional
energy, and the stronger theemotional energy is, then the
stronger the sort of magnetismbetween that and sexual and the
stronger the fusion becomes.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So we're talking about things like fear, shame,
loneliness, envy, yes, so all ofthose things can become
sexualized.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And, on a lighter note, youdon't have to talk about rage or
rape.
For years I've run an addictionpornography class for teenage
boys, specifically forpornography.
They're addicted to pornography.
It's not just a habit, butthey've become addicted to it,
(06:07):
become addicted to it andfrequently you see that these
boys have sexualized thisloneliness piece and then they
go to pornography as a way ofsort of compensating for that
and so they feel lonely and nowthey're sexualizing some of that
loneliness and it becomes thisaddiction, with the pornography
as a way of trying.
Their psyche is trying toresolve the loneliness.
And you're looking at someoneonline, you're interacting with
(06:29):
somebody online, even if it'sjust a video of pornography.
It's sort of like a fake sortof kind of connection and so the
brain is sort of taking it thatway.
It's sort of a counterfeit wayof taking it that way.
It's sort of a counterfeit wayof sideways way of connecting,
but it's not a connection and sothat's why it becomes
(06:50):
compulsive and addictive innature and they keep going back
to it.
So loneliness, rejection,sadness you know it doesn't have
to be a trauma, repetition,things that are obviously
sexualized attachment it couldbe more subtle like that.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
What are some of the symptoms that I might have a
sexualized attachment?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So symptoms might include things like unwanted
attractions, you know they mightinclude even things like
depression and you might beaware of the emotional factors
and those feel like symptoms.
So I'm lonely, I'm depressed,I'm anxious.
(07:32):
I've experienced a lot ofrejection in my life and I would
say the typical symptom wouldbe confusion over sexuality and
guys, men, women, youth askingwhy would I be attracted to this
or that?
Or I'm so confused about why Ican't stop this or that, and it
feels so far outside the norm.
(07:52):
What's going on?
And I think this is also whyyou have so many people talking
about multiple genders andmultiple attractions.
And multiple attractionsbecause your sexual energy can
go any kind of place, dependingon the emotional energy
underneath it.
And so then you have eternallyall kinds of never-ending
(08:22):
genders and attractions andorientations.
It's not because there are thatmany, it's because your sexual
energy can go almost anywhere,depending on your emotional
energy.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
That makes sense.
What would you say is thedifference between a sexualized
attachment and a sexualaddiction?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Sexual addiction is more of using sexual activity to
escape pain, distress,whatever's going on.
But you use that to the pointthat you grow a chemical
tolerance to using it.
So there's chemicals produced.
It's considered a processaddiction, like gambling or
(09:01):
something like that, and you usethe substance or the
pornography, the acting out,whatever form that is, even
masturbation.
You use it to a point thatyou're raising your baseline of
chemicals.
The dopamine, the serotonin,the norepinephrine, all these
chemicals, they go up.
Oxytocin goes up almost 500%,we think.
(09:21):
And so when you raise that levelof chemical for so long, your
body's baseline, where it'ssupposed to be here for normal
brain function, it's now here.
And so when you're addicted youhave to keep doing the activity
to raise that chemical level tofeel normal again.
When you stop that activity,that chemical drops even below
(09:45):
what's normal baseline.
And that's when guys havewithdrawal symptoms.
They feel depressed, they havea hard time sleeping, they have
difficulty with you know, theyget moody, eating problems, skin
sensitivity, genitalsensitivity, blue balls.
You know that sort of thingbecause they've dropped it below
the baseline and then they'lluse again to pull it back up.
(10:07):
But again it goes back up towhat the body wants, that
heightened baseline way up here.
So when you have withdrawals,that would be addiction going on
.
Some guys also act outcompulsively and that's not
sexual addiction.
I might have emotional stuffgoing on and I need the sexual
(10:27):
interaction to reduce thatcompulsivity.
It helps, whatever the anxiety,whatever, but I'm not addicted
to it, so I haven't grown atolerance to it and I keep
raising that chemical baseline.
I can just stop and resolve thecompulsive piece.
But when someone's addicted,yeah, they have some
biochemicals going on.
That's making that situationmuch, much worse.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, it sounds like attachment is often at the core
of an addiction or thecompulsive behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Definitely and especially for sexual addiction.
So you're talking about youknow Alex Katahakis has talked
in her work about sex addictionas an affect disorder.
You have Dr Philip Flores who'stalked about it as an intimacy
disorder.
We're coming back to attachmentaffect kinds of issues related
(11:21):
to it, not just somebody wholoves sex, somebody who's using
it as a way of coping for theseunderlying issues.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You've expressed a concern for boys and young men
growing up and viewingthemselves as abnormal or broken
based on their sexual thoughtsand feelings broken based on
their sexual thoughts andfeelings.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, to me it's a concern that what is often
normal boyhood or adolescentexperiences even as a young
adult in college what might benormal experiences get
misinterpreted or mislabeled assomething different, something
wrong, something broken.
Social media makes it worse.
(12:09):
So, as an example, maybe 10years ago I had a client who's
going into ninth grade, so he'sprobably about 14.
And he was just in tears, justsobbing because he was gay.
He thought he was gay and hedidn't want to be gay, and it
took us a while just to calm thetears a little bit, his panic,
(12:32):
even talking out loud about it.
And as we got to the story youknow, school had just started a
couple weeks ago he's now in anew high school and he's seeing
his friends from junior high andso they're interacting through
the halls, passing each other,and hey, buddy, and they're
(12:53):
hugging each other.
Hey, how are you?
Oh, my gosh, this is soexciting.
We're in high school and as he'swalking to class, some group of
older boys starts harassing himabout hugging these boys, these
other boys.
Why are you hugging those guys?
Do you like that?
Because if you like that, thatmeans you're gay.
(13:16):
You must be gay.
Did you know you were gay andreally coming down on him,
really coming down on him.
And so here he is sitting in myoffice describing himself as
gay, because he had seen all hisold buddies in the hallway and
they're all hugging each otherand excited to be in high school
.
And he's telling me Floyd, I dolike to hug my friends, I do.
(13:43):
Does that mean I'm gay?
The misinterpretation of what'snormal and legitimate.
So now they create these labelsand misperceptions.
And I don't think it's anaccident that the rate of
transgender diagnosis has goneup 300%.
(14:04):
I mean that's statisticallyunreal.
That's not because it's 300%.
More Kids are identifying that.
Kids are confused about wherethey're at, are identifying that
things.
The kids are confused aboutwhere they're at.
So so that's what I mean, Ithink, when we talk about
confusion, about about where thekids are at.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, that story of the 14 year old boy is so
heartbreaking and it shows howhe had this normal need and
desire to bond.
He had this normal need anddesire to bond that was then
labeled as sexual, when at thecore, no, it was emotional.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I run a pornography addiction class for
boys, teenage boys, and we haveone for young adult men.
The amount of times I'm hearingthem come in and tell me that
they never even thought aboutthis or that until they saw it
(15:04):
on porn.
I was at summer camp with Biblecamp, church camp, a few years
ago and I had a 14-year-old inmy group and we were processing
as a group.
You know the struggles theywere having in life and this is
just a Christian group, itwasn't therapy, just a group,
and the kid was just bustingdown in shame.
He could hardly control hisbreathing.
(15:25):
He's crying so hard andultimately it was because he was
looking at tranny porn.
And this is an athletic popularkid, horn.
And this is an athletic popularkid.
And he's saying to me why, why,why am I having this attraction
and the confusion even thatpornography is introducing and
the kinds of pornography?
And nowadays I don't know thatsome parents realize pornography
(15:49):
viewed online is not like aplayboy.
These are live graphic,dopamine-inducing oxytocin 500%
increasing interactions that arenovel, that create a
spontaneous rush.
Even if it's a little gross tothe kid, there's a rush about it
(16:12):
.
It leaves an imprint and thenlater they're going back and
they'll report in my group thatI went back again to see what I
liked about that or to see why Iwould be curious about that.
And what are they doing?
They're reinforcing theimprinting, and then the more
they do it, the more it imprints, and then it just gets worse
(16:32):
and worse and worse.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So that sexualized attachment is not who they are.
It's what happened to them.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yes, something happening to them.
It's something they'reexperiencing, something they're
feeling, and when they keeplooking at the porn or they keep
experimenting with the guys, orwhatever they're doing, they
are reinforcing the pattern, andso now the attraction keeps
coming up, or now the confusionstays unsettled and it keeps
(17:01):
coming back, and so, again,that's where recovery comes into
play.
So I can help the kid at campwith the tranny porn and we can
resolve the healing.
And well, this is what's goingon, and you were lacking this in
your life and whatever.
But he still has to stoplooking at it, you know.
You still have to stop viewingit, and so you're going to need
(17:22):
to have some buddies in placethat you can be accountable to.
You can be honest and tell themhey, dude, I'm so horny today.
I really need help, I need toget through the day.
You have to push through andshow some grit, or you're going
to keep memorizing the samepattern and it's going to get
stronger and stronger andstronger.
My heart breaks for some of theteenagers, drew, because
(17:44):
they're reinforcing thesepatterns, memorizing them
subconsciously, and they getstronger and stronger and
stronger, and then they'regraduating high school wondering
why the thoughts won't stop,and that's, you know.
Two plus two is four and sadlythey're just going to have more
work.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
They have to do to get over it?
Yeah, you've talked about theimportance of attachment with
parents and also with peers, andhow when there is not a safe
connection, we often willsexualize it and seek out a
(18:26):
sexual version of therelationships that we really
need.
How did you personallyexperience that growing up?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So when I was leaving about fifth grade, we started
moving.
My family would move and wemoved so often.
Up through high school I hadattended by that time, seven
different schools.
So fifth grade was a school,sixth grade was a different
school, seventh grade was adifferent school, eighth grade
was a different school, ninthgrade and then finally high
(18:55):
school tenth grade differentschool.
And so I had a very difficulttime staying connected to
friendships and some of thatongoing longing to always have a
friend who was there, a longingto belong, to fit in.
That created a lot of confusionfor me and I think the longing
(19:16):
in retrospect, the longing waslegitimate, but always moving
and always never having anyconsistent way of connecting
with buddies, consistently,getting to know girls.
It created a lot of confusionand I started to question myself
and who am I?
And I think that's also anormal part of adolescence and
(19:37):
young adulthood.
Trying to figure out who youare and so never feeling like I
had a permanent place to settlein and learn who I am was
confusing.
Pornography certainlyintroduced confusion.
It was a little harder back inthose days to get pornography.
You had to randomly find it orsteal it at Circle K, but some
(20:02):
of that added some confusion tothe mix.
My father was always verydistant.
He may have been a little onthe spectrum, I'm not sure Very
hard to connect with too, nothaving a lot of guidance from an
adult mentor or male.
In my life I didn't have a placeto have questions answered.
(20:24):
You know, is this normal?
What's normal, what's not?
What's it supposed to be?
Like, you know?
And puberty.
So I had a lot of questionsthat were difficult for me to
resolve and gratefully, later incollege I found some mentors
and I found some people.
(20:45):
I started getting some goodcounseling from a man who was
able to answer some questionsfor me and help me work through
some of my own issues and thenalso to see what's legitimate
versus what's confusion, becausesome of my own confusion was
coming from all these unmetneeds and lack of information
and not knowing so to have acounselor sitting in front of me
(21:08):
saying you know, floyd, it'sreally normal for men and young
men and teenage boys to want tohave their pack, to have a group
to fit in with, to feel like aboy and wanting to know what
that's like.
That is very, very normal.
And having him help me andmentor me into scenarios where I
could find what I was missingwas life-changing to me.
(21:30):
I didn't need to seek it out inunhealthy ways.
Here's what underlying needsare going on.
Here's what your brain reallywants, and in my case, faith was
always really important to me.
I was always faith-based.
Even with all the confusion, Ialways believed in God.
I felt like that was important.
I believed he was there.
(21:50):
I just didn't know why.
I was so confused, and solearning how to ask God to teach
me where can I find some ofthose friends, god, where can I
go to get some of those needsmet?
And having God help me to seewhat was really going on was
invaluable to me.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Thank you for sharing , and there's a whole lot more
in the workbook.
But what would you say yousexualized, and how did you find
those needs met in real life?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I just mentioned the need to belong.
I mean, that was a big one,because moving so much.
So when I was in college andstarted to get some counseling
from a counselor and let me tellyou too, he was the free
counselor you go to at campus,and so that's.
I couldn't afford anything else, but he was open-minded enough
(22:42):
not to take a certain politicalperspective on anything.
You know, I would say to him Ijust don't think this is who I
am, this is certainly not who Iwant to be.
Help me to, can you help mefigure this out?
And he would read the bookstogether with me about
attachment.
And so I'd come back tosessions and he had read several
chapters and I would read achapter and we would talk
(23:03):
through it, which was really,really good and helpful.
And so, talking to him aboutthat, one of the main things I
realized was I never had a placeto fit in.
I didn't know where my buddieswere.
I didn't know where I could fitin.
So in college, that was mycounselor's first recommendation
to me.
Okay, we've discovered thisabout you, floyd.
(23:25):
Now, where can you find that?
I want you to start prayingover that.
So, instead of asking God tomagically fix you.
To take this away, god, he saidstart asking God to magically
fix you, you know, to take thisaway.
God, he said start asking God.
Now that God showed you thatyou're longing to fit in
somewhere, ask him where to go.
Where to go to find that?
(23:46):
Where are the guys you canconnect with?
Because you can't connect witheverybody.
And he was very honest with me,you know.
He says I don't connect witheverybody.
There's people at my church Idon't like, I don't necessarily
jive with, and you have to findthat for you.
Where can you find it?
And so I started to pray overthat, god, where can I go?
And sure enough, I found somemen in my major, in the
(24:08):
department I was in.
I was also involved in acollege choir, started to really
connect with some of those guys.
I was so blessed with threeroommates and I started to be
more open, more transparent.
That was part of my recoverytoo.
I remember telling God I'm soalone, I feel so alone, and God
(24:30):
sort of slapping me on the faceand I could just hear deep down
in here God saying to me Floyd,you never talk to anybody.
And I remember arguing with God, saying well, but nobody wants
to talk to me.
And God, sort of chuckling andsaying well, how can you know
that you don't talk?
You don't tell anybody.
And so I realized I got to betransparent and I started to
(24:52):
learn, and recovery requirestransparency.
And so I started to open up.
I opened up to one of myroommates because he noticed I
was depressed one day and hesays hey, he said what's wrong,
what's going on.
And so I revealed a little.
Everybody's going to thefootball game.
I don't even know how to playfootball, I never played
football.
And he says oh, I playedfootball.
(25:14):
He says let's go together,let's go together, I'll take you
and I'll tell you.
And he sat next to me that gamethe whole time and explained
everything.
This is what a down is.
They have to hit 10 yards.
They have, you know.
And he explained it all.
And I'd ask well, why are theystarting over?
Well, they didn't hit.
You know, they didn't hit themark.
Now it's the next team's turn.
He explained everything and thenthe next night took me out to
(25:37):
the football field to throw theball, to show me how to throw
the ball, and then after a fewweeks, we're all going to the
games together, all theroommates and a group of us, and
I kind of understand what'sgoing on.
And so anyway, just as a recap,god told me to be more open, be
more transparent, and in theprocess of that I started to
(25:58):
relay to roommates you know,here's what I need, and then
they were able to meet some ofthose needs.
Now I find a bunch of footballfriends and get out to the games
.
So learning how to meet some ofthose needs emotionally which
was the whole issue all alongstarted to decrease the
(26:22):
sexualization of those needs.
I was sort of feeding thehunger, feeding the need, and
then the sexual peace sort ofwent dissipated and went down.
It wasn't so obsessive anymore.
Of course I'm a boy, so I stillhad sexual urges and wanted to
(26:43):
date and things, but theobsessiveness over some of the
attractions and the weird placesthey would go was calming down.
It was dissipating as I met theneeds.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Those sexualized attachments started to lose
their power.
Yes, someone in our communityrecently shared that underneath
every behavior is a feeling andunderneath every feeling is a
need.
When we meet those unmet needs,it's so much easier to navigate
the feelings and behaviors.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yes, absolutely 100% agree.
I think that guy's right,whoever it is.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, totally.
You talk about healing andrecovery.
What is the difference betweenthose two things?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, I titled the book Healing and Recovery
because I think there's a bigdifference between the two and
the healing involves, in my mind, the kinds of stuff we're just
talking about Someself-awareness, some personal
insight about what's underneathit all, whether it's the need to
belong, to fit in, to bond withother men, to feel safe around
(27:53):
women, whatever the emotionalneeds are about to address that
in healing ways.
That's all emotionally-basedkind of stuff and in some cases
trauma-based.
If I was sexually abused, if Iwas emotionally manipulated or
(28:13):
abused, all those things needsome healing.
You have to work through that,sometimes with a counselor,
sometimes with with my roommates.
That freshman year of collegemy roommate was so mature and
patient with me for years andwould talk to me, and even when
(28:36):
I was kind of a jerk or snarky.
But then the recovery piece Ithink is a little bit more of
what we would think of in termsof addiction recovery work.
I think there's also some hardwork that has to go into play
here.
I can do a lot of healing work,but it doesn't magically change
the fact that I have anaddiction and I have to learn to
(28:56):
stop.
So I can do all kinds ofhealing work, but if I don't
learn to stop viewingpornography or hooking up
randomly with people or whatever, stop drinking.
If I don't stop those things,I'm going to keep the other
going.
I'm going to perpetuate it.
You're memorizing it.
So if I have some random sexualattraction in this case towards
(29:20):
something off the wall, and Ikeep going back to it because it
feels good or it's fun or it'san escape from reality just like
I was drinking alcohol orsomething my mind keeps
memorizing that same behaviorover and over.
So you have to stop andrecovery is hard and there's
(29:40):
times where I needed not just aroommate buddy to put his arm
around me and give me some loveand affection.
Sometimes I needed anaccountability partner who says
Floyd, I want you to throw thisaway.
I want you to come to me everytime you're tempted.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I want you to attend this 12-step group so you have
some accountability partners tocheck in with every week and it
takes grit, so there might besome really tough decisions like
getting a different phone ormoving to an environment that's
more supportive and lesstriggering all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yes, a new job.
You know that's on a differentside of town so I don't have to
drive by certain streets.
You know it could be adifferent roommate because the
one I had and in my case I had afantastic roommate, I'm not
talking about him, but I hadbuddies in recovery and their
roommates had porn all over theroom and they were hooking up
(30:37):
with girls and there was allkinds of problems there.
And why would I want a roommatethat's not helping me.
I can be nonjudgmental andstill move out and go somewhere
else.
So, yes, changing behaviors andletting someone feed into you
where you're messing up, Dude,you have to stop.
You have to get rid of things,you have to push yourself
(31:00):
through discomfort and stop.
And there's no quick, easy fixto that.
In my case there were somesituations that were easier.
When I met the underlyingemotional needs, when I resolved
some of the trauma, thetemptation went down, but it
wasn't gone completely and I'vehad guys who will say it is for
(31:21):
them.
For me I had to learn how tothrow some stuff away, get an
accountability partner, not goover here anymore, not do that
anymore, because it's toodifficult, it's too teasing,
it's too difficult, it's tooslippery, and in AA they call it
a slippery slope, and I justlearned to avoid the slippery
slopes, and from a faithperspective, for me that's
(31:44):
important.
I really appreciate thescripture that says flee from
sexual immorality, becauseyou're sinning against yourself.
In other words, you're makingyour own life worse.
That's how I see that scripture.
I'm making my own life worsewhen I just put myself in
teasing, difficult, edgingsituations.
(32:05):
So that's recovery, so twopieces, and I think they have to
go together.
You have to work on both thatyou're going to be successful.
The guys who aren't successfuland long-term successful
recovery, they've missed onepiece or the other.
You know they're either tryingto stop cold turkey, do all
recovery work, just be sober,but then they never address the
(32:25):
emotional stuff and then itbubbles up like a pressure
cooker.
Or all they do is the emotionalwork, you know, but they don't
stop their habits and theiraddiction, and so then they keep
falling back into these oldhabits, which brings all the
feelings back again.
And you gotta do both, yougotta hit both ends of it yeah,
that is so wise.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I love the way you just put that, because I see
both all the time.
Yeah, men who feel like they'vetried everything but the
emotional healing hasn't beentouched yet, or they've done so
much emotional healing and yetthe habits have not shifted at
all, or they're still living ina toxic environment.
You wrote a sentence thatreally stood out to me strong
(33:07):
emotion and attachment.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Drivers are like magnets attracting themselves to
sexual energy yes, so it's apsychological phenomena that we
haven't done enough researchabout.
There are some organizationslike I tap and a set that will
talk about it.
Jay Stringer talks about it insome of his work kind of stuff.
(33:32):
Attachment has a psychologicaldirection for connection.
You're talking about survivalby being a part of the pack,
being a part of the tribe.
So psychologically I'm going tobond with my mom, my dad,
others around me, my peers, andso that attachment energy that's
(33:55):
the drive is for survival, toconnect.
Sexual energy has a similarobjective to connect, for
survival of the species, tosexually connect, to physically
connect, and so they both havethe same directional objective,
which makes it even more likelyas to why these two things can
fuse and become one, becausethey're so parallel in the
(34:18):
direction that they're going.
It just so happens they becomefused over time and it becomes
more and more it feels like thesame thing, and so I feel lonely
because I want to belong to theguys and now I'm feeling
attracted to them.
But really, underneath thatthere's this longing to belong,
(34:39):
to connect, to be one of theguys.
It's a legitimate emotionalneed.
It's just getting sexual.
It's almost like the sexualenergy is hijacking,
piggybacking onto this need tobelong.
So that's kind of what I needor how I would describe that
sort of magnetism that occursbetween the two.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That makes so much sense.
I've never heard anyone put itquite so clearly.
That blows my mind thatemotional attachment and
connection, as well as sexualenergy, are all about survival.
Yeah yeah, whether individuallyor for the species.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and I wish I could take credit for
it, for the idea.
But again, others have talkedabout it before.
It just gets downplayed.
It's not always politicallycorrect to bring it up, it's not
always as dynamic as a topic totalk about, but it's there and
it's been talked about for yearsand just maybe not highlighted
(35:39):
like we needed to.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, this is awesome .
What is your favorite thingabout freedom?
Healing, recovery.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I haven't struggled with pornography in a long, long
time, meaning I haven't had aslip in a long, long time with
that, nor have I been compulsivein years and years with it.
I feel free, I feel like I havechoices and it's not always
easy, because now I have toreally talk to my wife.
If I'm mad at her, you know, Ican't just avoid it.
(36:12):
So there's a liberation,there's a freedom in it.
I feel more connected to Godthan I did before.
I feel more in tune with Himthan I did before.
I feel like a better father.
When difficulties come along,it's painful because you have to
(36:32):
actually deal with thedifficulty, you have to actually
deal with the truth, and on theother hand, I can, and it goes
away and eventually you fix itand resolve it.
I didn't realize the lack ofintimacy in my life, and it
wasn't until I got into recoverythat I started to discover what
(36:52):
real intimacy is, and not justwith my wife and our sexual
relationship, but also withbuddies and friends.
I wasn't having sex with them,but I was definitely intimate
with them and they were sharingback.
Hey, floyd me too.
Hey, I've struggled with thattoo.
(37:13):
Hey, I've been lonely too, orhey, I know what you mean.
And to have a buddy.
I remember one of my roommateswas going to leave mid-semester.
He had some things going on athome.
I was helping him take stuffout to his car and it was just
me and him.
The other guys had classes andwhatnot.
And so he's loading up his carto leave and I'll never forget
(37:35):
how he turned around as he's allset to go and just gave me this
big old hug and he wouldn't letgo and I'd never had another
peer hug me like that before.
And I remember him saying Floyd, I love you, man, you've meant
so much to me in my life.
And here we are, two20-year-old kids, and it's the
(38:00):
first time I actuallyexperienced intimacy with a dude
in a way that was so healthyand connected.
I had not experienced thatbefore.
So those kinds of experiencesare liberating, but they're soul
filling in a way that I wouldnever have achieved through
sexual random behaviors.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So beautiful Sounds like you were receiving a hug
from God in that moment Idefinitely felt that way, for
sure, yeah, yeah, awesome thereare so many other great stories
from your life in this workbook,as well as insights, questions,
journal prompts, healing andrecovery perspective for young
(38:47):
men with sexualized attachments.
You can get a copy of it at thelink in the description.
You can also learn more aboutFloyd at floydgodfreycom.
Speake (38:57):
Sexualizedattachmentscom is another place they could go,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Awesome To get more research, education and to
connect with you.
Floyd, thanks so much for beingwith us.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Thank you.
Just as a final concludingthought, drew, I would just want
to say to you or your listeners, there's hope.
If you're struggling withsexual confusion or sexual
addiction, if you've been avictim of sexual abuse, whatever
your situation is, there ishope and there are answers, and
(39:31):
the best thing you can do foryourself is to keep looking,
keep looking, keep praying.
Seek support Podcast.
I know, drew, you have aweekend retreat that men can
attend to do healing work.
Keep looking, don't give up.
The answers are out there.
It might not be easy, it mighteven be painful, but there is
(39:53):
hope and there's freedom inrecovery.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Amen, awesome and gentlemen, always remember you
are God's beloved Son and you heis well-pleased.
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