Exploring Desire and Sexuality with Jay Stringer-Full Transcript
Brad Aldrich:
Let’s start the conversation. Hello everyone, welcome to Still Becoming One. We are really glad that you are here today and we’re especially glad because we get to introduce you to my friend and our guest today, jay Stringer. Jay is a therapist, he’s a minister, he’s a researcher, he’s written a fabulous book called Unwanted how Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing. He’s also a husband and a father.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, those are great things, all of those important titles, and he’s here today to talk about all of those things and join us in our journey in Still Becoming One and our relationship. So thank you so much for being here, jay.
Jay Stringer:
Brad and Kate, thank you so much for having me. So good to be here, looking forward to our conversation.
Brad Aldrich:
Yes, we are too, and it’s you know, jay and I have known each other since well, covid actually I jumped into his one of, I think, the first course that you went through in teaching people how to go through or lead through your class. That happened to be during COVID.
Jay Stringer:
Because of COVID.
Brad Aldrich:
Because of COVID. Yeah, and it was just a fabulous way to kind of spend a little bit of downtime in processing through stories and understanding, you know, and really journeying through helping people through unwanted sexual behaviors, and I’ve so enjoyed the format of the group that you’ve put together. I was actually just looking. I think I am just started. Last week I started a new group. I think it’s my 10th since then.
Jay Stringer:
Whoa. You might be. You might be the first place or second place. I’ll have to look into that.
Brad Aldrich:
I don’t know it’s been unwanted leader. There you go, I don’t know about that. But but, jay, I’m so you know, honestly, I feel really blessed to have that material just to really help people to try and figuring out what this journey through unwanted sexual behaviors is and what freedom is. And I would love to ask you a question that I think has come up in every one of my groups, especially at the beginning of the journey, because in the very beginning of your book you write that rather than fearing we are too sexual, we should be more concerned that we have not yet become sexual enough. I see I only work with guys. I know this book can be for either men or women, but I work with guys. So I see them and they just kind of go man, I’m here because I’m too sexual. What does that even mean? How do you help them unpack that?
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, I mean one of the directions that I go with. That is just thinking through. Let me start a little bit with just kind of language. So some philosophers, theologians, when they’re talking about sex, would say that sex comes from this Latin word meaning saccharae, which means to sever or to amputate from the whole. So the image would be like think about a tree and you’ve just kind of cut down a branch from the tree. Well, you have sexed the tree in the old English language. But some theologians would then go on to say that our sexuality is the sense that we are made to be one, we are made to be connected with one another, and our sexuality is this core expression of how we go from this separation and division back into oneness. So it’s not just about genitals, it’s about all of life becoming one. And so a lot of times, you know, when someone is struggling particularly with an unwanted sexual behavior, they think that they are just way too sexual and they have this very narrow definition of what sex and genitality and orgasm looks like. But they really. I would say the invitation is to not think about just trying to stop something, but much more. How can you actually increase your sexuality? Increase your sexuality, increase your desire for connection. So I’m coming off of a vacation and was telling you all a little bit about being in this.
Jay Stringer:
One of my favorite hikes in the world is a place called the Enchantments and it’s about two hours east of Seattle, Washington, Alpine Lakes. You can get permits. It’s I think it’s the second hardest place in the country to get a permit into. You have a five or 8% chance. It’s like an Ivy League school to get into. But you can also do a through hike in the day and it’s minutes. 20 miles of just rugged Alpine Lakes wilderness, in a scent of this place called Asgard Pass.
Jay Stringer:
And all I can tell you in that moment was I felt so sensual, so alive.
Jay Stringer:
It was the sense of being in New York City for the last couple years I love the city, but also being out in this terrain that opened up my heart that I felt like one with the rocks, I felt one with the lakes, I felt one with the Wenatchee River when I swam in it, and so I would say that all of those are very core expressions of my sensuality and sexuality, being at work in the world, and so I think just that that understanding that, like genitals is only one portion of our sexual life.
Jay Stringer:
So, but even that, I would say, you know, especially for people that are growing up in Christian homes, I think. Elsewhere in the book I talked about how the clitoris has like 8000 nerve endings, and so the only purpose of that is sexual pleasure. So what do we do with the idea that a God created something with 8000 nerve endings, which is double that of the penis? It’s for pleasure, and so I think if we could really conceive of this idea that God has made us for pleasure and we are, you know, we become more one with ourselves and more one with the world around us when we lean into a holistic understanding of pleasure.
Kate Aldrich:
Wow, that’s awesome.
Brad Aldrich:
I think that is awesome. And it’s something that we see so often missing in church language about relationship, about marriage, about sexual out like, about life, about life. Well, yeah, that’s true. You know that so often people are coming from this like self denial approach of things that somehow that’s holier and just missing the fact of how much God actually wants us to have pleasure and wants to give good gifts to his children.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, to enter and engage those emotions. I thought that was really just a beautiful thing listening to you talk about that and I’m sitting here thinking to myself, gosh, how often do I enter in with things like that? And I just think that’s a brilliant, a brilliant thought to be kind of pondering and because I do believe that we, yes our sexuality, we are sexual creatures and that encompasses so much more than the act of sex. But I think that broad scope that it, that it can, and that God designed it to engage, I think that’s probably new for a lot of people.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, but that’s beautiful, that’s great.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and that kind of leads me into the next question. I wanted to talk to you a little bit. You know, I think a lot of people go through this material by themselves, and certainly I’ve seen single guys and that are on that journey and by themselves. But I see a lot of married guys who are like, okay, I’ve got to get this figured out for my wife and just kind of see it as this individual journey. And I’m curious, like how you’ve talked with couples about how they wrestle with the journey or the material, even together.
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, yeah, such a great question. So I, whenever I’m working with a couple, I try to give them kind of basically three words to think about, and that is kind of crisis meaning. And then third would be kind of revisioning, and so that sense of like, once betrayal trauma hits, it throws both, kind of both partners into a type of crisis situation. So this is like the triage work that a lot of us do in the in this world. So I would say that there is certain things that you know. Let’s say, the person struggling with an unwanted sexual behavior could be the man, like husband or the wife. They need to enter into their own crisis work to understand, you know, those questions of how did I get here? They need to find out some of those answers for their journey. But you never want to use your story or the problems that you are having as a defense against taking responsibility. So doing story work and understanding how these things have come to be is really about growing this muscle of integrity that if I can’t own my own story, I’m going to have a really hard time owning the reality and the impact of the harm that I have brought in. And so that’s kind of the interplay is that the more that I face and grieve the story of loss, abandonment, rigidity from my parents, those mirror neurons that develop of my own grief and anger are really intended to be able to have me step back into my marriage to be able to assess the damage that I have done there as well. And that’s the interplay between kind of story work and responsibility. But within that crisis stage for the betrayed spouse, they’re going to enter into trauma, and so what often happens within traumas, we have a region in our prefrontal cortex called Broca’s area, and what the brain scans show is that when you are in trauma, broca’s area the region of speech, goes offline, and so some of the people that are out there that have been betrayed it’s that sense of like I don’t even have words to begin to describe what’s happening. Or when I first heard about this or discovered this, like my body just imploded and I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t figure out, and that’s a trauma response. And so I would say both partners need to be able to get into their own crisis and triage work to address the trauma and the complexity. But I would say and I don’t want to put an official number on that, but I have a hard time if that goes beyond six months for a couple. Sometimes I meet with couples that have been in crisis mode for four or five years and that’s because the therapy is not addressing, it’s not moving them through the crisis into meaning making.
Jay Stringer:
But then the meaning making stage is about both partners understanding the meaning for themselves about this. So what I hear from a lot of women is this sense of I had an intuition that something was off for years, but I never honored my intuition. So that becomes the work of what are the stories in your family of origin and the church context that you’ve been in that have led you to suppress what you do, and maybe you were gaslit within that and that needs to be addressed as well. But there’s usually this kind of waking up to a sense of I knew something, I had some inclination that I kind of turned my mind off, I tried to look away, and so then we look at what’s the pattern of that. But then same thing for the man or the woman who has offended is the sense of what’s the meaning, and that could be tied into their own trauma, their own sexual abuse, their own manipulation, their own racism.
Jay Stringer:
In a lot of ways, that sense of not knowing how to work through relational difficulty in their marriage or in their life, and so they’re always outsourcing the solution to something like porn or infidelity.
Jay Stringer:
It could be a commitment to sabotage, it could be any number of things, but that’s the meaning making phase that both partners have to go through, and then the final stage is the revisioning of, you know, if the marriage decides to stay together.
Jay Stringer:
It’s the sense that sometimes the marriage is broken. But in some ways, one way that I would want us to think about this would be that sometimes marriage is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing, which is to corner both partners with, like, here’s some stuff that needs to be addressed in each individual life in order to, you know, become one, as you say. And that’s not to blame the victim in the slightest. It’s just to say that there’s processes that both partners need to commit to to find healing and growth, and I have never not seen a marriage change when both partners are very committed to. I have my own crisis and triage, I have my own meaning making that I need to do. And how do we kind of say, yeah, the first marriage between us is over, it’s dead and we need to change that, and that’s the decision. Something more beautiful to come.
Brad Aldrich:
So that’s the kind of threefold framework that I work couples through and the intensive that I do, that’s really powerful and actually I really love that idea of looking at you know her intuition that maybe got squashed somewhere. Because I mean, I’m thinking through some of the couples we’ve worked with, like one of the things that actually brings them to a place where you can see that wholeness sometimes when they get to the other side is that they can start to trust their intuition, that they see something different in their partner and that they believe it. And that obviously comes from a place of not only the change that they’re seeing, but it also comes from a place of being able to actually believe their intuition again.
Jay Stringer:
Yes, yeah, which is such a mind twist when you’re in a relationship with someone hiding and secretive. It’s like I see something, that I know something and that’s the Civil War of intuition is.
Jay Stringer:
It costs quite a bit to know, so it could be that sense of intuition. Another common thing would be you know, they are just, they have a relational template of being betrayed by someone, and so that that is part of the meaning making work as well, that says, yeah, you married someone that you didn’t quite trust, why you have a long history of betrayal, and how is this kind of latest betrayal with your spouse also highlighting some of these other core betrayals where you had a mom or your dad that did not have your best interest in mind and maybe they deflowered you or humiliated you in front of the family system or you know some other context throughout their life? And that’s really where the, I would say, the most meaningful work happens. Is this is true in my marriage? But it’s true in my marriage because it’s been true throughout my life and yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, so the reality that somebody needs to look at their own relational template, as you said, of understanding why they got into those relationships that may not have felt as safe as you would dream it to be or in many ways that you were missing, you know some early cues sometimes and those are hard things to face.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
I’m curious, jay, one of the things we have seen as a challenge is that the spouse who has been betrayed a lot of times. It can be a hard shift for them when there’s sort of the reality that, oh, I don’t want this to sound bad, but like, oh, I have some work to do too, like there are just some discoveries on my end and I feel like that’s something that comes up when we work with couples. Some people are there and willing to engage that and for some people that’s a really hard ask and of course, as you said, that comes after the triage stage. We’re not talking about when they’re in that act of trauma, but when it’s like, oh, okay, so I have things that I’ve brought to this relationship to that we’re not necessarily blaming but we’re saying can give us insights as to how this is played out and those potential intuitions and all the different things. I’m curious if you’ve seen that and how you’ve navigated that with the person who’s been betrayed.
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, no, you’re right, there is this massive complexity there where we’re asking people to have integrity, which is just about integrating all the stories, but we’re also not saying like you are at fault because of this. But if we were to since we’re on that topic of kind of intuition, thinking of one client I worked with, where she was in a family system that was very rigid, very controlling kind of, had very clear outcomes of how life was supposed to look, and so that sense of like something in her knew that she was being controlled all along. But you’re in that deep ambivalence of I either try and expose the system and then therefore I become something of the scapegoat in the family and I have no protection, or I try to look away from that and try and make the best to be able to make my family work. And then she got married to a man that was very similar, very rigid, compelling on the outside, that had all of his own secretive stuff in that sense of you know, I want to lean into this, but anytime I leaned into this he gas, lit me or got angry, and so it’s just easier to kind of just look away. And so for her that sense of wow, it is so freaking costly to know what I know, to see what I see and to speak to what I am experiencing.
Jay Stringer:
And once she begins to do that, the marriage system has to change. And that’s where he gets. He got really confronted on his gaslighting, on his dogmatism, and so that became you know where the revisioning of their marriage came. As she has to speak to what she says, and he wasn’t happy with that. He married someone to look away from all of his actions. So that was the sense of that first marriage is over because she can no longer look away and you can no longer in integrity ask her to look away. And so that would be one example of just she had some work to do, but it wasn’t blaming work at all, it was just a sense of the work that we always have to do should feel, you know, the burden is light, but at the same time it should feel very freeing as well.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, no, that’s really good, that’s really good.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s really powerful and I know, jay, you’ve been doing some work on kind of I don’t know, maybe feels like the opposite side of the same coin here of times when you’re seeing in relationships a low sexual desire or lack of sexual desire from one partner or the other in relationship. How do you see that connecting to those areas of sexual brokenness?
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, yeah. So that’s part of what my research for my next book and my next book will be looking at is just kind of desire problems holistically, instead of just extramarital affairs or porn. Because I would say like sexual problems are normal in committed relationships, like you can’t be married to someone for too long until you inevitably run into a problem. And the reframing that I’m always trying to invite couples into is that you know the problem is the solution, the obstacle is the way. The problems of our lives are a roadmap to healing, and so you know if I’m working with someone who has more low desire, that’s a very common dynamic. So the late psychologist David Schnarsh used to talk about kind of the high desire partner and the low desire partner. So the high desire partner isn’t the one who wants sex too much, it’s just they want it more than the lower desire partner. And part of what Schnarsh would say is that the lower desire partner always determines the frequency of sex, and that might sound manipulative but most lower desire partners are like maybe I wish I did want more, but I just don’t, and so that sense of the lower desire partner is always kind of determining kind of frequency, but how a couple navigates the complexities of mismatched desire is super important, and so often what begins to happen is there is some interplay between contempt and hiding, where the higher desire partner wants it more and then they are very contemptuous of if you actually wanted me, if you desired me, you would actually be more available to this, which is all contempt. And then that sets up the hiding or the blame of like, if you didn’t want me so much and if you didn’t demand this, then I would actually feel more open to it, but I can’t even find myself because of this. And then that’s where the couple goes into more hiding and blaming. So the high desire partner can often get into an affair at that point, use porn late at night after their spouse has just rebuffed them from a bid for intimacy, and so it can get fairly ugly if you don’t honor the mismatched desire. So at least in my marriage we talk about mismatched desire not just in terms of sex but in terms of all things in life.
Jay Stringer:
So my wife is the high desire partner for social and communal activity. I am the low desire partner. So anytime I’m on the road I will often call my wife on, like a Friday night doing a conference or something, and I’ll be like what are you up to? And she’s like I’ve got 18 people over at our apartment and it’s like that never would have happened if I was there to do some spontaneous gathering of friends. Because I’m I’m much more planned, I’m much more managing everything in my life and so, because I am the low desire social partner, I often determine our social calendar. She would want way more from me, but in terms of sex, I’m currently the higher desire sexual partner and she is the less does it.
Jay Stringer:
So how do we as a couple manage? She would want more people in our world and I would want more sex. Well, we can get into a lot of blame and a lot of contempt, which sets up a lot of hiding. Or we could actually begin to honor where one another are coming from and really seek to kind of bring goodness to one another’s desires. So it yeah, we can talk more about hypo arousal if that is a good direction. But that that’s the initial frame of. There is mismatched desire in every relationship, but how you navigate through that really determines the outcome and the flourishing of your marriage.
Kate Aldrich:
I love that, and I love that you use language there too.
Kate Aldrich:
or you said I am currently when you were talking about for you to for sexual desire, but to me that’s so important Because if you think about even you were talking about socially, sexually, like in your life of marriage, those things can shift many times for many different reasons and that’s, that’s the intricacy of it and like continuing, as you said, to honor each other and engage that in in all of that. Because I was thinking about the social for us and I think when we first got married you were way more social, absolutely.
Brad Aldrich:
Like it’s it’s shifted.
Kate Aldrich:
It’s not always been the same and like and that is that understanding for each other of where that’s coming from, what’s, what’s it play, and then honoring that. So, yeah, I love that.
Brad Aldrich:
No, that’s really important and yet it’s a. It is a tough thing to, I think, for probably the lower desire, spouse and for any of those things to own the fact that they may be Determining the level of that thing in their relationship.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, wouldn’t you think? That is because sometimes there is contempt assigned to the fact that you are many times Well, as Jay said, you’re many times sort of the determiner.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah of that, because I think that can be assigned and I see it and I’m you know, and this is not just talking about sexual, but I do see it a lot of times where People and I go to men because I tend to see men, but it’s certainly not just that but when they are like told you want more, that’s your problem. We have to do what mine, my level is and yeah, then that that kind of just Forces, a level of contempt of of, like you know, I don’t even get those needs heard, let alone met. That’s there.
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, and this is where it gets really complex with people’s stories, right? So you know, a lot of times men I have been socialized to not really talk about their needs, to not really know how to connect outside of an orgasm, so when I’m growing up and I feel a lot of social shame. So we were an upper group in an upper middle class neighborhood. My dad was a pastor so we had, you know, always had the oldest car, the oldest house, the least updates, and so I mean we were, we were fine financially, but in my neighborhood, in my world, I can remember being in fifth grade and my mom took me to pay less shoes at the beginning of the year because that’s what we could afford, and then my shoes were leaving black streaks everywhere throughout the gym floor and so my gym teacher kind of called me out and just said we, you can’t bring those shoes back To school because they leave streaks and that kind of Exposure of social dynamics. And I would say I have if that’s one store, I have 23 of those types of stories that have Influenced me to not want to be around people. Or when I do show up, I show up very, I Manage my appearance, I manage everything in my world. So when my wife wants to do something spontaneous, I’m freaking out inside because I can’t manage that. So that’s my story that I need to address.
Jay Stringer:
That leads into the low desire. So it’s one thing to just critique me for being low desire. It’s another thing to understand the story that influence that same thing for my wife, like just growing up as a female there. That’s a traumatized world in terms of desire. So the amount of men and boyfriends in her life who have wanted a lot from her and have pressured her. That has led to the, in some ways, the low desire to be a form of protest of. You cannot control Everything at all times and so that sense of that I have to honor the resistance, honor the low desire if we’re gonna be in a place of flourishing, of being able to say you might be sensing something In my desire or in my desire that becomes a demand. That protest is actually an honorable response in the situation Could be something to do with me, could have something to do with her story. So that’s where that’s where the work we do gets really fun is. There are general truths of high desire, low desire, partner. But beneath those high desire, low desire.
Kate Aldrich:
There are stories, and once couples can begin to get into the foundations of those general principles in life, that’s where marriage gets fun and complicated, and so much you go down a rabbit hole and you’re not sure where you’re gonna end up right and I always say like, when, when I show this other people, I say like but I get to know the Intraces of brads and and be able to enter in with him in a way that nobody else does right and I consider that an honor.
Kate Aldrich:
Now, I don’t know about 15 years ago, if you would have said that to me, I would have considered, because I didn’t understand, and I think until you can Enter in with your spouse’s stories and and understand what it was like for that little boy in gym class, or you and for I it’s hard. You don’t have that level of understanding. And then yet, once you do, not only is it so much I don’t know what word I would say more beautiful you weren’t for you and I to enter in.
Kate Aldrich:
I actually considered an honor to know it, but an honor to Um Try to anticipate when those things, when it’s coming up for you not for you, because you have to use your own voice and share with me, but I can be seeing some of that, that and see some of those places, but and that’s a really special thing- that’s beautiful, yeah, yeah, and I mean, kate, for you to say like that’s an honor, I mean that’s that’s like where marriage gets in a place that is stunning, is like.
Jay Stringer:
I hit the honor. I get the privilege of bearing witness to these stories, and that’s, yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about, like Gabbermotte’s trauma definition lately, where he just says trauma is not just what happens to us, trauma is what happens inside of us, in the, in the absence of an empathetic witness. And, yeah, if your spouse can turn into an empathetic witness to those stories, you reduce trauma and you increase Connection, which is the goal. So just yeah, yeah, if we could understand the holiness of, and the stunning kind of privilege of the role. That’s beautiful, that’s a beautiful invitation.
Brad Aldrich:
And I love this is one of the things I loved about unwanted from the very first time I read it and and every time I’ve interacted with you, jay is that you approach things with a place of grace and Not looking to condemn, not looking to, like, you know, put somebody out there and go look, you’ve got to do your work too, but more Recognizing.
Brad Aldrich:
Hey, there’s a story behind why you’re choosing this, this posture, why this is happening and let’s let’s go with kindness into that story and help you to find the fullness of life that God’s actually wanting you to lead.
Jay Stringer:
Yeah, thank you for saying that, and I think that’s the man in the Latin, it’s the via media or the third way that there’s a lot of approaches out there that are trying to bully people into change of like. You’re a narcissist, or you’re a addict, or you are XY or Z, or you’re naive or whatever it is, and it’s just like the human heart doesn’t change through being bullied, maybe for a season. Or there’s a lot of approaches that are just inviting people to look away like this is just insignificant, don’t really look at it, or just kind of white knuckle. Create different hedges in your life to not have to confront yourself.
Jay Stringer:
And I think that’s part of the via media is just we. There are some really difficult things that we need to confront, but repentance, as kind of my friend colleague Dan Alander says, like repentance is Returning to the party that God is throwing in your honor. So when we repent, which is to change direction, it’s a sense of there is invitation to party, there’s an invitation to more freedom, not just to be condemned.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah, that’s really nice, it’s really nice, it’s like. Thank goodness, hearty right Like a beautiful thing.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, we can yeah we can walk in honor of the places that we’re feeling most wounded and and we want to hide away, because when we feel that, wound it’s just like I just don’t even want to go there, right, I just want to shove it away, but when, because of that bullying perspective I think you know so many people in life the church especially has taken that Right like turn or burn perspective in so many different things and it just does not lead to a wholeness in it in any way, shape or form.
Jay Stringer:
So yeah, I don’t think it’s compelling at all.
Kate Aldrich:
No no.
Jay Stringer:
Don’t waste your life. They’re crappy. They’re crappy. Recovery approaches.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, and it’s. It’s revealing, I think, because when there is a lack of understanding even of how to help someone, it’s just so easy and think, as a parent, right, yeah, when we we have four Well, we have one young adult and three teenagers and when you can’t help them and you’re confused about what’s going on inside of them, it’s so easy to just throw at them Well, I’ll just get over it or just be happy, it’ll be fine, and and and. So I think the church has very much adopted the same posture. I don’t actually know what or how to help you, so I’ll just motivate you by, you know, telling you to move on, or telling you you need a discipline, or, and unfortunately it is just a lack of understanding and knowing how to help somebody.
Jay Stringer:
So yeah, yeah, that’s the less management approach of balance. Your eyes slap or overband around your breath, your wrist?
Jay Stringer:
get some internet monitoring you know, pray more, be more available to your husband, as, as you know, a lot of people are talking about these days, like some of the most best-selling books in the, you know, men’s recovery space, I mean verbatim line is just like when your husband is trying to outgrow porn or leave porn, present your body as a merciful vile of methadone to him, and that’s, I mean that’s, that’s harmful, it’s not just ignorant, it’s, it’s exceedingly harmful and that sets up entitlement and marital rape and just a lot of really problematic teachings. So, yes, yeah, we, we can and should do better.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, and we need to, yeah, and educate and speak out against those things because they I mean, I know, when Brad and I were going through our journey, we were interested. I didn’t grow up in church, so I didn’t grow up in purity culture, although I see the impact of it. However, I don’t even know that I ever felt like that was preached at me and we very much journeyed alone to start in our journey, but I still felt that. I still felt that and thought that is what I should be adopting, simply just by being in that culture. Yeah, and so, yeah, we do need to speak out against it because, even if people, in my opinion, aren’t even hearing that message, there is something about that oppression that is impactful to people for sure it’s seeps in.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and, and I think it’s in foreign culture that says men are doing this because they’re not getting enough sex.
Kate Aldrich:
Right.
Brad Aldrich:
Then it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from it’s. It’s on the other side of that of like well, that’s your fault. That’s not true.
Jay Stringer:
Right, right.
Brad Aldrich:
And I mean that’s been one of the challenges when I work with people is just getting them to stop long enough to legitimately ask the question of like, oh, why do I want this right now? Mm-hmm, Because it’s so. For many it’s so ingrained in. Just well, this is what men do, or this is what happens. So of course I want it like they don’t go any further than that, to actually journey and figure out where it’s doing.
Jay Stringer:
Mm-hmm, yeah, and that’s I mean, that’s one of the concepts I’m trying to work through in my next book is just this topic of differentiation or individuation, which is taken from, you know, plant cell biology, where if a plant is going to grow, the cells have to divide and differentiate in order to promote the growth of the organism. And I think that’s, I would say, you know, porn appeals particularly to men who are at very low levels of differentiation. They don’t know who they are, they don’t know how to work through conflict, and so if you have a reflected sense of self, meaning I only feel desirable if my wife wants me or my job tells me I’m making enough money and we have all these mirrors around us to confirm our validity and our desirability, and then the moment that we’re not desired by our spouse and our self-esteem crumbles. That’s often the place of low differentiation, which then sets up the entitlement. So that that’s something that again isn’t just an accusation to say you don’t know who you are and where are you and you have a low sense of self.
Jay Stringer:
But we do need to begin to ask ourselves like how is this desirable? Like if I don’t know who I am? And I get really cranky when you don’t want me and I don’t even want myself. That’s a hostage situation that you’re putting your spouse into. So I think just the sense of there’s a lot of inner work that I would say, at least for me as a man, I need to do in order to kind of work through not being chosen, not being desired. I have to know who I am, and that’s not what we’re initiating men into, is you know? We’re initiating them much more into a type of entitlement, like you deserve to have this, or you should get this on the side, or you know, yeah, we can just expect you to go to porn or booze or whatever it is, because you’re not getting what you want and it’s like that’s all low levels of differentiation. So we need to grow a sense of self if we’re going to be able to work through some of these difficulties.
Brad Aldrich:
So good, yeah, yeah, jay it’s just been such a great, great conversation. There’s so many things to unpack here. I know it’s it’s gonna be helpful to a lot of people. We have one question. We ask all of our guests that come on that we’d love just to hear from you what are you doing right now to keep your marriage alive?
Jay Stringer:
What am I doing right now to keep my marriage alive? We so my wife’s name is Heather and she she’s been working on a book for about two or three years and has just gotten a contract, and so that’s been something that’s been just like really fun for us is to kind of just see her come alive. So we have a lot of conversations around kind of book that she’s writing, so that has been just like a source of life for both of us. I have a book coming out, she has one coming out, so just being able to like talk and connect around theory and integration and stories has just been really fun to watch her come to life.
Jay Stringer:
And, as I told you all earlier, we have been in like we, we moved again pretty close to the city but it’s it’s just throwing everything into chaos. So even as you ask that question, I can feel the sense of we. We need more time to connect around stuff that’s not around moving or professional. So yeah, but that’s we. We love riding like city bikes around the city. So we will we’ll city bike down to a restaurant that we want to try and then we’ll city bike through Central Park and it’s just. These are always like those moments where I’m like riding a bike, looking over the city, looking over at Heather, being like we have ridiculous lives. This is amazing. So anytime we’re on a city bike trying new food yeah also a lot brings a lot of life to us.
Kate Aldrich:
I love that. That’s very cool.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s very good, great Well, jay, this has been a really, really great conversation. Tell our listeners where they can find you and some of the things that you’re you’re doing right now. Yeah, sure.
Jay Stringer:
Website is wwwjay-stringercom. The reason for the dash is there’s another author by the name of Jay Stringer, who’s a British crime fiction novelist. So that’s not me. Instagram is probably where I’m most active, but website has links to intensives books courses. We’re also trying to yeah, we’re just doing more workshops these days around unwanted behavior and unwanted behaviors around what does it mean to be a woman of desire, particularly in the world that we are in? More writing assessments that you can take, but that’s great Website or Instagram is kind of the portal to all those things.
Brad Aldrich:
Excellent. So, and we will have that linked in our show notes so that you can find Jay as well.
Kate Aldrich:
Jay, do you have a projected date for your new book?
Jay Stringer:
Sometime, I believe in the fall of 2024 or spring 2025. So I was looking at it. I’m like I don’t know if I want my book coming out on it. Election day.
Kate Aldrich:
That might not be fun.
Jay Stringer:
I didn’t even think about that, but I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes. So very cool yeah that the tentative title of that is Desire, desire, it’s a good title, wonderful yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
Well, Jay, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your wisdom and all that you’ve done in bringing a different voice to this very important space for individuals and couples. So thank you so much.
Jay Stringer:
Such an honor to be with you both. Thank you for the invitation.
Brad Aldrich:
Hey, still becoming one listeners. Just a quick message. Jay shared with us after our show that he is in the middle of doing some research for his new book called Desire. He is doing a holistic desire survey and he is looking for some more individuals and couples to take his survey. You can find the link to that survey in our show notes or on Jay’s Instagram page. It is a really intensive look at your own experience with Desire, both now and as a kid growing up, and we’re not just talking about sexual desire, we’re talking about desire in general. So you want to help shape some of this research? Go and take Jay’s holistic desire survey. He is looking to get a few more people before the end of the survey time at the beginning of September 1st 2023. So if you’re listening to this as this show comes out, we would encourage you to run on over and take the survey. Thanks a lot. We’re so glad that you were able to listen in today. That’s all for this week on Still Becoming One. Until next time.
Kate Aldrich:
I’m Brad Aldrich and I’m Kate Aldrich Be kind and take care of one another.
Brad Aldrich:
Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate’s coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom For podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don’t forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.
