Tanya Hale 00:00 

Okay there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 360, "What Men Wish Women Knew About Men's Sexuality" with Dan Purcell. Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

Tanya Hale 00:25 

Well, hey there. Welcome to the podcast today. I'm super, super glad to have you here with me. Just a couple of things that I wanna touch base with before we jump in today. Group coaching starts tomorrow on the 20th of May. So if you are interested in one of the group coaching classes, we will not have a curriculum. So there will not be podcasts for you to listen to in advance, but we will come on a coaching call. Classes are limited to eight people. There's a Tuesday afternoon and a Tuesday evening class and you just show up and we're just gonna do coaching and you can be coached yourself or you can listen to other people getting coached. Both are phenomenal experiences. If you are interested in that, go to tanyahale.com, go to the "group coaching" tab and you can learn more about that and get signed up. They are 12 weeks over the summer. So we're gonna have 12 weeks of coaching that you get to participate in and they're gonna be fabulous. 

Tanya Hale 01:22 

Now the same tab, the "group coaching" tab, you can also sign up for my Talk with Tanya. And the next one of those is going to be June 10th. So if you wanna sign up for that one, I would love to have you join the party. It should be fun. Those are great, great opportunities to just get some free coaching, talk about concepts, ideas that you're working through, that you're figuring out, that you're struggling with, whatever the case may be for you. So those are a great option. 

Tanya Hale 01:58 

Another thing that we just wanna talk about is that I now have show notes where I have extra podcasts that you can listen to having to do with the concept that we are talking about. So if you listen to this and you're like, "wow, I like that, I wanna learn a little bit more," scroll down to the show notes in whatever app you listen to and there will be other podcast numbers that you can look at. So today I am sharing with you an interview and a discussion that I had with Dan Purcell. He is a life coach and a couple sex expert and is the host of the podcast called Get Your Marriage On. And we had such a great discussion about what men wish that women knew about men's sexuality. So I think you're gonna like this one and here we go. 

Tanya Hale 02:45 

A right, so here we are with Dan Purcell today. Dan, thank you so much for joining the conversation. 

Dan Purcell 02:52 

Yeah, I'm happy to be here. This is going to be a great conversation, isn't it? 

Tanya Hale 02:57 

From our prep work that we've done, I'm really excited about it. Just to give people a quick heads up, tell us about your podcast and what it's about and what you do with your work. 

Dan Purcell 03:09 

Sounds good. My podcast is called Get Your Marriage On, and I talk to couples who are in midlife that really want to improve sex and intimacy in their marriage. And that's something I am super passionate about, and I'd love to think I'm helping with a poverty problem, but not about economic poverty. I'm talking about bedroom poverty and about really good education and resources and ideas to help couples really build on each other's strengths and to create a truly deep intimate relationship and how sexuality doesn't hinder that, but it's a way to build something very deep and meaningful for married couples. 

Tanya Hale 03:53 

Yeah, I love that. I know that when I was going through my sexual revolution of sorts, that that your podcast and your app were two resources that I used a lot to really help reframe my brain around sexuality and around what was going on. So I'm super glad to have you here. 

Tanya Hale 04:14 

And I mentioned this to you before, but I was a little bit nervous because I didn't want just a man coming on, mansplaining to women about how you can be a better sexual partner for your husband, because I don't think that that's what we want. But I do think that the important part of the discussion that I'm super excited to have with you today is helping us as women really understand what are the things about men's sexuality that we just probably don't understand for a variety of reasons. And how can it help? How can understanding those things help us to create more of that equal safe place for each of us to show up sexually? 

Tanya Hale 04:59 

I know I talk a lot in my podcast about listen, we have to create this safe space for each other emotionally. But I think it's important that we also create this safe space for each other sexually. And generally, that gets 98 percent put on the man like it is your job to create a safe space here. But I think as women, there are a lot of things that we can understand that help us show up as equals in in the sexual space, where we can also create a safe space for the men that we love. 

Dan Purcell 05:28 

Yeah, I love that. I love that. There's a couple I've coached where they called him a trisexual. That's a joke because he would try anything. He wants to try it all. Married to a woman who doesn't want to try everything. And metaphorically speaking, it's like he had built this three-story shopping mall or amusement park, and he's trying to drag his wife into doing all the things, shopping at all the stores to try all the rides, sexually, and she felt dragged into it. And it wasn't until they both kind of like metaphorically demolished everything and from the ground up worked together and building something they both wanted, then that's when their sexual relationship really took off. 

Dan Purcell 06:14 

Because it's not about him and his ideas running the relationship or her ideas running the relationship. It's about this way to collaborate together and build on his sexual strengths and her sexual strengths. But they had to come to a certain point and understanding in order to really do that. So hopefully as a result of this episode people listen to, at least for the women listening, there's a lot more...itt's not about mansplaning, but a little more appreciation and maybe a new perspective on how to do that in your relationship. How do we both build a sexual relationship we both want to be a part of that's going to be good for us? 

Tanya Hale 06:50 

Yeah. And I, I love, I haven't done a lot on sexuality on my podcast because I'm more of a relationship kind of coach, but I love this idea of us being whole people and sexuality is part of our wholeness. And only when we are whole can we show up whole, right? Like I know that sounds redundant, but it's part of who we are and part of who we were created to be. And also this capacity in a marriage to show up as equal partners sexually as well. I think it's super important. 

Tanya Hale 07:30 

But as you and I have talked in, in doing the prep work for this, there were a lot of things I was like, "Oh, wow. Like I think that's some good stuff." So let's jump in and talk about, let's start off by talking about what are some of the biological and psychological differences that, and emotional differences that men have that, that it would be helpful for us as women to know, like what do men want women to know about how they're different than us? 

Dan Purcell 08:00 

Great. First is men are not just a hairy version of a woman with more muscles. And I think a lot of women try to, you know, fix the man and fix their husband or whatever to be like just a version of themselves, just with a little more hair and muscles. And that's not a helpful approach because the differences go way way deep. When you're a little baby developing your mother's womb, at around week seven or week eight in your the fetuses development sexual expression and differences begin to emerge, not only are genitals beginning to form in what turns into male genitals and female genitals, but the effect of testosterone on the fetus' brain changes the way the brain is created and wired. 

Dan Purcell 08:52 

So generally speaking, men have a brain where there is more interhemispheric connections, meaning the connections are more like front to back in the brain, where women have a brain that's more, intrahemispheric meaning it goes left to right across the right and left hemispheres of the brain. So they'll do tests with men and women and they'll give both of them a geospatial test where they have to manipulate like a 3D object in their mind and then answer questions about certain things. Men generally consistently score much higher on geospatial type of challenge, whereas you give both sexes more of a verbal-related challenge and consistently women score much higher on verbal kinds of things. 

Dan Purcell 09:42 

Even if you look at it as an evolutionary science perspective these strengths help our society thrive. If the man is going to be out there hunting He needs to know his way around places if the woman is going to be nurturing and raising children, those verbal skills and understanding relationships and being really good at that are really going to help her With her advantage too. So men and women, just even in their brains, are going to be wired very differently So that's one thing we need to understand 

Tanya Hale 10:12 

Hey, so how does that impact how men and women show up? Sexually. 

Dan Purcell 10:17 

So it impacts it tremendously in many ways and one of the most fascinating studies is this idea of concordance or non concordance. So what they've done is they bring men into a lab and they hook up their body, their genitals, to a device that can measure physiological sexual arousal and in the hand they give them a clicker and on the computer screen they show a variety of images. It might be a mountain scene, it might be a nude woman, it might be a dog, it might be monkeys, just all different varieties. And the job is he needs to click the button when he thinks he's aroused, meanwhile, while the machine is measuring physiologically if he's actually aroused. So what they're measuring is two things does the brain is in his mind does he think he's aroused and does the body agree? 90 percent of the time for men those are in alignment he sees something he clicks the button "yes that's arousing" and his body registered "yes that's arousing." 

Tanya Hale 11:23 

So the machines were saying, yes, we can tell you're aroused, and his brain was saying, yes, I can tell I'm aroused. 

Dan Purcell 11:29 

Exactly. By the way, his behavior by clicking it. "Yep. Yep. I agree with that." Then they bring women into the lab and do the exact same thing. And the differences are fascinating because for women, it was 50% of the time they were in concordance, meaning there are going to be images on the screen where the body registers "Yes, that's arousing," but she didn't click the button. Or there's something on the screen where she said, "yes, that is arousing," she clicks the button, but the body didn't agree. Oh, and what's more fascinating is depending on where she is in her ovulatory cycle, for women who are in ovulation, there's going to be a little bit less concordance. There's going to be less, they're going to be pickier over what they think is going to be sexually arousing. 

Tanya Hale 12:21 

Oh wow. 

Dan Purcell 12:22 

So, all this is to show, generally speaking, between the two sexes, women respond just as much as men do to sexual stimuli, but they're going to be pickier and more discerning. And this makes sense. For a man and a woman to have sex, a woman is far more vulnerable than men are. For the man's involvement, it's what, six minutes on average, studies show how long it takes a man to get the job done sexually, right? Where for women those six minutes can turn into nine months of pregnancy plus 18 years of childrearing. 

Tanya Hale 13:03 

Yeah. 

Dan Purcell 13:05 

And besides, women, generally speaking, are smaller compared to men. When they have sex, generally, they're on the bottom, man's on top. Like, they're more vulnerable. If you're a woman and you're going to be vulnerable, don't you think biologically you're going to be programmed, or God's going to program it in a way where you're going to be a little bit pickier about who you open your body up to and who you're going to let into your heart. 

Dan Purcell 13:30 

So, for that reason, it's not that men are not discerning. They absolutely are. And they're not just going to be horny  machines that will go have sex with any and all people. That's not how men are. They're relational. But women can benefit a lot from understanding that men aren't like them. They are a little more easier. There's more concordance with what they find sexually arousing, and their body finds arousing. They're going to be more easily turned on. Simpler things can get them going. And it's not as complicated for men to get from a lower state of arousal to a higher state of arousal compared to women because of biological differences. 

Tanya Hale 14:14 

Okay. I think that's fascinating stuff. So let's go back to this phrase that you just said that men are relational because I can tell you, I could give you lists and lists and lists of women who are like, "listen, he doesn't even care. He just wants to have sex. He doesn't care who or when or where." And you're saying that that's not necessarily true. So tell me where you think that breakdown goes or comes from. 

Dan Purcell 14:40 

Yeah, one thing I think women need to understand is, again, because the way their brains are wired, they score a lot higher on verbal types of challenges compared to men. Men aren't as verbal as women are. And that's not to say they don't care as much or they're not. It's just that men are a lot more, they relate to the world in more physical terms than women do. And that's just the way we're wired. So, for a man, they care just as much, but it may not come across as verbal. So a way for them to express love, tenderness, care, concern, feelings of desire is usually through physical means, sexually. So it's just, it is communication. It's a very powerful form of communication. It's just not a verbal form of communication. 

Tanya Hale 15:33 

So this goes back to where you said that men are more spatial and women are more verbal, right? Like... 

Dan Purcell 15:37 

Yes, physical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So there was a couple I've worked with and she hated it HATED IT every morning husband would reach over and grab her breast and she's like "come on, really now? No way no thank you," and she was really offended by that. Until she later realized this is his way of saying "I think you're beautiful and I want you in my life," and once you can really understand that that's really what was being communicated or that's what he's trying to communicate in that, not that he thinks she's a piece of meat, just wants to ejaculate that's not it. When she was like "actually he really this is his way of saying I love you and I want you," and it may not just be as verbal as she is that's when their marriage really started to change that's like an example of one of the many shifts that happened in their relationship but understanding men kind of relate that way 

Tanya Hale 16:38 

So they relate more in the action and the doing rather than in the verbalizing of that, right? 

Dan Purcell 16:46 

Yes. 

Tanya Hale 16:48 

So for him he he saw reaching over and touching her as a way of saying 'gosh I just love you. I love to be with you. I love this space together." And she saw it just an animalistic behavior rather right a relational, tender moment. 

Dan Purcell 17:07 

Yes, exactly. And this isn't to say men have a lot to learn from women on how to be more verbal and how to connect more on that emotional level. Men have a lot to learn there. t a man's desire to be physical with his wife isn't just for physical reasons. It's not just because they want to release. It's usually because it's something a lot deeper. It's about desiring to be emotionally connected, and they experience that more through their physicality than just through verbal connection. 

Tanya Hale 17:44 

Yeah, I think that's a super important piece for women to understand is that all of the physical is not just physical I.t s a bid for emotional connection 

Dan Purcell 17:56 

Yes. And sex is very emotional for men. It's kind of cliche to say this, how women connect emotionally before they can open up sexually, and then connect sexually before they open up emotionally. It is cliche to say that there is a little bit of truth to it though, because of the way biologically men are wired and probably socialized, but men find enormous amount of emotional connection through sexual connection. After sex, the joke is men fall asleep, but what's really going on is there's  a very deep, strong emotional bonding, emotional connection, feeling seen, feeling desired, feeling wanted, and also this strong feeling of wanting to protect. I want to protect my woman. I want to nurture her. I want to provide for her and be her man, that those feelings are very, very strong and good, healthy sexual connections that a lot of men experience. 

Tanya Hale 19:03 

And I think it's unfortunately that a lot of women interpret those behaviors as not being loving. I look at my previous marriage and I absolutely fit into that camp of having my own interpretation of those being all just completely selfish and rather than seeing them as a bid for connection, emotional connection. 

Dan Purcell 19:26 

Yeah, I remember years ago my wife and I had a disagreement. I forgot what it was, but you know after the disagreement you're kind of like feeling a little bit distanced from your spouse and I really wanted to have sex with my wife at that moment and she's like, wh"at? We just had a disagreement. I do not want to be close to you, ."uB that desire was so strong because I wanted to close the gap between us so strong a.nA I felt like the most intuitive way I knew how on how to close the gap between us and we did. We had sex and it healed from my perspective. It healed that gap between us at that time and I felt closer to her after and it's like, ok"ay, things are good between us. ings are going to be fine a."nA there's a little bit of this assurance that we have especially for men in sex. Our sexual selves are like three-year-olds. We don't have a big vocabulary. We just know what we want. We know what we don't want. It's kind of selfish in a way. We never outgrow it, but when that sexual self is cared to and attended to in men, we can be like a great three-year-old who's compliant and so willing to forgive and open-hearted and easy to be like a good three-year-old. They'll listen to the parent. They can be darling in those times too. 

Tanya Hale 20:55 

So what do men need in those times, you know, to feel like they're being seen and heard and accepted for who they are? 

Dan Purcell 21:06 

Ooh, that's a great, complicated question. I think what men need in those times is, I got to be careful how I answer this. I hate the word "needs" when we talk about sex, because for so long, we talk about sex is a need that men have. And if a man doesn't get that need filled in the way he wants, at the time he wants, in the way he wants, then sayonara to the marriage, he's going to go someplace else to get it." 

Tanya Hale 21:37 

Yeah, great clarification. 

Dan Purcell 21:38 

I think that's a horrible way to approach things. It's not a need in, like we'd say, needs like water, shelter, food, sleep. It's not in that category at all, because you're not going to die. You may feel like that sometimes, but you're not going to die. Rather, it's not a need to survive, but it's a need to thrive. Thrive and survive are very different. If you want to thrive as a couple, both people in the marriage need to learn how to lean in to each other, to lean in towards each other, to build a sexual relationship they can both be happy about and both want to participate in. It's kind of like a good yin and yang. If you look at that old Chinese symbol, you have the white on top and the black on the bottom, but in the white, there's a little speck of black, and in the black, there's a little speck of white. We're not all one or the other, and it's this idea that we kind of lean into each other and into each other's strengths, and look at a man's sexual desires as a strength he's offering to the marriage, rather than a liability to the marriage. If I can talk on that a little bit. 

Tanya Hale 23:05 

Yeah, please. 

Dan Purcell 23:06 

A lot of women might look at a man and say, "you get turned on so easy, you can orgasm so easily, it's just not fair." Because compared to the two, generally speaking, women don't orgasm as fast as men do, and they need a lot more warm up compared to men do. And they think, if only I was more like a man, I was turned on, or I found desire so easy. 

Tanya Hale 23:36 

In every movie I've ever seen, it's not sexuality from a women's perspective, it's sexuality from a man's perspective.

Dan Purcell 23:44 

Wouldn't it be so different if it was from a woman's perspective. And it's like he came in six minutes. What's wrong with him? That's just so fast. Missing out the juicy goodness. And after he orgasms that's it he's done 30 seconds of bliss, 10 seconds of bliss and it's over? Like there's something really wrong with him. 

Tanya Hale 24:05 

Yeah, that would be a complete shift in what we see in society. It would be very different, right? That would be very different. 

Dan Purcell 24:12 

And anyway, I just think that's humorous. Um where was I going with this? Sorry. Oh. A lot of men feel like their sexual desire, their high sexual desire, is actually a liability to their relationship. I know so many men who have told me they they've even prayed to God and pleaded with God to take their sexual desire away from them. They think "if only I wasn't so interested in sex, if only I didn't have such strong sexual desires, then we'd have so much more peace in our marriage." So, they really think their sexual desire is a liability and that's a shame because they don't see that there's actually inherent strength in having a strong sexual desire. These are all good qualities. It's the same quality that gives a man the courage to run into a burning building to save a child. It's the one that "I'll go to war to protect our our beliefs, our freedoms, our family, and our liberty." It's the same root desires in all of that and if we start to diminish that or think or shame that we have a sex drive or a high sex drive, it it also diminishes this beautiful, strong part of masculinity at the same time. So, we need to learn how to honor it better and respect it and look at the strengths it provides. 

Tanya Hale 25:42 

Yeah. And I don't think we've been taught that as women very well, how to honor and protect and see men's sexuality as something as beautiful. We see it as a, well sometimes if you're not in a healthy place, we see it as an annoyance, we see it as a hindrance, as a liability, rather than really seeing men's sexuality as something that is beautiful. And as we learn to step into our sexuality as well, we can meet in this equal space. 

Dan Purcell 26:15 

Right. 

Tanya Hale 26:16 

But I think as women we just haven't been trained to see that and I love that you're helping us reframe that in our brains. 

Dan Purcell 26:24 

Thank you. Yes. Very good. Very good. 

Tanya Hale 26:29 

So men express love and communication through sex. Like, I would have told you in my previous marriage that that was just a lie. 

Dan Purcell 26:38 

Haha, he doesn't love me. He just wants the orgasm. 

Tanya Hale 26:41 

I really would have and I really believed that and I look back and I think, well, why, why did I feel that way? Like, what do you, so I don't know, can you, from your clients, what can you help me? 

Dan Purcell 26:54 

Now, there might be some truth to what you believed, and I'm not calling you crazy at all. For a lot of men, because sex is kind of important to them, it's their way of emotionally connecting. They then treat it like a need in that they find enormous amount of validation through sex. So when we look outside of us to fill something within us, it will never be enough. And this could be through, like, work. The workaholism, right? It could be through, you know, working on your appearances, like how others perceive me is how I gain value. You know, we do all these things to gain validation outside of validation seeking in order to fill us, you know what I'm talking about. Well, men do this through sex too. So I feel good about me when we're having good sex, when my wife is pursuing me back. Then I feel good about myself and if that's your source of your validation of your sense of yourself, remember it's outside of you, it's not very stable. So a lot of men want because they're not stable in that way because they can't stand on their own two feet they're not self-reliant on their own validation of themselves and their their validation seeking through sex. Then they'll do things like controlling behavior. I've seen like even  Christian men spout scripture at their wives about it's her duty to give him sex when he wants it or we'll use "here's a book for you to read, here's a podcast you need to listen to," or "I did the dishes for you can't you just give me 10 minutes," like a transactional nature all of these are symptoms of them having sexual validation seeking behavior. It's a weakness, it's not a strength, in that case 

Tanya Hale 28:50 

So if I can just interject something. So back in December, I did a seven-part series on sense of self. And I love David Schnarch's work where he talks about the sense of self, like we pump it up with a balloon, right? Yeah. I know that you're familiar with this one. And I have to be responsible for pumping up my own sense of self. And what you're describing here is a man who is struggling with sense of self. And so he's looking for his wife to pump up the balloon through sex, through different sexual behaviors and all of that kind of stuff. And so I just think everything comes back to a strong sense of self, right? As we have that strong sense of self, both men and women, I think men no longer do those kinds of behaviors you're talking about, but I think women are also more capable of stepping into their sexuality when they have a strong sense of self. 

Dan Purcell 29:50 

Absolutely, yeah. 

Tanya Hale 29:51 

You can own it more. And I think a lot of women, we've been trained in condition not to own our sexuality, but to allow other people to determine our sexuality by how desirable we are or those types of things. And so rather than stepping into our own sexual sense of self. 

Dan Purcell 30:10 

Right. Yes. Absolutely. So in this scenario, you just described, of course, I don't know your ex-husband. And, but this is a pattern that I see. Men tend to look for sex to get a sense of self in it. And that's, I don't think is healthy because it's not sustainable. It's at another person's expense. And it doesn't help contribute to a sexual relationship where both people want to participate in, where now she has to give him sex in order for him to calm down. So now she's using sex as a way to kind of manage his emotions, to keep him from being too moody, to keep him from straying or wandering or, you know, being angry or upset. So she's like, "Oh, it's been three days. Alright, time to do my duty again. So I can get him off my back for three days." And when your relationship turns into something like that, it's not something I think both people want to participate in. 

Tanya Hale 31:13 

Yeah. Men, too. Right. And not just women, men don't want obligatory sex either. 

Dan Purcell 31:22 

No. Because you feel very condescended to, as a man, when the wife gives you sex, because it's out of obligation for you. It's like, "yeah, you need this. Here, have it. Have my body, but you're not going to have my heart in it." It feels very demeaning to be given obligatory sex. Mm-hmm. 

Tanya Hale 31:46 

Mm-hmm. From my point of view. 

Dan Purcell 31:48 

Right. Again. And this ties into sex is not just a physical release for man. If that was it, that would be enough, but it's not. It's very much, very emotionally tied, this relational piece. And so even though you're physically close, your body's tucked in each other, yet your hearts are so far apart, it doesn't, men experience that very acutely in that sexual relationship. 

Tanya Hale 32:13 

Yeah. A lot of sense of self work to be done to really be able to meet in equal ground in this whole arena, correct? Okay. So much good stuff. What else do women need to understand about men in order to really see them as whole, complete partners? I mean, what's going to help us be able to accept them more? 

Dan Purcell 32:40 

So you look at journal accounts of men describing their peak sexual experiences and compared that to women's journal accounts of their peak sexual experiences. And you read the accounts of men nine times out of ten, their peak sexual experiences, they're describing what the woman is doing in the sexual act. How she's responding. Her pleasure, her joy, her  ecstasy, and that he got to be a participant in that. 

Tanya Hale 33:13 

10 out of 10. 

Dan Purcell 33:13 

Nine times out of 10. 

Tanya Hale 33:14 

Wow. 

Dan Purcell 33:15 

So for men, their greatest sexual experiences or peak, the ones that they remember the most is less about how intense their own orgasm was. It's about how intense her orgasm was and that he got to be a part of it. Men more than women are very do oriented. Women are very be oriented. For example, my wife steps out of the shower and I see her. I am turned on. My body agrees. She's beautiful. Like that's a great idea. I step out of the shower and she sees me. She doesn't respond the same way. I'm a pretty good looking guy. I'm pretty fit. 

Dan Purcell 33:57 

However, the other day I'm in the kitchen. We had a drawer in the kitchen cabinet that was broken. I went to the hardware store. I bought the tools and I'm repairing it. My wife walks past me in the kitchen and later on she tells me "seeing you on your knees with the drill and taking that apart and fixing it. I felt so turned on that moment." 

Tanya Hale 34:20 

I get that because just last week, Sione was mowing the lawn and I was upstairs and I looked out in the backyard. I'm out there raking stuff and edging and trimming and I was like, "Oh man, that guy is sexy." 

Dan Purcell 34:32 

Yeah. Right. And for us guys in the middle that were like, "huh, that was sexy to you. There's nothing sexual about that." Like, right? Okay. 

Tanya Hale 34:42 

That explains a lot, right? When men are doing, women find that very sexy, which may be why a lot of women are, you know, if we go back to the traditional love languages, which I know get a lot of up and downs, right, with that. But a lot of women are like acts of service. Like him doing things helps to create that arousal where for a man, it's a lot of times physical touch or whatever, right? I'm always amazed how many men are like, "nope, it's physical touch for me," right? Like, yeah. 

Dan Purcell 35:19 

This is a joke, but if they made pornography for women, it wouldn't feature men in the nude, it'd feature men helping with the baby, or vacuuming the floor. 

Tanya Hale 35:34 

Cleaning the house! I've seen an Instagram post on that. "Women porn," and the men are in there scrubbing the toilet, right? Right, right. 

Dan Purcell 35:37 

And it'd be even better if it was like a man with high status doing some menial work because it knows it matters to her. Like, that would be the ultimate female porn. But he would overcome societal norms just to do something that matters to her. And it's always in the orientation of doing. 

Dan Purcell 35:59 

So this is important to understand, men generally are very doing oriented and women are very be oriented. Like, a woman doesn't need to like mow the lawn or, I don't know, nurse a child in order for a man to find her attractive. All she needs to do is be relaxed and maybe naked, you know. 

Tanya Hale 36:21 

And maybe naked could help. 

Dan Purcell 36:22 

All she needs to do is breathe, right? This is what I'm trying to say. Men find that arousing. And so it's kind of not fair in that it's not equal in that area, but because it is doing nature, it interferes sometimes with sex because you talk a lot about men become very performance-oriented in sex. It's very much about doing for them. Am I doing you? Did you like that? Am I touching you the right way? How's my technique? They're a lot more concerned about technique than women are in sex because they're very much fixated on her pleasure, her experience in the sexual experience. And sometimes that's good. And sometimes that's bad. 

Dan Purcell 37:07 

It's good in the sense that generally speaking, women are the ones caring for other people. Like I think about my wife, we're in midlife. We have kids at home all day from the moment she wakes up to the moment her head hits the pillow, she is taking care of other people all day. And to have a husband who's willing to do her where she can just not care about someone else for a minute and just be served, served in a very erotic, in a very pleasurable, very like fundamental way, is a huge turn on for my wife. So that's, doing has its place. Is it what I guess I'm trying to say? Where she doesn't have to do, she just has to be and be done to is very erotically turning. It's a very erotic turn on for a lot of women in that case. 

Tanya Hale 38:01 

Yeah. 

Dan Purcell 38:02 

And a lot of fantasy, women's fantasies, are around this idea of just, they don't have to do it. They just are, they just be, because women are doing so much already, so much of the load falls on them. But the doing gets in the way. For a lot of men, they feel like if they're not doing it right, it's like going to the job site without your tools. It's very embarrassing. 

Dan Purcell 38:28 

So there was a time in my own marriage years ago where I was so fixated on my wife's pleasure, if she's going to have an orgasm in a sexual encounter or not, that it became kind of my focus in sex. And she could feel it, and she felt like a project, which was not a turn on to her at all. It was a turn off. And I was always like, it was always an analysis, post-game analysis. How was this for you? Did I do this right? Or if the littlest thing, like, distracted her or went south in the sexual act, I'd be really upset at myself. Like, we ruined it again. We ruined a good opportunity, and we didn't get the outcome we wanted. And this interferes with men's sexuality. So understanding where its strengths and its limits are, I think would be helpful for women and just understand, men are really be-oriented when it comes to sex. 

Tanya Hale 39:26 

And not just the "do you" part, right? But just performance-based, right? Like, yeah. Right. Okay. 

Dan Purcell 39:35 

Some men who learn that sex isn't just about doing, it's about being and enjoying each other. It just takes an enormous amount of that pressure off and couples enjoy much better sexual experiences. When it's not about an outcome or reaching some sort of a goal, but it's that they've really thoroughly enjoyed each other in this fun, erotic way together that's life giving to both of them. That's when things get really good. 

Dan Purcell 40:03 

Yeah. Can we talk about penises in relation to this? 

Tanya Hale 40:07 

Absolutely, let's do it. 

Dan Purcell 40:09 

So I think a lot of women listening to what I'm about to say, their eyes are gonna roll. 

Tanya Hale 40:16 

But what do we need to understand? What do men want us to understand about their penises? 

Dan Purcell 40:23 

Men love their own penis. They think their penis is fantastic. And they want it to be adored. They want to be loved. They want to be, you know, cared for. And a lot of this comes down to the doing nature of men. It's that it's in their mind, it's their main tool that they bring to the job site, so to speak. And so and let's be honest, penises are weird. They're all in different shapes and sizes and whatever. And for a lot of men, they feel really vulnerable about their own penis. They always wonder,  like, is this sufficient? Is this doing its job? And you can have a very self-confident man, strong, you know, leadership oriented. But when he thinks about his sexuality and his physicality, usually his most vulnerable place is his own penis. 

Dan Purcell 41:22 

Women don't have a penis, so they probably don't orient this way. Even from young ages, boys, they can't help but touch their penis. They're touching their penis all the time when they use the bathroom. It's very much a part of kind of who they are. It's like a symbol. For a lot of men, they associate it as a symbol of masculinity. So when a penis is disparaged, told it's ugly, or not treated in that way, a lot of men kind of take that personally, meaning their sexuality isn't sufficient, or they're not enough, or they're not 

Tanya Hale 41:57 

So when a woman is grossed out by a penis or doesn't want to touch it or engage with it in any way sexually, that actually hits a man very much to the core of his being, of who he is. 

Dan Purcell 42:11 

It can be, and there might be good reasons why a woman has disgust over a penis. It could be past abuse, or the way things were talked about in their home growing up, or it could just be that some women are just a lot more sensitive to their disgust response in their brain for all sorts of things. But that being said, how we... 

Tanya Hale 42:33 

I will say, for me in my previous marriage, it was a very self-righteous, I'm more spiritual because I don't do, I'm not interested in your penis. Yeah, in all the sexuality piece, right? And I thought that that made me more righteous and more spiritual. And obviously, the more that I've figured out the last few years, I'm like, oh gosh, spirituality and sexuality really go hand in hand. They're not on opposite ends of the spectrum, we really gotta meet them in the middle. But so for me, it was a self-righteous thing, right? But realizing that this is a really sensitive, vulnerable space for man. And if I don't create a safe space for his penis to exist in our relationship, it's almost like a rejection of him is what you're saying, if I understand correctly. 

Dan Purcell 43:25 

Yes. Again, we want to be...good, strong men are self-validating. They're not outside validating, of course, like we talked about. But I think women need—women better understand how much a man's penis means to him, if it means a lot to the man. I think it goes a very long way in that sexual relationship. 

Tanya Hale 43:51 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and I I did a podcast some time ago called "Why Validation is Necessary in Relationships" or something around that because our own self validation is super important. But in the relationship, we do need validation. "I love you. I see you. I appreciate you. You are important in this relationship space to me." And it sounds like that's what you're saying is that not being demeaning or dismissive or disparaging toward a penis is a way that we can validate him in the relationship in saying "I accept you. I love you. I embrace you. You are important to me." 

Dan Purcell 44:35 

Yes. Now, the flip side is also important, because generally speaking, as men age, they experience more erectile unpredictability, meaning they want to have an erection, but their body just isn't functioning that day or that time. And as you age, that increases. And some men are so sensitive to their own penises functioning as a symbol of their own masculinity and their own sexuality that they will, like, we're talking about men in their 50s and 60s and beyond, create sexless marriages. It's because he doesn't want to face the embarrassment of his penis not functioning. So being overly tied to your sense of self with your penises functioning isn't healthy either. 

Dan Purcell 45:27 

So if you're a woman in a marriage where that is the case, reassuring him that his sexuality and his attractiveness, has little to do with how well his body part is functioning or not, because it's just a fact of life. As you age, it doesn't function as well. And you're not going to fight against nature here. But our relationship goes so much deeper and our sexuality is so much deeper than how your body responds in a certain moment. It can really help assure that couple and help the couple build a thriving relationship, regardless if his penis is functioning the way he wants to or not to. 

Tanya Hale 46:09 

Which I would imagine if before that stage happens for a man, if men and women are showing up in this equal partnership  sexual space where it is safe, where there are conversations, where there is open, honest discussion about things that as our, because women's bodies do that too, right? It becomes more difficult for us to have orgasms also and all of that. And so as we move into that older space where our bodies are not as sexually responsive, having that safe, open space can create a place where sexuality can still exist, though it may shift and change and morph over the years into something else. 

Dan Purcell 46:56 

Yes, absolutely. 

Tanya Hale 46:58 

I heard on one of Jennifer Finlayson-Fife's podcasts several weeks ago and I don't remember which one it was, I think it may have been her Room for Two, but she was talking about someone who said once that "My husband and I make love every night and sometimes we have sex." 

Dan Purcell 47:14 

Yes. I love that philosophy. I do too. I love that. 

Tanya Hale 47:17 

I do too. I love that that idea that every night we are connected, we are making love. We may not be having penis-vagina sex, or any other type of sex, but we are connecting, we're loving, we're touching, we're embracing, we are having this space every day that we're together. And then sometimes we have sex, right? That's also a piece of it. 

Dan Purcell 47:42 

Right. Absolutely. 

Tanya Hale 47:44 

Okay, Dan, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you think women really need to know about men, or that men would want women to really know about their sexuality? Anything we haven't talked about? 

Dan Purcell 47:57 

I guess my concluding thought is just have fun. Have fun together. That's really what it's like. In the end, sex is a recreational activity. It's designed for fun. It's designed to make things great. So if there's any part of your sexual relationship that isn't fun, is not something you really are excited about or wanna participate in, that you haven't brought up because you think it's hard to talk about, just easy to diminish. I challenge you to confront yourself in that and have a conversation with your spouse about it. It is so important that you build a sex life that you both want to participate in. 

Dan Purcell 48:41 

And it's okay if you make a few mistakes along the way, you both stumble to kind of figure it out. But looking forward six months, a year, 10 years from now, wouldn't you be glad that you figured out a way that both of you can create a relationship that you both want to play in and be a part of and recognize the differences between men and women are designed to make us better as a whole when we work together towards that end, not to take away one from the other or try to convert the other to be more like the other. That's not it. It's about building something great that you both want to participate in and have fun with it. I think sex can be so much fun, so connecting and an incredible way to bring heaven into your home. 

Tanya Hale 49:32 

Yeah, and it takes two to make that happen. It takes both of us stepping in. 

Dan Purcell 49:41 

That's what it takes. Work it out if that's what it takes. Get help, get coaching if that's what it takes. But do what it takes to have a great sex life. You need it. You deserve it. 

Tanya Hale 49:50 

Yeah. And I think our relationships will never reach their most intimate, incredible connected potential without this healthy sexual space. 

Dan Purcell 50:05 

Yes, yes. 

Tanya Hale 50:07 

Okay, Dan, that was so great. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today. 

Dan Purcell 50:12 

Thank you. 

Tanya Hale 50:13 

Okay. Will you just give kind of a rundown? Where can my listeners find you all the good things? 

Dan Purcell 50:19 

Yes, you mentioned my app earlier, it's called Intimately Us, and you can find it for free on the Google Play Store, the Apple App Store, and that's a great way to begin. Also my website, GetYourMarriageOn.com, I have a link to all my resources, of course my podcast, my Instagram, Facebook, and I put on virtual retreats and in-person retreats. I also have a course and a coaching program designed for couples that want to take their sex life to the next level. 

Tanya Hale 50:46 

Mm hmm. Love it. Love it. Thanks, Dan. 

Dan Purcell 50:49 

Alright, thank you. 

Tanya Hale 50:52 

Have a great day and we'll chat with you another time. 

Dan Purcell 50:54 

Alright. 

Tanya Hale 50:57 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.