Why Can’t I Stay Hard? Diving into the Psychology of Erectile Dysfunction

[00:00:00] Shay Doran: Foreign.

[00:00:08] Matt Landsiedel: Welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gay Men’s Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I am your host, Matt Landsiedel, and joining me today is Shay Doran. Welcome.

[00:00:24] Shay Doran: Thank you very much.

[00:00:26] Matt Landsiedel: Good to have you here.

[00:00:27] Shay Doran: I’m very excited.

[00:00:28] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s going to be a good conversation. So Shay specializes in helping men overcome sexual performance anxiety and erection problems. He experienced these challenges himself and has worked with men around the world so they can fix this challenge and feel normal again. So we’re today we’re talking about the psychology of erectile dysfunction. And did you know that research shows that gay men experience a higher rate of erection problems? This is why we’re creating this episode for you guys today. If this is on your mind and you’re struggling with this, we are here to help and be of guidance what you can expect. We’re going to be sharing three unique reasons gay men experience erection problems. We’re going to be talking about our own personal stories and anecdotes and how to overcome these challenges. So we’re going to offer some solutions towards the end of this episode. So stay with us. And lastly, just a bit of a disclaimer. This is not a substitute for medical advice and we are speaking solely about the psychology, not the physiology of erectile dysfunction. If you want to learn more about the physiology, you can go to Penis Health Q and A episode with urologist Dr. Gonzalez that was recorded a couple months back. All right, let’s dive right in. I’m really curious to know a bit about your story and how you’ve experienced these challenges yourself. What got you into doing this?

[00:01:49] Shay Doran: Well, I think first of all, I just want to touch on a point that you said, Matt, around the studies that have been done on this. Why reputable places, Journal of Sexual Medicine, National Library of Medicine. They have done studies that have shown this impacts gay men more so than it does heterosexual men. It impacts a lot of guys and we just don’t talk about it. But gay men experience in particular erectile dysfunction or erection problems more so than heterosexual men is what the studies show us. So this is a really important topic and one that often we don’t talk about because of the feelings of shame, because of the feelings of embarrassment, because of the feelings of pressure. And often we just keep it inside. And so to answer that question around, how did I get into this work? For a long time I kept this secret and inside as well. It took me many, many, many Years to feel comfortable, to even realize that I needed to have a conversation about this. Actually, I would say it took me many years to become consciously aware that I needed to adjust something here in terms of my relationship with sex. And then once I realized I was experiencing these challenges, it took more time from then to feel comfortable, to talk to somebody about it.

[00:03:04] Matt Landsiedel: What brought it from that place of like, maybe not as conscious into more consciousness. Like what was that? Was there a thing or an incident that happened?

[00:03:11] Shay Doran: Yeah. So I think if I like rewind back to younger years and I would say, you know, from the age of downloading Grindr and then having instant access to hookups, that totally changed my. In a negative way, I would say, my relationship with sex. And so that was like the beginning of what I would call meaningless sex, basically, where it was just about the urge, just about the excitement and not really anything to do with so much the connection. Understanding what was important to me, understanding the type of sex. We don’t really think about these things so much when we’re at a younger age. But that stacked of years and years and years basically equals that. I’m creating not so great sex patterns for myself. So imagine that for a few years of lots of meaningless sex and then porn stacked on top of that as well. And a lot of things becoming through this lens of sex, which I’m sure many people listening to this can relate to, especially in the gay community. We see this a lot, right? This hyper focus or this hyper fixation on sex and unfulfilling sex. Okay, there’s definitely fulfilling sex work, which I’m sure we’ll come on to, but unfulfilling, quite empty sex. Yeah, sex for the sake of sex. So this led over, over years, this led to me experiencing my own performance challenges. Whether that was a mix of not being able to get hard, not being able to climax, you know, a mix of these things happening. And then it’s starting to impact my relationships, you know, with relationships falling apart because of that and me not wanting to be vulnerable and talk about this as well. And then to your point where you said, what was the realization? So I’d say there was a few years there where it started to become quite obvious that, okay, this doesn’t feel quite good. This part of my life doesn’t feel quite good. But actually wasn’t until I got a coach nothing to do with sex through business. And it was on month 11 of the 12 month package that I said to them, I’m quite frustrated and I don’t know why. That is, I don’t really see myself as a frustrated, angry person, but I was having these very like intense feelings of frustration about myself. And in short, they guided me through this exercise that felt like the ground just swallowed me up all of a sudden. It was this moment of massive realization that all of this pressure, self esteem issues. I never thought I had any challenges with self esteem, confidence challenges, that all of it was stemming from this area of how I was engaging with sex and relationships, my connection with sex and the how I was the lens in which I was valuing that through.

[00:05:56] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:05:56] Shay Doran: You know, as well as the performance challenges as well. And the realization from that point onwards that why was I engaging? You know, because once I became conscious of that, I could then go on this journey to figure out why was I engaging with sex in this way.

[00:06:10] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. Your story is quite, I’d say, similar to mine. The piece that really stands out is the self esteem from my perspective. This whole. What did you end up doing to deal with that frustration? Like, I’m curious about that.

[00:06:22] Shay Doran: Well, first of all, realizing the. Starting to realize the root of where it was coming from, which was the relationship I had with sex. And then going beyond that of, okay, what is that? What are my current beliefs around sex? And ultimately what that led me to understand is that I was having sex to feel where these sex to feel I’m good enough, at least I can be good enough in this area of my life. And obviously this is just a really bad way to be, or as I say, a suboptimal way. It’s not a way that’s really going to create fulfilling relationships in my life. And then of course that leads to stress, tension in the body, which then leads to the performance challenges. So I think those realizations of why I was engaged in sex in that way. Velvet Rage was a book that really helped me on that journey to understand some of these things. And some of the other thoughts that were going through my head were things like, you know, if I can’t get this right, then they won’t want me. Or what if I never find somebody because they don’t want sex in the same way as I do? Or what if I can’t have relationship because this area of sex holds me back. So it was all sex, sex, sex, you know, and challenges with sex. And how do I overcome this? It was nothing really about what kind of connections is it that I want to be building, who is it that I’m really attracted to and who really lights me up, not just from a physical point of view from an intellectual or emotional or spiritual point of view. So that journey took a while, you know. So this basically was a, let’s say from that point of realization, a three or four year journey for me to be able to get my own shit in order, figure out what it was that was going on for me personally, find the tools to be able to get that sorted, which is now what I help other men to do in a much shorter period of time so that they don’t have to go through this. Years and years and years of what’s wrong with me.

[00:08:13] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I relate and I wish that I would have had somebody that was able to kind of navigate me through that same process. And when did you start like working with people?

[00:08:24] Shay Doran: Two years ago. So it’s been in the last two years I started working with other guys to help them, just using the same things that I found worked for me.

[00:08:32] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it sounds like it was quite like a spiritual process for you, like going through like this one thing came through in your life that was creating the frustration, the low self esteem and then that you use that as like a, a conduit to, you know, start working on yourself and start developing.

[00:08:47] Shay Doran: Yeah, you know, for years I was, I had been trying. Oh, my background before this was in, in banking. You know, I had 12 years in banking and consulting. Everything on paper looks like I had a very successful life. But it was quite empty, to be honest. Didn’t really feel like I was genuinely being myself. And then through this work, through this depth of understanding, and especially on that call with the coach when I had that realization, everything just shifted. Everything was like, okay, I have to get this fixed for myself. And now this is what I’m going to help other guys to fix. It was like, this is the thing.

[00:09:21] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:09:21] Shay Doran: So you’re right. It was a massive, just pivotal moment for me.

[00:09:25] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. Similar to my journey. I think it sounds like you turned your, your pain into your purpose.

[00:09:30] Shay Doran: That’s right.

[00:09:31] Matt Landsiedel: It’s such a pain point. I think for a lot of people. I hear, you know, a lot of people reach out to me because I do work with this a little bit in my practice. It’s not an area that I specialize in, that’s for sure, but it’s an area that I do have some experience in personally and professionally. And this issue can lead to like suicidality. That’s how significant it is for a lot of men. You know, I think we’re conditioned by things like porn and just the culture at large and our masculinity tends to be really tied into our penises and our ability to maintain erections and the conditioning that we’re getting from porn is very unrealistic. And I think that’s a big contributor to the problem, in my opinion would be pornography and the way we’re conditioned as men into sex. How does it differ, I’m curious, like between straight men and gay men in like, do you work with both in your practice? Okay, the conditioning. Yes.

[00:10:24] Shay Doran: Let me answer one question you said about the porn there, which I, I think is really a really important point, and then I’m going to answer that straight versus gay men. Totally agree with what you’re saying about porn and I’m grateful for. I feel like finally we’re starting to realize and see the impact porn now. You know, it’s not such a secret anymore that it’s not so good for us. And the point I want to make on that is, unfortunately for many of us, especially let’s say people, 90s onwards, porn was real sex education. Because we don’t really have much sex education or we’re lucky to get it if we do. So porn is the place that we see the most sex, that we experience the most sex. We never see. Tell me a video when you saw as a guy going soft in pornography, it doesn’t happen. Yeah, it’s constantly hard right from the get go. And so as well as the unrealistic scenarios that don’t match partnered sex and the obvious, you know, the overstimulation of dopamine, we won’t go into that. But that we all know a lot about that. It’s just not realistic, even just looking at it from an erection point of view. You know, most porn stars are taking either Viagra pills or injections and there’s pauses in between the shoots, whereas it looks like it’s just all done in, in one go. Which is not the case. Sometimes they’re not really having sex. So there’s so many. We’re training, like you said, we’re training ourselves based on this, that that’s how, that’s the type of sex that’s. Or they, they are really satisfying that person. So that’s what I must do to be able to satisfy the person. And actually porn is nothing about emotional connection, spiritual connection, vulnerability with one another. Yeah, we don’t see any of those things in porn, but yet that is what creates these lasting bonds in a relationship.

[00:12:10] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:12:10] Shay Doran: And then to answer the other point around what I see in terms of the differences between straight versus gay men, so we’re Going to come on to in a moment some of the specific challenges for gay men. So I think that will help to answer that part of the question. The straight men, I would say probably more of a, if I was to boil it down into something specific, more of an intense pressure that as the man they have to satisfy the woman and it is their job to satisfy the woman. And if they’re not able to satisfy their partner, then what if their partner leaves them because of this? Or what if she goes with another man? Now some of these thoughts are very similar in the gay context as well. What if my partner leaves me? What if I can’t satisfy them? But I think there’s not as much of an overriding pressure to as the man I must be or else just all gay guys would be top in that scenario. A heterosexual guy doesn’t really have the option of being able to say to his wife, it’s okay, I’ll bottom. Yeah, it’s not a couples maybe. Yeah, absolutely. Some couples do and great. That’s. I think that’s, that’s really good. But in terms of like a long term, especially with children and things like this, you know, it’s not. So that’s what I see most from heterosexual men that I work with.

[00:13:27] Matt Landsiedel: I think also too like having like in a gay relationship, your partner has a penis too and knows the pressure of, you know, having to maintain and knows that penises wax and wane in the erection, you know, cycle. So I think that takes a bit of the pressure off. It’s like, okay, you understand, right? You’ve been there. So that might, might play a role too.

[00:13:49] Shay Doran: I think so. But with a caveat of if that is spoken about. I actually think many gay relationships, you know, especially if there’s this intense focus on roles as a meaning of connection of like, oh, I’m a, I’m this role, I’m a top, you’re the bottom. That’s great. From my experience that even when these challenges do present themselves is actually infrequently that both are able to have a conversation about it. And actually there’s still this level of pressure of you should be able to perform.

[00:14:18] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, makes total sense. Okay, should we go into how do erection challenges show up?

[00:14:23] Shay Doran: Yeah. Okay. So for this I’ve put some thoughts together on what are the patterns that I’ve seen from the hundreds of guys that I’ve worked with around the world to get this sorted. And the beginning one that I’m going to start with is the most difficult pill to swallow. Okay. And it’s to do with the past. Past pressure to perform that maybe nothing to do with sexual, because often when I’m speaking with guys, there can be a reluctance to want to look at the past and think that this is anything to do with the past because it seems totally unrelated to sex. But actually my belief is the seeds of anxiety, the seeds of self doubt, the seeds of what if I’m not good enough or accepted as I am, are sown at a younger age. And they translate into different parts of our life as we experience stress and pressure. You know, we all have these types of thoughts at moments in our life, whether it’s in work or whether it’s in a relationship context, whether it’s just our own self-esteem. But for some of us, these stack and stack and stack. And then there’s moments of pressure, which I’ll come onto in a moment. And this is what reignites these very familiar pathways that we, that we built at a younger age.

How they show up past, present, and then a loop. I’m just going to work through each one. So the, the past. First of all, that generally if we’re experiencing difficulties in maintaining or getting or maintaining an erection consistently, and that’s been happening over a period of time, there are instances when that can just pop out of nowhere. But it’s unlikely, it’s unlikely that it happens just on its own. It’s usually related to things to do with childhood, things to do with parental pressure or societal pressure. Or it may be, for example, that we had to perform really well at school academically and there were memories of when we didn’t perform so well and our parents either ignored us or they withdrew their love as a result. That’s one example. Another may be to do with music or sports. Okay. Having to become good in a particular sport, there was a really intense pressure around it. Not allowed to fail, because if you fail, that’s not good enough. We’re not loved and accepted for who we are, regardless of whether we succeeded or failed in the particular thing. And then also down to things like could be getting caught masturbating when we were younger or caught watching porn or caught exploring with friends, these types of things. And dependent on the authority figures, reaction to that, which a lot of the time there’s a lot of shame around it and guilt that’s pushed onto us. And so we start to develop this sense of shame that’s then connected with something sexual, usually at an age before we even really understand what we’re doing.

[00:17:06] Matt Landsiedel: So like I want to Want to reflect. What I’m hearing is highly critical. Parenting can be a big contributor to this. Like a parent who’s highly critical places unrealistic expectations or shame the child. There’s that great, almost like an internal, like, almost like an inner critic that starts to chime in and can put pressure on ourselves. Is that.

[00:17:27] Shay Doran: Exactly that? Exactly that. And this pressure, when we stop to take a moment to look at it, this feeling of anxiety or anxiousness has always been there in our life or showing up in different areas. It’s just now that it’s spilled over into the area of sex. But yes, these thoughts are. They don’t come from nowhere. They come from somewhere, usually at a younger age where we’ve had parents or authority figures that there’s been a number of intense situations where we haven’t been loved, honored or accepted for who we are in that moment, regardless of performance.

[00:17:59] Matt Landsiedel: Okay, okay. This, that could probably also bleed into being a young gay boy, right. And having to like hide or being shamed for being too feminine or sensitive. Like these, these qualities can really.

[00:18:10] Shay Doran: Okay, yep, it is, it’s exactly, this is a really important point because exactly the same thing is happening there. We’ve been told that we’re not loved or accept for who we are, whether it’s by parents or whether it’s by society. You know, if a person had very supportive parents and society was a bit critical, it’s unlikely that they would be developing as much of an intense anxiousness around this particular area. So it’s usually a combination of, yes, society may be intense, but parents hyper focusing on performance or not accepting or not open about the sexuality.

[00:18:44] Matt Landsiedel: Okay, yeah, it makes sense.

[00:18:45] Shay Doran: So that’s the past. And then it can be years and years and years and years with thinking that there’s no issues, no challenges in the bedroom. This is exactly where I was at.

[00:18:55] Matt Landsiedel: Right.

[00:18:55] Shay Doran: Personally, for me, I didn’t think I had any anxiousness feelings or emotions. I didn’t think I had any self esteem challenges. And then it comes to a present moment and there’s usually either some kind of high pressure event or a stacking of multiple high pressure events. So it could be a relationship that didn’t work out. It could be the passing away of a really close friend or family member. Could be a business that failed or didn’t go to plan a deal that didn’t go to plan any of these types of examples. Or it could be that we have our own business and just the significant financial pressure that can come with that. There’s this stacking of multiple events, pressure in our life. And there is a tipping point that is reached. There’s some kind of tipping point. It may be one time we go to have sex, things didn’t go to plan, the partner reacted really badly.

[00:19:44] Matt Landsiedel: Right.

[00:19:45] Shay Doran: It’s another example of a tipping point. There’s these multiple tipping points, these things that happen that then push our body into this state of fear when it comes to sex, which hopefully we’ll come on to that in a moment. I’m just going to make a note of that so we cover it. And also I would say what forms a part of this is the context in which we’re having sex in the present moment as well. If we’re engaging in sex that’s meaningless, empty, doesn’t fulfill us, there’s going to come a point where it just doesn’t do it for us anymore. And we’re not able to get as hard as we once were. And then starts the erection challenges.

[00:20:20] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, that’s definitely my story for sure.

[00:20:22] Shay Doran: Yeah.

[00:20:23] Matt Landsiedel: I want to share a little anecdote because I remember one time I was having like I was having sex with a guy and I wasn’t able to maintain my erection and his. Because what you said brought this up. His reaction was so. It was almost like shaming in a way. But he was, he was taking it personally. Right. So that’s kind of that loop. Right. If you can’t get hard, the person that you’re intimate with might think it’s them. Like, why aren’t they attracted to me? And then they get uncomfortable and they might feel shame and then they project that shame. That’s exactly what happened to me. And I remember it, it’s like almost like a mini trauma. Like, you know, and then I felt like, okay, like why is this such a big deal for this guy? You know what I mean? Like that. So anyways, I just. I’m sure a lot of people are going to relate to half hanging experience like that.

[00:21:09] Shay Doran: Thank you for sharing that. And I do think it is these moments stay in our mind right. When we think about any moments from the past. There’s moments that seem to have this higher level of intensity to them compared to the millions and millions of day to day moments that happen in our life. There’s these memories and this is one of the things I work through with the guys that I work with is resolving the tension that is still there around these past memories. Because these are the things that are keeping the seeds alive of the. What if this happens again? What if I can’t perform again. And this leads on to the last point of how erection challenges show up. So we spoke about the past pressure combined and stacking up to a present, the present moment. Then all of a sudden we experience erection challenges. And then this loop starts, right? We get stuck in this loop of the what if questions. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get this right? What if I can’t satisfy them? What if they leave me because of this? And this just goes round and round and round. We can spend weeks, months or years looking at videos online, reading articles, and just feel like I’m understanding this but not actually seeing progress or results at the same time. And so we’re just stuck in this continuous loop of questioning ourselves, which adds more stress and pressure, which equals more erection challenges. And that’s where a lot of guys stay for a long time.

[00:22:33] Matt Landsiedel: It’s exhausting.

[00:22:35] Shay Doran: Yeah, it is.

[00:22:36] Matt Landsiedel: And that’s where that’s the probably also too, where you’re going to see a lot of, like, gimmicks and medical treatment and all these things that are basically band aids to the problem. And there’s a huge industry out there that are basically capitalizing on people’s fear and shame and keeping people stuck in the cycle. So.

[00:22:56] Shay Doran: Yeah, And I mean, just taking Viagra or Cialis as an example here, it’s very easy to access, Right. Viagra and Cialis and many guys that I speak to in the gay community are taking Viagra or Cialis, but then still having these questions of what if? Or the worries or sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t work. Yeah. And what many of these companies don’t tell us is that for those pills to actually work, our body has to be in a calm and relaxed state or else they just. They won’t work.

[00:23:26] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:23:27] Shay Doran: If anybody’s listening to this, I know it’s a bit of a side note here, but if you’re taking pills and wondering why do they work sometimes and now they’re not, or they used to work and why aren’t they working now? This is a normal thing. Especially if we’re experiencing the what if questions, it’s because we have to work on the mindset. The mindset piece is the bit that gets this sorted.

[00:23:46] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:23:46] Shay Doran: The pill is just a temporary plastering over the cracks.

[00:23:49] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. And the pills don’t give arousal. That’s the thing.

[00:23:54] Shay Doran: Yeah.

[00:23:54] Matt Landsiedel: Right. So you have to have arousal. And I think as people are. Are growing, personally developing, I think your sexual self changes just as much as your psychological self or Your spiritual self. And I think as I see gay men maturing spiritually or psychologically, their desire for something more, it starts to expand. And I think that might be okay. The pill’s not working because maybe I’m looking for something more and I’m not feeling fully satiated by casual sex anymore. Right. So it’s like kind of a shift.

[00:24:25] Shay Doran: Exactly. Before we move on to the like, what’s specific to gay men? I just want to cover, if we can, the bit that we wrote down around the fear state because it relates to what you said of this. The situations in which we’re having sex. You know, we spoke about one of the present challenges. We spoke about the past and the present and in the present, the context in which we’re having sex. And if we’re having these meaningless encounters or things that feel like it’s not really what I want, but yet we’re forcing ourselves into that and we’re experiencing erection challenges. The reason why is because we’re pushing our body into this fear state. So our sympathetic nervous system is being over activated. And that’s the thing that is blocking us from being able to get or maintain an erection. Yeah, because our body’s just constantly in this, a fear state around it. And that shows up in different ways. It could be, well, the fact that we’re losing the erection or finding it difficult to maintain an erection is a sign of it anyway. But it could also be things like when we come to thinking about sex, we get this sinking feeling or a knot in our stomach or feel our heartbeat going faster, or sweaty palms or whatever it may be. There’s many different ways that this shows up. But ultimately it’s their body’s response because this, the sympathetic nervous system has been overactivated because we’re not engaging in the kind of sex that we actually enjoy. Yeah, we try and yet to still push and force ourselves to do it.

[00:25:50] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. It’s almost like, you know, they call it like performance based sex versus pleasure based sex. One is like a very much a mind, you know, you need visualization, you need, you’re mentalizing sex essentially. And then the other, pleasure based sex for me is very much an embodied experience. And it’s one where the pressure, the outcome is taken out. Even the outcome to come is completely taken out. And you’re just really, you know, playing with the moment and you’re, you’re being present. And I know for me, when I start sliding into my mind, I can almost even feel my sympathetic nervous system coming online. And I’m like, oh. And then I start to become, like, self monitoring. I’m like, am I hard enough? And then, like, the blood rushes to everywhere else in the body other than the penis at that point. Right.

[00:26:35] Shay Doran: So, yeah, really important. Thank you for saying that, because that was one part I didn’t mention. Why do we lose the erection is because when our sympathetic nervous system is over activated, the blood’s redirected to our most critical parts of our body, our brain and our muscles. Dick in that moment is not a critical part of our bodies. That’s why we lose the erection. So actually, what’s going on in the body is very normal. A normal reaction to a sympathetic nervous system being activated. See, that’s not what we want. So the job is finding out, okay, why am I running this code that right now says sex equals stress? And how do we change that to sex equals calm? Sex equals relaxed and connected.

[00:27:13] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. Which I think comes, like, for me, at least, when I’m taking the time to get to know somebody and, like, I can actually achieve calm. Right. Like when I used to do hookups, I can’t even believe I used to be able to do these because I need syncopation with somebody’s nervous system. So, like, walk into a bedroom and I used to just have sex with somebody right away. I didn’t know their name, I didn’t know their nervous system. Like, nothing. Not even their smell. And now thinking back on that, I’m like, I could never do that because I need the syncopation with someone’s nervous system so my nervous system can land. And then sex becomes much more enjoyable for me.

[00:27:48] Shay Doran: Yeah. Yeah. I feel exactly the same. It makes me laugh now, looking back on those situations and thinking, oh, my God, I can’t even imagine doing that now, let alone even wanting to do that. You know, it’s like. It’s just so unfulfilling.

[00:28:05] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:28:06] Shay Doran: It may be exciting, it may be whatever in the moment, but now it’s like, no, okay, that’s not for me anymore.

[00:28:13] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. I think at that time in my life, I was dissociated and I think my mind was running the show. So my mind was mentalizing sex. My ego was basically leading the way. And I was not listening to my body at all because I wasn’t even connected to my body actually thinking back on it. And it was, you know, I needed visualization. Most of my partners in my twenties, when I was having sex with them, I would always be fantasizing or thinking about porn or I needed to have a mental Image in order to climax.

[00:28:42] Shay Doran: Yeah.

[00:28:42] Matt Landsiedel: So it’s just a testament to me, to my lack of connection to my body and my innate wisdom. Right. That was guiding me and like showing me. So I remember when I first started shifting towards demisexuality and kind of, you know, my sexuality and my, my spirituality intersected was when I was about 30 and I had a hookup with a guy of just a random hookup and I, my body wasn’t able to perform. And then after I went into like almost like a week long depression, like really bad, like I couldn’t even get out of bed. And my body was basically just protesting and saying like enough, like we’re not going to do this anymore. And then I went into a year of like celibacy. I didn’t have sex, I didn’t barely masturbate.

[00:29:26] Shay Doran: It.

[00:29:26] Matt Landsiedel: It was almost like my sexual self went completely dormant. So that way I could start like working on embodiment, sexual embodiment and like start to come out of like this frozen state that I think I was in for a lot of my twenties, well and teens.

[00:29:39] Shay Doran: And then.

[00:29:40] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, that’s, that was the starting point of my demisexuality was really, you know, and it was a long period of time with a ton of shame because I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I thought my dick was broken because I wasn’t even able to. At certain points I wasn’t even able to get hard to masturbate because I just had no libido. But my habitual self was kind of caught in. I have to do this because it’s part of a routine. Like I jerk off every night before bed, you know, so I was kind of. So it was this, it became this battle between my head and my, my body. Yeah, it was very challenging.

[00:30:13] Shay Doran: Yeah. This is just the reality. And I just want to say thank you again for being so open and transparent about this because this is, this happens to so many of us. But it can feel so difficult to talk about it.

[00:30:24] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s very vulnerable for sure.

[00:30:26] Shay Doran: Yeah. Should we talk about the. What’s different for gay men?

[00:30:30] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, yeah, let’s go there.

[00:30:31] Shay Doran: So I think the, you know, the obvious of when we’re growing up, it may be even before we come out that there is this feeling of being a bit different to everybody else or to those that we see around us. And then there is the obvious societal discrimination. Even if we grow up in a country where being gay is really accepted globally, we still hear, you know, the headlines or read the news around the Fact that it’s not accepted everywhere and that there’s still issues with that. And then the sense of internalized homophobia as well. Depending on our male role models or even sometimes female models and what they’ve projected in terms of blueprints, the blueprints that they’ve passed on to us or that we’ve picked up.

[00:31:17] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:31:18] Shay Doran: Which leads to which we know the queer community. And within that, gay men experience higher rates of depression and anxiety, you know, which is driven by the stress and pressure. The increased stress and pressure. And then on top of that, what we’ve already spoken about is this, particularly for gay men, sex culture. So this meaningless sex or substances for sex, this pressure to perform or taking on certain roles, needing to deliver those roles really well. And the fact that gay men have more partners statistically, so there’s more competition and less stability.

So we’re, you can see here there’s just multiple angles at which the stress and pressure. And this is specific to the gay community as opposed to the heterosexual community. They don’t really experience these unique areas. And I believe this is why this is a big contributor to the fact of why gay men experience erection challenges more so than heterosexual men. Because there’s just more. There’s these things that are happening that are specifically activating the stress pressure which activates the sympathetic nervous system.

[00:32:26] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, makes total sense. And I’m, you know, just kind of reflecting, I think, the nervous systems of minority people. Whether it’s gay or people doesn’t really matter. The nervous systems are different because there’s a lot of hyper vigilance. Right. Being a young gay boy, having to constantly be scanning your environment for am I safe? And then scanning, like self monitoring becomes a big thing that a lot of gay men have to do to make sure that they don’t sound gay, walk gay, look gay. And I think that that piece is really big. I think a lot of us develop almost as a protector part, a strong inner critic which is like, be masculine, don’t be feminine, don’t be too gay. Like. And I think that, you know, it really, really highlights for me like that the pressure, putting that a lot of pressure on a young nervous system. So, yeah, it makes total sense that this is exactly right.

[00:33:19] Shay Doran: It’s more pressure and it’s more stress and just come in from multiple, multiple different factors. Parents, friends, society. And this is not, this is not to say, oh, you know, poor us as gay men, it’s really difficult. No, but there’s just the reality of this is what happens. And so it’s to normalize the fact that many of us experience erection challenges and this is okay. And we don’t need to think that it’s unfixable. We don’t need to think that we’ve failed as a result or that we’re not able to have the kind of relationship that we want as a result of this because we can’t satisfy our partner. These things are totally fixable. And personally going on that journey, it just brought so much more to my life than I could have anticipated in terms of just understanding myself, shifting my relationship with sex, you know, being focused more on exactly what you were saying. The connection, the understanding, the getting to know the other person and shifting things from just instant sex to now those. The connection element of it being what lights me up. Yeah, is a beautiful, there’s a lot of work to do, but it’s a beautiful journey. It’s an amazing path.

[00:34:34] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s, it’s nice too because. And that’s for me being a demisexual, I think my journey was having to, you know, prior to that experience that I talked about, I really had an overdeveloped physical. The physical piece was over developed and I didn’t have the mental, emotional, spiritual developed when in this area. So my, my spiritual work was really activating those three other domains and I could share that. Right. And then once I did that I was able to start attracting like that type of sex and like guys that wanted to, to slow down and really be in the sensual domains as much as the sexual. And yeah, it’s fascinating. Right? Like it’s almost for me now like I can’t actually get or sustain an erection unless I have that with somebody. Like it’s like essential. Yeah, it’s fascinating. The evolution of the body and the sexual self. It’s, you know, that’s just my own experience. I’m not going to say that’s going to be everybody’s experience, but I’m curious about perfectionism. Like do you see that a lot with the clients that you work with? Does it show up?

[00:35:38] Shay Doran: Yes. And I would say self expectations, you know, perfectionism, self expectation very closely linked together. But I think it’s this definite clear expecting themselves to perform often unrealistic standards. And this doesn’t mean, by the way, that oh, I should accept that I have erection challenges 50 of the time. No, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept and learn how, but it means the way that I am thinking about how I should be performing or how I should Be as a man. Is that. Are they realistic expectations? Are those expectations actually helping me in the direction that I want to go in my life? Or are they keeping me stuck in this weird shame, guilt, not feeling.

[00:36:24] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:36:24] Shay Doran: Happy about where my life is, not feeling good enough. And often they’re keeping us in that trap. And one thing that I would say, which interestingly came up with a client today, a lot of these, you should. You should be performing better. You should be able to stay hard a lot of the time. This is not our own voice. This is the going back to the past. Those past things that we spoke about of getting blueprints from other people or authority figures that had high expectations around who we should be or how we should perform.

The voice is very similar to that. And when we stop and think about sometimes, and I know it may sound a bit weird, but when we notice in these thoughts of like, you should be able to just make a move or you should be able to just get hard straight away, when we stop and listen to that, a lot of the time it actually doesn’t feel like it’s being generated internally within us.

Let’s go deeper as like soul, level of the soul. It’s like this kind of weird external energy that is a voice of somebody else, usually from the past. You know, most likely not in the area of sex, but it just spills over into the area of sex is the you should voice.

[00:37:31] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. I call that the parent ego. And yes, like internalized parent, essentially. And it’s an inner critic that we’ve developed as an extension of our ego. It’s an unhealthy formed ego, in my opinion. And. And yeah, and the crappy thing too, is that, you know, as we’re navigating relationships, a lot of people end up attracting people like their parents. Right. When we haven’t healed things. So then we attract a partner who’s critical of us. Right. And it can perpetuate the problem. I’m curious from your perspective, how important corrective experiences are. Reparative experiences, whatever you want to call them. It’s one thing to be in a partnership, right. In a relationship with somebody. And there’s safety and trust and you can repair. You can have those. But for somebody that doesn’t isn’t in a relationship, how do they start to navigate going back into topping if they’re right, if they don’t have a relationship to practice that within, how do you help people navigate that?

[00:38:26] Shay Doran: I think the first thing which actually applies to being single or. Or not is being honest with Oneself and saying, okay, do I have a challenge here? Am I experiencing some kind of challenge here that maybe I’ve been trying to avoid or put off or squint at for some time because it feels uncomfortable, it feels highly vulnerable, it feels very personal. I feel like I’m the only person that’s experiencing it. And if the answer is yes to that, that’s the first step, and that’s a massive step, is to realize, okay, I don’t have all the answers right now, but yes, I admit that I’m experiencing some kind of challenge. Is this area of life that I want to improve. Right. That’s the first biggest step, is admitting to ourselves that there’s something going on here that we want to sort. The second step, which I mentioned there, is realizing that we don’t have all the answers. How could we possibly have all of the answers when it comes to getting a new job or a promotion, we don’t have all of the answers. We generally learn from the person that’s already achieved that level of success. We have a mentor, we have a guide or something like that. Exactly the same. If we’re learning an instrument or if we’re learning a new sport or whatever it may be, we learn from somebody that has done it, that has got through the challenge, overcome the barriers that come up on the way. And so expecting ourselves just to suddenly be able to get over it, which is often what we say to ourselves, I should just be able to fix this. If I block out those thoughts of, what if it doesn’t go to plan? Then it should be able to. Things should go right. And sex starts to feel like more of a test compared to something that’s actually enjoyable.

And when we think that we are the person that should just know all of the answers, that’s an example of an unrealistic, unfair expectation that we’re putting onto ourselves. And we have to be courageous in that moment and realize, okay, yes, I’ve admitted to myself I have a challenge in this area. And two, I am also saying that I don’t have all of the answers, but I believe that I can find a way through this. You know, that’s what we want to say to ourselves, is the second step. I may not have all of the answers, but I do believe that I can find a way through this. I know there’s a part of me that does believe that I can get this sorted and wants to get this sorted.

[00:40:45] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I love that. And I’ll add to that and just say, I think it’s. It’s critical when you’re kind of going out back into the, you know, wanting to explore that, to communicate Right. With the person and really, in my opinion, try to find somebody who you can be vulnerable with, but also have pleasure based sex with where there’s no outcomes. You’re not putting expectations on each other’s bodies. And it’s just like letting the moment unfold. Because as soon as that, whenever that comes on for me, you know, we can give each other that space to wax and wane. We don’t have to be hard the whole time. We don’t even have to focus on ejaculation. I find I enjoy those experiences a lot more. And nine times out of 10, I end up performing well because I know that I have space to make mistake. Right. Whereas performance based sex for me is very much about trying to replicate what we see in porn and trying to be perfect, trying to maintain an erection for three hours, like all this sort of stuff. And that it’s just there’s so much pressure put on. And if we know anything about perfectionism, the root is shame. So it’s the fear of if I’m not perfect, then I am not worthy of love or I won’t belong or I’m not good enough, whatever it might be. And then it just perpetuates the same that we got conditioned to when we were kids. Right. So, yeah, seeking pleasure based sex, I think is one of the best tips and advices that I got when I was navigating this issue at the epicenter of this issue for me.

[00:42:12] Shay Doran: Yeah, yeah. And just to add on to that as well, you know, specific to single guys that you said, you know, who are wanting to go back out there first is it’s important just to do the work to get this sorted. Okay. It doesn’t need to take very long to get this sorted, but it is important to take action in this area and take a responsibility for if we feel like there’s an area of our life that’s not going to plan in the way that we want it to, that we figure out how to get that sorted and who can help us to get that sorted.

[00:42:40] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:42:40] Shay Doran: And then the other part is when you said about engaging in the conversations and making sure it’s not just sex based, I think an element that comes into that is where are we fishing? You know, if we’re spending most time on Grindr as an example, trying to look for those connections, we’re going to have to have a way, a much, much higher number of conversations to Try and find somebody that is open to that kind of thing where there’s not an instant hookup pressure. So I think also exploring other options, whether that’s online or events or in a bar, whatever it may be.

[00:43:15] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:43:16] Shay Doran: Because then we’re in a position where we’re able to say, and what that looks like in reality is like, hey, I’m not looking for instant sex. I’m looking for us to just hang out and get to know each other. And that it doesn’t need to really be any more than that. And it definitely does not need to be, which I see sometimes happening, is this apology for, oh, I’m. I’m really sorry. I may not be able to. If you come over if we have sex, if. If I have some erection problems, I’m sorry for that. We don’t need to apologize for any of that that’s going on. What we need to work on is the way in which we’re meeting people, how that feels, and then doing the. Doing the inner work that we need to. But we don’t. We definitely don’t need to apologize for it because we haven’t done anything wrong.

[00:43:55] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, that’s a great reframe, I think. Grindr and Scruff. I haven’t really used those apps for so long, but I know for me, like Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, like those sorts of ones, they tend to be a bit more slowed down and people aren’t as impulsive and seeking that type of sex. So it’s almost like the. The milieu, like the environment that we’ve created as Gabe men is like, so not conducive to being anything other than whatever it might be. The standard that we’ve set for. You know, you have to have this type of body or, you know, maintain erections, be this sexual. We’ve created massively high bars for ourselves. And I think, you know, that’s kind of what this whole conversation is really highlighting is we got to learn self-compassion and give ourselves space to. To be human.

[00:44:44] Shay Doran: That’s right. And these high bars, you know, they’re not actually so fun in the reality. They don’t feel very fulfilling. This stuff that feels amazing is being able to connect with somebody, being able to be vulnerable by some. With somebody, being excited by somebody because of something that they do. Leaving notes for each other around the house. The small. These types of things are the real fulfilling things, not what tags somebody has on their profile. And it means. It sounds so obvious saying it, but this is just a loop that we get conditioned into and then stuck in. Yeah, ourselves. So if you’re watching this, I believe you’re one of the guys that is, you know, actively taking yourself out of that pool and you want to do something about it, which is incredible.

[00:45:30] Matt Landsiedel: That’s the beautiful thing about this community. Like the gay men’s brotherhood is loaded with people who want more. They’re seeking more. They want more authenticity, more connection, something more sustaining. Right. And not saying that you can’t also have casual sex, hookup sex, that’s all great too. But it’s got to be a both and in my opinion, not an either or. I think they both need to. To coexist. So, yeah, it’s really important. And if I want to talk a bit about the. The demisexuality piece, because it’s so. It’s so important for those of you who don’t know what demisexuality is or even sapiosexuality, these are two very common concepts. More types of sexuality. So demisexuality is where you need emotional connection for sexual arousal. Sapiosexual is where you need intellectual connection for sexual arousal. So there’s different levels in. In my opinion, but I think what makes somebody a true demisexual is like, you need that. That’s like a fundamental piece. Because I know there’s lots of people who aren’t demisexual and they’re like, yeah, I prefer sex with connection. It’s much better for me. I don’t think that would be. Constitute somebody as a demisexual. I think that’s just somebody who’s sexual and they love to. You know, what makes somebody demisexual is they require it. It’s absolutely essential for their body to function. And this, when I was initially navigating this, like I said, there was a ton of shame for me because I didn’t understand. Like, I didn’t even know the term demisexual until three years ago. So I had navigated three or four years before that with all these erection issues and not knowing what was going on with my body without even knowing that this was a term. And I kept it quiet. I didn’t tell anybody. And it was just like I was riddled with shame. And I didn’t. Like, I was trying all these different practices, procedures, pills, things like that, and none of them were working. And then I got into a relationship and my dick was working fine. And I’m like, okay, so my dick is governed by, I call them heart ons. Right?

[00:47:27] Shay Doran: Like, that’s awesome.

[00:47:28] Matt Landsiedel: My erections are governed by my heart truly like, and some people get like erections when they look at like a naked dude or they see a dick pic or something like that. And for me that’s not the case. It’s when a guy will share something really sweet or romantic or that he tells me that he’s sensitive or how much he loves his dog or like things like that. Those are the things that create arousal for me, which seems very, it seemed very like foreign. And then I had all this conditioning around, I’m feminine, you know, this is how women are and why am I like this? And so I really, really want to point this out to people that there’s nothing wrong with you. What ends up happening is we have the wrong owner’s manual. We have the owner’s manual of a non demisexual person and we’re trying to slap that onto us, which is the conditioning that we have essentially. So if we can start to question that conditioning and slow down our connection, right. And start getting to right the heart of things. I’m not going to say this for everybody because again, it doesn’t, it’s all determines on the, the assessment, like what, what’s causing the erection issues. Right. This is just one explanation for people. So if you do have erection issues, I would say try, you know, meeting connection, that need for connection and see if that gives you, you know.

[00:48:40] Shay Doran: Yeah, I would add to that, that if you’re experiencing this, to first of all, avoid that generic advice trap. You know, we can spend so many hours and hours online reading things, watching videos, feeling like we’re making progress because many things promise the one thing, the one magic fix which never actually exists. And a lot of that stuff is all very generic. It’s not specific to what’s going on for us personally. And that’s really what we have to understand, what’s going on for us personally to be able to get this sorted. And then the other bit that you mentioned is for guys watching this, you may feel like you’ve tried many things over the years. We’ve tried maybe pills, you’ve tried pumps, you’ve tried, tried speaking to the doctor, everything was fine there. Or you’ve spoken some, a sex therapist or watched endless amounts of videos, whatever it may be, don’t give up, don’t give up. Even when it feels like you’ve tried everything, nothing’s working. If there’s a part of you that believes that you can get this sorted, it’s because there is and that is possible. So I think speaking to people who get it, who have experienced this Personally and hopefully this conversation with. With Matt and myself just starts to share the reality of this goes. This happens for so many men. And yeah, to not give up on yourself because you don’t need to. It is possible to get this sorted.

[00:50:04] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I think the. The importance of reaching out to a person like you or just even reaching out to anybody and talking about it is a way that we can start to, you know, we get caught in our own little echo chamber and we think that we need to be able to see outside of that to see solutions. And a couple other things I wanted to point out too, that are really important. So antidepressants can cause issues with this. You know, people that are on serotonin reuptake inhibitors can. That can lower your libido, it can cause erectile issues, it can cause a orgasmia or whatever where people have a hard time climaxing. So that’s a piece here too, that if that’s something that. That you’re navigating as well as sexual preference. I wrote down here, sexual preference influenced by conditioning. There’s a lot of gay men who don’t want to penetrate and they’re not turned on by it. So whether they’re not turned on by topping. Right. Or, you know, for some people, like, even for myself, like, I’m not really turned on by butts. You know what I mean? It’s not like a thing, but like, throat. A guy is like really hot.

So I can maintain an erection with that. But when it comes to like, topping and penetrating, like, anally, it just doesn’t really do it for me. Right. And I, again, I carried that on. Like, I should want to do this. I’m a man. I should want to penetrate either. But again, that’s the conditioning that I was given. But it’s not really who I am. And a lot of my journey was about coming into my authenticity, my sexual authenticity, and not measuring who I am authentically up against, whether it’s somebody else or the conditioning that we get that we have to be this way. Right. So I wanted to point those two things out because I know, you know, there’s a lot of sides that listen to this too, and they’re not interested in ass play and penetrating anally and things like that. So if you are somebody that’s more like that, I would say honor that. Don’t put your body into a situation that it doesn’t feel. And sometimes not having an erection is your body saying, this doesn’t create arousal for me. But the mind is trying to convince that you should. Right. Which is us going against our, our authenticity because of our conditioning.

[00:52:09] Shay Doran: So yeah, I think this is a really important point to go with what you truly feel you want.

Let that guide you. Because on the opposite side of this as well is we may feel like I have to give up on sex and become more of a side because I know that I just won’t be able to get hard or what if it happens again? And so we avoid, we end up avoiding intimacy or full sex because of the fear of it not going to plan.

[00:52:38] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:52:39] Shay Doran: When actually that is what we actually want. So to listen to that and also. Exactly as you just said, to listen to the other side of it, of that may not be what we actually want.

[00:52:48] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that’s where the self honesty gets comes into play here really. Like honoring desire I think is the biggest thing. And like listening to fear and acknowledging it and then getting honest about. Okay, is are my decisions or my desires or these things influenced by fear or are they influenced by authenticity? Like what is actually true to me, which I’m. I’m assuming that you really help people disentangle that when in the work that you do with them.

[00:53:13] Shay Doran: Yes, I think that’s. Maybe I hadn’t looked at it from that angle before, but definitely coming back to what it is that we actually want, what is important to us personally. And I think safety is the word that I would say creating. Maybe inner safety is an over overused word, but it is about creating an inner sense of safety and calmness which then allows us to have the type of sex and intimacy that we want, whatever type that may be. But coming at it from a place of authenticity, like you just said, we have to be in a calm state to be able to get to that point.

[00:53:50] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s a very complex issue. There’s a lot of pieces here that come into play and it’s like I can see why it’s so important to have some guidance in this area because it, it can feel, you know, I think hopeless. I just remember that. Shame, hopelessness, fear, a lot of these things. So to have somebody that can help navigate that can be a game changer.

[00:54:11] Shay Doran: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it can feel complex, it can feel overwhelming. A lot of the times. I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t go as far as saying we make it a bigger deal than what it is because it does feel like a really big deal and we’re experiencing this. What I would say though is that we often over complicate it by spending so Long absorbing, absorbing information and getting a sense of purpose from that. Because we feel like we’re taking action and doing something about it, when actually what we’re doing is avoiding speaking to somebody about it because that feels more vulnerable, that feels more uncomfortable. Yet that’s the very thing that’s actually going to get us the result that we want. So I think that is where we can overcomplicate it. This can get fixed a lot faster than we realize. It’s just about like you said about the we’re using the wrong manual is who are we getting the manual from? Is it the right person giving us the manual?

[00:55:06] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, good point. So I put a bunch of solutions, but we have what we kind of talked about, a lot of them. I think the biggest one for me is slow down the pace of connecting, especially if you’re a demisexual. Like truly, like you need, need that time for the nervous system to like syncopate. Like I said, it needs to sync with the other person and then you’re not going to go into your head as easily you can. When our nervous system feels safe, we’re more likely to be able to share vulnerably, stay present, stay embodied, focus on pleasure, like all these things. So I really do think that slowing down and taking, taking your time with somebody is hugely important.

[00:55:40] Shay Doran: And I would say if you’re listening to this and you’re experiencing erection challenges, whether it’s getting or maintaining an erection, a really important step is actually just finding out what is going on for you personally. And I don’t mean just the generic videos that we’ve spoken about. It’s understanding what is this? Is it performance anxiety? My experience is most of the guys that I work with, 80% of this is mindset, if not more. Absolute majority of it is mindset. It’s not medical.

[00:56:11] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:56:12] Shay Doran: And so it’s always important to go and get a, a test done with a doctor or primary caregiver to make sure blood’s testosterone, that there’s nothing going on there. That’s really important to rule that out. But then if we’ve done that and we’re feeling just this gut instinct that is mindset, this is not a medical thing, then the next step is really to understand what is going on for you personally, what has led to this so that you can resolve it and get it sorted, which I’ll come on to that in a second of a way that you can do that. But regardless of whether it’s with me or through anybody else, this is a really important Step is to figure out what is it for you personally that’s going on as opposed to just watching generic videos on how to sort it in 10 days. I even saw one video that. This is probably the most crazy one that I saw. It was like, erection problems sorted in. I think it was six days. If you don’t, I’ll give you a hundred dollars. And it was like, how is this even happening?

[00:57:06] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s clickbait. YouTube has become an area where there’s so much clickbait and it’s like thumbnails don’t match what’s inside the. The video, unfortunately. But what you’re saying, too, I want to say, like, inner child work feels like a big piece of this because I know for me, the number one of your three. Right. The past is a big piece. Right. Like, I remember just feeling like the CSA boy, highly critical parenting and like putting so much pressure on myself. I still have this. I still am very hard on myself. And so this has been a big part of my journey. And inner child work has always led me to self compassion. Right. Giving myself space to be imperfect, be fallible, and be human at the end of the day.

[00:57:46] Shay Doran: So I think as we go on that journey as well, like, one of the things that maybe you found. I know I definitely found this was it can be challenging in a new way because we haven’t really listened so much to that voice in the past. And then all of a sudden, we start being able to listen to it a lot more. The inner child voice of the needs that are not being met or the love that we weren’t given to ourself. And we start to become much more aware and in tune with our emotions.

[00:58:12] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:58:13] Shay Doran: And that needs its own course of navigation as well.

[00:58:17] Matt Landsiedel: Totally. Yeah. All right, where can I find you?

[00:58:21] Shay Doran: So a few things. Number one, whichever platform you’re listening to this on, please correct me, Matt, if I’m wrong here. Okay. But in the comments section of it, you’ll find a couple of things. The one, the link to the YouTube channel on the website. On the website, there are stories from men who have experienced this and gone through it too. So that you can just check that out and see if it feels relatable.

[00:58:45] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:58:46] Shay Doran: The final thing is the performance anxiety quiz that I’ve created. So this is a free 10 yes or no questions quiz, and we’ve been speaking about how to understand what’s going on for you personally, if you’re experiencing erection challenges, this is the way to do it. So this is just simply 10 yes or no questions that you answer that shows is this performance anxiety? Is it something else and what is causing it so that we can get to the bottom of it and get it fixed.

[00:59:11] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, beautiful. I’m going to do the quiz.

[00:59:14] Shay Doran: Oh, great.

[00:59:15] Matt Landsiedel: I’ll see. So, yeah, in the show notes we’ll have everything linked to Shay. I recorded a video on YouTube called Sexual Performance anxiety and Erectile Dysfunction. It’s almost an hour video of me sharing my whole story about my journey with this. So if people are interested in that, they can go check that out as well. And we’re also going to include the two research studies that that Shay cited in this episode. So. And yeah, just thank you. Thank you for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. I know that this is going to be a godsend for a lot of people and this is a very painful, shame ridden issue to harbor and I think just people will listen to this and feel like they’re not alone.

[00:59:54] Shay Doran: So yeah, I think this is a really important point is knowing that if you’re listening to it and if you’re experiencing erection challenges, you aren’t alone. And hopefully through, you know, the story that I’ve shared of my own experience with erection challenges and Matt’s leadership in talking about this as well, this starts to show that there are people that you can speak to. You don’t have to try and figure this out by yourself. Yeah, we’re here to. This is a safe environment. Non judgmental. Because we both understand it.

[01:00:22] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. Amazing. Well, and I would love for people just to chime in on the comment section. I think this, that’s maybe the first place that we can start to normalize this conversation. So if you’re watching on YouTube, please drop some comments in the comments section and if you have a question for either myself or Shay, drop it in there and we’ll be happy to answer it for you. And yeah, thanks again for coming on, Shay. Appreciate it.

[01:00:46] Shay Doran: Thank you.

Sa.