Men's Work and Sexuality | The Men's Work Directory

What goes wrong with male sexuality

Robert Glover's work identifies the most common distortions: sex as a covert transaction (earned through good behavior rather than expressed through genuine desire), the shame-driven split between 'good women' and sexuality, and the performance anxiety that comes from treating sex as something to be accomplished rather than experienced.

Gabor Maté's work on addiction extends directly to pornography and compulsive sexual behavior — not as moral failures but as responses to the same underlying disconnection from self and others that drives other forms of numbing.

Trauma history is frequently relevant: Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk both document how early trauma can shape adult sexuality in ways that are difficult to identify from inside the pattern.

What genuine sexual development requires

David Deida's work argues that masculine sexual energy and the direction of masculine purpose are intimately related — that a man who has found his deepest life direction brings that energy into intimate relationship in ways that a purposeless or approval-seeking man cannot.

Justin Patrick Pierce's Sacred Intimacy and Polarity Mentorship works specifically in this territory: the integration of masculine sexuality with love, presence, and genuine vulnerability. His approach draws on tantric and somatic traditions to develop a more complete sexual development rather than a performance-optimization one.

John Wineland's work addresses erotic polarity as a living, practiced skill: the degree to which a man can be genuinely present with his desire, with his partner's desire, and with what moves between them, without managing or performing.

Common Questions

Is pornography use something I should address in men's work?

If it's interfering with your relationship, your capacity for genuine intimacy, or your connection to your own experience — yes. Men's work doesn't treat pornography use as a moral category. It treats it as a symptom, with the question being: what need is it meeting, and is there a more genuine way to meet it?

I'm not having any sexual problems. Is this still relevant?

The absence of visible problems doesn't mean genuine integration. Many men who are sexually functional are carrying shame, performing rather than experiencing, or missing the relational depth that makes sexuality genuinely alive.