Men's Sexual & Mental Health with Taylor Johnson (EP# 92)

Mason: (00:00)

Taylor, brother, how are you, man?

 

Taylor: (00:02)

Hey, man, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me back. It's awesome to be here with you.

 

Mason: (00:06)

Yeah. Absolute pleasure. It's been a year. I like the habit of meeting up in November for Brovember, Men's Health Month, coming to have a chat about all things men's sexual health and we've got an overarching theme of men's mental health and as always you're not going to be able to separate sexual health and mental health ever. I'm sure we'll touch on that here but how you doing?

 

Taylor: (00:36)

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, man. There's this whole illusion that sex lives in a separate little box down in our genitals and doesn't impact the rest of our lives and that obviously couldn't be further from the truth. So I'm stoked to be talking about just men's mental health in general because it's a topic that I don't think gets enough attention and it's something that we all deal with. We all have mental health and it's... Yeah, so I think it's super important to be talking about it and I'm happy to go into sex and mental health together as a topic.

 

Mason: (01:12)

Well, before we jump into all these new topics let's just pick up where we left off last time. So we did a whole podcast about semen retention and just to what was really nice is that I feel like that podcast and your work in general is really, it's grounded and approachable, because quite often as you said sexual health for men as well gets boxed. So if you start to engage with your sexuality you start engaging with say practises that are in the direction of say semen retention, all of a sudden there's this stigma about the kind of person you need to be and the things that are going to start coming up but I'm liking the fact that... Well, let's talk about first idealism around semen retention, about the expectations that we have of it now that it's been a year that the men listening to this or that maybe there's some guys that their girlfriends or partners you have to listen to this podcast. I assume that's happened because... It's top two most listened to podcast we've had.

 

Taylor: (02:23)

Awesome.

 

Mason: (02:24)

And we have mostly women listening but I want to talk about first of all, how there's various ways of approaching this. You don't have to be that typical image that we've been programmed to think that if you're someone a man that starts engaging with your sexuality that you have some stigmaed person. You can be anyone and do it and also the expectations around semen retention and how to manage those, how do we get the best out of this practice.

 

Taylor: (02:54)

Yeah. Yeah. Man, that's an awesome topic. I'd love to dive into that. And to say that if you go on YouTube right now or pretty much anywhere on the internet the topic of semen retention and NoFap, it's on fire. It's up. Everyone's talking about it. And, since we did our podcast a year ago I've actually created a whole semen retention course. I've had a bunch of guys go through it with great successes and I've done coaching with guys around this and I've created a lot of YouTube videos and I've gotten a tonne of questions about it too. And the interesting question that keeps popping up and that I keep seeing out there is some people will say something like this, so imagine a guy he says, “Hey Taylor, I've been retaining for 40 days but I'm not feeling amazing. What's up? Why is that?”

 

Taylor: (03:48)

And I see in the semen retention world there's this deification of the practise of semen retention as if it's the only thing you need to do in order to achieve optimum health and optimum mental health and optimum life goals and all this stuff. And so, with this person I would go through a process of questions and be like, okay cool. So you have retained for 40 days but when's the last time you exercised? When's the last time you did something nice for yourself? When's the last time you took time to breathe? What type of foods are you eating? Are you drinking enough water? All this stuff. And then turns out, oh, actually yeah, I haven't exercised in about three weeks and yeah, last night I ate a bunch of macaroni and cheese and I went to sleep at two in the morning. It's like, okay. There's some other things we need to be looking at here too in addition to the practise of semen retention.

 

Taylor: (04:45)

In all of the old traditions, like yogic and tantric traditions they all say that it's part of a holistic lifestyle practise. There's so much more to it than just retaining.

 

Mason: (04:56)

Well, it's a long game as well, right? It's like, for instance, with the medicinal mushrooms or a breath practise when you start out there's people who just get absolutely blown out of the atmosphere taking these mushrooms and feeling so fantastic, doing a breathing practise and then they're like, wow. I have to have that breathing practise in my life every day to feel energised. That honeymoon period, same with semen retention you may feel really good in the beginning, and then you go, wow. It's going to keep on going up and you seemingly hit this plateau of how good you feel. But it's like with all these things you feel good in the beginning because you've been doing something that's maybe unsustainable or you've had a deficiency and you're returning to normal, so you get that spike in energy and you get a big cathartic experience.

 

Mason: (05:44)

But then the plateau is quite often like, awesome, now you're in the real cultivation stage where over years and years of committed practise and exploring, you're going to actually be increasing your Essence and your Kidney Jing, and you're going to be giving yourself energy for more subtle aspects of your evolution. And so that's where the good stuff comes in but then it's just a long stamina game then. I'd imagine it's the same with semen retention.

 

Taylor: (06:12)

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely and there's this term actually, in the semen retention world called flatlining. I think it in NoFap too, like semen retention flatlining. And people say, oh I've had these amazing benefits for the first two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, and then nothing. And yeah, it's because you're not... I have this one video called The Benefits Of Not Ejaculating for 30 Days, and it's reached a tonne of people on YouTube. And one of the gems of this video are the comments underneath. And people will say things like, “Day 636. I sold my car because I've retained so much I can teleport.” And all this shit. And it's like, no, you don't gain new abilities the longer you go, you just reach a new homeostasis that's more optimal for general life function. And it's vastly more optimal in my opinion but it's a new level of homeostasis.

 

Mason: (07:09)

Man, I'm so glad you brought that up. And before we touch on these other points, I just want to give that follow up. I really enjoyed your course. Do you do those all just live or is there courses around the semen retention that people can purchase and go through at all times? How have you set it up at the moment?

 

Taylor: (07:30)

Yeah. So a couple times we have gone through as a big group of guys all together and we have a Facebook group. Right now, it's set up to where people can go through on their own. It's a self-study option and they'll get an email every day and get to do all the same exercises and have access to all the live calls from the past. But that way you don't have to wait until four months from now when I do the next big group or something like that.

 

Mason: (07:54)

Yeah. I think it's good. I've had a lot of people asking me about it just in the last month. And so it's probably good reminder that coming up to Christmas and all that stuff and so I think it's a nice present to buy for people. But, just in what I was going to say there in terms of the intention that you go into the world and then all of a sudden there's idealism around the fact that the ability to retain for 30 days must be there or that this ideal that you need to get to. It's about the destination. And for me I feel like I was struggling with it and sharing about it on the last podcast in terms of the way my intent lies and the way I'm relating to myself when I approach my own sexuality because I'm so hard on myself. If I don't do something perfect then I just throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I feel like having time around my sexual practise is something and I still do intend for myself require to do more.

 

Mason: (08:56)

But, when I was going through the course not focusing on the retention and really focusing on that journey of those 20 minute self pleasuring sessions that weren't about coming and they weren't about any kind of arrival towards any place or anything like that, that was probably the most transformational aspect of that at the end the happy accident of semen retention and multiple orgasms or not even, just the beginnings of experience of these internal explosive orgasms rather than that external cold driven, you've got internal sustainable energy orgasm starting to come about. It was really the juice of it for me which was nice. So yeah, just wanted to put that out there as well as you were saying semen retention is not going to be only everything and it doesn't even have to be your major focus going into this course. It doesn't have that pressure I'd say even there, but the practises are really beautiful. So yeah, I really dig it, man.

 

Taylor: (10:02)

Yeah. Thanks for saying that. And that brings up a good segue. I don't know if you were about to go in a segue but I'm feeling-

 

Mason: (10:08)

Segmen, seg away.

 

Taylor: (10:11)

All right. Actually let's all take a deep breath, I'm going to invite everyone listening to you just to take a quick deep breath into your belly. Yeah. So men's mental health and sex. You said this piece about how that when you were approaching your sexuality, approaching this course even in different aspects of your sex life, that you were approaching it from this perfectionist lens and having to get it done. And it's almost like a performance based thing which is ironic because it's anti performance is what we're going for. And I think it's like, this brings up a really big point for men in general.

 

Taylor: (11:06)

A huge piece of programming that men get in this society is that we need to always know exactly what's going on. We need to have our shit together. We need to be self sufficient without needing anybody's help or anybody's guidance. We have to be like leading the way at all times and do it well and provide. And that doesn't leave a lot of room for vulnerability, that doesn't leave a lot of room for asking for help and for questions. And then when you bring sex into the mix almost all of us have grown up with a very poor education about sex and what's possible, sexual health, sexual relationships, romantic relationships, et cetera.

 

Taylor: (11:50)

So when guys... And when I started on my sexuality and my sex life and sexual performance health all this stuff, I remember starting it too with that same lens like, oh, I'm going to rock this out, I'm going to hit it with all I got, I'm going to work on it every day and I'm going to just hit it really hard. And this is how I've done a lot of other things in my life, like business projects, personal creative projects, just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it didn't work that way, it doesn't work that way, it's you approach sexuality. And-

 

Mason: (12:23)

If you don't mind explaining there where you would bump up against the glass ceiling or the limitation of that, maybe it's an aggressive confidence or an alpha confidence which obviously is still useful. And I love because we need that capacity. But were you just tapped into something more subtle since you were endeavouring on this path? Was it the actual sexual practises? Was it the fact that you had a more loving intention that you'd then hit that glass ceiling of that perfectionist Taylor and had to go searching for other ways to approach say developing a more meaningful confidence that was based on something other than external performance? What was the process there if you don't mind me asking?

 

Taylor: (13:17)

Yeah. Well, it's a good question. It was a mix of things and one of them was this whole idea of the lone wolf and got to do it all yourself. And I did, I read a lot of books and I did some courses and I did a lot of self study and practise and I found myself feeling isolated with that. And I didn't have community, I wasn't talking with my other guy friends about this stuff. I wasn't even really talking about it with my girlfriend I was just having this internal experience. And there was a glass ceiling that came from that, because there was almost a shame in talking about it. I didn't want to be seen as the guy who was really studying sex at first. I didn't want to be seen as the guy who was really invested in improving this part of my life because that would inherently mean that it was not good enough to begin with, so that's why I was working on it.

 

Taylor: (14:15)

And it was this weird head fuck of like, wow! I'm so fascinated by this and I'm getting results but I can't talk about it because people would think I'm weird and I've got to be perceived as doing it all right. And so that was one of the ceilings that I had to break through and realise no, actually it's really important to talk about this stuff. If you have close friends you can talk to about it great, but if not talking to a therapist or something. Getting it so that it's more than just you. So it was more than just me spreading that sphere of awareness out to where it started to become actually of my life in general and not just this little bubble inside my head and my body.

 

Mason: (14:56)

Yeah. The two gears around sex. I know a lot of people in the circles will probably take for granted the fact that people have a little bit more liberal with the way that they're able to actually share themselves but still the of aussie culture is either one of bravado and just sharing and we have the steel curtain and bamboo curtain of Russia and China I feel like there's a velvet curtain around sex when we talk where it's just... And that way that we just imply a bravado of decide it's amazing. It's great and quite often it is, or you in Australia or you take the piss out of yourself in terms of there's a faux pride in the fact that you only lasted two seconds and you can laugh it off and have a joke about it.

 

Mason: (15:52)

Which is to be honest I find for comedic purposes it's really fun and..

 

Taylor: (15:57)

Yeah. Totally.

 

Mason: (15:58)

And I like talking about sex in both those ways. But what I'm finding more and more is the extent of how uncomfortable it is for a guy to start talking about sex. I think the fact that you brought up a therapist is really great because sometimes that's what I desire. I want to sit with someone who's just going to receive, not try and fix me or give me suggestions a lot of the time. But when you come down to talking to other guys around sex, what's the path of least resistance? What are some of those divots that the water runs into that is slightly uncomfortable that you can ease into having a conversation that's relevant for a friendship, is going to be able to start breaking the ice around that topic that you see as useful to a useful direction to take.

 

Taylor: (16:54)

Yeah. Yeah. That's a damn good question. And I would say approached with great intentionality especially if you're somebody who's feeling sensitive about this stuff, you want to be really intentional with who you open up to and share at first. We'll tell you build this foundation of confidence and support with it. And I would say if you are feeling vulnerable or are struggling with something, before you just dive into it with somebody ask a buddy of yours, hey man, you could say something like, hey brother, I've been having this thing happened in my life it's around sex and I've been wanting somebody to talk to you about it. I'm wondering would you be willing to have a conversation with me about sex? And just without judgement , just to hear me out as a brother, as a friend. Just like an icebreaker are you open to doing that? And generally the answer you get is going to tell you a lot.

 

Taylor: (17:51)

Most people who are friends are going to say yes, absolutely and because you've approached with such intentionality you're setting the framework for a really great conversation to happen. And then it's your job after that to be vulnerable. But I always find that first asking the question and setting the container, setting the frame, if you will, for that conversation is a really big plus and then agreeing, to confidentiality upfront too.

 

Mason: (18:18)

Then you said again at the start of the process so we boxed out our sexuality, right? We've segmented the way which as we start to open up whether we're doing the practises that are in your course, whether we start sharing the therapist or a friend or a lover, slowly opening that box since it's got a lot of dust on it a lot of the time or it's just been got a big steel door that stops you from getting to it. As you slowly open that door, is it just going slow and being dedicated to inviting this part of you back in your life that will help it integrate with the rest of your body. Because I feel like there's a divide between really feeling how we've got this emotional self and this spiritual self and then sex is over here.

 

Mason: (19:16)

But that process of allowing our sexual energy, and sexual self, and our sex life to start integrating and bringing another dimension to our emotional self, to our spiritual self, our physicality, the way that we approach life in general, not that it has to dominate but this is more of a subtle question. So it's okay if you don't really have much to share on it but is there some just subtle tips because I feel like that divide, I think people are scared of having their sexuality all of a sudden come out and dominating their personality or their persona at times.

 

Mason: (19:57)

It's got an, how can you be sexual while still being socially appropriate, because there's nothing worse than someone, was talking the other day some people around the area and you meet them and shortly after they just can't wait to tell you about how they love being promiscuous and they love doing this and they love doing that. And then sometimes it's appropriate and other times it's just like, man, this just feels like peacocking and showboating. This is like another attempt to have an identity with like an external identity that people think is exotic. And again, I feel like it's a way of abusing your sexuality if you get attention. So how do we integrate sustainably this sexual energy without it being a huge jump in like how we're perceived or seen?

 

Taylor: (20:48)

Man, you just asked about 20 really good questions.

 

Mason: (20:52)

Sorry about that.

 

Taylor: (20:53)

No, it's great. It's great. I appreciate it, man. So many things to think about. One thing I wanted to touch on is you mentioned this fear of potentially being perceived as too much, too bravado in the sexuality department. There's also a fear of a lot of guys if you start doing tantric practises and you start doing Daoist practises, there's a fear that you're going to over feminise yourself as a term a lot of people use. You're soft and then you're not going to be able to show up with that fierceness in the bedroom that's so attractive and so healthy and so beautiful and awesome. So both of those fears are real.

 

Taylor: (21:31)

And when you talk about integrating the spiritual and the sexual this is something I've been thinking a lot about recently actually. And I would imagine a number of people listening to this, if you're listening you've probably heard of breathwork at least, right? Probably you've even tried a little bit of it-

 

Mason: (21:52)

Most likely everyone listening to this tribe you can quote breathwork, yeah.

 

Taylor: (21:56)

Awesome. Great. So three things here. Breathwork is in one little circle right here. You can't see it if you're listening but I'm holding up my hands in the Zoom and making a Venn diagram of sorts over here. And the other one is self-pleasure. And one thing I've been exploring is integrating breathwork into my self pleasure sessions. And so if you think about when you do a breathwork session, especially if it's any holotropic breathwork or Wim Hoff oriented thing or something more activating you feel a lot of sensations in your body, you might feel a shift in consciousness, you might feel feelings of oneness with everything, you might get downloads of ideas and inspiration that come from seemingly nowhere, and you feel expansive and connected with everything, right? That's that, you could call that the spiritual domain, if you will, you could call that the energetic domain.

 

Taylor: (22:49)

Over here in this other circle is sexuality and self-pleasure and sexual arousal and erotic energy and that sort of thing. And those two circles don't often get mixed. And when you develop a self pleasure practise and you're touching yourself and you're masturbating and you're exploring those sexual sensations, generally you're not having these same mind blowing expansive experiences that you do when you're doing a breathwork practise or you doing a long meditation or some sort of yogic thing or something like that. But if you start to play with integrating the two of them you can have some wild, wild amazingly beautiful experiences that are expansive and full of sexual pleasure at the same time.

 

Taylor: (23:34)

So all of a sudden you're experiencing this orgasmic sensation in your genitals, that's spreading through your body while you're also experiencing the expansiveness of this activating breathwork. And something about that, it's just creates a bridge and it starts to anchor that in your body. It started to anchor in my body and it really started to shift some things on a fundamental level integrating those two.

 

Mason: (23:58)

Man, yeah. I was just going through my own little internal journey there when you were sharing and just the realisation of, that it's such an obvious one. But what I can see for you, you need to repeat and you choose to repeat again and again and again, because it almost seems too simple to just continue to bring the breath and self-pleasure or lovemaking or just fucking wherever you are together. But that was actually what I'm realising. See in my mid '20s when I first started really diving into this world I really embraced, like hook line and sinker and that was my personality I was exploring. And so probably I went really far into but maybe becoming that person that was a little bit caught up in the identity of it and bringing that breathiness constantly not able to quite integrate with and be, multi-dimensional just like I'm just living in that sexual energy.

 

Mason: (25:08)

And so after a while I guess I've scared myself off it and especially running in a spiritual raw food community getting, looking at myself going, fuck, I'm a douchebag man. I'm just like, I don't want, why am I being like this all the time? There's that breathiness always there, I'm always trying just... I don't know what it was, but I just had that typical persona that I was expressing that really scared me off for a while because I just didn't feel there was so many parts of me that was being suppressed. And after the course we did I realised how uncomfortable I was mostly in my self pleasure but then as well in lovemaking, how uncomfortable I was to really connect to the deep breath and make sound.

 

Mason: (26:00)

That was probably the biggest breakthrough I had because then in lovemaking with that deep breathing which is 101 in tantric and Daoist practice, it just opened up this other world of connection with myself and with Tahnee that I just, it had been really been quite forgotten and it was really uncomfortable. I realised I needed to do everything I could to connect back with that part of myself. That's probably why I started getting a little bit into comedy on my own personal Instagram and literally taking the absolute piss out of myself when I was that person developed a whole character called the conscious cucumber and just tore him another one.

 

Mason: (26:47)

And it's funny people don't realise that's my process too.. So I can actually balance it out for as long as I need. So then I can integrate that part of me back in so I can continue to explore integrating my sexuality. So, yeah. Thanks for bringing it up man. And sorry for the long share everyone. I'll get back to letting Taylor talk.

 

Taylor: (27:10)

It's great, it's a good topic. And you said breath. Yeah. Yes. Breath is 101 but it's also 201, 301, 401-

 

Mason: (27:17)

Yeah you're right.

 

Taylor: (27:17)

... and above.

 

Mason: (27:21)

Yeah. Well, go on man. Yeah.

 

Taylor: (27:26)

There's so many different aspects to mental health and sexuality for men. And you mentioned one that I'd love to go into a little bit too. You mentioned your relationship and I think relationship is a really big one, it definitely affects mental health, the success, or non-success of your relationship has a huge impact on your daily state of being. So I'd love to go in that direction if you're down to that. Cool. Alright. So just, personal, personal story, I'm in a relatively new relationship right now, we're about... Let's see, what month is it? It's October Jesus! It's October. So about six months in. Six months into this new relationship and it's beautiful and I'm under no illusion that it's going to be a cakewalk for the rest of our lives, but I'm definitely approaching it differently now than I have ever approached a relationship in the past. And from the very beginning treating it like a system that I'm putting energy into regularly.

 

Taylor: (28:31)

I think of it like you wouldn't drive a car for years without changing the oil or doing maintenance on it. So you need to put energy into a relationship. And so I find that the more energy I put into this relationship the more I get back in terms of my general mental health and my general mental wellbeing. And it's really beautiful feedback loop and feedback cycle. And I think back to other relationships, even shorter ones that I was in where I didn't have such a focus of intentionality that drained me in some ways or it took a lot of my awareness because I was focusing so much I don't really... I do I want to say that, I guess I'll just back up and say, it feels really good to treat the relationship as a system and regularly put energy and get energy out from that. And I'm guessing you had a similar experience when you were approaching lovemaking with your partner while working on your sexuality.

 

Mason: (29:27)

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. I'm interested to hear... I know you bumped up against like, all right, how do I describe this? But I am slightly interested if you want to take some time to explore how you feel like you had approached it. The relationship even though they weren't bad. Now approaching it as the system or a living system, but what were the key differences there and how you approached a relationship and sex before that was in contrast.

 

Taylor: (29:58)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So a big one, a huge one and I still have little pieces of this in me that I'm working to get rid of but, a big one is I used to have this huge belief that, oh, if you find the one, then the relationship is just going to be great and it's just going to work and you're not going to argue, and it's going to be beautiful for years and years to come. And that myth is... And you laugh. Yeah. And I laughed too and probably if you're listening, you're laughing too, but you better damn well believe you've been programmed with that idea too.

 

Mason: (30:33)

Well, that's for me even though I'm not abandoned to the idea of twin flames, so on and so forth, but that is inherently at the marketing soul of the twin flame is you can rest on your laurels a little bit because you guys have a soul contract and connection. And that's why there's so much dysfunction in relationships in spiritual circles.

 

Taylor: (30:57)

Mm-hmm (affirmative). God, man. I feel at the risk of tangenting I'll just say this briefly, the whole twin flame concept bugs the shit out of me, honestly. I see it mostly because when I see people talk about it, it sounds like they're coming from this really codependent place. Just like what you were saying, oh, our two souls are one and they're not having any sovereignty in their own relationship. At least what I've seen, maybe if you're listening and you're in a relationship you would call it twin flame, you feel it's totally balanced and everything that's great. But I don't think there is this one entity that you have a soul contract with. I think there's a lot of really amazing humans out there that you could have a beautiful loving relationship with should you choose to do so. Should you choose to put in that work.

 

Taylor: (31:48)

And I think you're right, in a lot of spiritual communities you see a lot of relationship dysfunction, a lot of spiritual bypassing and I think part of it is because this whole romanticised idea of there being a one partner for you gets mixed in with these grandiose spiritual ideas of oneness also. And it gets like all sorts of muddy.

 

Mason: (32:13)

It gets so muddy, doesn't it? Okay. There's someone I can talk to the fact that Tahnee and I, when we first got together we had some experiences that were huge and we felt cosmic and there was a feeling of, how did we find each other in this big wide universe? There's something right about this and magical about this and what I feel I was able to do yet. I had to detox that attachment to that and a using of that to validate the fact that I didn't have to work. And this extreme disappointment when things just didn't work out beautifully, I've realised that what I'm not saying to do when I poo poo through the long term twin flame justification or whatever other thing you want to talk about is, can you have that experience, allow it to be beautiful and felt, and then as that starts to fall away, and some of those initial hormones, neurotransmitters start to fall away, we hit the plateau about next as we've talked about with semen retention, that next space can you not in retrospect judge and put meaning onto what that experience was.

 

Mason: (33:33)

Can you leave it exactly where it is and then allow yourself to move on, get over yourself, let that be there, it was beautiful. And then just go and start from scratch in terms of realising you are not entitled, it doesn't mean anything, it was meant what it meant back then, now get to fucking work. You're a human, you're in a relationship and that doesn't affect how you're going to have to work and love and evolve in your relationship long term.

 

Taylor: (34:02)

Yeah and spiritual practise is not always blissful. And this is another big thing I see for people who are in the consciousness communities, spiritual communities. There's this idea that if you're on your spiritual path you're going to be having blissful experiences all the time. And like, no. Some of the least happy people are the people I see who regularly seek bliss, who regularly seek enlightenment and don't dive into the depths of their challenges and work through them. It's like, you're not talking about the hard stuff because the hard stuff is not blissful but that leads to a lot of isolation and at least to a lot of depression.

 

Taylor: (34:45)

And I'm one of my best friends actually committed suicide about 10 years ago. And he was seen as this huge light being was a word a lot of people use to describe this guy. He was a huge bright light of consciousness, always blissful in public, always blissful, always singing songs, always the centre of attention in the party and that thing. And what people didn't see was when he went into his dark spaces, because then he just went to bed in his room and locked himself in there for four or five days until he could come out and be blissful again. And that's some real shit. Spiritual practise is not just the bliss, it's being real with yourself. What's actually happening in your life? What are you actually dealing with? What are you suffering with? Don't hide it from anybody but more importantly, don't hide it from yourself. And if something is going on find somebody to talk to you about it, find somebody to connect with about it, because life is short and it's not worth it.

 

Mason: (35:53)

Yeah. Life short but then you're going to take that as you're saying, not looking constantly for the peak experiences get back into that. It's a long game as well. It's short and that you play the long game chop wood, carry water-

 

Taylor: (36:09)

Chop wood.

 

Mason: (36:11)

Yeah. Sorry to hear about your mate as well. It's always been that close to that experience because we can laugh off the fact and I think in the community, there's so many people around, there's so many influences around that they get caught up in the public persona. For me I used to refer to it as my stage persona and that's what I became immeshed with. We immeshed in our social media persona, how we're seen in the community at our dance events, just the people in corporate, how you turn up in the office, whatever it is then everyone's like yeah cheering, you're so good when you're like this. And you're like, all right, I got to be like that all the time.

 

Mason: (36:54)

We laugh about it and I feel like a little bit of satire is necessary to help shake people out of it and not take themselves too seriously but it gets serious. It can get really serious really quick when you get a inmeshed in that external identity. And then you feel the pressure to obtain that all the time and then that becomes unsustainable. It's a huge issue and needs to constantly be addressed. So thanks for sharing that and bringing it up.

 

Taylor: (37:20)

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I was just like, oh, where to go from here?

 

Mason: (37:37)

Yeah. If you want to just take it in any direction, you're your vibe and go for it.

 

Taylor: (37:44)

There's a couple of things I wrote down that I think would be fun just to put in here, just maybe even bullet points for people who are listening to go experiment with these things and try things out. In the context of relationship, one tool that I've found that has completely transformed all of my romantic relationships and my relationship with my family is studying nonviolent communication and practising that and putting it into use in my relationships. And yes, it might sound and feel clunky at first. And yes, there's potential for misuse of nonviolent communication, but it's also so fucking effective. It's unbelievably effective. If you put in the time to learn it and use it, it just opens up so much.

 

Taylor: (38:30)

And like to make the analogy and some people say, oh, don't learn NBC because you could misuse it or something like that. But don't people don't say to not use knives because they're sharp and you could accidentally cut yourself. A knife is a very useful tool. And when used intelligently it makes your entire life much easier. And non violent communication could be one of those things.

 

Mason: (38:57)

We've had our whole crew trained at SuperFeast. We took two days out to do a workshop and what I would tell everyone is just to keep on going through that clunky stage when you're getting used to the process of looking past what are they actually feeling? What are they actually wanting to communicate? Because it can feel a little uncomfortable using this scripted language at first to get to what you're actually feeling. And you feel a bit of... Sorry to use the word douche but that's the only word. That's how I felt it at times lame, but if you stay consistent the framework remains, but you find the languaging, it's very effective. You find your own language in your own unique way to express it. So I just like, yeah, thought I'd throw that in there as well and I'm with you man, because otherwise it just remains confusion in the relationship.

 

Taylor: (39:59)

Yeah. That's a big one for sure. And another thing that I love doing that I didn't used to do, so I'm heterosexual and I'm in relationship with women. And I find that if I'm in tune with my partner's menstrual cycle and I connect with her around that and talk about it even. That brings a whole another beautiful level of connection to our relationship and it adds to my life, it creates more generative energy from the relationship because we're not using any hormonal birth control or the pill or anything like that. Only condoms, very occasionally right around the ovulation time, but somehow being aware of her cycle and being aware of those tides in some ways makes us both more reverent to the power of life that lies within us and to the beauty of our connection as animals. The potential for procreation even though we're choosing not to right now it adds reverence to that.

 

Taylor: (41:00)

And I can tell ,whenever I mentioned something about her cycle like, oh, wow! So you're about to be ovulating in a couple of days or you're about to start your cycle. I see her reaction of one being like, oh, wow! You're paying attention to this important part of my life and maybe no other partner has ever done that before. And it feels amazing and yeah, just wanted to put that out there too. That's a really fun thing to do.

 

Mason: (41:26)

Yeah. It's so funny you bring that up as well. I've been thinking about it, it's something I consider myself... Again, if I jump into my identity I'm like, somewhat understand that cycle, I've learned a bit about it and the seasonality of it. But I found myself going, where are you at, at the moment? And she had a laugh about how I wasn't aware of where she was at and well, not in a mean way but just have a little bit of a fun little jab of how we ignorant I was to something that was so avert and affects our life so much.

 

Mason: (42:12)

And after my pride got a backhand and I felt I was like, dude, I talk about being tapped into seasonality of the nature around me and I'm not tapped into the seasonality that's there in my own house. And therefore able to have seasonality in the way that I'm approaching sex or affection with Tahns stuff. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up again, because there's another thing I didn't mean to say that there's another thing that I'm doing, but that thing is actually an absolute pleasure. And I think you're right. You drop that one on Valentine's Day in terms of, I know where you're at and I know what mood you're going to be at different times of the month and how we're and generally how we're going to approach it. That's maybe write a poem about it.

 

Taylor: (43:06)

Yeah. It's just a good thing to be aware of. And yeah, I like what you said about the cycles of things. God, yeah. It all ties into mental health. Yeah, this all ties into mental health. One other thing that I'm really excited about that I'm working on right now for couples is, well, I'll start this by saying, I've done a lot of workshops around tantra and Daoist sexuality and sacred sexuality and just sex in general around the world. And some of them I've done with various partners at the time. And I remember sometimes when there's 30 or 40 or 50 people in a room and I'm sitting there with my partner and we're learning these techniques, there's no way I'm going to utilise them to the fullest extent possible with her in this room. It's not happening, not happening at all.

 

Taylor: (43:56)

And I've gotten a lot of requests for stuff for couples to explore their sexuality together. So I've been working on recently this course and I'm calling it the ecstatic lovers course, and it's basically a guided workshop for couples to do in the privacy of their own bedroom to explore practical tantra and erotic touch and different touch and conscious objectification and taking a pleasure and expressing desires and practising expression desires and all this stuff in a really beautiful ritualistic container that... Yeah, I'm super stoked about, I'm really, really stoked about. And I see this as something that people could do. If you're wanting to add to your relationship do something generative that's going to bring the two of you together because a relationship is a system. You could do something like that.

 

Taylor: (44:51)

An intentional date night where you set three hours aside and you go through a process together intentionally for the sake of your relationship and deepening your connection and learning and growing together. Maybe that's this course, or maybe it's something else, but the idea of setting aside an intentional time to do something for your relationship will add a lot to your life too.

 

Mason: (45:13)

I'd throw in there just in case I just got the spidey sense that someone might be sitting back there gone, oh, maybe that's something I can't do right now, because I'm nowhere near semen retention and I haven't really done much before. You just want to talk to about what the intent of the course is and the levels of where people would need to be at.

 

Taylor: (45:29)

Got it. Yeah. So the course has absolutely nothing to do with semen retention and it could be for two female relationship, two male relationship, any gender, any sexual orientation for that course. But basically I'm creating it because I've found that even still into my early '30s I had a lot of trouble being aware of what my real desires were and actually asking for them in relationship. Really getting in touch with what I really wanted to try, sexual fantasies, sexual desires, experiences that I wanted to have. And I had some shame around asking for those things. And so part of this course is to help you and your partner really get in touch with what is it that you're actually desiring and how can you share it with each other in a way that will be received well and a way that will be exciting. And then how can you actually do those things in a fun way?

 

Taylor: (46:30)

So that's one main part of it. And another main part of it is exploring two different fundamental kinds of touch. And it's hard to say just how revolutionary this was for me without actually experiencing it in your body. But if you think about it when you're massaging somebody's shoulders, right? You're obviously giving to them, they're obviously receiving the touch and that's great. It feels good, you feel good because you're giving to them, they feel good because they're receiving the touch. But what if you slide your hands down their back and you start to grab their ass, that's a different touch, right? And if you don't talk about it with the person it will probably feel weird that the person whose shoulders you're massaging because that's usually a boundary for people unless you're in relationship.

 

Taylor: (47:19)

And even if you're in relationship it could feel weird, but so this course goes into the differences of those two things and then how to fully own the desire of ass grabbing. And how to own the desire of fully ravishing your partner for your own pleasure. A lot of women's fantasies generally speaking, are to be just taken and ravaged and ravished in a safe way. In relationship they want this to happen in a safe way and so this course goes into how to do that and how to receive that also on all sides of the gender and... Yeah, sex.

 

Mason: (48:03)

So good.

 

Taylor: (48:04)

That's a lot of words. It's really amazing when I learned this stuff it fundamentally changed my entire sex life forever, it is incredible.

 

Mason: (48:15)

I'm going to be jumping on board, man. I think I've mentioned to you earlier that's something since I don't have to be there for live calls on it which is what really works for me. I'll hook this up for the honeymoon thing. That'd be something great to take in there late in November this month when we're putting this out there Brovember. Just to take a tone, I just want to quickly touch on a topic which we might need to jump on to for another podcast later down the track. But there's been a huge embracing of sexual toys, sexual tools for women. I feel like crystal wands, dildos in general and even in just sexual health tools like jade eggs, et cetera. It's quite alright, it's been embraced.

 

Mason: (49:10)

Not for men though. It's in your course and your same retention course you do touch on the tools and toys for the boys. And I just thought if you're happy just to touch on that there, how long is gonna be, is it time for that to become something a little bit more accepted in your eyes? Is it worth the guys getting on for the toys and what are some of the toys that you prefer?

 

Taylor: (49:44)

Yeah. That's a damn good question. Thanks for bringing that up. It is crazy, man. And as you were saying that I was thinking to myself, I was trying to imagine a crystal vagina and I was like, that wouldn't really work as well. It wouldn't be the same. But you're right, there has been this whole embrace and celebration of toys for women's pleasure and nothing like that for men. And there's almost this ew weird gross idea around men's sex toys. Even still in a lot of conscious communities that's kinda crazy. So without hypothesising why that is, I just want to say fuck that, and I want to break those stories and just say, man, get yourself a sex toy, get yourself a Fleshlight, get yourself a butt plug, get yourself a vibrator-

 

Mason: (50:37)

Fleshlight for a second.

 

Taylor: (50:38)

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I think Fleshlight might actually be a brand versus some people call them pocket pussies, but you call it a male masturbator. So basically there's a tube and on the end of it is this nicely shaped silicone pussy with the insides and you can have sex with it. You can put your penis inside it, move it in and out, and it feels much better than your hand could ever feel. And I'm a huge fan of these things. I sent out an email and I even have an article on my website, five reasons to own one of these things taylorjohnson.life, go check it out. But yeah, it feels amazing and fun story.

 

Taylor: (51:26)

I took one of mine to a party once in Asheville last year. And if you don't know what I'm talking about go look up an image of one of these things just so you have an idea of what I'm talking about. I took one to a party and this theme of the party was show up as somebody's like, it's really uncomfortable. And so I showed up with a Fleshlight tucked into my belt sticking out for everybody to see and a six pack of really shitty beer and an ugly ass, polo shirt and short shorts and all this stuff and it was amazing actually. I was expecting people to be grossed out, even in Asheville I was expecting them to be grossed out by this Fleshlight. And some people initially were, there was this fascinating layer where at first people were like, oh, nasty, have you had sex with that? And I was like yeah, actually. I have, it's been great.

 

Taylor: (52:22)

But after that hump, people were fascinated by it. And I could say 99% of the people that were at that party put their fingers inside it and wanted to touch it. One woman put it up to her lips and tried to play it like a trombone. There was this huge fascination by it. And so I'd like to think that that's indicative of how people really feel about male sex toys. Maybe there's some layer of shame or weirdness at first, but I think underneath is this like deep excitement and fascination for everything that people might just be afraid to say upfront. And I really learned that at that party everybody was super stoked to see it and touch it and learn about it. And I talked for a long, long time about it.

 

Mason: (53:10)

Man. I reckon that's a good step for guys to be taking again, maybe good Christmas present. I think it's a bit different. The taboo is a bit different because when I bought mine what you're inundated with is poket pussies designed around the porn industry. So I think it's a little bit more that space is a little bit more dominated or has the infiltration of that porn energy rather than we're seeing such an embracing of say more of a conscious sexual approach to the women's toys now more and more coming about. But anyway, that's kinda shifting, I think I can see it changing a bit.

 

Taylor: (53:53)

Yeah. And I think it's important to treat it like it's an item, right? It's a tool, this thing doesn't show up to your doorstep imbibed with the energy of porn. This thing is just physical particulate matter that's in a shape that you can use, right? So in my course I encourage people to bring their intentionality and bring their conscious awareness into their self pleasure with one of these pocket pussies. Use it in a specific way while you're doing the microcosmic orbit, while you're breathing and practise circulating your energy while you're thrusting your hips in and out in a way that you could never do with just your hand. So it has utilitarian value as well. And you can bring your consciousness to it and just to [crosstalk 00:54:36]... Go on.

 

Mason: (54:38)

I was just affirming. Go for it.

 

Taylor: (54:40)

Yeah. Yeah. It's good. And just to do a quick plug for butt plugs, yeah. Yeah man, anal pleasure. There's so much pleasure to be had in that region. And there's so much shame and so much baggage it but I'm all for it. And if you're a guy and you've never received a blow job while somebody is stimulating your prostate internally you're missing out on one of the most incredible sexual experiences you could possibly have. Just try it. It's fucking amazing. Make sure they've trimmed their fingernails first and do a little bit of research beforehand just so what you're doing and so they know what they're doing, but wow. It's incredible.

 

Mason: (55:24)

Yeah. Yeah. And there is a lot of baggage around that topic which is why I think it's nice. When you bring it up again, it's like a long game. I feel every '90s sitcom has got these intense jokes about if you're touching or your ass touches another guy's ass just how much of a taboo thing that is to do. And that is funny but something seeped into the psyche of the generation that if you have go anywhere near your ass it's just... People who aren't homophobic, but nonetheless there's something of just like, well, what does this mean about me? If I enjoy that, to lean into that area whether it's something you want to do or not I think it's definitely worth breaking that knee jerk reaction around that area and creating a little bit more freedom and less story for yourself. I love that you bring that up, man.

 

Taylor: (56:25)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it is funny to laugh about it and I do laugh at those jokes too. And there is a subtle shame or subtle fear that has snuck in with all that stuff too. And it has deeply affected my life and it's deeply affected the lives of a lot of guys to like, how fucked up is it that somebody feels fear and shame for touching a part of their own body in a pleasurable way. Really, what kind of society does that? That's just so unfortunate to me that one area of our body is off limits because it's bad or because it's going to mean something about your sexuality, when it doesn't mean anything, it just means you're touching your body in a way that feels good. And you're a human with pleasure receptors everywhere and there's actually, there's a nerve that runs down to your anus that's connected to the nerve that runs to the tip of your penis. I believe it's the pudendal nerve and it's those same pleasure waves get stimulated up the same nerve pathway to your brain. So there's just so much potential there to be explored.

 

Taylor: (57:33)

And obviously you don't have to, if you don't want to, but like, why not?

 

Mason: (57:39)

Yeah. A lot of meaning placed a lot of religious thought, that's a good thing that we've got a hang over of, a lot of Catholic guilt. So if there's a lot of people it's going to be a journey to free us all from ideology and find your own sovereign connection to yourself and life.

 

Taylor: (58:02)

Absolutely. So let me just give you listening just one example, it's going to a little auditorily graphic, but just for me personally, I love women. I find women so incredibly attractive. I'm in relationship with a woman right now and also I love receiving anal pleasure. I love that my girlfriend puts her finger inside of me, I love using anal toys, I love exploring that side of myself. I even got my girlfriend as a present, I got her a strap on a month ago and we've tried it having her actually fuck me. And it felt incredible and it felt amazing. And it wasn't this her dominating me in this... How do I want to describe it? Some people fear strap on sex to receive because it'll mean that they're less of a man or that I don't know something weird.

 

Taylor: (58:59)

It was this really amazing way of just energetically receiving my girlfriend and to be laying on my back having her penetrate me with her breasts and my face and her hair like falling all over me. And it was incredible and it felt magical and super erotic and sexy. And I can say clearly that after all this anal pleasure, I still absolutely love going down on and having sex with women and I'm super attracted to them. And it hasn't changed my sexual orientation at all. If anything it's made me so much more comfortable and confident because now I'm not afraid that something is going to happen if I do this thing.

 

Mason: (59:37)

Proof is in the pudding, as they say man yeah thanks for bringing it up. It seems like such a huge taboo and such a massive leap like "Oh my god I can't believe I'm even thinking or talking about this" And it's like, oh it's actually not that big of a deal. It is in terms of freedom of thought and freedom from ideology. Again, whether it's something you do or not it's not like an ideal thing to do or ideal thing not to do, but yeah. Yeah. You can take the charge away from it all of a sudden, it's just a little bit freer potential to have pleasure is increased and connection is increased a little bit. So a lot to me that you're on their, lot for everyone to chew on I imagine.

 

Mason: (01:00:29)

But dude I really appreciate it, I love our chats. Yeah. Obviously everyone loves our chats as well, I do encourage. I'm really looking forward to the ecstatic lovers course. I think it's a beautiful time for everyone to be jumping on board of that as well especially post Covid, we've all been taken away from the world a little bit and coming back to our homes, and human connection, and it's worth not losing that as the world opens up more and more. This is a great way to ensure that we're maintaining that connection riding off the back of it. Yeah, taylorjohnson.life, did you say?

 

Taylor: (01:01:09)

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, taylorjohnson.life/ecstatic-learners-course, but there is a link to it on my main website too.

 

Mason: (01:01:17)

Yeah. Cool. And we'll have all the show notes there for people to find your website, man, thanks so much.

 

Taylor: (01:01:25)

Yeah. Thank you. This has been awesome. I love our chats, I love round two. Maybe we'll have around three another year from now but-

 

Mason: (01:01:31)

Yeah. Well I hope so. Let's see how we go. Let's see what comes up. Is there any last little message you want to leave everyone with?

 

Taylor: (01:01:43)

Last message I want to leave people with right now for Brovember. Yeah. I just want to say be real with yourself, be real with your desires, be real with your suffering, be real with your pain, just be real. Don't hide anything from yourself and feel free to fully explore every part of you because you are an amazing human that's alive on the fucking planet that's floating through space like, holy shit! Explore everything you want to explore because life is short and yeah, it's worth living to the fullest.

 

Mason: (01:02:22)

I love it, man. Thank you so much.

 

Taylor: (01:02:23)

That's it. Thank you brother, thank you all, peace.