Male Sexual Abuse, Shame, and Porn Addiction: A Recovery Roadmap with Dr. Doug Carpenter
- Jake Kastleman
- 1 hour ago
- 41 min read
Are you carrying wounds you’ve never spoken aloud?
Do you sense that there are parts of your story, parts you’ve buried or minimized that keep reaching into your present life and influencing everything from your emotions, to your sexual behavior, to the way you show up in your relationships?
Most men I work with feel some version of that. They feel something broken, confusing, or shameful on the inside, but they can’t quite explain it. They’ve tried willpower. They’ve tried “just stopping.” They’ve prayed, journaled, confessed, started over, relapsed, repeated. They’re exhausted.
And yet, behind the porn addiction, behind the sexual compulsivity, behind the shame…
There’s a wound.
Sometimes a wound they don’t even realize is there.
In today’s podcast episode, I sat down with Dr. Doug Carpenter, licensed psychologist, author of Secret Shame, and a true leader in the field of male sexual abuse and sexual trauma recovery. His book is one of the most deeply-researched and soul-centered resources I’ve ever read for men dealing with shame, compulsive sexual behavior, and the long-term impact of early exposure or abuse.
Doug’s insights hit hard. They cut straight to the heart of why so many men can’t break their porn addiction—and why shame becomes the invisible chain that holds them in place.
The Crisis We Don’t Talk About: Male Sexual Abuse Is Far More Common Than You Think
We hear “one in three women experience sexual abuse.” And we take it seriously—as we should.
But we rarely hear the statistic for men. And according to the best research we have: at least one in six men have been sexually abused before age 18.
But even that number is wrong—because most men never tell.
Doug told me something that stopped me cold: Men wait an average of 25–26 years to disclose their sexual abuse. And they don’t do it because they “want to heal.” They do it because something else in their life breaks: marriage problems, addiction, depression, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, porn addiction, and a therapist starts asking questions.
That hit home for me. Because the truth is, so many men carry wounds they don’t even classify as “abuse.” They think: “I said yes,” “I let it happen,” “he/she was my age,” “my body responded,” or “it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
But men don’t talk about male sexual abuse. Men don’t get asked about it. And men almost always interpret their experience through shame, confusion, and silence.
The result?
Unhealed wounds leak into everything.
They leak into porn addiction. They leak into intimacy. They leak into marriage. They leak into a man’s sense of worth, masculinity, and identity.
This is why “just stop watching porn” doesn’t work. You can’t heal compulsive behavior while avoiding the wound underneath.
When Porn Addiction Begins as Survival: The “Flipped Switch” of Early Exposure
One of the most powerful insights Doug shared is this:
Early exposure to sexual touch or pornography acts like flipping on a switch in the developing brain.
Kids between ages 6 and 12 are supposed to be learning how the world works: relationships, responsibilities, emotions, not sexuality. That’s what neuroscience tells us. The brain is not ready to process sexual stimulation at that age.
So what happens when a boy is exposed to porn, sexual touch, or sexualized environments too early?
Something gets switched on that was never meant to be switched on yet.
Doug describes it brilliantly:
A young boy exposed too early begins to
notice bodies in a sexual way,
become curious,
sexualize play,
and develop “procedural memories” around sex that are tied to fear, shame, secrecy, or intensity.
This is the moment the sexual template begins forming, your brain’s blueprint for what feels arousing, what feels desirable, what feels familiar.
This is why porn addiction feels so powerful, so confusing, so deeply rooted. The brain wasn’t merely entertained.
It was imprinted.
Psychology and neuroscience both tell us the same thing: neurons that fire together, wire together.
Repetition becomes identity. Intensity becomes preference. Shame becomes secrecy. Secrecy becomes addiction.
So when a man grows older and finds himself tormented by porn, or compulsive masturbation, or fetishes he doesn’t understand, or sexual behaviors that feel out-of-control.
He’s not broken. He’s imprinted. And imprinting can be unwired but only with compassion, awareness, and the courage to face the truth.
The Lie Men Believe: “My Body Responded—So I Must Have Wanted It”
This is one of the most heartbreaking—and common—beliefs men carry when they’ve been abused or sexualized early.
Doug shared his own story in the episode. He said yes to a peer’s vague question “Can I do something to you?” without any understanding of what was being asked. And when his body responded with pleasure, he believed for years that it must have been his fault.
I’ve heard this from countless men I work with.
“My body responded… so that means I’m sick.” “My body responded… so that means I’m gay.” “My body responded… so that means I wanted it.” “My body responded… so that means I’m broken.”
But here is the truth, backed by neuroscience:
A body can respond to touch without consent, understanding, or desire.
That isn’t betrayal. That isn’t evidence. That isn’t identity. It’s physiology. Nothing more.
Men must learn to separate body arousal (automatic), from emotional desire (chosen), from sexual identity (developed), from core identity (God-given).
This one shift alone has led many of my clients to finally breathe, sometimes for the first time in decades.
How Sexual Trauma Shapes Masculinity, Intimacy, and Porn Addiction
Unhealed sexual wounds do not stay isolated in childhood memories. They shape adult behaviors. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes dramatically.
Here are just a few of the ways we see this show up:
1. Hypersexuality and “proving” masculinity
Especially for men abused by women, the response can become: “I will never be vulnerable again. I’ll be the one in control.” This leads to compulsive sexual behavior, hookups, and pornography as a form of dominance rather than connection.
2. Sexual avoidance or sexual anorexia
This is common for men whose sexual template got paired with shame, fear, or confusion. Sex feels dirty. Intimacy feels dangerous. Arousal triggers guilt. Porn becomes a safer distance from real vulnerability.
I’ve lived a version of this myself. Years of shame around sexuality made everything sexual feel threatening or heavy. I didn’t realize that my “avoidance” was actually an emotional survival pattern.
3. Porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED)
Medical doctors and urologists now understand this well. You cannot flood the brain with high-intensity porn for years without rewiring the dopamine system. The result? A man who can’t perform with someone he loves—but can with a screen.
4. Sexual identity confusion (the #1 side effect of male sexual abuse)
Doug says this clearly: The most common effect of male sexual abuse is sexual identity confusion.
Not because a man is “secretly gay.” But because his earliest sexual imprinting involved men or involved intense emotional states that now attach to certain behaviors.
This is normal. This is explainable. This is healable.
But if a man never talks about it, if he never receives attunement, if he never gets clarity, his shame becomes the soil where addiction thrives.
Why Porn Addiction Isn’t About Lust—It’s About Survival
When you pair the neuroscience with the trauma patterns, something becomes clear:
Porn was not the problem. Porn was the solution your nervous system reached for.
For many men:
Porn is escape from unprocessed emotions.
Porn is self-soothing for loneliness.
Porn is a way to feel masculine when masculinity is wounded.
Porn is certainty when relationships feel unpredictable or scary.
Porn is privacy when vulnerability feels unsafe.
Porn helped you survive. But now, porn is destroying your life.
Healing is not about judging yourself. Healing is about understanding yourself. Seeing the whole story. And finally stepping out from beneath the shame.
The Path to Healing: From Victim → Survivor → Thriver
Doug teaches a three-stage process every man must walk through if he wants to break free from porn, shame, and sexual trauma.
And it aligns perfectly with what I teach inside No More Desire, my coaching program, and my recovery framework.
1. Victim Stage
You recognize: “Something was done to me. Something I didn’t choose.” This isn’t weakness. This is honesty. If you skip this step, nothing else works.
2. Survivor Stage
You begin challenging the myths you’ve believed:
“It was my fault.”
“I wanted it.”
“I’m disgusting.”
“My body betrayed me.”
“I’m broken.”
“I’m gay because this happened.”
This is the stage where:
therapy becomes essential,
brotherhood becomes healing,
and shame begins to lose its power.
3. Thriver Stage
This is where you develop a new identity. A True Self. A grounded, masculine, spiritually aligned way of being. You make meaning of your story.
You stop hiding. You stop fearing your own past. And you begin using what happened to you to help others on the path.
This is the journey I see in the men I coach. This is the journey I’ve walked myself. This is the journey every man is capable of.
Where Healing Begins: Finding the Right Support
A man cannot heal sexual trauma alone. A man cannot break porn addiction alone. A man cannot unlearn shame while hiding in shame.
Doug recommends trauma-informed therapists who understand male sexual abuse. Not all therapists do. Not all clinicians ask the right questions. Many never even consider sexual trauma in men.
For men abused by men, a safe, boundaried male therapist can be immensely healing. For men abused by women, a compassionate female therapist may help restore a sense of safety.
There are incredible organizations like:
Groups based on Doug’s Secret Shame workbook
Husband Material and other trauma-informed communities
No matter where you start, the most important thing is simply this:
Start.
You Are More Than What Happened to You
One of the things Doug said that I won’t forget is this:
“You cannot define your entire life by one layer of your story.”
Yes, you were sexualized too early. Yes, you carry wounds you didn’t ask for. Yes, porn feels like it has taken over your life. Yes, your masculinity may feel fractured or confused.
But you are more than that.
You are a man with goodness inside you. A man with strength. A man with a future. A man who can bring healing to his home, his marriage, his children, his community.
You are not broken. You are wounded. And wounds, when brought into the light, can heal.
Your Next Step in Overcoming Porn Addiction and Healing Shame
If this resonated with you, if you felt something stir in your chest, if this episode touched a place you’ve been afraid to look at;
You are not alone. And you don’t need to keep carrying this in silence.
There is a way forward. There is a path of strength, embodiment, emotional clarity, neuroscience-backed healing, and spiritual grounding.
This is the work I walk men through every day. If you’re ready to start your journey toward healing, rebuilding masculinity, and overcoming porn addiction, not through willpower, but through truth and transformation, you’re in the right place.
You don’t have to be defined by your past. You don’t have to live in secrecy or shame. You can heal. You can change. You can lead. You can thrive.
And I’m here to walk that path with you—step by step.
Explore more of Doug’s work at HusbandMaterial.com.
Want to dive deeper into his insights? Visit: douglascarpenter.com
Free Resources:
Grab my Free eBook and Free Workshop for more strategies to overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life
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Full Transcription of Episode 120: Male Sexual Abuse, Shame, and Porn Addiction: A Recovery Roadmap with Dr. Doug Carpenter
Jake Kastleman (00:00.078)
Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Doug Carpenter, licensed psychologist, author of Secret Shame, and a survivor, or in his words, a thriver of childhood sexual abuse. Doug, welcome to the show, my friend.
Well, thank you. I am very happy to be here, Jake. So thank you for the invitation. And I love talking about these kinds of issues and helping men along their journey.
Yeah, well, you bring a lot of value to the space. It's awesome. So I'd actually love to kind of before we dive into some of the themes of your book and talking about abuse and addiction and masculinity as well, could you share a bit about your professional background so that people can get to know you a bit more kind of what led you into the field of psychology and up to this point? It's a long story, but whatever.
I I can try to give you the Cliff Notes version. So I graduated from high school early and so I jumped right into college and I first went to seminary thinking that I wanted to be in the ministry. And about a year and a half into my studies, I was like, this is clearly not what I want to do. I want to help people on an individual basis. I want to really be setting down and working with them through their hurts and the pain and
traumas of life and I'm like, this is not the profession to do that in. So I jumped out of seminary and jumped into university in New York City and started working my way through an undergrad program in psychology and then a master's that's actually specialized in addiction.
Jake Kastleman (01:45.43)
Yes.
So my grandfather was a raging alcoholic, actually drank himself to death in an apartment in his late 60s or 70s, I'm not even sure because I wasn't ever allowed to know him or be near him because he was such a severe alcoholic. And I think what piqued my interest about that is,
My grandmother and other people who knew my grandfather would always be like, you're so much like John Harvey. Like, I'd be like, well, this is somebody I don't know. Like, you look like him, your mannerisms are like him. So then that always piqued me about my own addiction tendency, or could that be a possibility or part of my own storyline? So I went into a field of addiction. And then after my addiction master's program, I went into a clinical psychology doctoral program.
and earned a side D, a doctorate in clinical psychology. And it was during that time that I did a lot of my practicum internship residency in a jail setting and none of the other psychologists wanted to see the sex offenders. So I took them all on my caseload and started seeing them. And really started seeing the degree and the amount of trauma they held in their stories and how this was just a deep, deep,
replication of what they had experienced and what they had been through themselves. And so I applied all my addiction knowledge to sexual trauma and how they then turned that into their own sexual compulsivity and began to help teasing them apart. And it was really rewarding when I was writing one of my books, I think it was this one, I actually had a man contact me.
Doug Carpenter (03:41.102)
who I saw 25 years ago in that jail. And he said that he had never repeat offended and he had been clean. And it was so rewarding to just know that, you know, a small portion of my life helps somebody overcome the severe trauma they had been through and then that they had perpetrated on other people, but then had found a way out and were living as a survivor.
So...
Such a joy. my goal. Yes. Yeah. It's those moments when your work really means something to one person and you can see how much it changed for them. That makes all of it.
It makes all the difference in the world. And part of the reason why I chose to write this book is, you know, throughout the years of being a clinical psychologist and the further I got into the sexual addiction field and the further I got into the sexual trauma field, there just was not a good book out there to help that I felt truly spoke to victims of male
childhood sexual abuse in a way that was understandable to them that they could relate to. So I took the next six years and I read hundreds of articles and books and I wrote my own book. And it has a workbook and there are several men around the country using it to run male recovery groups for men who've been sexually abused. And there was not a book out there that helped men understand the link between
Doug Carpenter (05:21.698)
their past sexual abuse and their current sexual behavior. Whether that be some kind of compulsive behavior, some kind of fetish, some kind of avoidance, some kind of anorexia. And I felt like that was a really important link. So naturally not everybody who is sexually abused ends up being a sex addict or having some kind of compulsive sexual behavior.
There is a high correlation to sexual dysfunction from male sexual abuse. And then if you look at the sexual addiction research of men, a high percentage of those men, in fact, one study shows up to 80 % of men who have a sexual compulsivity have experienced some kind of sexual abuse. So I knew that there had to be some significant link there. And so I tried to write a book that showed how that link could happen so people could begin to understand that process for themselves.
think, and you really drive that home in the book, Doug. I think that one of the things that I learned reading it is how prevalent male sexual abuse is and how under recognized it is. we think of female sexual abuse so often and that is horrific and tragic and that the males often get...
neglected and can you talk about more why that is from what you've seen?
Well, for definitely societal expectations of men, men don't tell. We'll probably talk about this more later, but the average man, the average number of years that a man waits to disclose his own sexual abuse is between 25 and 26 years. And typically that's not because they're disclosing because they need to tell someone about the abuse. It's that some other behavior has gotten them in trouble. They're drinking, they're alcohol, their inability to sustain relationships.
Doug Carpenter (07:22.154)
something else brought them into an office of somebody who was a mental health professional and began asking them questions. And then the disclosure happens. So it's not something that men just set out like, I need to process this. I need to talk about this. you know, in our society, men are not seen as victims, especially sexual, of sexual crimes or abuse.
There's a couple of different studies out. One shows that 60 % of mental health clinicians don't ask males about sexual abuse. And so we as a mental health profession have to change that, have to change that. And then in the medical profession, it's up to 80 % of medical doctors never ask a male if they've had any type of sexual abuse or sexual assault. And if we just look at that from a statistics base, the research shows about one in three women.
have been sexually abused. And when I'm saying sexually abused, let's define that. It's being touched in some sexual way that you did not desire. Okay, so whatever that might be, I'm gonna just leave it with that. And that's actually a huge problem in the field of studying sexual abuse is there is no unified definition of what we constitute as sexual abuse or how we describe that.
Every study has a different definition. I actually did my dissertation on a study of the disparity of sexual abuse laws across all 50 states. So I analyzed 250 laws across eight different variables and showed how much disparity there was even in the law about this that makes it so difficult to track accurate statistics.
So statistics when it comes to females tells us that one in three females have been touched in some way that they did not invite before the age of 18. Male research is one in six, but we believe that's severely under-reported for number one, because of the lack of definitions that are used. Number two, men don't typically disclose, don't tell, are less believed, are sometimes punished when they tell. So.
Doug Carpenter (09:39.948)
we think the prevalence is much higher than what it's actually reported as.
Now, and I've heard the statistic, one in four women or one in five, are these just from depending on where you see it or those old stats that I've seen?
No, probably. I mean, you're going to find it out there in different ways, but I've read hundreds and hundreds of articles, medical journals about this topic. the most frequently occurring number for women is one in three and one in six for men. In fact, there's a website called oneinsix.org that is all about male sexual abuse and talks about it being a one in six phenomenon, but then also talks about the real limitations in
collecting actual data. Cause just like I said, a lot of providers don't ask about the history of sexual abuse. And the APA and SAMHSA have both encouraged all clinicians, medical and psychological to have the same intake process for men and women and to be uniform in asking those questions so we can do a better job at helping men.
Damn.
Jake Kastleman (10:51.15)
And so, you know, and this kind of leads me into my next question for you, Doug, and that's you've been open about being a survivor of or a thriver now, as it were, right? That's Right. That's right. That's a good way to see it. And that's part of why you are where you are.
And that concept comes from an older book now that isn't really used a lot, but it was for women called Courage to Heal. And it talked all about going from a victim to a survivor to a thriver. so, you know, way back when, when that book was kind of the end book, at that time, I adopted that language and I've just never really left that language because I think that continuum is very appropriate from a way, from a psychological journey that a person who's been victimized goes through.
Yeah. And so I actually love what you said, which is, know, I'm, it's, I'm still working on this throughout my life, right? Still going through kind of recovery from that, from childhood sexual abuse. And I, I wondered, if you might be able to tell people, cause there's plenty of people who listen, both men and women, who listened to my podcast, who have had this history of sexual abuse. can you tell a bit more about your experience as, as well as
How it, because this is such a hard connection for so many people, I think it was really hard for me. How that history played into your own sexual addictions, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah.
I can easily do that.
Doug Carpenter (12:27.534)
And for many years, I did not define my experience as sexual abuse. For one, it was with...
Well, this gets complicated. there were different instances. My first round of sexual abuse was with a female when I was at the age of five. There was a girl down the street who was probably nine. And every time that we were together, she wanted my pants off and to be exploring. you know, years later, I clearly look back now and she was clearly being abused and
Typically it is, right?
Doug Carpenter (13:10.126)
or being exposed to pornography in her home because the things that she was telling me at that age about my own body that I didn't even understand, there's no way she should have had that knowledge at that age.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's sad. Yeah.
And then later in my life, my grandmother was blind and I would spend the night with my grandma and grandpa a lot on Saturday nights. And then I would help take my grandmother to church on Sunday mornings that she was blind. And so on Saturday night, I always got a bath before church. Well, my grandpa used to chase me around the house naked naked and telling me that he was going to pull on my penis.
and
was 10, probably nine or 10 when that was occurring. At the time, again, I didn't think that was a sexual abuse. I thought it was just my grandfather being silly and playing some kind of silly game with me. But then in my teenage years, my grandfather was actually arrested.
Jake Kastleman (13:57.185)
Okay.
Jake Kastleman (14:15.099)
gosh.
sexually inappropriate with one of my high school's friends' girlfriend. She was walking home from school and he picked her up and then assaulted her. So my grandfather never touched me, but he was very inappropriate with me and did some other physically abusive things to me. And he was very abusive to my father as well.
mistakes.
Jake Kastleman (14:45.294)
You would have carried some of that too, potentially, mean, genetically, you know, that kind of trauma and abuse of your father, right?
for sure. Because my father, when I was growing up, really had nothing to do with us kids. he took the mindset of when I was a kid, I was just hurt and traumatized and I just wanted to be left alone and be a kid and not my having my dad lord over me. So my dad took the complete opposite approach and he was very hands off, non-directive, didn't interact with us. And in his later years, he realized that that was just as hurtful and such.
as just a big mistake as being abusive, that he neglected us. know, and so we had like many years and repaired that relationship. But I also think not having my father in my life in a way that was emotionally attuned and attentive made me vulnerable with my grandfather for sure to want that male attention. And then later vulnerable with a peer who abused me who
And this is one reason why I didn't label this sexual abuse for so many years is because this boy started exposing me to pornography, which I had not ever been exposed to. I was from a very good little Christian family. it was very strict. No alcohol in my house, no dancing, no rock and roll records, no nothing. know,
Let alone porn, right? That's not-
Doug Carpenter (16:16.174)
my word. I didn't even know it existed. Then this boy started exposing me to things. Then one day he said to me, can I show you something? Can I do something to you? I said yes, because I had no idea what he was going to do. Then he acted out on me. He acted out on me in a way that caused me to have my very first orgasm ever in my life.
my gosh.
Petrified. was terrified. I had no idea what was happening to my body. I had no idea why I felt the way I felt. It was not necessarily a pleasure. That was instance was not pleasurable because I'm so terrified. I literally didn't know if he had broken something in my body, something that went wrong. Like I truly didn't understand what was going on. was so young and naive.
Right, well, and at the retreat that you taught at that I attended, by the way, did again a brilliant job, Doug. Thank you. And we, you know, really got vulnerable and open about sexual education. And it's very clear how a lack of sexual education and at that point, you probably knowing nothing, nothing about sexuality plays directly into
Nothing.
Jake Kastleman (17:40.28)
the susceptibility to being abused and then addiction and just a, yeah, that reality of the more that you know, the more educated you are and the more openly it's spoken about, the less susceptible you are. And you just had no clue at all which set you up.
Yeah, I had no clue at all. was very naive. mean, my mom would have a fit if people were like really kissing heavy on TV. She would be like, that's so disgusting. That's gross. I don't know why they have to show that. Like she would just, my mom is the priciest woman on two feet and she would just go off.
I mean me and my sister joke like we don't even know how we ever got here with a mother the way that we had but
Jake Kastleman (18:27.598)
So and also so you were carrying the message as well. This is definitely not something I should ever ask my parents about or talk or think about
never say, you know, it wasn't until I went home after that instance of abuse that I started to actually think about what I'd been talking biology classes. And I'm starting to figure out like, okay, is this what happened to me? Like, is this?
Is this what all this is? And then he continued to abuse me and I continued to allow him to abuse me because I felt like that was the only way I could maintain a male friend. Cause I really didn't have many male friends. And so I feel like I sacrificed that part of me to just have a connection with another boy who would be my friend. And then I think because once I didn't recognize that
what he did to me resulted in an orgasm. I then thought, well, can I replicate this myself? Right. You know, so then I think it led to a pretty compulsive masturbation issue. I felt like it was traumatic and terrifying for me how that was discovered. And I blamed myself for years because I said yes.
Yeah.
Doug Carpenter (19:50.924)
Yeah, when he asked me, can I do something to you? I said, yes, not knowing what was going to happen. so feeling like, okay, this boy was the same age as me. And then.
me saying yes and him having exposed me to all this pornography. like it has home pornography. was literally on the coffee table. It was in the bathroom. It was downstairs on the poker table. Like his, his mom and dad just had it out. Like there was nothing.
Wow. my gosh.
And so I look back and I don't have a lot of anger or resentment at that kid for what he did with me, because in my mind, he was being just as abused as I was. Like he was put in this very sexualized environment where this kind of behavior was just supposed to be seen as normal. And so I think he was really just trying to share with me something that he was finding pleasure in.
Right. Yeah.
Doug Carpenter (20:52.322)
I've never held a lot of anger or resentment toward him because I feel like he was being just as traumatized as his experience with me was. I feel like we were two innocent kids that were being exposed to things that we didn't have the cognitive knowledge or ability to process.
Yeah.
I really feel for a lot of victims that's not the case. They have a lot of feelings toward their aggressor and as they should.
With this topic as well and kind of you developing this compulsive masturbation after being abused by a peer, it's your same age, right? There's all the shame I can imagine going along with that experience where, okay, I'm doing this now alone and isolated, my parents don't know about it, what if they knew, what would they think? Is this something I should be doing? I don't know, it feels so great. And then feeling like you can't stop.
Can you talk more about what that was like?
Doug Carpenter (21:50.094)
Sure. Like, you know, and I tell people this all the time. When you are exposed, so if we look at Freudian theory, the latency stage is like from six to 12. So in any kid's life during those years, you're really supposed to be gaining a wealth of knowledge about procedural things, about how to do things. That's where you start learning to become independent. I learned to brush my own teeth. I learned to make myself a bowl of cereal in the morning. I then learned how to cook an egg.
You know, it's this whole period of learning how to adjust and be in the world. And that is not supposed to include any type of sexuality at this point. You're cognitively not even ready for that. But I think people who are exposed to things like that, I always say it flips on a switch, almost like a light switch inside of you where you become sexually curious. You, it makes you think about.
bodies and people and behavior and touching and notice things that other people don't notice. Or when you're around other kids playing, you make sexual comments or you turn the play into something sexual or because your brain has been turned on to this new idea that on some level, you know, is an adult thing, but you're a kid and you have some knowledge of it.
You know, so that really begins to play into your behavior. know, and mine started at five, you know, with that or before with this young lady and then continued. so I think as a kid, I was pretty preoccupied with things of a sexual nature and I really felt like I was last lacking a masculine role model.
Mmm, yeah.
Doug Carpenter (23:47.564)
was already messing with my sense of masculinity and who am I and how am I supposed to be developing as a boy and what am I supposed to like and not like and want to do and not want to do and what's okay and what's not okay and so
You're just feeling that all the time, right? And having no idea that you are even experiencing that, right? All this is going on kind of unconsciously and just the world you grew up in.
Yes, even though I knew I was curious, but I assumed my curiosity was the same as everybody else. And maybe it was, maybe it was, but I do see a lot of people where that switch gets flipped on very early. those, you know, when you experience something as a kid, then you start acting it out with other kids around you. You know, you start searching out pictures or pornography or, know,
Wasn't easy back in my day. You had to go steal a magazine out of 7-Eleven if you wanted to see pornography.
Right. Yeah. It is so f- No. Yes. His gone in a completely opposite direction.
Doug Carpenter (24:47.554)
Stop right there,
Doug Carpenter (24:52.395)
Not that I ever did that.
Right, of course. Obviously. Yes.
it's, yeah, then through my teen years, I think.
I was in very much of a dilemma because I was still a very strong Christian boy trying to do the right thing. But yet I had all this sexual energy stirring in me that I didn't understand. Nobody was talking to me. Nobody was explaining anything to me. Nobody talked about what was appropriate. In fact, this is somewhat embarrassing, but when I was 19 and at college, I received a letter from my mom about
Be careful that you don't masturbate too much as a young man. I was 19. I'm like, mom, this started before I was 12. Like, where have you been? Like, you're a little late to the game, don't you think?
Jake Kastleman (25:48.014)
She's just bringing this up. She's like, I know that you may start to have some of these feelings. Right.
I'm like, I've been at college for over a year, A year. I left home at 17 and a half. I had to fly back from college to graduate high school. And you're just now addressing this?
I'm like. On your way off the mark.
That's that
Jake Kastleman (26:17.176)
This happened some time ago, some time ago. So in your book, Doug, Secret Shame, you talk about how many men carry wounds. They don't even recognize this trauma, right? And we've discussed some of that. What are some of the subtle ways that early sexual or emotional wounding can show up later in a man's life, especially in addiction or struggles with intimacy, struggles with relationships?
So, like I was saying, that switch gets flipped on early. I think you see a lot of people who have been exposed to male sexual abuse or pornography or that switch has been flipped on early. They tend to be a little more physically pushy in their relationships because they have imprinted on the sex, not imprinted on the person. If we look at what I think,
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Doug Carpenter (27:15.756)
you know, from a Christian standpoint, how God designed sexuality to be is that, you know, you go out with the girl, you hold hands with the girl, you eventually kiss the girl, you keep dating the girl, you fall in love with the girl, your sexual desire goes towards the girl. But now we live in a generation where at eight, nine and 10 kids are being exposed to pornography. So what's being written on their sexual templates and their imprinting is
this sexual behavior, sexual behavior, sexual behavior, sexual behavior. Well, in order to do this, I just got to find a partner. Doesn't matter who, doesn't matter how many. I don't even have to be discreet.
Yeah.
I just need a place, a person. And so that process of imprinting is so difficult and problematic, I think, in today's world. I have a urologist that actually sends me teenage boys and college boys who are having a lot of erectile dysfunction and problems ejaculating because they've watched so much porn and masturbated that they've just got their system so...
messed up with dopamine regulation that they're not functioning normal.
Jake Kastleman (28:30.446)
Yeah. Porn induced erectile dysfunction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And something that I struggled with, right. For years. I was, I had nobody that I had talked to that about. I had no clue what was going on with me. I was terrified. I'm like, okay, I guess I have, I, you know, I feel like an old man at the age of 18. I don't know what's wrong with me. Right. Until eventually, I eventually heard someone use the term P I E D.
porn and his direct tell this function and that blew my mind. was like, my gosh, it's a thing. It's not just.
is a thing. Right? It truly is a thing. I have, like I said, a medical doctor, a urologist who sends me people because of this. But I think some other ways that it can show up, like I had one man who came in and he was having a problem with premature ejaculation. And so we started talking about that. Well, once I dug into that, when he was 15, 16, 17 years old, he, I think he was on a, it was either a football or a soccer team.
where the coach was actually abusing the young men. He would have them stay over on the weekends, take them to their practices and stuff, but he was sexually abusing them at night. this boy learned that if he could ejaculate as fast as possible, that the coach would leave him alone and he would go on to the next boy.
Right? And so, yeah, the mind and the body, right? Yes.
Doug Carpenter (30:02.708)
Yeah, he basically trained himself to ejaculate as quickly as possible. And then as an adult, he, he couldn't unwire this. He needed a lot of help learning to unwire that. And then on the flip side of that, I had another guy who delayed his ejaculation because he felt like if my abuser made me ejaculate, that was going to mean I'm gay, I'm a homosexual, that I liked this, that I wanted this.
So he just would hold back, hold back, hold back, hold back. And now in his adult years, he's having trouble with delayed ejaculation because he trained his body a certain way. And that's two examples of two extremes that go in the exact opposite direction. And it's still, you know, anytime there's sexual dysfunction in a man, well, let me say this, 20 to 30 % of the male population will experience, is experiencing some form of sexual dysfunction right now.
It happens to all men. It usually lasts less than six months. You know, it's a common occurrence in men, but there is definitely a degree of men who experience sexual dysfunction that's directly related to their sexual abuse. You know, I also have men who are extremely sexually compulsive because that switch had been flipped on so early in their life. You know, I also have seen
a lot of men who are what I'm going to say, sexual avoidance, sexual asexual, sexually anorexic, they avoid sex because it was such an awful experience for them. It was dirty for them. They have so much shame. You know, I talk about one guy in my book. I used 13 live guys stories in my book to back up the research and one of the
men that I have in the book here, I nicknamed him Vince, but Vince talks a lot about his adult sexual behavior and how much he struggled with intimacy with his wife and just would wear two and three condoms so he wouldn't ejaculate too early because he knew he wasn't satisfying his wife. And then he just could not separate sexual intimacy from his sexual abuse. And that's something that really has to be
Doug Carpenter (32:28.494)
teased apart with people who have experienced male sexual abuse who are still having some lasting effects. They have to understand this is a loving, sharing, intimate moment with someone who loves you and cares about you. This is not abuse, even though some of the same behaviors may be happening.
Yeah.
You know, it's very difficult for them to separate and create a healthy sense of intimacy.
Yeah. And when you mentioned sexual anorexia, Doug, it made me think of myself. Honestly, I went through a period of that for years because from the time I was, you know, 12, 13 years old, all I knew was that anything to do with sex, right, or those feelings, arousal, desire, was always coupled with shame.
you know, dopamine spikes and drops. Feeling terrible about myself. it got in the way of my life and who I wanted to be. That is how I saw sex. And it took me years of healing and training my mind and, know, doing spiritual practices, practices bringing in prayer and meditation and journaling.
Jake Kastleman (33:47.136)
all to work through my pain and work through, okay, why do I think about it this way? And how do I feel and what's the shame behind it? And being able to move through all that emotion, because to me, that's where I went. And I didn't realize that for a long time, that that kind of how a part of me chose to cope was just to avoid this altogether, right?
Well, and that's why I, we haven't talked about husband material yet, but I'm heavily involved. I'm the clinical director for husband material and their whole concept is to outgrow porn. And I think this concept applies to many of these issues that there are wounds in our childhood that we have to mature through. have to outgrow and learn a true healthy adult mindset.
And another thing that I really see is due to abuse, men have developed certain fetishes or affinities towards certain things. Or for example, men who are still aroused by other men, even though they're heterosexual and don't feel like I have any desire to be homosexual, but you have been conditioned to respond to a man's touch and to a man's body because of
years of abuse, you know, may have been a few times, it may have been many times. It's a learning the difference between your body's automatic arousal pattern and erogenous zones can sometimes be very different and polar opposite than what I consider your sexual desire to be.
Yeah. Well, and I know for me how eye-opening it was at the retreat to see how many men that we were there with had SSA, right? Same-sex attraction. Yes. And how many of them, they had this history of sexual abuse that was connected with that. That was very eye-opening.
Doug Carpenter (35:45.164)
Yeah, well, I think it goes back to that whole process of imprinting, because if your first sexual experiences are with a male, that's going to be the benchmark that your mind then uses for several years until you begin to gain other experiences to draw from. know, many boys are being sexually abused by men or other boys are just being conditioned to respond a certain way.
to another male and that other male has become their sexual prototype in their head. know, one thing we say in the drug addiction world is, especially with heroin or cocaine, you're always chasing your first high. You know, I never get as high as my first high because, you know, your body wasn't used to that. It was like such a new experience. Well, the same thing's kind of true in a sexual template. The early sexual experiences you have are typically so emotionally heightened. And anytime emotion,
is really high in the brain, your memory, it's just like stamping it into your brain. Like memory consolidation is going to be very, very high around emotional situations. And so a lot of these sexual abuse situations are highly emotionally charged and become your prototype for behavior that then sticks with you. And also in the addiction field, we talk about
Any addictive behavior that starts before the age of 14, just due to cognitive development is you're likely going to have a lifelong struggle with this if it starts before the age of 14. Just from a neuroscience standpoint, because of the way your neural pathways, know, neurons fire together, wire together. We've all heard that statement, right? Right. And so if that's what you're being exposed to for many years.
Hmm.
Doug Carpenter (37:39.308)
That's what you're going to be drawn to or aroused by. then, you know, later in life, I will work with men who come in and say they have SSA and I'm not saying that they don't have same sex attraction, but is this just an arousal conditioning that you've experienced and it has nothing to do with who you really want to be or what you really desire for your life? You know, let's recognize.
how you got here and why you got here and stop attaching so much meaning to this as far as self-interpretation. Like they make so many doubts about themselves. Like, well, I must be gay. I must have been gay. The perpetrator must have seen something in me that let him know I was gay before I even knew it. Look at the way my body responded when he did that to me. So my body betrayed me.
Right.
So they develop all this mythical thinking about the behavior, trying to make an interpretation and make meaning of why in my heterosexuality do I hold this homosexual piece? know, two things that stand out to me. was reading an article one time and it had quotes from victims in there and one...
victim actually said, I felt my maleness leaving my body during the abuse. And I thought that was such a powerful statement. And then I think most of us know Tyler Perry, you know, the big movie guy. When he was on the Oprah show, when she had 300 men in her audience who'd been sexually abused, that was like back in the 90s sometimes. And he was the, he was the guest on the show that day. He asked, she asked him,
Jake Kastleman (39:10.757)
Ugh.
Doug Carpenter (39:32.734)
have you had any sexual identity confusion from being abused? And he said, how could I not? How was I supposed to hold what this man had given me inside of trying to develop my heterosexuality? Like, how could I not? And I told you that I had read hundreds and hundreds of articles. And the number one side effect of male sexual abuse is sexual identity confusion.
Yeah.
Doug Carpenter (40:01.054)
make interpretations about themselves, what happened, why would this happen? know, and, and unfortunately the way the male body is designed, it's a very external genitalia, you know, and we have a lot of erogenous sounds just like women do, but we respond to touch and visual stimulation and you can't control sexual arousal.
So then I think many men just really misinterpret their process of arousal and that your body's just doing exactly what it's supposed to do. But now you're making some kind of negative interpretation about that. And then that shame that you hold about that then becomes toxic shame. A bad thing happened to me, but it wasn't just a bad thing. Now I'm a bad person. I'm a bad person who did a bad thing.
Right.
which is very inaccurate. And also you have to work with people who have sexual compulsivity and addiction and anorexia and past history of male sexual abuse.
Mm-hmm. Aye,
Jake Kastleman (41:12.59)
So hard and so complex. You know, that's why we need professional help to go to work through things like this.
one thing that I try to really push in my seminars, you know, I've, I've spent my lifetime studying men, not studying women. So anything I say is not to compare how men would react to versus women to react. But when I teach about male sexual abuse for other clinicians and I'm teaching them male sexual abuse is, is so profound to a male because it's not just an attack on my physical body and my sexuality.
It is a full out attack on my sense of masculinity. Who I am, how do I define myself? How do I see myself? Because most boys, a lot of boys who get sexually abused no longer see themselves like as a true boy. Like I'm not a real man anymore. I'm not a real boy anymore. I've touched another man. I had to perform oral on another man or they've done that to me and my body responded. Like they don't see themselves as real men.
Hmm.
Doug Carpenter (42:21.634)
they see themselves as becoming feminized in some way.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so let's actually talk about masculinity, particularly. So when a boy or young man is sexually abused early on, how does that injury shape his sense of manhood and the ways that he shows up in his relationships? What are some of those kind of confusions or the things of self-worth or the burdens that he can carry around that really-
Definitely. And I will tell you this, like there's a big, I see a big difference and I don't have full research to back this up. So this is just in my 28 years of practicing.
Doug Carpenter (43:09.826)
Um, yeah, had, I had a lawyer at one time when I was on this day and questioned me, how many people do you think you've seen? And I was like, I've been doing this for 28 years and I stopped and calculated in my head and I was like, well, this year alone, I've seen 3000.
Doug Carpenter (43:28.778)
I don't know.
Should you like give or take a few 10,000? Yeah, right.
Yeah, give or take. But in my experience, I have found that males who are abused by females tend to have a very different reaction than males who've been abused by males. It's been my experience that men who are abused by females tend to become super hypersexual. Like I will never let another woman put me in a vulnerable position. I will take advantage of them first. I will
drive the sex. I will be the initiator. I will be in control of this. We're going to do what I want. You know, so if you take the, you know, just the urban phrase man whore, I see so many men who've been sexually abused by women turn into man whores and just have multiple partners with women. And it's all, think, due to an attack on their sense of vulnerability. Their power and control was
violated. know, I think of one man that I saw who at 13, his, was, this was, he's about my age. So back in the day, you could get a work permit and work before you were 16, which he had to do. But he worked at a pharmacy while his female boss ended up sexually abusing him, raping him actually. She forced him to have sex with her and he was 13 and he didn't want this to happen. And he has talked.
Jake Kastleman (44:34.648)
Hmm.
Doug Carpenter (45:02.71)
so much to me about that whole process of how that impacted him and the vulnerability that he felt like was ripped away from him that he was never going to put himself back in a vulnerable position like that. So he was going to make sure he was the initiator taking charge, being in control. And I've seen that over and over and over with men who have felt violated by women.
think it's very important, know, within this field we speak in unconscious terms all the time, what's going on in the unconscious mind. You're not consciously aware that you're doing this or it's like, now I'm going to take control. It's all in the unconscious mind.
No, he was not really conscious of that until like he was in his 40s and was sent there. And he'd been like, okay, I've been through two failed marriages. I've been through 150 women before I found these marriages and I need to change my life. And I need to figure out what's wrong with me. Like why am I continuing to make these unhealthy relationship choices and patterns?
Yeah. Well, and so in your experience, Doug, this kind of journey from victim to survivor to thriver as it were, right? Yeah. Not your phrase, but... Right. What does, what are some components of that transformation in a practical sense for someone who's a man who's in recovery and trying to walk through?
It's not my phrase, but I use it.
Doug Carpenter (46:34.926)
think somebody who's moving from, first of all, in being a victim, you have to recognize you were a victim and then be able to say that. And you need to find your voice and be able to tell someone your story and be heard and believed and attuned to. Then you move on. Do you want, did you want to say something?
I wanted to say, think a lot of people, when you say that, they're like, why? Why do I need to talk about it? Why do I need to bring up the fact, can't I just move on and, you know, live the rest of my, or can't I just be strong? So explaining to them kind of why they need to talk about what they went through and go through that.
Just because you have an infection in your body and you can't see it or smell it should you not take antibiotics?
Hmm.
I mean, there's a sickness in there that you've got to treat, you know. AA says we're only sick as our secrets. Yeah.
Jake Kastleman (47:28.962)
Right. And, and Secret Shame, your book, right? Yes. Well, and it's, the, the, the confession process, right? You put it in a spiritual sense or the, or the therapeutic process to be able to emotionally, emotionally process their traumas and all that. It's absolutely crucial. We have to start there. If you don't, then you haven't defined the problem. You don't understand yourself. You can't ever find, you know, any kind of healing.
does see the same. Yeah.
Doug Carpenter (47:57.646)
Well, and so many men don't recognize that I was a victim. think, well, my body responded, I must have wanted this. I must have enjoyed this. It eventually did become pleasurable. Right. Sometimes I went back to my perpetrator and I even instigated it. But you're instigating it for a deeper level of emotional connection. Sexuality is just the avenue to get that need met.
Mm-hmm. It's the good core desires, right? Yes. The surface level is causing pain, the core desires are good, right?
So in that survivor stage then, I think that becomes the place where the person learns to challenge all these myths that they have adopted about themselves in the situation. And they start to see the reality of the situation. You know, maybe you just were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, maybe it was the fact that you didn't have a father in your life.
And you were hungry for a male's attention, but you had no idea you were going to have to do this to get it. somebody else sensed that in you. You know, it's not the fact that you gave off anything that you were gay or homosexual. That's society turning male sexual abuse into something sexual. When it is abuse, it is a violation. It is someone taking advantage of you and your body.
Yeah.
Jake Kastleman (49:23.394)
Yeah.
Jake Kastleman (49:31.362)
And I think it's very emotional process to reach that conclusion, because you can tell someone that, but it's very different for them to feel it.
Absolutely. And they have to feel that. So in that survivor stage, you really help them come to a true reality of what occurred and how did it change who I am and my behavior, my emotions, my thinking. And you work to kind of straighten all that out. And then you figure out, okay, now that I have this new found awareness, what am I going to do with this? How am I going to now apply this to my life?
What are the behaviors, the thoughts and emotions that I'm going to change going forward? What am I not going to believe about myself? How am I going to show up in relationships? How do I now feel about vulnerability and being able to tell my story? How can I use my story to help someone else? When you get to the level of being a thriver, all through the literature, there's a phase called making meaning. You've got to make meaning of your story.
And once you can do that and articulate it, you can move into being a thriver.
When people continue to experience these beliefs that come up of all sorts of messages that they've carried from that abuse about their masculinity and, know, I wanted it or I was, you know, was an active participant in this or it was my fault or et cetera, et cetera. How can they respond effectively to those thoughts and beliefs that will come up again and again as they're trying to go through this healing process?
Doug Carpenter (51:17.112)
Well, just for myself, like I said, like I was stuck on so many years because I said yes to this guy when he asked me if he could do something to me. Well, but I have to recognize I had no idea what I was saying yes to. That was not consent. That was me just spending time with a male friend trying to do something he wanted to do. That was not consent to sexual behavior.
It's powerful.
You have to learn to challenge your own beliefs that you've come to believe about yourself. Like I...
Mm-hmm.
Doug Carpenter (52:02.326)
I think I was conditioned to have some arousal toward males because of my abuse, but that is not in any way, shape or form what my heart desires. And that's to be, know, in fully heterosexual relationship, be a father, raise kids, all the things that I've done.
Yeah, yeah, that's a powerful message.
But a lot of people don't know how to fight those on their own. And they need a counselor to help them begin to reframe all this thinking and to walk into a dark room and start turning on the lights. I'm saying, here's really what's in here.
And if they're kind of ready, you know, if men are ready, they realize they have these deeper wounds, you know, they're in this place where they want to start to change. What are the first kind of safe and compassionate steps that they can take to start healing? We've talked about some of them. Where do they begin?
Well, I mean, there are multiple websites, one is six.org, survivors, men survivors or male, the malesurvivor.org is another one. But really just finding somebody to talk to. I think it's so imperative that you find a therapist and probably not just any therapist.
Doug Carpenter (53:26.86)
I mean, you probably need to do your homework and make sure that somebody is trauma informed. There are a lot of people out there who are not used to working with male sexual abuse victims. You know, and I also think, I think the experience of men and women are very different. I'm not telling you that a woman can't work with a man. I'm not saying that. But I think if you can find a male therapist who is experienced in this area, I think that in and of itself could be very healing.
Mm-hmm.
Doug Carpenter (53:56.59)
for you because you need to have a new healthy relationship with boundaries with a male. You know, just like if there was a man who was sexually abused by a female, I might tell him to go see a female therapist.
Yeah. Yeah. So after all these years of professional work and personal healing for you, Doug, what, in kind of concluding here, what truth about shame, masculinity, recovery, what do you want people to carry home most of all, or to kind of leave them with surrounding all this?
Well, definitely that male sexual abuse has nothing to do.
with sexuality itself and where you end up. It may be a layer of the piece, but our sexuality is comprised of multiple layers of development. And you can just extrapolate one thing out and say, I must be this because of this.
You know, you really got to stop and go through all those layers of that onion about, okay, who am I? What makes me, what are all my experiences that make me not just this one experience or this set of experiences? I'm not going to define my entire existence, my going forward based on this one layer. I'm a multifaceted person. I have this that happened to me, but I have layers and layers of other
Doug Carpenter (55:31.512)
great things that have happened to me and that I've done in my life.
That's Love that.
You need to see yourself in a totality.
Yeah, as a whole. Mm-hmm. I like that. Well, Doug, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to work with you, how, where should they go?
as a whole.
Doug Carpenter (55:52.002)
Well, my author website is just DouglasCarpenter.com, which you can go there and you can order my books from there. My books are also on Amazon. It'll just give you a link to Amazon. On my website, my email is there if somebody wants to reach out to me. I'm not technically accepting new clients. I have a wait list. I stay pretty booked up, but...
That doesn't mean that there are not other male therapists that are out there that can help you through this. You're somebody who is recognizing, hey, I think this happened to me. I think this is affecting the way I show up in my life, especially show up in relationships and I need to heal this wound and move beyond it. And like I said, there are men out there who are running small groups like Mike Chapman. There's another guy in husband material who runs
groups based on my book and my workbook. I mean, there are resources out there for men who are ready to begin facing this.
Yeah, excellent. Well, and again, for everybody listening, Doug Carpenter, Dr. Doug Carpenter's book is Secret Shame. It's a fantastic book. It's extremely well researched and backed up by the science of everything. And then also really hits home with heart in just getting into real men's stories. Very, very challenging and heavy sometimes, very real and very needed.
for people to be able to understand and then to know that they're not the only ones if they've been through this and very, very good stuff. So thank you for creating that, Doug.
Doug Carpenter (57:39.188)
My pleasure and I hope it helps as many people as it can reach.
thanks. It's great to have you on the show,
Thank you, it was great to be here.
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