From Avoiding Intimacy Altogether to Losing Track of Time and Space | Alex Gear | EP211

There is a reason so many men stop dating, ghost after great dates, or avoid intimacy altogether. It is not a lack of desire. It is a fear so loaded with shame that most men would rather disappear than face it. This episode is raw and vulnerable, and you can feel it in Chad's energy - and the numerous technical glitches that show up, even the computers were feeling it. It's not a fun conversation to have, but for a lot of men, it's the most important one yet.

In this episode, Chad sits down with UK-based sex and intimacy coach Alex Gear to talk about one of the most common and least discussed issues in men's sexual health: performance anxiety and what the industry calls premature ejaculation. Together they unpack where the fear actually comes from, why confidence alone cannot fix it, how the pressure men put on themselves to perform is the very thing preventing the experience they want, and why resolving this one issue ripples out into every area of a man's life.

This one is for every man who has ever avoided something he wanted because he was afraid of what might happen if it went well.

In this interview, you'll learn:

•       Why “premature ejaculation” is a misleading term and why there is no correct duration for sex

•       How porn, locker room culture, and mainstream media created a performance standard no real sex life can meet - and no one even really wants!

•       Why confidence-building techniques can paper over fear but never actually remove it

•       How the fear underneath performance anxiety is almost always the same core wound: I am not good enough

•       Why men ghost after great dates, and why it has nothing to do with not being interested

•       How the shame around this issue keeps men suffering alone and avoiding not just sex but connection, dating, and relationships

•       Why trying to make your partner orgasm from a place of anxiety almost guarantees she won’t

•       What the orgasm gap actually reveals about men’s fear of failure rather than indifference to their partner’s pleasure

•       What it looks like on the other side: intimacy where time and space disappear and presence replaces performance

•       Why this work is not just for men who feel broken but for any man who wants more from his intimate life

You are allowed to choose yourself. You are allowed to stop playing small. The life you are grieving may be the very thing making room for the one you actually belong in.

With Love and Safety,

Chad & April ❤️

What We Discuss:

0:00 — The fear underneath premature ejaculation: I don’t know if I’m good enough

0:38 — Welcome to Safe to Love | Introducing Alex Gear, sex and intimacy coach

1:10 — Why “premature ejaculation” is a loaded term and what language actually serves men better

3:41 — How porn and mainstream media wrote the rulebook for men’s sexual identity

8:23 — Why every guy’s dream is control, and why the obsession with duration gets in the way

10:05 — Neither partner knows what the other wants, and nobody is asking

12:29 — Why confidence is not the fix: papering over fear versus removing it

14:52 — It is not a fear of sex. It is a fear of not being good enough

16:02 — How performance anxiety cascades into avoidance of emotional vulnerability and relationships

19:10 — How social media pile-ons weaponize sexual performance to assassinate men’s character

23:52 — Why so many men have stopped dating entirely and why you didn’t hear back from him after a great date

29:21 — Suffering in isolation: why men will not admit this to other men

32:29 — The Orgasm Gap

34:17 — Why desperately trying to make her orgasm is exactly what prevents it

36:46 — When men like Clavicular say they don’t care if she comes: protection mechanism, not indifference

40:04 — Alex’s four to six week program

42:21 — What early results actually look like: removing fear so the real work can begin

44:35 — This work is not just for men who feel broken. It is for any man who wants more

45:54 — How confidence in the bedroom becomes confidence everywhere

46:50 — What safe, deep sexual intimacy actually feels like on the other side of this work

49:50 — Alex’s closing message: love is available for everyone. See your own value.

Follow Alex on Instagram  |  https://www.instagram.com/intimacyanxietyalex

Book a call on Alex's Website  |  https://www.alex-gear.com

Transcript

The fear underneath premature ejaculation: I don't know if I'm good enough

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The guys that I work with, they're just scared that they're they're not good enough. And they're measuring themselves to these standards that we've spoken about, these societal standards. Premature ejaculation is the most common thing that I get guys coming to me to work on. It's the most commonly experienced. So I specialise in performance anxiety, but that is always, always tied up to men's beliefs that they're ejaculating prematurely. And it just comes down to this. Whether they're in a relationship or not, it comes down to I don't know if I'm going to be good enough for this woman. I don't know if I can satisfy her. I think I'm going to disappoint her. And if that if that is their reality, and if this is happening, then the sort of reality is I am not good enough. And that's an awful place to be.

Welcome to Safe to Love | Introducing Alex Gear, sex and intimacy coach

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Welcome to Safe to Love. We are on a mission to help the world believe in love again and give you the courage to find it. And today is another solo episode with me. It's my rare chance to do the intro. And I am here today to interview Alex Gere, who is a fellow sex and intimacy coach and fellow graduate, actually, of Cam Fraser's School of Sacred Sexuality Coaching for Men. It's a mouthful. Anyway, welcome, Alex. It's really great to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thanks for having me. Good to be here. International.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

International, yeah.

Why "premature ejaculation" is a loaded term and what language actually serves men better

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Alex is coming to us live from across the pond. Um my favorite places in the planet, which is the United Kingdom. Uh so I just kind of want to jump right in today and talk and just talk about and just say the word that we're going to talk about a bit today, and that's premature ejaculation, right? And that word has um uh uh a like a level of activation, I think, for a lot of men, more so than probably any other one. Um and it's also I, you know, uh so I just kind of want to get that word out there and then also talk a little bit about the fact that that's not really necessarily the term that I think is used because the idea behind that is that there's some specific time that we're supposed to ejaculate. Um what I have been t using lately in when talking about it is uh um unintentional ejaculation. I think there might be an even better term for it, but um, you know, really what when you hear this talked about a lot, we we say the word performance anxiety, right? And what this comes down to is um essentially men who uh ejaculate when they're not wanting to in a timing that doesn't work, and all of the consequences in their personal relationships and in their self-esteem and in society as a whole that come from that.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

It is this is a hugely loaded expression, and yeah, I you know, same as you. I think we've been sort of encouraged not to use the term premature ejaculation, but it's the most recognized kind of explanation for this this issue that a lot of guys consider themselves to have. I think um one way I used to speak about it is early ejaculation, but having just heard you say about you know it being linked to a time, that still kind of suggests that there is a a perfect time to ejaculate. And I think we as sex coaches want to move away that focus on duration. Um I like your I like your unintentional ejaculation. I think all guys would like to be able to control when they ejaculate, but there is no right or wrong time, there is no perfect amount of time that has to have passed before you're allowed to ejaculate. You know what I mean? There's no set standard for anything quicker than that is premature, and anything after that, you know, you pass the test.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yeah, and I think that's really important because

How porn and mainstream media wrote the rulebook for men's sexual identity

SPEAKER_02 3:41

you know, as guys, we are a lot of our conditioning uh and identity and our and our just concept of sexuality and what's good and bad sex, right, comes from um porn as one, but also the media, right? And the um the term may not be used that often, but the idea of uh he came too quick is a running joke that is permeates all kinds of traditional media, right? Like both of us uh grew up kind of when the internet was still butting, but then but when regular media was the bigger source of of our influence. And I cannot tell you how many times I saw some joke like that in a show, and it was always associated, always, with the character in the show who was either the villain or the uh, you know, the kind of joke character, the one. Like there's a lot, a lot of a lot of older shows, especially that were a little more one-dimensional, right? Had a character in there who his sole purpose was for everybody to make fun of or to look down on. And if it was a guy, there was almost always the joke about the size of his dick or that he came too fast. And um so as a young man growing up and becoming sexually aware, um, I remember just I mean, as a just the terror of that, like the fear of that long before I ever had sex. Um that was a fear on my mind. In fact, I and this is something that I actually remember a memory of mine that came up, and not one that I'm like really like it like at the time I thought it was really cool, but looking back on it, it's very sad. Like the when I lost my virginity, or as I like to call it now, and I borrow this one from Cam, the had my sexual debut. Um, I very clearly remember, and this was a time in my life when I was still on a lot of drugs, and I don't remember very much from that time. So it tells you how significant this memory was. I remember having a clock kind of over here on the in the corner of the bed where I could see it, and setting in my mind a time. Like I needed this to be at least 20 minutes, and getting to 22 minutes and just feeling so much fucking relief that I had not failed this ultimate test of manhood. Um and, you know, listen, I there's a lot of stuff out. And and then the other thing that we learned a lot in growing up, Ride, was like good sex is sex for hours. And I think that's why I also like to avoid that term because quite frankly, uh, there are situations where you and your partner may have long, long sexual experiences, you know, or even sturdy relationship where you might have them that last that like night of love making till the morning comes up. But in the real practical world, especially in a partnership, not everybody really has time or wants to have sex for hours, right? There is no set amount of time. I want to kind of bring that language back to choice and sovereignty, right? And it's the same way in a lot of what I do when I talk about masculinity. It's not about doing be doing something because that's the right thing to do. It's about doing the things that align with what I want to do in that moment. And for men that um especially when they're younger or haven't really had a lot of practice or haven't really had the benefit, especially of uh learning how to the how to energetically work with their body, uh, they don't always feel like they have a lot of choice in that. It feels almost like I've kind of described a lot of times like having a having a dick is like having this part of my body that I I don't know what it's gonna do. But I really need him. I I want him to show up to this act, right? When I'm in a new sexual relationship and I'm just like, God, I hope he's having a good day, right? And you know, and then as I got in into my middle years, especially with some you know health problems from all the different things that I'd done in my youth, uh, sometimes it could go either way. You know, I cannot tell you how many times I was dating someone new, things were moving forward, really excited about, you know, taking it to a sexual level and being like, I don't know which way it's gonna go. You know, am I going to, is anxiety going to cause me to have a hard time getting an erection? Is uh or is it going to have cause me to have a hard time keeping it, keeping from going over the edge? And so um it's really about the choice that we have, our ability to decide when we do and don't ejaculate.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I think that's the the sort

Why every guy's dream is control, and why the obsession with duration gets in the way

SPEAKER_01 8:23

of every guy's dream is to have control over when he ejaculates. But we've we've got this kind of hyper obsession over the duration, um, which is where we've got it all wrong. There's no we've had no sort of guidance to what good sex entails. So the only thing as a man that we've got to go by is like, say, porn or mainstream media, um, and just like locker room talk, I think you call it over there, where the only measure you have of being a good shag is if you've gone all night and you you'll get a group of lads and they'll they'll be like, Oh yeah, Shaq that go last night, I was at it all night. And if you that hasn't been your experience and you've struggled with being able to control it, then you're just gonna be like, Well, I'm obviously a failure, and I'm obviously a loser because I can't last this duration. And you know, there's a lot of nonsense spoken in locker rooms, and people don't go at it all night. They might have several different sessions, but no one wants to be having penetrative sex in and out pumping all night. This is just it's just not not a thing. But we haven't had a measure of what good sex is, and I think um where we've sort of got lost or gone wrong is we should be asking our female partners what is their definition of good sex and what do they want from the sex we're having, not assuming that all they want is us to go, you know, for hours.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Well, and I would also add we should be asking ourselves,

Neither partner knows what the other wants, and nobody is asking

SPEAKER_02 10:05

and it's going to be different every time, right? But we should uh neither uh oftentimes neither partner, especially with people that are younger, right? Neither partner has any idea what the other partner actually wants. And they're so focused on trying to figure out what the other partner wants that not and not not having a conversation about it or learning how to you know energetically feel into what the partner's experiencing. Um, but they also like they also aren't even aware of what they want. And so nobody is even really act acting in anybody's best interest. We're all just trying to play out the script.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

And like I like you said, uh, that is every guy's dream. And I don't think uh, you know, I uh really find a lot of excitement this year in exploring some of these like deeper tantric practices to expand those different orgasmic states. But I'm doing that now from a place of being very happy with my sex life, knowing that my partner is very happy with our sex life. And I, you know, that this I say all the time, like growing from a place of enoughness. Um and I think that's why it's become so much easier for me. It's not a problem that I worry about. Um, and when I go back to that memory, the 22 minutes, uh I'll have dimension. I'll remember exactly. I know, right? But I wasn't, it wasn't the sense of like, yes, that was great, wonderful, I'm happy. It was just the sense of like, thank God I didn't fucking. And I think that's really, yeah, like it was just the relief of that I didn't fail. There was no even accomplishment or satisfaction to it. It was just sort of this relief that this at the time as a young man, the like fear that hung over me greater than the fear of death, right? But what you say, um, I've noticed something that you talk about that um I don't see talked about a lot, and I really love to explore into that more is you talk about how um you make a distinction and say it's not really about confidence. It's not necessarily about confidence, even though on some like level we may be even thinking that it's about confidence. It's about a fear of sexual intimacy. And I'd really like to kind of invite you to share what you mean by that.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Um first of all, I'll go into that, but first of all, I

Why confidence is not the fix: papering over fear versus removing it

SPEAKER_01 12:29

will say with that like 22-minute thing, it's easy for a guy to do that and then think, uh, oh yes, I've I've done it, I haven't failed. But for all he knows, the woman could be lying there, bored out of her mind for 15 minutes of that, because you're not present, you're just there looking at the clock, putting all your folks into like not letting go. Um to the the whole duration thing is just not a good measure.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

But yeah, um, it's so true. And that's why we're doing this, talking about this sort of podcast, right? So, because I say that all the media out there is telling everybody that that's the measure of good sex, you know. Whenever anytime somebody talks about good sex on TV, it's like we went all night. So we're putting something else out there in the media.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, yeah. There's no focus on pleasure there at all. Uh again, something Cam says is you can have you can have um great sex that lasts 15 minutes, you can have shit sex that lasts an hour. It doesn't matter how how long it is, it's it's whether it's good or not is the is the key. Yeah, with confidence, um confidence is sort of it's easy to kind of embody confidence, it's easy to feel confident, and you can build your confidence by learning techniques and learning tools and reading information and kind of soaking up all this information to make you feel like okay, I know what I'm doing. And you like I say, you can even embody that confidence, but if you enter a situation and the fear is still there, the confidence is just papering over it. When it comes down to the actual moment, if the fear is there, if something goes slightly wrong, so if you're you've prepared all this stuff for you to feel confident, if something goes slightly wrong and deviates from your plan that you made by building this confidence, then you're just going to be left with the same problem as well. Like the fear, if the fear, as long as the fear is there, you're always at risk of something coming over and taking over your mind and that anxiety kicking in. Doesn't matter how confident you are in your abilities or your tools and techniques, if that fear is there to any degree, you're still at risk of that anxiety kicking in and then you having a negative experience.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

So when you talk about a fear of intimacy, the way I understand it, you're not just talking

It is not a fear of sex. It is a fear of not being good enough

SPEAKER_02 14:52

about a fear of sexual, physical intimacy, you're talking about other fears.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

It's a fear of the it ultimately all comes down to a fear of not being good enough. So it's not you're not actually scared of the woman or the sex itself. You're scared that you're going to let her down, or you're or that you're not going to satisfy her. So you're not, it's not fear of the act, it's a fear of not being good enough. And from discussing all this stuff with any man or listen to me and my men's group, and I've got brothers and all my friends, the core wound of I'm not good enough is the is the most common wound that all men have. And all your research and all your tips and your techniques and confidence building, if something happens in the interaction that makes you feel, oh my god, I'm not good enough, then that just affects the whole the whole situation. And then you're you know the anxiety just comes back and returns next time and you're stuck in this loop. So it's just a fear, ultimately it's a fear of not being enough, not being good enough.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

When um when you've had this issue come up with with clients and you s and you speak to them about it, um, is that fear

How performance anxiety cascades into avoidance of emotional vulnerability and relationships

SPEAKER_02 16:02

beyond even the fear of the performance in the bedroom itself and uh also the fear of what comes along with sexual intimacy, and that's emotional vulnerability, connection, potentially even a relationship. Things that um uh men also have a lot of fear around, right? It's almost like uh it's almost like that old saying uh I'm not sure if I'm more afraid of failing or succeeding.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah, it's um the guys that I I work with that they're just they're just scared that they're just they're just scared that they're not good enough. And they're measuring themselves to these standards that we've spoken about, these societal standards. It's you know, premature ejaculation is the most common thing that I get guys coming to me to work on. It's the most commonly experienced. So I specialise in performance anxiety, but that is always, always tied up to men's beliefs that they're ejaculating prematurely. And it just comes it comes down to this, whether they're in a relationship or not, it comes down to I don't know if I'm gonna be good enough for this woman. I don't know if I can satisfy her, I think I'm gonna disappoint her because and and that and if that if that is their reality and if this is happening, then the sort of reality is I am not good enough, and it's an awful place to be.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

And it's uh it's self-defeating too, right? It's that sense of fear that I'm not good enough that it creates the uh what's happening in the body oftentimes that leads to ejaculating before they choose to.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah. Yeah, it's a self-fulfilling obviously. The more stressed you are, the more tense you are, the more your your body's going to be sort of wound up, the more likely it is to happen.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

You said this is the number one reason men uh come to work with you. Um and my question is even in those conversations, right? Like a man has already overcome a lot of inhibitions, a lot of fears to even make that initial contact. Um how did those initial conversations usually go? Is there a lot of uh talking around the issue, so to speak, you know, where they come in and they're like, listen, I got this problem. Or do you find that a lot of men are just coming and saying, I got a problem with premature ejaculation?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

It's kind of varied. Um, some guys are straight up, I've got premature ejaculation. Um and other guys, you know, I hear most often, I just want to last longer. So it's might it might not be that they consider themselves to have premature ejaculation, it might just be that they have a desire to last longer. But that desire to last longer comes from a belief that they don't last long enough. So it's kind of it's kind of the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Well, and I really like that um, you know, you talked about the the shame, the fear leading to the tension in the body that leads to the premature ejaculation.

How social media pile-ons weaponize sexual performance to assassinate men's character

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Because, and this is why I probably harp on this to an obnoxious level to a lot of people around me, but these uh uh harmless jokes in the social sphere, um, and nothing has changed since we've entered the the media landscape, right? In fact, uh now it's just used to attack often men that portray what somebody might think are shitty beliefs, right? A man says something misogynistic or homophobic or just whatever kind of ignorance on it on the internet, and you have a thousand different people, mostly women, but not just women, saying, Oh, you have a small dick, oh, you come too quickly, right? Which I really don't think people understand how much that sort of ties those things in a in our very unconscious mind with the negative character traits, right? Like a good man doesn't have that problem. Only shitty men have that problem. And so not only are we experiencing the fear of the actual sex act itself, but the fear that that means that there's something wrong with us, even to our character. And um and all of that is in this negative feedback loop, just making it happen more and more often.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah. Yeah, if you look at the common sort of social um outlook on it. If if you want to hurt someone, if you want to hurt a man publicly, you just say publicly, he was shit in bed. It's like the biggest, the biggest, quickest, easiest way you can hurt a man is pride, hurt his ego. It's like the biggest fear you have. Your ex ex-partner comes out and goes, he was shit in bed. It's just like social condemnation.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

And I understand why, because it's very human nature when someone's hurt you, you want to hurt them. Yeah. And you want to say the comment that you know will hurt them. And so I think that's a go-to for a lot of women who have been hurt by a man for whatever reason, because they know it'll it it'll sting, right? And we want to say something when people when we're hurting and want to hurt back, we don't really care what the topic is, we just want something that'll be effective.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Uh but I think bruise a man's ego. There's no quicker way to bruise a man's ego. Actually, my girlfriend did tell me the other day that my biceps were looking a little, my arms were looking a little small. And I said, that might be that, yeah. That's definitely that might be. That got me right back in the gym, too. I'll tell you that right now. But that might, that might be probably up there. But um, but you know, it's also it's so ridiculous because it's also so far from reality, right? Because you also we also have this common trope. Why do women keep going after guys that treat them like shit? Because they s they're good in bed, right? Or that guy was. That guy was a piece of shit, but he was a great lay. So uh I don't know that I'll ever get people to see this or even recognize it, but I think it's important for men who are going through that or going through that pain and fear. And I remember going through that at a period of time when I was really heavily involved in a lot of like very like online politically liberal Facebook groups, which is the dark time of my of my life. Um and somebody would, you know, they would call up somebody that did something shitty and they would just be this constant thing about that. And I remember thinking, like, oh my God, but I like my I've had that problem and just uh shrink in on myself. Um uh one thing I really like that you talk about on your website is you talk about how much this shows up as an avoidance pattern of intimacy, right? So it isn't instead of addressing the problem in various ways, a lot of men just find themselves avoiding dating, avoiding situations that might lead to sex, which also means they're avoiding all of the things that might lead to sex, which is developing intimate emotional relationships with women. Um, and I think in a time where the uh decline in people dating, having sex, getting into relationships become a very hot topic. Now never do I actually hear this brought up. And even though this has become a very highly discussed topic, right, in all levels of media, right? Why aren't people getting together anymore? Why aren't young men going on dates anymore? Um, and you know, you put out there that a major reason for that is because they're afraid that they might end up getting laid and what that might mean to them.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, as you say, the the the dating word, the dating world seems to be in like real big trouble. Uh, I don't know if that is um, you know, my algorithm or if

Why so many men have stopped dating entirely and why you didn't hear back from him after a great date

SPEAKER_01 23:52

it's you know true out there in the whole world, but it seems to be dating is just a nightmare for men and women. And um I think a lot, a lot of guys not it's not the case you know all over the board, but a lot of guys are sort of hit with so many levels of pressure and so many levels to compete and impress. So it most of it's done on dating apps now, so you've got to you've got to have the right photos, you've got to have the right bio, then you've got to get the right matches, and you've got to impress enough women in your texting, in your voice notes, whatever. And then if you manage to get a date, you've got to impress the date to get a second date. And then if the date goes really well and it goes to the bedroom, there's that next layer of of um pressure, which is you want to unfortunately you want to perform in bed to impress. So it's just there's so many layers. I genuinely believe that a huge proportion of the guys that are avoiding dating is because that they're stressed about if the date goes well. And it's at complete odds with what a lot of people actually want. If you ask anyone, if you ask people, most people do want a partner and they want romance and they want a connection and they want to have a relationship with someone. But the level of stress that it takes to actually achieve that is just too much, I think, for most guys. It's just not worth it. It's much safer to avoid altogether. That's just in terms of dating. There's still avoidance on other levels, like my experience was meeting the love of my life, desperately wanting to be intimate with her, but that fear was so much throwing things in the way just to avoid it. Or, like, you know, if she called me and she's like, Oh, I'm on my period, I'd be like, Yes, thank God for that. Oh, I don't have to make excuses. So it's avoidance of many different levels, but yeah, I do I do think it's kind of an unspoken thing that a lot of guys just won't bother dating because there's just too many levels to to pass to get to the top.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Well, and I really I'm glad to kind of share about your personal experience, right? Mine, um, mine was more being single, but it was true. And it actually wasn't until I got better uh at the act of dating that I learned how to um go through all those steps, right? Create a profile, put the right stuff in the profile, put the authentic stuff in the profile, have conversations with people over tags, know when to take that to a date, know how to show up on a first date, know the progression of every dates, um, which is actually the area where I tend to specialize more in dating and relationships than sex itself, although, you know, this the we, you know, the same background because the sex is integrally a part of it, right? And it wasn't until I actually got much better at it that I start realizing like once I wasn't so afraid of rejection or failing dating, I started to realize how much I was afraid of success. Right. I started to realize how much of the anxiety I was carrying in a date. Oh, this is starting to go well. I definitely can feel the tension here. This could lead to a sexual interaction sometime in the next handful of dates. Oh fuck. Yeah. Oh fuck. And um, you know, this is such a fear that because we hold it in isolation, because we hold it in shame, because it's so counter to what we're taught all the other men are experiencing, right? Um this may look like, you know, every that there's this great question, like, why does everybody ghost each other? And there's a lot of different reasons for it. But this is honestly one that I think is underappreciated for its happening, right? Like a date went really well. Why didn't you call me back? Because it's very confronting. And at the end of the day, it's often easier just to avoid it and to make excuses and bullshit ourselves as to why. Yeah. But just to completely avoid it.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Um, I've always ghosts about it, and I have had lots of women message me and go, Oh my god, I'd never considered that. Like I had two dates with this guy, it was going really well, there's a great connection, and then he's just ghosted me. You know, or or you know, I wanted him to invite me home and he never did, and then he disappeared. And they'd never considered it, might not be because they don't like you, it might be because they like you too much. Suffering in isolation, if you have all this society and media and porn and everything telling you this is this is what you need to do to be good at sex, and that's not your experience, and you think, oh, I'm not good at this. As a man, you're not gonna go to your male friends and go, I think I'm shit in bed. I need help. Because again, this is the male ego. So that is why it just stays in isolation. It's like we want to avoid social suicide as well as you know, intimate situations.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And all the cascade of fears that come from that, right? Like if if I'm afraid that I'm not gonna be able to perform in bed, and I'm afraid that the shame of that is so crippling that I avoid anything that might lead to sex, then I'm also going to feel like uh, and I felt this way,

Suffering in isolation: why men will not admit this to other men

SPEAKER_02 29:21

right? So this isn't even hypothetically that um partnership is not available to me. That partnership is something, it's this experience that I won't I I'm broken and won't be able to experience. Um I hear that a lot. And I think that men far more, and and you know, I don't work with as many younger men. So um, but but definitely any man that I've encountered over 30, right, like is so much more afraid, like feeling a sense of loneliness and a desire for a deeper relationship connection, then they just want to get laid. But as a guy, it's just easier. Like it's just easier to confront that fear. Like, I just want to get laid. Then if I don't get laid, well, the worst thing that happened was I didn't get laid, then to bid like I want a partner. Like that's putting ourselves out there for so much more. And so even if whatever the underlying desire is, we might on the surface focus on that sex, which is why being able to help men, um, and especially, you know, I really appreciate because it's not really an area that I focus on a lot, but there are a lot of male coaches who do focus on that. They're very keep that like their primary focus, because if a man can develop the confidence and then let go of that anxiety, that opens him to go out into the world and not just go around and sleep around, although there's nothing wrong with that, but to form to date, to date without that. There's so many things that can already be afraid of about dating. Failing to perform sexually just does not need to be one, right? And so this is um not just a service to men, you know, because trust, like this is not my sale of time, but like women are out there, women are out there, they're horny, they're wanting to get laid, they're wanting to have sexual relationships too, and they're like, Where are all the guys? Yeah, why are the guys not making moves? Why didn't they call me back? Why did he decline my invite to come back to my house after we got a drink?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Everybody is paying the price for this, um, and it's having this kind of effect that's rippling out.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, and it's all based in anxiety. And anxiety that's come from no basis, in fact. It's assumptions, it's assumptions that this is the sex is this is how you do it, and this is how it should be done, and anything that deviates from that is a failure. And that's that's an assumption, and that's a societal kind of story. But it's just created so much anxiety, which has created then so much division. It's pretty messed up.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

It is, and you know, one last thing I want to talk about before we kind of get into the work that you do and how it works and what you know you people can experience through um, you know, getting a a coach like yourself uh is the uh the orgasm gap,

The Orgasm Gap

SPEAKER_02 32:29

right? That's another thing that seems to be popping a lot lately, right? And basically uh they did this study, there was like 50,000 participants in it, and it said that 95% of men experienced an orgasm almost or every time that they had sex with their partner, whereas only 65% of heterosexual women talked about that, right? So this is sort of often portrayed as a another characteristic assassination of men in general, right? Like men are selfish, men don't care if their women have pleasure, men don't care if their women come. And I do understand that there is some truth to the societal basis, right? Especially back in the day, you go back like 80 years ago, and honestly, I think a lot of men were really taught, and society said, that like sex wasn't like women's pleasure wasn't even really a thing, right? Sex was something women gave to men, but we're so far past that place right now. Yeah. And I have never worked with a man or talked to a man who is like, yeah, I come really fast, but I just don't care if she has a good time. Yeah. What I do encounter everywhere, every day, all the time, is even in the mirror, is men that care so much about, like, you know, we talked about sort of this time limit, right? But I think what really it comes down to is that we say there's this voice in our minds that's like, she's gotta come first. If I can make her come, then I can let the pressure off myself to not come.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

And so, even more so than we're obsessively anxiously avoiding on not ejaculating, we are obsessively focusing on giving a woman an orgasm.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Uh, as if that's how it works, as if we give that to them, like some kind of you know, sufferance. And yet there's

Why desperately trying to make her orgasm is exactly what prevents it

SPEAKER_02 34:17

all this other research that's been done that says like one of the primary inhibit primary things that makes it hard for a woman to orgasm is the pressure to orgasm that she feels coming from her partner.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, it's it's the other side of the same coin. It's like you're trying, you're you if you're trying really hard not to come, then you're gonna come. If you're trying, if you're full of fear that you're not gonna make a woman orgasm and you're desperately trying to make her, and you're putting that pressure on her, and she can feel that she isn't going to. So therefore, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as well. So, yeah, with those statistics, there will be guys out there that don't give a shit. But we know that that most decent guys, you know, I can think of everyone, every guy I know would call a decent guy really does care about their partner's pleasure, and they will they will be trying to play uh you know give their partner pleasure. But if you make that your sole focus as a way of distracting from your own anxieties, then that would the woman can feel that and there's too much pressure on her, she can't relax. In order for a woman to orgasm, she needs to be safe and relaxed and comfortable, and if she can feel that you're just like desperately trying to do it, like you say, it's just it's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

And then I think with the if she could feel that you need her to come for you to feel okay about yourself, it's gonna really make it hard.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, because that's not you're not you're not caring about her pleasure for her pleasure's sake, you're caring about her pleasure so you can feel validated and though that you haven't failed. So it is coming from a place of anxiety again. And I was just gonna say the the and then the rest of that percentage that's made up is probably comes from guys just not asking the woman what she needs or what she likes or what's required in order for her to enjoy herself and have pleasure. So I think it's a combination of those of those things. I don't think it's just guys don't give a shit. It's not it's guys not knowing enough, not asking enough, and trying too hard.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Um I don't know if you know who clavicular is. I'm sure you probably do at this point.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

But I think the reason that this has come up recently is because he did an interview and was asked, do you think it matters if your partner is an orgasm? And he said no, and he went on this ROI thing. And the only thing I want to say about Clavicular is I watched an entire hour interview with this man on Channel 5 News, which is actually a

When men like Clavicular say they don't care if she comes: protection mechanism, not indifference

SPEAKER_02 36:46

really great YouTube show, and all I could feel was sad. Like there's definitely he he embodies sort of the ex like the satirical exaggeration of a very normal set of of what's happening to a lot of men, and a lot of men are look there are true people out there who are narcissists and don't care. The vast majority of men, even that say that, it's another protection mechanism, right? If I'm of so much fear that I cannot make my partner, that I cannot show up in a way that my partner can orgasm because nobody can make somebody else orgasm, then one protection mechanism would be to tell myself I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Yeah, I think I'm not gonna bother, it's not worth my time.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

But it's just one of those situations where where the media is amplifying a very, very extreme minority. And it I I I promise you there's a 99.9% chance, at least if you're hearing this in your woman and your partner does not seem to be caring about how you like one out of a thousand of those guys might not. The other 999 are just terrified that they uh uh and there's they wanted too much. Yeah, they wanted too much. And also, it also in orgasms like all orgasms are not created equal, right? I think this is very true for men. Um, and it might even be more true for women. And so the focus on, oh, she had an orgasm, therefore I did good. Well, first off, I have been I have been in my I I've had enough partners in my life, you know, not some extravagant amount. I think number's probably around 30 to 40. Um, and I have seen all ends of the spectrum. Like women's orgasm relationship with their own orgasms are not created equal. And so many men are going, like, oh, I figured out how to do this little trick with that partner. I'm gonna come into the bedroom and I'm gonna do this trick. And the woman's like, that's not what I fucking want at all, right? Like, I I know women who cannot, who I've been with that could not orgasm without clitoral stimulation, ones that could not orgasm the only way they have orgasms with with clitoral clitor critical with conolingus and digital stimulation. And I've had partners that could not orgasm any way other than penetrative sex. Uh, I've had partners that in a 15-minute session would come three to six times. And I've had partners that um were quite satisfied, like it was harder for them. It took them a lot longer. I I've noticed that as I've gotten older and my partners have gotten older, there's less and less of that. When I was younger, I think that which is again, women are having their own fears come through, right? Yeah. But this idea that the orgasm is the goal, is getting in our way of actually having a mutually embodied, pleasurable experience.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Yeah. It's the same, it's it's alongside it's got to last a certain time, is it's got to end with an orgasm. It's these these two kind of rules of where all the pressure and expectation comes from.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Well, I think we've kind of talked about the problem a lot. I I'm you know, kind of walk us through. So uh someone comes to you. You also um one thing that differentiates you from a lot of other men in the same space that I've seen is you you talk a lot about the importance of having a short timeline. Um, you talk about having a program that's uh, I think four,

Alex's four to six week program

SPEAKER_02 40:04

four to six weeks, not months. Um, and I'm I'm curious what your reasoning behind that is and what you why you have found that to be effective.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

I think um guys prefer quick results, to be honest. I think with with something like therapy, you can leave it open-ended and it's it's a slow process. But with the coaching, it's like I have a problem, I want a solution, and we want quick results. I think if you draw it out for too long, you can forget where you started, and you can start to get complacent and kind of maybe lose the drive to actually achieve it. So I think doing it on a short timeline is like, right, we we discover what the problem is, we try some things out, we we come back, we move forward, and if we start to see results quickly, as a man, if you start to see results quickly, that galvanizes you to carry on putting more effort in, and you can um it's easier to remember where you started and to where you are now. Whereas if it goes on too long, it you you can it can start to feel like you're not really achieving anything.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Well, and I imagine too, there's a lot uh uh um that's like you said keeps men engaged, right? Yeah, um the like many things, the the the way to lose is to quit the game. Um and I also think there's a lot of uh quite frankly, a lot of really positive benefits in that, right? I think men that have by the time a man has got to the point where he's willing to reach out to another man, a stranger, and say, Hey, I have you know, I have this problem, premature ejaculation, and I need help, they've suffered with it long enough. Yeah. So so what does, you know, what does those early success look like when when working with a client that kind of helps them to what what kind of results do clients see in those initial periods?

SPEAKER_01 42:01

I I just want guys to kind of understand the the stories and the beliefs that they've got ingrained in them, and then we work together to remove those stories, those beliefs and expectations, which then removes the pressure. And you could find within a short time frame, you

What early results actually look like: removing fear so the real work can begin

SPEAKER_01 42:21

can remove that that fear and anxiety and pressure, and then guys start to relax. And then as soon as you're able to relax and go over the calm nervous system and be prepared for whatever might happen, because you can have you know you have ideas of how you want each session to go, but it's not always going to go exactly how you want it. But the guys that are there and prepared for it to go however way, without having all this expectation on what it's supposed to look like, that's when things start to slowly shift. So for me, it's removing the fear and the anxiety and the expectations so that they can relax into their own body and into their experience. And then that's that's kind of like when the when the real work starts. It's not like with the my programme, it's not like within a month you're not you're gonna be able to go for hours. It's within a certain time frame, we're gonna have remove the fear and the expectations and the pressure so you can actually just go in and enjoy the session, enjoy the experience and relax, and then get used to holding um holding more charge in your body. I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

No, it totally does. Um you know, one thing, another thing that keeps men from seeking help in pretty much any facet of any problem that they're having, right, is the fear that the act of doing so means there's something wrong with them. Yeah. Right. Um, but this work you do, it's not just for men who feel like they are that they're they have up that they are broken or they have premature ejaculation, right? Any any man really that That uh has any kind of pressure or disconnection from the bedroom, even if they're satisfying their partner's minimum expectations, but they don't feel like their sex life is satisfying, like and do this work. This isn't just for people who have a problem necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

No, it's if you want to enhance your sex life, if you want to upskill up level your skills, if you want to learn more about yourself, if you want to connect more to your body, there's there's just there's so much more that you can learn and enjoy about sex. It doesn't have to be this is a disaster and I need fixing it. But that is kind of

This work is not just for men who feel broken. It is for any man who wants more

SPEAKER_01 44:35

what what I see most of. As you all know, with working with men, we don't often work to improve things off our own back. We will often just wait until something's falling apart and then out of desperation reach out and try and fix it rather than going, things are quite good now. I might do something to improve it. We wait until we're in the gutter.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

It's so true. And honestly, um, because we're so conditioned for the performing the roles that we're in, we'll often not actually seek help for something until it becomes such a problem for someone else. Yeah. Um, which is which is one of those areas where kind of sell people what they want and give them what they need, right? Because the the everything you're saying aligns with everything you know that I teach, which is have like improving your own sexual experience as a man is going to have a tremendous uh is going to be very helpful on the sexual experience that your partner has.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Not just that, this affects your confidence in all areas of your life. If you're not experiencing anxiety and you're not desperately seeking validation from being good enough, then that kind of permeates out to all areas of your life. But if you've got this performance anxiety or sexual fears going on,

How confidence in the bedroom becomes confidence everywhere

SPEAKER_01 45:54

um sort of underneath your life, you're always gonna kind of carry that anxiety with you. Whereas if you remove that and you're confident in the bedroom, you're kind of confident everywhere. That's been my experience.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Well, Alex, a lot of the work that you you know, you talk about getting into this work because of your own experience. And I think I I'm curious, you know, at the place you're at now, what does like safe, uh deep sexual intimacy look like in your life? What is it that men can really look forward to experiencing no matter where they're at if they commit to doing this work?

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Uh it's hard to say without sounding too too kind of woo-woo. But um I've gone from avoid I've gone from avoiding it altogether and being terrified to kind of wanting it all the time and always embracing it. And when me and my partner do go into intimacy, because I'm

What safe, deep sexual intimacy actually feels like on the other side of this work

SPEAKER_01 46:50

able to get completely out of my head and be completely in my body, but also connected to her, these sessions um it sounds really wanky, but time and environments all kind of disappear and we become kind of entwined into a formless, spaceless, magic, connected, intimate moment dance. And there have been times when I've just I've I've left and gone to another dimension. It's pretty, it's pretty good. I I am aware that sounds wanky, but that's the truth.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

You know, listen, I'm I've been slowly becoming woo myself, but from the same place, right? From a practical place, like at some point, so how matter no matter how something wanky or wacky or woo-woo something sounds, when you've experienced it, uh you can't deny the reality. And I can hear you when you share it. Um that sounds pretty good. That sounds like a lot more of a goal to achieve than any time or orgasm number, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah. When you lose all sense of time and space, it's pretty good. And it's impossible to do that when you're just stuck in your head monitoring. So I think that's the big, the big shift for me has been getting completely out of your head, getting away from monitoring and checking what you're doing, trusting your body, and then just being fully immersed in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

So if someone was looking to get a hold of you, wanted to work with you, inquire about more, what's the best way to contact you?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Instagram probably um in it's uh intimacyanxiety alex or my website is alexgear.com. Um Instagram's probably the best.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Perfect. Well, we'll make sure to link both of those in the show notes. Um and you work out of the UK. Yeah. Um and I know uh you you know part of the reason you got in this work is because especially in the UK, there's a lot, just not a lot of men doing this work.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

So I know we have some some viewers out there and haven't met another guy in the UK yet, which I'm pretty pleased about, to be fair.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Yeah, you cut the market, cut the market to yourself right now. And there's no you know, there's no shortage of men needing this help in any country ever, anywhere. So yeah. Um so we'll make sure to have all that in the in the description of the episode so people can definitely reach out to you.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Yeah, and I help guys from all around the world. It's not just in the UK, it's just that's where I'm based.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Perfect. Um the only other question I have, and it's a question we ask everybody, is what is one piece of advice you would leave our audience with to give them hope and love?

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Um I I know we recorded this before, and and um my answer was was pretty good then. I can't remember what it was, but it's a hard question to not answer in a cliched way, isn't it? Um I don't know. I I I I just believe it uh love's available

Alex's closing message: love is available for everyone. See your own value.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

for everyone, and I see a lot in my male friends as they have this belief that there's that no one's going to love them and see their value, and I just I just wish people would see their own value in themselves more because I I can see it in them. I just wish people would celebrate their unique gifts and understand that there's only one of them in the universe, and there's gonna be someone out there that's gonna appreciate all your unique gifts.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

And uh and I just want to remind everybody to be brave. Love is worth it.