Your Privates Are Showing.
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WARNING… If you think I share too much personal information when I talk about previous drinking escapades and my sobriety, you will not want to read the below.
It’s personal, might make you feel awkward, and you’ll see the leader of the place you work in not a great light.
You might just want to skip reading this or stop right here.
I’m sharing because when I do, it removes all power of embarrassment or shame and allows me to be the most Open and Free.
I don’t necessarily want to share this.
But if I don’t I wonder, ‘What If?’ and I hate that feeling even more.
So here it goes.
YOUR PRIVATES ARE SHOWING
A few weeks ago I went in for a vasectomy.
Four kids in. Our family is set.
Prior to my appointment, I wanted to know virtually nothing about the process.
So I didn’t search for anything.
I didn’t want to do a pre-visit consultation.
“I’ll just get it done” was my mode.
And this was a good plan.
Until I felt a small lump.
Then I went where anyone goes when they feel a lump.
Google.
Searching… ‘lump after…….vasectomy (auto-fill).
The autofill gave me hope I was not alone.
A little digging and it appeared I was clean and clear.
All normal.
Thirty percent of procedures have a small lump for up to six months.
While searching, I also found myself among these anatomic-science graphic images of the procedure and what happens.
Wow. I’m glad I didn’t have all the details.
Or maybe I would have passed or just said ‘maybe later’ but never actually scheduled the appointment
Cue to the next day.
I’m standing in our neighbor’s building, in his shop.
We talk about a design feature and I open my phone for us both to look it up online.
I open Safari and as I do, I open my last visited page…
A google image search history shows eight different science graphic images of penises and testicles.
I don’t embarrass easily but if I did, THIS WOULD BE IT.
I laugh, show him my search bar, and give a quick explanation about what he just saw and it’s over. We find the design feature we are looking for and I continue with my day.
To me, it’s a funny story to share and to live.
It’s also proof that what you do always ends up being shown.
We can’t live our lives in secret.
What we do — whether we know it or not — will always show in time.
When I was a teenager I smoked and thought I could hide it by adding extra Axe body spray. I’ve been around that version of a human since then and can so easily smell the smoke behind the screen of cologne layers. It doesn’t work.
This is the idea behind Be Open. Live Free.
That when we live our life the same — at all times — there is no need to hide.
It’s the best version of freedom there is.
I wonder what if the story with my neighbor played out differently.
Porn has not been part of my life for the past five years.
Prior to that, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
In my group it was normal.
A strip club visit at a bachelor party, calendars of naked ladies in a garage, speaking of a woman’s features in a lustful way. At a friend’s house in high school, it was normal to watch porn movies on VHS during the party. I was literally conditioned to it. (Yes, I was around for VHS tapes.)
That’s not porn, is it? That’s just guys being guys. At least that’s what I told myself.
From probably 13 years old until my early 30s, routines and habits led me to fill my head with images of naked women in poses or engaged in sexual encounters with men or other women.
Wouldn’t it have been embarrassing if I was with my neighbor and a sex scene showed up from my search history?
Open my phone and the video auto-plays an up-close penetration angle. Instant red face.
(I wrote this last sentence because if you didn’t feel awkward yet reading this, I thought this would help.)
A friend texted the other day and he said he’s been looking at porn, his wife found out, and it turned into a fight.
That was me five years ago.
Now, a few years in, I have a different view. I can see the pain this causes his wife.
He thinks it’s not that big a deal.
He’s just doing what he needs to do to keep himself in check, right?
He’s got two kids now. There is less time for him and his wife, and he has needs…
I asked him what he would think if the situation was reversed?
What if his wife just felt her needs were not being met and she needed to routinely find herself on websites of naked dudes who are more muscular, maybe more endowed, and that is what really got her going?
She’s got needs, right?
Wouldn’t he feel like maybe he’s not good enough?
Wouldn’t he wonder every time she saw a good-looking guy, she was thinking about him naked?
Ahh… this would suck.
Yet, that’s exactly what we were doing to our wives.
I’m called as a husband to be one with my wife. Present opportunities to lift her up. Give her the opportunity to use her gifts where she is called. Her life should be better served by being part of mine.
In the past five years, I have been rewiring my thinking of what I believe is a healthy view of sex between only my wife and I. Committed to each other for the rest of our lives. JUST THE TWO OF US.
I talk with friends who share this value, I read books about this, and now I’m sharing it with everyone who lives life with me (like this email).
AND there have been major changes. I can’t change what has happened in my past. I bring sexual baggage to the relationship I cherish the most — my marriage. But I can do the work to be the best husband to Alexis, by not engaging in cultural norms, and honoring her as much as I can.
I believe I can be forgiven. There is grace for the ways I have acted.
The only naked lady I will see for the rest of my life is the woman I married.
To me, that’s the best freedom there is.
