The Sunday Interview: Desire, Shame & Masculinity with Jay Stringer

Mar 29, 2026

Jay Stringer, therapist and author of Desire and Unwanted, reflects on growing up in evangelical purity culture and its lifelong effects on shame and desire. He discusses how arousal was taught as sin, the limits of popular male purity programs, differentiation as the basis for real intimacy, and reimagining masculinity toward vulnerability, meaning, and defiant connection.

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ANECDOTE

Purity Culture Sex Talk That Created Shame

Jay Stringer recounts learning purity culture sex talks in high school, including a Liberty University speaker who likened arousal to spiritual death using a wolf-and-seal metaphor.
That talk and similar messages created lifelong shame about masturbation and sexuality for many boys in his cohort.

ANECDOTE

Every Man's Battle Methadone Metaphor

Jay describes reading evangelical manuals like Every Man's Battle that framed wives as a 'merciful vial of methadone' for husbands trying to quit porn.
He links such metaphors to decreased desire and objectification of partners in evangelical marriages.

INSIGHT

Differentiation Enables Real Intimacy

Stringer introduces differentiation: individuation is necessary for intimacy, like skilled instruments coming together in a symphony.
Without developed selves, relationships reveal underdevelopment rather than just being 'broken.'

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Brad Onishi sits down with therapist and author Jay Stringer to explore his new book Desire, a deep dive into how we form identity, intimacy, and meaning in a world shaped by shame and disconnection. Jay reflects on his upbringing as a pastor’s kid immersed in evangelical purity culture, including harmful messaging around sexuality reinforced by spaces like Liberty University. Together, they unpack how teachings that equate arousal with sin create lifelong shame cycles, especially for young men, and how cultural artifacts like Every Man's Battle reinforced these patterns. The conversation introduces the concept of differentiation—borrowed from biology—as a key to healthy relationships, using the metaphor of a symphony to illustrate how individuality enables deeper intimacy rather than threatening it.

From there, Brad and Jay broaden the lens to examine what it means to live a meaningful life in 2026. Drawing on thinkers like Annie Dillard and Albert Camus, they explore how meaning emerges not in spite of life’s absurdity, but in response to it. They discuss the stories we inherit, the “provisional selves” we construct, and the midlife invitation to interrogate what we’ve been taught to value. The episode also tackles masculinity and vulnerability, arguing that domination and hyper-masculinity often mask unaddressed trauma, and that true connection requires risk and emotional honesty. Ultimately, they frame defiance—not despair—as the path forward: a refusal to believe our lives don’t matter, and a commitment to building lives rooted in connection, purpose, and resistance to dehumanizing cultural forces.

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