TODAY'S GUEST: Conor Creighton, Author, journalist, coach, and meditation teacher

I'm extremely happy to welcome Conor Creighton to Hard Conversations!

Conor Creighton is an author, journalist, coach and meditation teacher. He has been traveling the globe as a reporter, a motivational speaker and a meditation teacher for nearly twenty years. Conor is the author of two books, and has been published in the Guardian, the Irish Times and Vice Magazine. He's won the Irish Travel Journalist of the Year Award, the Gwaertler Foundation Award and the Simon Cumbers Media Fund on three occasions.

Conor came to meditation in 2012, and quickly became immersed in the study of mindfulness meditation and Vipassana meditation. He trained in India with the Dalai Lama, and at the Redwood Institute in San Francisco. He has sat several long retreats, and studied a number of meditation types. Conor's teaching is a cross-pollination of ancient techniques and contemporary wisdom. Conor is a down to earth teacher, and a natural story-teller, a skill he learned in part from his many years as a writer, but also as a bartender.

He is based in Berlin and Dublin.

• WEBSITE:

  https://www.meditatingwithconor.com/

YOU'LL LEARN

• A case study in the benefits of meditation on erectile functioning

• The detriments of sexual shame

• Practical tips you can try at home

• And more!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING to my male sexuality and sex therapy podcast!

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About the Show

Introducing Hard Conversations, a podcast about male sexuality, and all things erectile, from the latest natural erectile dysfunction treatment to the best ed medical treatment. Therapist Tim Norton expands the conversation about male sexuality, adds context to why we struggle as a society to have hard conversations and breaks down how in a sex-positive environment there really is no room for taboos, judgment, or shame when it comes to penises.

YOUR online sex therapy and couple’s therapy HOST:

Tim Norton is a sex positive sex therapist working in private practice. He offers online therapy, online sex therapy, online sex coaching, and therapy and coaching for somatic symptom disorder.

Tim obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. Tim is a proud member of American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators, and Therapists (AASECT), the Los Angeles Sexological Association, and works part-time with the Pain Psychology Center in Beverly Hills.

Hard Conversations Podcast Transcript

Tim: Hello, and welcome to Hard Conversations. My next guest is Conor Creighton, who is a writer for Vice magazine. You write for all kinds of publications. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah, I do. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a gun for hire. 

Tim: And from his website, he also says that his work concerns the limits of story psychedelic States and buried intuition Sometimes it concerns other things. He is living in Germany. He's living in Neukolln 

Conor Creighton: Neukolln

Tim: Neukolln all right. I was kind of close [00:01:00] now or is going to share from his own personal experience with erectile issues. He's actually the first guest to do this on this podcast. And it's something I would like to do more often.

So if there's anybody out there listening, who would also like to share their own personal experience with erectile issues, then it could also be a partner of someone who's gone through this. We'd love to hear from you. Okay. Now back to Connor. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. 

Conor Creighton:  I'm 38, 10.  thank you first off for having me on your podcast.

And,  yeah, I'm 38. I'm from Ireland. I grew up in a small village in the middle of Ireland. It was very,  kind of classic. Fairy tale, Irish upbringing raining all the time. There was a local priest who lived at the corner from us, the, this,  a tiny little village with ghosts and goblins and, and way too many bars.

And [00:02:00] I quickly left that place when I was about 17 and, and started to started to travel a lot. And. And kind of like, like anyone I suppose, is who's grown up in a very small village where they felt like an outsider and I couldn't get enough of being at, in the world. And, and the more I traveled in, the more I realized that, you know, Bennet been a skinny ginger kid with Francos.

Was considered attractive in other parts of the world. So,  that, that obviously like spurred a lot of the travel on. And then I got into, I got into writing at a year. Right. And, and understood pretty quickly that being a freelance writer suited very much. So this whole,  nomadic lifestyle and that's, that's kind of what I've continued to do since then writing books and, and journalism.

Tim: That sounds I can see why you're a writer. I really liked the way that you [00:03:00] described that. And you know, I'm actually dating somebody from Ireland and as I, I don't necessarily think you would know her not going to give her name on air or anything. Like maybe we can talk afterwards and see if you guys know 

Conor Creighton: we have, we all do know each other, funnily enough.

It's at some point. Yeah. 

Tim: Yeah. Okay. So somewhere in that very storybook upbringing, you started to learn about sex. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah.  well, and it very much, it was an odd autodidactic experience because,  the only sex education that I received growing up was actually from a non. And,  the school that I went to, we had, we had nuns who told us a lot of the time.

And we had a nun who took us for,  a class instead of sexual education, which was very abstract. Do you know it, there [00:04:00] was nothing that they never really actually talked about sex. I remember it was one session and we came out from we, we, we watched this strange compilation video. And we walked out of the classroom afterwards and looked to each other and say, did we just get sex education?

And none of us really knew. And I know for myself it was, it was very confusing.  I, I became very, very sexual at, I guess, of at the age of eight, you know, or. And even younger, my, my father used to buy these,  tabloid newspapers, which had page three girls in them. And I don't know if in the U S you have that, but it's a very, it's a very English thing on page three, there was always a picture of a topless woman.

And,  it's kind of like an English cultural staple, you know, these, these tablet papers. And I used to, when my parents weren't at home, Because they, they keep these newspapers to like the fireplace [00:05:00] with, and I would just rummage through these papers, looking for what I used to call booby girls. And,  I re I remember just, just getting erections and not really knowing what erections were,  up until I think about what would have been, I think maybe nine or 10 when.

I spontaneously. 

Tim: Wow. Without masturbating yourself. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. And then w was it w I felt like I, you know, hemorrhaged or something, I remember being a little scared by thing. 

Tim: And was this before or after the talk with the 

Conor Creighton: nun? This was probably before to know this. I think this was maybe before this preempted, the nun and yeah, there was.

And then, and then after that, you know,  realized that, Oh, I could also do this with my hand. And,  that sort of came to me [00:06:00] very instinctively bizarrely enough. And,  yeah, but it was, I, that was more or less,  how, how sexuality,  how I grew into my sexuality, but, but it was also,  we, we were told, you know, my mother was very, my mother was a fundamentalist Christian and still is, and,  When I go to these Sunday school meetings and we, you know, we re, we were told a lot about this idea of impure thoughts and the dangers of playing with yourself and how it was,  you know, a carnal sin to, to spit your seed and these things.

So I just remember that first. It took me the best part of a decade and a half to learn, to be able to masturbate and not feel guilty afterwards. Wow. Yeah. 

[00:07:00] Tim: And th that guilt, was there any description of what happens to people who masturbate. 

Conor Creighton: Well, well, I guess there's always, you know, within the Christian faith, there is always that great big,  there is always hell, you know, looming in the distance.

 so, and, and even though kind of at a, at a, at a young T as a teenager, I already started to move. I stopped going to church and, you know, rebel that it against these things. I was very, very much conditioned.  from the get-go to this idea of, well, death is a judgment. And if you haven't followed these rules, especially the rules regarding like your, your thoughts.

And you can imagine Tim, like a therapist, he knows that as a teenager or just as a young male, I mean, all of your thoughts are in pure Jim, do you know what I mean? Like, like,  [00:08:00] Some curved fruit gave me a record. You know what I mean? It was, it was, yeah, it was nonstop. So,  it was very confusing anyway, this idea and this thought that I was somehow making Jesus who I didn't particularly have a relationship with, but had a kind of an historical respect for,  that I was making him upset.

Tim: Hm. And, and, and think this is the common story that we hear of, of growing up Christian or Catholic and, and, or really any religion and just it being shut down and sexual thoughts being impure. And it's interesting that. The nun even tried. Hey, have you ever made sense of what she might've even had aspired to be saying, 

Conor Creighton: but I, it was,  I, I feel it I'm I'm I can't [00:09:00] remember, but I'm sure it was very uncomfortable for her too.

Yeah. Yeah. When you consider it,  she like, she was very much the wrong person for that job and, 

Tim:  Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, she probably was working within some pretty strict parameters of what she even could say. Like, I doubt somebody, anybody in the other class got great sex education. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. Completely. I mean, and it sort of, it,  you could see how it played out.

I remember when I was,  in the Irish school system, we have a kind of,  at the age of 15, you go from one level up to the next level. And then you go into say like, I suppose you become like a senior high school student is what you'd call it in the U S and I remember after summer break at the age of 15 coming back, and it was maybe half a dozen girls were no longer in school.

I knew you'd ask around and you go, where did such and such go? And where did such and such go? And they don't become pregnant moms. [00:10:00] And so they dropped out of school and,  It was very strange. We'd we'd refer, we talk about pregnancy as like catching a cold, you know, like where you can't, you don't know when it's going to come to you.

You know what I mean? And this was the sort of,  the limits of our understanding of how you could plan a pregnancy and so on and so forth. 

Tim: Hmm. And this wasn't like that this wasn't like the fifties, 

Conor Creighton: it sounds like , this is the nineties like this, this is the nineties in rural Ireland. And Ron. Yeah. 

Tim: Okay.

Well, so presumably at some point you decided to involve other people in your sexuality. Yeah. And so what was there like a first kiss or a first encounter? There 

Conor Creighton: was, yeah, there was a couple of first cases and a lot of say this,  kind of dry [00:11:00] humping and so on and so forth, but,  How old, like 14, 15, 13, that, those sort of ages.

And then I, so I left home when I was seven a team. And,  I, I ended up, I took a job in the, in the Swiss Alps where I was just running a little,  hostel up there, you know, and making beds and washing dishes and so on and so forth. And,  I, I lost my virginity there. On the top of a 9,000 foot mountain, which is beautiful, which is, which is pretty Epic.

But that was when, like coming back to the subject of the show. That was when I realized that sex was one of the scariest things imaginable and, and,  I lost my virginity to a much older woman and. [00:12:00]  bizarre kind of traumatically enough. Like it was, it was someone who I really, really cared about. And that was when I realized for the first time that Whoa, getting erections, isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

Tim: So let's, let's back up just a little bit until that point.  even in the dry humping, had you ever noticed any issues with erections or 

Conor Creighton: no, no, no, not really, but I mean, no one had ever,  no one had ever like touched my Dick before then. You know what I mean? I've never had a hand job or a blow job or anything like that.

So it's a little bit like I kind of.  I skipped a lot of the intermediary stuff and went straight for. The super bowl. I'm sorry. 

Tim: Yeah. And I'm, I'm asking so many questions in part for the listener to get an [00:13:00] idea of how I might start talking about sex in, in a, in a regular sex therapy session. Like just, you know, making sure not to,  Skip over any of the details?

I, yeah, I would also have asked you earlier on, in, in,  in a talk, like, had you ever experienced any sexual trauma as a little kid or anything like that along the way? No. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Yeah. And, and then you saw the, what were they called? The, the page three. The magazines. Okay. And was there any,  Video porn around guy house that you had access to.

Conor Creighton: I didn't have a TV until I was about 11 or 12. We were, we were, we were quite, we were quite poor. So, and then, and then I remember,  I think I got a computer when I was about 16 and, but then, I mean, there wasn't, we weren't online on that computer. So there wasn't really. There [00:14:00] wasn't any sort of visual. I remember at school, there was some guys that had a collection of pornos that they would distribute and stuff like that, but I never, I never got my hands.

Tim: Okay, so, well, I'm just thinking about your eventual journey to writing for vice. Like there's a very pure, very innocent,  17 year old who ends up on this 9,000 foot mountain. And,  the very first time you tried to have intercourse, you had erectile issues. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah, totally.  I was,  I mean, I've, I feel in some way,  Blessed when, and that I lost my virginity to someone who I had a huge crush on you.

You know that though, and someone who,  is still is still a friend and,  and someone who kind of really [00:15:00] inspired me, this was just an incredible woman who,  traveled around the world was a vegetarian was very,  Was, it was a huge adventure read Jack Kerouac and all these sort of people. And she, she really kind of influenced so many decisions I made.

And then I think when it came to us actually kissing, I was so blown away that this person was actually kissing me. And then when it came to us having sex, I was guessed. I was so caught up in my head. And the,  performance anxiety that it was, I didn't know, there was all sorts of weird things with condoms and, and it, it wasn't, it didn't seem to work out.

And then it worked out for a second. And,  I remember having a moment where I kind of a little out of body experience in the middle of it, where I was thinking Connor you're having sex. You're finally having sex. And [00:16:00] then instead of replying to myself going, but. Why is it not fun?

Tim: Huh. And so you're struggling with the condom and penis is it's hard and then it's not. Yeah. And then it just doesn't happen. And how does she react? 

Conor Creighton: Well, I, I think again, and this is perhaps the beauty of,  Having lost my virginity with an older woman is that I, she, we didn't talk about it.  but she just sort of, I think she then just kind of finished me off with her hand.

I think that's how it, how it ended up happening. Okay. And then that was kind of the end of that, you know, we didn't, we didn't do that again. 

Tim: And so what was your. Feeling afterward. I [00:17:00] mean, you still, like, it was still your first hand job. That's really nice. But was there embarrassment? Was there? 

Conor Creighton: Yeah, I mean, it was,  it was really tough to him because I remember I had, I was completely infatuated with this person.

And,  understood that this was, Hmm. It's something that I wasn't really sure. I wanted to try and do again with her. You know what, I'm not sure I want to bring it to that level again, because what if that happens again? And so probably. I guess at that stage, that's when I would have started to,  act a little aloof, you know, in, in my defense.

And,  yeah, I guess I [00:18:00] was, I guess that was pretty devastated by, you know, Cause it was, it felt like a moment of victory. You know, I, I lost my virginity, you know, there was even if, even if I didn't do it in style, I'd still done it, you know? And, but at the same time, wasn't so sure that I, you know, I'd lost my virginity, but certainly it hadn't been this,  Epic occasion, you know, it had been more scary than it.

Tim: And then did you guys continue to see each other out there? Not really. Cause 

Conor Creighton: she, it, it all happened on a last night. You know what I mean? It was a classic,  I'm leaving because she, she was leaving the mountains that day. And, and then that was the end of it. Hmm. 

Tim: And did you get the sense? I mean, did she know you were a Virgin?

Conor Creighton: I bullshitted her and told her that I wasn't. [00:19:00]  but I don't know. I mean, maybe she got the idea, maybe she understood. I'm not sure. 

Tim: And so by that point, though, you. You had seen some porn somewhere. You, you did have an idea of what you were supposed to do. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. Yeah. I have. I've watched some, you know, we used to, I remember when I was 16 or so actually this, this is kind of, I used to,  friends, we'd kind of at weekends, we we'd watch, we'd sort of have sleepovers and we wouldn't watch porn, but some would have.

 some would be able to pick up German TV stations on their cable packages and you'd sometimes see like soft core movies. And so I, I mean, I knew the rudimentary fees, if not really. I, I not, I was, I wasn't deft or [00:20:00] anything, but I, I knew that I knew the basic biology. Yeah. 

Tim: Okay. And so it was very clear to you that what happened between you and her was not what you saw in the movies and, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Okay. So then when was the next time you tried to have sex with somebody? 

Conor Creighton:  I think there was, there was a bit of a gap then I think because,  And I actually, I remember I, the next girl I went out with,  was a Virgin and didn't want to have sex. And in some ways I think that's sort of suited me because I could, I could put it on her, you know, and I can see that guy I wanted, but, you know, she was, she won't.

And,  and so we just, like, we made out a lot and then,  Yeah. And then I [00:21:00] guess a lot of the next set of sex occasions that I had were when I was really drunk. A lot of, I guess, from the age of say 18 to 26 or so, just had a shit ton of, of drunk sex. And,  I worked, I worked as a bartender and I used to work in nightclubs.

And there was just a,  there was just a lot of, and I, there was just a lot of, of that sort of this very, what can I say, not loving sex, you know, and very sort of casual,  casual hookups. And I think the, the, the thing that I noticed at that stage was that. Sometimes,  you know, sometimes I, I could have sex and it was fine.

And [00:22:00] then sometimes I couldn't, but because, because we were always drunk and we used to take, there was also like a period in Dublin where there was a lot of,   everyone was taking ecstasy. And MTMA, and there was just a lot of drugs around, and it was a big party scene in Dublin at the time. So there was lots of,  it was kind of a common cliche that if you say, if you took ecstasy, sometimes you'd get an erection for a very long time, or sometimes you wouldn't get one.

And so it was a great,  for me, I find that period was a great,  I always had a great excuse. If I brought somebody home and I couldn't have sex with them, that I would just say, Oh, I'm too high or I'm too drunk. And I, it was a good way,  of set of not confronting, not confronting these issues. 

Tim: Yeah.

And so then [00:23:00] behind the scenes, are you thinking, are you worried. From 17 to 26, that, that you have a problem. 

Conor Creighton: You know, I was pretty much worried, nonstop,  but not just about sexuality. I mean, I was an extremely anxious person. I actually, I suffered a lot from anxiety in my whole, my childhood, and just had a very,  Overactive,  worrying muscle.

And that, that was so all of these things seem to kind of,  unite into a kind of a. A a force for fucking open my life for want of a better word. And so,  yeah, I, I worried, I worried a hell of a lot about us and, but what, what [00:24:00] really, the hardest part was that there was a couple of occasions where I really met very special people and wanted to have relationships with them.

And how had similar feelings for these people that I had with the, with the woman who I lost my virginity with, but was just kind of, it was a combination of being like too intimidated by what might happen sexually. If we were to have loving sex, you know, if we were to have a real sexual connection, a second, a sober sexual connection.

And, and so I feel that in my early twenties, there was a couple of amazing people who I met, who could have been super powerful, who mentioned on my life. And I had to, I had to kind of pass them by or avoid them. And even on one occasion, there was, there was an amazing woman. I met who, and we, we did finally end up [00:25:00] together and I was just.

The occasion was just way too much for me. And I couldn't get an erection. 

Tim: This is a really devastating story.

Okay. Don't don't don't give up yet guys. Alright, so, okay. So in the meantime, and do you suppose that you were all along drinking to the point. Of like the drink was actually even to quell your anxiety as much as have that excuse, was 

Conor Creighton: it? Yeah, I mean, I definitely had a lot of alcoholic tendencies and my dad's, my dad's a recovering alcoholic and they just, as, as, as the classic Irish family, you know, there's, there's a lot of alcoholism coming down through my genes and I being sort of very socially anxious to [00:26:00] alcohol.

Alcohol was great, you know, I couldn't, and it allowed me to talk to women in a way that I couldn't really before and allowed me to kind of come out of my little anxious shell. And yes. So, and then kind of, you know, you can imagine sort of, you know, in these formative years dealing with a couple of hundred hangovers a year, And, and trying, and sort of, you know, stumbling through the dark lines of depression and long winters and, and the many sort of just, you know, being, being poor and living in these sort of squat homes and this sort of existence, it was, it was no,  it wasn't the most conducive place for, for becoming mature and reflective and dealing with your shit, I guess.

Hmm. 

Tim: So it, at [00:27:00] some point there's a transition. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. Well,  I guess,  there was whether it was another day of a thing that happened in the middle of all of that, where I started to, I S I started to fix myself. Okay.  not at an emotional level or not at a psychological level, but at a, at a purely technical level.

So I, I went to a doctor to talk about erection problems, but,  and was prescribed by Agra. Okay. And,  how 

Tim: old were you when this happened? 

Conor Creighton: Maybe 1920. 

Tim: And so until that point, had you spoken to anybody else about this, about erections, nobody, guy friends or no. 

Conor Creighton: Well, I didn't, I mean, there was some,  in bars that I worked at, there was some banter, you know, and every, so often some guy [00:28:00] would.

Would admit something like, Oh, I brought certain search home. I mean, we were horrible the way we tell we were, we were brutes, but someone said, Oh, I brought some at home, but I was floppy. And yeah, a little part of me would look and go, I, can we admit this? Are we allowed to say this? And I wasn't admitting it myself, but I was like, wow, that's all right.

We can other people, this happens too. But it only, you could only,  it seems like sort of only the most.  only the guys who are so entirely comfortable with their, with their sexual performance could admit to not being able to perform. Hmm. And,  but, but for me, like it was, there was no way I could talk about, and yeah.

So, so instead I went to a doctor and the doctor didn't really, I remember the doctor didn't really talk to me so much. I think he was just very quick to prescribe me Viagra. 

Tim: So if [00:29:00] you're 38 and that was 17 years ago, so Viagra hadn't been out very well. No, 

Conor Creighton: I don't think so. No. 

Tim: And so how did that work out for you?

Conor Creighton:  well, this was, this was all tied into this.  it, it had just come on the back of,  that, that story that I told you, that this, this amazing woman who I met and then I blew it with, because we spent.  two nights together and both nights I couldn't get erections and just, just wanted to die. You know, really was, there was, it was probably one of the lowest points in my life.

Just lying in bed and feeding. So,  just feeling so inadequate and. Then trying to, I think it's always the funniest thing that when you kind of with maybe some of your listeners know about this, that, [00:30:00] that awkward transition from when you've been trying to have sex with them and encounter sex at summit, and then you want to change the subject.

And so you, the, you, you try to switch to lighthearted conversation or you suggest food or let's watch a movie or these things, and it's, it's. I didn't know, there's nothing can really compensate for sex in that moment. There's nothing you can offer. At least from my experience. There's nothing that you can offer a woman when you haven't been able to like fulfill her sexual needs.

That will make up for that. You know what I mean? Maybe it could be like, Hey, how about I let's go on a holiday for a week to the Caribbean and she'd still might be add, I don't know. No. 

Tim: Yeah, it's,  that's, that's always going to be an awkward situation. 

Conor Creighton: So that, that kind of, that was very much a catalyst for me.

And that's what made me go to the doctor, even though I was, I was terrified to go to a doctor and talk about this. And so I went to adopt her and I got play [00:31:00] Agra. And then rather than do the, kind of the, the collaborative thing, I guess, and, and go back to this woman and talk to her about these things. I instead ended up using it on someone else.

Who I didn't care so much about, but there was less anxiety involved. And, and that was, I remember that situation that we were in a bar together. And I, I knew that this person liked me and I knew that I could have sex with them. And we were all sitting around this boat together. So I, and I took it the Viagra.

And I remember within like already within the first 10 minutes, I could feel like blood, like just. Flushing throughout my whole body. And I could feel myself heating up and,  my cheeks became very red and even my tongue felt big in my mouth and I had an erection. And it was a [00:32:00] real like school boy erection you the kind of your, your side of your desk and you're going shit, please don't pick me.

Please don't pick me. It was that kind of erection where I just thought, Oh, I can't control this. This is too big. And I remember just sitting at the table and,  Realizing that, that this interaction would not have. And I, I think, I think I ended up doing some little gymnastic maneuver where I kind of, without being noticed, reached into my jeans and pushed my penis up so I could took it onto my path to something.

Cause it was just, I was, there was no way I was going to be able to stand up without everyone seeing that I had a big erection and,  Yeah, w we ended up then w w I, I quickly convinced her to come home with me and we, I remember like I [00:33:00] just having sex for hours and hours and hours and never coming. And at one stage, like going to the bathroom and putting cold water on my penis.

And I remember being very worried. Because I've never, I actually, I actually had visions that this thing was going to burst because it was so full of blood, which again was just my overactive imagination.  and, and, and my runaway anxiety, but it, it,  it was, yeah, I guess I wish that someone had told me, you know, that you can take Viagra in quarters or halves.

Instead of like taking the full, I don't know, 20 milligrams or something. I think it was in the tablet, which was, which was enough to, you know, to make, to, to launch a battleship here. It was, it was a huge dosage. 

Tim: Yeah. And [00:34:00] was this the thing that you talked about in your article where it actually did last for nine hours and it was painful at a certain point?

Yeah. 

Conor Creighton: Well, I just, I remember waking up in the morning and I was still a wreck. And, you know what I mean? And I'm going to the bathroom to pee. And I was that ho how am I supposed to piss with this thing? And I had to pee into the bathtub. Do you know what I mean? Cause it was just, it was flying in here and  yeah, but at the same time I was, I had lots of, lots of sex with this person.

So it w it felt like it was very good value for money that, that biography, and,  so in a way I was like, okay, what I've kind of I've it, it felt it's, it's some sense of that, that I now solve the problem, at least temporarily, at least technically. 

Tim: Okay. [00:35:00] And then did you continue to have sex with other partners with the Viagra?

Conor Creighton: Yeah, so yeah, I found the, kind of, what would happen is that maybe the first couple of times that we had sex together, I'd be very nervous and anxious with a partner. And then I would maybe take a half of an Agra or,  but then once I got to know them, I didn't need it anymore. So once I became, I mean, it was totally about me and it was totally about my levels of anxiety.

And so maybe after we'd had sex once or twice, I wouldn't need it anymore. And,  what, what that, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it anymore. And so what, what that would, what that then kind of did, is it sort of established a pattern in my life of real, like a serial of being a serial monogamous. Monogamous.

And so when I, basically, when I would find someone and the sex would [00:36:00] work, I would date them. And even, even sometimes when I wasn't really, you know, it didn't really feel that much love for the person, I would say, well, no, the sex is working and you need to get over whatever sexual hangups you have. And perhaps the best way to do that is to be in a monogamous relationship with someone where the sex works.

And my hope was always, then that I would,  by getting lots and lots of practice of functioning sex, that it would, it would, it would kind of cure me. But what actually happened is that when the relationships would break down, I then go into another relationship or I would just. Be hooking up with people and all of the erectile dysfunction would come back again.

Tim: Hmm. Okay. And then at some point you discover meditation. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah.  it, it was, [00:37:00]  I guess in my, in my early thirties,  I was engaged. And to, to an amazing woman. And we, then when we start,  we had our sex life was very healthy. It was very functional, very loving, but,  we started to break down, our relationship started to break down and it was,  I just remember being hit with this idea,  this huge.

 wave of disappointment. I just disenchantment with love because I've been very, very much in love with this person. And now was no longer in love. And I, I guess I, since, since walking away from Christianity and all of these sort of faith based my faith based youth, I put an awful lot of,  [00:38:00] expectation on the thought that like love was the one important thing on the planet.

And that when I find love that will complete me at some stage. And this was a person who I thought had completed me. And when I love started to fall apart, I just remember being so depressed. And, and in the last few weeks, while we were breaking up and while it was obvious that we were breaking up, she started to use it.

She started to meditate and,  I'd watch her in the house meditating and I would in a very child is resentful way would be that. This is, this is exactly, exactly why we're breaking up. Cause you can't do with the real world. Look at you just off there with your eyes closed. And, and then when she, when we did finally break up, I was, I then went and looked into meditation myself and,   started with the Headspace app.

[00:39:00] And, and then, and then from there, you know, at, even the first say just the first five minutes session I did, I felt peace and I thought, Oh wow, this is a way to,  this is a way to stop the thoughts and this, this is a way to deal with that onslaught of anxiety and worry. You can actually control them if only for 10 seconds or 20 seconds, I can still control these thoughts.

And that was the first time that that ever happened in my life. Before that I could control the thoughts. And just, just as an aside, the thoughts were the thing that would torment me. What I was trying to have sex. I'd be trying to have sex with a person and I will be. All of my, like my favorite worries would, would gather together and just scream at me.

Tim: Can you give some examples? 

Conor Creighton: I've [00:40:00] been worried about money since the age of four. Yeah. Like huge security fears, or then worried that,  I was a sham. I couldn't actually Bryant and I'm like, what am I doing? You're faking it. Or I didn't know. I spent a lot of, in my younger years, I. I spent a lot of time working in factories and working on building sites and so on and so forth.

And I was, and the worry would come back and be like, well, maybe that's your level. And you have to go back to that. Brutal, you know,  maybe you're sort of, you, you, you you've, you've gone too close to the sun. Do you know what I mean? You're, you're, you're a working class kid. And what are you doing?

Hanging out in this art world with journalists and traveling and so on and so forth. This isn't your place. 

Tim: And with these kinds of thoughts, pop in your head during sex too. 

Conor Creighton: Oh, I think pop into my head when I was getting a blow job too. You know what I mean? It's sort of some of the most pleasurable physical things that I could be doing or receiving, and I'd still get [00:41:00] tormented by this idea of, or, or even things that say, I mean, I had a very, very strong ego at that stage.

So if it was very. Had lots of rivals. So there was different men who I would,  compete with. Do you know, and I would see their online profile and they did something like this and I would go, Oh, dominant. It would put me in a bad mood. And so little things like that. And you know, I've been there with the woman I love and she's miraculously has her mouth on my penis.

And I'm thinking about some guy who's published an article somewhere.  He made some analogy and I'm going, damn, that analogy was so good. And it would torment me, you know, and, and there I'd be like, it would take me, I don't know, a quarter of an hour to ejaculate from a blow job or something, because I was so caught up in these petty [00:42:00] rivalries and ego gangs.

Tim: Right. And just to clarify, you don't have a fetish for other men publishing articles that, that wasn't something that 

Conor Creighton: turns you on at all. I don't think so. Maybe, maybe we should cover that in the next podcast. 

Tim: Yeah. But lots and lots of very. Unsexy thoughts,  intruding, maybe we call them intrusive thoughts.

Conor Creighton: Yeah, totally on uninvited thoughts, 

Tim: uninvited thoughts. And so you go, you sit down with Headspace and you get your first 20 seconds of peace from 

Conor Creighton: these thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. And then you, you know what that did, to me, that was a gateway drug for me. It really was in that, after that,   that was that all it coincided at the time when I sold my first novel.

 and so for the first time in my life I had, I had a little bit of cash, you know, I [00:43:00] got an advance for this book. 

Tim: Can you plug your novel? What w what was the name 

Conor Creighton: called? St. Frank. Okay. And,  so. But what I had money and I said, okay, what I'm going to do for the next six months is I'm going to use all this money to heal myself.

So, and I decided to be just open-minded to everything. So,  I went to meditation retreats. I went on say, psychedelic drug retreats. I started to do yoga classes. I went to sound therapy and I went to lectures from different spiritual advisors and so on. And I just, I, I traveled a lot in this time and basically my, the emphasis on everything that I was doing was,  I'm going to get myself healthy and I'm going to explore [00:44:00] the, the, the inner mechanisms of my mind.

And,  I, I became, I became vegetarian. I tried to limit my alcohol intake. And then, and then I finally, I stumbled upon this, this,  ancient meditation technique, which was originally taught by butter and it's called personal. And this is,  it's it, it's a 10 day silent meditation retreat.  which, which basically teaches you.

Through this very,  simple, but, but intensive meditation technique, it teaches you kind of how to rewire your brain and, and see things as they really are. And,  ma it's, it's become quite popular recently because maybe, you know,  Yuval Noah Harari from homosapiens. This book and yeah, it was he's, he's a teacher in this, in this field of your past and he teaches [00:45:00] it.

And so he's popularized it a lot recently. And so I started, I did my first, one of those and now,  and since then I sit maybe two 10 day silent retreats a year and I meditate between an hour and two hours a day. And.  what,  what what's happened since I started with this meditation is that it's become very, very good, easy for me too.

Drop the things that are no longer serving me in my life. So for example, I, I, I quit smoking after my first good pass then I, I just didn't want a cigarette anymore. After the second to last minute, I quit alcohol. I mean, I never imagined that I would. Ever have a life without alcohol. And then, and then other things like my, I quit these ego games as well.

Of course they come [00:46:00] back, you know what I mean? The ego still wants to be fed, but the idea of comparing myself to other people all the time, that kind of drifted away. And even my style of writing changed when I, when I first started to write for advice, I was very obsessed with being clever and being funny.

And quite often, you know, had no problem in taking the piss out of other people or undervaluing other people for the sake of a joke. And that'll change. I mean, I kind of, I kind of ride that anymore. And, and so I started, my style of writing started to change and the things I wrote about started to change.

And that's when articles like the one that I wrote about meditation and erectile dysfunction came about. Like, I think without, without all the experiences that I had in that period, I would never have had the balls. To open up about a problem like that and certainly would never have [00:47:00] published it. Wow.

Tim: That's really powerful. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. Yeah. It's, I'm, I'm so grateful to, for I'm so grateful to everything that happened in my youth, that kind of, I was, you know, it had such a struggle that would bring me to such extreme, to such an extreme solution, which then,  paid off. So, well, I needed the benefits and, 

Tim: and now how's your anxiety in 

Conor Creighton: general?

 I don't really have anxiety anymore. 

Tim: Yeah. I, when you first described it at the beginning of this interview, and then how you, you grew up anxious. I was thinking. So some people just hide it really well because this guy seems really, really chill. And I know it's, it's seven 30 in the morning in Berlin, or by now it's almost eight [00:48:00] 30.

And so I was like, maybe he's just kind of groggy in the mornings, but this is not an anxious person. 

Conor Creighton: No. So, but, but, you know, I mean, my,  my dad used to always describe me as a duck. And he would say, there you are on the surface of the water. You know, you're still in your calm, but beneath the water, your feet are going a million miles an hour.

And,  yeah, I, I think I've always just been the baby of the family. You, you, I mean, the baby of the family as I was the actor. Right. And they're always the comedian and that's the only way they ever get attention. And I think I learnt.  I mean, I grew up in a house with big, big personalities who sucked up all the attention.

So I, when I cried out for help, I didn't get it. So I quickly learned that the best thing for me to do was to, to fake being okay. And, and that sort of, that carried me throughout most of my life. So I, most people would [00:49:00] have never been, I got the impression that I was an anxious wreck. Okay. 

Tim: Yeah. And now you're not faking it though.

You're you're pretty 

Conor Creighton: calm. No, I like,  I would say on my piece, you know, very much at peace. I'm the, not the, not that I don't have issues every so often or that there's it, I'd still sometimes hard for me to make decisions, but,  But I'm I'm. I used to have anxiety that would attack me and all I could do is just lie on the floor.

You know, we get to the, or I would have moments where I would leave the house to go somewhere and halfway there would just be gripped by tight sensations throughout my body. I'd have to turn around and come home again. And really, it felt like the anxiety that I had at that time, it felt like it was a kind of a hand.

Wrapped around [00:50:00] my body that could pull and push me for whatever it wanted beyond my control.  and I was extremely nervous socially and so drank all the time. And,  now and now it's kind of, for me, what I just noticed as a med, like I, I still have an awful lot of,  older friends from my drinking days.

And I still go to bars with them all the time, but I drink alcohol free beers and, and I I'm, I'm always amazed by that. There's sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm drinking an alcohol free beer or I'm drinking a sparkling water or something. And I go, this is good. Yes. I could never have imagined myself this position feeding.

Okay. Amongst my peers who are all drinking beer and I'm not. And I can, I'm not quiet. I'm still like the loudest person [00:51:00] at the table. Do you know what I mean? I'm still in there, you know? Yeah. 

Tim: And so how has your relationship to sex changed and directions in your penis and all of that? 

Conor Creighton:  well, one of the big things,  that also that the meditation helped me with too, was it, it really allowed me to, to love a lot more.

You know, and,  it, it, it allowed me to first off love myself and I don't understand myself and accept myself and then, and then forgive myself. Cause you know, I was, I was a jerk for a long time in my twenties and. It wasn't always the best of boyfriends to the, to the partners that I went out with and was pretty selfish and used to use to castigate myself a lot about that.

But since I started to meditate, I understand. Well, okay. Of course you, of course you were a [00:52:00] gr like you were, you were in so much pain all the time. And so I, I guess I sort of, I mean, it's easy to forgive yourself for that, but the important thing is to not do it again. So it was a matter of, kind of forgiving myself, but then saying, okay, and that behavior is done with, you know what I mean?

There's no, you, you can't manipulate people anymore and you can't just go around,  treating people unkindly. And, and so I suppose since then,  I've,  the relationships that I've had have been much more kind of loving relationships rather than hookups. You know, and the idea of casual sex is I,  I'm single at the moment, but,  more or less, I've been meditating about four years now.

And the only relationships that I've had, I've been very, very much in love with the people [00:53:00] and it's and sexually it's been extremely helpful. 

Tim: Extremely. Healthy, sorry. 

Conor Creighton: Healthy. Okay. Not extremely healthy, just healthy, 

Tim: just healthy. I think you're my first guest to say that self love and acceptance and forgiveness might help an erection.

Conor Creighton: Yeah, I get totally, totally. Well, it just,  this there's so much as, as men.  our penises are often symbolic for, for the who we are as people. And if our penis isn't functioning, we start to think, well, as a mom, I'm not functioning. And, but when you learn to sort of let go of this,  penile emphasis and you let go of your attachment to the erection and, and even let go a little bit of the, the sort of, I mean, the diction always be [00:54:00] in the spotlight when it comes to sex.

You know what I mean? It's, it's a, it, it shouldn't always have a leading role, you know, it can also be a support actor. And so I guess what meditation and, and sort of maturity did for me is it sort of,  taught me that it's not all about this, and it's not such a big deal. And it just allowed me to be much slower in sex.

Like I remember when,  And the time of my life when, when erections were, did a bit random that if, when I was hard, my first thought was okay, we've got it. I got to get in there, got to get in there and do something with this now. And I think now as I'm way more comfortable and sort of, it's not that,  I know that I'd always get an erection cause there's still some times when I'm just, Oh, you know, I'm just not that into it right now.

But I think I have the, the [00:55:00] acceptance and the, just the presence of mind to be able to go, Oh, I guess I'm just not that horny right now, pipe, you know? And, and that's a, that's a wonderful way of kind of just dis releasing tension from the air. And,  and again, it's this idea of just deemphasizing, the penis.

Tim: Yeah, letting I loved how you said, let go of the attachment to the 

Conor Creighton: erection. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Or even Jackie lighting, you know what I mean? Instead of it's, there's this idea that, you know, we always have to come, I think is, is maybe a little bit of a it's inhibiting. 

Tim: Absolutely. And I think what a number of guests have talked about is you can still have fun.

You're, you know, you're presumably [00:56:00] now naked with somebody you care about, or if it's casual someone who you want to have fun with, and there's still tons of things you can do without 

Conor Creighton: an erection. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, you got to come back to the fact that, you know, you're human and you're having a human experience here on this planet.

And if you can't manage to make that fun, then you're missing it. And the way to make it fun is to be a little bit easier on yourself and take away the emphasis and meditation has definitely allowed me to do that. Hmm. 

Tim: Very well said, Connor, thank you so much.  I think that's a really nice place to kind of wrap that up with that thought.

Very, very Buddhist. I can tell the influence. Yeah. You know, in Los Angeles, I've, I've met quite a few people who have done a [00:57:00] 10 day thing at some point. I still haven't still haven't gone and done it.  maybe, maybe that's on the horizon. So any what's what's next for Connor? Any we're working on a book or what do you, where can people find you on the internet?

Yeah, I mean, 

Conor Creighton: at the moment, the best place to find me, or just a Twitter or Instagram and at the moment I'm working on a book. So I, I, I ran a boys club for a couple of years in Berlin. So it was, it was, it was basically,  I realized that I was like, hold on. I want to, amongst my male friends, I wanted to have a more real talk with them and it wasn't happening.

And you know, when we we'd go play football together and stuff, and we didn't have this real talk or we'd go to the bar and we wouldn't have this real talk. So I set up the Berlin boys club. And we'd meet once a month in a friend, a friend of mine has a flower shop and we'd meet once a month in this flower shop after hours.

And I [00:58:00] said, the rules were very simple. There's no, there's no alcohol. And there's no banter. We have to talk at an emotional level about issues affecting us and our masculinity. And, and so I ran this group for about a year and a half. And,  now I'm trying to turn it into a book. 

Tim: Okay. Wow. Sounds awesome.

Conor Creighton: Yeah, it was, it was amazing. I'd really I'd recommend anyone to do it. It's very, it's very,  it's just a very healthy thing to do. 

Tim: Yeah. And when that book comes out, let me know.  is there going to be like a chapter on how to set it up? I mean, it seems pretty straight forward. Yeah. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah, exactly. What I'd love the book to do is I'd love the book to be a kind of a.

A guideline for other people to set up their own boys clubs. 

Tim: To, to spawn a revolution of new masculinity out there. 

Conor Creighton: Yeah. I mean, I was thought it was like, it's like fight club, but instead of knocking each other out, we, we poke each other, you know? 

[00:59:00] Tim: Yeah. All right. Well, again, thank you so much. Well, you said Twitter, what's your Twitter handle by name?

So Connor crikey. 

Conor Creighton: And 

Tim: then Connor Crighton and that's one N 

Conor Creighton: yes, C O O C R D I G H T O N. You can get me a Twitter or an Instagram, I guess are the two things. All right. 

Tim: Well, thanks again, Connor. 

Shout outs to the sex positive community, including sex educators, sex therapists, sex coaches, other fellow sex, podcasters, sex surrogates, academics, sexual health, medical community, sex workers, the tantric community, and everybody else involved with having hard conversations. Bye-bye.