Mish Middelmann and the Power of Peer Support
In this episode, Michelle Renee joins Mish Middelmann of RecoveringMan.net, a website focused on rediscovering life and manhood after prostate cancer, including contributor blogs and an online support community.
Mish Middelmann was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019 at the age of 61. Through his own journey, he saw a need for men to share their stories in an effort to get the support that the medical world was not able to provide which is now RecoveringMan.net.
The host, Michelle Renee, is a surrogate partner, intimacy guide, and professional cuddler located in San Diego, CA. You can learn more at meetmichellerenee.com.
For more information about Soft Cock Week, go to SoftCockWeek.com, which includes resources, events, and even soft cock love notes.
Notes from this show:
Mish's interview with Cam Fraser
Dr Jo Milios - "A watched cock never comes"
Brene Brown TED Talk on Vulnerability
The Intimacy Lab Episode 1 about Michelle's journey with orgasm
Rough Transcript:
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:03.426)
Welcome back to Soft Cock Week. I'm Michelle Renne. I'm a surrogate partner, intimacy guide, and professional cuddler out of San Diego, California. And we have Mish Middleton with us today. I want to say all the way from where are you from? I keep saying it's either New Zealand or Australia.
Mish Middelmann (00:20.342)
Well, I grew up in South Africa and I now live in Toronto, Canada, but I'm really my parents are in Southern Africa.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:23.946)
Oh, okay. Oh, you're.
Okay, I totally had you messed up. I think it's because of how I found you being a friend of mine, turned me on to you from Cam Fraser, who is out of Australia, correct? If I have the map correct. Okay.
Mish Middelmann (00:42.414)
Great. And Cam and I had this fabulous cross the generations conversation about men and sexuality about, I don't know, two years ago or so.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:52.486)
Yeah, you hit the radar of Ruby Rider, who is a dear, dear friend of mine, who does, her specialty is pegging. So, anal sex for prostate owners. She knows everything there is to know about prostates. And so, you caught her eye, and she has connected me to your world, and then you got into the soft cock week world.
and have been such a great supporter of the first annual Soft Cock Week last year. And I was so happy that we got to get you into a time zone that I could really work with. I didn't realize that you were in Toronto full time. So this is super cool to have you here, Mish. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your retweets and just like...
really wonderful support of this because there's a few of you out there and when I started this so grass Roots last year, it was fun to see who picked up on it and you were definitely one of the people that picked up on it and I got to share then a lot of your work too. So for the people at home, tell us a bit about yourself, Mish.
Mish Middelmann (02:08.554)
Well, I guess I need to... I mean, how else can I start? But, you know, I'm 65 years old and I'm the proud owner of a soft cock. That sometimes gets hard, I'm glad to say. But doesn't... You know, the weird thing about being born with one is that the thing just gets hard all the time, most of your life, or most of my life anyway, often inappropriately and often awkwardly.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (02:16.028)
Yay!
Mish Middelmann (02:37.074)
When it stops doing it so exuberantly and eagerly, it's a huge shock. And now mine has sort of, for me, it happened through prostate cancer. So I had my prostate removed at the age of, I think I was just 61, nearly four years ago. And then started this journey of erectile dysfunction that is now sort of halfway, you know. It sort of sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (02:54.23)
Mm.
Mish Middelmann (03:07.342)
It's like so unlike the classical male thing of like you're on or you're off. It's like, well, I'm sort of in between. And I guess that's how I'll start by introducing myself.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:13.715)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:18.57)
Can I just cut to the chase? Are you having good sex? Yay, that's what I wanna hear, right? You know, when I started this last year, one, I started it because I got a lot of men coming to me saying something's wrong with my penis. And it was so, I wanna say that the number one problem was.
Mish Middelmann (03:23.2)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (03:26.731)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:42.63)
it doesn't stay hard 100% of the time. And I was like, that's your problem? Like that is normal. We need to have a rec, what did I call it? Reparative sex ed was a term I kind of came up with the other day. Reparative sex ed, because if we're getting most of our sex ed through pornography, we're only seeing an edited version of sex. And we have really messed up ideas of how penises work based on that. And so then I started this week.
Mish Middelmann (04:07.79)
Exactly.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (04:11.466)
And I was quickly reminded that not everyone is enthusiastic about a soft penis the way that I am. I had to make space for a lot of grieving that needed to happen in the community. And it's nice to I like bringing people on that are like, there's another side to this, like you can move through the grief and get to the other side and still have great sex.
because that is the thing I cannot, I cannot, I don't have a magic wand when clients come to me to work on this issue. There, it's like they think I must have a hidden user manual somewhere that I just need to do a reset button and everything comes back online. And my whole goal with clients is to help them learn how to show up for sex, no matter how their penis shows up for sex, that there is still this really rich, wonderful sex life ahead for them.
Mish Middelmann (04:38.542)
Thank you.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (05:07.855)
And it's just nice to have someone here that can say, yeah, stamp of approval, Michelle, you're doing.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (05:19.462)
The only thing that I can do is to say, let's just work with what we have and have a new relationship with sex.
Mish Middelmann (05:29.206)
Yes, yes. And thank you for speaking about the grieving as well, because I mean, a hard cock is a lovely thing. Certainly speaking as the owner of one, I mean, it's fantastic and I miss it. And when it's there, it's just fabulous. And it's a great sex toy, I believe, from my partner's point of view too. So it's like, yes, it is a loss. And I'm very fortunate that I sometimes get it back. But if I was to...
And I mean, the main issue for me is to stop thinking about what it isn't, because that reverberates and it's not just personal, it's in our culture. And as you said, everybody's picturing those hard cocks and like, why isn't mine like that? And I think it's really hard to have good sex without a hard cock, not because it's not fun and physically pleasurable and loving and connecting,
Mish Middelmann (06:28.138)
in our culture as much as ourselves that sort of says, this is not the real thing.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (06:34.182)
Yeah. And how do you show up and be present for sex with your partner if you're in your head the whole time asking where your penis is? Right? Where's your hard penis?
Mish Middelmann (06:46.624)
Have you heard the most lovely comment that interjected that Jo Milios the wonderful Australian physiotherapist made was, she just said it in passing, she said, and everyone knows a watched cock doesn't come
Michelle Renee (she/her) (07:00.787)
A watched cock doesn't come. I'm so glad this is recorded because that's going to make a meme for this week.
Mish Middelmann (07:04.638)
And that I just want to attribute it. Yeah. I want to attribute it to Jo Milios She's like the one of the best pelvic floor physiotherapist specializing in men in the world and a world leader in this whole field. But it's such an insight that like, if I'm thinking about whether it's going to come or whether it's going to be hard enough or whatever, man, it's so hard to come and if I just let go, you know what? Good things happen.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (07:17.654)
It's wonderful, I have to connect. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (07:32.874)
Well, it's hard to come, but it's also, it's hard to, you're not with your partner. I remember I've had conversations with previous partners and I'm like, where do you go during sex? We have taught our, you know, teenage boys to literally think of something else while they're having sex so that they don't ejaculate. And then they're not with you. And so I have clients that as soon as we get naked, they go.
Mish Middelmann (07:38.367)
Exactly.
Mish Middelmann (07:54.839)
Right.
Mish Middelmann (07:59.395)
Yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (08:02.234)
I can tell they're suddenly not with me in the space. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. What you're thinking about your penis right now, let's think about me. Let's follow where I'm touching you. It's almost like taking meditation practices and moving them into the bedroom to say, can you keep your mind on what's happening with your body? Where are my fingertips right now? And just every time your thought starts to drift,
Mish Middelmann (08:08.686)
Mmm.
Mish Middelmann (08:18.445)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (08:25.098)
Right.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (08:31.626)
Just bring it back. Right. Oh, I started to think about it. It's OK. Bring it back because a watch cock. Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (08:36.342)
Lovely.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (08:42.197)
Hmm.
Mish Middelmann (08:44.714)
Well, what I've been doing, because this sort of happened to me rather suddenly, and so it's brought on the benefit is that, you know, I was more than 60, so I had some idea about what you've just spoken about. But then the experience of prostate cancer tends to bring on like radical changes in our bodies overnight, you know, you go into the hospital one day and the next day, a whole lot of things work differently to what they've done your whole life.
I think that is an opportunity for us as men to learn more about what it is to have a penis and to have at least had a prostate. Because it's like encapsulated. Initially in a short time and different men, some people recover in six months, some people in 12 months, some people in three years, some people. Well, all of us stay different for the rest of our lives.
And some of us get erections again, like I say, I get erections sometimes. And other times, and they fade quite often, but they, I can get full erections sometimes and, and kind of be like the old days. But what gets interesting there is like, how can we support each other around this? And it's, it's particularly obvious, I think with straight men.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (10:02.061)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (10:08.298)
because there's a whole kind of awkwardness about talking about sex to other men and like there's a whole thing that just like you have to have a hard cock you also need to not want to play with other ones according to straight men. Which yeah, yeah. So my world doesn't feel as sort of
Michelle Renee (she/her) (10:23.174)
Don't talk about them, don't look at them, don't, I mean, yeah, absolutely.
Mish Middelmann (10:31.714)
Boundaried in that way personally, but most of the men who come to my support group are would identify I think Probably primarily straight not all of them And I certainly don't want to restrict it to men who identify as straight and like I wish I'd grown up now when When the sort of non-binary world and the queer world was more a little more open And I would that's kind of how I would really identify but There's something about
what allows men to talk about this to other men. And I think that's the other thing that hangs over this world. You've talked about some of the things that kids grow up with and so on. But the other thing that sort of hangs over this is the sort of bar room talk. Again, the image of what a man's supposed to look like, which is sort of...
never having really any emotions but having a lot of sex and being very successful at that and if it's broken then you fix it. I don't think the world is really like that. I don't think anything gets fixed as much as we would like and the bigger events of the world are in the same vein I think. But I think it's been astonishing to me how men can actually talk to each other.
about very intimate things without grabbing each other's cocks or grabbing them if they want. But I mean, it's not a requirement to be gay to be able to talk about it or to be non-binary to be able to be vulnerable. And actually straight men are just as vulnerable as anyone else. And what I'm finding is that when we talk to each other, we gain some strength from the little bits.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (12:15.739)
Absolutely.
Mish Middelmann (12:24.766)
of vulnerability, the little bits of learning, the little bits of mindfulness that each of us is generating separately, together it becomes quite powerful.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (12:35.474)
Yeah, I think I've always been the person that was really comfortable talking about sex. And so for me, even like I know there's people in my life that have not always been comfortable talking about sex, but they get around me and because I start the conversation, they go, oh, I could talk about this. And I think that that's what I see you doing with your support group.
Right? You're willing to step forward and hold the space. I guess we should back up and say, Mish has a wonderful support group for men that are coming out of prostate cancer. Is that how you would describe it or going through the process of treatment or?
Mish Middelmann (13:18.862)
Pretty much, yeah. I've always built it as... As a pre-counter. I've always built it as affected by prostate cancer and men's sexual health. So, it's not... You don't have to have prostate cancer to come to the group, but you need to know that's the sort of center of the group. And not all the men who come to the group have prostate cancer, and sometimes people without... You know, who don't identify as male come to the group as well.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (13:29.417)
Okay.
Mish Middelmann (13:49.77)
But the central point is men who had prostates and have penises and either no longer have prostates or at least have prostate cancer and the various things coming with it. And it did come out of a website where I kind of had this experience nearly four years ago and like nobody seemed to be able to talk to me about the more intimate aspects of what was going on. And the medical world was very driven by proving that they could fix it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:19.614)
Mm.
Mish Middelmann (14:19.87)
And when I said, well, you fixed the, seem to have fixed the cancer and you've more or less fixed the urine control, but their sexual function is a bit more complicated. They were like, well, if it isn't fixable, then it's not really our business. We don't. And my surgeon was very honest. He said, I'm a great surgeon. I'm not good at this other stuff. Um, so I wished others would tell me their stories and they weren't doing it. So I started telling my own. So that, that's where kindred spirits in that way. I was just blessed with feeling. Okay.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:37.898)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:46.26)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (14:48.906)
by saying, well, if I had a broken leg, I would tell people if I have a broken penis, I also can tell people.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:54.482)
Yeah, it takes it takes all of us stepping up in some will somebody stepping up and telling their story and then it becomes like a snowball effect in so many ways. I when I got divorced in 2014, when I started to tell when I finally started to talk about it. This was our I first learned like how powerful vulnerability is that was back in the day when
Brene Brown was going really viral for her TED talk about vulnerability. And I said my piece, maybe in not the prettiest fashion at the time. And I started to get all these private messages from people saying, oh, thank you for sharing that. That resonates with me X, Y, Z. And I was like, whoa, there's a lot of gift. There's a big gift in being vulnerable. Not only was it a gift to the people that I was talking to, but it was a gift for me more than anything to just feel.
closeness that I and when I felt so alone
Mish Middelmann (15:56.859)
Well, thanks for sharing that. And I want to say for me as a man, around about the same time someone said that to me, Mish, you know, I wish you'd show a bit more of your vulnerability. Around about the same, you know, mid 2010s somewhere. And what I'm just remembering is that
Michelle Renee (she/her) (16:08.767)
Hmm
Mish Middelmann (16:17.534)
It didn't make sense to me because I was so aware of my vulnerability. I was like, what do you mean show my vulnerability? I'm crawling into the, under the carpet here, but that's not what I look like. I look like a tall white English speaking man with gray hair. I mean, all these sources of rank and privilege in the world are like piled onto me and like that's what I think most.
men with all those privileges don't realize is that walks into the room with us. And so I might be feeling like a little worm, but that's not what people see. And, and there's a code that is inculcated into us as men before we're conscious about how we can't show vulnerability. So much so that like when someone said it to me, I didn't know what they meant. And I think of my best friend who came out as gay at the age of 50 and how, again,
I asked him about it, how come he didn't even tell me? He's like, well, I don't know, nobody told me not to tell anyone, but I knew I couldn't tell anyone. I knew I couldn't tell anyone until I just fell so in love with a man that I couldn't hide it anymore. You couldn't not tell anyone. Yeah, and was basically outed, I think, by his wife. But it's like, there's something that is part of being a man, and it's not personal, it's systemic, that says,
Michelle Renee (she/her) (17:20.956)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (17:26.706)
You couldn't not tell someone. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (17:32.85)
Mm.
Mish Middelmann (17:43.154)
I keep my vulnerability inside and I even keep my sexual non-straightness inside and it's a kind of a shared illusion that we all create together. Like you just said, porn plays into that and there's a role of men in society plays into that. And people like me, and my dad was like that too, you know, he, I look back and go,
Michelle Renee (she/her) (17:46.038)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (18:11.458)
When he died, my aunt said, what am I gonna do without my sensitive brother? And I was like, what do you mean your sensitive brother? My dad was, he used to joke about eating cement for breakfast and he was like a corporate executive. He's got no vulnerability. Now he's been dead many years. I realized he had plenty of vulnerability, but he didn't really know how to show it. And he would probably bluster a bit when he did feel vulnerable. And I think that I can own that too, that that's my...
my go-to place if I'm vulnerable is to kind of get angry. And I think that's part of my legacy as just a male human being, is that sort of what the society's taught me. And this thing, this cancer, and one of the guys on our group this morning just said, "'This cancer has been a gift.'" And that's quite an extreme statement, but there are gifts of the cancer. And one of them for me has been to go, "'Yep, I don't know what to do.'" And...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (18:44.292)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (19:09.374)
I get into bed with my wife and we kind of get going and then I fade and it's sort of awkward and like I said I sort of become aware of myself and she sort of goes, well don't you love me if you can't get it up, you know? And that's vulnerable. It's like I'm not, like I'm on stage but I've lost my script. And um...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (19:35.411)
too.
Mish Middelmann (19:38.45)
Essentially, we've had to get off the stage. If we're off the stage, it's fine. But while we're on the stage in the spotlight, until we create a new script, and that's why I tried to introduce myself, proud owner of a softcock, because I think there could be a new script where I'm on stage and I've got this big, heavy thing slapping against my thigh and these balls dangling, and I'm powerful and I'm loving and I'm caring and I'm soft.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:07.935)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (20:08.79)
Like that's the new script I want!
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:11.198)
I love that script. I want, I want, I don't know, I haven't done a deep dive to find it, but is there erotica for soft penises? Like I would love that.
Mish Middelmann (20:22.362)
Oh wow, if Electric Blue is listening, you've got another customer. I've been chatting with a writer of erotica. I'm kind of wanting to write it and that's where those words probably came from. But I've been chatting to someone who wrote some erotica that worked for me and my wife. I just wrote to him and said, you know, we read your story together and we got off on it. It was amazing. And he said, oh, thank you. You know.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:35.273)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:45.773)
Oh, please send it my way.
Mish Middelmann (20:46.994)
He said, have you got any dreams? Have you got any dreams about stories? I said, I want soft cock erotica. And he said, hmm, you know, no promises, but maybe something will come of it. Because I think.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:57.998)
I mean, I would love to be connected just to give the push of like, if it is created, I want to be able to spotlight it.
Mish Middelmann (21:05.63)
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is from a website called Literotica and it doesn't have that genre, you know, it has all kinds of genres, but it doesn't have that and it has a mature genre, but it's, it's kind of young and old. That's what it's defined as a spring and autumn romances and I'm like, what about old and old? You know, that's my life is old and old and it's different and I want to push that.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:14.293)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:27.582)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:31.71)
Well, I'm going to go to I'm going to go to Literatica and say, if you create it, they will come. Right. Like if you build it, they will come.
Mish Middelmann (21:38.102)
Absolutely. I will read and I will write because there is something glorious about being softly sexual. And there's, again, for the men listening to this, most men, my experience as a man, was that sexuality was really concentrated around my cock and a sort of a...
six inch diameter around it. You know, I could feel it a little in my groin, my balls, maybe my belly if I was lucky. Now my erotic sensation is 100% from my toenails to the tips of my hair. And my sexual penetration, you could use the word, or intertwinement with my partner, is absolutely from our toes to our fingertips. And my peaks of
Michelle Renee (she/her) (22:06.74)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (22:33.318)
sexual ecstasy don't always have the rhythmic pulsation of an orgasm, but they still have, they still orgasmic. Sometimes they do have the rhythmic pulsations, but they don't have ejaculate because I haven't got a prostate anymore. So I have all the experiences I had before, but now it's like the radar screen has widened to cover...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (22:50.514)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (23:00.99)
are whole bodies and a couple of kilometers on each side of them. And the hard thumping kind of orgasm and a million other forms of radiance beyond those.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (23:15.838)
It's like your skin can just be electrified, right? We mystify this idea of the energetic orgasm in some circles. And I don't know if people think it just doesn't exist and that it's just made up maybe tantra thing or what have you, but no, you can absolutely have this full body electrified sensation without even touching genitals.
Mish Middelmann (23:19.051)
Absolutely.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (23:45.63)
So in those cases the hard penis is not needed is Absolutely not needed
Mish Middelmann (23:51.758)
I think I'm my sort of frontier, maybe this is not for this particular conversation, but maybe someone listening is going to call in about this. There's all that Mantak Chia and those people that my wife and I read with huge enthusiasm 10 or 15 years ago about really separating orgasm and ejaculation and being multi-orgasmic regardless of your gender.
got halfway there back then when I was about 50 and just horny as hell I wanted to try everything. I think I've gotten further now just because the standard route is less easy to follow and I've been having lots of things that I've written about called mini peaks but I mean what I had this weekend was a maxi peak I mean and it was in all I think I want to call it an orgasm. It didn't
Michelle Renee (she/her) (24:29.861)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (24:47.686)
I think in all genders with a typical orgasm. But all the other radiance and peak and sort of release and satisfaction were there. And I'm wondering if I've found this sort of Mantak Chia separation of ejaculation and orgasm that I couldn't quite do when I was 50.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (25:08.602)
Yeah, that just reminds me of like an expanded definition of orgasm or an expanded idea of what orgasm is. Because back in the day, people who have listened to much of my story, which I haven't told it on this, this soft cock week podcast, I don't think. But on my other podcast, I've talked about my journey into getting a better relationship with my orgasm.
And what I've never said I don't think publicly is that I was working with a woman named Betty Dotson. I don't know if you came across her in your time. Yes. And I remember there was a point where she said something about anything you feel. Like you feel that spark of something that's an orgasm. And when I was struggling with orgasm, that was enough to like, oh, it changed the...
Mish Middelmann (25:46.126)
Very famous, yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (26:07.71)
the story in my head that I struggled with orgasm because if I could make orgasm a much broader idea, then I too could be multi-orgasmic or even just a orgasm if it was just a spark. And that spark got to build, yeah, that spark got to build for me to where maybe the traditional sensation of orgasm was much more, it was easier for me to get there. But
Mish Middelmann (26:22.894)
This is exciting! Yes!
Michelle Renee (she/her) (26:35.826)
In the beginning, I think having that little, that spark, that expanded idea of what orgasm was, changed the story in my mind that I couldn't, that I had a hard time with orgasm.
Mish Middelmann (26:43.562)
Yes, yes, yes. And let me bring my male example of that, that there's a whole literature about blue balls and all that, that if we haven't come, then it's just, it's awful and it's unhealthy and it's damaging and blah, blah. I haven't really ever subscribed to that personally, but I have definitely felt that sense of disappointment of not getting over the edge.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (26:56.342)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (27:13.918)
And now I'm being asked, in an analogous way to what you asked, to just find the rolling hills. And my wife is also grappling with some similar issues. And we're both saying, if we allow those rolling hills to be beautiful, then a lot more becomes possible. If there is sort of only one cliff that you have to go over,
then every other hilltop, how many flowers there are, how beautiful and fresh the breeze is, it's just not, it's not the right one. And I just think we could let go of it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (27:51.598)
Yeah, you're missing it. Yeah, yeah. And that's where getting away from penis centered sex, where you have to have this hard cock for penetration. And you don't I mean, you need a hard cock for some kinds of penetration. But it getting away from that script is the only way that you're going to have this whether you maybe you always have a hard penis, you have so much that
Michelle Renee (she/her) (28:21.394)
one dot of sex rather than this entire world of sex. And yeah.
Mish Middelmann (28:28.05)
One of the guys, I should tell the story now, one of the guys who came to my website and has I think, you know, one of the guys I've met through this whole process, told me the story about how disappointed he was when his erections came back. He said, for the first year or so, I had no erection at all and you know, people's penises sometimes shrink a lot during that time as well. So he said, it felt more or less like I had a vulva. And it was really nice.
and when that reaction started coming back, it kind of got a bit in the way. And I offer that as an example. Like I've met this person and he's kind of quite macho, you know? So this was not about him trying to shift his gender identity. He just said, being soft down there felt really nice. And it did come back, but he just said, I loved it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (28:58.631)
Aww.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (29:03.722)
That's fascinating.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (29:23.638)
Yeah, it's a different experience. Yep. I imagine he got to play just a whole, he got to hold a different space.
Mish Middelmann (29:33.954)
That's what I find, is it asks me and it asks my partner as well to shift roles quite a lot. And to some extent that's just lovely and at other times it's a bit like, you know, you get a little lost. You're sort of somewhere and there's no map anymore because there were things that we both used to do that sort of took over almost automatically in the height of sexual passion and now those...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (29:43.58)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (30:03.03)
You have to find a new way. So I just want to, I don't want to be glib about this. You know, I don't think that if you're listening to us talk and you're going, hmm, I'd like to stop being so rigid in my definition of what sex is and isn't. That's a great breakthrough, but don't expect it to just sort of easily change. There will be times when the old patterns kind of
Michelle Renee (she/her) (30:04.925)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (30:31.17)
shake their fists and say like where's the erection and where's the penetration and you know do you still love me and all those kind of questions come up both from both sides and yeah for me there's a you use the word mourning there's a grief in that there's a and a sort of a lostness uh i'm a little lost right now um i don't quite know where to go actually that kind of feeling
Michelle Renee (she/her) (30:54.666)
Yeah, and that's the vulnerability. That, yeah, that's the vulnerability of that's what real to me, my definition of intimacy is a much broader definition than I think we have, we got stuck using code words, right? Because censorship is a real bitch. And in we can't just say sex anymore, we have to code it in different words. And so intimacy has kind of gotten hijacked.
Mish Middelmann (31:01.067)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (31:18.659)
Mmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (31:22.302)
as a code word for sex. But I think of intimacy as the vulnerability, as the showing up authentically and to take those feelings of, do you still love me? Are you still attracted to me? And having those out of your head and spoken to your partner to have a conversation is like an opening. It's an opportunity to have intimacy.
Mish Middelmann (31:23.478)
Yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (31:47.37)
to talk about what are the things that we're afraid of. I'm afraid that you're not attracted to me anymore. And you're afraid that I'm not a good lover anymore. Or like these things are opportunities to just have a different level of intimacy that is so much more than just keeping it in your head and hiding behind, like keeping those fears and hiding behind your macho-ness or maybe you're even avoiding physical intimacy.
Mish Middelmann (32:03.326)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (32:12.61)
Hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (32:17.438)
because you don't know what's gonna show up and you're afraid to navigate that new map.
Mish Middelmann (32:22.766)
So I just want to just really respect what you've said, because I think that voice usually comes from people born as women in my life. So my wife has spoken a lot for that. And I'm speaking for it now, but I just want to acknowledge that it didn't start with me. And she kept saying, Mish, focus more on intimacy. Don't focus so much on getting off. And I...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (32:38.954)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (32:51.614)
And I thought about, and I kind of get it now, like that's why we're having this conversation, but I wanted to sort of acknowledge that I didn't really. And I think part of it is that this body that I was given got off really easily and loves getting off and left to its own devices will do it very frequently and sometimes very quickly as well. And that...
perhaps is not the same as the intimacy you're talking about. There's sort of a shooting off that comes with a male body that is not that intimate really, you know? And I mean, I don't know if there are many, many who haven't sort of jerked off onto the floor, you know, which is not intimate at all. You're just standing there and this thing feels really nice and you rub it and then things happen. And so I think it's sort of a...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (33:30.905)
It doesn't always.
Mish Middelmann (33:49.162)
a relatively straight man, we often don't really get invited into intimacy by our lives. And sometimes if we're straight and heterosexual is kind of straight, we might have wives who kind of manage the intimacy side for us and provide the getting off experience for us, but to sort of slow down enough to get...
really into our own intimacy as men, I think that for me has taken a while. And I think it's taken aging and it's been helped by my physical body kind of going on strike a bit and saying, well, dude, you can't have that quick release that you... I mean, what can you do? You're born with the damn thing, right? And it's nice. So I don't want to be guilty about it, but I just want to go...
There's a lot more out there that the average... that for me as a man anyway, I didn't... I didn't fully get. I sort of knew and I wanted and I was... that's my attraction to sex but... I'm not sure that I fully got it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (35:02.843)
Yeah, and that's a lot of my work is trying to help people get it. In my work in intimacy, it's like I want to expand people's ideas of intimacy and that's why I do a lot of work that's not sexual. It's like, see if you can show up in a way. If we get, I'm just going to talk as somebody who doesn't have a penis and I don't really know what it's like to be on your side.
Mish Middelmann (35:19.566)
Hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (35:30.662)
but it seems like on my side, we, I say we, the male bodied person shows up. And if I'm taking them into sexual intimacy, it's just like, I know what I know and it's like a straight line and it's, how do I describe it?
Mish Middelmann (35:31.598)
Thanks.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (35:58.682)
I want it to not be a straight line. I want it to be a more curvy mountain road in like in and out of different spaces that is not just this we're trying to get to this destination. And part of that curvy road is little stops to say what's going on for you. You know, I'm the kind of person that will pause something and say I have to tell you this thing that just popped in my head because I don't want it in my head anymore. And, and
Mish Middelmann (36:14.711)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (36:19.214)
That's good. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (36:28.134)
And it might not make any sense, but I need to just share it. Like that to me is the sweet spot of being naked next to another body.
Mish Middelmann (36:36.728)
Yeah. So for me, this...
What you're speaking to so beautifully is the sort of straight me loves that about a woman, that she has that softness and those curves and that complex journey and the pathway that is not so direct and simple and obvious. So there's a part of me that loves that and is deeply attracted to that, but often what I used to anyway bring is the hard part that penetrates that and has a direction.
Um, and...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (37:12.617)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (37:16.802)
That just is what it is, I think, as a young man. And I can see, I kind of feel for you, if you're a woman and you're attracted to men, that you have to deal with us being so simple. What I can offer is take a pill away 10, 20 years, and we might get a bit more complex, you know?
Michelle Renee (she/her) (37:34.65)
Oh, absolutely. So I happen to be a woman who has lovers on both ends of the age spectrum. And there is a difference. There is a real difference. And I love them all. I love them all. But it's
Mish Middelmann (37:44.774)
Right. Well, I mean, I think, yeah, I think that youthful exuberance and eagerness and directness and hardness is fabulous too. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So let's not put that wrong. But I want to just take, yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (37:56.598)
No. But we all change. We all change. It doesn't matter if you end up going through prostate cancer or not. As as you as you age in both no matter what gender you're born in, things change and we're all I think working through our own grieving process of those changes. I know myself as somebody who's definitely in perimenopause now. There are changes happening.
Mish Middelmann (38:05.178)
Mm.
Mish Middelmann (38:17.195)
Yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:24.974)
and I have to let go of who I used to be. Right, I have to, otherwise I'm living in this, why can't it be like it used to be? And that is not present.
Mish Middelmann (38:35.278)
So that's just, like I often say, the number one energetic, I call it a meta skill that kind of come from place for the 21st century is adaptability. It's like, it's the one thing we all have to be good at to survive this century. So beautifully spoken for that. I just, before we run out of time, I want to, like, I think we agreed we're going to talk about support. And I think, I think that, I also think what's showing up.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:46.87)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:51.827)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:59.954)
Yeah, we should probably touch on that more.
Mish Middelmann (39:04.846)
is two different ways into support. Like you come into support for men visibly and technically in a female form and I come into support visibly and technically in a male form. And like what are we learning from those two different ways? Like this, it's pretty obvious to me there's no right way. But it's like...
Maybe we can spend a few minutes just kind of going, so what's coming from these two different approaches to support or the two different embodiments of the person who's holding the space for that to happen.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (39:46.578)
Yeah, I want to say, I think it's a both. We need both. And I wish it was easier for men to access support for men, right? I think that it's a natural draw to get the support from either their partner or a professional in the female body. I think that it's missing something though.
Mish Middelmann (39:53.675)
Mmm.
Mish Middelmann (40:10.231)
Yes.
Mish Middelmann (40:13.544)
sense.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (40:16.486)
it's missing, like I think men are missing that component in their life, whether they're dealing with sexual dysfunction or not. That there was, I remember article years ago talking about how men just don't have the depth of friendship that women do and they're missing out, right? They're putting a lot of emotional labor on their partner and it's necessary for full rich life.
Mish Middelmann (40:42.188)
Yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (40:43.69)
to have these close relationships with other men. And that's what we wanted to talk about. Yes.
Mish Middelmann (40:46.726)
Yeah. And that's a new frontier for most of us. So I just let me say thank you for that. And let me say that my experience with this, that I say started a bit randomly, that I just need other guys to talk to about what was going on in my body and my heart and my relationship and my life and nobody else was doing it. What, what's emerged from that. And we just had like a 32nd call. So that's, I don't know, two, three years of these calls.
It's helped that it's on Zoom. So there is freedom to be your own sexual being in your own space. And we're not having to address the question of sexuality between the members of the group, because we're all in different physical locations. It seems that there's a process of deepening. So we start off, we come in off the street.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (41:34.667)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (41:43.766)
from a world where as men we're expected to show up, as my therapist once said, numb from the neck down and kind of project through our outer body and our heads, our competence and everything and to talk about solutions. It's very much to talk about solutions and most of the reason I started the group is most of the online support groups were just talking about
medical insurance and technical medical solutions like what's the best technical solution to this problem and I quite quickly realized that it is some of it isn't going to get fixed by either of those so we're coming off the streets thinking solutions holding a sort of persona of invulnerability and what I notice on each call is that we start there and then somebody drops down just a little bit and says
I'm feeling really bummed out. And then somebody else drops down a little further and says, you know, I really miss my erections. Or somebody said, you know, I wet my pants. And the whole circle then functions at that deeper level. And that's the essence of the support happening, is that like, you have told me what it's like for you and I will tell you what it's like for me. And...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (42:55.562)
Mm-hmm.
Mish Middelmann (43:07.614)
We never go back up again. We might stay at that level for a while, and then somebody else is touched enough to share a bit deeper, and then we function at that level. And the next time we meet, we come back to the surface again. But I think those who have been there a bit longer tend to sort of more quickly take the opportunities to step us down.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (43:27.882)
The muscle gets built.
Mish Middelmann (43:32.682)
And then I want to say that one of the men who was a strong supporter of this, has been a strong supporter of this group, and we've made friends, although we never met each other, we've made friends through this work, he reported back recently that he was off on a men's mountain biking weekend. So like the most macho thing, you know, five guys on their mountain bikes all day long, coming back, having a beer, having beers together, eating...
you know, dinner together, da da, for several days. And then he said on the last morning at breakfast, one of the guys just said, Oh, you know, how are you doing, you know, with your cancer or something, which is already breaking the male code, right? You're not supposed to ask that. But someone did ask him, so he answered. And then one of the other guys said, you know, well, I've been having a bit of trouble down there too, doesn't have prostate cancer. And then a third guy chipped in.
And he said he essentially saw exactly the same thing happening without it being built as a support group, without other people having prostate cancer. So what I'm kind of saying is there's something about men that we can create the space where we support each other. And it doesn't reflect at all on our sexuality or our weakness. It just reflects on our ability to share. And that's...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (44:56.138)
Yeah, people want an invitation. They want an invitation to share. And when that first person takes that drop in, as you said, it's, there's the invitation. I think everybody's waiting for it. So with or without a formalized support group.
Mish Middelmann (44:58.559)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (45:15.958)
Who wants to be the brave one to go first? Because I promise you, there is a reward on the other side of that.
Mish Middelmann (45:24.578)
Definitely. And it will look different for each person who's listening to us speak. For some people you will just find the only way you loosen up is when there's somebody with those softer curves that you're talking to. And you know, Michelle, you and many others are offering that and it's fantastic and many of us that's how we soften up and loosen up. And there's people like me who's saying, well, I have that same hard body.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (45:39.14)
Thank you.
Mish Middelmann (45:52.686)
but it has softness in it as well. And you might like to talk to other men where there's a sort of shared obviousness about what's hard in us and what's directive and demanding in us, because that is part of what the legacy of being a man is, and it doesn't need to limit us.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (46:02.187)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (46:10.334)
Yeah. I'm so glad you're in this world, Mish, doing what you're doing. And I'm glad that we've been connected. And I feel so honored to have had this time with you and to share what feels like a real heart-to-heart connection. Like, I just want to send my love, my love to you through the screen. Big hugs.
Mish Middelmann (46:31.382)
Thank you so much.
Mish Middelmann (46:36.406)
Thank you so much. And to you and the lovely work you're doing and your care for us men, it's fantastic. And just, if there is somebody listening who particularly people who have prostate cancer and related issues, www.recoveringman.net is the website where all the stories are being shared. And I'm up for publishing your story if you're listening. And...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (47:02.654)
Yeah.
Mish Middelmann (47:03.154)
In that same website there's a section called conversations and in there you'll find the registration for the support group which meets roughly every three weeks in different time zones around the world. So there's one that suits your time zone roughly every month and a half and if you're lucky it'll be every month depending on where you live.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (47:23.174)
That's awesome. I know we have lots of links to lots of your stories in our resource section at softcockweek.com and I'll be putting together the show notes when this releases. And I wanna send my partner to you just for the men, the men's support in general. I think he would thrive in this space. He has a lovely soft heart. I love him.
Mish Middelmann (47:43.327)
It's.
Mish Middelmann (47:46.683)
I mean it's fabulous to have the both, I think. And it makes the world a better place.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (47:50.722)
Absolutely.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (47:55.215)
It does. Thank you so much. Much love. And I'm sure we'll have you back next year. Yes.
Mish Middelmann (47:57.646)
Thank you. Mwah. Thank you.
Love back at you.
