S9E09: Ask a Sex Therapist: What Happens if I Come Out Later in Life? With Dr. Joe Kort

This summer, we're reflecting on the ten most common questions we hear from our relationship and sex therapy clients. 

Growing up in a high control religious space means that queer people often have to repress their sexuality, and may not come out until their late 20s, 30s, or later, which has significant impacts on sexuality and relationship development. 

We are thrilled to have Dr. Joe Kort, host of the Smart Sex, Smart Love podcast and author of Side Guys, to talk with us about how Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal communities negatively impact the coming out process. Joe talks with us about:

• Shame & Self-Acceptance (6:00): Joe kicks us off, “ I believe that when you tell children that they have to oppress their sexuality, erotic orientation, sexual orientation, romantic interests, and role play, and then people don't discover this until later in life because they believe as children, that I'm straight, that I'm cisgender, that I'm whatever, you know you have attractions, you know you have interests, but you're being shamed out of them.”

• Culture Of Trauma (7:00): Julia notes, “ Sometimes I'll have clients come to therapy and they will say, "Well, I grew up in this very negatively sexual religious space, but I wasn't abused by my pastor or my youth leader, or I don't have this explicit incident of trauma." However, what I hear you describing and what I and so many of my clients have experienced is that the culture around some of those religious spaces, especially around queerness, is in and of itself a culture of trauma and abuse.”

• Coming Out Later in Life (10:00): Jeremiah discusses: “There's a 2006 study, The average age of coming out to others was 27 for women, 24 for men. So for the sake of our conversation, let's consider later in life to be after the age of 25. Even then, later in life is still a large span of time, and a person who comes out as a late 30-something millennial, let's say, may experience different psychological and social reactions compared to a Gen Z  or a boomer who comes out.”

• Building Community (14:00): Joe shares, “ I might say to them to get online and build community, do it anonymously if you can do that so that you don't have to worry about your identity or that you'll be outed prematurely … Get out there and go to the centers, go to the affirmative places. Really get an understanding of all the different types of ways to manifest being not straight.”

• Losing Privilege (18:00): Jeremiah notes, “ You're holding onto all of the secrets, the manifestations of shame. You have the loss of heterosexual privilege that you experience when you come out later in life.”

• Making Up For Lost Time (20:00): Julia discusses, “Jeremiah and I have noticed that when folks have grown up in a community that demonizes queer sexuality, and then they come out later in life, whatever that later is, they've experienced some sort of developmental loss. They didn't get to explore the way that other 15, 16, 21-year-olds did, and so they might be 35 and to have an advanced degree and have met other significant developmental milestones. But then they're in these relationships trying to catch up doing the work that some 13-year-olds have done.”

• Stages of Coming Out (23:00): Joe says: “ There's stages of coming out. I show it to them, stage five of coming out, and help them. Because they'll even think they might be a sex addict. And the religious community likes to put that label on them, right? … It's like a teenager. If you tell 'em to stop, they're not gonna stop … But I help them see that this isn't gonna last, but that they're going to meet some disappointment during that time. They'll have lots of pleasure, but they're gonna meet some disappointment too.”

• Grief (26:00): Julia notes, “ Some of the grief that a formerly religious person might have is, "Oh, well. I don't get to be seen as my full authentic self." Now on one hand, the straight presenting relationship might protect them from some oppression, and they still might feel a certain sense of closetedness.”

• Client Questions (29:00): Joe shares, “ You're gonna have to start from scratch, right? You're gonna have to do your own sex education … Can you strengthen yourself to recognize that when you say certain things, being an open marriage, non heteronormative interests, like can you tolerate the fact that people are gonna wanna judge you? And if you're gonna have a reaction to the trauma of being judged from your religion?”

• Misunderstanding Kink (32:00): Joe discusses, “ We have really good research now that show there's no more or less trauma in somebody who's not kinky. So I point them right to the research and then even if it is from trauma, and I tell my trauma clients. All over the board, you can go from trauma reenactment and trauma repetition to trauma play.”

• Finding an Affirmative Therapist (37:00): Joe continues, “An affirmative therapist isn't gonna say alternative lifestyle, right? Because for me, straight life is an alternative lifestyle. We're not gonna use the term homosexual because homosexual is only used by anti-gay religious zealots who say there's nothing gay about being a homosexual.”

• “Side” & Grindr (39:00): Joe shares his proudest career moment: “ Side is mine. Nobody taught me that side was just me coming out as a guy who doesn't like intercourse and only likes outer course. And the reason it became popular is I became brave about it at gay men's workshops in the two thousands … Then I wrote about it on Huffington Post in 2013 … it caught the attention of people at Grindr and  then somebody said, I wanna start a Facebook group … then Grindr people, we got their attention … And then one day I woke up my name was everywhere, and it was attributed to side”

• Substack, Lisa Diamond, & Sexual Fluidity (43:00): Jeremiah shares the research, “ In the subset article we reflected on, I think Lisa Diamond has like four different processes by which sexual fluidity commonly happens and, and talks about the importance of context situational, getting back to what you were talking about regarding, erotic attraction and the circumstances and situations that might derive that.”

• Finding Humor in the Serious (44:00): Julia highlights Joe’s social media impact: “ I wonder, even for folks who are listening who are unsure how to connect with their values, they can go to your social media, you ask a lot of amazing questions. Yeah. And you also have some good playful content because sexual health can be pretty serious, and yeah. It is serious for a reason. We also need some giggles along the way, and Joe, you provide that.”