192 Change The Message

One sentence at 12 years old can set the tone for decades and not in a good way. We unpack the “just use protection” mindset, why it quietly normalizes risky choices, and how a lack of supervision pushes kids into adult decisions before they’re ready. If you care about teen pregnancy prevention, real-world sex education, or helping young people avoid life-altering consequences, this conversation goes straight at the problem: the message is broken, and we’re still passing it along. 

We also talk about what happens when that same messaging follows people into adulthood. A lot of men are taught to treat sex like the scoreboard of a relationship, then get frustrated when marriage, stress, and everyday life change the rhythm. We explain why mismatched desire shouldn’t become chaos, why planning can be normal, and why intimacy without emotional safety turns into pressure, resentment, and bad decisions. Healthy relationships are built on communication, curiosity, and respect, not entitlement. 

We push past the myths and into accountability. When people blame outcomes on fate, they skip the hard but empowering truth: choices plus poor guidance create predictable results. We challenge misogynistic beliefs that get justified by “old school” traditions and argue for a culture where women get peace and partnership, not punishment. If this hits a nerve, share it with someone raising kids, dating seriously, or trying to build a stronger marriage. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what message you think young people need to hear first.

Transcript

Social Media Pushback And Protection

SPEAKER_00 0:11

What up, though, and welcome back to I'm Growin' Man, Shaman John D in the building. So today's episode is inspired by some responses from people on my social media. So I wanted to like it's like people are responding, some people are pretty negative. It's the uh response about women not not being protected. It's the reason why some of them make decisions they've been compromised because their father was absent. And and even if you're in the the life of there was some things, some messages missed, because no no daughter wants to grow up and say, I would that's what I wanted to do. Life got to life and because some men didn't protect them. And that's a tough pill to swallow because that's the this why I wanted to get on here, because I'm all about courageous conversations and I'm willing to sit down with anybody that believes that the ideas that I'm saying is is crazy. We

Change The Message For Kids

SPEAKER_00 1:17

just gotta change the message. So I was I was just thinking, what if we change the message to like, hey, the reason why you don't have promiscuous sex because you only do it to make babies and to have intimate moments with somebody you really like, more than just what they look like or what do you think they can do in the bed, like whatever your fantasy is. Like we're making bad decisions because of this idea in our heads. And when I say this, I know people could say that's pretty broad, but as a man and as a man who speaks spoken to a bunch of men, only hit dogs will holler, okay? So this is gonna be as productive as possible because there are young people out here following a poorly delivered message. If you in high school, you in middle school, there is nobody that special to you at that young of an age where you could possibly alter your life. Nobody is that important to you. And I and this is this is from my heart to yours. I only want you to win. But if anybody thinks that you're supposed to be playing that part of the game at such a young age, that's bad information we're giving to the young. They don't even have a chance to find the potential because they're doing poorly written messages. Like, no kids, they're gonna be people that tell me I'm tripping. But at the end of the day, I want people to win. And if anybody can find why this message shouldn't be changed, is is crazy. Like, we can change the message. The problem is that we've been passing on messages without like really breaking it down. Like, is that a good message to pass? You know, I I I do want to say this. My my father told me that it was okay for me to participate in those activities as long as I use protection. He told me that at 12. So, of course, that's ridiculous, but in my mind, that was just what men do. So I'm thinking like this at 12. Having that message at such a young age caused me to make a lot of bad decisions. And in my mind, I thought it was just something fun to do. I didn't know that the consequences would have been what I've seen over the years. You know, who wants the story that you had a baby with somebody that you don't even like for real? Like, we have to change the narrative because when kids are participating in these activities, that's because they don't have any supervision. And when you don't have any supervision, you start making decisions that adults make, but no adults are around because no adult would want their kid doing these activities. So we're gonna have to collectively grow and make better decisions. So as a young man, and and and people might say this is old school, but it ain't really old school. It's just like, what do you want out of life? This whatever you think you're gonna get when you have sex, you gotta ask yourself this. And if you can ask yourself this and you can come away with it, go for it. But you gotta ask yourself, is the risk worth the reward? So if you look at it, if if the risk is getting pregnant, getting a disease, is it worth the whatever you think you're gonna get out of it? And I'm telling you, people's stories change every day because of bad decision making. So we're gonna have to make a better breakdown of why kids shouldn't be doing things like this. And it's

Adult Relationships And Realistic Sex Expectations

SPEAKER_00 5:07

fast forward it going into let's talk about adults. Like, I do know that there are women out there that would love to get in a relationship. And I used to know guys, like I know a lot of guys, right? And I thought certain guys would be ready for this life, and I was wrong. And so I don't like, I don't even know what it sounds like because I these guys were great guys. And to see how difficult this game is, you gotta be cut differently. But in order to do well in this game, you have to know some rules. And the rules don't mean anything if you're following a poorly written message. Like sex, back to sex. If you're an adult and you're in a marriage before you get married, understand this, men. For some reason, we think like like this is for like new new couples, new relationship. This is just things that I've recognized. When you in the beginning, your energy's different because you kind of you guys are like really excited about each other, so your body's turned on. It's different. You know what I'm saying? And I think as, I don't think, but as time goes on, that energy dies down because it's an everyday thing. Before you guys were seeing each other not that often. Now you're like living together, it's different. So when you do want to do something, it's gotta be planned. And I know that people don't like this, but everybody's bodies are different. And if somebody's body's not in it, and a guy, specifically men, if they want to do something and a woman's not up for it, the men get all crazy in the head. Like, what you mean? Like, and they'll find a reason to make sex important to leave the relationship. And that is a poor message, too. Like, sex is not that serious. Now, it can be serious for two people who are mature enough to enjoy it, but to to throw the everything else of the relationship away because of what you think sex is, is a poor message.

Intimacy Beyond Sex And Better Talks

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Like, I don't know what you would consider a healthy relationship, a healthy sex relationship, but I do know this. If you don't have the other stuff to fill the relationship, like if you guys can't talk to each other, like can you talk about anything that doesn't involve social media? And when I say social media, I mean it could be anything. Because you should be able to have conversations with each other where you're learning about each other. Like, oh, I didn't know you felt like that. Why'd you think like that? Like, where did you get that from? How did you learn? How did you know how to think like that? Because the relationships can be so cold if two people know that that's what they're trying to do. Like, people think sex is this thing. And I look, I grew up on it too. But it isn't that serious. Like, it can only, it, it should only be taken seriously for two mature people. But everybody who's just having it just to be having fun, like, you got to be really responsible for the worst not happening. And a lot of people are not reacting that way. They are passing red flags and creating new stories that they didn't even want. And I'm trying to say, hey, it is not worth it. For any young person or any young adult looking to do something, it's going to take a mature version of you to like really determine who who deserves your time. Like, I remember and look, courageous conversations. I remember I used to get a lot of attention in high school. And when I went to college, I got a lot of attention. So I had this idea that women always treated me a certain way. I noticed that other guys didn't get treated the same way, but I couldn't understand, like, because I was immature, I was just like, okay, everybody likes me. So, like, and when I say like me, I mean like my energy. They like to be around me. Because I was not in relationships. I like, was friends with people. I was not in any committed relationships because my father told me that college is the best years of your life. So don't get in a relationship. So after I got out of high school, I was just gonna be like, you know, growing up, you hear this player music. So it was real easy for me to just take that idea. Like, I'm gonna be a player. So, but my MO was like, I still wanted to get to know you, but I in my head, remember, my father told me as long as you use a condom, so now I'm out here making bad decisions. Like I could have got anybody pregnant, I could have got a disease that just changed everything in my life. But that's what I was taught. And now I am seeing people still play this game. And it's a poor message. It ain't even as fun as people think. You can have some great moments, but just one risk that develops, you won't even think about. The moment will never be like, oh my God, that moment though, it was worth the moment. You won't ever say that. So we have to make better decisions. And we gotta tell these young people like you can't even get to what you're supposed to get to because you wanna start having babies at such a young age. I really feel bad for people who have to tell that story because that is it's gotta be the most difficult journey. And nobody deserves it, let alone a kid. You know what I'm saying? Like, we got grown kids that don't know how to deal with relationships, but we gonna let these young kids play this game. We have to change the message. It's it's not fair that we set them up because we're not having real conversations. Like with my kids, I we taught our kids that it was really only for making babies and intimate moments. So we kind of created this idea where why would you just want to lay down with anybody? Like you could get a, you know, baby or you could get a disease. So they just thought, like, yeah, why would you do that? So when I learned how they viewed it over the years, and I was like, oh, we gotta just say different things because none of these kids want to throw away their life for this feeling. We think this, we're telling them like this feeling is like worth, like, like it's just gonna like make you feel better in life. No, it's not. This little funny feeling that people feel after they do it, it's not worth it. And like, this is what I want to tell all men.

Mastering Urges And Owning Consequences

SPEAKER_00 11:59

If you was cold out here, like if you really knew yourself, you could master that part where that would not dictate anything. Most of us can't master that. And we've taught, look, it's easy we can't master because they kind of taught us that we're supposed to be like animalistic and we gotta, you gotta like, like get what we want. We're supposed to populate the earth. All of these messages, it sounds good, but in the life you want to live, you need to make better decisions because I tell you this: not one of those kids said, I wish my father just was not gonna be around. That's what I'm saying. We have to make better decisions. Some of us have made some decisions, but we can change the message and be like, yo, y'all tripping. It ain't the feeling isn't even look, check this out. I'm gonna tell you this. Playing with somebody's heart, let alone participate in intercourse, is not worth any of the rewards. Like, people's like, I want to feel giddy. Like, why? Like, nobody really, you got to really get to know somebody before you give somebody that much part of you. Because a lot of us are immature, and I want to help change this message. We have to understand that sex should only be taken like with mature people. Like that the intent gotta be different. It can't just be for fun. And if you are under 25, I don't know why you would be having any of this because you're supposed to still be learning who you are. Like, if you if you don't give yourself a shot of really developing into the adult that you're supposed to do when you go out to the world and you start playing these games too early, you have to tell a different story. I'm not saying that you can't have a beautiful story, but if you look back, you're like, man, I could have done it differently. I want other people to know, hey, you don't have to make these decisions to say, I'm gonna play those games. Those games are not worth it. And I I look at all of the people who have some crazy stories to tell. Like, they made it cool to like live dangerously. Like, life is already dangerous enough without letting somebody I barely know dictate what's gonna possibly happen, but it's a little trick cheap thrill. Like, we have to be honest to ourselves. Like, these women are interested in us for the most part because they want to build something. And I don't know if, well, I know that most men aren't that mature to do that because a woman will do that because thinking that's what's going to get them in, and that's that's some poor messaging too. Like, you know, I just wish that we could come together and I guess this is why this episode is so important to me. My father told me at 12 that it was okay. By 14, I was doing it because I got tired of lying to these kids, telling them that I wasn't. Because I didn't want to be a liar. So I so I had, I did it. And after that, it was just like, oh, that was that was it. Like, I'm like, okay. But just think about this. What if she got pregnant? Like, I was 14. She was younger than me. Like, I got this information at such a young age, and I think I'm being responsible. That is a terrible place to be. And I see that it's still happening. Like, we have to send better messages. And I feel like you shouldn't be laying down with anybody that's not important enough to make those decisions with. Like, I know a lot of people are gonna hate that, but if you're gonna do that, it's gotta be responsibly. We got just all of these kids out here growing up in single parent households because we we followed somebody's message and got got led us to there. We gotta just, we gotta for real, everybody's gotta play their role. Like, and I know it's very difficult to listen to people that that say you should do this, but I'm telling you, if you are important enough, don't put yourself in a situation like that where your story could change. And then, like, okay, I guess this is this is what God wanted for me. No, that's what you did. God didn't do that to you. The lack of supervision, the lack of people around you pulling you to the side saying, hey, you know we could be doing something better than this. Like, you don't have that. So we have to change the message so that when we are not around, they won't be doing stuff like that. We have to be better. I'm really big on this, I'm almost 50 thing, because I can't believe how reckless I lived my life that I'm able to be here and say, hey, we can really change the message. But people gotta understand the lack of supervision causes chaos. Kids are kids. They're gonna make kid-like decisions. And you know what's so disappointing when you have parents helping the kid like decisions with the kids, because they never got to mature themselves, had babies too early. So if you can't mature in a certain area because you gotta be mature in a certain area because you got to be this person, you are still immature in areas that was not able to develop. So now we got chaos because we don't know how to say, hey, when there's nothing to do, let's read a book. Let's work on something. What is it they say that uh an idle mind has devil's thoughts or whatever, something like that, where if you ain't got nothing to do, you'll find things that you're not supposed to do. So we have to be a lot more intentional with what our kids are being consumed with because them making adult decisions at such a young age says that it's a lack of supervision and that they think they're the exception. Like the bad things can't happen to them. And let's say this, let's hypothetically, let's say they get through it. It's gonna create a terrible confidence, like you know how to do it, and it ain't gonna do nothing, then it's gonna be with the wrong person, and then you be like, What happened? You've been playing the wrong game the whole time. You just got away with it for as long as you did. How about this? Some people's life changed in the very first time. Some people's life don't change because they got this confidence that, like, okay, I'm doing it the right way. It's the wrong way still. Cause somebody getting hurt. Like, like, I'm telling you, relationships are for mature people. And if you out here just promiscuously having sex because you haven't found your person, that's a lot of energy going to somebody that don't deserve your time. And I feel like you deserve better than that. So just understand that. And you know, I think because as a man, I've seen men at old age, and they they say things that I remember saying when I was in this mindset, like, she thinks. She can go. Like, in my mind, now that I I feel like I've mature, like I've I've done that at my young age to know that just because it looked like that don't mean it's gonna be fun. It's just, it just looks like that. And a lot of times we get tricked with a fantasy and we try to recreate with something, with somebody who doesn't deserve our time. And boom, story changes because we're taught that we're supposed to be like this. We have to develop the mastery of that part because that can be controlled. You don't know it can be controlled. Well, really, you should know. Like, you got the freedom to do whatever you want. When some people say, I shouldn't have to do that, I shouldn't have to take care of myself. I'm married. Why not? Like, who said that you are not supposed to take care of yourself? Like, it should be for making babies and intimate moments. And most of the time, if you want to do it, it's probably not an intimate moment because it wasn't something that led up to it. It's not like you got in the heat of moments. She's like, no, we can't do that. It's most of the times when you are just ready to go and she wasn't ready to go. Like, you gotta warm her up. And I think we don't know the rules of that before we get married because I'm telling you, sex decreases a lot. And if you, if it is important to you, you're not mature enough yet. And there's gonna be people that come for me because they say that that's important. But I'm telling you, if it can dictate how, if your relationship is gonna continue, you are not mature yet. Because, okay, check this out. And you could be immature in that area just because you the wrong message. The information I'm giving you is to help the relationship. It's not to hurt anybody. I'm just trying to make sure that everybody gets the benefits from it. Because if you go into a relationship and you don't know what you're supposed to get out of it, you could get those mistakes. You deserve better than that. And if you don't talk about it, it's the reason why I talk like this. Because I'm gonna change some of this information that we got out here because people are making bad decisions because they think they're doing it the right way. And it could still be the wrong way because we are endangering ourselves with making poor decisions from the telephone game. And I'm telling you, if you think that there's a man that wants to argue that it's okay to make bad decisions at an age 14, 13, 12, I tell you this, they didn't have parents because that's a tough life to recover from a mistake at such a young age. And I don't, I think every kid deserves to get a fair start, to get, you know, go to school with the intent of learning as much as they can so that they can make a decision what they want to do when they become an adult, but they still work on themselves, not get distracted by things that can slow them down like sex. I'm not saying you can't have it. I'm not saying it you you shouldn't want to do it, but it should be done responsibly. And I think if it's not done responsibly, we get all of these, this is God. God did this. And you know, it's so I get tight when people tell me, you know, my babies was no mistakes, you know, they God wanted me to have this. Oh my gosh. That's already we lying to ourselves. Like that's not even fair. So it's already saying that these kids already been lied to. So they got this energy that it's okay to make those mistakes because God did this. That's a terrible message to pass on to kids. And if we as adults don't help people find things to do, it's like learn, improve, make better decisions, the cycle is gonna continue so we can pass on better messages. We got too many people in the community doing well, but we have to change that message. That's what I wanted

Sex Myths, Misogyny, And Closing Mindset

SPEAKER_00 23:00

y'all to know. Like uh, if if we keep making it seem like sex is that important, it's gonna be difficult to. Well, I guess, you know, as an example, we we gotta show why relationships are important outside of sex, because that is that's the myth. It's crazy. That's a real life myth. Like, sex is that important. Like, if anybody does their real research about people who's really happy and how they expend their time, you'll understand. And it's very rare that people talking about sex. It's really just young people or people that have a lot of energy, they won't burn off, they got different practices. But I'm saying, like, the relationships that don't want those things to play a role, they still happy. They figure it out. But if you think it's that important, and and and I'm gonna tell you this, you gotta watch who you talk to also, because some, depending on a relationship, it's some misogynistic views that still be in practice. And it's really difficult to convince people because they use the Bible as the reason why things are okay. And I just feel like my wife deserves better treatment than what the Bible said, like you know what I'm saying, or the Quran. Like, I feel like things could change. If these documents was written a long time ago, we could adjust them to according to now. But if you still practicing old school beliefs, the woman is not going to get the benefit of the doubt. And that's why we're here today. Women are deciding to go with peace because men don't know the amount of work it actually takes to be successful in a relationship. If we can get changed that message about sex and men truly believe they're that important, they'll make sure that they won't waste their time with somebody. They would do the due diligence. But until then, I'll keep trying to change this message. Changing the culture one conversation at a time. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G-A-T-A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.