Sexuality, Male Trauma and Healing Through Rough and Tumble Play | Rafe Kelley 🎙️

Suppressed pain (trauma) and shame in young boys often turns into violence and aggression. We heal these wounds by inviting men to share their stories honestly and openly, without shaming them.

The Human Freedom Project is my contribution to a more conscious, healthy and free world. You can find an archive of written articles on the website, listen to the podcast on Apple and listen or watch on Spotify and the YouTube channel. I don’t have sponsors and all of these projects take dozens of hours per week. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work.

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Dear friends,

Will you go there with us…and be the new healing impulse our world needs?

This conversation left me reeling. In a good/hard way.

Some of the most important topics for us to discuss - if we want to heal ourselves and our world - are the hardest to approach. They are the most culturally taboo; the most painful and triggering; and the most socially uncomfortable.

Sex. Abuse. Violence. Gender differences. Touch literacy.

Absent the courage to bring them into the light, these universal human experiences fester in the shadows, haunt our bodies, fracture our psyches, and feed the cycle of generational trauma that will only end when someone says:

“I will not suppress this pain any longer.
I will not remain silent.
This cycle ends with me.”

Rafe Kelley is my podcast guest today, and the conversation that ensued after I hit the record button is one I have never experienced - publicly or privately - until now.

It took me a few hours to process and integrate everything that Rafe shared.

This was a brave foray into family lineage, hope and horror, love and healing, childhood sexual trauma and its impact on the male psyche and body, and the power of rough and tumble play to help us negotiate our physical, psychological and sexual boundaries.

I’ve been very open about my own childhood sexual trauma, but I have never talked to a man about his.

After recording this podcast it occurred to me that we rarely hear about the sexual abuse of boys (except for the occasional church scandal that makes headlines for a few weeks and then disappears again into the shadows). So much public attention around rape and sexual abuse is focused on girls and women.

As difficult as it may be, we need to talk about these things - publicly and privately.

We need to give men space to talk about their traumas and abuse; about male sexuality, aggression and violence - without making them wrong. This is how we get to the bottom of things, to the true root causes of social traumas. Because suppressed pain tends to show up differently for men than it does for women, and blaming each other only begets yet more pain.

We will only heal the gender divide and the many social wounds rooted in sexual trauma and violence when we make space in our hearts to truly understand one another, including our differences; to forgive each other (and ourselves); to repair the ruptures between us with as much grace extended to one another as we can muster.

I’m deeply moved by Rafe’s courage to speak publicly about all of this, and I hope you will give this episode the listening it deserves.

Episode highlights (timestamps available on YouTube and Spotify):

• Rafe’s Background and Interests

• Childhood and Family History

• Early Experiences with Violence and Martial Arts

• Navigating Personal Trauma and Healing

• Struggles in Marriage and Therapy

• Facing and Releasing Trapped Traumas

• Healing Through Rough and Tumble Play

• Impact of Birth Stories

• Why Adults Need Play + Sexual Dynamics

• Boundaries, Consent and Safety in Relationships

• Touch Literacy

• The Moral Fabric of Society

Connect with Rafe:

Website  ➡️ https://www.evolvemoveplay.com
YouTube ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/@RafeKelley

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In case it is of interest to you, it was this podcast of Jordan Peterson’s talking to Rafe that inspired me to reach out and invite him on my podcast. I’ve listened to this podcast three times because there are so many profound takeaways.

While the focus is on the importance of rough and tumble play in young boys, it is a masterclass in human psychology, adaptive (healthy) stress and human evolution. This podcast is more science based, while my podcast with Rafe is focused on his personal stories of trauma and healing.