Sides and Mixed Orientation Relationships With Dr. Joe Kort, [Interview]

Below is a transcribed version of the Psych and the City podcast episode Sides and Mixed Orientation Relationships With Dr. Joe Kort. Prefer to listen instead of read? Listen to the full interview and episode with Dr Joe Kort here:

Sarah speaks with psychotherapist Dr. Joe Kort, PhD, LMSW about his 40-years long work with individuals and couples trying to strengthen their relationships. Dr Kort specializes in marital problems and conflict, mixed orientation marriages, male sexuality, and out of control sexual behavior to name just a few of his areas of expertise.

In 2013, Dr Kort coined the term 'sides', finally terming an identity that many share but few named. Sides typically describes gay men who do not engage in anal sex, instead preferring other forms of outercourse.

We discuss mixed orientation relationships, clinical considerations when working with certain populations, as well as the problem with the term 'sex addiction.'

Sarah (S): Today I'm speaking with Dr. Joe Kort, PhD and LMSW who is the clinical director and founder of the Center for Relationship and Sexual Health in Royal Oak, Michigan. He is a board certified clinical sexologist, author of four books, lecturer, and facilitator of therapeutic workshops. He specializes in marital problems and conflict, mixed orientation marriages, male sexuality, and sexual health concerns, out of control sexual behaviors, sexual identity issues, childhood sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapy, and IMAGO relationship therapy. We discuss mixed orientation relationships and Dr. Kort's coined term 'sides.' I learn all about what Dr. Joe Kort has learned in his 40 years of practice.

Sarah (S): Dr. Joe Kort, can you me a little bit about yourself and your career progression? What would you say that you specialize in and how did you come to specialize in the areas of sexuality that you now specialize in?

Dr. Joe Kort (DJK): So I've been doing this almost 40 years if you can believe that. So I was 22. I feel so bad for my first client because I was so green and so young. I was just not, I shouldn't have been a theraoist at 22. And some people are 22, like my nephew, who runs my office. He's 22. He's got a whole different evolved brain. I became a therapist because I was in therapy as a teenager with Steven Advocate who I still talk to not as a therapist anymore. He's in his 80s. And he helped me come out and come away from a depression of being a closeted, gay kid in the 70s. And we talked a lot about my sexuality. A lot. And then I became an adult, obviously, and I came out. That was easier to do than to out as kinky. My kink was troubling to me. He wasn't troubled. I met a bunch of therapists that were okay with it. But I wasn't. So I found a sex addiction therapist who said "yeah, you're f*cked up, and have sex addiction. And so for 20 years, I was in sex addiction mode trying to manage this unwanted behavior until finally I became a sex therapist. And I was in my 440s and I was like "I'm kind of into this and there's nothing wrong with it." I turned to my husband and we talked about it and I just started incorporating it.

S: The unwanted behavior being your kink?

DJK: Yes, right.

S: So you actually saw a sex addiction therapist. And for a while, did you think - I'm a sex addict? This is the mode?

DJK: Yeah. I went to meetings, the whole thing.

S: Wow, ok. And then one day were you like, 'wait I don't know if tis is what it is?'

DJK: Yeah, because I started realizing, no well, I was reading research, right? And then more and more was coming out that there's nothing wrong with this and it doesn't come from somewhere bad all the time, even though mine did. It can come from somewhere bad, but even then it's okay. And I just started getting more and more comfortable. And I was also a sex addiction therapist myself. So I left that and the whole thing.

S: So you were a certified sex addiction therapist and now you no longer abide by that?

DJK: I was one of the first people to leave. I did a whole article on Psychology Today. The sex addiction community threatened to sue me. They had a lawyer send me paper. It was ridiculous. I received a cease and desist because I was going against sex addiction. Like, you don't own 'sex addiction,' and it's not even a real thing anyways. My God.

S: They're very committed.

DJK: That's a good word. They're very committed.

S: Okay, so you also started the Center for Relationship Health. What types of clients do you primarily see and work with at the Center for Relationship Health? What are the specific areas within sexuality that are now your bread and butter?

DJK: So we were the Center for Relationship and Sexual Health, which I prefer, but people would read sexual health and then not recognize that we did other things. And so we had to make it a division. Ad we primarily do couples here. So we do a lot of couples therapy. We do a lot of kink, fetish, poly people come and work with us here. We're a safe place, safe haven for the LGBTQIA+ community. I was originally going to do Joe Kort Associates but my name has become synonymous in many areas with gay. And people think I only see gay people. They'll call and they'll say, "Do you see straight people?" And' I'm like 'I see straight people.' I'm like that kid in the Sixth Sense. Of course I see straight.' But people don't get it. So we just took my name off and took sex out. The bread and butter is couples and affairs and things like that.

S: I've been reading a lot about you and one of your specializations, when I was reading about you, is mixed orientation relationships. Can you share what that means and anything that you want to talk about related to that.

DJK: So usually what I end up seeing are mixed gender couples where the husband comes out as gay or bi and she [partner] discovers it. You know and that's mostly the case. And then the couples goes into panic, obviously, and go into crisis and come in. He doesn't know what's going on. She doesn't know what's going on. Maybe I attract it, I don't know. It's very conservative here in Detroit, Michigan and was back in the 90s. And my books and examples were all of these heterosexually married gay men who came out and it was brutal. Most therapists who work with mixed orientation couples have a bias. They see the straight spouse and think get out and get on with your life. They see gay spouse and think get out and get on with your life. I don't have that bias. If that's what they want, I'll help you. But I'm all about making it work for you however that looks. And that's why I'm popular in that field.

S: Can you share some of the clinical considerations that a therapist working with this population would want to think about? Like you said bias. Can you tell me more about what you've learned about what these client's need therapists to consider?

DJK: Yeah. There's an infidelity response. Even if the guy hasn't cheated, it feels like [to the partner] they just cheated because 'you pretended to be something you're not.' So then they [the woman partner] has this issue with him and they [the male partner] supports her victimization. And that doesn't help the couple at all. You definitely want to support her victimization. It's true - she was victimized. She didn't know. BUT, he often didn't know. A lot of therapists don't understand you can attracted to me and not know you're gay. Gay is an identity. Attraction to me is a kink, a fetish, an erotic interest. And most of these guys went in loving their wives. They're not bi. A lot of people think, well, they're really bi. No. Some are. But some are just attracted to one woman. If I fall in love with you and I'm gay everywhere else, but you are my person - I can have sex with you. I can enjoy you. I can love you. And it's gay plus one. That's what we call it. It's all of that. They don't want to lose her, you know, because they want what they want. And what they often get if they stay together is they get to keep their happy life and their love of their wife, and their family and get more of what they want. She, if she decides to stay, she gets everything she wants with him and her family, but less of what she wants. And that's the tension. I don't jump into that tension. I just stay out of it. Like, I don't know. You may come up with something that's not even on the planet yet. You'll decide. But most of them have to be open.

S: Meaning sexually open?

DJK: Yeah, or romantically or not even necessarily. It just depends on you.

S: And so do you typically see mixed orientation couples after a discovery of some sort?

DJK: That's normally where they start. Yep, I have a book called 'Is My Husband Gay, Straight, or Bi?' and I had a writer help me write it. And he said, 'Joe, every time we go into a case example, she's caught him. Do these men ever tell? Do they just volunteer it?' And I'm like no I guess they don't. I never noticed that. But they don't.

S: Was there a lot of pushback with that title of your book? Why did you name it that?

DJK: I didn't want to. So here's what happens when you publish a book when they [the publisher] own it - they decide. I wanted to call it Straight Guise. But they didn't like that. They wanted it to be to women. And that was the most Googled search on the Internet: 'Is my husband gay? Is my husband gay, straight, or bi?'

S: I was only asking about the title because if there was concern of you playing into this binary of you're either gay, straight, or bi. I was just curious if that came up at all.

DJK: I get more criticism and challenge about the book really being about straight men who have sex with me. They're not gay and they're not bi. I have one chapter called 'If he comes out as gay' and 'if he comes out bi' but the rest is all about straight men and people's heads explode at the thought of a straight man engaging in sexual behavior with a man and then immediately 'he's not straight.' And that's bullshit.

S: How do you help clients? Because I imagine that is a question and concern that clients come to you with. How do you help clients get this "answer" or something?

DJK: I have four questions I ask. But before I tell you that, I always tell people - because they'll say 'you're not recognizing internalized homophobia. You're not recognizing closeted gay or bi.' Yeah, I know nothing about that as a gay guy. I don't know what you're talking about. Please inform me. I want to say to people of course I know. And I understand that there are some that lie to themselves and they lie to me. But when a straight man has one non-heterosexual thought, he's stigmatized. When a straight woman has one non-heterosexual thought, she's fetishized. She's allowed to have that and still be straight. A man is not.

S: She's considered fun!

DJK: Yeah she's fun. She's kinky where he's gay. You know? But he's just not. So I ask these four questions and they're not scientific. They're just clinical over the years. The first one is (to the straight man): Did you ever have any youthful noticing? In other words, as a gay guy, I remember the boys in the locker room naked. I remember my crush on Billy Ramnick. I have all these gay memories. They have nothing. Zero. They may have had a jerk off session with a friend. But a lot of guys do. For the gay guy, the jerk-off session is like, when are we doing this again? For the straight guys, like, OK, we did that. He's not looking forward to it. So they did not have youthful noticing.

The second is homophobia. Gay guys and bi guys are so riddled with internalized homophobia and biphobia, they don't even come to me. I'm too gay for them. They see that RuPaul statue. They go running. You know, they're not here. They want to find somebody that's going to help them not be gay. The straight guys are reading my books, holding them, saying, 'If I'm gay, help me be gay. I've read every word you've said, better than any gay guy, and I can't get there.' So they have zero homophobia.

The third is the beach test. When you're on the beach, what are you distracted by? No offense to you or any other woman in the world, but when I'm on a beach, you're in my way. I'm looking at the guy behind you. You know what I'm saying?

S: So the question that you ask is when you're on the beach, what are you distracted by? Got it.

DJK: And then the last one is 'who do you want to come home to?' And straight men want to come home to a woman. They don't want to set up a life with a man. And they're not even attracted to men. Here's the main thing. Their attraction is to the act and to the action and to all the things you can do with a guy. They're not going, my God, this guy's so hot and I'm doing this. They're just like, this is so hot to do this. It's different. A lot of them want to be anally penetrated. They're bottoms. But that's it. And people are like, well, if you let a guy, you know, top you, then you're really gay. No. I spent my whole life and career saying it's not based on behavior. And this new generation is - they're very committed, like you called it with sex addiction crowd. They're committed to 'your behavior defines you.' It's stupid.

S: So what are some of the things that mixed orientation couples, what comes up in working with them for you? Or also what do you see that really impacts them or is helpful for them to explore?

DJK: Well, it used to be when I started, I wasn't trained in this, right? I had trained myself. I would kind of try to help her see that he didn't do this to you on purpose and kind of align with him. And that would inflame her even more. I didn't understand, you know, that really she has to be the first to be supported. And yes, you were victimized. Yes, this is a betrayal. Yes, this is horrible. It's infidelity, right? Even if he hasn't done anything, it's still a betrayal. And it's sitting with them saying, well, you know - cause she's usually a line in the sand. 'I'm not opening up this marriage' and he's usually, 'well, I don't know how I'm going to do this if you don't, because I love you, but I need to actuate this somehow.' And that's the brutality because then she'll cross that line and she'll make another line and another line. And I tell people this is going to be super, super hard and you're going to have to have all kinds of difficult conversations.

S: You sort of alluded to this before, but the particular struggles or issues that you see come up for men within male sexuality. I mean, I imagine this idea that women are allowed to be more fluid and more flexible in their sexuality, the acts that they want, in their presentation. What are some of the other issues that you see men particularly struggle with within their sexuality? It sounds like pressure and expectation to fit into boxes more.

DJK: Yep. And then I spent two chapters on, 'is my husband gay on trauma?' A lot of men have experienced trauma. So it covers up, it does for women too, covers up their true orientation, because it causes sexual disorientation. Sexual abuse won't create sexual orientation. It contributes to sexual disorientation. And then the trauma reenactment from these straight guys is they end up going into, with men, they don't have sexual urges, they have trauma urges. That's different.

S: Can you share more about that?

DJK: Yeah, trauma urges. It's eroticized. What happened to me was so awful. But now I've eroticized it to anesthetize the pain. So in doing so, I go and reenact it. And yeah, I'm aroused by it. But it's not him or this act even. It's the trauma. It's a repeat of something, a memory like that. But it's happening. And that's super nuanced for people to understand.

S: It is. It is. Yeah. And I would imagine for the partner to be supportive of? Because it's like, you're hurting yourself. Just don't. And it's like, yeah, but that's not the whole story.

DJK: Right. But it does invite compassion, at least for themselves and from a partner. And I don't if you know Amanda Luderman, she coined the term 'erotic empathy.' So having erotic empathy for your partner, for yourself, and then making decisions based on that. And people say what decisions? Who knows? It's up to the couple.

S: When you said in the beginning, you were like, 'I feel bad for my first client,' I totally relate. What have you learned over the years with working with clients? What did you used to do that you now look no longer do you said initially you would sort of like would inflame the partner more if you were trying to help her understand that they weren't doing this to hurt you. What are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way that maybe some of the things you did earlier in your career that you're now like, I would never do that now?

DJK: I went too fast, especially for trauma. You know, Sarah, what's her name? Mary Jo Barrett. She says this really great line. Her line is, "Trauma is like good comedy. Timing is everything." And I didn't know that. And I would push people too hard too fast and then you re-traumatize them in the room. So I learned that. I learned about sexual health, right? I walked into this pathologizing and I don't do any of that anymore. I understand transference so much better. I work very transferentially where negative and positive from the client to me in the room is very common. And couples, I used to think couples would come to therapy just to break up, but it was because I was a shitty couples therapist. And when I got trained in a IMAGO relationship therapy, which really works, that became my next thing that I learned, really helping couples talk to each other.

S: What are the components of IMAGO?

DJK: It's just that you're attracted to positive and negative traits of your primary caretakers. And so it's no accident. It's kind of almost custom-made love. And what happens in relationship, whether it's not gender-based, so you could be attracted to a man but you have mother issues with him. I have mother issues with my own husband because it was the unresolved parent, the unresolved material surfaces. It's supposed to surface. And that's where you work it out with this partner. So unresolved issues with caretakers. We have those same struggles with our partner.

S: In 2013, you coined the term sides. Tell us what a side is how did not only the coining of the term happen, but how did you discover that this was a missed or overlooked phenomenon in sexuality? Tell me about that.

DJK: It's just like how I pathologized being kinky and called it sex addiction. I also am a side. I've never had intercourse. I'm not interested in anal intercourse or vaginal intercourse. There's nothing erotic about it to me at all. And I was shamed a lot by people. 'Like, you don't fuck then. You're not really having sex.' Cause when you know, you know this, if you're talking to clients and you ask them if they're having sex - 'no, we just give each other blowjobs.' Okay, no, that's called oral sex. So people think intercourse. So I had a lot of shame. Until over the years, like I came out kinky. I'm like there's nothing wrong with me. It just happened last night. I was at an event because I have a book called Side Guys and I just did it to kind of let people know and hear stories of others. And people will say, you know, oh, how do know if you haven't tried it? I'll say, well, lesbians were asked that all the time and they don't have to fuck a guy. I remember Roseanne Barr. I know we all hate her now, but she had a great joke and she said, 'Well, I don't know why people think lesbians hate men. They don't have to fuck them.' The truth is you don't have to do it. I already know I don't have to do it to know I'm not going to like it. It doesn't interest me. So it's just outercourse, not intercourse.

S: Sides, people that identify this way, it's that they have no interest in intercourse, whether that be anally or vaginally, any - they have no interest.

DJK: That was my original intent of the word. And that's the Orthodox term, I would call it, right? But I started a Facebook group. We now have almost 10,000 guys in there from all over the world, which is awesome. It's called Side Guys. If anybody's watching this, they can go. They have to answer the questions. And they taught me, no, no, sometimes I like to top. No, no, no. Sometimes I like to bottom. No, I only do it while I'm dating. So I call it Side Vers. Side Vers, because in the gay community, you could be a top vers, where you mostly give, but sometimes you'll bottom. The other way around bottom, mostly, mostly bottom. And I feel like they've taught me how to understand. And some people like rimming still. Some people like fingers penetrated using sex toys. They just don't want the thrusting of a penis inside of them. It doesn't turn them on. And they don't want to do all that prep work.

S: Got it. Which is relatable. And does sides apply for any sexual orientation?

DJK: Absolutely straight people can be sides. There's a lot of women that don't, their vaginas don't want a penis in it. It hurts. Some men can't get in erections. They're sides. Or they don't like it. That's not their main goal is to have intercourse.

S: So sides is a term that can apply to any sexual orientation, but also for various reasons, right? Like let's say, it's painful for you. So you don't really engage with penetration because it's not something that you like, or you can just straight up not like it. It doesn't provide you pleasure.

DJK: Yes, exactly. I love what you're saying. I feel like I'm a natural side and there are other people that are sides for other reasons.

S: What are clinical considerations for working with people who are sides?

DJK: So, here's my tagline. I always use with straight men and now I use it with gay men. Your anus doesn't have a sexual orientation. It doesn't know whether it's gay, straight or bi. It's an anus. Because people think if you're getting fucked and you're a guy, then you're not straight. And if you're a gay guy and you're not getting fucked, then you're not really gay. It's so stupid. The shame, the clinical implication is a lot of sides feel shame in my group online. There's a lot. Gay men can be vicious and mean. I actually think I'm going to take a leap here and tell you that I think gay men are meaner to each other than women are to each other. We're mean and they're mean to sides. 'You're boring. You're sick. You're immature. You're you know, stuck in age five,' It's mean. And so trying to be out there as a side and find a partner. So they're lonely. They're lost. They're shame-ridden. And the therapist's goal is to help them normalize this and say, there's nothing wrong with you.

S: Yeah, yeah. And it's sad we're all doing the things that have been done to us, shaming and 'no, you're not doing it right.' Or 'this is what you're supposed to be doing.' And it's like, that's what has been happening to people forever.

DJK: Absolutely, 100%.

S: So a lot of shame impacts sides.

DJK: Yeah, and the judgment. And I've been experiencing it a long time. It's gotten worse and worse and worse and worse. But I really did try using the word queer. I'd say I'm a queer man. I hate the word queer. I'm 62. It was a horrible word when I was growing up. It was used to be mean. I'm not going to apologize that I don't like the word queer. And I did a video on this on TikTok and it went viral. People were like, absolutely. They were like applauding.

S: Yeah, so you have - even just from our interview - having never met before, I mean, you seem to have a pretty humorous and kind of putting it all out there approach. Have you gotten a lot of pushback in your career and on social media? And tell me how you've navigated that.

DJK: Yeah, it's been hard from the beginning where straight therapists and even some gay therapists would say, you can't be openly gay. It was the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. You can't be openly gay. Gay people keep this to themselves. And I was like, go fuck yourself. I'm not. Straight people aren't going to keep it to themselves. I'm not going to keep it. So I was an openly gay therapist. And then I don't know if you know this, but old time therapists, older than me, didn't like the whole marketing thing. They were very critical of my marketing. The client needs to find you. And I'd say, oh, that's nice. And how are they going to do that? This was before the Internet. They didn't like therapists marketing themselves at all. It was anti. They were anti marketing. You shouldn't have. I used to have flyers in the waiting room. They would remove them. They would turn them around. It was awful.

S: You had to deal with a lot of just carving your own path a little bit and getting a lot of pushback from fellow therapists and from people online or wherever.

DJK: Well, before online. So then I tried to do a, I called it a rainbow therapy, a support group for therapists. I was loaded here in Detroit with gay referrals. And I thought I'll share them thinking this will be a place we could do it. And they all looked at me as, no, no, no, you just want more referrals from us. Go fuck yourself to me. And they didn't want to do it. So there was this internal, like you say, fighting. Yeah. But the worst has been since the Internet. I get a ton of pushback because people are uncomfortable with the things I say. They can't wrap around it. So then they criticize me.

S: Is most of the criticism or pushback from people that are anti-LGBTQ

DJK: From the LGBT.

S: Saying what? That you're putting people in boxes? What's going on?

DJK: I'm dangerous. If you look me up on Joe Kort Reddit, you'll find 'is Joe Kort harmful to our community?' Because I've talked about straight men - they think I'm keeping gay men in the closet and bi men in the closet. They take my soundbites and they make an argument around it. And one time I learned my lesson. I was fighting with this person back and forth about identity stuff and back and forth, back and forth and then they just stopped. And I'm like, what the hell? So I go look at their profile, they're 13. Their mother probably said, 'dinner's ready, honey.' And he stopped fighting with me. And I'm like, I'm fighting with a 13 year old on TikTok, it's stupid. So now I try not to do that. I try to look at the ages.

S: How do you not let that mess with your confidence as a therapist? How do you remain steadfast in the work that you're doing and what you believe in? Because I feel like it's hard to receive that feedback, especially from within your own community of people being like, you're harmful.

DJK: This is a really good question. I'm going to say it's an ongoing process. It's not doesn't it's gotten better. But at first it was like, am I wrong? Should I take this video down? Am I going to lose my license? They're coming after me. They're going to come after my license. And then I just found people that supported me. And, you know, I have good colleagues and friends that are therapists and my husband, thank God. And, you know, people that would say, no, just stay steady. And then going to the research and remembering the research. And a lot of these researchers won't go out and do what I'm doing online because they don't want to be criticized. It's very cruel what these people do. I'll go to bed at night thinking, well, did I do something? Like if I said something wrong, then I'll take it back or I'll change it. Thank you. Yeah. They want me to just take down the video and go away.

S: Yeah, and you're right about the research, right? Usually the people that conduct the research are not the same people that are then expressing it, sending it to the masses.

DJK: Yeah, it's hard. And I, you know, we go into this field also because we want to be liked, right? That's how it starts. You want to feel like somebody values what you're saying. And then now they're criticizing what you're saying online. It can be really hard. You can criticize what I'm saying all you want, but don't criticize me, my hair, my face, my age, all that crap. That, I block you. Then we're done.

S: Do you ever worry about losing your license?

DJK: No, uh, because I'm not doing anything. I feel really confident. I'm not doing anything wrong. I worry that somebody might come after it. They might try to do that, but they have nothing to get for me. I'm very ethical. I've been ethical for 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. They try to scare you. It's a scare tactic.

S: How do you help clients work through their shame? Because I imagine it's a huge component of the work, right? We're shameful. Maybe even if we've accepted it, that we're in this mixed orientation marriage, that other people might not. What has been the most effective way that you have helped clients navigate their shame in all of the ways that it can take its form?

DJK: Well, one thing I will tell you is most people don't meet a lot of mixed orientation couples. They're closeted because people have a fidelity response, right? Or just feel like, 'your husband's gay. And you should get out.' But what I say is get in groups of people that support you. People that are like yourself. Like that's why I love my side group because we're all the same. Even I sometimes need support about I might be thinking weird about something and they're like, no, no, no, just stay steady. Like that. So definitely engaging in community and like minded people who are supportive. Yes. And one other thing I wanted to say earlier, I forgot. I get a lot of negativity, obviously, because I'm popular on TikTok. I have six hundred and seventy thousand followers, which I'm very proud of. It's a lot of criticism that comes. But I get a lot of referrals from it. I get a lot of people and I have to remind myself when I do, I'm not talking to these people who are criticizing me. I'm talking to the people that are coming to me and I have to remind myself the message is still there to the right people. These are the wrong people and that you're not going to be the therapist for every person.

S: Right, even though I wanna be, but I'm not. Even what you said earlier about we all got into this field to be liked. I mean, I totally relate. Even if I do a consult and they don't choose me, I'm like, but wait, like we're cool. But it's definitely hard to navigate, especially surrounding, I think taboo topics, sexuality being one of them and more so the nuance of sexuality, which is what you're doing ultimately. Putting names to experiences that have always existed, but there has been no maybe discussion of, or only very hushed discussions of. And people do, they have really big feelings about it. And even working within porn and out of control sexual behavior, I mean, you see stuff online where people are, they're hot takes, they're good takes, they're cold, there's a lot of noise. It's hard I think sometimes as a therapist to remember your footing

How have you continued to take risks in your career? You're pretty controversial. What has been helpful for you as a clinician to be like, 'this is what it is and this is who I am. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I am interested in. This is what I think. This is what I feel like.' Are you worried about being cancelled or losing all of your clients or what? How does that show up for you?

DJK: Yes, you know I had a coach for many years. And she's like, well, let's just face it, Joe, you're controversial. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I was like fucked up about it, you know? And then I was like, oh, no, I really am. I am. I don't know. I think it's me. I don't like to go with the mainstream thinking. I hate it. Especially when it's like, wrong. And there's another way to look at it. And once I realize that and I feel strong in it, I'm like, I'm not going with it. I'm not going to Walmart and Costco. I'm going to go to this outique place and this place is more fitting, you know, but I do worry about being canceled and so I do, I am careful about some things I say I know I keep saying this, but now I'm like, I'm going to just do it because I know what I'm talking about.

S: Outside of finding community, how do you help individuals begin their journey of finding or discovering even a little bit more about themselves?

DJK: Reading. I guess just reading information. Even if it's problematic I say bring it, let's talk about it.

S: Okay, personal question. There is a huge controversy among sex therapists or relationship therapists regarding sex addiction versus out of control sexual behavior or other terms for it. Is sex addiction real or not? So was your journey that you had confided in a therapist and they had said, 'well, I think you're a sex

addict and you should go to 12 step and meetings and all of that.' And then that was what you were doing for a long time?

DJK: And I would go to conferences and then the gay guys would all get together, sex addiction conferences. And we'd say, is this working for you? No, does it work for you? No, does it work for your clients? No, but we kept doing it year after year. We all knew it wasn't working. I look at it as conversion therapy for sex. That's what sex addiction therapy is.

S: What wasn't working about it? For you personally and also professionally.

DJK: Relapse after relapse after relapse. You go to a 12 step group, your clients will tell you this. People can't get past 30 days because you're taking somebody's behavior and saying you can't do the very thing that your erotic interest is. This is your most erotic charge. And I used to say in the sex addiction community, if a man was compulsively having vaginal intercourse with a woman and it was compulsive, what do we say to him? Sorry, you can't have vaginal intercourse anymore. You got to try anal. Maybe you should receive anal, but no more vaginal intercourse. That would be insane. That's conversion therapy. That's natural for this straight man with women. Why would we do this with any other person? And I just kept seeing bias after bias over non-heteronormative behaviors.

S: So how do you navigate out of control sexual behavior in some of the clients that you see? Or is that what you call it?

DJK: Yeah, I do. I like that term. I like problematic sexual behavior. Yeah. We already have established interventions. Is it trauma? Is it early abuse? it depression? Maybe you're normal and you're with the the wrong partner.

S: I love that. Is it normal?

DJK: You know, someone says maybe it's because of a high sex drive? Well, what's high sex drive to you? And we don't say drive anymore, right? High sex desire. You know people are looking for that dopamine hit, you know? We don't say, my God, that mountain climber, that's crazy. And we have to stop him! And he's not considered mentally ill. O there's parachute jumpers, they're not mentally ill, but if they do it naked and masturbating, now we go, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Like it's a bias.

S: What if somebody, if a client comes to you and says, I am watching so much porn that it's negatively impacting my life. What would you say? How do you go about it?

DJK: I would say, what are you watching? Let's talk about why you're watching it so much. And then I have a big thing. I wrote a book called Erotic Orientation. I love that book because it's meant for clients coming in and I thought I'm just going to sell it online because I encapsulate everybody, Michael Bader, Jack Moran, Esther Perel. Understanding 'what am I seeking in my sexual narrative?' 'What is the non-sexual narrative here?' If you can find out what you're looking for by watching all that porn, then you can get it outside of porn and you won't be so compulsive with porn. That's the goal. Does that make sense?

S: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And for some people that they're utilizing porn in a particular way because they're not getting their sexual desires or needs met.

DJK: Or non-sexual desires and needs. So it's eroticized through the porn. And then - it's easier. Porn doesn't judge you.

S: There's no rejection. It's like curated to this is what I want and this is where I can express myself and all of that energy.

DJK: So then I'll tell them it's not the porn. You're having sex with yourself too much. You're safer than doing this with another person. And it's the anxiety of bringing in another person and having to negotiate all that.

S: Yeah. How do you go about writing all your books? How do you decide what you want to write about? How did that start? Were you approached with writing a book or?

DJK: No, I just was teaching courses on LGBT stuff. And then someone said you should turn this into a book. I had all these notes and everything. And I hired an editor to help me and I paid him every month and I had to write and pay him to edit. My first three books were like having an affair and my poor husband tolerated it. My fourth book, I had a writer help me because, and now anything you ever see written, I have a help with a writer doing it. It's me, but he wrote the word and he's phenomenal. It's hard to write a book. But no, I go with what I believe. Like my books are niche and they don't sell really great because they're niche.

And people say, 'if you want to be more popular, write more generalized.' I do want to be, but I'm not going to sell my soul and talk about something I don't believe in. I believe in what I'm writing. More mainstream sexual topics don't interest me.

S: Yeah, no, I hear you totally. Is your husband a therapist?

DJK: No, he's IT. He's retired now. We're perfect. I'm overly emotional and neurotic as hell. And he just like calms me down. I love it.

S: What are your current professional sexual interests? Like would you write another book? What are the topics that you're interested in right now? Tell me about that.

DJK: Yeah, when I get more time, I really want to flesh out outercourse more. I would like to write more than just one side book. I do a talk now but I'd like to do a book about sexual trauma to sexual triumph. A lot of therapists in my generation were like, well, if you heal your trauma then your sexuality will just blossom and surface. And that's not true. You have to help somebody get there. So I do that too.

S: You're also trained in EMDR, right? As am I.

DJK: It is helpful. I'll tell you what I'm most successful with. Tell me if you've had this. I thought I actually found this. I thought they were going to call it the Joe Kort protocol. I'm so arrogant. I thought I invented it. I was using it with men with ED that didn't have medical problems, but had anxiety. So they had erectile disorder. Two or three, four sessions gone. Got erections. Cause it's the anxiety you're treating. And it's the same protocol. And then I went on EMDR, I'm like, oh my God, you guys aren't going to believe this. They're like, we've been doing this for 10 years.

S: We all know. They're like, there's a book about it. And so you just do the same protocol? You trace it back to earlier iteration or like the source of the feeling.

DJK: Yeah. Like what's the anxiety? Tell me the pictures. Your wife is crying on the bed. You have a flaccid penis and let's go with that and all kinds of shit comes up. Wow. It's the most successful tool I've used.

S: Anything else that you want to share about your own journey or your practice? What are you looking forward to in your career? And your professional and your personal life?

DJK: A really great question. I have a group practice here at the center. I've had it forever, but it's really grown and I'm growing it even more. I'm learning a lot about the business side. I like it but I mean, that's hard. We're not trained in that. But I'm so much better. I feel like running a business is touching all of a lot of unfinished childhood stuff that I would have never touched. I've done lots of therapy. I've been in lots of different relationships. I mean, my husband's my only romantic relationship, but whatever I've been in and grown. This is really accelerated. My growth is having to manage people, tell people what to do, what I like, what I don't, like firing people. I've gotten so much better at it. And we're negotiating rates and money with clients and that is something that it's really childhood for me. And it is for most therapists. And that's another thing I want to do is teach therapists how to deal with the financials of this. It's a clinical issue. It's not just business issue.

S: I know I love what you said about how running your business and managing your practice has explored a lot more about parts of yourself that maybe you never would have touched without that.

DJK: No, if I had retired now, which many of my peers do, I would have never ever because I would have never wanted any of this. I would have been like, I don't want it. You know, it all sounds horrible, but I had to because I was already so far into it. And it forced me into areas I would have never gone into. I love it.

S: What are some of the most helpful trainings you've ever done or? Things that you've done in your career that you were like, this has influenced the way that I work and my framework permanently.

DJK: The two biggest things I'd say is a IMAGO relationship therapy, completely changed me. I don't think I'd be with my husband if we didn't have IMAGO, because it made me feel normal, like these were positive indicators. I was with the right person. And then the MKP, The Mankind Project. If you know about that, it's called the new warrior adventure. It changed my life as a man. It got me through so many and still does so many issues. Yeah, it's it's awesome.

S: Where did you train for a IMAGO?

DJK: I did it here locally with Maya Coleman. She was an IMAGO therapist at the time. She still is and she was a trainer. I think she still does that, but they would travel and she would come here into Michigan, but they have it all over the world.

S: Yeah, thank you so much Joe. Where can people find you? Tell me everything.

DJK: Yep, yeah, you can go to TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn and it's all Dr. Joe Kort, D-R-J-O-E-K-O-R-T. And then you can go to jokort.com and you can hear my own podcasts and read about events I'm doing and where I'm gonna be presenting, that kind of thing.

S: Are you taking on new clients?

DJK: I am, I am. I see about 10 to 15 a week and I like to do that.

Interview Notes:

Interviews are released as a podcast along with the transcribed version here every other Thursday.

Resources and Contact:

Mankind project

Maya Coleman

Tiktok: DrJoeKort; Facebook: DrJoeKort; Linkedin: DrJoeKort

DrJoeKort.com

Instagram: psychandthecitybk

www.sarah-kelleher.com