40 Plus: Gay Men. Gay Talk.

Most gay men do not have a conflict problem. They have a conversation problem. Joshua Johnson spent 25 years in journalism learning why people cannot talk to each other, then turned it into a TED Talk. The former NPR and MSNBC anchor joins Rick to break down what actually happens inside a difficult conversation, why your internal monologue is running the show before you say a word, and why the queer community has a specific and largely unspoken problem with mentorship and validation. This is not a civility lecture. It is a framework for stopping the patterns that keep gay men stuck in the same arguments with the same people.

Key Takeaways:
Why the problem in conflict is not the inability to talk but the inability to argue constructively
How your internal monologue shapes every difficult conversation before it starts
The journalist's trick for getting the story behind someone's position before engaging
Why responding instead of reacting changes the outcome of almost every conflict
The "common enemy intimacy" pattern that holds gay men back from real community
Why queer men struggle to receive mentorship and positive validation and what to do about it


About Joshua

Joshua Johnson has spent more than 25 years in journalism, helping people see each other despite their differences. His latest project, The Resolution, is an online game where players debate everyday issues to build their persuasion skills.

Previously Johnson was the anchor of “NOW Tonight”, the first 8pm program on the streaming channel NBC News NOW. Before that he anchored “The Week with Joshua Johnson” on MSNBC, providing rare spaces for audience interaction in network news.

His projects for NBC included anchored specials for Black History Month, a live MSNBC broadcast from outside New York’s Stonewall Inn for LGBTQ Pride Month, and a focus group of small business owners reacting to President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union Address. MSNBC recruited Johnson away from the NPR daily talk show “1A”, which he hosted for its first three years on-air. During that time “1A” built a weekly audience of four million listeners nationwide. Johnson has also been an anchor and reporter at San Francisco’s KQED, and at WLRN in its unique partnership with The Miami Herald. His most recent accomplishment was his TED 2026 talk.

Johnson holds bachelor’s degrees in Broadcasting and Theater Arts from the University of Miami. He lives in Chicago.
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TED Talk 2026

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Hey Guys, Check This Out!

Are you a guy who keeps struggling to do that thing? You know the thing you keep telling yourself and others you’re going to do, but never do? Then it’s time to get real and figure out why.

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David Lauterstein co-founded Nasty Pig, one of the most unapologetically sex-positive brands in queer history. Everyone expected his first book to be about that. Instead he wrote Sodomy Gods, a love story about meeting his husband Fred in the 1990s, because 33 years into the marriage he learned something nobody markets to gay men: fun and happiness are not the same thing.

Lauterstein talks about what three decades of work, sacrifice, and adaptation actually looks like, what the AIDS crisis taught him about resilience and community, and why chasing fun instead of happiness is how good men end up alone.

This one is for the man still confusing a good Saturday night with a good life.

Key Takeaways
Fun and happiness are not the same thing, and most men spend years chasing the wrong one
David Lauterstein co-founded one of the most sex-positive brands in queer history, then wrote a love story instead of a founder story
Thirty-three years of marriage taught him that great relationships require work, sacrifice, and constant adaptation
Lessons from the AIDS crisis still shape how he thinks about community and resilience today
Recording the audiobook in his own voice let him say things print never could
Older gay men find real purpose through charitable work and community, not just through fun


About David

David Lauterstein is among the most influential forces in queer culture, celebrated as an unapologetic champion for sex-positivity since co-founding the iconic Nasty Pig fashion brand in 1994.

As its CEO, he has been honored for his trailblazing entrepreneurship, his philanthropic efforts supporting homeless queer youth, and by the White House for his decades of public health advocacy.

A formally trained poet and house music producer, Lauterstein resides in New York City with his husband and Nasty Pig co-founder, Frederick Kearney. Sodomy Gods is his first book.


Connect With David

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Hey Guys, Check This Out!

Are you a guy who keeps struggling to do that thing? You know the thing you keep telling yourself and others you’re going to do, but never do? Then it’s time to get real and figure out why.

Join the 40 Plus: Gay Men Gay Talk, monthly chats. They happen the third Monday of each month at 5:00 pm Pacific - Learn More!

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Gay men over 40 have been running from shame their entire lives. Frank Spinelli says that is exactly the wrong move. As a physician, survivor, and author of The Shame Compass, Frank has spent decades watching gay men mistake shame for the enemy when it is actually a diagnostic tool pointing toward healing. The AIDS crisis, childhood trauma, the invisibility of aging, the pressure to perform — all of it leaves a mark.

This episode is about what to do with that mark instead of burying it. Frank joins Rick to break down his C.O.M.P.A.S.S. framework and why gay men are done running.

Key Takeaways:


Why shame was installed in gay men before they even had words for who they were
How the AIDS crisis created layers of survivor and caretaker shame that never got addressed
Why aging gay men face a second wave of shame around invisibility and relevance
What the C.O.M.P.A.S.S. framework actually does and how to use it
Why pausing is the hardest and most important skill gay men can build
How to stop treating shame as the enemy and start using it as a compass


About Frank

Frank Spinelli, MD is a physician, certified health coach, and one of 95,000 survivors who filed claims in the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy case.

With over twenty years of clinical experience in internal medicine, he brings unique authority to trauma-informed recovery: medical expertise, lived experience of childhood sexual abuse and pandemic relapse, and active coaching practice implementing the C.O.M.P.A.S.S. framework with clients.

Today, he works with hundreds of clients through the Reframe platform, helping individuals apply trauma-informed tools to navigate shame, addiction, and behavioral change. He is the author of The Shame Compass: A Radical Framework for Trauma Healing and Self-Acceptance, as well as PEE-SHY: A Memoir and The Advocate Guide to Gay Men’s Health and Wellness.

A former TV host and longtime health writer, Dr. Spinelli brings both clinical authority and media experience to conversations about recovery, resilience, and living with authenticity.
Connect With Frank

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Hey Guys, Check This Out!

Are you a guy who keeps struggling to do that thing? You know the thing you keep telling yourself and others you’re going to do, but never do? Then it’s time to get real and figure out why.

Join the 40 Plus: Gay Men Gay Talk, monthly chats. They happen the third Monday of each month at 5:00 pm Pacific - Learn More!

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Dr. Myron Krys calls himself and loneliness bedfellows. He knows it from the inside, and he sees it every day in his therapy practice with gay men who look like they have it all.

Krys explains why open relationships, packed calendars, and career wins do not fix isolation, and how dating apps trade real connection for fetishization and instant rejection.

He also opens up about being neurodivergent in a field that rarely talks about it, and why that intersection gets ignored in therapy rooms built for someone else.

This conversation names what achievement cannot buy: being fully seen.

Key Takeaways
Being wanted and being seen are not the same thing, and dating apps have made that gap wider
Success, sex, and a packed calendar can all be sophisticated ways to avoid connection
Krys calls himself and loneliness bedfellows, he built his career around what he lived
Neurodivergence and queerness intersect in ways most therapy rooms are not built to hold
Courage looks like putting yourself in a new room, not waiting to feel ready first
Asking permission before using sensitive language is a form of respect, not weakness


About Myron

Dr. Myron Krys (pronounced “Chris”), PhD, LPC, is a licensed psychotherapist, speaker, scholar, and creator of the Self-Reclamation Framework (5Rs), which helps people reclaim identity, heal from limiting beliefs, and build more authentic lives and relationships.

He specializes in identity development, self-esteem, sexuality, relational dynamics, religious trauma, and the unique emotional challenges faced within LGBTQ+ communities.

Dr. M.K. is a body- and sex-positive therapist at The Depth Collective and an award-winning speaker known for bridging psychology, spirituality, culture, and lived experience. His work explores how people move from performance and survival toward authenticity, intimacy, and belonging.
Connect With Myron

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Hey Guys, Check This Out!

Are you a guy who keeps struggling to do that thing? You know the thing you keep telling yourself and others you’re going to do, but never do? Then it’s time to get real and figure out why.

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Gay men are experts at editing themselves. At work. In relationships. Inside the queer community itself. Colin Belcourt wrote a book about what gets cut out and why it needs to come back. The Blue Hour Gospel is a debut work of fiction built across multiple formats, created entirely by a queer team, and rooted in the parts of queer life most storytelling refuses to touch: shame, longing, self-erasure, and the pressure to become acceptable. Colin joins Rick to talk about what it took to write it, what he was afraid to include, and why the stories gay men keep polishing over are exactly the ones that need to be told.

Key Takeaways:
Why gay men keep erasing themselves even after coming out
How conventional healing systems often fail marginalized communities
What writing toward shame and longing instead of away from it actually requires
Why Colin built the book across different formats and what that choice means
The challenge of going fully public with personal truth in both writing and professional life
Why authentic queer storytelling matters more right now than ever


About Colin

Colin Belcourt is a queer writer who grew up in Newmarket, Ontario and now lives just outside Ottawa.

His work is emotional, nostalgic, and resistant to the cleaned-up stories people tell about identity, beauty, family, and belonging. He writes toward the parts of queer life that are too often polished over or pushed aside: shame, longing, self-erasure, desire, memory, and the pressure to become acceptable. Interested in queer writing that makes room for what is difficult, inconvenient, or unmarketable, he pushes at the edges of respectability and easy self-definition.

The Blue Hour Gospel is his first book. He is currently working on his second, and also writes on Substack and appears on podcasts about queer life, writing, and the need for more honest cultural space.
Connect With Colin

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Hey Guys, Check This Out!

Are you a guy who keeps struggling to do that thing? You know the thing you keep telling yourself and others you’re going to do, but never do? Then it’s time to get real and figure out why.

Join the 40 Plus: Gay Men Gay Talk, monthly chats. They happen the third Monday of each month at 5:00 pm Pacific - Learn More!

Also, join our Facebook Community - 40 Plus: Gay Men, Gay Talk Community