Mike Johnson on Self-Love, The Bachelorette and Rising Action (aka Foreplay)

“Mike Johnson on Self-Love, The Bachelorette and Rising Action (aka Foreplay)”

a lightly edited Girl Boner Radio transcript

August:

Welcome, Mike. I’m so happy to have you here.

Mike:

Thank you, August, for having me. It’s an honor, quite honestly. It’s really cool for me. And the way it’s got set up. It’s cool.  

I do have to ask you a question. 

August (narration):

He held up a copy of my book to the Zoom screen there.

Mike:

Could I possibly get this signed one day?

August (narration):

Honestly, was that a rhetorical question? He is such a nice guy. And of course, he’s getting that copy.

And he’s right; it was pretty cool how our interview together. A colleague of mine sent me a message, letting me know that Mike Johnson—a favorite contestant of hers from The Bachelorette—mentioned that he was reading my Girl Boner book, during an interview on the podcast, Bachelor Party.

I was so touched, so I headed to Twitter to thank Mike. That’s when I saw that he’s an author, too, of a new book called Making The Love You Want, which sounded awesome. 

When Mike replied, I told him that I would love to have him on my show to talk about it. I was thrilled when he said, “let’s make it happen.” I have since read his book and binged his season, season 15, of The Bachelorette. 

If you have watched his season of The Bachelorette, you’re familiar with Mike’s kindness, candor and beaming smile. What you might not know is that he’s also a strong writer. His new book, Making the Love You Want, is described as “a guide to leveling up our lives from the inside out through the practice of self-love.”  In it, he blends experiences from his life with powerful takeaways on ways and reasons to cultivate authentic self-love.

[a few bars of upbeat music]

August:

I love the ways that you talk about your upbringing and your family. You talk about being raised by your mother and grandmother. And you described your mom as “a shining star of resiliency, determination and persistence.” Would you share a bit more about that?

Mike: 

Yes. Growing up, raising two children, you know, off $31,000 a year. And I didn’t know that we were poor, I guess you would say. My mom never made it out to be that way. And she always instilled in my sister and I, you know, hard work. And I mean, hard work.

August (narration):

From chores to school to getting a job… Mike said he remembers being 13 years old when his mom told him he needed to get a bank account.

Mike:

I was like, why, why? And then she followed in my footsteps, which was kind of cool. I started to write on the refrigerator, on the microwave, and on my bathroom mirror, my goals. And she started to follow suit. And she put down one of her goals was to obtain her PhD. And at the time, when she wrote this, she didn’t have a college degree. And so, you know, she’s been doing that and obtaining that. So, that’s the persistence in her.

August:

That’s really moving. You talk about remembering that you felt like you really needed to be the masculine man of the household and very protective, which is something that—I read your book before watching your season of The Bachelorette.

Mike:

I like that… That route is better. 

August (narration):

As a writer, I completely understand that. Personal writing is, well, more personal. Plus, there’s no reality TV editor combing through the content. Even with that editing, though, Mike comes across on The Bachelorette as very caring and protective. This matches up with his book, which depicts those traits as huge parts of his identity from childhood on.

He wrote that when he was a young child, he was often sick and in the hospital.And his mom tells a story of being beside his hospital bed with his grandmother, when he started talking in his sleep to his aunt who had been murdered, saying: “Aunt Tina, I can’t go to Heaven with you. I want to stay here and protect Mom, Amber and Grandma.”

The desire to always be his best so that he can be of service to people he loves, he said, is something that’s lived in him for as long as he can remember.

August:

Would you share a bit about that feeling, like you wanted to be this protector of the household? It sounded like a lot of pressure to me. Not a bad thing but something that’s a lot of responsibility.

Mike:

So again, this goes back to my mom. It goes back to gender roles that I think we need to abolish. It goes back to my mom being a very attractive woman, you know—still is—but when she was my age and I was a little kid, I think this is when it really hit me. 

My mom took me to the barbershop. I was like 9,10 years old, and these guys tried to hit on my mom. They were catcalling her. And I was not liking that. Whatsoever. You’ve got to respect my mother. To this day, I don’t like that. You need to respect my mom. I don’t care if I’m a child, right?

And then I remember, at times, my mom and my sisters’ dad, arguments—I’ll use that term— that they would have. I remember being like five and six and physically not being able to do anything. And then also being there and watching tears come down from my mother’s eyes. You know sneaking and listening to my mother and my grandmother talk. And that’s where the mental side of it comes in place, not just the physical child trying to protect. 

August (narration):

When it came time for Mike to get his first job, he said, his only goal was to bring home money to help his family and household. 

Mike:

I remember, specifically, wanting to work in a food job because if I was still hungry from dinner, I didn’t want to have to ask my mom that I’m still hungry and make her feel stressed. If I had a job and it was in food, I could just eat all day. So that was my thinking. And so I will say it came from those things really. 

August (narration):

Another time, Mike recalls being annoyed with his mom for something that highlights those gender roles he mentioned.

Mike:

I remember, you know, my sister was like eight or nine—I must have been like 11—and there was a storm and rain, and I was scared. And I wanted to sleep in the bed with my mom but she wouldn’t let me but my younger sister could. That’s a gender role that I don’t think we should have but my mom put in me and I was just like, “No, you didn’t.” I guess that became an avenue of trying to be protective in a way, in sense.

August (narration):

Mike also wrote about a time when he needed protection himself, but didn’t have it. He was five years old when he was sexually assaulted by a babysitter. 

He wasn’t physically harmed, he wrote, but the emotional effects were devastating, and instilled a sense of lasting shame, self-blame, abilities to set healthy boundaries, and trust issues. He cited trauma research about how common these effects are, adding that they “internalize shame that belongs to others.”

August:

I was so moved that you decided to include that in the book. I know how vulnerable that can feel. And also these complicated feelings around something that quote-unquote, “didn’t really happen” to me. Like it wasn’t bad. 

I’m curious about your decision process. Was that something that you knew you wanted to include or was that something you had to kind of wrestle with a little bit?

Mike:

Thank you for asking that question. It was something I wrestled with, not because of me, individually, but more so because of my family. I care about them. And quite honestly, I didn’t want to have to have those tough conversations with family members. I don’t want to have to have that conversation with my dad. I don’t want to have to have a conversation with my mother. They’ve never known, ever, until a couple of months before the book was released. 

And I was like, kind of need to have this conversation now, you know, before they read the book and are just surprised. And that would be a terrible surprise. But, you know, you’ve got to practice what you preach. Who am I to say, you know, be vulnerable, to open up, to speak with truth, conviction and strength and I, myself, don’t do that. 

And then on the flip side, let’s just be honest. I’m a Black, cisgender, heterosexual male, talking about sexual assault and being sexually assaulted. That doesn’t happen in America. And so, I can be someone that some male and or woman looks at and says, “Wow! He doesn’t look like a person who talks about this subject. It has happened to him and he still shows strength, and even more strength, because he is able to speak about this and not give a damn what you think.”

August:

That’s huge. I respect you even more, knowing that that was something that was hard to do and also that it was your first time speaking about it. I always say write your first draft as though no one’s going to read it and edit it as though everyone will.

Mike: 

Yeah. Well said, well said.

August:

But it’s hard, because it’s one thing to put your story out there for strangers. It’s another thing when it’s your story but other people were around you or might have their own feelings and to feel like, am I responsible if they feel bad? That protector sense in you. I could see you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings but I feel like it can be cathartic, too. Was there a sense of that for you?

Mike:

Yes. The entire writing process is therapy, the entire process. That process is amazing. That process is tears of every emotion you can possibly think of, to include knowing that you’re helping someone else. That’s a gift in itself. 

The mantras and the exercises in my book, I go back to still. I will always for the rest of my life. I say my book is a journey. It’s not a one stop shop type of thing. Everyone in this entire world, including you and I, we may need to go back to things that we have written or go back to things that we have done. It’s like an old book, Hey, I’ve read this once before, but it hits different today. The editing was harder than I thought but the writing, once you start, it just kind of continues just to flow. 

August (narration):

Making the Love You Want is the kind of book you’ll want to keep a highlighter handy for—for excerpts you could save for a rainy day when self-love isn’t feeling so easy. Here are a couple of my favorites:

“When I finally learned to love myself and committed to choosing my values and desires over those of others, I started to feel like I was able to breathe for the first time. Saying yes to my heart gave me a new outlook on life… Finally I could breathe life, and life breathed its abundance of grace back into me.”

I found this really thought-provoking, too: “Self-shaming can be like lesions that tear open each time we reach for new opportunities.”

I asked Mike about another bit I highlighted, about one of his biggest turning points.

August:

You wrote, “I distinctly remember reaching the point in my life where choosing to love myself was no longer optional. At first it was just about having the confidence to claim my place in the world. Eventually it became a gateway to freedom.”

Mike:

Yes. 

August:

Wow. 

Mike:

So true. I speak about some of the things that I’ve done wrong in my life. Some of the things that I’m not the happiest about in the book and one moment in particular, I did something that I just knew I was a follower. I knew I wasn’t standing in my strength. And I was shackled by someone else’s approval. 

And so that’s what I mean by the gateway to freedom. Once you do you for you, it’s like a dove. It’s beautiful and you have your wings now. And so. If you don’t succeed the first time, you’re succeeding in happiness, right? And so that’s what I mean by the gateway to freedom. 

And for me, I literally don’t live in Dallas, where I’m from anymore because I was shackled, because I wasn’t free in my mind, because I wasn’t free in my heart, because I wasn’t free in my own thought processes. 

I believe the most important age for a human being is 15 to 23. I think those are extremely pivotal years. And from about 15 to 21, I was just terrible, terrible, terrible. 

August (narration):

At the time he was working two jobs and engaging in what he and his peers called “hitting licks”—pawning off stolen electronics, getting into fights. He threw a ketchup packet at a fast food cashier, taunting him to fight him. And for a while, he wrote, he was “having sex as if women were becoming extinct.”

Mike:

And I don’t know why but I had the beauty of knowing and the beauty of foresight, knowing that what I was doing was wrong. Knowing that what I was doing was a follower. Yeah, just trying to be liked. And it was because I didn’t have that love of self to know the difference between the two.

August (narration):

Mike also wrote about a significant breakup in the book, one I believe he mentioned in The Bachelorette, too. It was followed by nearly a year of grief. That period was atrocious, he told me. Something he wouldn’t wish on anyone, and that led him to become really reclusive.

At the time, he was a financial adviser and had been really good about saving money, which allowed him to basically shut himself in for a while.

Mike:

….which wasn’t the goal whatsoever. I never wanted to like, literally, spend all my money being a bum at home. That wasn’t my goal. I just couldn’t work no more. 

I did all the wrong things that you’re not supposed to do. Isolated myself. I didn’t see people for about 10, 11 months, literally left the house once a week to get food… I grew my hair out—it looked all crazy—lost weight, lost about 30 pounds. I wouldn’t even turn on my TV or my laptop. I would just wake up, some days go to the couch, some days stay in bed and just look at the walls, for hours upon hours. When I did leave, I hyperventilated and almost threw up because I wasn’t around people in so long. 

August (narration):

Mike was able to pull himself out of that dark place with a lot of intentional self-talk, followed by some specific actions. He broke it down in a way that he told maybe only he could understand, or at least may not work for everyone.

Mike:

You know, I felt that I was selfish. And I felt that, since I’m selfish, how do I make myself happy, again? 

This is literally how I broke down in my brain: I know when I’m genuine and I make someone else feel good about themselves in return, it literally makes me feel good.

August (narration):

For example, he practiced being genuine by honestly responding to proverbial “how are you” type questions.

Mike:

When people ask me that question, I’m very honest. I’m like, “I’m doing great today,” or “…kind of a shitty day.” You know I’m just very, very transparent with that. And what I’ve learned is that it makes the other person like, whoa. It breaks the monotony. It breaks the cycle of that. And then they almost feel heard. 

And I’m doing it for me, but it also makes them feel happy as well, because I’ve opened up that conversation. I’ve opened up that door. 

August (narration):

Mike also picked up the habit of giving others genuine compliments.

Mike:

Like today in the gym. I saw those dudes. “Oh, bro, your shoes look pretty cool. They’re dope. I like them.” And so I just started paying attention to that. And I started showing love to people. I literally just started showing love to other people and being genuine in that just to my fellow human being. And literally that helped me get out of it.

August:

It sounded to me, as you were sharing that like you gave people permission to be who they really are.

Mike:

Yeah. It’s good to have it and we don’t realize that we need it.

August: (narration):

The other thing Mike really relied on to move on from that heartbreak involved drastically changing what he consumes, and he wasn’t talking about food.

Mike

That was everything for me. I recently told my roommate that I’m going back into that mode again now. What that is, I don’t care what no one says, I will die on it. It’s the truth. It works—you know, what you consume.

August (narration):

He changed his choices in music he listened to, what YouTube videos he would watch and how he engaged with others online. He told me he’s gotten some flack for his social media habits from some friends, but he’s sticking to them.

Mike:

I look at the word follow as, why am I following this person? I’m not following hot girls all day just to see how cute they are. Like, I want to follow someone for the strength that they give me, for the education that they give me, for the positivity that they give me. Period. I want to listen to music that is motivating, that is uplifting, podcasts for the same reason, friends for the same reason. 

You know, as I’ve gotten older, I have a great variety of friends but the ones I spend time with the most, is really different. Like when I want to be a little ratchet—you know, go out—I got that friend group. But for my friend group that I talk to on the daily, like one of my best friends, on the first of every month, we do a little check in. We talk probably every day, but we do a check in: How’re you doing? How’s your life? How’s your mom? Your father? X, y, z, right? 

August (narration):

All of that is what Mike means by changing your consumption, which in turn, can change your thoughts and energy and daily experiences.

Mike:

Right, if you’re watching on YouTube how to play basketball every single day, you’re more likely gonna think about basketball, right? I was watching positivity. I literally for hours a day, would just listen to motivational stuff. The story about the bamboo? Bamboo, you water it for five years and then nothing happens. And then, like in the fifth year, it sprouts up to 90 feet in three months. 

Those things stuck with me. I have no problem —and you may have saw this on The Bachelorette as well—I have no problem calling someone out in my life that is not helping my life.

August (narration):

I definitely caught that. As I told Mike, I literally cheered him on out loud when he took a stand against a particular contestant. Without getting into any details, I couldn’t help but wonder if an ex of that contestant would end up on this show one day, talking about their tumultuous relationship and how they got out.

I asked Mike if he was pleased with how he was depicted on the show. In some ways, yeah. But like all TV shows, especially reality TV, we only get a partial picture. For one thing, he said, he doesn’t smile 24/7.

Mike:

I do smile a lot, but that’s not the only thing I do. 

August (narration):

Also, he said, his mom had never really heard him curse before seeing the show.

Mike:

I honestly think the show helped her to realize that I am an adult. [laughs] I really do. Yeah, that was a plus. You know, we never kind of had that conversation, “Hey, Mom. I’m an adult now.” So I think that the show helped in that regard. I never still, to this day, talked about that but what’s understood doesn’t need to be explained, I guess.

August (narration):

Mike also said he’s a lot more analytical than he was depicted on the show, but he gets how that might be a difficult thing to illustrate. Otherwise, though, things matched up pretty well.

Mike:

I’m goofy. I’m positive. And I don’t deal with bullshit easily, so. 

August (narration):

There’s been a lot that Mike, and other contestants, have had to deal with after appearing on The Bachelorette or The Bachelor. In his book, he wrote, “…when I came off the show…I wasn’t anticipating the amount of overwhelming love, nor the hate and the racist comments. Your level of self-love and self-respect is tested when you have millions of people praising you and hundreds of thousands hating on you.”

I asked him how he’s learned to deal with all of that.

Mike:

Lady Gaga has the most profound tweet ever. It’s three words: “Fame is prison.” And I cannot imagine being at Lady Gaga’s level of fame. 

Your self-love definitely is tested once you get that spotlight you, or a glimpse of the spotlight, which I had once going on the show. All that does is pour gasoline, fuel to the person that you are. If you are a strong individual, you’re still gonna be strong. You will become stronger because you will be tested. If you are someone who wants to party, you’re going to have every ounce of opportunity to do whatever you want to do. 

My self-love was tested because—I show my roommate, from time to time, some of the racist comments that I get, and he’ll just be like, “bro, what the hell” and so will l. And I’m like, “This person can’t feel this way, if they knew who I was as an individual. It’s just impossible for them to feel that way, if they know you personally.”

That’s kind of how I deal with it, you know. Just knowing that you can’t hurt me if I don’t allow you to hurt me. I have to allow you to hurt me, you know? That’s something that I’m not going to give you. And the people I surround myself with in my life are the ones that help me to stay strong. They’re the ones that continue to help me and strengthen my self-love.

[a few bars of emotional music]

August (narration): 

In my latest listener survey, I asked folks who watch The Bachelorette to share any questions they had for Mike.

August:

The first one is, have you experienced family being disapproving of things you do or your beliefs? And if so, how do you handle it?

Mike:

Again, I’m a leader. That’s how my family looks at me. And so they trust that my process is going to be right for me. They may not agree with every single little detail, but they trust my process is gonna be right for me. And that’s all that matters. That’s all that matters at the end of the day. 

The way that I go about things are not the way that my dad or my mom did it, but that doesn’t mean that my way can’t be a right way—not the right way, but a right way. And then I would say, I don’t care who you are. I include my family members. Boundaries are boundaries. Period. 

One of the greatest things my mom ever taught me was, and this is so simple. She doesn’t even know this. This is like, level kindergarten, but it was such a big thing. When I considered joining the military, she said, “Leave. Go.” That was great for me, because it taught me to grow and think on my own. 

And so I feel that people that, you know, have family members that may disapprove, that’s just because they love you and they haven’t learned that you can think on your own.

August (narration):

That reminded me of what he shared about his mom finally seeing him as an adult after watching the show. 

Mike:

Yeah, she’s like, “Ooh, I might not approve of him personally. He’s come back to church! But also, you know, she’s read my book. Our relationship has gotten so much stronger. And so, she’s given me that trust. I’ve earned that trust from her. And so that’s what I would say to that.

August:  

That’s beautiful. What words of support would you offer Matt, who just finished the season as the first Black bachelor?

Mike:

I’m actually going to call him after this. What words of support would I offer Matt? 

Bro, the storm has passed, you know. Now we can look for the rainbow. It may be time before we find the rainbow, but the rainbow is going to be there. You love to work out, Matt, so keep running. You’ll see the rainbow. I would say, F the critics, man. You know who loves you. That’s all that matters.

I was on a podcast once. I was very, very passionate. And I said, “My mama loves me, my sister loves me, my grandma loves me. That’s all that matters.” And I mean every single ounce of those words.

I am blessed to, you know, have a roof over my head. I remember growing up when we just had a—we live in Austin—we just had a winter storm. When I was growing up, we had to cuddle up by the stove because we didn’t have central heating, right? So, I’m good. 

That’s what I will tell Matt, like bro, you’re good. You got a couple of dollars in the bank. You got a head over your shoulders. Your mom’s good. You got your best friend, Tyler. What matters, brah? Love life, breathe life.

August:  

I love the gratitude in the ways that you talk about all these things. Was it weird to kiss on camera with people watching you?

Mike:

For me, it wasn’t. I don’t know why. When it was time to kiss Hannah, I went for it.  I don’t know why. There are a bunch of cameras around you when you’re kissing. 

Yeah, you get lost in the moment when it’s an authentic kiss, you know? That girl boner, that boy boner may happen, you know? Yeah, I went for it. I would still go for it, if I went back on.

August (narration):

A few people just had really lovely comments for me to share with Mike, like “Wanted to say that you’re my favorite. You’re the nicest. You’re the coolest. I love you, I love you.” There are a few of those. To which Mike said:

Mike:

I love you. Ti amor. 

August (narration):

And when fans approach Mike, he said they usually say one of two things:

Mike:

I’ll say these are two things they say 90% of the time, which is awesome. One would probably be “I loved you on the show.” Two would be, “you should have been the Bachelor.” That’s what I hear. [laughs]

August (narration):

Many people want Mike to be the next Bachelor. If that opportunity arises, it sounds like he would take it.

Mike:

I went on the show to find and have the opportunity to love. That’s it. I didn’t even know that that position was like available.

If I were to be asked in the future, I would definitely have a lot of questions because of, you know, what’s taking place like this last season and a few seasons prior. I would want to have a voice and not be muted. But if I’m single. 

August (narration):

See that? Ready to mingle.

I asked Mike to share some of his top sexual empowerment advice for all of us.  When we spoke, he told me he had just given a presentation in this space and that his favorite piece to talk about is malicious prosecution, or being malicious and intending to cause harm, versus ignorant, meaning you haven’t yet learned better.

Mike: 

What I mean by this is, in terms of sexual empowerment, is for men to not be malicious in the things that they do—malicious prosecution, right? So accusing your partner of wrongdoing to cover up something that you did. For some reason that aspect isn’t talked about. 

August (narration):

He’s also pretty passionate about what he calls rising action, aka foreplay. He told me that he doesn’t like the term “foreplay,” in ways similar to my take on common ways folks use the word. So many people consider foreplay everything before penetration during sex. And a lot of what’s consider foreplay, in my mind, is part of sex. And he uses it broadly, to describe the ways you interact outside of the bedroom, too.

Mike:

I think that rising action and/or foreplay in terms of sexual empowerment should be a thing of establishing trust, establishing equal power, creating a safe space. Foreplay isn’t strictly sending those purple-type text emojis, right? Foreplay isn’t simply when it comes in terms of “of sex,” right? Foreplay is also, to be explicit, fucking your partner’s brains before their body.

And foreplay is something that for sexual empowerment is incredibly strong, over the entirety of a relationship. When your partner respects you, they probably want to do some freaky stuff with you. 

August:

I really like that. Yeah, I think there’s such a parallel between the ways we move in the world and treat people and the ways we are sexually. 

Mike:

I liked – let me go to it right quick… This was hilarious. I’ve never heard it before. This is another reason why I wanted to read your book, because there’s just things that I’m ignorant to, right?That’s why I say ignorant, ignorance versus malicious, right?

August (narration):

So here, Mike is flipping through his copy of Girl Boner, looking for one of his favorite excerpts. 

August:

Yeah, so few of us learn anything about sex and sexuality. And I’m still learning. It’s a journey for sure.

Mike:

It is a journey. I want to be a man that is not ignorant in this regard.

Here we go, page 322. You tell a joke by Liz [Miele]… I love this joke because I think that women are incredible. And this talks about my gender as a man and we could do a little bit better, so it’s kind of funny to me. 

The joke is [laughs] “a woman riding a dude. She gets him about 30% of the way from orgasm, and then she gets up and leaves. It’s called Equal Pay Act.” [laughs] That was hilarious to me.

August:  

She’s gonna be so touched. That’s Liz Miele. I had her on the podcast.

Mike:  

Liz Miele. Okay. My apologies.

August:  

No, that’s perfect. She’s so funny. She did a whole sketch of feminist expositions. And we don’t realize how much the jokes that we make, you know, because she was responding to these really misogynist jokes…

Mike

Yes.

August

…that people tell and they just learned were funny and never really questioned it. 

Mike:  

Yes. 

August:

So I love that you’re exploring like that.

Mike:  

I am, because I just want to be great to my future lady. And a part of that is, you know, pleasing her sexually. And not only physically sexually, but also just making her feel good. And doing the rising action, a/k/a foreplay, to making her feel amazing, even outside of the bedroom. And as a man reading that, I’m like, oh, oh, okay [laughs]. Let’s have the Equal Pay Act, right? [laughs] Let me not get her 70% of, you know, alright. I’m out. You know, I thought that was funny. 

I think most, not most, but I think a lot of guys are like macho, and sometimes may not want to hear this stuff. And I’m like, “Bro. If you’re trying to be macho, you want to be good, you might want to listen.” To me, it’s pretty simple but, yeah.

August:  

You’re such a voice of positivity that I think we need in this world. So, thank you. Thank you for the work that you do, for taking the time to speak with me for the show and just everything that you’re all about. I feel like you’re such a wonderful role model. You have this natural mentoring vibe to you and I feel like we can all learn from the things you share.

Mike:

I so appreciate that and feel the same way about you. I would love to talk to you again in the future. Maybe work on something as well. I love what you do, and I think that it’d be kind of cool for two different minds of ours to get together and do something amazing for the world. 

August:

We should do a joint book event. That’d be really fun, as the world opens back up.

Mike:

That’d be pretty dope.

August (narration):

And yes, you will all be invited. 

*****

Learn more about Mike Johnson and order a signed copy of Making the Love You Want, here!

To get awesome accessories for the rising action he mentioned, head to thepleasurechest.com to start shopping.

Wtream the full episode, including Dr. Megan Fleming’s top tips for cultivating self-love, and inviting stronger pleasure in the process, up above or on your favorite podcast app!