| "If you’re too busy to have sex, you’re too busy," writes Esther Perel in her smart and welcome new book Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic + the Domestic. No "10 ways to spice up your sex life" or "How to magically turn yourself into a horny little vixen after the kids have sucked the life out of you all day" secrets here. "In North America, lack of sex in a relationship is turned into a scheduling problem," the NewYork based therapist tells me over the phone. However, Perel reminds us, back in the "watching you breathe makes me want to jump your bones" carnally insatiable early days of a relationship, we could stay up all night doing it and still manage to get up for work in the morning. Scheduling wasn’t an issue. So what happens?
It’s the most common complaint/concern I hear about from partnered readers: things used to be hot and now they’re not. I still love him/her like crazy, but he/she doesn’t want sex (yes, despite the stereotype, there are plenty of guys who "are too tired, have to get up early, aren’t in the mood").
The answer, according to Perel, is decidedly unfair. Desire and intimacy, it seems, make lousy sex partners. In other words, the closer you get, the less you want to jump each other’s bones. Our need for security and our need for adventure are two different needs that pull us in different directions, says Perel. "Love is about having; desire is about wanting," she writes. So, what do you do? Choose between safe, loving and sexless or unpredictable, unstable and hot?
"If you want to experience novelty in the midst of comfort, you first have to give up the illusion of safety, because it is an illusion," she says. "You have to learn to live with the anxiety of possibly losing that person." She likens it to a parent/child relationship.
"Our attachment to our children stems from our fear of losing them," she says. And just as a child will nestle safely in your lap, he may at any time jump up to go seek adventure. He’ll look back to make sure you’re still there and see if you’re OK with him going off. If you’re not, he’ll get anxious, too. If you are, he’ll run off even further. But he’ll always come back. It’s this kind of security, combined with separateness and freedom and recognizing that you can never totally know, nor do you own your partner, that makes for a more realistic and more sexually exciting relationship. "That’s how you create the kind of psychological space desire needs to develop within," says Perel.
Perel views our culture’s definition of intimacy — as being about full disclosure and fusion – as an entirely modern phenomenon.
"We want our marriage to fulfil all of our emotional and physical needs," she explains. "We ask our partner to do what an entire village once did." And to desire nothing or no one else while doing it.
Perel, who was born in Belgium and lived in Israel and has been married for 25 years, also thinks North Americans treat monogamy as "the sacred cow of the romantic ideal."
"It’s as if we think, ‘If you can replace me, I’m not valued,’" she says. "People would rather divorce and believe they will find everything they need with the next person than tolerate adultery." It’s not that she endorses screwing around, but she does think monogamy is a matter of choice and commitment that needs to be negotiated, rather than assumed, as it is in most of our relationships. "I believe in emotional loyalty and a primary relationship but I believe in the value of a third party, be it fantasy, flirting, or whatever you negotiate," she explains.
Desire ebbs and flows in most relationships, admits Perel, but you have to "nurture the erotic" and willfully commit to keeping it alive. However, we want it to happen spontaneously, the we-haven’t-done-it-in-three-months types among us cry.
Sex didn’t happen spontaneously at the beginning either, Perel reminds us. We planned for dates, built up the anticipation, the plot. When you’re caught up in the routine of day-to-day life, childcare and watching each other schlep around in sweats, you have to work harder at creating the storyline. If you’re currently in, or ever plan on being in a relationship, read Perel’s book. You owe it to your erotic self. For more information, go to Estherperel.com. |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.