ESTHER PEREL
The secret to desire in a long-term relationship
00:13 So, why does good sex so often fade, even for couples who continue to love each other as much as ever? And why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex, contrary to popular belief? Or, the next question would be, can we want what we already have? That's the million-dollar question, right? And why is the forbidden so erotic? What is it about transgression that makes desire so potent? And why does sex make babies, and babies spell erotic disaster in couples? 00:44 (Laughter) 00:46 It's kind of the fatal erotic blow, isn't it? And when you love, how does it feel? And when you desire, how is it different? 00:54 These are some of the questions that are at the center of my exploration on the nature of erotic desire and its concomitant dilemmas in modern love. So I travel the globe, and what I'm noticing is that everywhere where romanticism has entered, there seems to be a crisis of desire. A crisis of desire, as in owning the wanting -- desire as an expression of our individuality, of our free choice, of our preferences, of our identity -- desire that has become a central concept as part of modern love and individualistic societies. 01:33 You know, this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term not because we want 14 children, for which we need to have even more because many of them won't make it, and not because it is exclusively a woman's marital duty. This is the first time that we want sex over time about pleasure and connection that is rooted in desire. 02:04 So what sustains desire, and why is it so difficult? And at the heart of sustaining desire in a committed relationship, I think, is the reconciliation of two fundamental human needs. On the one hand, our need for security, 1
for predictability, for safety, for dependability, for reliability, for permanence. All these anchoring, grounding experiences of our lives that we call home. But we also have an equally strong need -- men and women -- for adventure, for novelty, for mystery, for risk, for danger, for the unknown, for the unexpected, surprise -- you get the gist. For journey, for travel. 02:53 So reconciling our need for security and our need for adventure into one relationship, or what we today like to call a passionate marriage, used to be a contradiction in terms. Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. 03:26 (Laughter) 03:29 So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide. Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it's a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that. 03:55 (Laughter) 03:57 (Applause) 04:01 So now we get to the existential reality of the story, right? Because I think, in some way -- and I'll come back to that -- but the crisis of desire is often a crisis of the imagination. 04:14 So why does good sex so often fade? What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? Because therein lies the mystery of eroticism. 04:26 So if there is a verb, for me, that comes with love, it's "to have." And if there is a verb that comes with desire, it is "to want." In love, we want to 2
have, we want to know the beloved. We want to minimize the distance. We want to contract that gap. We want to neutralize the tensions. We want closeness. But in desire, we tend to not really want to go back to the places we've already gone. Forgone conclusion does not keep our interest. In desire, we want an Other, somebody on the other side that we can go visit, that we can go spend some time with, that we can go see what goes on in their red-light district. You know? In desire, we want a bridge to cross. Or in other words, I sometimes say, fire needs air. Desire needs space. And when it's said like that, it's often quite abstract. 05:20 But then I took a question with me. And I've gone to more than 20 countries in the last few years with "Mating in Captivity," and I asked people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Not attracted sexually, per Se, but most drawn. And across culture, across religion, and across gender -- except for one -- there are a few answers that just keep coming back. 05:42 So the first group is: I am most drawn to my partner when she is away, when we are apart, when we reunite. Basically, when I get back in touch with my ability to imagine myself with my partner, when my imagination comes back in the picture, and when I can root it in absence and in longing, which is a major component of desire. 06:11 But then the second group is even more interesting. I am most drawn to my partner when I see him in the studio, when she is onstage, when he is in his element, when she's doing something she's passionate about, when I see him at a party and other people are really drawn to him, when I see her hold court. Basically, when I look at my partner radiant and confident. Probably the biggest turn-on across the board. Radiant, as in self-sustaining. I look at this person -- by the way, in desire people rarely talk about it, when we are blended into one, five centimeters from each other. I don't know in inches how much that is. 06:50 But it's also not when the other person is that far apart that you no longer see them. It's when I'm looking at my partner from a comfortable distance, where this person that is already so familiar, so known, is momentarily once again somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive. And in this space between me and the other lies the erotic élan, lies that movement toward the other.Because sometimes, as Proust says, mystery is not about traveling to new places, but it's about looking with new eyes. And so, when I see my partner on his own or her own, doing something in which they are enveloped, I look at this person and I
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momentarily get a shift in perception, and I stay open to the mysteries that are living right next to me. 07:39 And then, more importantly, in this description about the other or myself - it's the same -- what is most interesting is that there is no neediness in desire. Nobody needs anybody. There is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is mightily loving. It's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. 07:58 (Laughter) 07:59 I have yet to see somebody who is so turned on by somebody who needs them. Wanting them is one thing. Needing them is a shot down and women have known that forever, because anything that will bring up parenthood will usually decrease the erotic charge. 08:13 (Laughter) 08:15 For good reasons, right? 08:16 And then the third group of answers usually would be: when I'm surprised, when we laugh together, as somebody said to me in the office today, when he's in his tux, so I said, you know, it's either the tux or the cowboy boots. But basically it's when there is novelty. But novelty isn't about new positions. It isn't a repertoire of techniques. Novelty is, what parts of you do you bring out? What parts of you are just being seen? 08:46 Because in some way one could say sex isn't something you do, eh? Sex is a place you go. It's a space you enter inside yourself and with another, or others. So where do you go in sex? What parts of you do you connect to? What do you seek to express there? Is it a place for transcendence and spiritual union? Is it a place for naughtiness and is it a place to be safely aggressive? Is it a place where you can finally surrender and not have to take responsibility for everything? Is it a place where you can express your infantile wishes? What comes out there? It's a language. It isn't just a behavior. And it's the poetic of that language that I'm interested in, which is why I began to explore this concept of erotic intelligence. 09:31 You know, animals have sex. It's the pivot, it's biology, it's the natural instinct. We are the only ones who have an erotic life,which means that it's 4
sexuality transformed by the human imagination. We are the only ones who can make love for hours,have a blissful time, multiple orgasms, and touch nobody, just because we can imagine it. We can hint at it. We don't even have to do it. We can experience that powerful thing called anticipation, which is a mortar to desire. The ability to imagine it, as if it's happening, to experience it as if it's happening, while nothing is happening and everything is happening, at the same time. 10:15 So when I began to think about eroticism, I began to think about the poetics of sex. And if I look at it as an intelligence, then it's something that you cultivate. What are the ingredients? Imagination, playfulness, novelty, curiosity, mystery. But the central agent is really that piece called the imagination. 10:38 But more importantly, for me to begin to understand who are the couples who have an erotic spark, what sustains desire, I had to go back to the original definition of eroticism, the mystical definition, and I went through it through a bifurcation by looking, actually, at trauma, which is the other side. And I looked at it, looking at the community that I had grown up in, which was a community in Belgium, all Holocaust survivors, and in my community, there were two groups: those who didn't die, and those who came back to life. And those who didn't die lived often very tethered to the ground, could not experience pleasure, could not trust, because when you're vigilant, worried, anxious, and insecure, you can't lift your head to go and take off in space and be playful and safe and imaginative. Those who came back to life were those who understood the erotic as an antidote to death. They knew how to keep themselves alive. And when I began to listen to the sexlessness of the couples that I work with, I sometimes would hear people say, "I want more sex," but generally, people want better sex, and better is to reconnect with that quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of renewal, of vitality, of Eros, of energy that sex used to afford them, or that they've hoped it would afford them. 11:59 And so I began to ask a different question. "I shut myself off when ..." began to be the question. "I turn off my desires when ..."Which is not the same question as, "What turns me off is ..." and "You turn me off when ..." And people began to say, "I turn myself off when I feel dead inside, when I don't like my body, when I feel old, when I haven't had time for myself, when I haven't had a chance to even check in with you, when I don't perform well at work, when I feel low self esteem, when I don't have a sense of self-worth, when I don't feel like I have a right to want, to take, to receive pleasure." 12:37
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And then I began to ask the reverse question. "I turn myself on when ..." Because most of the time, people like to ask the question, "You turn me on, what turns me on," and I'm out of the question, you know? Now, if you are dead inside, the other person can do a lot of things for Valentine's. It won't make a dent. There is nobody at the reception desk. 12:55 (Laughter) 12:57 So I turn myself on when, I turn on my desires, I wake up when ... 13:03 Now, in this paradox between love and desire, what seems to be so puzzling is that the very ingredients that nurture love --mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other -- are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.Because desire comes with a host of feelings that are not always such favorites of love: jealousy, possessiveness, aggression, power, dominance, naughtiness, mischief. Basically most of us will get turned on at night by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day. You know, the erotic mind is not very politically correct. If everybody was fantasizing on a bed of roses, we wouldn't be having such interesting talks about this. 13:54 (Laughter) 13:55 But no, in our mind up there are a host of things going on that we don't always know how to bring to the person that we love,because we think love comes with selflessness and in fact desire comes with a certain amount of selfishness in the best sense of the word: the ability to stay connected to one's self in the presence of another. 14:17 So I want to draw that little image for you, because this need to reconcile these two sets of needs, we are born with that. Our need for connection, our need for separateness, or our need for security and adventure, or our need for togetherness and for autonomy, and if you think about the little kid who sits on your lap and who is cozily nested here and very secure and comfortable, and at some point all of us need to go out into the world to discover and to explore. That's the beginning of desire, that exploratory need, curiosity, discovery. And then at some point they turn around and they look at you. And if you tell them, "Hey kiddo, the world's a great place. Go for it. There's so much fun out there," then they can turn away and they can experience connection and separateness at the same time. They can go off in their imagination, off in their body, off in their 6
playfulness, all the while knowing that there's somebody when they come back. 15:16 But if on this side there is somebody who says, "I'm worried. I'm anxious. I'm depressed. My partner hasn't taken care of me in so long. What's so good out there? Don't we have everything you need together, you and I?" then there are a few little reactionsthat all of us can pretty much recognize. Some of us will come back, came back a long time ago, and that little child who comes back is the child who will forgo a part of himself in order not to lose the other. I will lose my freedom in order not to lose connection. And I will learn to love in a certain way that will become burdened with extra worry and extra responsibility and extra protection, and I won't know how to leave you in order to go play, in order to go experience pleasure, in order to discover, to enter inside myself. 16:10 Translate this into adult language. It starts very young. It continues into our sex lives up to the end. Child number two comes back but looks like that over their shoulder all the time. "Are you going to be there? Are you going to curse me, scold me? Are you going to be angry with me?" And they may be gone, but they're never really away. And those are often the people that will tell you, "In the beginning, it was super hot." Because in the beginning, the growing intimacy wasn't yet so strong that it actually led to the decrease of desire. The more connected I became, the more responsible I felt, the less I was able to let go in your presence. The third child doesn't really come back. 16:56 So what happens, if you want to sustain desire, it's that real dialectic piece. On the one hand you want the security in order to be able to go. On the other hand if you can't go, you can't have pleasure, you can't culminate, you don't have an orgasm, you don't get excited because you spend your time in the body and the head of the other and not in your own. 17:18 So in this dilemma about reconciling these two sets of fundamental needs, there are a few things that I've come to understand erotic couples do. One, they have a lot of sexual privacy. They understand that there is an erotic space that belongs to each of them. They also understand that foreplay is not something you do five minutes before the real thing. Foreplay pretty much starts at the end of the previous orgasm. They also understand that an erotic space isn't about, you begin to stroke the other.It's about you create a space where you leave Management Inc., maybe where you leave the Agile program -17:56
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(Laughter) 17:58 And you actually just enter that place where you stop being the good citizen who is taking care of things and being responsible. 18:05 Responsibility and desire just butt heads. They don't really do well together. Erotic couples also understand that passion waxes and wanes. It's pretty much like the moon. It has intermittent eclipses. But what they know is they know how to resurrect it.They know how to bring it back. And they know how to bring it back because they have demystified one big myth, which is the myth of spontaneity, which is that it's just going to fall from heaven while you're folding the laundry like a deus ex machina, and in fact they understood that whatever is going to just happen in a long-term relationship, already has. 18:43 Committed sex is premeditated sex. It's willful. It's intentional. It's focus and presence. 18:52 Merry Valentine's. 18:53 (Applause)
00:13 ¿Por qué el buen sexo se desvanece tan frecuentemente aun en parejas que continúan amándose uno al otro tanto como siempre? ¿Y por qué una buena intimidad no garantiza buen sexo, contrario a la creencia popular? O, la siguiente pregunta pudiera ser, ¿podemos desear lo que ya tenemos? Es la pregunta del millón, ¿verdad? ¿Y por qué lo prohibido es tan erótico?¿Qué hace la transgresión que hace al deseo tan potente? ¿Y por qué el sexo hace bebés, y los bebés significan desastre erótico en las parejas? Es una especie de golpe mortal al erotismo, ¿no es así? Y cuando amas, ¿cómo se siente? Y cuando deseas, ¿en qué es diferente? 00:54 Estas son algunas de la preguntas que están en el centro de mi exploración de la naturaleza del deseo erótico y los dilemas concomitantes en el amor moderno. Así que he viajado por el mundo y lo que he notado
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es que en todas partes donde el romanticismo ha entrado parece haber una crisis del deseo. Una crisis del deseo, como en poseer lo querido. El deseo como una expresión de nuestra individualidad, de nuestra libre elección, de nuestras preferencias, de nuestra identidad; deseo que se ha convertido en el concepto central como parte del amor moderno y las sociedades individualistas. 01:33 Saben, es la primera vez en la historia de la humanidad en que tratamos de experimentar la sexualidad en el largo plazo, no porque queramos 14 niños, para lo que necesitamos tener aún más porque muchos de ellos no sobreviven, y no porque sea un deber marital exclusivo de las mujeres. Esta es la primera vez que queremos sexo por largo tiempo por el placer y la conexión que tiene sus raíces en el deseo. 02:04 ¿Qué sostiene el deseo y por qué es tan difícil? Y en el corazón del deseo sostenido en una relación comprometida, creo que está la reconciliación de dos necesidades humanas fundamentales. Por una parte, nuestro deseo de seguridad, predictibilidad,seguridad, dependencia, confidencialidad, permanencia, todas anclas, polos a tierra de nuestras vidas, que llamamos hogar.Pero también tenemos una necesidad igualmente fuerte —hombres y mujeres— de aventura, novedad, misterio, riesgo, peligro, de lo desconocido, lo inesperado, de sorpresa —captan la idea— de camino, de viaje. Así que reconciliar nuestra necesidad de seguridad y nuestra necesidad de aventura en una relación, o lo que hoy nos gusta llamar un matrimonio apasionado, suele ser una contradicción de términos. El matrimonio era una institución económica en la que te dieron un compañero para toda la vida en términos de niños y estatus social y sucesión y compañerismo Pero ahora queremos que nuestro compañero aún nos dé esas cosas, y además queremos que sea nuestro mejor amigo, sincero confidente y apasionado amante, y vivimos el doble. (Risas) Así que escojemos a una persona y básicamente le pedimos que nos dé lo que antes toda la aldea solía dar: Dame pertenencia, identidad, continuidad, pero dame trascendencia y misterio y asombro, todo en uno. Dame confort, dame límite. Dame novedad, dame familiaridad. Dame predictibilidad, dame sorpresa. Y pensamos que está dado, y que los juguetes y la lencería nos salvarán. (Aplausos) 04:00 Así que ahora llegamos a la realidad existencial de la historia, ¿verdad? Porque creo, de una forma —y volveré sobre esto —que la crisis del deseo es frecuentemente una crisis de la imaginación. 04:14
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Así que, ¿por qué el buen sexo a menudo se desvanece? ¿Cuál es la relación entre amor y deseo? ¿Cómo se relacionan y cómo entran en conflicto? Porque ahí radica el misterio del erotismo. 04:26 Si hay un verbo, para mí, que acompañe a amor es "tener". Y si hay un verbo que acompañe a deseo, es "querer". En el amor, queremos tener, queremos conocer lo amado. Queremos minimizar la distancia. Queremos reducir la brecha. Queremos neutralizar las tensiones. Queremos cercanía. Pero al desear, tendemos a no regresar a los lugares en los que ya hemos estado. Los resultados previsibles no mantienen nuestro interés. Al desear, queremos un Otro, alguien del otro lado que podamos ir a visitar, con quien podamos pasar algún tiempo, que podamos ir a ver qué pasa en la zona roja. Al desear, queremos un puente para cruzar. En otras palabras, a veces digo, el fuego necesita aire. El deseo necesita espacio. Y cuando se dice así es bastante abstracto. 05:20 Pero luego tomé una pregunta conmigo. Y he ido a más de 20 países en los últimos años con "Inteligencia Erótica" y le pregunté a la gente, ¿cuándo encuentra más atractiva a su pareja? No atractiva sexualmente, per se, sino más deseable. Y a lo largo de las culturas, las religiones, el género — excepto por uno— hubo pocas respuestas diferentes. 05:42 El primer grupo es: Es más deseable para mí cuando se va, cuando está lejos, cuando nos reunimos. Básicamente, cuando entro en contacto con mi habilidad de imaginarme con mi pareja, cuando mi imaginación regresa al cuadro, y cuando puedo socavar en la ausencia y el anhelo, que es el mayor componente del deseo. Pero un segundo grupo es aún más interesante:Me es más deseable cuando la veo en el estudio, cuando está en escena, cuando está en su elemento, haciendo algo que le apasiona, cuando la veo en una fiesta y con otras personas, cuando la veo dirigiendo. Básicamente, cuando veo a mi pareja radiante y segura, probablemente el mayor excitante de todos. Radiante, como autosuficiente. Veo a esa persona, por cierto, en el deseo las personas raramente hablan de ello, cuando estamos mezclados en uno, a 5 centímetros uno de otro. No sé en pulgadas cuánto es. Pero tampoco es cuando la otra persona está tan lejos que ya no puedes verla. Es cuando veo a mi pareja a una distancia confortable, cuando esa persona que es ya tan familiar, saben, es por momentos, misteriosa otra vez, algo elusiva. Y en ese espacio entre yo y el otro reside el impulso erótico, reside el movimiento hacia el otro. Porque a veces, como decía Proust, el misterio no es viajar a nuevos lugares, sino verlos con nuevos ojos. Y así, cuando veo mi pareja por su cuenta,haciendo algo en que está involucrada, veo a esa persona y por momentos tengo un cambio de percepción, y estoy abierta a los misterios que viven justo a mi lado.
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07:39 Y entonces, más importante, en esta descripción del otro o de mí —es lo mismo—, lo que es más interesante es que no hay necesidad en el deseo. Nadie necesita a nadie. No hay cuidado en el deseo. El cuidado es muy amoroso. Es un potente antiafrodisiaco. Todavía estoy por ver a alguien que esté excitado por alguien que lo necesita. Una cosa es quererles. Necesitarlos es un freno, y las mujeres lo han sabido desde siempre, porque cualquier cosa que lleve a la planificacióngeneralmente disminuirá la carga erótica. Por buenas razones, ¿correcto? 08:16 Y el tercer grupo de respuestas generalmente son: Cuando estoy sorprendido, cuando reímos juntos, como alguien me dijo en la oficina hoy, cuando está de etiqueta, así que me dije, ya sabes, es o de etiqueta o de botas de vaquero. Pero básicamente es cuando hay novedad. Pero la novedad no se trata de nuevas posiciones. No es un repertorio de técnicas. Novedad es, ¿qué partes tuyas vas a mostrar? ¿Qué partes de ti casi se ven? Porque de alguna manera uno podría decir que el sexo no es algo que uno hace, ¿eh? El sexo es un lugar al que vas. Es un espacio al que entras dentro de ti mismo y con otro, u otros. ¿Así que a dónde irías en el sexo? ¿Qué partes de ti conectas? ¿Qué buscas expresar allí? ¿Es un lugar para la trascendencia y unión espiritual? ¿Es un lugar para la travesura y es un lugar para ser agresivo con seguridad? ¿Es un lugar donde puedes rendirte y no tener que asumir la responsabilidad de todo? ¿Es un lugar donde puedes expresar tus deseos infantiles? ¿Qué viene por ahí? Es un lenguaje. No es solo un comportamiento. Y es la poética de ese idioma lo que me interesa, que es por lo que comencé a explorar este concepto de inteligencia erótica. 09:31 Saben, los animales tienen sexo. Es el pivote, es biología, es el instinto natural. Somos los únicos que tienen una vida erótica,lo que significa que es sexualmente transformada por la imaginación humana. Somos los únicos que pueden hacer el amor durante horas, pasar un rato feliz, tener orgasmos múltiples, sin tocar a nadie, simplemente porque nos lo imaginamos.Podemos esbozarlo. Ni siquiera tenemos que hacerlo. Podemos experimentar esa cosa potente llamada anticipación, que es el mortero del deseo, la capacidad de imaginar, como si estuviera sucediendo, para vivirlo como si estuviera sucediendo, mientras que nada está sucediendo y todo está ocurriendo al mismo tiempo. Así que cuando empecé a pensar sobre el erotismo, me puse a pensar en la poética del sexo, y si lo veo como una inteligencia, entonces es algo que puedes cultivar.¿Cuáles son los ingredientes? Imaginación, alegría, novedad, curiosidad, misterio. Pero el agente central es realmente esa pieza llamada la imaginación. 10:38
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Pero lo más importante, para yo comenzar a entender cuáles son las parejas que tienen una chispa erótica, lo que mantiene el deseo, tuve que volver a la definición original de erotismo, la definición mística, y me fui a través de ella a través de una bifurcación mirando realmente al trauma, que es la otra cara, y mirarla, mirando a la comunidad en que había crecido, que era una comunidad en Bélgica, todos sobrevivientes del Holocausto, y en mi comunidad había dos grupos: los que no murieron y los que volvieron a la vida. Y los que no murieron vivieron a menudo muy atados a la tierra, no podría experimentar placer, no podía confiar, porque cuando estás atento, preocupado, ansioso, e inseguro, no puedes levantar la cabeza e ir y despegar al espacio y ser juguetón y seguro e imaginativo. Los que regresaron a la vida fueron aquellos que entendieron lo erótico como un antídoto a la muerte. Supieron cómo mantenerse vivos. Y cuando comencé a escuchar de la asexualidad de las parejas con las que trabajo, a veces les oigo decir, "Quiero más sexo", pero por lo general lo que la gente quiere es mejor sexo, y lo mejor es volver a conectar con esa cualidad de estar vivo, de resonancia, de renovación, de vitalidad, de eros, de energía que el sexo solía darles o que habían esperado les diera. 11:59 Y así empecé a hacer una pregunta diferente. "Me apago cuando..." empezó a ser la pregunta. "Se me acaba el deseo cuando..." que no es la misma pregunta, "Lo que me apaga es..." y "Me apagas el deseo cuando..." Y la gente comenzó a decir, "No tengo deseo cuando me siento muerto dentro, cuando no me gusta mi cuerpo, cuando me siento viejo, cuando no he tenido tiempo para mí, cuando no he tenido oportunidad ni siquiera de presentarme, cuando no lo hago bien en el trabajo,cuando siento baja autoestima, cuando no tengo un sentido de ser valioso, cuando no me siento como que tengo el derecho a querer, de recibir placer". 12:36 Y entonces empecé a hacer la pregunta inversa. "Me excito cuando..." Porque la mayoría de las veces, a la gente le gusta hacer pregunta, "Me excito, lo que me excita", y estoy fuera de la pregunta. ¿Saben? Ahora, si estás muerto dentro, la otra persona puede hacer muchas cosas por San Valentín. No hará mella. No hay nadie en la recepción. (Risas) Así que me excito cuando, dirijo a mis deseos, me avivo cuando... 13:03 Ahora, en esta paradoja entre el amor y el deseo, lo que parece ser tan desconcertante es que los propios ingredientes que nutren el amor — mutualismo, reciprocidad, protección, preocupación, responsabilidad por el otro— son a veces los mismos ingredientes que sofocan el deseo. Porque el deseo viene con una serie de sentimientos que no siempre favorecen el amor:celos, posesividad, agresión, poder, dominación, malicia, travesuras. Básicamente la mayoría de nosotros no excitamos en la
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noche por las mismas cosas contra la que protestamos durante el día. Saben, la mente erótica no es muy políticamente correcta. Si todo el mundo fantasea en un lecho de rosas, no tendríamos esas conversaciones interesantes sobre esto. Pero no, en nuestra mente hay una multitud de cosas sucediendo que no siempre sabemos cómo llevar a la persona que amamos,porque pensamos que el amor viene con abnegación, y de hecho el deseo viene con una cierta cantidad de egoísmo en el mejor sentido de la palabra: la capacidad de estar conectado al propio yo en presencia de otro. 14:16 Así que quiero traer esa pequeña imagen hacia Uds., debido a esta necesidad de conciliar estos dos grupos de necesidadescon las que nacemos. Nuestra necesidad de conexión, nuestra necesidad de separación, o nuestra necesidad de seguridad y aventura, o nuestra necesidad de estar juntos y de autonomía, y si piensan en el niño que está sentado en su regazo y que es acunado allí, muy seguro y cómodo, y en algún momento todos debemos salir al mundo para descubrir y explorar. Eso es el principio del deseo, necesidades exploratorias, curiosidad, descubrimiento. En algún momento dan vuelta y miran y si les dices: "Niño, el mundo es un gran lugar. Ve por él. Hay mucha diversión allá", entonces pueden dar vuelta y experimentarconexión y separación al mismo tiempo. Pueden ir en su imaginación, en su cuerpo, disfrutando su alegría, sabiendo todo el tiempo que habrá alguien cuando regresen. 15:16 Pero si en este lado hay alguien que dice: "Me preocupa. Estoy ansioso. Estoy deprimido. Mi pareja no ha cuidado de mí en tanto tiempo. ¿Qué hay tan bueno allá afuera? ¿No tenemos todo lo que necesitamos juntos, tú y yo?", entonces hay algunas pocas reacciones que todos nosotros podemos reconocer bien. Algunos de nosotros volveremos, regresar a hace mucho tiempo y a ese niño que regresa es el niño que va renunciar a una parte de sí mismo para no perder el otro. Perderé mi libertad para no perder la conexión. Y aprenderé a amar de una cierta manera que vendrá cargada de preocupación extra,responsabilidad y protección adicionales, y no sé cómo dejarte para jugar, para experimentar placer, con el fin de descubrir, de entrar dentro de mí. Traduzcan esto al lenguaje adulto. Empieza muy joven. Continúa en nuestra vida sexual hasta el final. El niño número dos regresa pero pareciera que sobre sus hombros todo el tiempo. "¿Vas a estar allí? ¿Vas a maldecirme? ¿Vas a regañarme? ¿Vas a estar enojada conmigo?" Y se ha ido, pero nunca están muy lejos, y son a menudo las personas que les dirán, al principio era supercaliente. Porque en un principio, la intimidad creciente no era aún tan fuerte que realmente llevara a la disminución del deseo. Cuanto más conectado estoy, más responsable me siento, menos soy capaz de irme de tu presencia. El tercer niño realmente no regresa. 16:56 13
Entonces pasa que, si quieres sostener el deseo, es este pedazo de real dialéctica. Por un lado deseas la seguridad para poder ir. Por otra si no puedes irte, no tienes placer, no puedes culminar, no tienes un orgasmo, que no te excitas porque gastas tu tiempo en el cuerpo y la cabeza del otro y no en el tuyo propio. 17:18 En este dilema sobre reconciliación de estos dos grupos de necesidades fundamentales, hay algunas pocas cosas que me han llevado a comprender lo que hacen esas parejas eróticas. Uno, tienen mucha intimidad sexual. Entienden que hay un espacio erótico que pertenece a cada uno de ellos. También entienden que la estimulación erótica no es algo que haces cinco minutos antes de la cosa real. El juego erótico inicia al final del anterior orgasmo. También entienden que un espacio erótico no es sobre comenzar a tocar al otro. Es sobre crear un espacio donde dejas el Directivo S.A. tal vez donde dejas el programa 'Agile',(Risas) y realmente solo debes entrar a ese lugar donde dejas de ser el buen ciudadano que cuida de las cosas y es responsable. Responsabilidad y deseo solo pelean. Realmente no lo hacen bien juntos. Las parejas eróticas también entiendan que la pasión aumenta y disminuye. Es bastante parecida a la Luna. Tiene eclipses intermitentes. Pero lo que saben es que saben cómo resucitarla. Saben cómo hacerla regresar, y saben cómo hacerla regresar porque han desmitificado un gran mito,que es el mito de la espontaneidad, que es que vas a caer del cielo mientras tú estás doblando la ropa como un deus ex machina, y de hecho entendieron que todo lo que va a pasar, solo pasa en una relación de largo plazo que ya se tiene. 18:43 Sexo comprometido es sexo intencional. Es foco y presencia.
premeditado. Es
con
voluntad.
Es
18:51 Feliz San Valentín. 18:53 (Aplausos)
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Mark MatousekEthical Wisdom
Unlocking Erotic Intelligence: Advice from Esther Perel How can couples keep the home fires burning? Posted Mar 29, 2013
Esther Perel is a triple threat. Visionary, beautiful, and ferociously intelligent, the Belgian-born psychotherapist and author best known for “Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence,” a landmark book that introduced millions of couples to the conflict between intimacy and sex, and how to be married and hot at the same time. Perel’s TED talk in February attracted more than a million hits in the first month. In a nutshell, her thesis is this: intimacy in relationships is frequently – and inexplicably – the enemy of sex. The intimacy Perel’s referring to is the romantic ideal of semi-conjoined couples who believe that love means quashing mystery in favor of sweet companionship. In order for couples to remain interested in one another, they require distance, transgression, surprise, and play. We must be able to stand back from our partners, to view them as separate, mysterious people, for them to remain objects of our desire. “Desire is fueled by the unknown,” Perel insists when we meet in her high rise New York City office. She’s formidable, intense; when she looks at you – or rather through you -- the experience is unnerving (Perel’s jungle cat eyes don’t help). MM: I want to start off by talking about the the relationship between erotic life and survival.
EP: I have always been interested in the story of survival and revival. But I did not originally connect it to eroticism. I made the connection one day when I was talking to my husband, Jack Saul, who is the director of International Trauma Studies Program at Drexel. He was one of the cofounders of the Center for Victims of Torture. I said to him, "When do you know that a torture victim comes back to life? When do you know that they are once again in the world? What does it take for a person to 15
reconnect?" It turns out that people (come back to life when they) are able to reconnect with creativity, vitality, and with the opposite of vigilance. You can’t play when you’re vigilant. You can’t play when you’re anxious. You can’t play when you’re fearful. You can’t play when you don’t trust. That’s
when I made the connection. There were two groups in the community of Holocaust survivors that I grew up in Antwerp. There were the houses that just had survived, but you felt deadness in them: from the curtains being down, to the heaviness, anti-hedonism, and the inability to experience pleasure of being alive. And then you had the houses of people who had really experienced eroticism as an antidote to death and knew how to keep themselves alive; to stay connected to vitality and vibrancy and exuberance and joy and force. That’s when I looked at the couples who complain about the listlessness of
their sex lives and realized there were two groups of couples: Couples who are not dead and couples who are alive. I see couples who want more sex (certainly) but mainly want to connect with the quality of renewal and liveness and playfulness that sex used to afford them. When I work with sexuality in couples, I rarely work on helping them having more sex. You can have sex and feel nothing. Women have done this for centuries. I work on the poetics of sex. I work on how they connect to their own erotic self. Basically I work at how they beat back deadness, which I think is the prime reason for affairs. MM: To come back to life?
EP: Yes. That is the one thing that everyone worldwide tells me they feel when they have an affair. That they feel alive. Many times it isn’t so much
that you want to leave your partner, as you want to leave who you have become. And it isn’t so much that you’re looking for another person as that you’re looking for another self. (You want) to reconnect with lost parts of
you or to discover new parts of you. article continues after advertisement MM: You mention that curiosity is an important aspect of erotic happiness in couples.
EP: Yes. You want to make (your partner) someone that you’re curious about... I actually believe that people never fully know the other if they stay curious. I have too many people in this office who realize that they didn’t know their partner when they discovered that they cheated. Why wait until then to find out that you don’t really know your partner? It’s not that you create mystery. It’s that it’s right there, if you can tolerate it in
your midst. Some of us get anxious and want to close it down, and some of us remain open and curious about the persistent mystery of the person next to us. MM: We need to see our partner as a completely separate entity?
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EP: I took this question worldwide: When are you most drawn to your partner? When I see my partner passionate about something, when I see my partner in his element, when I see my partner on stage, when I see my partner talking to other people, when I see other people attracted to her or to him, when he plays with the kids... when she makes me laugh, when he surprises me, when he’s vulnerable, or when she’s vulnerable. [It’s when]
you see their wholeness. You see them as not needy and you see them radiating. So they are emanating something–generosity, kindness, joy, force, influence, persuasion –whatever it is. But you emanate something, you put something out there into the world when you radiate. MM: But aren’t they also illuminated because of your shift in awareness? I mean you’re seeing them differently.
EP: Yes. It’s when you look at them as a separate unit. [One that is] already so familiar and so known but that is momentarily illusive and mysterious... So there’s still something to discover, so that you remain
fundamentally interested in the other person. To want to have sex with them over the long haul, to want to enter them, is to also remain interested in them. MM: Let me ask you, I love what you say about some of America’s best features resulted in boring sex. Can you elaborate a little bit? What about America specifically?
EP: I think that some of the most powerful aspects of American culture that bode amazingly well in some areas don’t necessarily bode as well in others. One of them is American pragmatism. So pragmatism– organization skills, efficiency, to the point, don’t beat around the bush, blatant directness–it doesn’t really go that well with the suggestiveness,
the mystery, the playfulness, the seductiveness and the delayed gratification, the connection between frustration and excitement [in sex]. MM: Americans want it now, right?
EP: Yes. Americans don’t flirt– they score. Flirting is playing with the tip of the sword. It comes from the French word meaning teasing. It’s about playing with possibility. It’s not about making it happen. It’s not achievement. Americans are achievement oriented, not dream oriented. Or they want to achieve the dream but the achievement is the piece. Much of the complexities of love and desire are a lot more murky and ambiguous. It isn’t black and white. Black and white helps you get a lot of things done and this society likes to get things done. MM: What you’re describing sounds patriarchal. You feel that women–that American woman–are as goal-oriented, as pragmatic?
EP: Yes, I think the culture is bigger here than gender. I mean, I work with people from all over the world. And it’s remarkable how... they will all say the same thing about American women. And the women about American men. You begin to see that if all foreign people see the same thing, even
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though they may come from multiple different cultures, then they are seeing something that is unique to this culture. You know, I think America likes transparency. Americans really believe that honesty is a confessional cure, and intimacy means wholesale sharing. But maybe intimacy is the actual ability to keep things for yourself. Many other cultures do not necessarily equate intimacy with transparency. MM: Why do we?
EP: I think it has to do with the level of individualism and isolation [in this culture]. There’s not many other places in the world where people are as alone as they are in this country. MM: And that’s why we require inmediate connection?
EP: Yes. In a culture where people are so alone, [there’s] the need for (quick) connection, the need for transparency, the need for this blatant wholesale sharing–no holding back because you only have one person you talk to so you have to tell everything to this one person. A lot of people here don’t have anyone else besides their partner. MM: When you talk about "neutralizing each others’ complexity" – is that a survival tactic in long-term relationships?
EP: I think that sometimes for the purposes of securing love people want to neutralize the complexities of the other. The whole problem with the intimacy thing is, ‘Tell me everything but don’t tell me anything that I can’t handle.’ Really reckoning with the otherness of this partner and to
fundamentally accept them with all of what is frustrating about them and all the loss that you have to incur. The mourning for what you will never have by virtue of being with that particular person. MM: And they wonder where their sex lives go.
EP: For me there is a connection between remaining curious and... having a certain kind of sexuality. It doesn’t mean having sex. It’s about having a certain sexualization in the relationship. It’s about a certain gaze. People can have sex once a month–who cares? It’s how they look at each other, it’s how they feel in the presence of each other, it’s how connected they
feel to that part of themselves. MM: You talk about the poetics of sexuality–it’s not just about the mechanics.
EP: The question I ask is not: Do you have sex? It’s: What does sex mean for you? Where do you go? What parts of you do you connect with there? What parts of you get expressed there? MM: And that brings up a lot of shame I would imagine for some people
EP: For some people, yeah.
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MM: So... let’s say the partner disapproves of what the other person is into–is that a workable situation? EP: I’m going to give you [an] example. So, you don’t like it when your partner sits on the floor when they watch TV. So, what you’re asking is what to do when the other person doesn’t particularly care for w hat you want. You can’t judge it... That’s the first thing. The second thing is that sometimes people might not even ask for it. If you’re going to accept me, I want you to accept me. If you’re going to know me, I want you to know
me with that part of me. If you are grossed out by that part of me, or judgmental about it or shut it down or make fun of it–then it’s just going to go underground. I’m just going to disappear. I’m just never going to tell you. Our desires are going to have a perfectly good censorship around it, if need be. You don’t want to hear about it, I will never tell you about it. And I will find other outlets. [Because] it doesn’t die. MM: You have written that when we trade passion for security, are we trading one fantasy for another? What did you mean?
EP: I mean that in the search for permanence, we have a storyboard in terms of romantic relationships that says passion is in the beginning. Passion is a temporary state of insanity that is bound to be replaced by something more tame and more long-lasting, called mature love. Mature love comes from knowing your partner and all of these things. And if you want to still find passion you are often not willing to grow up or settle down or mature... There are very few comments about passion being something good. Except in art. Everybody sucks it up in novels and movies looking at people who are destroying themselves in passion, but who wants to live like that in real life? There is no permanence. And what is truth, or reality, is the fact that everything changes. There is no real knowledge of something that is static. [So] if reality is one fiction... now passion is another. And if you’re trading passion for reality, you’re trading one fiction for another. Neither is more real. Or more true. Or more permanent. MM: I wasn’t sure what you meant by passion being a fantasy.
EP: Passion is a fantasy. But I think reality is often a fantasy too. Or a fiction anyway. It’s a story. I don’t think reality is anymore real. I think once you love, you have to deal with the fact that you can lose that love. It’s the unbearable truth–you can lose the person to death, to illness, and to them loving someone else. I think that is the fundamental piece. MM: The unbearable anticipation of being replaced. EP: That you’re replaceable, that you’re disposable, that you’re not
unique. That somebody else can take your place. MM: But it’s the discomfort of that keeps the desire going, isn’t it?
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EP: It’s the discomfort of knowing that reality. If you know that reality,
you are often more likely to try to continue to present yourself at your best. Whereas in many couples, people do not necessarily present themselves at their best. Quite the contrary. MM: I'd like to ask you about the men and aggression in erotic life. This is a slippery slope and confusing for some of us.
EP: This is a huge topic. When a woman wants a man to ravish her, what she is actually after is two things that are crucial to experiencing excitement and pleasure. One is her narcissistic affirmation that she is irresistible–and his persistence is a proof of that. His force with which he wants to grab her has nothing to do with his aggression–it has to do with how irresistible she is. That’s the turn on. The turn-on is how it makes her feel. That’s the narcissistic affirmation. Second is that it makes [men] not be needy. If you are aggressive that means you are confident... In erotic terms. It means you know what you want. And you’re going after it and it is me. Therefore, you are not fragile. You are not needy... which means you don’t require care taking. Care-taking is the most powerful anti-aphrodisiac for women. If I am in care-taking mode, I am in mothering mode, not lovemaking mode. I am in taking-care-of-others mode. If care-taking is the biggest impediment in women, the predatory fear is the biggest fear in men. MM: Meaning?
EP: That [his] aggression is hurtful. That [his] aggression is predatory. That I am dirty, that I want too much, that there is something wrong with what I want. What does every woman in porn convey to him? [She] wants it too. More so. I like it. You don’t have to worry. I am not going to reject you. You are not going to feel inadequate. You don’t have to worry about pleasing me. The three most important relational factors in male sexuality are the fear of rejection, the fear of performance incompetence, and the fear [of] whether she likes it or not. That you can never really know. You’re always left with a doubt on that– even when you’re not... The more sexualized the woman, the more safe his predatory urges are. This is definitely true between two men as well, but between two men it is much more easy. He conveys to you that he likes it. And on top of that men don’t lie [about that]. MM: Women lie more?... You mean faking it?
EP: Yes. You will never know if she is truly liking it or not. Men don’t have the capacity to lie. MM: That can be difficult at times. (laughs) EP: For many men it’s a very reassuring thing. I think it’s a thing that gay men don’t have to live with. They know if the partner is into it or not. They
can trust it... I think your question is a question of Western men. And
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Western men are in a more politically correct environment in which male aggression has been seen as really negative, because of the abuses of power that come with male aggression that are rampant in much of the world. But you can’t take aggression out of sex... you just don’t want it to be hurtful aggression... And that’s how it becomes [the woman wanting] both. She wants him tender and soft one moment and she wants him lustful, aggressive and ruthless the next. MM: Men find this very confusing.
EP: Some do. But on the other hand... men [could] see it as an invitation, that they can have multiple parts of themselves in a relationship too –that they don’t have to choose one or the other. They are the nice guy or they are the bad boy. That actually gives men the possibility to inhabit many different roles in the relationship and in one person. So instead of seeing it as a bind, they can see it as an invitation to multiplicity. MM: So the trick is to somehow bring it to the same person?
EP: If you can. Not every relationship can and not every man can. But we have a model where we think we should. We don’t necessarily conceive of a more segmented view of relationships at this point. Even the polyamorous don’t think that one relationship should be sexual and the
other should be love. Typically, I think there are multiples of love and relationships. MM: And different qualities
EP: I think that in that sense, gay couples have the most to teach. A lot of gay couples, especially when you have an older person and a younger person, it’s very clear that the older person says to the younger, ‘You go on.’ I receive your presence, your loyalty, your friendship, your
companionship. And in return for that, you get the possibility of being with other sexual partners. And I think we have everything to learn from gay couples on that front. MM: That’s not a pain free model either. EP: I don’t know a single one that is pain free. (laughs) We're talking about
real life!
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