Erotic Intelligence : Understanding the relationship between Love and Desire

There is a paradox that exists in our culture. Why is it that good sex so often fades from committed relationships, even when those couples are more in love then they have ever been? When you love, how do you feel, and when you desire, how is it different? Esther Perel, a world-renowned relationship therapist, explains in her TED talk that “the very ingredients that nurture love -- mutuality, reciprocity, worry, responsibility for the other -- are the very ingredients that stifle desire.” The ingredients for desire are the darker things, like jealousy, aggression, possessiveness, naughtiness, mischief. Basically, the things that upset us during the day are the very things that will turn us on at night. 

There is a dichotomy between our two basic human needs. On one side, we have the need for security, for predictability, for safety, for dependability, for reliability, for permanence: all the anchoring, grounding experiences of our lives that give us the comfort that is so appealing in a long-term relationship. On the other side, however, we have the urge for excitement -- for adventure, for novelty, for mystery, for risk, for danger, for the unknown, for the unexpected, for surprise. And as Perel explains,

“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 confidante and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long.

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.”

If we understand the issues, it seems like a nearly impossible task to make love and desire work in harmony. The good news is that this has been Perel’s area of study for many years. She has traveled the world to talk to couples who have managed to keep that spark of desire alive in decades-long marriages. I suggest you watch the whole video, but I will share with you the common traits of these couples:

• They understand that there is an erotic space that belongs to each of them. In order to play, in order to desire, we need space to be in our own heads. That is where desire comes from, much more than the other.
• They understand that foreplay is not something you do five minutes before sex; it basically starts at the end of the previous orgasm. 
• Responsibility and desire do not play well together. These couples have learned to leave the office at the door to the bedroom. They actively stop being the good citizen who is taking care of things and being responsible.
• They understand that passion and desire -- like the moon -- wax and wane. And moreover, they know how to reignite the flames of desire during an eclipse.
• 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.

I think Perel’s conclusion speaks volumes: “Committed sex is premeditated sex. It's willful. It's intentional. It's focus and presence.” But I would take it a step further and say that in any relationship, new or old, serious or casual, good sex is premeditated sex!