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Published: 2006
Category: Self Help
Two guys are sitting at the bar of a chic New York restaurant when a woman of astonishing beauty enters. Conversation stops. Jaws drop. Every man there is thinking the same thing --- except for one of the men at the bar. “Somewhere,” he whispers to his friend, “there's a guy who's sick of fucking her.”
And you know that's true. It's obvious: familiarity breeds contempt. Especially if familiarity comes with a wedding ring attached. A book about sex in marriage --- now there's a thin book!
But here comes Esther Perel to suggest that we --- men and women alike --- have it wrong. Good sex doesn't have to end when the hormones cool. Lust doesn't have to devolve into companionship. You can be a mom and a sex kitten. And as for “intimacy”….in the bedroom, a little goes a long way.
Who is this wild woman? A therapist in New York who's been working with couples and families for two decades. Belgian-born, to Holocaust survivors. Married (to her original husband). Two kids. Speaks eight languages --- including common sense. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle download, click here.]
Not for Perel a how-to book of ridiculous exercises you can practice to rekindle the passion you once knew. If she had her way, you'd never consult a manual again. You might, however, write a dirty letter about all the hot things you'd like to do to your partner --- or that you'd like done to you. Or maybe you should start two e-mail accounts just for the sexual dialogue between you and your mate.
But she's the mother of your child!
But he's the guy who only gets his kicks from online porn!
Perel has heard all that. Many times. She's not fooled --- underneath those smart New York rationalizations are hearts that still want to believe in hot sex with someone you know. The problem, she says, lie in the unspoken assumptions of most marriages.
Like: To love is to merge. Wrong. Merging is what happens when you see the Other as your security. That's death to sex. Good sex requires a spark. A spark requires a gap. Cross the gap, feel the sizzle. No gap? The best you can hope for is a cuddle.
“There is no such thing as 'safe sex,'” she writes. Sex requires mystery, excitement, uncertainty. Which means not knowing everything about your partner. You find that threatening? You'd find it less so if you stopped equating intimacy with sex.
Here's a radical thought: don't do everything together. Cultivate your own set of friends. Create differences, not affinities. “Ruthlessness is a way to achieve closeness” --- ponder that for a while. Monogamy? Great if you can honor it. But it is, statistics show, “a ship sinking faster than anyone can bail it out.”
Infidelity is a symptom of deeper problems in the relationship? Many believe that. Perel doesn't. She finds life…complicated. She hates the verb “have” when used in relationships --- for her, no one “has” anyone. Relationships are negotiations, not assumptions. You can get crazy with someone you've lived with and known well --- if your “rules” allow that.
Eroticism, she says, is “sexuality transformed by the imagination.” So, start dreaming. There's a big payoff: “Nurturing eroticism in the house is an act of open defiance.”
I live in a city of therapists and in a neighborhood where they are at their most dense. I have done couples therapy; socially, I know several sex-and-couples therapists. All women. All buttoned-up --- their sexuality is not just unseen or tamped down, it's under lock-and-key. So it's a great relief to read Esther Perel. No question about it --- she's hot.
To read my conversation with Esther Perel, click here.