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Mating in Captivity: Can We Reconcile the Erotic and Domestic? Esther Perel's wisdom.
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Mating in Captivity: Can We Reconcile the Erotic and Domestic? Esther Perel's wisdom. Here's a line-up of wonderful quotations from the extraordinary book "Mating in Captivity" by Esther Perel offering remarkable reflection on marriage, love, the erotic, sex...with a call to us to affirm, pursue and revive the erotic in our lives. One question to consider: How successful are we in keeping the erotic alive within marriage? What are the forces that mitigate against such success? From Esther Perel, "Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic" (2006): "Mating in Captivity" aspires to engage you in an honest, enlightened, and provocative discussion. It encourages you to question yourself, to speak the unspoken, and to be unafraid to challenge sexual and emotional correctness. ....we all need security: permanence, reliability, stability, and continuity....But we also have a need for novelty and change, generative forces that give life fullness and vibrancy. Here risk and adventure loom large. We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other..... And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. The never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves.... The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what's safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what's exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. We ground ourselves in familiarity, and perhaps achieve a peaceful domestic arrangement, but in the process we orchestrate boredom. The verve of a relationship collapses under the weight of all that control. Some of us enter intimate bonds with an acute awareness of our need to connect, to be close, not to be alone, not to be abandoned. Others approach relationships with a heightened need for personal space--our sense of self-preservation inspires vigilance against being devoured.... We want closeness, but no so much that we feel trapped by it. Sexual desire does not obey the laws that maintain peace and contentment between partners. Reason, understanding, compassion and comraderie are the handmaidens of a close, harmonious relationship. But sex often evokes unreasoning obsession rather than thoughtful judgment, and selfish desire rather than altruistic consideration. Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Historically, women's sexuality and intellect have never been integrated..... Femininity, associated with purity, sacrifice, and frailty, was a characteristic of the morally successful woman. Her evil twin, the succubus (, slut concubine, witch) was the earthy, sensual, and frankly lusty woman who had traded respectability for sexual exuberance. Vigorous sexuality was the exclusive domain of men. Women have continuously sought to disentangle themselves from the patriarchal split between virtue and lust, and are still fighting the injustice. Some of America's best features--the belief in democracy, equality, consensus-building, compromise, fairness, and mutual tolerance--can, when carried too punctiliously into the bedroom, result in very boring sex. Erotic intimacy is the revelation of our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within a sexual relationship. When our innermost desires are revealed, and are met by our loved ones with acceptance and validation, the shame dissolves. It is an experience of profound empowerment and self-affirmation for the heart, body, and soul. When we can be present for both love and sex, we transcend the battleground of Puritanism and hedonism. Erotic intimacy is the act of generosity and self-centeredness, of giving and taking. The rawness of our desire can feel mean, bestial, even unloving. Eros can feel predatory, a voracious grab. Whatever guilt we feel about taking--whatever shame we feel about our wantonness, our passion, our indecency--is intensified in the primitive vulnerability of sex. We are socialized to control ourselves, to restrain our impulses, to tame the animal within. So as dutiful citizens and spouses we edit ourselves and mask our ravenous appetites.... We reach a unique intimacy in the erotic encounter. It transcends the civility of the emotional connection and accommodates our unruly impulses and primal appetites.... Erotic intimacy invites us into a state of unboundedness where we experience a sweet freedom. We get a temporary break from ourselves--the legacies of our childhood, the habits of our relationship, and the constraints of our respective cultures. Family life flourishes in an atmosphere of comfort and consistency. Yet eroticism resides in unpreditability, spontaneity, and risk. Eros is a force that doesn't like to be constrained. Ours is a culture that equates maternal devotion with selflessness: self-sacrifice, self-abnegation, self-denial....Desexualization of the mother is a mainstay of traditionally patriarchal cultures.... Perhaps we are convinced that lustfulness conflicts with maternal duty.... There are many ways we shut ourselves down sexually in the family, acting under the assumption that we need to keep sex hidden from in order to protect them. Fantasies--sexual and other--also have nearly magical powers to heal and renew. The psychoanalyst Michael Bader....explains that in the sanctuary of the erotic mind, we find a psychological safe space to undo the inhibitions and fears that roil within us. Our fantasies allow us to negate and undo the limits imposed on us by our conscience, by our culture, and by our self-image. All of us invest our erotic encounters with a complex set of needs and expectations. We seek love, pleasure, and validation. Some of us find in sex the perfect venue for rebellion and escape. Others reach for transcendence and ecstasy, even spiritual communion. Massive investments have been made throughout history to ensure that female sexual desire is kept in check. To their credit, women have consistently risen to the challenges of overcoming this taboo. Yet fantasies are maps of our psychological and cultural preoccupations; exploring them can lead to greater self-awareness, an essential step in creating change. When we cordon off our erotic interiors, we are left with sex that is truncated, devoid of vibrancy, and not particularly intimate. Our erotic imagination is an exuberant expression of our aliveness, and one of the most powerful tools we have for keeping desire alive.... In our erotic daydreams, we find the energy that keeps us passionately awake to our own sexuality. As therapists, we regularly encourage our patients to examine their assumptions about what's normal, acceptable, and expected. Yet sexual boundaries are one of the few areas where therapists seem to mirror the dominant culture. Monogamy is the norm, and sexual fidelity is considered to be mature, committed, and realistic. Nonmonogamy, even consensual nonmonogamy, is suspect. Dagmar O'Connor says, "For married sex to be 'meaningful,' it must always be an expression of love--preferably of lifelong, abiding love--every time we climb into bed with one another. And what an incredible burden that is! It eliminates sex stimulated by a whole array of other emotions and sensations: playful sex and angry sex, quick, 'mindless' sex and 'naughty' sex." I prefer to talk about their a couple's erotic life rather than about their sex life. The physical act of sex is too narrow a subject, which easily degenerates into a conversation about numbers. Human nature abhors a vacuum of intensity. People long for radiance. They want to feel alive. If given half a chance, loving partners can fill the intensity void with transcendence. Eroticism, intertwined as it is with imagination, is another form of play. I think of play as an alternative reality midway betwee the actual and the fictitious, a safe space where we experiment, reinvent ourselves, and take chances. Sex often remains the last arena of play we can permit ourselves.... Long after the mind has been filled with injunctions to be serious, the body remains a free zone, unencumbered by reason and judgment. Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of life and the heat of passion..... Desire resists confinement and commitment mustn't swallow freedom whole. Eroticism in the home requires active engagement and willful intent. It is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play; and that passion is for<b> teenagers </font></b>and the immature.... Nurturing eroticism in the home is an act of open defiance. Eroticism reveals to us another world inside this world. The senses become servants of the imagination, letting us see the invisible and hear the inaudible. |
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2/27/2009 6:34 pm |
i love it.. 
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