Let's get it on

Does marriage smother sex? Author Esther Perel talks about how to unleash erotic desire inside long-term relationships.

By Helaine Olen

Read more: Sex, Marriage, Fantasy, Life

Sept. 26, 2006 | Is it really possible to make marriage feel sexy? Esther Perel, a New York couples and family therapist, argues that it is, but that it involves nothing less than a rethinking of what matrimony has become for most Americans, as well as a hard look at how we deal with the competing roles of parent, worker and lover. In her new book, "Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic," she takes aim at the modern conception of marriage as a milange of the romantic, the sexual, the economic and the companionate.

Erotic desire, Perel argues, thrives on mystery, unpredictability and politically incorrect power games, not housework battles and childcare woes. Furthermore, increased emotional intimacy between partners often leads to less sexual passion. "The challenge for modern couples," she writes, "lies in reconciling the need for what's safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what's exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring."

Traditionally, Perel points out, marriage was a business relationship, designed for procreation and economic survival. It asked nothing more of its partners than stability, reliability and a day-to-day ability to get along. Recent generations added romantic love and sexual passion to the mix, followed by demands for equality after the resurgence of the feminist movement in the late 1960s. As our society placed new requirements on the institution of marriage without stripping away much of its historical functions, we responded by expecting our spouse -- one person -- to provide what in the past it had taken an entire village of people to give us.

Perel, who was born in Belgium and has been married for more than 20 years, views our dilemma with an outsider's perspective. Her advice is refreshingly counterintuitive: Communicate less with our spouses about the minutiae of daily life and speak more with the language of our bodies and our secret desires. Pursue interests outside of work, marriage and the family. Open up about our fantasy lives. Flirt and play with both our spouses and others. And get the kids out of the literal and figurative bedroom even if you have to rent a hotel room to do it.

Salon met with Perel in her New York office, where she discussed the difficulties of combining long-term love with erotic desire, why Americans need to learn to play more in their personal lives, and the modern cult of childhood.

Why do you think so many couples have trouble keeping desire alive in long-term relationships or marriages, even when they are extremely loving?

Relationships are crumbling under the weight of our expectations. We want marriage, companionship, economic support, family life -- and then on top of that we want our partner to be our best friend, confidant and passionate lover. For a long time the idea that passion and marriage could go together was a contradiction in terms. Marriages were about economic criteria. When you chose your mate, or somebody chose your mate for you, sex did not enter into the equation.

Are long-term love and eroticism ever compatible?

I think that they're not inherently incompatible. But why is it so difficult? There is in the experience of love an experience of security, of predictability, of safety, a kind of grounding and anchoring. And eroticism thrives on something very different. It thrives on the unknown and the mysterious, on the unexpected. It's not what you want in a long-term, secure relationship.

Is that true across all societies?

I think that some societies have it more and some have it much less, depending on how much the society experiences seduction and sensuality and flirtation as part of its ecology.

Where does the United States fall on that spectrum?

People don't play much in the United States. Flirting, where you play with the possibilities, goes against the goal-oriented, pragmatic approach Americans often take -- which is, if you go out, you go out to score.

But there's sex all around us -- in music, on TV, in film. Are you saying we're not an erotic culture?

Animals have sex. Sex is an instinct, it's the primordial instinct. But eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It is exclusively human. That makes all the difference. It is playful, and in that sense it is inherently unselfconscious and carefree. It has no other goal than the cultivation of sex, of pleasure for its own sake.

Are Americans more comfortable talking about sex than erotic love?

There is a fundamental discomfort about sexuality in our society. That's why on the one hand sex is ubiquitous but we also hang onto these attitudes that are very sex averse. You get both extremes in this country -- abstinence education and talk shows that blabber off every detail of people's lives.

How does the erotic die in long-term relationships?

Often it's not that the erotic energy is gone, it's that it has left the couple. It may be quite present in the house, but it's been transferred onto children or work. I saw a couple recently who had become best friends. In 20 years, they'd had one night apart. They put their passion into making a beautiful home, building the whole thing from scratch. They also put their passions into creating a business together. They have passion. And it's erotic passion, in the sense of aliveness, vibrancy and vitality, but it is not a sexualized passion.

There is a notion people have that in the beginning of relationships passion is spontaneous. They actually forget that the beginning was one big story line. There were hours spent anticipating, planning, plotting, developing the script, imagining what you're going to wear, what you're going to eat, where you're going to go, the whole thing. But people remember things as explosive and in the moment and unplanned. And that's not true. But passion can die because we forgo the willfulness, the intentionality and the imagination that fuel the erotic.

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