Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

by Esther Perel

By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation.

Fantasies express truths about ourselves that are hard to get at otherwise. They reveal us at our most bare, and in their own mysterious way they convey our deepest wishes.

By opening ourselves to another, we risk being laughed at and judged.

American culture has great tolerance for divorce—where there is a total breakdown of the loyalty bond and painful effects for the whole family—but it is a culture with no tolerance for sexual infidelity.” We would rather kill a relationship than question its structure.

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source.

“The act of longing will always be more intense than the requiting of it.”

Eroticism, intertwined as it is with imagination, is another form of play.

Every so often, I meet couples who get it, who maintain a sense of playfulness with each other, in and out of the bedroom.