Morin’s now-famous “erotic equation” states that “attraction plus obstacles equal excitement.”6 High states of arousal, he explains, flow from the tension between persistent problems and triumphant solutions.
In our efforts to protect ourselves from intimate betrayal, we demand access, control, transparency. And we run the risk of unknowingly eradicating the very space between us that keeps desire alive. Fire needs air.
Big data analyst Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reports in the New York Times that Google searches for “sexless marriage” outnumber searches related to any other marital issue.3.
If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned with where it has already been than passionate about where it can still go. But too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire. They forget that fire needs air.
When people live on top of each other, there is no isolation to transcend, and they are far less interested in embracing western, middle-class ideals of intimacy. Their lives are entwined enough as it is.
Some relationships originate in feelings of warmth, tenderness, and nurturance, and the partners choose to remain in these calmer waters. They prefer a love that is built on patience more than on passion. To them, finding serenity in a lasting bond is what counts. There is no one way, and there is no right way.
Armed with an ideology of love that advocates togetherness, we are awkward about pursuing autonomy. This is especially true of the individuality of our desire.
Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew – or not. Knowing that we can lose them does not have to undermine commitment; rather, it mandates an active engagement that long-term couples often lose. The realization that our loved ones are forever elusive should jolt us out of complacency, in the most positive sense.
Acknowledging the third has to do with validating the erotic separateness of our partner. It follows that our partner’s sexuality does not belong to us. It isn’t just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction. It doesn’t.
Erotic, emotional connection generates closeness that can become overwhelming, evoking claustrophobia. It can feel intrusive. What was initially a secure enclosure becomes confining. While our need for closeness is almost as basic as our need for food, it carries with it anxieties and threats that can inhibit desire. We want closeness, but not so much that we feel trapped by it.
Monogamy used to mean one person for life. Now monogamy means one person at a time.
In this setup, the pressure is always on the non-talker to change, rather than on the talker to be more versatile. This situation minimizes the importance of nonverbal communication: doing nice things for each other, making attentive gestures, or sharing projects in a spirit of collaboration.
Spontaneity is a fabulous idea, but in an ongoing relationship whatever is going to “just happen” already has. Now they have to make it happen.
We blame our partners for failing to make us whole.
Marriage is imperfect. We start with a desire for oneness, and then we discover our differences.
No woman should give any man the power to shatter her romantic ideals.
These couples, in their own ways, have chosen to acknowledge the possibility of the third: the recognition that our partner has his or her own sexuality, replete with fantasies and desires that aren’t necessarily about us. When we validate one another’s freedom within the relationship, we’re less inclined to search for it elsewhere.
Erotic excitement requires that we be able to step out of the intimate bond for a moment, turn toward ourselves, and focus on our own mounting sensations. We need to be able to be momentarily selfish in order to be erotically connected.
We have hundreds of virtual “friends” but no one we can ask to feed the cat. We are a lot more free than our grandparents were, but also more disconnected.
It is a radiant parenthesis, a poetic interlude in the prose of life.
Most of us get turned on at night by the very things that we’ll demonstrate against during the day.