The Psychology of Desire and Love

Key Questions

• Why does good sex often fade even in loving relationships?
• Why doesn't good intimacy guarantee good sex?
• Can we want what we already have?
• Why is the forbidden so erotic?
• How does sex impact relationships, especially after having children?

Crisis of Desire in Modern Love

• Romanticism and Crisis: Romanticism has led to a crisis of desire globally.
• Desire in Modern Love: Desire reflects individuality, free choice, and identity.
• Historical Context: For the first time, people seek long-term sexual relationships for pleasure and connection rather than duty or reproduction.

The Dilemma of Sustaining Desire

• Two Fundamental Human Needs:
  • Security: Predictability, safety, dependability, permanence.
  • Adventure: Novelty, mystery, risk, unpredictability.
• Contradiction in Relationships: Balancing these needs in committed relationships is challenging.
• Expectations in Modern Marriage: Partners are expected to fulfill various roles (comfort, novelty, familiarity, surprise).

Reconciling Love and Desire

• Love vs. Desire:
  • Love: The need to have, to minimize distance and tension, desire closeness.
  • Desire: The need to want, seeking an 'Other', requires space and imagination.
• When is One Most Drawn to a Partner?: Absence, seeing them confident, doing something they're passionate about, or when they are surprising.
• Erotic Perception: Seeing the partner as somewhat mysterious from a comfortable distance enhances desire.
• Independence and Desire: Radiance and confidence in a partner heighten attraction. Caretaking reduces erotic tension.

Eroticism and Imagination

• Eroticism vs Sexuality: Eroticism is sexuality transformed by imagination.
• Anticipation: Imagination and anticipation can enhance desire without physical action.
• Erotic Intelligence: Cultivating imagination, playfulness, novelty, curiosity, and mystery.
• Trauma and Eroticism: Experiencing trauma impacts the ability to engage in erotic imagination and playfulness.

Factors that Turn Off Desire

• Feeling dead inside, low self-esteem, not liking one's body, lack of time for oneself, poor performance at work, low self-worth, inability to express and receive pleasure.

Factors that Turn On Desire

• Awakening one’s own desires, feeling connected to oneself, experiencing pleasure in self-discovery.

Balancing Connection and Separateness

• Exploratory Need: Desire as curiosity and exploration.
• Challenge with Responsibility: Connection often leads to burden and reduced personal freedom, affecting sexual desire.

Practices of Erotic Couples

• Maintain sexual privacy and an individual erotic space.
• Foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm, not just minutes before sex.
• Understanding the non-spontaneous nature of committed sex; it's planned and intentional.

Conclusion

• Erotic couples understand that sustaining desire requires effort and intentionality. They know how to create space in a relationship where the focus shifts from responsibility to connecting with oneself and the partner in a playful, imaginative way.