Sex Needs Space

By on October 21, 2008 in Love & Sex, Relationships

While the diversity in the couples I work with is infinite, one complaint rings true across all cultures: couples who describe themselves as loving, trusting and caring complain that their sex lives have become dull and devoid of eroticism.

About esther.perel

Esther Perel is a licensed marriage and family therapist. An acknowledged authority for nearly 25 years on wartime, post-war, and refugee families; cultural identity; cross-cultural relations; and ethnic and religious intermarriage, her clinical teaching and interests center on culture and sexuality with a focus on couples. Perel is fluent in eight languages and her private psychotherapy practice in New York City serves multilingual clients. Her expertise has been sought after by victims of conflict as well as by therapists and crisis counselors in training. She has led private and public interventions around the world, and also coaches, consults, and trains organizations and lay and professional audiences.

 

Perel's innovative strategies and models for leadership have won her an international clientele of nonprofit organizations, foundations, schools, community groups, and corporations, including: New York University Medical Center; Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Psychosocial Centre for Refugees at the University of Oslo, Norway; the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute; the Wexner Foundation; the 92nd Street Y; the Skirball Center; and United Jewish Communities. A frequent keynote speaker, she regularly addresses therapeutic and lay communities at conferences, cross-cultural forums, and workshops. In New York City, Perel hosts the Downtown Salon, a capacity crowd forum on zeitgeist issues that grew out of the Ideas Cafe she launched at the Skirball Center in 2003.

Born and raised in Belgium, Perel holds degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Lesley College. She was trained and supervised in family therapy by Dr. Salvador Minuchin and serves on the faculties of the department of psychiatry, New York University Medical School, and Columbia University's International Trauma Studies Program, Mailman School of Public Health.

As a media commentator, Perel has been a guest on popular radio shows, such as The Brian Lehrer Show, and has been interviewed in leading publications, such as the Washington Post, Tikkun, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Self, and Working Woman. She has also appeared on television programs including the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, Good Day New York, and Women Aloud.

Perel has written numerous articles and chapters about intermarriage, the families of Holocaust survivors, cross-cultural couples, and cultural and religious identity. Her 2002 essay, "Erotic Intelligence: Reconciling Sensuality and Domesticity," was featured on the front cover of the Utne Reader and was included in the anthology, Best Erotic Writings 2004. She is the author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, which Ladies Home Journal calls a "a sweet relief" and the New York Family Review says is an "oasis of insight and inspiration."

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3 Responses to Sex Needs Space

  1. stuball56 October 22, 2008 at 11:52 am #

    Dear Esther, Thank you for your wise comments. You are exactly correct, just having a good relationship and improving the emotional attachment of the relationship does not translate into great sex. Sex is its own separate ballpark. As a former sex addict who discovered the pleasure of sex within the context of intimate relationship and then the magic of sacred sexuality I know what works for me and those with whom I have shared bliss. The secret of sexual satisfaction is to go beyond physical sex to sex that involves your entire being, both the seen and the unseen. As the ancient blind Greek prophet Tiresius discovered for Zeus nine parts out of ten of sexual pleasure belongs to the woman. A man can ignore this and be selfish sexually as most men are but they will lost the opportunity for sexual bliss. True sexual bliss comes from understanding reality and accomodating it. Make love making an act of worship and sex will never lose its appeal, whether with the same partner of years and years or a new partner. When the Goddess herself is a man's partner, she will manifest in his life. The great tragedy is that so many men can not see her right in front of his eyes. Sex is much easier for a woman but only if she has a wise and loveing partner and they are hard to find. When women are at their sexual peak, after age 50, there are so few men who appreciate how incredibly sexy they truly are. Human sexuality is both learned and spiritual. Wise women or crone goddesses, women over 50, are the best at both sex and spirituality. The combination is as explosive as the ejaculation of amrita. love and light, Stuart http://stuartmarkberlin.com

  2. EmmaBrownell October 24, 2008 at 12:23 pm #

    I also really appreciate the message that relationships (and sex) can thrive on some distance. Sometimes one is drawn to batting down the hatches and reducing one's world to one's significant other, but keeping the rest of one's life and relationships going is key to preserving that essential respect and appreciation of your partner.

  3. wildbank October 24, 2008 at 5:53 pm #

    Sex, life and love are to me a wondrous tapestry with all its color, texture, brocadery, knit, woofs, warps and beyond! I agree that the language of sex and even love have much space to improve upon. I even smile with exasperation when I notice society has often diminished sex right down into the form of a pill or even test tube. I feel I have safely come down to the conclusion that the mind (and body) given the free will, shall venture and explore all the endless probabilities and possibilities of this physical and spiritual act. It is the process of union versus separation which make for an eternal tango for all to behold in appreciation, spectacle and wonder.

    Charles Wildbank

    P.S. I wrote a poem for this…

    LOVE TANGO

    Your eyes

    How they tango

    With mine

    Your limbs

    How they tangle

    WIth mine

    Your emotions

    How they tangent

    In time

    Your spirit

    How tangible

    Your sunshine

    How tantalizing

    Your essence

    So fine

    How tantric!

    Your Love

    How tantamount

    To none!

    You're mine!

    How we tango!

    As one!