Esther Perel (Love & Sex Expert): Why Men Love Porn More Than Their Partner! It's Time To Enjoy Sex Again! The Real Reason Men & Women Cheat!

28:09In both cases, it's an ambiguous loss. You can't, are they still there or are they gone? Who knows? When we live with this phone thing, when we are, because you've been at work, you've been at the computer, you come home, you think, I'm so happy to finally let go of the computer, you turn on the TV, you turn on the TV, and then you turn on the phone at the same time. You're watching here, you're watching there, there's a person next to you. And most likely, they often do the same thing in the end, too. And gradually, there is less and less of a thread, of conversation, of connection, of joy, of sex, of intimacy, all of what, you know.

28:49That becomes ambiguous loss. Somebody is there, but they're not really present. Is there a difference between me and the sofa? It's comfy, it's routine, you sit on me. But comfy and routine does, do not give us joy, or meaning, or relevance, or connection. And that's what we still seem to want. So, it means saying to people, you know, it's actually not very, very complicated. What did people do for so centuries? They took walks. That's one of the few times you can't click. So, take a walk, don't sit, don't try to do, you know. Take a walk around the block, and just be in motion, then you parallel, you know, it's not face to face, it's side by side.

29:44And you can talk about the day. If you, instead of just saying, stop, stop, stop, you just said, you know, let's go for a walk. It's London, but still, you can, you know, and you do half an hour walk. It will, you'll come back to me and you tell me what it will do. But it's amazing how these small interventions that are playful, creative, not digging, change the dynamic of the relationship. Because she is only pursuing you in part because of how much you are withdrawing. You change, she change. If you want to change the other, change yourself. Once you understood the figure eight and how we create the other, you understand that if you do something else sooner or later, they do something else too.

30:41So, if you want to change the other, change you. This is part of the question you asked me, right? What are some of the essentials, understandings of working with relational systems? This is true at work in companies, this is true in intimate relationship, this is not just for romantic love. This is foundations of relational systems. Feedback loop, it's called in cybernetics. So many busy couples can feel the spark in their relationship waning away slowly. But work isn't necessarily the first place you look. Like pulling out the phone at dinner isn't necessarily the place people look because that seems so small.

31:20So they aim at bigger things. They'll say, I don't know, something bigger. But do you believe, are you saying that you believe a lot of it? Much of it often starts with those small moments of disconnection where the person basically ends up becoming so small. The Godman's called them bids for connection. Bids for connections. You know, it's the little things. It's the difference between turning towards someone or turning away. You know, when you read something, there's a classic example they give. Do you read something? Do you actually say, hey, did you read this? Let me send you this article.

31:55That's a bid for connection. It's not a big declaration. But it says, we're in this together. When I see something that's interesting that I think you would like to read as well, I share it with you. I'm thinking of you. I know you exist even if I'm not with you. Do you know what my partner said to me something about a year ago? And we stayed with me because I thought that's such a strange thing to say. She said to me, when we were in conflict resolution, so we were talking about things. She said, you know, why do I send you things on Instagram? In Instagram DMs. Like, I'll be out here now in New York.

32:28So she'll see something interesting on Instagram. She sends it to me. She goes, you've stopped acknowledging it. I used to just like double tap on it or make a comment back. She goes, you've stopped acknowledging it. And I thought, why does that matter? Why does it, like, you send me something? I watched the funny video. I crack on with my day. Because it's like, when you receive a bird -day gift, do you think? Yeah. When you buy a bird -day gift, is it important to give it? Yeah. Okay, that's the reason. I mean, how would she know that you watched it? If there is no acknowledgement. And the acknowledgement is not about the video or the DM.

33:09The acknowledgement is, we share something. Well, it's even worse because it says seen on Instagram. So it says that I've seen it. Yes, but the scene that means that I have seen the video. The acknowledgement is, we are part of a thread. We are connected. She's absolutely right. So in that sense, when people lose the spark, it is a lot of these small details. That people say so much in the beginning. You know, all the positive stuff that people use. And it's actually only more important with time, rather than less important with time. The death of a relationship is when people take each other for granted.

33:50And when you stop acknowledging those things, it is part of the mechanisms of taking for granted. I had a really good friend of mine sit with me a couple of weeks ago. And she has been married to a CEO. She's also a CEO herself. And she's just going through a divorce now. And I sat with her in America. And she said to me, you know, he was very busy. I was very busy. We had this kid. And I just think, I don't really know what happened along the way. It just seems like we fell out of love. And ever since she said that to me, it made me think that it is often quite a gradual process, this drifting apart.

34:34And this kid coming into the picture as well complicates that. The way she said to me was, you know, we both had our businesses to take care of. And then we had the kid as well. So the relationship was, I guess, the residual beneficiary. It got whatever was left. And that's caused this divorce now. And the child is, I guess, going to have to live in two different homes. So I have two thoughts about this. You know, the first thing is, this is the first time in history that the survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. If the couple doesn't nurture itself, there is no family.

35:12You don't stay married because you have to. Women have any canal -making dependence, like in her case, at least, to be able to leave. You have divorce laws. You can go. So the only thing that holds the couple together, you don't get excommunicated. None of it. It's the relationship quality. If you don't have that, there is no family. Here's your child. And the second thing is, when she says, we just fell out of love, that's not the way it goes. Love is a verb. And you conjugate it actively in many tenses. It's a practice. If you stop doing all those things that you're telling me, the acknowledgments, the hellos, the thank yous, the sharing of the videos, etc.

36:01All of that, cushioning, when that thins out, it means that you have not been conjugating the verb. Love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm that just exists. Do you know a single person who would treat their business the way that some people treat their relationships? The business would be dead. This is the end. I say it with kind of emphatically, but I'm thinking, I'm not seeing anything somebody doesn't know. You have to take that kind of lazy attitude towards your shop. End of story. And therefore end of relationship. But it's not that it just happened. It's that they stopped doing, saying, expressing, showing, feeling, giving, receiving, sharing.

36:53Those are the verbs, wanting, imagining, playing, experiencing, exploring. Those are verbs that have to do with relationships and love. On that first point about this is being the first time in history where the health and happiness of the relationship determined whether the family stayed together, not the church or some other external pressure. Could this go to explain why people are having less and less kids as well, because they don't feel as secure as they once did? I think this a little bit about my, because with my partner, I feel like she's said or indirectly said that she will be, she'll feel happy and safe to have a child when she feels like more secure in the relationship.

37:41And you know, imagine once upon a time, you just, I knew that you were going to stay with them regardless. And you also knew that if you had sex, you had a good chance of being pregnant. True. That's the first and foremost big change that took place. So, sex was mostly a woman's marital duty, not that long ago. So, you know, I think that many people, the lesser they have, the more children they have, because children becomes an expression of abundance, of care, of more hands to help. Of the riches of a family. People who have less food have more children. It's not people who are more insecure or live in more precarious situations.

38:32I don't think that that is the reason. I think that there is a certain kind of attitude towards not wanting to give up the comforts of one's life, the freedom, the coming and goings that make some people not want to have children. And then there's also the fact that for a long time you didn't have a choice. And some people today want to exercise that choice. You know, but you're talking about the love that goes. And you asked me before, you know, one of the subjects that I'm very interested in, in light of that is conflict. And I called the course that I just created, turning conflict into connection.

39:17Because it's easy to look at your situation and then begin to see the strife and the arguments and the bickering and the conflict and to focus on the conflict. But this conflict is occurring because there is a fraught connection. There's a tear in the fabric of connection. And that too, if you say to people, would you run a business that allowed for that kind of conflict and bickering to take place? Nobody. And yet you normalize it in your relationship. You think that that's an okay thing. I mean, if I gave you an assignment that you never can say, I would say, of all the things we talked about, I would love for you to choose three things that you're going to do differently, change.

40:06And that you know would improve the relationship. You don't have to go look very far. You've already listed the half a dozen. And then you stay with it. You commit yourself to it. You don't do it contingent on what she does. You don't say, I didn't do that. She still did the same. Give it a time. And hold yourself to it. You will see, relationship is not something that happens out there. It's actually something that we are very much in charge of creatively, like a business. And by the way, a business is made up of relationships as well. Products, but relationships. Leadership is relationships.

40:45It's vision, it's efficiencies, et cetera, it's operations. But it is also relationship. If those don't work, you can have the best product. You can have the most exquisite system in place. If the people don't like each other, don't want to work together, don't know how to rely on each other, don't want to share the information, your system is not going to work very well. So, relationship sometimes is the thing that's right here. And sometimes it's the thing that makes the rest possible. Conflict resolution. What is, if I want to be a master in conflict resolution in my romantic relationships, man and woman, let's just use that.

41:28To men, to women, to everybody. Is there any differences between the way that gender is typically approach conflict resolution? Because there's stereotypes, right? That men don't want to talk, and that woman want to talk. Yes, but when you have two women, there's often one that doesn't want to talk as well. I think there is gender, there is culture, there is linguistics. There's a lot of different things that play themselves out. But it's not in straight couples, you will attribute certain things to gender. That in other couples, you will attribute two roles. Because the behaviors are not that different.

42:10So, there's a whole, I think one of the most important thing is that instead of asking whether we're fighting about, ask yourself whether we're fighting for.

42:29Like when you go into the beakering around, you know, you see, I'm busy, why are you bringing up all these stupid questions now that you, whether you're fighting for, what you're fighting for is to connect, to have some time with you, to have attention, to not just kind of go through the day, do everything, and let this thing kind of die on the vine. You know, there are relationships that are not dead, and there are relationships that are alive. Tell me these things. The same as a business. Well, you can be, you can survive or you can thrive. You can survive and go through the motions, or you can be alive, erotic, radiant, vibrant, vital, creative, curious.

43:19It's those experiences, you know, now we use eroticism as a life force, not just in the sexual sense of the word. That aliveness gives you energy for a lot of things that you do elsewhere. You would not be here the same way if she wasn't there. And how do you cultivate aliveness? How do you cultivate the erotic is essential? So, when I say to people, what are you fighting for? Usually people fight for about three things. They fight for trust. They fight to feel like the other person has their back. They fight for recognition, to be valued, and they fight for control. They want to feel that their needs, their beliefs, their expectations have priority too.

44:17Control, trust, recognition. There's probably three of the main things people fight for, but it doesn't look like that. It looks like they're fighting over money or time together or how often they have sex or that kind of stuff. So, that's a big one about how you deal with conflict. What is productive conflict and what is destructive conflict? Because conflict in itself is intrinsic to all relationships. People fight. People want to have equity. They want to have justice. They want to be heard. They want to... It's a useful thing. But we all know what fighting looks like that is not useful. And that is destructive.

44:58And that harms you. And that you've seen when you are a kid and that travels with you for the rest of your life. So, we know all of those versions too. And I think that these days, we live in a society that is also more and more conflict avoidant. We really don't know how to... We have so much less face to face with other people. There's a question that I have loved asking recently that has to do with conflict. When you grew up, did you play freely on the street? Yeah. Do you know... You don't have kids, right? No. But you have friends with little ones. Yeah, my brother has three kids. Okay. And he's only one year old in the me as well.

45:46All right. How much do his kids play freely on the street? They don't play freely on the street. So, to me, this little piece of information is so important. Because what happens when you play freely on the street? You had uncoriographed, unmanitored, unscripted, free play. With other kids, with whom you learned friction, rubbing, fighting, making up, competing, collaborating, being jealous, making alliances, breaking alliances, recreating it. You learned a ton of social skills and dealing with conflict and disagreement and reuniting and all of that. This entire universe of experimentation that children had gone.

46:39And you really don't learn it by playing games on a screen. So, we find ourselves a little bit socially atrophied. Then comes a pandemic and comes a virtualization of our lives. There's a lot of things coming together here. And we are more and more unable to deal with conflict. And we polarize. People keep telling you, how do you stay connected with people who disagree with you, who have different points of view, different politics, different belief systems, etc. So, we are conflict avoidant, we lack the social skills, we are socially atrophied, and we polarize. What's the cure? I mean, I think that a major piece of it is, and I hope Alpha Generation is actually showing us a little more of that, is, you know, close to screen.

47:32And go outside and play and meet people in real. In whatever version, two groups, sports, no sports. But it's about, it's not about structure activities. It's about the happenstance, serendipity, chance. Chance is an essential piece of our life. Why is this so important? Because if everything is controlled, everything is predictable. Every technology is trying to give you a polished friction -free answer to every problem that you have. You learn to not tolerate uncertainty. And if you can't tolerate uncertainty, you become increasingly more anxious. And if you become increasingly more anxious, we're going to talk about the mental health crisis.

48:17And this mental health crisis doesn't come from nowhere. It's connected to a whole bunch of things that are happening in the world around us. Let your kids go and have sleepovers. Connect with other people. Don't just stay in your little nuclear system. All younger generations less resilient in your view, because they didn't get to play on the street. They are definitely less able to deal with, with disagreement, the versions of opinions conflict. They polarize. But so do older people too. There is definitely more polarization. But what they do show is a lot increased levels of anxiety, increased levels of all kinds of other symptomatologies of around mental health, from eating disorders.

49:10You know, you name it. That start earlier and earlier. Difficulty experimenting, making mistakes, not being so perfectionistic, not attributing everything to themselves as I'm not enough, I'm not enough. Like this is the whole manufactured insecurity going on. So those things, yes, I think that you notice it. We notice it. Parents notice it. Teachers notice it. You know, do I think we could say that there is less resilience, but I think that that's the interest statements. Because there are plenty of kids who are extraordinarily resilient in very, very challenging circumstances. I would not want to say, younger kids these days, you know.

49:53But I do think that they struggle with certain things. Uncertainty is essential. You can't innovate without uncertainty. Without an appetite for it. Yes. You need to be able to take risks. You need to be able to take chances. You need to be able to try out certain things. If it instantly becomes, you know, I'm afraid to fail. I cannot. I have to know before I even try. I have to know in advance, etc., etc. It doesn't just affect one individual. Why did you write this book, mating and captivity? You could have written about anything, but for some reason you felt compelled enough to take on this subject of unlocking erotic intelligence.

50:36Why did you write about this? At the time, this book is 17 years ago. It still lives as if it was yesterday. I guess that means it touched something that had a timelessness to it, which was really, how do we reconcile the two sets of fundamental human needs? That we have never wanted to reconcile in one relationship. Our need for security, safety, predictability, dependability, and our need for freedom, exploration, change, risk. They have traditionally, they come from different sources. They pull us in different directions. And we've rarely really wanted them to be in one relationship. Today we want a passionate marriage, or a passionate relationship.

51:28And those two things have never had to do because they demand different ingredients. So I was very interested in that. What does it mean that romantic love has promised us that there is one relationship in which we can have all of that? That was one really reason. I was interested in writing this book because I thought, this is, you know, we used to have religion to experience belonging and continuity and identity. And then we had family for security and economic support and children and social status. But now we want the partner to be a best friend and a trusted confidante and a passionate lover.

52:04And on top of it, I want you to help me become the best version of myself. And I'm going to start calling you a soulmate. Soulmate used to be the realm of the divine, not a person. So it's an incredible thing. If we've never expected more from one relationship and asked one person to give us what usually an entire village used to provide, that interested me. So something must be broken now. I mean, it's just an incredible shift. It's a unique thing. It's a grand experiment in our life. And then the third part was sexual. You know, sexuality went through major transformations. It went from duty to desire.

52:43It went from, you know, being inextricably linked to children to being now. I mean, if you only have two kids, you have sex for the long haul for pleasure and connection. There's no other reason. So what does that look like? And why do people always see that sexual problems are the consequence of relationship problems, which is sometimes true. But in many instances, sex and intimacy, they are a parallel process. They're not just a metaphor of each other. And so I thought, I've seen many couples improve their relationship and it did nothing for the sex. But I've seen couples who, when the sexuality changes between them, it transforms the relationship.

53:24And so that demands a deeper understanding of what is sexuality. Not what do you do? You know, and how often do you do it? And how hard and how often and how many? I mean, the measurable stuff. That is, you know, sex has become this thing that you measure rather than, you know, where do you go? Inside of you, with another, what is the experience like? You know, what is the meaning of sex? Not what is the frequency of sex? And all these questions had not been discussed much. Certainly not in the field of couples therapy and not in the general culture at large. And to explain that dilemma seemed to have been something that till today, people found really...

54:10There's no announcer, by the way. There's no announcer. The book tells you that because relationship issues are not binaries, they're not black and white. They're not problems that you solve, they're paradoxes that you manage. The strength of the book is that it didn't have an answer. The strength of the book is that it told you you have to learn to live with some of these contradictions. People don't want to hear that. People want to know the two steps to fix their sexless relationship in 60 seconds. Well, they want to find that with me, but they keep finding something else with me. See, you want your freedom, you want your travels, you want to be here, you want to do your podcast, you want to do the stuff that is interesting to you, but you also want your girlfriend.

54:59You do want both. And you're looking for how... How do I not bring all my passion, all my energy, my creativity, my erotic charge, my imagination, my curiosity, everything to this part of my life, and I let that other thing dry up. And once you will find that... It's not so much a balance, it's really a distribution of your resources. You will experience a very different level of satisfaction in your life, because you want to have the time be guilty. When you look back through different cultures, they... Is that true? Of course it's true, because you said it. Not because I said it. No, it's true, because everything you say is true.

55:41Oh, God! No, absolutely no, I'm so very confident, but I have actually never taken right. No, but I think you're right, that's what I'm saying. On this contradiction point about us expecting everything from one person, are you telling me that we just kind of have to live with the contradiction that that creates? Because you're right. We want spontaneity and excitement and all of these erotic fantasies, but at the same time we want safety and belonging and familiarity, which seem like a contradiction. Is it that we just have to live with the contradiction? Or are we meant to be polygamous and a bit more unoreclious and have lots of different partners and some of the people used to have throughout history and some people have in different religions?

56:35I think it's two separate questions. Yeah, one's about monogamy and the other one's about... Yeah, well... The other one is about how you keep a relationship alive. And that I think we have somewhat addressed. It involves doing more things. The contradiction is... When you stand, if you really want to stand, it's actually about constantly moving the weight from one side to another. It's not about neutralizing the two polarities. It's about playing with these polarities. So there are times of the day or times of the year or times in your life when you want to bundle. And then there are times when you want to explore and play and be creative and curious and do an unusual thing.

57:27So I don't think that it is inherently impossible to do it in relation, but it demands activity. Look, every system, every relation system, every company, straddles, stability and change, continuity and innovation. If you don't change, you fossilize and you die. So will your relationship, so will your company. If you change all the time and you're spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, you will disregulate and you will be chaotic and you will be exhausted. And you will forget what you're even running towards. So nature knows that. We continuously straddle these two polarities. That's what I call the contradiction.

58:10But monogamy is a different question about that. It has to do with what do we think are the viable relational arrangements at this moment. For whom is this a model that appeals? And it has opened up a whole vista about what does consensual non -monogamy look like, or what does polyamory look like? For whom is this an expression of liberation? And for whom is this actually rather torturous? And I think what it says to us is that you can't have a one -size -fits -all. And when it comes to love relationships, we have usually not been the most innovative. Family models have changed, but couple models haven't changed that much.

59:01Romantic. Romantics and realists. Yes. You discussed this in chapter one of your book. How do you define a romantic? Romantics are aspirational. Romantics are living the realm of the imagination. They live in the realm of how do you transcend the limits? How do you project yourself outside of the narrowness of your own reality, boundaries, consciousness, body, etc. When I say aspirational idealistic, longing, yearning, discovery, exploration, unknown, a kind of an active engagement with the unknown, and a reverence for the connection. Realists are more pragmatic. Realists are basically, instead of this is not possible, that must be more.

1:00:03They say, this is fine as is. Why should there be more? And this is a conversation. I just used these two terms because they were handy. It's not because I had entire definitions of them, but I understood that in relationship, you often have one person who says, why you always want more? And then one person who says, but there is so many possibilities. And then the other person says, yes, but so many mind feels or landmines. Do you see a gender difference between those two? No. Typically, as all. No. I think that what makes the gender difference is the dynamic as well. I mean, no, I refuse to just make it a man -woman because I see the dynamic in all couples.

1:00:55And there, it's less defined around gender and more defined around childhood story or gender identification in the broad sense of the... No. I mean, yes, in the classic old line that you could see in a heterocouple is when Mr. says, but it's like, so that is cliche. Everything is fine. And if she was fine, everything would be fine. Is speaking a man's strength, though? Is what? Speaking, communicating about how they feel. Is that a strength that... It depends how it's said. You know, because people think of intimacy as verbal communication often. It's one of the things I saw in chapter three of your book that we...

1:01:42So here's the thing. I don't buy the thing that men talk less. I do think that, yes, men are often emptied out from the vocabulary of emotions by age seven. It's like siphoned out of them. The socialization of boys does not really prioritize an active engagement with once emotional life and once interiority. It's much better to be stoic, to be fearless, to be competitive, to be... Those kind of values are more... But when I sit alone with men, it's not because they don't have a vocabulary that they don't have the feelings. And I've been a therapist of many men for decades. It was actually something I actively sought.

1:02:32And when you take your time and you listen and you support the expression, things will come out. And when they come out, here's the thing. When a woman talks to you, many times you know that she's already said that to somebody else. That's which doesn't diminish it. But when a man talks to you, you know that he's hearing himself for the first time. himself. But that's not because that's what men are. That's because... That's what we make men to be. That's how we socialize men. I think that this notion that women want more connection, look, you were asking me about sex before. I think every gender has been given license to what needs they're allowed to have publicly and officially.

1:03:23And in what language they're entitled to talk about them. So men will not necessarily talk about the need for tenderness, connection, care, intimacy. Holding. Because that is not the vocabulary that has been assigned to them. So they will talk about it in the language of sex. Women have basically not been given the license to say what they want sexually. That is really not what they have been educated to develop. So they have learned that they are allowed to speak about relational needs. And wrapped in their relational needs are all kinds of other belongings for sexual intimacy, for seduction, for pleasure, for connection.

1:04:15Every gender is allowed to ask for the same things but in a different vocabulary. Men are allowed to talk about sex. Women are allowed to talk about intimacy. But that's not the fact that it's not the same as saying men and women want other things. Actually, they are more similar than we think they are and all research supports that. But it's just the socialization is causing a different effect. Like we like to think that men's sexuality is autonomous, it's untrumped, it's spontaneous, they don't need anything. They are always ready, they are always looking for an outlet. And that men are creatures of nature and women are creatures of meaning.

1:05:09Whereas for her it's the context, it's the quality of the relationship. It's the release, it's the desire, etc. Seriously? On what basis are we saying things like this? You want to know that men have a range of very deep emotions that completely affect how they experience sex. You know the rise in feminism and equality of the gender is in every regard. Do you think that has had implications for relationships and specifically sex in a way that you've seen over the last decade? Because you've been working with thousands of couples over the last couple of decades. So is there any way that feminism or gender equality has influenced sexual dynamics?

1:06:06I'll tell you what I asked, because when the chapters in your book from 17 years ago or something talks about how some of America's best features, the belief of democracy, equality, consensus building, compromise fairness and mutual tolerance, can, when carried to... Bontilliously. I'm so glad you knew what word you'd written because I had no idea how to say that word. Into the bedroom results in very boring sex. Yes. Sex is not always politically correct. Sometimes we demonstrate during the day against the very same things that we delight at night, if it's playful, if it's consensual, if it's voluntary.

1:06:50That feels like a contradiction. They understand. But so do children. Children play prisoners and children play farm and in victims and doctors and patients. They understand that when they play, they enter a universe of as if... ...Globaly wants to be pinned down... ...and tied up. ...you know, for real. ...as it is against their will. ...against their will. ...as in a... ...consensually. ...no, not consensually. ...and with the mean and without the meaning that says this is for pleasure, this is for connection, this is for surrender, this is for this very powerful ritual. You know, when kids are tying each other up because they are the prisoners, they are not tolerating it because they know that they are in the realm of play.

1:07:39...as if, make belief, and it gives it the fun and the whole different meaning. Nobody wants to be... ...tripped. ...when it becomes real. You know, if you play hide and seek, the most amazing thing is when you're hiding is to know that somebody is looking for you. But the minute you begin to wonder, are they still looking for you? The thrill turns into terror. This is what happens in sex too. You know, you have to... ...it's extremely important to differentiate when it is sexual, when it's a form of play, when it's a particular practice you enjoy. And everything around it is coming together to clarify that.

1:08:28Are you seeing couples struggling, though, with these sort of newly defined gender roles as it relates to their sex lives? And as we said, like feminism and the equality of the sex is... is it changed anything? I mean, I think that one thing is to talk about sexual rights and one thing is to talk about sexual pleasure and experience. I think, you know, I was teaching this course yesterday. I think it's about 97 % of research on desire is about women. Why does that say to you? That says that we think women have challenges around desire. Men don't have to be researched, because the assumption is they're always interested.

1:09:15Just give them an opportunity, which is so not true. But the science is completely bored into the bias. What's the difference? Why doesn't matter whether if all the research is... Are you getting different results from that in one way? No, because yes, the experiences are different. But what it says is that the science has decided that women need to be helped around desire. That they have hyposexual desire disorder. Today it's that. In the past, it was the opposite that we were researching. And that men don't need to be researched, because men don't have challenges around desire. And that is...

1:09:59first of all, it leaves many men unattended too. It puts an unfair burden onto the women. That is not about feminism. That is about... But science and political changes and social changes, they are intersect with each other. Have women changed fundamentally around the fact that at least in the West, in most situations, hopefully, sex is no longer just a woman's marital duty. But that it is also about her desire, her pleasure, their connection together. That is huge. I mean, we first separated sex from reproduction when we got contraception. Then we separated reproduction from sex when we got artificial ways to conceive.

1:10:49And now we are separated anatomy from gender. And those are huge revolutions that change the way we conceive of the relationship. We used to think sex elderly people, that is the weirdest thing possible. But when is elderly people start these days? I mean, we understand that there is a way to stay intimately, physically, centrally connected till the end of your life. Are you having more and more couples come to you? And this is difficult, I guess, because maybe it's just more people talking about it now. But are you having more couples come to you that are experiencing problems in the bedroom?

1:11:28Sexlessness in their relationships? Of course. But what does that mean sexlessness? Because, you know, in a relationship or in a culture where the woman's experience doesn't really matter. They may be sex, but that may be miserable sex. Do you think there's a lot of miserable sex? Of course. You know, and when women don't have desire, is it really that they have less desire? Or is it that they don't have desire for the sex they can have? In order to want sex, it needs to be sex that is worth wanting. Well, I've said this before, but it's worth saying now again. My partner turned around to me one day and said, I don't like having sex with you.

1:12:10And I was shocked. I was like, this was super early into our relationship. And as a very young man, I didn't understand what that meant. Very emasculated by it. I thought there must be, she must be broken in some way. There must be some kind of medical defect. Maybe she needs some pills or a doctor or something. We ended up breaking up. We spent a year apart. She ended up doing some work on herself. I did a little bit of work on myself. We got back together and went on a bit of a journey together to find out what the actual answer was. And it turns out it wasn't that she didn't like having sex or having sex with me.

1:12:43She very much enjoys sex, but there was a series of blockages. And I almost describe it like I thought sex was one language, Spanish. And it turns out she thought she was speaking French. And I just assumed because she wasn't speaking Spanish that we couldn't have sex, basically. And at some point I started to view it as maybe there's 10 different languages or five different languages of sex. And maybe my job is to learn the language that she is speaking. And I have to say, and I say this, I give this conclusion because there's a lot of people that are in that situation right now. I know that because I'd say a 1 .20 % of my friendship group were.

1:13:24We have a great sex life now.

1:13:31And I say that because I think couples often think they just can't turn it around. They think that when one partner turns and says, I'm not enjoying this, they think it's the other person's broken. We managed to turn it around. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And what is not said often enough is that when people are able to change this, it changes the whole relationship. That's what I said before. And I said, you can change the kitchen, but it won't change the bedroom. But when you change the bedroom, it changes the people who walk into the kitchen. And it's very, very important.

1:14:11But you need to do things. You can't talk about not having sex, or not everybody differently. It's difficult to want to have more sex by talking about not wanting to have sex. You have to try new things. And that means you take chances, you risk, you explore together. And when it doesn't work, you try something else. And that is what people often find really challenging. They'd rather take it as a criticism, and then they're defensive, and then they can't do attack. And then you say to her, there's something wrong with you, etc. You're not really struggling with what I struggled with. Was that first day when I tried to initiate sex.

1:14:53And then I basically got rejected. That created this almost anxiety, every going forward. And then there was maybe about a year, not even a year, maybe less than that, six months, where if I'd like tried to initiate sex, I'd be rejected. And that kind of just totally tore me off. And it was even when we fix the situation, I almost had to do a lot of work on myself just to, because then she starts initiating all the time, when we get out of the other end of the situation when we resolve it. And then that's basically a problem, because I've learnt this habit that she has to initiate sex now, because there was this period for six months, where I was just rejected all the time.

1:15:32And, yeah, that was difficult, because I tell you what, when you've got to get an erection, the last thing you want to be doing is thinking and thinking and thinking, am I going to be rejected? Does she want to have it to, you know, it's the last thing you want to be thinking. So this fear of rejection is probably one of the most important emotional or sexual vulnerabilities for many men.

1:16:01It's part of what is so alluring and porn, by the way. You never rejected it. She never says, not now, she always says me two more, more, more. And that takes care of one of the very important sexual vulnerabilities that many men grapple with. By the way, the next one would be, you're also never incompetent. You never have performance anxiety, it doesn't matter. Whatever you do, you do. It's for you. So that takes care of the second vulnerability. And the third one is that you never have to wonder if she enjoying it, because she only screams and makes sure that she lets whoever the actor is know how phenomenal he is.

1:16:46And also you've searched out the fantasy that you want. Absolutely. There's no rejection in the fantasy. So it's very interesting thing, when you look at what does porn do for many men, is it takes care of three major emotional dilemmas around you? It's not that it just takes care of the sex, it takes care of the vulnerabilities, the emotional vulnerabilities around sex. That's a real different way of understanding when you say to people, what are you looking at? Are you not concerned that with artificial intelligence on the way in virtual reality? That way, literally, if porn is taking care of those vulnerabilities that are standing in the way of many men?

1:17:26So we'll bots. Yeah, exactly. And so will machines ever more so machine. I put a headset on. I buy the machine on the internet, you know, and then it can talk to me. And I have an augmented reality and they never say no and they know exactly what I like and they accompany me everywhere. And I don't have to feel like I want too much or too little or I'm doing it wrong or anything. Absolutely. It's a fantastic, idealistic world in which one can enter. Scary. And understandable. Especially as people are getting lonely on. They'll still see that as a substitute for the real thing. Maybe a better substitute for the real thing in some people's minds.

1:18:10Yes. Those who will seek it out will want you to, will want to believe that it is a good substitute. You look concerned. And I, it's a world that I don't know yet that I'm watching. When I say I don't know yet, I know I know plenty, but I, I, I, I, there are things that are changing where I say, I'm excited. This is phenomenal. And then there are things that are changing that I'm saying, where is this taking us? And I'm a lot more cautious. And this is one of them. When couples do come to you with sexlessness in their relationship, I think we have to define what sexlessness is, but they, they stopped having sex.

1:18:55It's been six months since they've had sex. Oh, six months. Why not 16 years? You've had that. Since months, yes. I mean, when we talk about a block, some, you know, a breach, an impasse, a shutdown. We're not talking months. And by the way, this is not people, this is your best friends and you don't know. I lost them. I was shocked. You know, that's why it, where should we begin, became so people began to see that this is not just some others or just them, that it actually is very common. And so sexlessness is not about frequency, though at some point for some people, it means nothing, nothing for years.

1:19:46And then you ask, do you still kiss, do you hold, do you touch, do you rub skin, do you, is there any physicality still? Is there a faction that may not be sexual touch, but that is a faction of touch? So you, you, you really look at a broad, you know, definition. And then you ask, what, what, you know, what is it that you would want? Do you, do you, are you prepared to take the chance? I don't want that. I don't, I want to know how, how I get back from that place, but also I want to know how I avoid getting to that place. There's two separate answers, I guess. There's 16 years in no sex. How do we get back?

1:20:26So first and foremost, maybe this is a place to start. When I think about the conversations I have about sex with the people I work with, individuals or couples, and I think probably the best way for you is to listen to it in the podcast episodes, because you, you, you can hear how, how one begins to have this conversation. Is that sex is not about a five minute four play that is just in preparation for the real thing. And the real thing in a straight couple is penetration and orgasm, and then you know it worked. That model, that in the performance model of, you know, with an outcome, is so that what I'm talking about, this is what couples have had for centuries.

1:21:15People have had sex. I mean, you can do it and feel nothing. That's not the goal. So I don't care how often. I'm care about the quality of the experience that the connection you have with yourself and with another. And so it has, we talk about touch, we talk about giving touch and taking touch. We talk about fantasy imagination. We talk about how do you ask for the things that you like, but that doesn't mean just touch me here, touch me there. It's how do you communicate sexually? What is that translation from Spanish to French? You know, how do you say to somebody I enjoy this? I would enjoy that more.

1:21:54How do you create a vocabulary that isn't negative and critical and castrating? How do you pay attention to how the other person is responding and not just say, why don't you like this? Everybody else likes this. I can't stop. So it's, it's very, very rich, you know, and the definition of sex is really way beyond this. And so you start to ask people about their imaginative life around what excites them around peak experiences that they have had, around the kind of touch that they enjoy, around what do you look for in sex? Is it a communion? Is it a spiritual union? Is it a free experience of being dominated, of being, of giving yourself over to someone, of being naughty, of not having to be responsible and take care of other people which you do the whole day?

1:22:46What do you look for in sex? Where do you go? What do you seek to express there? These are conversations. A lot of people, most people have never had. Sometimes one person in the relationship doesn't want to have that conversation, right? And the other person does. Then I meet with them alone. Okay. And because some things need to be sometimes articulated separately first, you know, what is it? Sometimes it has to do with smell and body and sometimes it has to do with trauma. Sometimes it has to do with lingering resentments. Sometimes it has to do with a fundamental inequality in the relationship in which one person expects and assumes.

1:23:27And what blocks the sex can, it's a sloth work. It's not just, it's stopped. Sometimes couples say to you in private that I'm just not attracted to them anymore. Of course. Sometimes they say it flat out to each other too. You really? People say hurtful things, yes. And sometimes I can't believe somebody would be attracted to me. I don't find myself attractive. I have been ill or I have struggled with weight or I have had addiction issues or I let the sex intersects with a lot of things. It intersects with your health. The vast majority of couples, 55 up. That's stopped being sectioned. It's actually because of the man in heterocouples.

1:24:18Because the men are often on medication for diabetes, for blood pressure, for prostate, for depression, and others. And all these medications have sexual side effects. If you are a man who basically has focused your entire sexuality around your penis and your erections and your ability to get hard and last and have autonomous spontaneous erections. And suddenly it doesn't happen. And you suddenly think, now I have to ask for help. Help. You know? What kind of a man? This is no longer, you know, then you give up. And the notion that actually you have an entire body to make love with. And that your penis doesn't make the decisions.

1:25:04It's a person who makes decisions for the penis. That's a very different story. And that you actually can experience pleasure in all kinds of other ways. Or that you have had all illnesses with which you have grappled with. So human sexuality is a very broad topic that evolves in the course of your life. That changes with your successes, with your illnesses, with your children's lives, et cetera, et cetera. And that is one of the best things I can offer to people. Is that, suddenly, the conversation, when you say the person doesn't want to talk about it, is because what they've talked about is that narrow.

1:25:42Why don't you want to have sex? You never want to have sex. All you can think about is sex, not anything. And once you've actually invited them into a whole other conversation about what is pleasure for you, what is connection, what is the difference between desire and arousal? What does it mean to start because you're in the mood versus to start because you're willing? I've had partners before where I thought, you know, if I lay down the full menu of what I find pleasurable, they would think I was weirdo. Listen, I'm not into anything extreme. Like I'm not into, you know, I was very... Look at me apologizing.

1:26:21I'd think, oh, they wouldn't be into that, so I just won't tell them. Or it might make them run off, so I won't tell them. And I think dawned on me a couple of maybe about a year ago, my girlfriend turned around to me and actually asked me the question. For the first time about what my fantasies were, and I was like, do I give her the vanilla menu? Or do I tell her about the... Where the card game comes in? This card game? Mine, yes. This one I have on the floor. It has a whole bunch of sexuality related questions. And because you're playing, you know, it's the pink triangles are the sex ones.

1:26:58But in play mode, you can ask this question about fantasy in a way that is much less directed. Yeah, all loaded. You know, confrontational. And, you know, there's 60 cards on that subject alone. And that creates a very different kind of conversation. And I really think that to put it in the context of play and playfulness invites a very different kind of revelation and honesty. Are you looking? Yeah, I mean, this one says, my guilty pleasure is... Give me the stack. I'll get you. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead.

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1:28:22Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future -proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to NetSuite .com slash Bartlett and free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's NetSuite .com slash Bartlett. The most sensual sexual experience I've had without having sex. Oh, that's a good one. That's a beautiful one. It'd probably be being in the shower with my partner. Which is a very vulnerable experience. But there's something quite sensual about that experience. Absolutely. That's the first thing that came to mind. And just read a few and then you can decide.

1:29:08Because you're flaccid at that point. So you're not looking at your best, you're a little bit. And because one of the early essential experiences that we have is when our parents or our caregivers wash us. Oh, OK. Interesting. When they wash our head, when they wash our back, when they rinse off the soap. I mean, there are a lot of imprints in the best of circumstances of being washed as one of the most initial, pleasurable, sensual, without it being sexual at all. Little kids, you sit in the tub and somebody puts the water over you and rips you. I've told about my sex life. A fantasy of mine.

1:29:51I'm conflicted about. I've got a couple of things. I'll never forget the time I was seduced by. You say that in chapter six. You say, asked, a lot of your work is to do with people who have shame and anxiety around sex as people withdraw from a lover as they fear being judged or rejected by what their sexual fantasies are. That's a piece. But shame and anxiety is because a lot of people look if it's one in four women and one in six men have experiences of unwanted sex or abuse or violation or assault. As a lot of people carrying a lot of very negative experiences, traumatic experiences around sex.

1:30:44Let's start with that for a minute. So we don't go in Lala land. So people carry a lot of shame, a lot of guilt around this whole dimension of their being. And then it's a subject that we often are trained to be silent about. And that means that suddenly now as an adult we have to be able to communicate about this out of where. I did a thing when I was in London recently. And I'm doing this. I'm going to ask this question again when I go back on tour. It's extremely powerful. I ask people to please let me know if sexuality was central in their family growing up. And of course the vast majority of people say no it wasn't.

1:31:34Why? Because we never talked about it. I never saw my parents being close with each other or affectionate with each other. And then you begin and you say, but if sex was hidden or obfuscated or minimized or only hinted at with dirty jokes. Does that make it absent or does that make it more central? And if sex was violated or misused or abused, does that make it more peripheral or does that make it more central? And if there was infidelity in your family, does that make sex absent or does that make it more? In the end you have 90 % of people telling you sex was central in my life growing up. And 10 % saying no it wasn't.

1:32:22It flips the whole thing. And from there you begin to have conversations about sex. You don't plunge into the sexlessness. You know, you ask people, how do you avoid each other? What's the dance here? One of you goes to sleep two hours before the other. You make sure you pretend you're asleep. How have you developed this whole avoidance thing? Or one person wants, one person doesn't want, one person counts the days. I've just read an episode recently and literally he would have wanted sex every day. And she is just besides herself. And then it becomes clear that the part of it is because he needs help to go to sleep.

1:33:04But he doesn't need her necessarily. He can also take care of himself if he wants. And that he would have a much more willing partner if she wasn't just, you know, an alleviation for him. And basically they have a system. She counts. She knows two days is okay by the third day it's not. And so she braces herself. And so she just gets through it. And you think, this is really not a good situation. And they have a fantastic relationships. And they tell me this is the only thing that's been an issue between us. Now they have had four children. So he waited patiently and he thought once the kids are a little older, they're going to resume.

1:33:46And they have not, and she is not at all interested in resuming to that. And he is so rejected. But he has no concept of how much pressure he puts on you. And she does not necessarily understand how much he would love for her to enjoy it. And to experience some of what he loves to experience. And she has no connection. It's a very powerful episode coming up. It gives you, you know, they are not sexless. But in some way, I could see, you know, having sex doesn't make you sex not sexless. I took all the most replayed moments from some of the interviews you'd done. And I looked at those moments. So I went through all the YouTube interviews you've done.

1:34:29And there's basically the spikes in conversation of the parts that people replayed over and over again. And I've got them all written here. Wow. Like what? I can give them to you after people have so compelled when I tell them that we do that. The first one was about cheating. But specifically this idea that even people in open relationships cheat. As we can't resist what is forbidden. The situation you were describing there seems stereotypically like a situation where the man would then go on to cheat. Because his needs aren't being met. Why do people cheat? I mean, as we tend to think it's because one person isn't getting what they want or because one person's a bad person.

1:35:12Look, people cheat for a host of reasons. Some of them have to do with the relationship. A loneliness is probably the biggest one.

1:35:30And then we are going to say of the variance between men and women when they cheat. All right. So the first one is why do people cheat? The second one is there are differences between infidelity in men and in women. So let's start with the first thing. I mean, I put much of this in the state of affairs in the book because I had spent 10 years studying affairs and infidelity. So when you ask me how many couples, it's a lot of couples. And I really thought this experience is so shattering in so many relationships. There must be another way to understand it. It is more complicated than there's so much suffering around it.

1:36:24I want to really delve into this deeper. So people cheat because they're lonely. They cheat because they have been sexually frustrated for so many years. They cheat because they are resentful. They cheat for vengeance and vindictiveness. They cheat because they need to constantly be affirmed by anybody that can make them feel better about themselves. They cheat for a host of reasons that have to do with conflict and discontent and disconnection in their relationship. But they also sometimes have affairs that have nothing to do with the relationship. And that's what was one of the big discoveries for me in the book.

1:37:10It was that sometimes that affairs happen in happy couples too. And that sometimes it's not that you want to leave the person that you are with as much as you want to leave the person that you have yourself become. And that's not that you want to meet another person as much as you want to meet another self or other parts of yourself that have disappeared in your life. And that at the heart of affairs you find betrayal and duplicity and lying and cheating. But at the heart of affairs you also find longing and loss and yearning. And the word that I heard the most and this brings us right back to the beginning of our conversation all over the world.

1:37:58I've gone to 22 countries on this one is that when people would describe their affairs they would say how they talked. I'm not talking about paid sex every night sex. I'm talking about affairs and you know in a more meaningful sense. But people really talked about the fact that they felt alive. So affairs are erotic plots. They're not just about sex actually. They're about feeling alive and reconnecting with the essence of something for many people. But there are many different stories around affairs. For most of history, men have basically had a practically had a license to cheat. And it was explained that there are more nomadic and rumors and conquistadors and that they are more quickly bored and they are in need of novelty.

1:38:47And basically we gave them all kinds of justifications to explain, you know, and to rationalize why it happens to them and not to women. When in fact it didn't happen to women because the consequences were far more dire on women than on men. So we said that when women cheat it's because they are lonely and they are in need for intimacy and you know we did all of these stories have been kind of rewritten from by now. The biological consequences of a woman cheating where she would get pregnant back and then that's why she gets destitute. She'd lose her children. I mean, come on, we're talking till the 70s women didn't have access to their own bank accounts.

1:39:27On what was she going to survive? She would be working with discarded letter. She, I mean, everything you want. So the consequences on women, women have not necessarily had different aspirations or fantasies than men. But women have done what makes them safe more than what they would actually, what makes them feel good. I felt like I was alive. You hear that from people who have cheated on their partner. Does that then infer that one of the causes of cheating is that it felt like the relationship or us as a three me, her or me him and the relationship were dead? Or yes, dead, didn't. Yes, an affair is often experienced as an antidote to that kind of debt.

1:40:16Yes, but of course my next sentence would be if people were to put 10 % of the creative imagination that they put into their affairs, into their marriages or primary relationships, those relationships would be doing so much better. They put the planning in the planning, the attention, the creativity, the messages, the hundred texts, the flowers, the, I mean, the whole thing, the production. If people were bringing that full self, so to speak, that creative imaginative, that forvescent self that they bring to their lovers, to their relationships, their relationships would not be agonizing. Do we need novelty?

1:40:59Of course we do. And how do we get 40 years into a relationship, you're almost 40 years into a relationship, into a marriage? You give me a, you're like, what? Conceive your traps, you give me. You're not like your traps. But far not. How do you keep the novelty 40 years in? Doing new things together. If you do... this is the research of Eli Finkl in the all -or -nothing marriage. Is that if you do the things that you enjoy but habitually, we like to go to this cafe, to this mountain, this hike, this restaurant, this beach, you know. that that breeds a lot of friendship and warmth and satisfaction.

1:41:42But if you want to experience desire, it is wanting something that you don't yet have. It's exploring something that you don't yet know. And that means that couples who do new things together that involve an element of risk, not because it's dangerous. New things together could be a conversation that they've never had. New things could be... Something to hotel. Something outside of the ordinary. You know, that you don't do anymore when you are together for 40 years or 20 years, whatever it is. It's that the regeneration of new cells, putting yourself into situations where you are not predictable to each other.

1:42:25And so you look so the near each other and you're like, what was that like for you? And what was that like for you? And this we know is one of the elements that creates a liveliness in relationships. I mean, that is the distinction. Now, not everybody wants that and that's okay too. Is there a part of when you've been cheated on that you suddenly value your partner more? I say that because it highlights that someone else was attracted to them. And then, presumably, you're kind of seeing them through not as like Dave who just comes home and just lays eggs. That is one of the responses. There are many different responses.

1:43:00But when you ask people, when do you find most drawn... I can ask you, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Not just sexually attracted, but most drawn. What would you say? One of the times was when I went and saw her doing her thing at work. So when I go and see her doing her thing in the breathwork studio, it's like looking at her completely, I guess, a new person in some way. That's right. That's right. And what would be another one?

1:43:36When other people notice how beautiful she is. Right. Right. Right. So you've just basically named two out of the three most important answers. I have heard for decades now about this one. Worldwide, by the way. There's only, you know, I'm most drawn to my partner when I see my partner in their element. Oh, interesting. Passionate about something competent. And it could be on stage, on a horse, on a slope, whatever it is, on a piano. It's when I see my partner as a separate other person. That is already so familiar, but that is yet again somewhat mysterious, somewhat unknown, somewhat elusive.

1:44:18And in that moment when they are radiant and in their element, they don't need me. She's not pursuing you. She's doing her thing. And that space between me and the other is where lies the erotic yellow. This is the bar none, the most important one. The second one is when people talk about, I'm drawn to my partner when we reunite, when we've been away from each other. Oh, God, yeah. Which is the second one you told me before when you talked about. And the third one is when I see my partner through the eyes of a third. And that allows me to see my partner not just as my partner, as Bob, but as a separate person who other people see things that I no longer pay so much attention to.

1:45:04So can we create that in our relationships? Yeah. I can go watch her do her thing in her element. I can create some distance. We spend time apart. I travel, I do my thing, whatever. And also, I don't know, I go and ask guys if my girlfriend's hot. I mean, you can do it that way, but of course she needs to have her breath work. Yeah, yeah. There needs to be something that, you know, it can be breath work. It can be what she's done with the house, what she does with with other careers or with her parents or with her children. It doesn't have to just be, you know, can I just be lingerie? Can't it just be like a new?

1:45:39I have rarely heard somebody say that. And because also I wasn't talking about I'm attracted to. I asked you when I'm drawn to. Oh, okay. And that drawn to is a very particular, but this answer when I went and I saw her do her thing is bar none the number one. So interesting. And I, I mean, and the only one, by the way, that is gender specific is when women say when he plays with the kids. Because it is not. You know, in a woman place where the kids, it's called motherly. It's not drawn to. And that's the only one that is gender, that is gender different or specific. All the others, I mean, I can't tell you the breath of different countries where the same answer.

1:46:25There's something about this thing. I don't know. I'm drawn to is an a law. It's a movement towards and that movement towards is because there is an other. And that other means there's a bridge to cross. That bridge to cross is that erotic energy. And that's what cheating is. Yes. So can people experience that in their own relationship? Yes. But of course it demands recreating it. I mean, you know, we are living twice as long. Not everybody is going to be married for 60 years. I'm working from home. That is recent. But yes, that's true. That's over there all day. Yeah. That was a killer for a lot of people.

1:47:04Is to see you the whole day doing, doing your thing. It's a, it strengthened the friendship for many people and it lessons the erotic for many people. You know, but I think that seeing her do her thing or hurt saying that to you or. I find it a very beautiful answer because it really says when I see the other as an other. It was that me and her for the first time. It was what it felt like the first time I went to one of her breathwork sessions. And I was just kind of hiding in the corner. I was completely irrelevant. I was like spying. And she's got all of our, you know, her clients there. There's 25 of them.

1:47:45They're all hypnotized. So none of them even know I'm there. She's doing her thing. I'm like, who is this person and who are all these people and what's this place? And it felt like I was, I guess, meeting her for the first time in a way. It's beautiful. And also they have a different relationship with her. And me as a partner, we become kind of encrusted in a certain way of being with each other. That's why the opening up in the triangular gaze is so important. How others see her. Allow you to see her differently again. And that is all generative. Those are all new selves. I'll read you these most replayed moments anyway, just so you know.

1:48:24And there's, I mean, we've got a bigger list of them, but I just pulled off the ones that I thought were pertinent. The things that all erotic couples do have sexual privacy, full -play, crucial, have an erotic space where they abandon their usual roles, responsibilities and desire, don't go together. The difference between men and women cheating is how to balance love and desire. An erotic is being engaged and giving the best of yourself to your partner, and the whereas most people give their best of themselves to their friends, their colleagues, and give their partners the leftovers. And then in our other guests that we had on that speak about relationships in love, the five most repaid moments from those conversations were the best techniques for dating apps and different attachment theories.

1:49:00So attachment theories is very popular. Paul talked about the importance of longer engagement periods in being physically, but not sexually attracted to someone. Marisa Peer is about sexless relationships again. And Tracy Cox, who again has been talking about sex relationships for about 20 years, is what... Yes, Tracy Cox, I know. Is what her most repaid moment was? Why hot sex stops after two years in a relationship? And the only way to keep going is by swapping partners constantly and never finding long -term happiness. It's a myth that you can keep hot sex in a long -term relationship easily.

1:49:35That's true. You can have it on occasion here and there if you think about it as hot like that. That's true. And that's not necessarily the goal of many people either. I think, you know, there are people for whom this is essential in their life and it's the gate that opens them up to a lot of other important experiences in their life. And then there are people for whom this is not nearly as central. They enjoy it, but they don't need it to be hot. They enjoy what is often called maintenance sex. Erotic couples have a lot of maintenance sex. And on occasion, they get suddenly this really... You unusual hot, you know, different...

1:50:23Wow, it's been a while. Hard of nowhere. But they have actually a lot of maintenance. And they do have an understanding of not just I'm drawn to this person who is different from me, but also a person who has their own erotic interiority of their own. And they're not threatened by it because each of them have thoughts and fantasies that are not necessarily just about the relationship, of course. How do we conclude our conversation? Yeah, like how do we conclude we've talked about relationships, love, connection, all of these things in between? Is there a through line of advice or conclusion that would help people?

1:51:03Maybe something with that is actionable. Maybe something that feels somewhat easy or simple, maybe not easy. So we can go back to the things that we talked about together and about you as well. I said to you, relationships is an active engagement. It demands risk, it demands vulnerability, and it demands accountability, which we didn't talk about as much. Typically, when people are in trouble, they want the other person to change and to do the work. And I said, if you want to change the other, change yourself. Ask yourself, what can I do that would make it better? And do it. And don't begin to say, but why me?

1:51:46And you know, just do your thing because it's ultimately what you want because there is such a thing called enlightened self -interest. Do it because it's the relationship you want. The relationship is the third. It's exactly the way you said it. So when you are about to say or do something, ask yourself, what will this do to the relationship? If I do this now, or if I say this now, or if I don't say this now? And do things not because they suit you, but because they suit the relationship, because ultimately the relationship is there to serve you. But it's a back and forth. Love is a verb. I think it's a very important thing.

1:52:22And that means you actively do a bunch of things. I mean, it's the same with food. You know, some people just are okay eating whatever is in their fridge. And most of the time, it's nothing on the shelf. It's it. But some people are actively searching, the writing gradients. They go to this market, to this store. They put it together. There's an art to that. It's an art, a relationship. And that art you can bring to your love relationship as well. I think a lot of people end up in a rut because they're complacent, they're lazy, they're unimaginative, and they have a lot of imagination for a lot of stuff outside, but not with their partner.

1:53:00And then they say, I'm bored. Well, then it didn't, you know, do something. And it's amazing how hard it is for some people to do it. One of the things I think is really interesting. Imagine instead of the DMs and stuff, you know, we just had a long conversation. And it's evening when you go to wherever you stay. And you just basically write a letter. And you write a letter to your partner and just say, you know, I had this woman there today. And we talked about all this stuff. And it made me think. It made me think about the first time when we met. And I told her about being there in the background, watching you do this work.

1:53:38And I realized that it's been a long time since I watched you do this work. And I probably should show up again because I don't even know what you've been doing since. I don't do the same thing as five years ago or however long you are together. I can't imagine that you are. And I realized that, you know, I expect a certain kind of coziness. But then I'm thinking, where is the novelty? And I don't pursue the novelty. But there is novelty. I have been doing new things. You must have been doing new things. Why am I asking, you know, is novelty important? It is. And it's there. But I need to go look for it.

1:54:11And I was talking about the maintenance sex. And I was talking about the shower. And I was talking about so many moments between us. And I just thought I should share this with you. When people sit down with themselves and they start to write, you know, I've been thinking about us and it's been a long time since I even said any of these things. I mean, man, this is like filling up a tank of gasoline. Why? Because you say, I value this. And I value you. And I value what we've created. And we matter. And it's important. And I cherish it. And I adore it. And I sometimes don't pay enough attention to it.

1:54:52And I just take it for granted. And that is not a good thing to do. It's like food that stays on a shelf for months on end. Well, it rots. And there's something about something fresh. And it breaks through the calcification. It is a lubricant in the full sense of the word. Speaking of something, fresh, you have an online course called Tanning Conflict Interconnection. We've talked about connection. We've talked about conflict. Why did you make this course? And who is this for? This Tanning Conflict Interconnection course. It's a one hour course. It's very short. It's eight videos and a fantastic workbook.

1:55:34And it's for people who kind of say, we keep getting into the same arguments. It's for people who say, you know, how do we turn this thing around? It's for people who say, you know, we're in a rut. And who are willing to try things without having to go to therapy necessarily. So it gives you a very clear understanding of what's the difference between what is it underlying unmet needs? What is behind every criticism there's a wish? What is it that you're wishing for rather than how do you turn what is called negative sentiment override? When a relationship becomes overly critical, judgmental, you know, how do you turn the tone around?

1:56:23How do you remember the fondness for another person, etc? Well, everyone needs that. And that's why I created it because I think people are lacking the skills. Therapy is not the only place to do it. I think that we are avoidant in conflict. We don't have enough of that replay practice. And I thought, God, the thing that I hear so much is people who are not talking to their friend, people who are saying, this is too difficult we shouldn't have. And I thought, woo, before you throw the whole thing, let's see if you can, you know, some of these things are changeable. Of course, you have to be accountable.

1:57:02If all you want to tell me is how you are a saint and the other is the villain, we're not going anywhere. So I thought, let me create a few courses like this. I've done the conflict. I've gone one coming out on sex. The things that I've been talking about, that I've written about. And I thought after that, or even the thing you listen to on the podcast, but now I want you to have something where you can actually do and practice some things that I think will help you. We have a closing tradition, as you know, which is the last guest leaves a question in this book not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for.

1:57:35And I don't get to see it until I open the book. Here we go. What is the one piece of advice you received in the last decade that you think about most frequently? I think whenever I'm thinking this way, the first person that comes up for me is my father, who was illiterate, had gone to school for three years, and who basically would say to me, my little one, do not get impressed by the money, by the fame, by the education, look at the decency. And I was a hitchhiker for many years as a young person. I traveled a ton, and that became the thing I took with me. I was taken in by the kindness of strangers in various circumstances who knew nothing about who I was, who probably had the most different political opinions from me, you could imagine, who had never heard about where Belgium could be.

1:58:46Anything, they just were kind, decent, caring, human beings, who shared whatever little they had. And sometimes they had no electricity, no nothing. They just cooked me an entire meal with a candle next to them. And I think that that has really stayed with me. It's looked at the decency of the person and don't get impressed by the accoutrements and the status symbols and all of that. And I really thank him for that. It gives you clarity, it keeps you very grounded, and love the message. And I've actually passed a message on to my own kids as well. Esther, thank you so much. Thank you for your brilliance.

1:59:36And everyone has been hammering me for many a year on all of my social media channels in my team in London here all over to have this conversation with you. And you exceed all expectations every single time. You're just, you're such an incredible human being that I'm so glad exists, because there's something so special about you there. As I said, it's like you can't replicate that brilliance. Thank you. So thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to meet you. I mean it with everywhere of every fiber in my body. So thank you, Esther. Thank you very much. Do you need a podcast to listen to next? We've discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode we've done.

2:00:16So I've linked that episode in the description below. I know you'll enjoy it.

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