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Chapter
One
From Adventure to Captivity
Why the Quest for Security Saps Erotic Vitality
The original primordial fire of eroticism is sexuality; it raises
the red flame of eroticism, which in turn raises and feeds another
flame, tremulous and blue. It is the flame of love and eroticism.
The double flame of life. - Octavio Paz, The Double Flame
Parties in New York City are like anthropological field trips—you
never know whom you'll meet or what you'll find. Recently I was
milling around a self-consciously hip event, and, as is typical
in this city of high achievers, before being asked my name I was
asked what I do. I answered, "I'm a therapist, and I'm writing
a book." The handsome young man standing next to me was also
working on a book. "What are you writing about?" I asked
him. "Physics," he answered. Politely, I mustered the
next question, "What kind of physics?" I can't remember
what his answer was, because the conversation about physics ended
abruptly when someone asked me, "And you? What's your book
about?" "Couples and eroticism," I answered.
Never was my Q rating as high—at parties, in cabs, at the
nail salon, on airplanes, with teenagers, with my husband, you name
it—as when I began writing a book about sex. I realize that
there are certain topics that chase people away and others that
act like magnets. People talk to me. Of course, that doesn't mean
they tell me the truth. If there's one topic that invites concealment,
it's this one.
"What about couples and eroticism?" someone asks.
"I'm writing about the nature of sexual desire," I reply.
"I want to know if it's possible to keep desire alive in a
long-term relationship, to avoid its usual wear."
"You don't necessarily need love for sex, but you need sex
in love," says a man who's been standing on the sidelines,
still undecided about which conversation to join.
"You focus mainly on married couples? Straight couples?"
another asks. Read: is this book also about me? I reassure him,
"I'm looking at myriad couples. Straight, gay, young, old,
committed, and undecided."
I tell them I want to know how, or if, we can hold on to a sense
of aliveness and excitement in our relationships. Is there something
inherent in commitment that deadens desire? Can we ever maintain
security without succumbing to monotony? I wonder if we can preserve
a sense of the poetic, of what Octavio Paz calls the double flame
of love and eroticism.
I've had this conversation many times, and the comments I heard
at this party were hardly novel.
"Can't be done."
"Well, that's the whole problem of monogamy, isn't it?"
"That's why I don't commit. It has nothing to do with fear.
I just hate boring sex."
"Desire over time? What about desire for one night?"
"Relationships evolve. Passion turns into something else."
"I gave up on passion when I had kids."
"Look, there are men you sleep with and men you marry."
As often happens in a public discussion, the most complex issues
tend to polarize in a flash, and nuance is replaced with caricature.
Hence the division between the romantics and the realists. The romantics
refuse a life without passion; they swear that they'll never give
up on true love. They are the perennial seekers, looking for the
person with whom desire will never fizzle. Every time desire does
wane, they conclude that love is gone. If eros is in decline, love
must be on its deathbed. They mourn the loss of excitement and fear
settling down.
At the opposite extreme are the realists. They say that enduring
love is more important than hot sex, and that passion makes people
do stupid things. It's dangerous, it creates havoc, and it's a weak
foundation for marriage. In the immortal words of Marge Simpson,
"Passion is for teenagers and foreigners." For the realists,
maturity prevails. The initial excitement grows into something else—deep
love, mutual respect, shared history, and companionship. Diminishing
desire is inescapable. You are expected to tough it out and grow
up.
As the conversation unfolds, the two camps eye each other with a
complex alloy of pity, tenderness, envy, exasperation, and outright
scorn. But while they position themselves at opposite ends of the
spectrum, both agree with the fundamental premise that passion cools
over time.
"Some of you resist the loss of intensity, some of you accept
it, but all of you seem to believe that desire fades. What you disagree
on is just how important the loss really is," I comment. Romantics
value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion.
But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily
at either extreme.
Invariably, I'm asked if my book offers a solution. What can people
do? Hidden behind this question looms a secret longing for the élan
vital, the surge of erotic energy that marks our aliveness. Whatever
safety and security people have persuaded themselves to settle for,
they still very much want this force in their lives. So I've become
acutely attuned to the moment when all these ruminations about the
inevitable loss of passion turn into expressions of hope. The real
questions are these: Can we have both love and desire in the same
relationship over time? How? What exactly would that kind of relationship
be?
The Anchor and the Wave
Call me an idealist, but I believe that love and desire are not
mutually exclusive, they just don't always take place at the same
time. In fact, security and passion are two separate, fundamental
human needs that spring from different motives and tend to pull
us in different directions. In his book Can Love Last? the infinitely
thoughtful psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell offers a framework for
thinking about this conundrum. As he explains it, we all need security:
permanence, reliability, stability, and continuity. These rooting,
nesting instincts ground us in our human experience. But we also
have a need for novelty and change, generative forces that give
life fullness and vibrancy. Here risk and adventure loom large.
We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability
on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other.
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