WEBVTT

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So, why does good sex so often fade,

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even for couples who continue
to love each other as much as ever?

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And why does good intimacy
not guarantee good sex,

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contrary to popular belief?

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Or, the next question would be,

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can we want what we already have?

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That's the million-dollar question, right?

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And why is the forbidden so erotic?

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What is it about transgression
that makes desire so potent?

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And why does sex make babies,

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and babies spell erotic
disaster in couples?

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(Laughter)

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It's kind of the fatal
erotic blow, isn't it?

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And when you love, how does it feel?

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And when you desire, how is it different?

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These are some of the questions

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that are at the center of my exploration
on the nature of erotic desire

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and its concomitant
dilemmas in modern love.

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So I travel the globe,

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and what I'm noticing is that everywhere
where romanticism has entered,

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there seems to be a crisis of desire.

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A crisis of desire,
as in owning the wanting --

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desire as an expression
of our individuality,

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of our free choice,
of our preferences, of our identity --

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desire that has become a central concept

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as part of modern love
and individualistic societies.

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You know, this is the first time
in the history of humankind

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where we are trying to experience
sexuality in the long term

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not because we want 14 children,

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for which we need to have even more
because many of them won't make it,

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and not because it is exclusively
a woman's marital duty.

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This is the first time
that we want sex over time

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about pleasure and connection
that is rooted in desire.

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So what sustains desire,
and why is it so difficult?

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And at the heart of sustaining
desire in a committed relationship,

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I think, is the reconciliation
of two fundamental human needs.

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On the one hand, our need
for security, for predictability,

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for safety, for dependability,

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for reliability, for permanence.

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All these anchoring,
grounding experiences of our lives

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that we call home.

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But we also have an equally
strong need -- men and women --

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for adventure, for novelty,

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for mystery, for risk, for danger,

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for the unknown,
for the unexpected, surprise --

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you get the gist.

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For journey, for travel.

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So reconciling our need for security
and our need for adventure

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into one relationship,

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or what we today like to call
a passionate marriage,

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used to be a contradiction in terms.

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Marriage was an economic institution

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in which you were
given a partnership for life

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in terms of children and social status

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and succession and companionship.

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But now we want our partner
to still give us all these things,

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but in addition I want you
to be my best friend

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and my trusted confidant
and my passionate lover to boot,

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and we live twice as long.

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(Laughter)

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So we come to one person,
and we basically are asking them

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to give us what once
an entire village used to provide.

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Give me belonging, give me identity,

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give me continuity,

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but give me transcendence
and mystery and awe all in one.

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Give me comfort, give me edge.

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Give me novelty, give me familiarity.

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Give me predictability, give me surprise.

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And we think it's a given,

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and toys and lingerie
are going to save us with that.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So now we get to the existential
reality of the story, right?

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Because I think, in some way --

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and I'll come back to that --

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but the crisis of desire
is often a crisis of the imagination.

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So why does good sex so often fade?

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What is the relationship
between love and desire?

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How do they relate,
and how do they conflict?

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Because therein lies
the mystery of eroticism.

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So if there is a verb, for me,
that comes with love, it's "to have."

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And if there is a verb that comes
with desire, it is "to want."

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In love, we want to have,
we want to know the beloved.

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We want to minimize the distance.

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We want to contract that gap.

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We want to neutralize the tensions.

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We want closeness.

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But in desire,

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we tend to not really want to go back
to the places we've already gone.

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Forgone conclusion
does not keep our interest.

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In desire, we want an Other,

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somebody on the other side
that we can go visit,

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that we can go spend some time with,

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that we can go see what goes on
in their red-light district.

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You know?

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In desire, we want a bridge to cross.

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Or in other words,
I sometimes say, fire needs air.

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Desire needs space.

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And when it's said like that,
it's often quite abstract.

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But then I took a question with me.

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And I've gone to more than 20 countries
in the last few years

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with "Mating in Captivity,"
and I asked people,

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when do you find yourself
most drawn to your partner?

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Not attracted sexually,
per Se, but most drawn.

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And across culture, across religion,
and across gender -- except for one --

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there are a few answers
that just keep coming back.

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So the first group is:

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I am most drawn to my partner
when she is away,

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when we are apart, when we reunite.

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Basically, when I get back in touch

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with my ability to imagine myself
with my partner,

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when my imagination comes
back in the picture,

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and when I can root it
in absence and in longing,

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which is a major component of desire.

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But then the second group
is even more interesting.

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I am most drawn to my partner

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when I see him in the studio,

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when she is onstage,

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when he is in his element,

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when she's doing something
she's passionate about,

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when I see him at a party
and other people are really drawn to him,

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when I see her hold court.

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Basically, when I look at my partner
radiant and confident.

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Probably the biggest
turn-on across the board.

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Radiant, as in self-sustaining.

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I look at this person --
by the way, in desire

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people rarely talk about it,
when we are blended into one,

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five centimeters from each other.

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I don't know in inches how much that is.

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But it's also not when the other person
is that far apart

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that you no longer see them.

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It's when I'm looking at my partner
from a comfortable distance,

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where this person that is already
so familiar, so known,

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is momentarily once again
somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive.

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And in this space between me
and the other lies the erotic élan,

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lies that movement toward the other.

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Because sometimes, as Proust says,

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mystery is not
about traveling to new places,

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but it's about looking with new eyes.

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And so, when I see my partner
on his own or her own,

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doing something
in which they are enveloped,

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I look at this person and I momentarily
get a shift in perception,

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and I stay open to the mysteries
that are living right next to me.

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And then, more importantly,
in this description about the other

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or myself -- it's the same --

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what is most interesting
is that there is no neediness in desire.

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Nobody needs anybody.

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There is no caretaking in desire.

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Caretaking is mightily loving.

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It's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac.

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(Laughter)

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I have yet to see somebody
who is so turned on

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by somebody who needs them.

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Wanting them is one thing.

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Needing them is a shot down

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and women have known that forever,

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because anything
that will bring up parenthood

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will usually decrease the erotic charge.

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(Laughter)

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For good reasons, right?

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And then the third group
of answers usually would be:

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when I'm surprised,
when we laugh together,

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as somebody said to me
in the office today,

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when he's in his tux, so I said, you know,

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it's either the tux or the cowboy boots.

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But basically it's when there is novelty.

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But novelty isn't about new positions.

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It isn't a repertoire of techniques.

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Novelty is, what parts
of you do you bring out?

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What parts of you are just being seen?

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Because in some way one could say
sex isn't something you do, eh?

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Sex is a place you go.

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It's a space you enter

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inside yourself
and with another, or others.

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So where do you go in sex?

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What parts of you do you connect to?

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What do you seek to express there?

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Is it a place for transcendence
and spiritual union?

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Is it a place for naughtiness
and is it a place to be safely aggressive?

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Is it a place where you
can finally surrender

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and not have to take
responsibility for everything?

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Is it a place where you can
express your infantile wishes?

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What comes out there? It's a language.

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It isn't just a behavior.

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And it's the poetic of that language
that I'm interested in,

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which is why I began to explore
this concept of erotic intelligence.

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You know, animals have sex.

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It's the pivot, it's biology,
it's the natural instinct.

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We are the only ones
who have an erotic life,

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which means that it's sexuality
transformed by the human imagination.

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We are the only ones
who can make love for hours,

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have a blissful time, multiple orgasms,

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and touch nobody,
just because we can imagine it.

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We can hint at it.
We don't even have to do it.

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We can experience that powerful
thing called anticipation,

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which is a mortar to desire.

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The ability to imagine it,
as if it's happening,

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to experience it as if it's happening,

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while nothing is happening

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and everything is happening,
at the same time.

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So when I began to think about eroticism,

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I began to think about the poetics of sex.

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And if I look at it as an intelligence,

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then it's something that you cultivate.

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What are the ingredients?

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Imagination, playfulness,

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novelty, curiosity, mystery.

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But the central agent is really
that piece called the imagination.

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But more importantly,
for me to begin to understand

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who are the couples
who have an erotic spark,

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what sustains desire,

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I had to go back
to the original definition of eroticism,

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the mystical definition,

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and I went through it
through a bifurcation

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by looking, actually, at trauma,

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which is the other side.

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And I looked at it,

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looking at the community
that I had grown up in,

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which was a community in Belgium,
all Holocaust survivors,

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and in my community,
there were two groups:

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those who didn't die,
and those who came back to life.

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And those who didn't die lived
often very tethered to the ground,

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could not experience
pleasure, could not trust,

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because when you're vigilant,
worried, anxious, and insecure,

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you can't lift your head
to go and take off in space

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and be playful and safe and imaginative.

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Those who came back to life

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were those who understood
the erotic as an antidote to death.

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They knew how to keep themselves alive.

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And when I began to listen

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to the sexlessness
of the couples that I work with,

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I sometimes would hear people
say, "I want more sex,"

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but generally, people want better sex,

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and better is to reconnect
with that quality of aliveness,

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of vibrancy, of renewal, of vitality,

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of Eros, of energy

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that sex used to afford them,

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or that they've hoped
it would afford them.

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And so I began to ask
a different question.

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"I shut myself off when ..."
began to be the question.

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"I turn off my desires when ..."

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Which is not the same question as,

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"What turns me off is ..."
and "You turn me off when ..."

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And people began to say,
"I turn myself off when

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I feel dead inside,
when I don't like my body,

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when I feel old,

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when I haven't had time for myself,

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when I haven't had a chance
to even check in with you,

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when I don't perform well at work,

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when I feel low self esteem,

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when I don't have a sense of self-worth,

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when I don't feel like I have
a right to want, to take,

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to receive pleasure."

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And then I began to ask
the reverse question.

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"I turn myself on when ..."

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Because most of the time,
people like to ask the question,

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"You turn me on, what turns me on,"

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and I'm out of the question, you know?

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Now, if you are dead inside,

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the other person can do
a lot of things for Valentine's.

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It won't make a dent.
There is nobody at the reception desk.

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(Laughter)

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So I turn myself on when,

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I turn on my desires, I wake up when ...

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, in this paradox
between love and desire,

00:12:56.106 --> 00:12:58.208
what seems to be so puzzling

00:12:58.232 --> 00:13:02.101
is that the very ingredients
that nurture love --

00:13:02.125 --> 00:13:04.550
mutuality, reciprocity,

00:13:04.574 --> 00:13:08.311
protection, worry,
responsibility for the other --

00:13:08.335 --> 00:13:11.755
are sometimes the very ingredients
that stifle desire.

00:13:12.430 --> 00:13:16.498
Because desire comes
with a host of feelings

00:13:16.522 --> 00:13:20.376
that are not always
such favorites of love:

00:13:20.400 --> 00:13:22.169
jealousy, possessiveness,

00:13:22.193 --> 00:13:24.741
aggression, power, dominance,

00:13:24.765 --> 00:13:26.519
naughtiness, mischief.

00:13:26.543 --> 00:13:30.831
Basically most of us will get turned on
at night by the very same things

00:13:30.855 --> 00:13:33.218
that we will demonstrate
against during the day.

00:13:33.605 --> 00:13:36.880
You know, the erotic mind
is not very politically correct.

00:13:36.904 --> 00:13:39.536
If everybody was fantasizing
on a bed of roses,

00:13:39.560 --> 00:13:42.184
we wouldn't be having such
interesting talks about this.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:42.208 --> 00:13:43.209
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:43.233 --> 00:13:48.566
But no, in our mind up there
are a host of things going on

00:13:48.590 --> 00:13:51.733
that we don't always know
how to bring to the person that we love,

00:13:51.757 --> 00:13:54.688
because we think love
comes with selflessness

00:13:54.712 --> 00:13:58.258
and in fact desire comes
with a certain amount of selfishness

00:13:58.282 --> 00:14:00.235
in the best sense of the word:

00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:04.639
the ability to stay connected
to one's self in the presence of another.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:05.075 --> 00:14:07.613
So I want to draw
that little image for you,

00:14:07.637 --> 00:14:11.322
because this need to reconcile
these two sets of needs,

00:14:11.346 --> 00:14:12.866
we are born with that.

00:14:12.890 --> 00:14:15.762
Our need for connection,
our need for separateness,

00:14:15.786 --> 00:14:17.971
or our need for security and adventure,

00:14:17.995 --> 00:14:20.825
or our need for togetherness
and for autonomy,

00:14:20.849 --> 00:14:24.000
and if you think about the little kid
who sits on your lap

00:14:24.024 --> 00:14:27.903
and who is cozily nested here
and very secure and comfortable,

00:14:27.927 --> 00:14:32.169
and at some point all of us
need to go out into the world

00:14:32.193 --> 00:14:34.312
to discover and to explore.

00:14:34.336 --> 00:14:36.170
That's the beginning of desire,

00:14:36.194 --> 00:14:40.010
that exploratory need,
curiosity, discovery.

00:14:41.194 --> 00:14:44.916
And then at some point they turn
around and they look at you.

00:14:44.940 --> 00:14:46.689
And if you tell them,

00:14:46.713 --> 00:14:48.710
"Hey kiddo, the world's a great place.

00:14:48.734 --> 00:14:50.859
Go for it. There's so much fun out there,"

00:14:50.883 --> 00:14:53.409
then they can turn away
and they can experience

00:14:53.433 --> 00:14:55.614
connection and separateness
at the same time.

00:14:55.638 --> 00:14:59.428
They can go off in their imagination,
off in their body,

00:14:59.452 --> 00:15:01.080
off in their playfulness,

00:15:01.104 --> 00:15:04.238
all the while knowing that there's
somebody when they come back.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:04.619 --> 00:15:07.032
But if on this side
there is somebody who says,

00:15:07.056 --> 00:15:10.612
"I'm worried. I'm anxious. I'm depressed.

00:15:10.636 --> 00:15:12.891
My partner hasn't taken care
of me in so long.

00:15:12.915 --> 00:15:14.263
What's so good out there?

00:15:14.287 --> 00:15:17.409
Don't we have everything
you need together, you and I?"

00:15:17.433 --> 00:15:19.522
then there are a few little reactions

00:15:19.546 --> 00:15:22.602
that all of us can pretty much recognize.

00:15:22.959 --> 00:15:25.865
Some of us will come back,

00:15:25.889 --> 00:15:27.642
came back a long time ago,

00:15:27.666 --> 00:15:30.051
and that little child who comes back

00:15:30.075 --> 00:15:33.004
is the child who will forgo
a part of himself

00:15:33.028 --> 00:15:34.742
in order not to lose the other.

00:15:35.171 --> 00:15:38.732
I will lose my freedom
in order not to lose connection.

00:15:39.185 --> 00:15:42.066
And I will learn to love in a certain way

00:15:42.090 --> 00:15:45.906
that will become burdened with extra worry

00:15:45.930 --> 00:15:49.450
and extra responsibility
and extra protection,

00:15:49.474 --> 00:15:51.914
and I won't know how to leave you

00:15:51.938 --> 00:15:55.458
in order to go play,
in order to go experience pleasure,

00:15:55.482 --> 00:15:58.698
in order to discover,
to enter inside myself.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:58.722 --> 00:16:01.221
Translate this into adult language.

00:16:01.606 --> 00:16:03.095
It starts very young.

00:16:03.119 --> 00:16:06.398
It continues into our sex lives
up to the end.

00:16:06.867 --> 00:16:09.237
Child number two comes back

00:16:09.261 --> 00:16:12.303
but looks like that
over their shoulder all the time.

00:16:12.327 --> 00:16:14.082
"Are you going to be there?

00:16:14.106 --> 00:16:16.178
Are you going to curse me, scold me?

00:16:16.202 --> 00:16:17.959
Are you going to be angry with me?"

00:16:17.983 --> 00:16:21.578
And they may be gone,
but they're never really away.

00:16:21.602 --> 00:16:23.983
And those are often the people
that will tell you,

00:16:24.007 --> 00:16:26.109
"In the beginning, it was super hot."

00:16:26.133 --> 00:16:28.286
Because in the beginning,

00:16:28.310 --> 00:16:31.638
the growing intimacy wasn't yet so strong

00:16:31.662 --> 00:16:34.531
that it actually led
to the decrease of desire.

00:16:34.555 --> 00:16:38.559
The more connected I became,
the more responsible I felt,

00:16:38.583 --> 00:16:41.682
the less I was able to let go
in your presence.

00:16:41.706 --> 00:16:43.750
The third child doesn't really come back.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:44.346 --> 00:16:47.754
So what happens,
if you want to sustain desire,

00:16:47.778 --> 00:16:49.994
it's that real dialectic piece.

00:16:50.018 --> 00:16:53.675
On the one hand you want the security
in order to be able to go.

00:16:53.699 --> 00:16:57.427
On the other hand if you can't go,
you can't have pleasure,

00:16:57.451 --> 00:17:00.471
you can't culminate,
you don't have an orgasm,

00:17:00.495 --> 00:17:02.890
you don't get excited
because you spend your time

00:17:02.914 --> 00:17:05.749
in the body and the head
of the other and not in your own.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:06.352 --> 00:17:12.392
So in this dilemma about reconciling
these two sets of fundamental needs,

00:17:12.416 --> 00:17:16.565
there are a few things that I've come
to understand erotic couples do.

00:17:16.589 --> 00:17:19.542
One, they have a lot of sexual privacy.

00:17:19.566 --> 00:17:22.048
They understand
that there is an erotic space

00:17:22.072 --> 00:17:23.672
that belongs to each of them.

00:17:24.123 --> 00:17:27.258
They also understand
that foreplay is not something you do

00:17:27.282 --> 00:17:29.093
five minutes before the real thing.

00:17:29.490 --> 00:17:32.562
Foreplay pretty much starts
at the end of the previous orgasm.

00:17:33.033 --> 00:17:36.565
They also understand
that an erotic space isn't about,

00:17:36.589 --> 00:17:38.120
you begin to stroke the other.

00:17:38.144 --> 00:17:41.526
It's about you create a space
where you leave Management Inc.,

00:17:41.550 --> 00:17:44.185
maybe where you leave the Agile program --

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:44.209 --> 00:17:46.893
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:46.917 --> 00:17:51.169
And you actually just enter that place
where you stop being the good citizen

00:17:51.193 --> 00:17:53.833
who is taking care of things
and being responsible.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:53.857 --> 00:17:57.377
Responsibility and desire just butt heads.

00:17:57.401 --> 00:17:59.532
They don't really do well together.

00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:04.208
Erotic couples also understand
that passion waxes and wanes.

00:18:04.232 --> 00:18:06.032
It's pretty much like the moon.

00:18:06.056 --> 00:18:07.777
It has intermittent eclipses.

00:18:07.801 --> 00:18:10.400
But what they know
is they know how to resurrect it.

00:18:10.424 --> 00:18:12.092
They know how to bring it back.

00:18:12.116 --> 00:18:13.736
And they know how to bring it back

00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:16.122
because they have
demystified one big myth,

00:18:16.146 --> 00:18:18.495
which is the myth of spontaneity,

00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:20.926
which is that it's just going
to fall from heaven

00:18:20.950 --> 00:18:23.908
while you're folding the laundry
like a deus ex machina,

00:18:23.932 --> 00:18:25.877
and in fact they understood

00:18:25.901 --> 00:18:31.043
that whatever is going to just happen
in a long-term relationship, already has.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:31.067 --> 00:18:33.829
Committed sex is premeditated sex.

00:18:33.853 --> 00:18:36.145
It's willful. It's intentional.

00:18:37.170 --> 00:18:39.217
It's focus and presence.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:40.114 --> 00:18:41.234
Merry Valentine's.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:41.258 --> 00:18:44.404
(Applause)