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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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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

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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

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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, 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, 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 -- for journey, for travel.

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So reconciling our need for security

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and our need for adventure 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, 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, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that.

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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 -- 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. We want to contract that gap.

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We want to neutralize the tensions. We want closeness.

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But in desire, 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, 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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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 --

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except for one -- there are a few answers that just keep coming back.

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So the first group is: I am most drawn to my partner

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when she is away, 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, when she is onstage,

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when he is in his element, 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. 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 -- what is most interesting

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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. It's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac.

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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. Needing them is a shutdown,

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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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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. 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

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sex isn't something you do, eh?

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Sex is a place you go. 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, 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? 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, I had to go back

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to the original definition of eroticism,

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the mystical definition, and I went through it

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through a bifurcation by looking actually at trauma,

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which is the other side, 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,

201
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and insecure, you can't lift your head

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to go and take off in space and be playful and safe and imaginative.

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Those who came back to life were those

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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 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, of eros, of energy

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that sex used to afford them, or that they've hoped

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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 ..." which is not the same question as,

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"What turns me of 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,

219
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when I feel old, when I haven't had time for myself,

220
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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, 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 ..." Because most of the time,

227
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people like to ask the question, "You turn me on,

228
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what turns me on," and I'm out of the question. You know?

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Now, if you are dead inside, 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 my desires, I wake up when ...

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Now, in this paradox between love and desire,

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what seems to be so puzzling is that the very ingredients

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that nurture love -- mutuality, reciprocity,

237
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protection, worry, responsibility for the other --

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are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.

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Because desire comes with a host of feelings

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that are not always such favorites of love:

241
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jealousy, possessiveness, aggression, power, dominance,

242
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naughtiness, mischief.

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Basically most of us will get turned on at night

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by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day.

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You know, the erotic mind is not very politically correct.

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If everybody was fantasizing on a bed of roses,

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we wouldn't be having such interesting talks about this.

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But no, in our mind up there

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are a host of things going on that we don't always know

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how to bring to the person that we love,

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because we think love comes with selflessness

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and in fact desire comes with a certain amount of selfishness

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in the best sense of the word:

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the ability to stay connected to one's self

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in the presence of another.

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So I want to draw that little image for you,

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because this need to reconcile these two sets of needs,

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we are born with that.

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Our need for connection, our need for separateness,

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or our need for security and adventure,

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or our need for togetherness and for autonomy,

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and if you think about the little kid who sits on your lap

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and who is cozily nested here and very secure and comfortable,

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and at some point all of us need to go out into the world

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to discover and to explore.

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That's the beginning of desire,

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that exploratory needs curiosity, discovery.

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And then at some point they turn around and they look at you,

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and if you tell them,

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"Hey kiddo, the world's a great place. Go for it.

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There's so much fun out there,"

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then they can turn away and they can experience

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connection and separateness at the same time.

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They can go off in their imagination, off in their body,

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off in their playfulness, all the while knowing

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that there's somebody when they come back.

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But if on this side there is somebody who says,

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"I'm worried. I'm anxious. I'm depressed.

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My partner hasn't taken care of me in so long.

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What's so good out there? Don't we have everything

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you need together, you and I?"

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then there are a few little reactions

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that all of us can pretty much recognize.

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Some of us will come back, came back a long time ago,

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and that little child who comes back

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is the child who will forgo a part of himself

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in order not to lose the other.

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I will lose my freedom in order not to lose connection.

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And I will learn to love in a certain way

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that will become burdened with extra worry

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and extra responsibility and extra protection,

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and I won't know how to leave you

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in order to go play, in order to go experience pleasure,

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in order to discover, to enter inside myself.

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Translate this into adult language.

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It starts very young. It continues into our sex lives

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up to the end.

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Child number two comes back

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but looks like that over their shoulder all the time.

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"Are you going to be there?

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Are you going to curse me? Are you going to scold me?

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Are you going to be angry with me?"

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And they may be gone, but they're never really away,

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and those are often the people that will tell you,

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in the beginning it was super hot.

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Because in the beginning, the growing intimacy

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wasn't yet so strong

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that it actually led to the decrease of desire.

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The more connected I became, the more responsible I felt,

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the less I was able to let go in your presence.

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The third child doesn't really come back.

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So what happens, if you want to sustain desire,

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it's that real dialectic piece.

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On the one hand you want the security in order to be able to go.

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On the other hand if you can't go, you can't have pleasure,

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you can't culminate, you don't have an orgasm,

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you don't get excited because you spend your time

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in the body and the head of the other and not in your own.

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So in this dilemma about reconciling

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these two sets of fundamental needs,

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there are a few things that I've come to understand erotic couples do.

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One, they have a lot of sexual privacy.

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They understand that there is an erotic space

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that belongs to each of them.

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They also understand that foreplay is not something you do

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five minutes before the real thing.

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Foreplay pretty much starts at the end of the previous orgasm.

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They also understand that an erotic space

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isn't about, you begin to stroke the other.

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It's about you create a space where you leave Management Inc.,

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maybe where you leave the agile program,

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(Laughter)

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and you actually just enter that place

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where you stop being the good citizen

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who is taking care of things and being responsible.

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Responsibility and desire just butt heads.

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They don't really do well together.

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Erotic couples also understand that passion waxes and wanes.

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It's pretty much like the moon. It has intermittent eclipses.

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But what they know is they know how to resurrect it.

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They know how to bring it back,

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and they know how to bring it back

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because they have demystified one big myth,

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which is the myth of spontaneity, which is

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that it's just going to fall from heaven while you're folding the laundry

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like a deus ex machina, and in fact they understood

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that whatever is going to just happen

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in a long-term relationship already has.

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Committed sex is premeditated sex.

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It's willful. It's intentional.

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It's focus and presence.

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Merry Valentine's.

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(Applause)