Esther Perel — The Erotic Is an Antidote to Death

on erotic intelligence

At first, I just thought — I understood it intuitively, but really, there was nothing substantive and scientific behind it. I did understand that animals have sex. It is the instinct. It is the base. But

we have an erotic mind. And that erotic mind, it is infinite. And eroticism thrives on the ritual and the celebration an

 I look at it, certainly, inside relationships and how we reconcile these two fundamental needs that often spring from different sources and pull us in different directions. And I also think that love and desire belong, a little bit, to both of these sets of human needs, as well. So they relate, and they also conflict. And herein lies the mys

Because desire is to own the wanting. That’s one way of looking at it. And in order to own something, there needs to be a sovereign self that is free to choose and, of course, feels worthy of wanting and feels worthy of receiving. That’s why desire is so intimately connected with a sense of self-worth.

On anxiety or curiosity as responses to a partner's 'other'-ness

I mean, faced with the unknown of our partners, we can either be anxious — and this is true with the unknown of life. We can be anxious, we can want to close the gap, we can want to seek the familiar in that space, or we can leave that space open and respond

to it with curiosity. And