february ins and outs
Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion. We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner wh... See more
Esther Perel • Mating in Captivity
Sex is that paradoxical combination of vulnerability and assertion, giving ourselves up and wanting all the more.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
A healthy sense of erotic entitlement is built on a relaxed, generous, and unencumbered attitude toward the pleasures of the body—something our puritan culture continues to grapple with.
Esther Perel • Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
A healthy sex life is supposed to be frequent, creative, and intense. Therefore the inevitable fact that real people in real long-term relationships cannot and do not act as though they are in the heat of passion all the time causes many people to feel a sense of shame, disappointment, and failure.
Michael J. Bader • Arousal
This leap entails a loss of control that we’re taught from a very young age to guard against. We are socialized to tame our primal side: our unruly impulses, our sexual urges, and our rapacious appetites. Social order is built on this restraint, and lack thereof threatens to create chaos. Because loss of control is almost exclusively seen in a nega
... See moreEsther Perel • Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
intimacy comes with a growing concern for the well-being of the other person, which includes a fear of hurting her. But sexual excitement requires the capacity not to worry, and the pursuit of pleasure demands a degree of selfishness. Some people can’t allow themselves this selfishness, because they’re too absorbed with the well-being of the belove... See more