Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.

We need to be able to connect without the terror of obliteration, and we need to be able to experience our separateness without the terror of abandonment.

separateness—and the fundamental insecurity it engenders—is a precondition for maintaining interest and desire in a relationship. Instead of always striving for closeness, I argue that couples may be better off cultivating their separate selves.

the idea of complementarity (i.e., being different but equal) rather than absolute sameness.

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other. With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals.

“Love arises from within ourselves as an imaginative act, a creative synthesis that aims to fulfill our deepest longings, our oldest dreams, that allows us both to renew and transform ourselves.”

In our era of communication, intimacy has been redefined. No longer is it the deep knowledge and familiarity that develop over time and can be cultivated in silence. Instead, we think of intimacy primarily as a discursive process, one that involves self-disclosure, the trustful sharing of our most personal and private material—our feelings.

When sex feels like an obligation it’s very efficacious to come fast—it brings a quick end to the discomfort. When lovers engage sexually as free agents, turning surrender into an act of self-assertion, there is no need to get it over with.

Not coincidentally, this entire emotional history plays itself out in the physicality of sex. The body is the purest, most primal tool we have for communicating. As Roland Barthes wrote, “What language conceals is said through my body. My body is a stubborn child; my language is a very civilized adult.” The body is our mother tongue—our mediator wi