Esther Perel - Part Two! The Best Advice for Finding Love Today

We have Esther Perel back for part two. So many of you loved the interview I did with her a few weeks ago. Well, today we continue with Esther talking all about sex, how to communicate around it in relationships, and much, much more. And if you haven't already and you want to join me in a live event, I have one coming up on October the 22nd, that is free and is online. So anyone can come wherever you are in the world. Thousands of people have already signed up for this event. Don't miss it. It's all about commitment. If you're struggling to meet people who are ready, who are emotionally available, who actually want a relationship, or you're already seeing someone and that person isn't committing, this event is for you. I'm gonna show you my greatest insights on getting to commitment. Like I said, it's completely free. So just come, go to lovelifetraining.com to sign up now and I will email you all of the details. And now I would love to present, re-present David Esther Perel. If you found yourself in the world of dating today and you are having to deal with what other people are having to deal with, which is trying to figure out, do I just try to meet someone in the course of my life by getting out of the house more? Do I go on the apps? Do I give myself the best possible chance and do both? How would you approach the apps in a way that it didn't just become this hopeless exercise that burned you out? How quickly would you want to get on a date with someone that you met through the app? How long would you tolerate messaging back and forth before you were like, okay, either we meet up for a coffee or something, or we don't. Would you get on the phone first? I'm just curious, you strike me as someone who is somewhat no nonsense, you speak your mind. I don't think you have a high tolerance for having your time wasted. And I imagine that those things would translate into the dating process in an interesting way for you. But you're also not cold. You're a very warm person. You're a very affectionate person. So, you know, that makes for what I call a unique pairing in dating. When you find two things you don't often find together in the same person. What would be your, this is maybe a challenging question to put you on the spot with. But if you were on the apps and you were thinking, I don't wanna waste time on the apps. I don't want the apps to become my life. I don't wanna constantly be checking them. But I also recognize that they are another way to meet someone. Is there a way you would approach it that you see other people not approaching it that way?

It's an interesting question. Of course I've thought about it. I've thought about it. You know, I think what would happen if something happened to my partner and I've enjoyed couples life. I would like to have another relationship. I would, but I also could very well imagine other relationships that have intimacy and love and closeness that are friendships. I don't only think about the romantic part. I come from the generation before, there was never such a thing. And the concept of not wasting my time was also you know, you went, you met someone, it was a surprise. The whole notion was an adventure, you know, a sleuth thing, like, wow, where is this going? I met this person, and then I ran into them again, so then we decided, you know, two times in a week must mean something. And then we just started walking, and then we said, shall we have a drink? And then that drink became a six-hour thing. I mean, I didn't go to meet my partner. I met somebody and something evolved and I had no idea where it would go and then they became boyfriends. You know, this is a very different narrative than I'm on a mission, I have a goal, I need to optimize my chances, I have to maximize the results and Is this person somebody who could be it?

So could you translate that for me? 'Cause I think that's really, really, I couldn't agree with that more from the point of view of what actually creates rewarding encounters and allows things to develop in interesting and surprising ways. So many of the people that I coach are people who are in a state of anxiety, fear, panic. They want families. I mean, I'm working with people who are on the other side of that, who are getting out of divorces in their 50s and 60s, but I'm also working with a lot of people who are in their 30s and they are looking at the clock going, I gotta move. I can't afford not to be highly intentional about how I go about this process. And so it's almost like so many of them feel like I don't have the luxury of just seeing where things go and how does it, you know, like what, how does it unfold? I have five years before I'm in the danger zone of this dream of mine isn't going to happen anymore. And it does unfortunately rely on, at least if I want a child biologically that's mine and in the context of a traditional family unit, that it does rely in part on another person. So is there a way that you would, because I think everything you're saying is true, but how would you marry it with what is an underlying anxiety that people have?

I think I would start earlier. I start earlier in the process. Because when I think of this story, I don't think yet 35-40. Okay? As a woman now I'm talking, I'm thinking earlier. So I think that there's a few things that are a little bit rigged at this moment. A, and this may be a little controversial what I'm going to say. I think that we have been told that there is equality and that that equality means sameness. We are different and we need conditions that will work towards that difference. So that means that there is, when people say you have all the time in the world, You don't. Men and women biologically in that sense are not equal. And then what happens is that women postpone and postpone and basically think not the right person, not the right person, not the right person. And then the anxiety comes. It doesn't start with anxiety. It starts also with the culture that is constantly urging you to basically to optimize to the end degree. Then suddenly you realize, oh, you know, I don't have all the time in the world. And in that sense, there is a differential. There's a differential in biological clock. There's a differential in, therefore, in power. And I think we have to be honest about that. And it's on both sides, because if it's in the heterosexual context, The woman doesn't want to lose her time and the guy doesn't want to be a sperm bank. Nobody likes these scripts. This is not what we're going to look for in our romantic lives at this moment. So that's the number one. There is all kinds of ways we can delay, we can freeze, we can do a lot of things. But we also have in our head the idea that we need to first meet the male partner. That male partner is going to be our love partner and our love partner will become our life partner and our life partner will become the parent with whom we will have children. And I think that at some point we may need to shuffle the cards and switch the order of events a little bit.

Tell me, what does that look like?

That means that maybe you find some, you know, 50% of the people do not parent the child with the person they had the child with. So you may just as well, on occasion, think, who could I co-parent with? Is there someone who actually wants children? And that may not be my partner, so that I don't continue to just go and say, I have one more year. I have six more months. I have, you know, with this constant biological clock ticking away and feeling that at the one hand, I need you. I need to find you, but I resent my dependence on you. I resent the fact that you have all that power over me and that you're the one who can give it to me or take it away from me. That's the power story.

In your mind, when you think about that, and I know I want to I want to give you that. No, no, no. Not at all. I don't find it controversial. I find it true. I I think it's. I'm glad we speak about these things because I think that it's the reality for people. And whether or not people can find themselves aligning with a new blueprint than the one they originally envisioned for themselves, being honest about the realities of the situation, I think, is. is essential to acceptance of what are my options and what is the most probable course.

I'm not talking about having a child alone, this single mother by choice. I'm talking about having a child, by definition, don't do it alone, but don't do it just alone with one other person either. The nuclear model is not necessarily the best, the ideal model for raising a kid either. So it's rethinking a number of these very set ways that we have at this moment about how we meet, how we mate, how we have families. And I think that we have been so creative in so many other areas of our life and have remained rather monolithic when it comes to this plot.

So does that for you, does that make IVF something that is just a much more, for a lot of people, It just makes it an option many more people should consider. Again, not in the context of thinking that I'm going to raise a child alone, but in the context of I may have support in ways I didn't originally imagine.

Yes.

But that doesn't mean that I need a partner that, you know, I need to go out in search of a partner in order to co-parent with.

Yeah, find a co-parent. and the co-parent and the partner have to be.

Doesn't have to be.

May not necessarily be the same. They may not arrive at the same time. But there must be, when you get to that pitch moment, there need to be alternatives.

I agree. I believe that.

There need to be other ways to create lives for ourselves, which we will do anyway, often after we separate. So can we anticipate those things? That will change the dating. Part of this idea of I'm coming with my tension. I don't have a mean, you know, I'm not gonna waste my time and see you for, you better tell me, do you want to have children? And, you know, I had an encounter recently with somebody I care about deeply. And so she meets him and he has children and she says, oh, he loves kids. And of course he says, I would love to have more kids and I'd love to have a child with you too. But then he's in the midst of a divorce and he's in the midst of trying to figure out how he's going to be there for his children that are already, you know, and at some point he says, I can't do this now. And that doesn't mean I won't, but she does, she's, you know, if I had met him at 32, she says it would be a different story. At 36, it's a different reality. and it's these encounters, those are the stories, that plot and many other variations on that that we see so often.

Well, feel free to not answer this if it was a too personal situation, but can you share the advice you gave her in that situation?

I mean, I didn't have to give much advice. She basically cut it off. She cut it off right away. But from a place of love, I mean, thank you for being honest. I can't wait, unfortunately. I understand, I mean, I'm not taking this against you. Yes. But I know what I want and it may not happen with you. And so I can't just put myself in this situation. And the thing is, do you say it with bitterness or do you say it with love and care? And basically, you know, here is the, it came as to, I actually made a post about it. It was the right person at the wrong time. is the wrong person.

We've said the exact same thing. I've said the exact same line because it's not. Because it's. It's. To think that the right person at the wrong time is the right person is science fiction. Right.

It's like the context, the story of people's lives. And pay attention and accept it. It's. It's not against you, but you have to act accordingly. And that's my. That was my. That was the conclusion sentence of this situation. But when you talk about The pressure, the pragmatism, you know, I'm on a mission. And then you connect that with the attraction. I think that that mission itself will make a lot of people not attractive to you.

This is, I'm so happy we're talking about this because I actually think that this joins up multiple different areas. It joins up dating with the very real biological pressures that people feel with the work that you have done more extensively than anyone I've ever come across on desire. And how, yes, that anxiety and that pressure is the enemy of desire and attraction. And actually might make you diagnose something as attraction that is actually completely not attraction. It's something else altogether. It's fear and anxiety and the feeling of needing something and your nervous system acting up. And so I wrote an entire chapter about this in my book called the Question of Having a Child. It's one of the single biggest things that I see getting people into trouble in their love lives. And I'm so I feel so validated by what you're saying about the exploration of other options, because my theory is that the exploration and the acceptance of Plan B, the Plan B that becomes the new Plan A, because nothing can ever stay Plan B or you'll be unhappy. It has to become the new Plan A or the Plan C or D that becomes the new Plan A. The acceptance of that, I believe, is what allows. It actually is what allows you to bring the romance back into.

It's liberating, too. I mean, I. I. I think it is liberating. I think there is an oppression to this very. set unmovable kind of, you know, constructs by how one needs to proceed, what comes first, what comes next, the linearity of it. And if you didn't catch it on the right time, you are F. And.

The great news is it doesn't stop you from still saying, I would like plan A to happen. But what it means is you're no longer dependent Correct. On Plan A. And I think that allows it's empowering.

Yeah. I think sometimes people hear it and they say like, yeah, but it is actually empowering. I think there are, we have to do now, we can choose not to have children as well, and we can choose to have children in a multitude of new ways that are available and never, never existed. But it's important that we understand that there are actually other stories, other ways to write our story. And I'm also happy we talk about this because it can become very, I don't know what the word is, is stale, static, you know?

I think this is getting us into such interesting territory and I always, you have a mind that I want to apply to everything. So if I, if we skip a few decades to people who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, who is a audience that I am dealing with at scale who have not necessarily given up on the idea of finding love. In fact, they deeply, deeply want to find love and companionship, but they are feeling invisible, many of them, or at least that's the story they've told themselves, is that I am invisible at this age. Their belief is that Everyone my age wants someone younger. And in many cases, which is I always think an ironic twist, but.

The.

Men my age don't want me, but the younger men often do or sometimes do. But in their case, it's either because there's a novelty factor or it's because they're not really serious. They don't want the same things as me, or it works for a couple of years, but then they break my heart. because we're in different places in our lives. So they're dealing with that element of it, that even if they have these relationships, they don't seem to last with younger people or people where there's a big age gap. And they're also dealing with people their age that they think are emotionally unintelligent or undeveloped or have never dealt with their trauma, have never dealt, have never done the work of processing the things in their life that maybe these women have processed and are therefore coming to the table emotionally inarticulate. Many of them still not able to commit, still not apparently knowing what they want. And so the landscape that is portrayed by some people who are dating in this age range is very bleak. And It cannot be the only story, but it's a very, very common story. I wonder what your advice is to people who are in that age group who really want to find love. I mean, the pain that this causes so many people is absolutely profound.

It touches on so many things what you're talking about. And I don't know if I can do justice to really organize this, but I think there are a few things going on that are creating, compounding this situation. When people talk about that in search of that love, they often say in search of my soulmate. my one and only. And I always think soulmate has always meant God, not a partner. But today we want to experience with our partner all kinds of things, transcendence, wholeness, meaning, ecstasy, belonging, things that we always looked for in the realm of the divine. I want with my partner to experience the stuff that traditional relationships offered. if it still is relevant, economic support, companionship, social status, family life. But I also want a best friend and a trusted confidant and an intellectual equal and a fitness buddy and a professional coach and a spiritual master and a passionate lover to boot. I mean, it's the list is endless. And I'm thinking, wow, it's like one person for everything. I think you find love and you experience love differently when you have created a life in which there is ample love already. That comes from your family, if that's possible, from your friends, from your mentors, from your teachers, your colleagues. We have to take the word love out of the kingdom or the queendom of romantic love especially, because if you are deeply loved by a lot of people, what you will search with your partner is slightly different. It's not coming to compensate for everything that is missing. It's adding something. I once met years back one of the early, early founders of the Women's Studies Department at one of the big universities. And she was by that time in her 80s, and she was at a book party. I never forgot. I don't know what that thing just jumped at me. There was one man in the room and it was her husband. And I said to her, you know, people always ask me, the secret, the secret. May I ask you that question? And she looked at me and she looked at all the women that were there to honor her and she says, I've never tried to have a conversation with him. When I want to talk, in the kind of way that I like to talk, I've got all these women. I have a lot of other things with my husband of 50-something years. And I thought, how wise of you. I mean, it was half funny, but I understood what she was saying. It's like, surround yourself with a diversity of relationships. And in that context, the one that you have with your romantic partner, so to speak, becomes a piece in a larger puzzle rather than the redemptive force that's going to say, you are lovable. you are desirable, you are worthy of being seen. That the fact that these people tell you, I don't feel seen, is so sad. It's like, I would like to be seen in this kind of a way by this kind of a person, but I also do have other people who see me in very special ways. It's that split we so have, elevated this romantic bond at the exclusion of everything else that we end up feeling deeply lonely if we don't have that relationship. Meanwhile, as a couples therapist, I see so many people who are in couple relationships and they can't say that it's the best part of their life.

Does your heart go to when you hear that leave or does your heart go to make peace with the good that you're getting?

All of the above. It depends. It depends. Or sometimes they say, I'm here for other reasons. And I say, I respect that too. I mean, this is a complicated question. Sometimes you say, no, it's not the best part of your life. But I understand that you feel that you have a disabled Child and you feel that you need each other for this. I get it. I get it. But that's not where you laugh and that's not where you are adored and that's not the place where people admire you and that's not the place where people seek you out when they have problems and etc. Etc. But you have those relationships. So I, I more and more am clear and so does the research, so does the work of Eli Finkel that we need To calibrate our expectations, we need to diversify our relationships and that those are primary conditions before, during, and after.

There was, I don't know if it was David Brooks, but I think it might have been some quote that said, you know, who can you have, I don't know what it was, 10,000 dinners with? Yeah. Or maybe that was someone else and he said, Marriage is a 50-year conversation. I can't remember. But the, the, the, you know, a lot of people, I suppose, would feel that to it. I intuitively, when I hear what that one, that woman in her eighties said, I intuitively go, God, there is really a wisdom to that. But a lot of people would see that as some form of settling that is just untenable for them, that the person they're going to spend the most time with is the person that they can't have a conversation with. and therefore feel the loneliness of a certain kind.

Of a certain kind. There is not a single answer that is the right one here. The whole issue about relationships is that these are complex issues and they don't have binary answers and they often require us to live with the paradoxes and to tolerate the ambiguity of all of this. If you ask me, what do I say? I will always ask, depends. Depends. In some situation I lean here, in other situation I completely lean in the other direction. And for that matter, I don't have to live with the consequences of the decision. So I am very, very careful. Do this, don't do that. I don't think that any relationship expert at this moment can pretend to have all the answers.

Yes, no, but I think these are really, really powerful questions that you're posing is what's the you know, what is the baseline of what you need from a partner? And what is the, what are all the needs that actually you should be meeting in myriad ways in your life to decrease the dependence?

My partner, by the way, the partner, my partner is my best friend, is a very recent sentence. It's a very recent expectation that we have brought to marriage or committed relationships. You know, the best friends were the other men, women, people in the village.

It makes me wonder how much of our unhappiness in love comes from... Because there is this... There's always... Expectations? And our lack of historical context. You know, there's what you just said has a historical context that actually your partner didn't have to be your best friend because you got that energy in other places in your life.

But you were stuck.

But you were stuck, so there's a kind of friction between progress and that historical context.

Exactly.

But maybe, you know, without that, it's, you know, we are missing, our expectations go to a place that then becomes unrealistic.

So the story of this is this. From the moment marriage was, now if we talk marriage, right? From the moment marriage was no longer primarily an economic enterprise, and it became a romantic enterprise, it became an affectionate story. if she is less economically dependent on him, then her emotional needs become more important. So the change of the nature of our expectations, because love has always existed, but it existed outside primarily of marriage. I mean, it was, marriage was, if there was love, it was great, but that wasn't the goal. So our expectations, particularly our emotional expectations, have risen in parallel to the decrease of the economic dependency. And I can leave. I mean, you were basically married and you were stuck for life. This is one of the greatest changes that took place, is that you can actually stop and start again and more than once. And that is primarily freedom for women because men basically had the license to cheat, so they had their diversity of experiences. which was much less the case for women. So having no full divorce, having economic independence, having the ability to delay childbearing years, all of these have been extraordinary revolutions for the lives of women.

Yeah, and one that's put a lot of pressure on men to up their game and actually bring more to the table than the idea that I go out there and I provide. You know, I think that that's, there's a real conflict right now, where men are trying to figure out what their place is, especially many men who have been brought up to think that it was enough that they just did this. And now they're realizing that, you know, and I think there's a lot of complaining among men about ways that they're having to grow, that it's high time us men grew in those ways.

But.

This kind of almost segues to a question I have that I'm really curious to get your opinion on because there is a difference between many men and women when it comes to the ability to hear someone talk about sex without immediately placing judgment, without regressing, And there even seems to be, and maybe also without having one's ego bruised, even when the thing that someone's talking about has nothing to do with you or is outside the context of your relationship, when it's so often the case that when a woman speaks about sex, she's in some way punished for it. Even if it's just by someone not being able to handle hearing someone talk about it. And I have seen with some horror, more and more, there seems to be a kind of movement towards, I don't even know what you'd call it, but in some ways a regression towards more judgment. And the number of- From the number of- There seems to be, well, there seems to be Even on, if you go to places like TikTok where I don't live, but I hear these things, is there's more of a movement towards this like traditional wife role. That my theory is that it's when they're not, when the men are feeling invisible or when they're feeling overlooked or where they're feeling not good enough, it then results in a kind of control that they try to impose. And the extreme end of this, which is you happen to be with someone who, you know, any sign that you've had a past is unacceptable to them. But then there's the more mild end of the spectrum, which is people, their egos get involved. They find it hard to hear things. They take any notion of you telling them what you what you would like to happen or what you'd like more of to be some kind of fearful thing, like, oh, so this is an experience you've had lots and not with me, and this is why you like it. And this is a. People are very quick to go down those paths. Does your advice to women in any way differ to the advice that you give to men when it comes to the care that they have to take in talking about these things, because you might see more judgment from the male side about partners someone has had, the number of them, the nature of them. I'm not saying women, by the way, are immune to these kinds of ego woundings, because I think it happens on both sides. But do you have anything to say about women communicating more their eroticism, their inner sexual world in ways that for some men and maybe many men is met with more judgment.

I do sometimes think we are born women and we become men. We start with XX and then we go XY. Men Male identity, masculinity, spends a lot of time having to prove itself. Prove that you are a man. Every civilization has had in traditional society rituals to have boys go into the woods to prove their manhood. Women don't have to do so. There is a certain kind of way that biology somehow takes care of that. And you have to, masculinity is often an imperative. Be a man, prove you're a man, show me you're a man. I mean, it always has to prove itself. And if something has to prove itself so much all the time, maybe it's not that strong to begin with. So I start to think that male identity and masculinity is often a fragile identity, difficult to acquire and easy to lose. And that's where resides this notion of if there have been other dudes before me, It devalues me. Plus, there is an entire history that it's the man who uncovers the woman's sexuality. He deflowers her and with that he also brings her whole experience of herself and he knows and she doesn't have to tell him anything because he's the connoisseur and this is a like a whole story behind all of that. And so if she needs to tell him, that by definition means that he doesn't know. So how do you bring the modern man to actually think he wants a woman who knows what she likes. He wants to please her, but how can he listen to her, tell him what she likes without seeing it as a criticism and an instruction and a put down? And can she learn to actually say it in a way that is positive and encouraging because she has been trained throughout her whole history and When I mean history, it's not her personal history, it's cultural history as well, that she's very clear about what she doesn't like, but she doesn't always necessarily know what she does want.

And that he doesn't, the modern man doesn't just see it as not a put down, but doesn't take it to be some kind of a devaluation of her that she has had many sexual experiences before him.

Yes, yes. On the one hand, you know, she needs to be very sexy and sensual, but God forbid, she's actually become this way because she's known some others before you. I think that possessiveness and jealousy are intrinsic to love. They are archaic and the question that we often have is, are these archaic vestiges of patriarchy or are they actually intrinsic to love?

And what do you say?

I think that jealousy, we know from all anthropological and evolutionary biology research and Helen Fisher, It exists in every society. It is often differently interpreted, but the feeling of jealousy itself, the fear of losing what you have, which is the difference with envy. Envy is the wish of having something you don't have. Jealousy is the fear of losing something you have to someone else. Jealousy is a feeling that develops about 18 months into our life, much later than fear, joy, sadness, which are actually feelings also that you can see on people's face, whereas jealousy you can't decipher on the face.

Do you think jealousy always comes from fearing losing what you have or that it can just come from someone else having had what you have?

That's envy. That's one of the ways that differentiate it. But the issue is that Some cultures think that jealousy is intrinsic to love and therefore it's, you know there is love when there is jealousy, whereas other cultures, more individualistic cultures, who think that you shouldn't have to be jealous. So Americans, for example, often don't say, I'm jealous.

No, I'm not jealous. I'm angry. Because it feels noble to not be jealous.

Because it means dependency. It means weakness. Possessiveness, you know, is possessiveness intrinsic to love or is it an archaic vestige of patriarchy is the same question. I don't think I have definitive, you know, I can sound very confident. That doesn't mean I'm sure of much, but I don't know. I do know that people experience possessiveness. I do know that a man who is more confident and can really meet a woman that is powerful too, and not be scared by it, not feel diminished by it, not feel belittled by it. experiences his connection to a woman, in this case it's another woman, very differently than the man who needs to on some level put her down a little bit in order to elevate himself.

So what would be your, because, and I really ask this question with a deep love for men, because I, you know, the, There are some highly misogynistic people out there, but I think that actually most men are scared, vulnerable, their masculinity is fragile. They've been taught to find the source of their power in places that are not productive for a healthy relationship. What would be your advice to men who find themselves triggered when it comes to the sexuality of the person that they're with in ways that maybe they're not even proud of, in ways that they wish they could kind of unshackle themselves from. And what would be your advice to women when communicating more about their sexuality and wanting their sex life to be better, wanting to create that erotic world in a way that is really productive.

You know, I. It's funny with Justice, because I. I went ahead and I created the card game. Where should we begin? Because I thought play gives you a way to have difficult conversation. It creates a safe container. You can tell stories in the context of play that you would never say. in what we call real life. And so I began by thinking what are conversations, sexuality conversations, that I would like to help people have, but without saying now talk about this, right? And it's like what's something that you were told about sexuality that you realized was the biggest BS? What's a text message you fantasize receiving? What's the message that you actually fantasize writing? What's the biggest change that you made about your thoughts about sexuality? What's a foreplay that you still remember? What's a peak experience that you have had or a peak experience that you have fantasized about? What's an obstacle that you would like to overcome? What's the hardest thing to talk about? Is it harder to talk about sex or to have sex? You prefer sex or chocolate? When do you feel most free? What's erotic for you? Things like that. And they don't all have to go to vulnerability and to problems. They just have to say, there is a way that we can learn to talk about sexuality that is neither sanctimony nor smut, which is what often exists, these two extremes.

That's interesting.

How do we talk about sexuality in a normal way? You know, when did you discover yourself sexual? Do you remember your first sexual thoughts? You know, when did you realize that this is the way you like to be seduced versus, you know, and once you give people the questions and then you give them a kind of a safe environment that where they can take risk. I mean, play is when risk is fun. So it's about both. It's not just about creating safety. It's about giving you the right environment to take risks. Sexuality is always risky. There is no safe sex, so to speak. By definition, even, and it's never just sex, even if it's supposed to be hit and run, it always has a meaning. Let's begin with that. What's important is when I think about sexual conversations and sexual candor, which is a thing I really spend a lot of time in the course thinking about, it's kind of People come to me, I mean, so much of this is about people having sat in my office for years on end to talk about the stalemates, the gridlocks. And I'm thinking, you know what? I've never known people wanting more sex from talking about the sex they don't want. So how do I get you in a different conversation to begin with? You know, when it's not just what do you like? It's a little more than this. How do you begin this very simple thing? You know, what is the sense with which you most experience sexuality? Or you can say in the world, are you more tactile, visual, auditory? You know, what's your sense with which you... Do you think that applies also sexually? When, you know, I think often in language, right? So I think when I learn a new language, I think what are the key verbs? Right? To have to be the auxiliary verbs, the ones that kind of create the scaffolding for the language. In sexuality, as in relationship, it's to ask, to give, to receive, to take, to refuse, to share, to imagine. But those are... So which is the verb that you practice the most easily? And which is the verb that is most challenging to you? I can't say no. Well, if you can't say no, you're probably not that good at saying yes. I can't ask. Why? What's asking like? Well, I don't trust people who would actually give or care enough or anticipate disappointment or I feel that if I ask and I receive, I'm gonna owe. There's a whole psychology behind it. Receiving, receiving too vulnerable. I don't like the passivity of receiving. So I play, I all the time think, what's another way in? that isn't on the nose, that isn't linear, that isn't so scary that people become completely tongue-tied. And in the process of which they reveal a ton of information in this gentle, kind, but candor way. This is the art of sexual conversations. And I highly suggest for people not to have them in bed or in the place where they just had sex, because that's not a good idea. because then it becomes an evaluation. And there's about 50 of those questions that I think of that I say, this will change. And then when people say, you know, we talked about this in the, we've never talked about it like that. They didn't solve a problem. They didn't instantly gush at each other, you know, but they experience a lot of a very different sense of closeness and a different sense of connection to themselves.

So could you give us like two more, let's say me and Audrey are in the car on our way somewhere and we have a moment in the car or we are taking a walk, you know, or you know, we're, it's in the daytime or it's not in the bedroom. We're just having a moment. We have a bit of time. I also think a lot of these conversations the park bench idea works really well for those two.

Oh, yeah.

I think it's way harder looking at each other. But what would be one or two more questions that could be a fun way in or an. Or a more peripheral way in?

If you were dating yourself, what would you be annoyed with? A risk you took. that changed your sexual life?

That's interesting.

A rule you secretly love to break. A fantasy that you would love to experience but not with your husband. Because you think one doesn't do that with one's husband. you know? Do you prefer anonymity? Do you find freedom in anonymity or do you find freedom in deep connection? When you were young, did you play, did you have sexual play? What stories did you tell?

And the idea with these is that even the ones that are not in any way directly or explicitly sexual that you're opening up a realm of thought and conversation and imagination that you would never normally visit together. No.

The idea is this is directly related to sexuality. But you have got to get out of the idea that sex is an act. If you really understand when I say it's. It's an entire language by which you're in whole emotional life. gets expressed in this theater, then you don't think that these are derivative questions. These are the questions. Much of my work is to try to get people to stop thinking about sex as a bunch of organs that are touching each other, because that is not going to take you very far and you're going to get bored very quick. So I open this, but not because I think I have to go far. I open this because this is the definition. And that's the beginning for me is how do I get you to think differently about sexuality as a start? Because we have really reduced it to something so narrow, so physical. And the physical is not even the whole body. The physical is a bunch of organs. And if those organs don't collaborate. They make the decisions rather than a person has decisions and they can decide what they want to, which part of themselves is going to be engaged here. You know, everybody who plays a sports game understands that there is different ways to hold the racket. But in sex, there is a kind of an exceptionalism that it's this this way and if this doesn't work, there is nothing. You stop.

Yeah.

Now, you know, I mean, there's so many other things to say, but if I have one thing that I really think contributed to this whole exploration of sexuality and desire, it really is talking about sex is a whole different story. So, for example, I ask people who come to me in whatever context, flatlined. Okay, I don't feel much. I mean, the general thing in the context of relationship is discrepant desire, but it doesn't really matter. I ask them, I turn myself off by... I love this question. So I transformed it from the work of Gina Ogden, a dear colleague of mine. I turn myself off by or when? That's a very different question from what turns me off is. Which most of the time people say, that turns me off. How do you turn yourself off? And then they start. I turn myself off, or I shut down, or I go numb, or I extinguish my desire. When I feel low, when work is hard, when I stress about money, When I worry about my kids, when I don't take care of myself, when I haven't been to the gym in weeks, where's the sex? This is all the energy to the sex. This is the energy. Then you say, well, you know, if you haven't done any of these things in that long, then you better do something about it before we start talking about jumping into the sack. Then you say, how do I turn myself on? How do I awaken myself? How do I ignite myself? Which is very different from You turn me on when? Or what turns me on is. Because if I am shut down, you can do all the things that I say to you will turn me on. The shop is closed. There's no response. Because it has to come from inside. So people tell you, I turn myself on when I see images, but I turn myself on when I see you naked. I turn myself on when I go dancing. when I pamper myself, when I feel good about my outcome, my performance, when people basically, when they feel worthy, when they feel confident, when they feel self-possessed, so to speak, that's when they are turned on. And why does this matter? Because, and I say it's so interesting, and this is a piece that I will share with you and actually curious if you've noticed, in the context of heterosexual couples. I hear plenty of guys who tell me nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on. If she's into it, it's great. Because if she's into it, he doesn't have to deal with the predatory fear. She likes it, he's not hurting her, he's not forcing her, he can let go. It's beautiful. I have yet to hear many straight women tell me that. Nothing turns me on more than to see him turned on. It's kind of irrelevant. What turns her on is what's happening to her. That could include him being turned on. But if she's not into it and he's turned on, that doesn't do anything to her.

That's interesting because it feels like on some level that subverts a kind of myth or an idea, isn't it? About women being constantly worried about other people.

Well, that's it.

And the men being selfish, you know, and maybe there is still a selfish instinct.

She is. She is worried constantly in her social role. That's what she does. And therefore, to be able to liberate herself sexually and be able to turn inward to her own sensation and pleasure, she has to not be thinking. about anybody.

This is the realm where.

This is it.

That's why it's sexy to not have to do that.

Yes. Yes. And that twist I find very interesting.

Yeah, it's really interesting because that says.

That what happens to you sexually does not necessarily line up with what you do socially or emotionally.

I also love that idea of, because it's very empowering, this idea that you can actually take control of your own sexual desire by looking at the things that turn you on, the things that turn you off. And not just in this person, but in life. I can't help but wonder, you know, one of the big societal issues around sex drive is that not nearly enough people are moving their bodies enough or are working out. I think working out has a massive impact on the way people feel, not talking just the way they feel aesthetically, but just the way they- and dancing. Yes.

Dancing. We don't dance nearly enough.

Yeah. I wonder how much of the challenges we are experiencing in our sex lives have these very indirect roots that we're not paying attention to at all because we're taking such a literal stance on what someone has to do to make us feel it. Or, you know, I just don't feel in the mood anymore, or I just. To explore. Well, what don't I do anymore that maybe I did more of at a time where I felt more sexually engaged?

It unites my energy. that makes me feel vibrant, vital, alive, radiant, playful, those erotic ingredients that then translate into sexual energy.

And that's so empowering because you're in control of that. It's not hoping someone else is going to come along with a special formula and they're suddenly going to have you figured out in a way they've never had you figured out before. And I think even then it's very empowering to find out those things about your partner because if you know, the wider context of what makes them, what ignites that energy in them, then you can also encourage those things in their life. I think it's a valuable thing to be able to ask, are they getting enough of that thing that they need? Are they getting enough? Are they, are they getting time to themselves or time to, to work out or time to dance or time to be with their friends in that way that they need, or time to feel strong in that way that they need to? feel strong. I think it allows us to be a support to our partners in ways that we can't be if we simply aren't looking at it through this lens.

I like to say that foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm and not five minutes before the real thing. I mean, it's an amazing thing. People think that they just turn around at 11 30 and they go like this on the back of the person, and they should just turn around and be all sweaty and ready. It's just like, excuse me. you know, nothing you do comes like this. If you want to eat, you need to prepare something. If you're going to do your workout, you get your stuff, you have a ritual, you put your gym stuff in the bag, you drive to the place, you get your drink, there's a whole ritual associated. What exactly do you think sex needs to be like, you know, after a certain amount of time together? If without, you know, if it's just routine, It's not going to be that interesting. If it's ritual, it will become more interesting. And that demands that people understand that sexuality doesn't start with a little rub just before. It's an energy that exists in the relationship. It's a way that people do look at each other, touch each other, kiss each other, stroke each other. That energy has to stay alive. That doesn't mean people are the whole time hot and sweaty on each other either. It just means that they don't just become functions.

And I think the irony of that is that the more of that we have in our lives, my brain goes to the idea of like the quickie is actually, in many cases, just the tip of the iceberg, because it might be something that only happened in the space of three or four minutes. out of nowhere. But it wasn't really out of nowhere if all of the foreplay was there in that environment of eroticism.

Sex is never just spontaneous. There's always, you know, even when you meet the first time, you've already dressed up, you planned a place, you picked the music, there's always a plot. And the plot makes it interesting, even if the plot becomes a very three-four minute thing. And when people understand that, that it is a, it's a multi-layered and multi-dimensional experience, it becomes a very different thing. And then you can go through life. And that doesn't mean that you need to have an orgasm each time. And there needs to be a penis in a vagina if it's about straight people. And that it needs, it just, there's a lot of ways people can make each other feel good, experience something that's pleasurable and connective. and that that's what it is about. And if people are more and more isolated as we are, and if people live more and more in a contactless world as we are, and if people don't go to work and they don't see people and touch them and smell them as we are, then all of this is going to have an effect on our social life, our emotional life, and our erotic life.

For people that compare themselves to other couples, they hear a friend say, we're having sex, you know, every day, and they worry that they're having sex once a week or once every two weeks. Or do you ever have any kind of a barometer of, you know, this is, this is not enough or, and I know, I know that there is no one answer to that. But what do you say to people who feel in some way, am I normal? The oppression of, yeah, the comparison.

That's actually not a very difficult one. First of all, if somebody tells you they have it every day, the next question is, do you like it? Is that something you enjoy? What do you assume here?

There's no qualitative element to that statement.

No, I mean, I'm so tired of the measurable outcome. Who knows? Is that what you would like? That doesn't... But in addition, there is such a getting it done focus too. You know, there are people who start hot and then they go lukewarm. And there are people who started lukewarm and then they clear something, they heal something, they work through some of their own inhibitions and fears and traumas and they open up in ways they never knew was possible. the story of life is a little bit more, you know, complex than just this. Then, you know, there are people who are mourning and they're in grief and this is the last thing you think about. And then there are people who have postpartum and then there are people who, you know, have menopause and then there are people who have illness and then there's so many things intersecting. And then I think that sexuality is like the moon. It has intermittent eclipses. And then suddenly you realize, oh wow, it's been a while. So what is an erotic couple compared to another couple? An erotic couple understands the importance of maintenance sex. Sometimes it's just nice. It helps to go to sleep. It's not a big production, but it feels good. That's the key issue here. And then sometimes you suddenly, wow, we still have this in us. Didn't know that I could still feel that way. once in a while, it just kind of flares up, you know? And then this was a great night, whatever. We took something, we drank something, we journeyed somewhere, we danced some, you know, and that brought up a whole lot of energy. People who have a sustained erotic dimension of their life, they also drop, but they just know how to resuscitate. They know how to bring it back. It's not like they live like this. for decades. You know, they just know, hey, you know what? It's been a while. We need to take a trip. We need to go away. We need some time alone. Let's just spend the day in bed. Let's just, you know, take a long walk and whatever it is we need to do. We need to reconnect with each other and with ourselves.

Everything you just said about the vicissitudes of people's erotic lives together in a long-term relationship is only what people experience when they are in multiple different relationships, we just don't see it. We don't see that the partner that we're having very passionate sex with actually was not feeling that way for the last year in their previous relationship. We just know this reality. But the longer we're with someone, the more we're going to see multiple realities and all of these variables intersecting that we don't often get to see on a timeline of hopping from one person to the next.

Stress, money, illness, dying parents. I mean, all these things enter directly into our sexual feelings.

Yeah. Which is also why I think that people who maybe are comparing their relationship, sex life with single sex life, that a lot of problems occur there because you're not, you're never really, you're often not experiencing those multiple realities with a single person. You're experiencing one kind of reality with the kind of person you keep selecting, and you don't even know who they would be over time. You assume they'd be like that over time. Oh, if I'd have just kept going with that person, it would have stayed just as passionate and just as wild. But actually, you're only seeing them in a very contained context of a three-month affair or a six-month relationship. Before I get to my last question, you have two programs that I know you have together as a bundle right now. I'd love to just talk about them because what I love about your work is not just the obvious depth of understanding of everything that you do, but that you have painfully taken time to think about what the practical implications of all of this work is and how people can apply it. Could you talk about these two programs and how they practically kind of, they give people a real roadmap for applying everything we're talking about today?

So the desire bundle came out of the realization and the need that people said, I read your book, I listened to the podcast. What can I do? And I also think that not all of this needs to be done in a therapist office. This is what can the therapist bring to you into your home that you can try and then you'll know if you need more than this then you'll come to therapy. But a lot of these things are I'm going to help you sustain something, enter this conversation, create a certain energy, be proactive and especially have the conversations that you don't even know to have. So it's very practical. There's an hour-long video and then there's workbooks. And these workbooks are in depth. Here are the exercises that I would do with you if we were working together. And that you can do alone or with each other. You can take them as couples and you can take them alone. You can take them alone because you are in a relationship, but you want to do it by yourself. Or this is where you are at in your life at this moment. Your sexuality is still a part of you, whatever relationship situation you're in. And the first one, bring desire back, is really for when people are just so stuck that there is not even a conversation possible at all, or there is a nonstop chronic complaint, but it's a terrible conversation. So it's really about helping people get unstuck. If I had renamed this thing, it would be getting unstuck. And because that's the hardest place for people to leave. One person never stops talking about it, the other one doesn't want to hear about it. All of these impasses. And then the second one, playing with desire, is really how do we bring back more energy, more intensity, more juice, make it less routine, make it more creative, more fun. And so I wanted to distinguish these two because there's no point in telling people the fun they can have when they're at each other's throats, or when they're just in silence, or when each one is alone in their corner, or when one person feels deeply rejected by the other, or when there has been an affair and there has been betrayal. I mean, there's a ton of situations in relationships more even than the list we had before. So it's practical, it's simple. You don't do everything at once. You can take one question I ask you a lot of questions, take one and just go with that. You don't have to, you know, swallow the whole thing whole. What suits you now? But it's available for you for years to come. Every time you feel a dip, you just say, let me go see what Parel has to say. So you have an idea here. You know, I I I want to do something different tonight. I want to, you know, what can I, how can I bring this up? And then you go and you you do like the tarot cards, you pick one, you don't have to do the whole course all the time. It's very, you know, my books are, I know that when people finish reading them, people often say, and now what do I do? So these are a few things that I think you can do. It's not the whole thing, but it's a good start.

Yeah, everything that you do is such a beautiful blend of the idea and then the practical application. So, I know people are going to get so much out of these. They can find them at your website, estherperel.com.

That'S right.

And when they're there, is there anything specific they should search? The desire bundle.

That's it. The desire bundle. It will appear large.

So we also have a promo code for anyone who wants to get these programs. It's hussy 15. So for everyone out there who wants to get these two programs, the desire bundle, hussy 15. 15 is our audience's promo code. So go check those out. And I'm really, really excited to know what you think of these. I'm, you know, Esther, I have a, a core of people that over the years I have quoted ad nauseam. And Esther is one of those people that I think I've probably referenced more than anybody else, so it's a true privilege to be able to bring you Estee's work. One more question, which is just relates to what you said about discrepancy in desire. Is there when you are with someone where you feel like, I want it a lot less than they do.

Or.

I want it a lot more than they do, is there a key route that you take for managing those situations? And how do you know when the discrepancy is just too big, that it's going to be a constant source of chronic pain and it is essentially going to rob you of your peace if you stay in this relationship.

I think the first thing is to have a proper diagnosis. Has it always been? Is this new? What's happening? Are there health issues, hormonal issues, sexual pain issues? sexual dysfunction issues, relational dynamics, past trauma that is flaring up or has been there. I mean, what is the refusal? Or what is the constant thinking? Are there hypersexuality issues? Are there ways in which sexuality and anxiety are being mixed together? And so one part This person says, I want it all the time, but in fact what they want is a lot more about self-soothing and managing their anxiety than it actually is sexually nature. So you really need to have a sense as to behind that sentence, I want, the other one doesn't, and usually our society at this point is often geared towards the one who doesn't. You know, in history you were ashamed if you had sex. Now you are ashamed if you don't have sex.

Sex.

So the pressure is often on the other side. What's stopping is, and I do think to get the proper hormonal panel is important to have a sense of what may be happening, and for both people, by the way, for both people, for all people, just people. Then what is this discrepancy doing in the relationship? Is this become a kind of a pursuer, distancer dance? that is driving this relationship. One person feeling guilty but also feeling pressure, one person feeling rejected and feeling lonely, both people ending up in the corner, the pursuer feeling that if they didn't, the other person would never think about it, feeling unloved very often, the person who is more on the withholding side wondering what's wrong with me or stop pressuring me, me or is it been five days, eight days, ten days, you know, what is our rhythm here? Oh, I start to feel the things breathing down my neck, probably time to do something. The other person feeling like, I don't want to get pity sex. I don't want to beg. I want someone who wants me. People who feel often really cherished spouses or partners but famished lovers. So it's, a major piece of a relationship. And the question about when is it, it's the gap between the two. I mean, if two people are not interested, they're not interested. There's a lot of ways to be in a relationship. But if one person just experienced the deadening that comes with it, the loneliness, the rejection, the refusal, the lack of physical contact, the lack of, you know, all the things that sexuality gives you access to. tenderness, softness, abandon, physicality, sensuality, all of that, to live without that for years. Now, the other one lives without that too, but they don't necessarily experience missing it.

Yes.

For a host of reasons. So, you know, affairs are often very much linked to this. It's not like they come out of nowhere. Age, physical condition, etc. Etc. And I think the beginning, beginning is to understand that the other person may be pressuring you, but what they're really feeling is they're missing you. And for the other person to understand that if every time your partner thinks about sex, they think about the sex you want, they no longer are connected to their own erotic self and that a person who is that disconnected to themselves can't be feeling great either. So you begin by creating a space for empathy and respect for the experience of the other. That's the entry point.

Esther, this is, I truly, you are one of my favorite people to talk to. It really is a It's a privilege for me to both witness from afar and sometimes up close someone who is a true master at what they do. Thank you.

You know, if I was on a date, I would think, does he say this to everybody?

Well, you can look at my interviews and you'll see it's not the case. No, it's a privilege.

It's a good line.

Don't forget to sign up to our event on October the 22nd. Like I said, it's completely free. Anyone can join. And if you know that you want a committed, serious, long-term relationship, you don't want to waste any more time on people who aren't ready, or you have someone who's suggesting they're not ready, but you don't know how to change it or what to do, how to have the right conversations to try to progress things. This event is for you. Go to lovelifetraining.com to sign up. I will see you there. This is only happening once, and I don't do many of these events anymore. So come join us while it's available. I don't want you to miss it. Lovelifetraining.com is that link. Thank you to Esther, and thank you to all of you for watching. I'll see you next time. Be well and love life.