15th
Mating in Captivity
Chapter 1
Thesis: Can we have love and desire in same relationship over time? How? What would that relationship be?
- Challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling need for what’s safe and predictable with wish to pursue what’s exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring.
- Modern life has deprived us of traditional resources, and has created situation in which we turn to one person for protection and emotional connections that a multitude of social networks used to provide. Adult intimacy has become overburdened with expectations.
- Anthony Robbins: passion in a relationship is commensurate witha amount of uncertainty you can tolerate.
- We long for constancy, for permanence (of our partner in our lives), but it is an illusion: nothing is guaranteed.
- Eroticism is risky. It introduces a recognition of the other’s sovreignty that can feel destabilizing.
- We see what we want to see, what we can tolerate seeing, and our partner does the same. Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. We narrow down our partner, ignoring or rejecting essential parts when they threaten the established order of our coupledom.
- We expects relationship to act as buttress against slings and arrows of life. But love is unstable. So we shore it up - create predictability - in an effort to make ourselves feel more secure. Those mechanisms to make us feel more safe & secure often put as at more risk. We ground ourselves in familiarity, and thus orchestrate boredom.
Chapter 2: Love seeks closeness, but desire needs distance
- Sexuality more than a metaphor for relationship - it stands on its own as a parallel narrative (i.e. “tell me how the sex is and i’ll tell you how the relationship is” doesn’t hold water)
- the paradox of intimacy and sex -> when two people become fused, there’s is no “other” to connect with, yet too much distance makes connection challenging
- intimacy comes with growing concern for the well-being of the other person, which includes a fear of hurting her. but sexual excitement requires capacity not to worry, and pursuit of pleasure demands a degree of selfishness.
- we balk at idea of establishing distance within the relationship itself — we can tolerate space anywhere but there
- Erotic intelligence: ability to re-create distance between our partner and ourselves (“the erotic synapse”) that we worked so hard to bridge, and play in that space
Chapter 3: Talk is not the only avenue to closeness (the pitfalls of modern intimacy)
- we’ve come to glorify verbal communication; while western need for intimacy has grown, our def’n of it has narrowed
- adherents of talk intimacy have a hard time recognizing other languages for closeness (for example, through the body (“the body is our original mother tongue”), —> “why won’t you talk to me? etc etc” pressure is on non-talker to change, not talker to be more versatile
-intimacy isn’t consistent; it is intermittent, waxing and waning even in the best relationships
Chapter 4: Desire and egalitarianism don’t play by the same rules
- “i do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex - purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression - is antithetical to erotic desire for men and women alike”
- belief in democracy, equality, consensus-building, compromise, fairess, and mutual tolerance can - when carried into the bedoom - result in very boring sex
- the poetics of sex are politically incorrect, thriving on power plays, role reverals, unfair advantages, imperious demands, seductive manipulations, and subtle cruelties. americans find themselves challenged by these contradictions. we fear that playing with power imbalances in the sexual arena, even amongst consenting adults, risks overthrowing the respect that is essential to human relationships
- stepping our of outselves in exactly what eroticism allows us to do - we trample on cultural restrictions. the prohibitions we vigorously uphold in the light are often the ones we enjoy transgressing in the dark. eroticism is an alternative space where we can safely experience our taboos.
- the point of fantasy is that it allows you to transcend the moral and psychological constraints of your everyday life
- negotiating power is part and parcel of all human relationships
- when we put our hopes on one person, our dependence soars, so do frustrations and disappointments. love is always accompanied by hate.
- the capacity to contain aggression is a precondition for the capacity to love. must integrate aggression rather than contain it - “the degradation of romance, the waning of desire is due not to the contamination of love by aggression, but to the inability to sustain the necessary tension between them” - stephen mitchell
- aggression is the shadow side of love. it is an intrinsic component of sexuality, and it can never be entirely excised from sexual relationships
Chapter 5: The protestant work ethic take on the degradation of desire
- america prides itself on efficiency, but *eroticism is inefficient!* in erotic lives “work does not work, trying is always too hard. can’t measure it, we need to be indifferent to demands of productivity, pleasure is the only goal”
- leap requires loss of control that we’ve been taught to guard against from young age. socialized to tame impules, urges, appetites
- b/c loss of control is almost always seen in negative light, we don’t entertain idea that surrender can be emotionally or spiritually enlightening
- passion is unpredictable; what works on monday might not work on tuesday
- the tension between security and adventure is paradox to manage, *not problem to solve*
Chapter 6: When puritanism and hedonism collide
- “I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce” - J. Edgar Hoover
- Eroticism is most fearsome of all intimacies b/c it involves disclosing aspects of ourselves that are bound up with shame and guilt. no wonder that many of us prefer security of workable sex as shield to being condemned by partner as perverse, deviant, and disgusting
- for those who wish to risk cross threshold, sexual communion is far from dirty, but rather sacred melding that puts us in touch with the divine
- “erotic intimacy is the revelation of our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within a sexual relationship. when our innermost desires and revealed, and are met by our loved one with acceptance and validation, the shame dissolves. it is an experience of profound empowerment and self-affirmation for the heart, body, and soul. when we can be present for both love and sex, we transcend the batttleground of puritanism and hedonism”
Chapter 7: Tell me how you were loved, and i’ll tell you how you make love
- childhood often reveals psychology of desire
- throughout lives we grapple with interplay of dependence and interdependence - how we reconcile these as adults depends greatly on how parents reacted to this duality
- takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to break it
- anger highlights separatness and is a counterpoint to dependence; this is why it can powerfull stoke desire; it gives you the desire you need
- erotic excitement requires that we step our of the intimate bond for a moment, turn towards ourselves, and focus on our mounting sensations - we need to be momentarily selfish in order to be erotically connected
- michal bader links selfishness to concept of sexual ruthlessness: “the quality of desire that enables a person to surrender to the full force of her own rhythms of pleasure and excitement without guilt, worry, or shame of any kind”
- are socialized to control ourselves to we mask need to objectify one with love
- some find they can only be ruthless with people they don’t know b/c prohibitions against ruthlessness within context of loving relationship are too great to allow for erotic abandon
- “cultivating a sense of ruthlessness in intimate relationships is an intriguing solution to problems of desire. while it may appear to be detached and uncaring, it is rooted in love and security of connection. it is rare experience of trust to be able to let go completely without guilt or fretfulness, knowing that our relationship is vast enough to withstand the whole of us. we reach a unique intimacy in erotic encounter. transcends the civility of the emotional connection and accomodates unruly impulses and primal appetities… paradoxically, ruthlessness is a way to achieve closeness”
- erotic intimacy holds double promise of finding oneself and losing oneself. it is an experience of merging and of total self-absorption, of mutuality and selfishness
Chapter 8: Parenthood - when three threatens two
(not many notes here - no kids)
- planning can seem prosaic, but it implies intentionality, and intentionality conveys value
- great story about a woman who wanted her husband to see her as a sexual woman, not as mother of his children — mid-BJ, she tells him that if he wants her to continue, she’s gotta pay him $100 —> shifts his frame of her to pre-mother days when they humped a lot
Chapter 9: Fantasy
- old belief: sexual fantasies nothing more than compensation for lack of opportunity and people want fantasies to happen in real life
- new belief: fantasy is natual component of healthy adult sexuality
- fantasies express truth about ourselves that are hard to get at otherwise. they reveal us at our most bare, and in their own mysterious way, convey our deepest wishes
- what turns us on often collides with preferred self-image, or with moral and ideological convictions - forbidden frontiers are crossed, gender roles reversed, modesty is corrupted, and imbalances of power are played our, all for the sake of excitement. we act out what we date not do in reality
- sexual fantasy doesn’t work like other fantasy (daydream of vacation in tahiti = desire to go to tahiti). sexual fantasy involves pretending, it’s a simulation, a performance, not the real thing, and not necessarily a desire for the real thing. “think poetry, not prose”.
- entering erotic mindscape of another (i.e. learning their fantasies) requires effort of understanding and considerable degree of emotional separateness. for some, this works, for others, it can be a disaster.
- when we cordon off erotic interiors, we are left with sex that is truncated, devoid of vibrancy, not particularly intimate. dull, boring sexual relationships are often a consequence of shutting down the imagination in just this way.
Chapter 10: Rethinking Fidelity
- Despite 50% divorce rate for first marriages and 65% for second, despite staggering frequency of affairs, despite monogamy being a sinking ship, we continue to cling to wreckage with absolute faith in its structural soundness.
Q: Are there any secrets to long-lasting relationships?
A: Infidelity. Not the act itself, but the threat of it. For Proust, an injection of jealousy is the only thing capable of rescuing a relationship ruined by habit.” - Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change your Life
- The bonds of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, sometimes three.” - Alexandre Dumas
- Marriage as an instituion has changed big-time. Yet however elastic our attitudes toward marriage, we remain unflinching in our insistence on monogamy.
- “American culture has great tolerance for divorce - where there is a total breakdown of the loyalty bond and painful effects for the whoel family - but it is a culture with no tolerance for sexual infidelity”. We woud rather kill a relationship than question its structure.
- Rarely is the subject broached openly (esp amongst heterosexual couples). There’s no need to discuss a given.
- Discussing fidelity implies that it’s open to discussion, no longer an imperative. The prospect of betrayal is too dark, so we avoid the subject with practiced denial.
- Fidelity was once about lineage and property; now it’s a mututal expression of love and commitment.
- The disenchanted opt for divorce or affairs not b/c they question the instituion, but b/c they think they chose the wrong person with whom to reach nirvana. The focus is on the object of our love, not on our capacity to love. “It’s easy to love, but hard to find the right person. Once we’ve found ‘the one’, we will need no one else.”
- Fear of loss and abandonment tighten our grip on fidelity. Our disposable and downsized culture confirms how replacable we are, and our need to feel secure in our primary relationship is all the greater.
- “Monogamy is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal for it is the marker of specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered.”
- An illicit liason can be catastrophic, but it can also be a liberation, a source of strength, a healing… she questions the widespread view that infidelity is always a sympton of deeper problems in a relationship.
- most American therapists believe that affairs must be disclosed if intimacy is to be rebuilt. This goes hand-in-hand with model of intimate love, which celebrates transparency, sharing everything, no secrets, etc. In other cultures, respect is more likely expressed with gentle untruths that preserve the other’s honor. a protective opacity is preferred to telling humiliating truths.
- At the boundary of every couple lives the Third (ex-high school sweetheart, hot fourth grade teacher, etc). The Third is the manifestation of our desire for what lies outside the fence. It is the forbidden
- “The couple is a resistance to the intrusion of the third, but in order for it to last it is indispensible to have enemies. That is why the monogamous can’t live without the third.”
- Many of her patients refuse to acknowledge the third. They’re drawn by the lure of oneness, which insists there’s no need for others. Perfect love is sufficient unto itself. So fragile is this fusion that the presence of another, even in fantasy, is powerful enough to shatter it
- Talks about a patient: “Bill’s security rests not only on what his wife does but also what she thinks. her fantasies are proof of her freedom and separateness, and that scares him. the third points to other possibilities, choices we didn’t make, and in this way it’s bound up with our freedom. ‘what is more anxiogenic than a partner’s freedom, which might mean the freedom not to love you, or to stop loving you or to love someone else, or to become a different person than the one who once pledged to love you always and now… perhaps doesn’t?’ if Bill’s wife can think about others, she might love others, and that is intolerable”
- we set up rules and hope our partners will comply, and in this way we preemptively secure faithfulness by keeping a tight leash
- trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance. this sets the stage for “acts of exuberant defiance”. when the third is exiled to somewhere, permitted only outside the marriage, that is where he is sought.
- our compassionate, romantic model of marriage is better at spelling our criteria for intimacy than for autonomy. the emphasis is on building closeness, not on sustaining individuality
- because of that model, we are awkward about pursuing togetherness. even couples that grant each other considerable space elsewhere (separate vacations, nights out on town, etc) grapple with idea they might have erotic life independent of each other. not talking about extramarital sex - talking about sexual self that is discrete, generates its own images, responds to others, and is delighted when it gets turned on unexpectedly
inviting the shadow:
- “some couples choose not to ignore the lure of the forbidden. instead, they subject its power by inviting it in”. recognizing our partner has his or her own sexuality, replete with fantasties and desires that aren’t necessarily about us
- when we validate one another’s freedom within the relationship, we’re less inclined to search for it elsewhere… it is no longer a shadow but a presence, something to talk about openly, joke about, play with. when we can tell the truth safely, we are less inclined to keep secrets
- this has a tendency to add spice because it reminds us that we do not own our partners. we should not take them for granted. in uncertainty lies the seed of wanting.
- can look at our partners through the eyes of a stranger
- renouncing others reaffirms our choice. perhaps this another way of looking at maturity: not as passionless love, but as love that knows other passions not chosen
questions:(put aside romantic nostalgia to answer)
- is emotional commitment always bound to sexual exclusivity?
- can we love more than one persona at the same time?
- is sex ever “just sex”?
- are men more naturally prone to roam than women?
- is jealousy the expression of love or the sign of insecurity?
- why are we eager to share our friends but demand exclusivity from our lover?
- couples who negotiate sexual boundaries are no less committed than those who keep the gates closed. it’s their desire to make the relationship stronger that leads them to explore other models of lone-term love… fidelity is not necessarily defined by sexual exclusivity but by the strenght of their commitment
- the third is a fact of life; we can approach it with fear, avoidance, and moral outrage, or we can bring to it a robust curiosity and sense of intrigue
- acknowledging the third has to do with validating the erotic separatness of our partner. our partner’s sexuality does not belong to us. it isn’t just for us and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction. it doesn’t. the more we choke each other’s freedom, the harder it is for desire to breathe within a committed relationship
- “pursue the logic and you have the itinerary for an emotionally enlarging journey. it goes something like this: i know you look at others, but i can’t fully know what you see. i know oethers are looking at you, but i don’t really know who it is they’re seeing. suddenly you’re no longer familiar. you’re no longer a known entity that i need not bother being curious about. in fact, you’re quite a mystery. and i’m a little unnerved. who are you? i want you.”
- suggests we view monogamy not as a given but as a choice. as such, it becomes a negotiated decision. if we’re planning to spend 50 years with one person, it may be wiser to review our contract at various junctures.
Chapter 11: Bringing the erotic home
“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it toook to blossom” - Anais Nin
- We are taught that marriage is serious business. Play and playmates (risk, seduction, naughtiness, transgression) are left to fend for themselves outside the home.
- We are thus left with a relationship strong on cooperation and communication but weak on complicity and playfulness. Dispassionate friendship is a problematic ecology for cultivating eroticism.
- Sexual rejection at the hands of the one we love is particularly hurtful. We are thus less inclined to be erotically adventurous with the person we depend on for so much and whose opinion is paramount.
- The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partner is ours: “what makes you think you have your husband?” their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility.
- The idea that sex must be spontaneous keeps us one step removed from having to will sex, to own our desire, and to express it with intent. As long as sex is something that just happens, you don’t have to claim it.
- When her patients talk about the early days when it was spontaneous, she reminds them that “in the moment” was often the result of hours, if not days, of planning - what to wear, what to eat, what music, etc.
- Important to create an erotic space (don’t schedule it, necessarily) - what occurs in that space is open-ended, but the space is marked by intentionality
- “‘Seducing my partner? Do I still have to do that?’ - reluctance often a covert expression of an infantile wish to be loved just as we are, without any effort whatsoever on our part, because we’re so special.”
- planning creates anticipation: longing, waiting, and yearning are fundamental elements of desire that can be generated with forethought, even in LT relationships
- Eroticism = sexuality transformed by imagination
- eroticism is another form of play, which is an alternative reality midway between actual and fictitious, safe space where we experiment, reinvent ourselves, and take chances. through play we suspend disbelief - we pretend something is real even when we damn well know it is not. earnestness has no place here.
- play is carefree and unselfconscious - a fundamental feature of play is that is has no other purpose. this is hard to reconcile with our culture of high efficiency and constant accountability. more and more we measure play by its benefits, and our enjoyment is inevitably compromised
- as we age our ability to play is compromised - sex often remains last arena of play we can permit ourselves
- erotic intelligence: ability to see seduction as an end in itself. playfulness is central to relationship, and eroticism extends beyond the sexual act
- commitment offers one of great luxuries of life time. the relationship is alive and ongoing, not a fair accompli.
- eroticism in the home requires willful intent and commitment: it is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play, and that passion is for teenages and the immature.
- complaining of sexual boredom is easy and conventional. nuturing eroticism in the home is an act of open defiance.
