VIDEO | Sexual Desire, Relationships ~ Esther Perel, MA, LMFT

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Sexual Desire, Relationships


Date: Aug-2016Minutes: 11:51
Sexual Desire, Relationships | Esther Perel

About the Author
Known for her keen cross-cultural pulse, Esther shifts the paradigm of our approach to modern relationships. Fluent in nine languages, Perel is a Belgian native and a practicing psychotherapist whose innovative models for building strong and lasting relationships have won acclaim across five continents. She writes the “Close Encounters with Esther Perel” column for Cosmopolitan, and she’s been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Guardian, Le Monde, Ha’Aretz, and the Wall Street Journal, and she has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and The Colbert Report. In a cover story, The New York Times named Perel as the most important game-changer on sexuality and relationships since Dr. Ruth. Her book, Mating in Captivity, is an international bestseller, translated into 25 languages.

In addition to Esther's therapy practice in New York City, she also serves on the faculties of The Family Studies Unit, Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center and of The International Trauma Studies Program. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, an AASECT certified sex therapist, a member of the American Family Therapy Academy and of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research.

[VitaminC]

Nice introduction to this therapist's area of interest and expertise.

I was interested in the data she mentions having gathered recently from 1500 respondents about common complaints about sexual matters. They included:

*mismatched desire
*(fear of) rejection
*sexual secrets  (past abuse, body image issues, shame, guilt, etc)
*doubt
*porn (the split between what is arousing for an individual and what is done as part of a sexual relationship)
*poor sexual communication (about what each likes or does not like)
*faking it / pretending
*narrow definitions of what sex actually is

An interesting side note;  this video reminded me of something someone said recently.  They said "No one searches for 'sexual equality' when they are searching for porn online". I had to laugh, because I suppose it's true. Though we might hold certain things very close to our hearts, our moral centres or whatever, what we actually find arousing might indeed be very different.  Desire is so complex. 

Perel mentions this at the start of this interview, but goes into it in more detail elsewhere; she uses words like "risk", "imagination", "anticipation", "curiosity", "creativity' when talking about desire.