Mating in Captivity

Mating in Captivity Plot Summary

Introduction

I remember sitting across from Sarah and Michael in my office, their bodies angled away from each other despite sharing the same loveseat. Married for twelve years with two beautiful children, they described a relationship full of deep friendship, mutual respect, and genuine care. Yet something vital was missing. "We haven't had sex in over a year," Sarah confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. Michael nodded, adding, "We love each other deeply, but somewhere along the way, we stopped desiring each other." Their story echoes a paradox I've witnessed countless times in my practice: the very ingredients that foster loving intimacy—comfort, security, reliability—can sometimes dampen erotic desire. This tension between our need for security and our hunger for passion represents one of the central challenges in sustaining vibrant long-term relationships. How do we reconcile our yearning for safety with our equally powerful need for adventure and novelty? Can we create relationships that offer both the comfort of home and the thrill of the unknown? These questions lie at the heart of erotic intelligence—the capacity to maintain passion and desire within the boundaries of committed love. Throughout these chapters, we'll explore how couples navigate this delicate balance, discovering that the path to sustained desire often requires embracing contradictions rather than resolving them.

Chapter 1: The Paradox of Security and Adventure in Relationships

John and Beatrice spent their first six months together in a blissful state of effervescence, virtually locked in a room together. John, a stockbroker who had witnessed both the glories and defeats of the dot-com revolution, had been struggling through a triple crisis—emotional, professional, and financial—when he met Beatrice. She was a Pre-Raphaelite beauty, ten years his junior, studying English literature. In their cocoon under the sheets, they would talk for hours, make love, talk again, make love, and sleep (but very little). Transported in this early rapture, they felt free and open, relishing the meeting of their two worlds. As their relationship evolved, John and Beatrice experienced a growing sense of serenity. The initial excitement matured, the real world reemerged, and hope transformed into substance. Enter intimacy. They became acquainted with each other's quirks, tastes, and preferences. Some of these wants were met with ease and tenderness; some they learned to accept; and some were annoying, offensive, or downright disgusting. This familiarity reassured them, creating routine and fostering a sense of security. Yet this unceremoniousness, while a welcome feature of intimacy, proved to be an antiaphrodisiac as well. Six years into their marriage, John found himself avoiding his wife's sexual advances and ducking her accusations about his sexual passivity. The more he loved and respected his wife, the harder it became for him to desire her sexually. In John's mind, emotional security required constant monitoring of any selfish or aggressive inclinations. This belief, which grew out of his love for his mother who had raised him after his father abandoned them, became part of his sexuality. The more he loved Beatrice and depended on her, the greater his need for caution and the more inhibited he became sexually. For John, intimacy harbored a threat of entrapment. Growing up with an alcoholic, abusive father, he had been acutely attuned to both his father's moods and his mother's sadness. As a young boy, he was recruited to be his mother's emotional caretaker. From early on, love implied responsibility and obligation. Even while he craved the closeness of intimacy, he didn't know how to experience love in a way that did not feel confining. This pattern reveals a fundamental truth about desire: security and adventure pull us in different directions. We seek a steady, reliable anchor in our partner. Yet at the same time, we expect love to offer a transcendent experience that allows us to soar beyond our ordinary lives. The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what's safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what's exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring.

Chapter 2: When Intimacy Kills Desire: The Closeness-Passion Dilemma

Jimmy and Candace, young musicians in their early thirties, had been married for seven years when they came to therapy. Candace exuded confidence in her boy jeans and aquamarine nails; Jimmy had the Quiksilver signature all over him. They were attractive, spunky, and on the go—and they were in despair over what was happening to them. "We're not having sex, and this has been going on for years," Candace explained. "We are terrified about it and so upset. And I think we each have a deep-rooted fear that we're going to find out it's unfixable." Like many who struggle with desire, Candace understood her pattern. "My problem doesn't have to do with Jimmy," she explained. "When I'm intimate with someone, when I'm in love and he loves me, I suddenly lose interest sexually. I feel like there's something missing and I can't get close to my partner on a sexual level. I had a number of long-term relationships before I met Jimmy, and it happened each time." Candace knew who Jimmy was for her—reliable, thoughtful, intelligent. They shared a rich partnership. But his kindness, while making her feel safe, didn't excite her sexually. "What I can tell you is that his kindness makes me feel safe, but when I think about who I want to sleep with, safe is not what I look for." Jimmy, on the other hand, felt rejected and diminished by Candace's lack of desire. "I remember a time when all I had to do was rub my knee up her thigh and she'd get all turned on. But for so long I haven't truly felt that she wanted me like that. I want her to want me. I want her to be hungry for one thing and one thing only. And that thing is me." Their dynamic illustrated how the caring, protective elements that nurture home life can work against the rebellious spirit of carnal love. Candace and Jimmy had constructed an intimacy that precluded conflict of any sort. All the tension was crystallized in their sexual impasse. They were cordial, respectful, even occasionally affectionate, but emotionally they had flatlined. To break this pattern, I suggested an intervention: "No contact. No pecks, no kissing, no massage, no strokes. Nothing." By telling them not to touch, I was mapping a space that would give Candace room to go after Jimmy. That, in turn, would give him the feeling of being desired. "At this point you have smothered sizzle with affection, leaving it with no way to ignite." The psychologist Virginia Goldner makes an accurate distinction between the "flaccid safety of permanent coziness" and the "dynamic safety" of couples who fight and make up, whose relationship is a succession of breaches and repairs. It's not by co-opting aggression but rather by owning it that sexual tension can freely roam—and can itself bring safety. This reveals a central paradox: love seeks closeness, but desire needs space to thrive. Eroticism thrives in the space between self and other. In order to commune with the one we love, we must be able to tolerate this void and its uncertainties. Our ability to tolerate our separateness—and the fundamental insecurity it engenders—is a precondition for maintaining interest and desire in a relationship.

Chapter 3: Erotic Blueprints: How Childhood Shapes Adult Sexuality

Steven's father abandoned his mother when he was young, leaving her to pick up the pieces, devote herself to caring for her children, and swear she would never let anyone hurt her like that again. An ER nurse, she owned her home and put three kids through college. Steven was filled with admiration and respect for his mother, and spent much of his life guarding against becoming what he called "that asshole." Six years into his marriage to Rita, he found himself avoiding her sexual advances and ducking her accusations about his sexual passivity. Behind his excuses, Steven was baffled by his lack of interest—and by his unreliable erections. The more he loved and respected his wife, the harder it was for him to desire her sexually. In Steven's mind, emotional security required constant monitoring of any selfish or aggressive inclinations. This belief, which grew out of his love for his mother, became part of his sexuality. The more he loved Rita and depended on her, the greater his need for caution and the more inhibited he became sexually. He didn't know how to experience the open range of lust in the context of emotional care. For Melinda, whose father was a philanderer, desire was stoked by unavailability. While she empathized with her mother's despair, she also didn't want to be like her mother: broken, miserable, bereft. Instead, she became the seductress, the opposite of the abandoned wife. Melinda set out to best men at their own game. Once she seduced a man, he instantly became less attractive. In order to reconfirm her own power, she had to set her sights on the next man, and the next. Almost nothing was more exciting than conquering a powerful, aloof man; but the ultimate thrill was in dumping him—sure proof that she had avenged the past. Lena grew up with a roster of what is and is not acceptable for a worthy woman to dream about, act on, and get off on. The eldest daughter in a conservative, devoutly religious household, Lena learned that decent women hewed to strict standards of womanly behavior, were never aggressive or pushy, and always put the needs of others before their own. Like her mother (and centuries of women before her), Lena derived her self-esteem and validation from being a giver and not a taker. But Lena's niceness was precisely what turned her husband off. Her coy lovemaking and lack of sexual assertiveness inhibited him. The internal tensions that crackle in the sexuality of Steven, Melinda, and Lena are a result of childhood conflicts. The details of our erotic proclivities and apprehensions are refined throughout our lives but often originate in our childhood experiences. Our physical and emotional dependence on our parents surpasses that of any other living species, in both magnitude and duration. It is so complete—and our need to feel safe is so profound—that we will do anything not to lose them. Throughout our lives we grapple with the interplay between dependence and independence. How artfully we reconcile these needs as adults depends greatly on how our parents reacted to the stubborn duality in our little selves. In the give-and-take with our parents, we determine how much freedom we can safely experience, and how much our connections will require the subjugation of our needs. In the end, we fashion a system of beliefs, fears, and expectations—some conscious, many unconscious—about how relationships work. Not coincidentally, this entire emotional history plays itself out in the physicality of sex. The body is our mother tongue—our mediator with the world long before we speak our first words. Erotic intimacy is an act of generosity and self-centeredness, of giving and taking. We need to be able to enter the body or the erotic space of another, without the terror that we will be swallowed and lose ourselves.

Chapter 4: Parenthood and Passion: Navigating the Transition

Stephanie and Warren trace the demise of their erotic life back to the arrival of their first child. Before Jake was born, Stephanie worked as an office manager in an international shipping firm. She had always planned on returning to work after her maternity leave, but Jake's birth changed that. She couldn't bear the thought of leaving him. Five years have passed, and Sophia has come along. "With a five-year-old and a two-year-old, I'm on mother duty twenty-four-seven. If I have any time left, I just want it for myself. When Warren approaches me, it feels like one more person wanting something from me. I don't have anything left to give." While Stephanie's desire has remained stagnant, Warren's frustration has risen. "I've tried everything," he tells me. "She asks for help; I give her help. I do the dishes; I let her sleep late on the weekends; I take the kids out so she can have some time to herself. But, you know, I work, too. I'm meeting deadlines all day long. It's not like I'm having a picnic. She thinks all I want is to get laid, but that's not it. I want to come home and be with my wife sometimes. But all I get is a woman who's become all mother." What Stephanie fails to see is that behind Warren's nagging insistence is a yearning to be intimate with his wife. For him, sex is a prelude to intimacy, a pathway to emotional vulnerability. She responds to him as if he were one more needy child. She doesn't realize that this is not just for him but for her, too. Like a lot of women, once she's in the caretaking mode she has a hard time switching it off. She's so mentally organized in terms of what she does for everyone else that she is unable to recognize when something is offered to her. Stephanie gets tremendous physical pleasure from her children. Let me be perfectly clear here: she knows the difference between adult sexuality and the sensuousness of caring for small children. But, in a sense, a certain replacement has occurred. The sensuality that women experience with their children is, in some ways, much more in keeping with female sexuality in general. In the physicality between mother and child lie a multitude of sensuous experiences. We caress their silky skin, we kiss, we cradle, we rock. When they devour us with those big eyes, we are besotted, and so are they. This blissful fusion bears a striking resemblance to the physical connection between lovers. Stephanie's intense focus on her kids is not a mere idiosyncrasy—not simply her own personal style. This kind of overzealous parenting is a fairly recent trend that has, one hopes, reached its apex of folly. Childhood has been sanctified so that it no longer seems ridiculous for one adult to sacrifice herself entirely in order to foster the flawless and painless development of her offspring. Meanwhile, American individualism, with its emphasis on autonomy and personal responsibility, has left us between a rock and a hard place with regard to family life. We are left with isolated domestic units: overworked parents deprived of extended families, kinship networks, and real institutional assistance. When Stephanie invited Warren to be more assertive and self-directed, this was as liberating for him as for her. For the first time, he felt that there was room for a full range of feelings, not just tender ones. Stephanie was surprised at Warren's positive response to her own new assertiveness. Even claiming her desire to be passive was an unprecedented act of agency on her part. When the father reaches out to the mother, and the mother acknowledges him, redirecting her attention, this serves to rebalance the entire family. Boundaries get drawn, and new zoning regulations get put in place delineating areas that are adult only.

Chapter 5: The Power of Fantasy in Long-Term Relationships

Catherine's fantasy life illustrates how our erotic imagination can transform past wounds into sources of pleasure. When Catherine hit puberty, she was fifty pounds overweight. Sexually invisible, repeatedly rejected, she was the "ugly sidekick" left guarding the door while her girlfriends made out on the other side of it. Today she is a beautiful woman, married for almost fifteen years. She and her husband play out a fantasy in which she is a high-priced prostitute. Men pay top dollar for the pleasure of her company—they want her so much they're willing to spend a small fortune and risk their jobs and marriages for a little bit of her time. In her theater of the surreal, she triumphantly exacts revenge for the pains and frustrations of her adolescence. Daryl's wife complains, "He can't even decide on a restaurant, and he wants to tie me up? What's that about?" The difficulty Daryl feels about asserting himself in his daily life is spectacularly remediated in his domination fantasies. In the highly ritualized and consensual choreography of bondage and domination, Daryl's aggression finds safe expression. His wants are honored, his fear of going too far is contained, and his masculine power brings others pleasure rather than pain. Joni and Ray illustrate how fantasy can bridge the gap between our public and private selves. Joni laments, "Ray thinks I don't like sex. But I do like sex, or at least I used to, I just don't like it so much with him. He doesn't get me sexually, and I can't seem to let him in on it, either. It feels hopeless. I'm only twenty-nine. That's too young to stop having sex." Over time, and with much coaxing, Joni divulges a fantastic collection of intemperate, luscious, and infinitely detailed erotic tableaux, which she's been constructing since early adolescence. Cowboys, pirates, kings, and concubines parade in endless configurations of carefully wielded power and highly refined surrender. The latest installment takes place on her "husband's" ranch, where she is ritualistically presented to his hired hands as a sexual offering. She is completely at their mercy, and makes no attempt to escape. The men are given their own challenge—to anticipate her every desire, and to bring her to heights of sexual ecstasy she has never before known. "You want to know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm a masochist, just like my mother," she tells me. But when I explain that sexual fantasy doesn't work like other fantasies—that it involves pretending, that it's a simulation, a performance—Joni experiences profound relief. From everything she had told me about her relationship with Ray, I didn't think she needed to worry about being a masochist. The cowboys may be controlling her, but ultimately she is the one controlling the cowboys. She is the author, the producer, the casting agent, the director, and the star of the show. When Joni invited Ray to be more assertive and self-directed, this was as liberating for him as for her. For the first time, he felt that there was room for a full range of feelings, not just tender ones. Joni was surprised at Ray's positive response to her own new assertiveness. Even claiming her desire to be passive was an unprecedented act of agency on her part. Like many women, she had internalized the powerful message that bold expressions of female sexuality are whorish, unattractive, selfish, and certainly not part of intimate love. Our erotic imagination is an exuberant expression of our aliveness, and one of the most powerful tools we have for keeping desire alive. Giving voice to our fantasies can liberate us from the many personal and social obstacles that stand in the way of pleasure. Understanding what our fantasies do for us will help us understand what it is we're seeking, sexually and emotionally.

Chapter 6: Rethinking Fidelity and the Shadow of the Third

Doug met his first wife in college. They were good friends, but their sex life was never particularly interesting. Eventually it, and the marriage, fizzled out. He went on to have a few passionate relationships that left him sexually invigorated but emotionally spent. Then he met Zoë, an energetic and joyful CGI artist with what he calls a "low neurotic quotient." He thought he'd hit the matrimonial jackpot. Several years into the marriage, she stopped responding to him so enthusiastically. She still had a lot of energy, but much of it was directed elsewhere. The kids demanded her attention. Animation sapped her creativity. And her size X-L family—her parents, her five sisters, and all their kids—were the hub of her social life. Doug felt unnoticed. Without sex to distinguish him among the cast of characters in his wife's busy life, he felt increasingly irrelevant, like an extra. In the ensuing years, Doug's growing irritability was punctuated by brief flashes of seductive instigation. He whisked Zoë away on romantic weekends, carefully selected the weekly DVDs, bought earrings because she fancied dangling baubles. For the most part, Zoë was game. But the more Doug pursued her, the more he realized how essential his effort was, and this depressed him. His eyes began to wander, and when they finally focused, it's not on Zoë; it's on Naomi. This striking redheaded retail buyer wasn't subtle about expressing her attraction to Doug. A sandwich turned into a drink turned into a five-year affair. The sex was fiery, but that's not what the affair was about. It's about the abundance of attention, and the exhilaration of the illicit. With Naomi, who never lacked for male attention, Doug was irresistible. She missed him on the weekends; she's jealous about his other life. By the time the affair ends, Doug's marriage is down to the bare bones. Doug and Zoë are cordial, respectful, even occasionally affectionate, but emotionally they have flatlined. They have grown accustomed to vagueness regarding his repeated absences. His overtures are few and far between, and he is distracted. He is afraid of unintentionally disclosing something with a slip of the tongue; his secrecy is taking up more and more acreage in their marriage, leaving him with few subjects he can freely discuss with Zoë: the kids, the president, and the weather. As we unravel what sparked Doug's affair with Naomi, it becomes clear why he chose not to fight for her but instead to stay with his wife. Zoë is terra firma. At the same time, her ability to keep things in perspective gives her a certain ease; it's not hard for her to sleep through the night, or to get up in the morning. Zoë doesn't seek passion. She is rarely swept away. With Naomi, Doug may have found the single missing piece, but with Zoë he has the rest of the puzzle. At the boundary of every couple lives the third. He's the high school sweetheart whose hands you still remember, the pretty cashier, the handsome fourth-grade teacher you flirt with when you pick your son up at school. The smiling stranger on the subway is the third. So, too, are the stripper, the porn star, and the sex worker, whether touched or untouched. He is the one a woman fantasizes about when she makes love to her husband. Real or imagined, embodied or not, the third is the fulcrum on which a couple balances. The third is the manifestation of our desire for what lies outside the fence. It is the forbidden. Rather than inhibiting a couple's sexuality, recognizing the third has a tendency to add spice, not least 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. In addition, when we establish psychological distance, we, too, can peek at our partner with the admiring eyes of a stranger, noticing once again what habit has prevented us from seeing.

Summary

Throughout these explorations of intimacy and desire, we've encountered a fundamental paradox: the very ingredients that foster loving relationships—comfort, security, reliability—can sometimes dampen erotic passion. This tension between our need for safety and our hunger for adventure represents one of the central challenges in sustaining vibrant long-term relationships. Yet within this tension lies the possibility for growth and deeper connection. The couples we've met along the way reveal that maintaining erotic vitality requires embracing contradictions rather than resolving them. We must learn to create emotional closeness while preserving erotic distance, to be responsible partners while remaining unpredictable lovers, to build a secure home while leaving room for mystery and risk. This delicate balance isn't achieved through technical solutions or sexual mechanics, but through a deeper understanding of ourselves and our partners. When we recognize that our partner is forever separate from us—a sovereign being with their own interior landscape—we create the space where desire can flourish. By acknowledging the shadow of the third, by giving voice to our fantasies, by reclaiming our sexual selves in the midst of parenthood, we invite eroticism back into our homes. The path to sustained desire isn't about finding the perfect technique or position; it's about cultivating a mindset that values both connection and autonomy, both intimacy and adventure. In the end, erotic intelligence isn't about how often we make love, but about how fully we embrace the inherent tensions of committed relationships—finding, in those very tensions, the spark that keeps desire alive.

About Author

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Esther Perel

Esther Perel is recognized as one of the world’s most original and insightful voices on personal and professional relationships. She is the best-selling author of Mating in Captivity Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, translated into 25 languages. Fluent in nine of them, the Belgian native is a practicing psychotherapist, celebrated speaker and organizational consultant to Fortune 500 companies. The New York Times, in a cover story, named her the most important game changer on sexuality and relationships since Dr. Ruth. Her critically acclaimed viral TED talk reached nearly 5 million viewers in the first year.Known for her keen cross-cultural pulse, Esther shifts the paradigm of our approach to modern relationships. She is regularly sought around the world for her expertise in erotic intelligence, couples and family identity as well as corporate relationships and team collaboration.Her clients and platforms include companies such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson and Mopar, the Open Society Institute, Tony Robbins Productions, Summit Series, Founder’s Forum, PopTech, Young Presidents Organization, Entrepreneur Organization, and the Bronfman Foundation.Her innovative models for building strong and lasting relationships have been widely featured in the media across 5 continents spanning The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Ha’Aretz and The Guardian, The New Yorker, Fast Company, and Vogue. She is a frequent guest on radio and television shows including NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, Oprah and The Today Show, Dr. Oz and The Colbert Report.In addition to Esther’s 30-year therapy practice in New York City, she also serves on the faculty of The Family Studies Unit, Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center and The International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University.

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