Esther Perel: The secret to desire in a long-term relationship

- Crisis of desire: free choice and identity
- This is the first time over the history, we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term: pleasure and connection

- Two human needs that we wish to reconcile

1. Safety: Permanence 
2. Adventure: Journey and Travel

This is often a crisis of imagination.

Love -> to have
Desire (sex) -> to desire ( to explore, an bridge to cross)

When do you find yourself most drawn to your partner?
Group 1
- When the partner is away./imagine to be together
- When partner is self-sustaining, from a comfortable distance, to a somewhat distance. See my partner in a mystery.

Group 2
No needs (care-taking) in desire, different to wanting them.

Group 3
When there is novelty: what part of thing you show. Sex is not a thing to do, but  a place to go.

Imagination is the center piece of erocticism.

Those who didn't die: worry, insecure, anxious can't experience erotic.
vs.
Those who came back to life: erotic as an antidote for life.

"I turn myself on/off when" vs. "what turn me on":

When I feel old, when I felt low self-esteem
vs.
Desire is a certain part of  selfishness in the presence of other.

Exploratory needs. Need to explore while at the same to be able to come back.


Few things to do:

- A lot of sexual privacy, erotic place
- Foreplay
- An erotic place, is a safe place for imagination
- Moon, cycle vs. fall right from the sky

- Committed love is presence