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Desire

The chemistry of attraction and the art of staying in love

Couples @ Cashmere seminar
Sunday 22 May 2016, Cashmere Presbyterian Church
​
 
The experience of falling in love takes us to the heart of what it means to be human, for more than any other experience it draws us out of ourselves and makes us vulnerable. As that initial burst of desire for one particular person matures into a long-term commitment, and as the years pass, we have the choice of letting it die out, crowded out by too many disappointments and unmet expectations, or sustaining and enriching the bond between two people. Those who do master the art of staying in love are blessed in so many ways, and bless and support so many other people in the process. It is one of the greatest goals worth striving for in life. 

Song of Songs 3:1-4
... includes powerful love poetry, dripping with metaphor and imagery of sexual expression, which is also a double layered metaphor for spiritual connection with God.
It is clear throughout the Jewish and Christian scriptures that sexual intimacy and sexual desire is part of how we are made, made in the image of God, male and female, drawn into relationship, forged into families blessed by God and shaped by patterns of faith including care for children, respect for individual uniqueness and the gifts that each brings, hospitality for friends and strangers, belonging in wider community.

 

Sustaining desire in a long term relationship
Esther Perel (talking about her book, 'Mating in captivity')
www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship?language=en
 
Reconciling love and desire is about bringing together two fundamental, but opposing human needs: our need for safety, security and stability, along with our need for separateness and adventure. To sustain desire toward the other, there must be an element of otherness, separateness, a bridge to cross and someone to visit on the other side. Reconciling the erotic and the domestic is not a problem we can solve; it is a paradox we manage.
 
Across culture, religion and gender, people feel most drawn to their partner when:
1) there is some distance between us, when we are apart, when I can get back in touch with my ability to imagine myself with my partner, when I can root it in absence and longing.
 
2) when I look at my partner radiant and confident. Probably the biggest turn-on across the board is when I am looking at my partner from a comfortable distance. When this person who is so familiar, so known, is momentarily once again somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive. In this space between me and the other lies the erotic space, that movement toward the other. As Proust says 'mystery is not about traveling to new places but it is about looking with new eyes.' I stay open to the mysteries that are living right beside me.
 
3) when there is surprise, novelty. Novelty is what parts of you will you bring out. Sustaining connection is about ongoing curiosity about who this person is and expecting to keep discovering new things.
 
Sex isn't something you do. Sex is a place that you go, within yourself and with another. So where do you go in sex? What parts of yourself do you connect with there? What comes out there?
 
It is a language, not just a behaviour. Eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. If we look at it as a form of intelligence, the it is something that you cultivate. What are the ingredients? Imagination, playfulness, novelty, curiosity, mystery. But the central piece is that thing called imagination.
 
The question then is 'I turn myself off when ...'
or the reverse question: "I turn myself on when ..."
If you are dead inside the other person can do a lot of things but there is no body home.
 
The erotic is an antidote to death, a quality of aliveness, vitality. There is no neediness in desire. There is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is wonderfully loving but is it also anti-aphrodisiac. Anything which brings up parenthood will usually decrease the erotic charge. Wanting someone is desire. Needing is a shut-down. Desire comes from the ability to stay connected to oneself in the presence of another.
 
Perel talks about the challenge of reconciling opposing needs
         connection ... separateness
         security  ... adventure
         togetherness         ...  autonomy
Healthy early attachment enables us to experience both freedom and connection. It starts very young and continues into our sex lives.
 
So how do couples sustain desire over the years?
1) Respect erotic space, have sexual privacy.
2) Create space where you can leave behind responsibility. Stop being the good citizen. Responsibility and desire bump heads.
3) Understand that desire waxes and wanes.
4) Foreplay is not something you do 5 minutes before the real thing. Foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm. De-mystify the myth of sponteneity. Committed sex is premeditated sex.
 
Questions to talk over:
 
I feel drawn to you when ...
 
... perhaps a time when we were apart and I longed for you ...
 
... I remember seeing you radiant and confident ...
 
... when you surprised me, showed me something new ...
 
I turn myself off when ...
 
I turn myself on when ...
 
How do we nurture both security and adventure?
 
How do we stay close but also allow for space?
 
How can we encourage each other's erotic imagination
(free from responsibilities and caretaking)?
 
What if we invested more in 'premeditated sex'?

www.conversations.net.nz
Written by Silvia Purdie 

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