What is Erotic Intelligence? | Esther Perel

Esther: There are a few questions that I've been asked repeatedly. Who are you? What do you do?

How did you come to this? What does your day look like? So I thought I would just give you a little hint, but there's a reason also why I actually don't talk that much about me or my life, or my marriage, or my family life, etc.

I wait, because I think that much of what I wanna do is put questions to you and not even answer them immediately but let you sit with them a little bit, let you think of them in a different frame. Have you come into a session with one story of your life and maybe leave the session with another story of your life. And if I answer, I collapse, and if I talk about what I do, then I become a model which I don't want to be.

Because as I said in the first day, there is no such a thing as the person who has figured it all out, it's a moment in time when I think of getting there. And then after that, I fumble as well. So, I'm married for 34 years, I have 2 sons, they are 20 and 23.

And probably one of the best ways I can describe my relationship is like this. Today in the west most of us are gonna have two or three marriages or committed relationships, and some of us are gonna do it with the same person. So I don't know he thinks we've had four marriages, I think we've had three marriages to each other, but that's the idea.

If I was to tell you, maybe of an influence of what really motivates me, what do I do? I am a psychologist, I see patients, I have a predilection for working with couples across cultures. My place in this world is to create open, meaningful, bold, challenging conversations about this subject that affects us all called relationships.

I think more than ever at this point people are hungry for truth. And so I try to contribute to creating relationships and conversations about relationships that are true. And truth is not always easy, it's sometimes painful, it's sometimes beyond our comfort zone.

And so I want to tell you about a few of the things I do for that. But maybe one of the places where I have mined a lot of the truth and where I have mined the distinction that we talked about on day one where I said, "When I meet with couples, I see some couples who are not dead and some couples who are alive. " And my goal is to help people create thriving relationships, not just to be in one.

I come from a family of two parents were concentration camp survivors. My two parents are the sole survivors of their entire family. And I grew up in a community in Antwerp, Belgium that was exclusively Holocaust survivors.

And in this community, I always saw two groups of people, those who did not die, and those who came back to life. And those who did not die lived rather tethered to the ground, the world was a dangerous place, you could not trust and certainly, you could not enjoy or experience pleasure, because if you did it meant you were not on guard and if you were not on guard shit could happen. And those who came back to life are those who understood the erotic, eroticism as a life force not just in its modern narrow definition of sex, but basically how do you re-imagine yourself, how do you reinvent yourself, how do you bring back an energy, a vitality, an aliveness.

And it was my parents who inspired me to look at it like that. So much of what I try to do is actually help people connect with their aliveness. And aliveness goes with meaning, goes with purpose, goes with creativity, goes with playfulness, and goes with connection to oneself, to one's partners, families, and to the world, to the politics of the world.

And I think much of what you will hear from me, comes from this source. This is probably what has influenced the most. How I think, how I look at the world, what I do and so forth.

So, in this effort to create truthful conversations, I have just completed one of my most creative projects besides the book that is coming out which is a new audio series, a podcast that is called "Where Should We Begin. " And as it is, it was launched in the U. S.

yesterday evening. So I thought here's what I want to do. I wanna play you a couple of clips.

You're the first, that's it, the baby is born. It's on Audible, it's on iTunes. It's co-produced with Audible and Amazon.

It's 10 unscripted episodes of 10 anonymous onetime couples counseling sessions. And so when people wanna know what do I do, what happens in my office, this is probably the closest I can ever bring you into the four walls of the room where I spend many, many hours. And as you will see, sometimes when you listen in on the private intimate conversations of other couples which we never have access to, because we all think we are alone in this one and couples are often isolated islands, you will realize that often listening in on others puts you in front of your own mirror.

And that when you are in front of your own mirror, when you listen to others, sometimes you will find in their words the vocabulary that you need for some of the conversations that you want to have. So, allow me to introduce you to "Where should we begin. " When you pick a partner you pick a story, and often, you will be recruited for a play that you didn't audition for.

Woman: I told her I didn't know it was gonna be like this that once we had a child that I would be like downgraded because it's now like all about the kids. Esther: What's it like to be someone's disappointment for 20-something years? Man: Time.

Woman: "Where should we begin with Esther Perel? " is an Audible Original series bringing you into the office of the iconic relationship therapist as she counsels real couples on modern love. Esther: You can both tell me all kinds of things, and I can listen to each of you.

I'm married to none of you, so it's very easy. But you need to reach each other. Woman: These 10 anonymous couples have chosen to share their most intimate and unscripted conversations.

Woman: I was going to the bathroom, and I was burying my face in the towel and biting it and howled even cried, frustrated. Woman: Esther helps each couple put words to things they felt, but didn't quite know how to say. Man: Sometimes I treat you poorly because I see him as an extension of.

. . Woman: Him is not here, you are here.

Man: Because I see you as an extension of me. Esther: Together we gonna aim for a different conversation, different exchange. Man: Okay.

How do I do? Woman: I will try to help you. Woman: So, where should we begin?

Esther: One of the things that I try to say is that when I work on sexuality, I'm actually much more interested in working on eroticism than on how people come to experience this thing called the Act of Sex. Because many people and women for sure for centuries have you done this act and felt nothing. I'm interested in the experience, in the meaning of it, in the beauty of it, in the poetics of it.

So I often say, "Sex isn't just something that we do, sex is a place we go. " And so where do you go in sex, what parts of you do you connect with? What is it that you try to express there?

In this couple, basically has been really stuck around the doing of it. And the doing and the performing of it hasn't really worked so well for them. And so here is what I say to them.

Man: I do feel like all of our conversations you get very defensive that like I'm trying to say something negative about you, but I'm not. I'm trying to just tell you sort of my view on it. It doesn't mean it's right, it's just what I feel.

Esther: So here's the way you can tweak that. She already told you, "I was doing something that didn't feel good, but I was doing it for you. " So when you talk to her, include that neither you liked it nor I liked it, and then it becomes a "we" statement.

That's what I mean by integrating the experience of the other. And then she can do the same, you know, here I was trying to be nice and to please you, little did I know that that wasn't even what you wanted. And then you can say, "That's not the woman I remember so that she doesn't have to say that's not who I am.

" And then it's less polarized, then you're not talking from the extremes. The minute you put yourself on the extreme, the other person will defend themselves. Woman: What do I have to do different in the way I communicate?

What do I have to do different. . .

Esther: . . .

that's a beautiful question, first of all. Man: I wish that you would hopefully just kind of listen to what I'm saying without immediately feeling like I'm attacking you, because I promised it's not my intention with whatever I'm saying to be attacking, I'm just trying to tell you my viewpoint. Woman: But I think I do.

. . Woman: She just caught herself, good.

It's very rare that I just make a blanket statement like this. Your communication is terrible. Woman: I never knew that.

I thought we're really good. Esther: That doesn't mean as a whole, but this thing that I'm watching here is at the root of a lot of what happens and happened. Woman: Is that because we're coming from different backgrounds and view things differently?

Esther: I don't know how much I would put it on culture. As much I would put it on your family cultures and your experiences that you had. I do see that it wasn't good for both of you and that conversation needs to take place, not what was wrong, but how you changed this, how you learned sexual communication.

Woman: I just cannot do that anymore. Case closed sexually like I just can't, some things shut done. Esther: So here's the idea, I don't know what your relationship is like sexually, but I have a sense for both of you.

It's been massively outcome-driven, rather unimaginative, too fast for both of you and unsatisfying. It's terrible to be with the man who you feel is only pleasing himself and it's terrible to be with a woman who you feel is just giving you pity sex. So, no matter what's gonna happen, the first thing is touch.

How you touch each other, how you stroke each other, how you kiss each other and zero outcome, that's plenty of outcome. Woman: But isn't those things supposed to happen naturally? Why is it.

. . ?

Esther: Where the hell did you learn that bs. Good. And for all of you who were not in the workshop and want to stay informed on this or want to actually also get the other episode, because they're not all out yet.

Just come up to me with your little piece of paper and your email, and I'll make sure you hear it. What I'm trying to say is this, why am I interested in sexuality? Because in every culture, in every era, sex is pretty much the window through which you can look at some of the most archaic, rooted, deep values of a society of its treatment to women, to children, to power dynamics, to privilege, to double standards all of it.

And in every culture, sex is also the window through which the most radical progressive changes take place. Tell me about you sexually, and I know a lot about who you are as a person. Tell me about this relationship, and we'll know a lot and so forth.

From the micro to the macro, this thing called sexuality, it's a lens, it's not an act. And the notion that say relationships start passionate and they just have one way to go and that's down is also a fallacy. We should have a day just to debunk all the myths and all the misconceptions by which we often think about these things.

A lot of people, sexuality and the connection and the intimacy improves when their sense of self-worth improves. When they feel better about themselves, when they accept themselves more, when they are less riddled with shame, it's all of that that goes into the experience. And because we live in a performance-driven industrialized place, we really would like to be able to quantify sex.

How many orgasm, how hard, how long, how many pills and all of that rather than understand that the erotic is a beautiful radiant interlude that is massively unproductive. It has no numbers, you can't measure it, it's a state of being. And that in order to be able to have that experience around the erotic, what we need today is a level of relational intelligence.

And why is this so important? You know, 10, 15 years ago if I went to a company to work on the relationships in the company, it usually was because there was a crisis, and it was called the soft skills. Nobody cared a great deal about this as long as it could help with the bottom line.

But everything has shifted to an economy of service so is marriage, by the way, an economy of service. We want an experiencing marriage. We want to feel connected, we want to feel known, we want to feel seen, we want to feel a sense of purpose, we want to feel special.

If that ain't service, what is? So we are completely in an economy of service and experience. And for that, we need relational intelligence.

We need to understand the basics of how we connect to others, how we respect others, how we share our values, how we trust them, how we let them trust us, how we can dream with them all of those major pieces that have come to be known as relational intelligence. It's not the tasks that you accomplish, it's how you attend to the many other things around you while you are attending to the task, very different. And the good thing about intelligence is that you can cultivate it.

Some of us have a better sensibility about it, but we can really all cultivate it. So can we get the lights on all of you? And I'll play you one of the little clip, which I think.

. . do we have another one of these?

See, you two don't have a problem loving each other, you know, you have this elephant that's been between the two of you for a long time with a complete over-focus on your performance, on the erectile difficulties, you know, and all these ugly words that are completely shaming and emasculating. And you know the word emasculating does not exist in the feminine, that's a plague for men. So change the language, because it is crippling.

And it's as if you don't have a whole body as we make love with the whole body, and a lot of other parts of us, not just with our genitals. If you stay focused on those damn genitals, not much is gonna happen simply because it's reductionistic and rather boring, and plus you can't rely on them. But you can rely on your hand, you can rely on your smell, you can rely on your skin, you can rely on your hair, you can rely on your voice, you can rely on your smile, on your eyes.

My God, there is a lot of instruments in this orchestra. And you're gonna learn a question that was never asked to you as a child, what would you like. I don't think that was a question that was part of the family vocabulary.

Man: No, no. Esther: And so it's a little awkward to say, "I like" or "I would like" or "this feels good". This is gonna be called the Therapy of Indulgence.

How do we learn to indulge, to experience pleasure for its own sake? I asked this to him, because yesterday we were talking tell me how you were loved, and I will tell you how you make love? And when you have this man and he comes from a family where they sat at the table and they ate and nobody said a word, and nobody asked him ever, "What do you like?

" Because that wasn't part of what was important in their upbringing. It is clear that that lack of knowledge about himself, that lack of permission that he gives himself has entered his body and lives under his skin and has become one of the major themes. It is not for everybody to have a therapy of indulgence.

Some people have been massively indulgent then it's time that they start thinking about others. So when you ask me, "What are the success markers, what are the specific things people need to do? " I think that the important thing is to not think that there is a list out there.

You know, somebody asked me once, "You know, do you do a therapy where you give homework, do you let people feel? " And I said, "For some people, it's time to get off their butt and to do homework and get into action, but other people have been running around and moving and doing all the time and it's time that they sit down and think for a moment and let themselves feel. " The same when you ask what makes for a good relationship.

For some people, it's the ability to, for the first time, focus on themselves. For other people, it's the ability to finally step out of themselves and focus on someone else. For some people, it's the ability of transforming shame into guilt, so that they're not so focused on how bad they feel about themselves so that they can finally feel bad for how the other person is feeling, and take responsibility for it if needed.

For some people, it's about becoming more thoughtful, for other people it's about becoming more vocal. For other people, it's about shutting up for a change. What happens these days is that we really often want steps, and steps is a finite number because past seven we're usually glazed.

And I don't have seven steps for a happy life. But we all understand at this point that our attention is being hacked, our brains are becoming more fragmented and distracted. We are not paying enough attention to what's literally in front of us often because of this, and that we need to detox from all kinds of things including the digital one.

And from that place, you ask yourself how am I doing in the department of my relationships, not just your intimate relationships, in general, with your parents, your family, your siblings, your friends, how am I doing? How much have I attended to that part of my life, and how much am I attending to other success markers of my life? And what have I done and am I showing up?

Is there somebody I've been meaning to call for umpteen days, because I know they're sick and every day I forget? And hold yourself to task and don't feel bad about yourself when you hold yourself to task, just realize that you need to create agency and action towards it. And if every one of us lives these days that we are here and we actually elevate our sense of accountability.

Relationship accountability is going through some difficulty these days. Why? Because we have this thing, and with this thing, I can ghost you on the spot, disappear, gone.

You don't exist anymore. An hour ago, I was sending you 150 of them, now gone. That ghosting experience we've always been rejected, but this one is really topping.

And then if we don't do the ghosting, many of us do the simmering version. It'd be great to get together someday, I'm super busy, I'm gonna be traveling for the next month. But when I come back, we shall meet.

And then we have the icing version, which is just an up version of the simmering. I really enjoyed meeting you. I'm not sure that I'm ready for anything more in my life at this point, but I would love when I'm ready to get back to you.

And all these versions of accountability, or lack thereof, are fantastic because they are often summarized in what my friend and colleague Terry Real has begun to call a situation of stable ambiguity. Stable ambiguity is a situation that is completely connected to the digital relational revolution. It means just enough not to feel alone with some of the comforts of consistency, but certainly not too much to feel like I've lost my freedom and I am now committed and trapped.

Stable ambiguity, a little bit of that but not too much so that I don't have too much of the other. And in this space, many people go around with massive cases of FOMO and massive cases of. .

. Audience: Kiss kiss. Esther: And massive uncertainty that accompanies it.

It's a very interesting thing, right? More choice and more uncertainty and crippling self-doubt. How is it possible that we are going from one event to another to talk about confidence, and the relational doubts are all the time creeping up on us.

So for me, one of the things about success is not about hot and awesome, it's actually about more thoughtful about others and it's about a little bit more accountability. There are a lot of people who are accountable to the environment and not accountable to the right, the person, the flower, and the animal that is right next to them. It's great as an idea, it's poor as an action.

And you bring that home into your relationships, and you begin to own things. And you begin to be able to say when you know that you're doing stuff. When you know that you're asking in a way that guarantees that you're not gonna get, we are all very good at that.

And then complain that the other person isn't responding. And if you just go down one line after the other, and look at the things that you could improve on, small, don't make big promises, small in the moment, you come back and you just say "That wasn't cool, I could have done this a little better. I know that this is a tough day for you, I didn't have to have another fit right now.

" Something that just says I see myself through your eyes, and I know what I have just done and tried to get away with. We do that, we will probably improve our relationships by a lot. You follow me?

How many of you does this speak to you? Okay. From there, if you wanna top up the temperature, you can, but that's a different story.

So give the person next to you not what you want them to give to you. Typically, we give to the other person that which we want them to give to us but that's not, give to them that which they want, which may often be uncomfortable. We're not the measuring stick.

And all kinds of things like that. And these messages for me are the things that I began to tell my boys from the moment they could understand. They grew up with these ideas.

The same way that some people always taught their children when somebody walks into the house, you first want to give them water or something to drink, welcome them. It's that mentality, so I'm more about the mentality, I'm more about the ethics of relationship than I am about tips and tricks. And for some of you that may be exactly what you like and for others that may have something lacking.

I'm well aware of that, but I'm gonna resist the temptation of telling you this is good, and this helps and all of that. I think if you get this idea, you will actually feel more empowered and more free. What is self-esteem?

It is the ability to see ourselves as flawed individuals and still hold ourselves in high regard. It's anything but perfection. So welcome your flaws, people.

And now if you could turn to the person next to you, and instead of telling them how great and awesome you are, you could tell them one little flaw that you struggle with, we would make the world a more humble place.