RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: The closer the couple, the better the sex? Not so Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:50 pm | |
| New York: where the therapy and self-improvement industry is as booming a business as finance or fashion, and throwing thousands of dollars at emotional issues is the norm. Whether all the sharing and soul-baring is actually efficacious, however, is another question entirely.
"I kept seeing people coming out of couples therapy, and everything else in their relationship had improved, but nothing had changed in the bedroom," says Esther Perel, herself a couples therapist in Manhattan.
Received wisdom teaches that intimacy and openness lead to satisfyingsex, yet Perel was witnessing plenty of low libidos and sexless marriages even among the closest of couples. "It led me to begin an exploration of the nature of erotic desire in long-term relationships," she says. The result of her explorations was a book, Mating in Captivity, and a somewhat counterintuitive conclusion: that intimacy can often impede desire, and closeness, rather than fanning the flames, can quash the sexual spark.
An uncomfortable proposition though that may be for anyone in a long-term relationship, the book, published seven years ago, rapidly became a bestseller and catapulted Perel into the public spotlight. She has become the go-to speaker on sexuality and marriage at conferences and festivals across the world, and her TED talk on the topic last year received a million hits in its first week, and more than four million to date.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/family-relationships-and-sex/the-closer-the-couple-the-better-the-sex-not-so-20140602-39cy4.html |
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