Esther Perel Quotes About Sexuality

Quotes about: Sexuality

• Our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction.

  Esther Perel

  Fall, Doe, Assuming

  FaceBook post by Esther Perel from Mar 14, 2013

• One of the big misconceptions is that affairs or trysts are flings about sex. And sometimes they are, but much more often they are about desire. And that is very different. The desire to feel special, to feel seen, to feel appreciated, to be laughed at or with. The desire to be desired. That does not manifest in a sexual act per se. Affairs make you feel alive. Alchemy means it's not about the actual sex, but the sexuality, the energy, the aura. It's the imagination and anticipation of it as much or instead of the actual experience of it.

  Esther Perel

  Mean, Imagination, Special

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it’s inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation.

  Esther Perel

  Children, Kids, Responsibility

• At the same time, eroticism in the home requires active engagement and willful intent. It is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play; and that passion is for teenagers and the immature. We must unpack our ambivalence about pleasure, and challenge our pervasive discomfort with sexuality, particularly in the context of family. Complaining of sexual boredom is easy and conventional. Nurturing eroticism in the home is an act of open defience.

  Esther Perel

  Teenager, Passion, Home

• Real sexual conversations are enormously intimate and beautiful because they reveal so much about who we are and what we want. What are the emotional needs we bring to our sexuality and how do we connect to ourselves and connect to a partner? There's such a rich tapestry that can be revealed, but the vast majority of couples have never had those talks.

  Esther Perel

  Beautiful, Couple, Real

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• Secrecy fuels erotic intensity because it makes you feel like you're doing something that is entirely yours. It gives you the sense of autonomy, the sense of freedom, and the sense of sovereignty. And then you add to that the sexual energy. In many affairs, people will tell you they slept with the person three or four times, but the story went on for months. That's an important thing because many people who have affairs often have very good sexual relationships at home. It's not necessarily a compensation story. But affairs offer a different sexuality with a different context.

  Esther Perel

  Home, People, Giving

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Today, our sexuality is an open-ended personal project; it is part of who we are, an identity, and no longer merely something we do.

  Esther Perel

  Identity, Who We Are, Today

  Esther Perel (2009). “Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence”, p.8, Harper Collins

• I say no to a double standard that men can roam and women must stay put at home. I say no to the fact that men are allowed to claim their sexuality and women just have to pretend that it doesn't matter to them. It's resisting poor relational arrangements. An affair is a way of saying, "No. I'm not playing by the rules." And sometimes betrayal is part of that because you deceive somebody else but you feel like you are, for the first time, being honest with yourself. Sometimes when people have affairs, they feel like they have been lying to themselves for years.

  Esther Perel

  Betrayal, Lying, Home

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• For some people, the experience of sexuality is that they are entirely inside their body, but others feel they have totally transcended the physical boundaries of their body. Transcendence is the ability to no longer feel you are contained within the physical world. For many people, the definition of spiritual is a sense of complete abdication of the self. For some people, it's union with another that transcends the borders between where one stops and where the other person starts and creates a sense of infiniteness and timelessness.

  Esther Perel

  Spiritual, People, World

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of intimacy and sexuality. The object of my game is to bring nonjudgmental, multicultural understanding to the challenges and choices of modern relationships.

  Esther Perel

  Games, People, Choices

• One of the most amazing abilities of sexuality is to momentarily transcend the borders of Self into something that is no longer defined by physical property and that is utterly unique. It's really what many call a religious experience.

  Esther Perel

  Religious, Unique, Most Amazing

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• Many couples have never had a conversation about sexuality and sexual boundaries. The presence or lack of sex, the quality of it, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the unmet needs. An affair upsets the status quo by not only bringing the subject of sexuality to the forefront but every other aspect of their relationship as well. An affair yields conversation that should have happened in the beginning, but that people were afraid to have because, well, what would that mean about their relationship?

  Esther Perel

  Couple, Mean, People

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

• People grow up learning to be silent about their sexuality, so where are they going to learn to talk about it when they are in a relationship? Shame, guilt, ignorance, reservation, prudishness, all kinds of different cultural systems and social stereotypes shroud sexuality in secrecy and in silence. And there's the romantic notion. "If I say in the beginning, that I am missing something, you are instantly going to think that means you are not enough."

  Esther Perel

  Growing Up, Ignorance, Mean

  "The Deeper Reasons Why People Have Affairs". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. October 20, 2017.

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