Sex, Love and Parenthood Part Three

SEX, LOVE AND PARENTHOOD PART THREE
THE FAMILY GROOVE FINISHES UP ITS LIFE-CHANGING THREE-PART
INTERVIEW WITH WORLD-RENOWNED AUTHOR ESTHER PEREL. HERE
PEREL TALKS WOMEN'S LIBERATION, WHY DADS LOSE THEIR MOJO
AND HOW TO FILL THE WIDE OPEN SPACES OF YOUR MARRIAGE.

TFG: Women have reached some level of liberation, but we just haven't reached equality.
Until we reach that kind of sexual equality in which the shackles of these institutions are
removed, we won't have liberation, true equality or even
true happiness.
EP: The equality doesn't get established only in the household. The equality also comes from
having a social system that provides the necessary conditions for women to be able to do what they need to do.

TFG: True. It's still a patriarchically-geared society. If it were reversed, and the men were experiencing this lack of freedom, I am sure there would be more help out there. So speaking of men, how do we help dads get into their groove? As you talk about in your book, often times it's the mom who gets into a rut, but sometimes it's the dads who are feeling overwhelmed by the changes, financial burden.
EP: The communities in this country that have more sex, in terms of frequency, are religious communities (Mormons, Orthodox Jews) and working classes. It's actually not the urban professionals or suburban professionals who are high potential-earning people because those people have become too achievement-driven. You can't measure eroticism. It's not productive and it doesn't exist in the ream of the pragmatic. It's something that doesn't raise your status. And I think that there is a divide between high-achievement individuals who want to make it and those who are able to do things that don't have a result attached to it. The former sabotages the whole idea of pleasure and playfulness on a basic level and also in the realm of sexuality. These men no longer play for play's sake-which has no other purpose than its own. Play is not about enhancing yourself; it's just about having a good time and discovering.

I think that what happens to the fathers is that they are often even more caught up with the mandate of responsibility, of providing, of succeeding, competing and all of those things. It is also important for them to be given back the permission to play. What you see with the fathers is that they've lost the capacity to play in every aspect of their lives—like when they're standing on the sidelines of the kids' games and turn the whole thing into another competitive zone. Leave the kids alone and let them play their games. They want to have a good time. For a lot men, there is an attack on playfulness that is so widespread that it permeates what happens in the bedroom.

So, when people talk about sex—why isn't it happening?—They are talking about the statistics of sex. We are trying to reduce it to a crunching of numbers: how often and how long? We no longer look at the erotic as something that eludes quantification. When people complain about the listlessness of their sex life, they sometimes want more, but they always want better. What they long for is the playfulness, the renewal, the connection that sex used to afford them. They long for that aliveness, the vibrancy, that vitality that the erotic is about. So they start to experience family life as a place where they often feel some kind of deadness. And you can begin to imagine all kinds of acts of exuberant defiance. They go outside because they want attention. They want somebody who pays them the kind of attention that they used to have.

relationship TFG: We need a socio-cultural paradigm shift. How do we stop our children from learning this? I suppose part of it is that you can change yourself and they will learn, but are there also words we can use? How do we teach our children about sex and sexuality so that their generation isn't a victim of this oppressive consciousness.
EP: For a while when I had young children, I was looking at books for four-to-seven-year-olds to use to talk to them about sexuality. It was always remarkable how few American books ever described sexuality as anything except the anatomy. Not many of them actually spoke about it as an expression of care and love and connection. The French books always did that. And I'm not talking about esoteric French books, I am talking about the ones that every second person has in their houses. It was a straight model, yes, of when a man and a woman love each other, they want to reach out, they want to kiss each other and touch each other and it provides them pleasure and it makes them feel close. It was a related view of sexuality. It wasn't about organs. Today, what we have here in America is a tendency that is growing toward health education rather than sex education. We have schools that are willing to talk about drugs and alcohol, but not about sex. When, in fact, much more of the acting out is tied into drugs and alcohol-when there are drugs and alcohol, there is sex. There is a growing silence and a fear that because of the ubiquity of sex-it's all around us—that not talking about it would be protecting children. People think that hiding adult sexuality is protecting children. This is a country, the only western one, that doesn't have a public health policy on adolescent sexuality. Americans see sex as a risk factor. The European countries think that the real risk factor is in being irresponsible, but not sex, per se.

TFG: How much of a problem is the lack of eroticism in other countries?
EP: My book is sold in 13 countries so far, so there is something universal about how people reconcile the erotic and the domestic, but I still believe that there are attitudes about sexuality that are different between the United States and other countries. There is a Puritanical legacy that family life is a place in which you work, you save, you plan. There is a soberness here. It's not a place for fun, adventure or playfulness. That's not what you do here-certainly not sexually. To bring the adventure home is the challenge. It's a challenge to not to think that you'll be a lesser parent if you seek out adventure with your partner.

I think many of us grew up with parents who dressed up on Saturday nights to go out. I remember that when they were dressed up and they were going out, they were not mom and dad. They had a different energy and a very clear boundary: now we have our time and our space. And I don't think that it had to do with how adventurous they were sexually, but they were capable of maintaining an erotic space between them. A space to feel alive, vital, connected and pleasure-that's what I mean by the erotic. Animals have sex, but only human beings have the erotic. Eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. Therefore, the anticipation, the longing and the playful are the key ingredients of the erotic. It is not just about having sex. If you just plan to have sex, then it often becomes another task on your list. You need to think of it in anticipation, as something to look forward to—like the woman in my book who talks about putting the Barbie dolls aside and taking off the t-shirt with the spit-up and becoming this other person again.

TFG: A lot of people plan for a drink at the end of the day. They build up to it all day long. They could be putting all that energy and intention into some time with their partner.
EP: A drink can often be an introduction, but it doesn't have be the destination. It is true that the transition for the beleaguered mother, the mother who tries to do it all alone in her nuclear, isolated domestic unit, is much more difficult then if she had ten other people in her neighborhood helping her out. Therefore, planning isn't five minutes of foreplay. Planning is thinking that there is going to be a time when you don't have to cook or clean—somebody else is going to do it for you-once in a while. And if you can't experience it in your own house, then leave your house. And if you can't experience it at night, then every blue moon, stay home for an hour after breakfast with your partner or meet him for lunch. when you both are all dressed up and still awake. It's amazing how many lunch dates we have with other people, but never with our own partners.

TFG: At what point were you able to get your space back?
EP: It was earlier for me because I had an awareness. I had seen so many couples who had grown apart during this time in life. People who would say I feel loved, but it's been so long since I've felt wanted. And so, I was hyper-diligent about it. I made sure very early on that we would go out. We had periods in which suddenly we would fade out, but then we'd look at each other and say it's time to have a date. I would make sure that I had a babysitter for the next morning, too, and sometimes for the weekend. It's the weekends that are often the hardest. Many people have help during the week while they are working. I also understood that my childcare was there to help me—not to be in the park playing with my kids while I was doing all the errands. When my first son was born 13 years ago, I was conducting workshops, "When Two Become Three." It was all about couple preservation. I had met many couples afterward and I'd ask them what was helpful—because I was also trying to help myself. They always commented on the different ways of thinking about help. The help is for the mother-period. Why should the help be there just to take care of the child one-on-one. Do you know what a waste of resources that is? But in individualistic America, everybody has to be self-reliant and this one-for-one becomes the norm. I created a balance. From the moment they were one year old, we went away on vacation alone together. My children would stay with my parents and I would remember why I was with this man, what we had in common. There would be a day or two when we were checking the messages and thinking about home, but slowly we would find each other again. You have to check in with each other: How are you? What's been up with you? What are you dreaming about these days? What are the things that we'd like to do in life? If we could have a whole other life, what would it be like? You have to dream together. You have to imagine possibilities together rather than experience mating in captivity.

Need a Part One refresher? Click here.

Need a Part Two refresher? Click here.

For more from Esther, go to www.estherperel.com.

To pick up a copy of this life-changing book, click here.

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