Mating in Captivity
A bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex in modern romance
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4.6 • 64 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
"Esther Perel is magic..."- Steven Bartlett
"She really blows me away." - Oprah Winfrey
"The key to a sexy marriage" - Glamour
"Thank heavens for this woman" - Lena Dunham
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The phenomenal international bestseller, now updated with a new Foreword.
World-renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel looks at the story of sex in committed couples, exploring the complex interplay between love and desire in long-term relationships. Can we desire what we already have? What does it take to keep lust alive?
Drawing on over thirty years' experience counselling couples, Perel reconciles the erotic with the domestic, offering practical insights and advice for reigniting the spark that may have faded over time. Through case studies and lively discussion, Perel shows us how we can foster and unlock the key to more exciting, playful and even poetic sex in long-term relationships.
Smart, witty and explosively original, Mating in Captivity will transform the way you live and love.
"She's the guru on relationships" - Cara Delevingne
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Developed originally from an article she wrote on "erotic intelligence," psychotherapist Perel's first book sets forth a thesis for today's couples that is as revelatory as it is straightforward. Languishing desire in a relationship actually results from all the factors people look for in love and marriage: grounding, meaning, continuity. Partnerships are supposed to provide "a bulwark against the vicissitudes of modern life," Perel notes, and in one person we turn for all the emotional connections that the greater society (church, community, family) can no longer provide. Habit and certainty kill desire, yet how to live comfortably with the elements of unpredictability and risk that are necessary for healthy eroticism? Perel supports her nicely accessible work with case studies of couples both heterosexual and gay, spanning all ages, with kids and without, in an attempt to cure what ails their sex life. Some of the proposals Perel recommends for rekindling eroticism involve cultivating separateness (e.g., autonomy) in a relationship rather than closeness (entrapment); exploring dynamics of power and control (i.e., submission, spanking); and learning to surrender to a "sexual ruthlessness" that liberates us from shame and guilt. In short, Perel sanctions fantasy and play and offers the estranged modern couple a unique richness of experience.
