Program: Esther Perel will change how you think about intimacy

Yumi
I've never met Beyonce, but if I did, I don't think I'd have anything to say to her besides thank you, Queen. It's a bit the same meeting Esther Perel. She is a legend, a thinker and a game changer when it comes to couples' psychotherapy. Her book, Mating in Captivity, reset the scene for what couples should expect from each other with a fat dose of humanity mixed with reality. Her genuine curiosity about others is part of what makes her so good at what she does. This chat with Esther Perel about intimacy, something that we all long for but can hardly even define, is a classic from the archives of Ladies We Need to Talk.

Esther
Sex can be intimate and sex cannot be intimate. Those are two different things. You can have sex that is deeply intimate and highly connecting and that tells a story beyond the act itself. And you can have a sexual encounter that is deeply intimate but it doesn't go any further than the encounter itself in the moment. And you can have sex that is not at all that intimate.

Yumi
We've talked about sex, we've talked about porn, we've talked about what it's like to hate your own partner, but for me, one of the last frontiers, one of the things that we really need to better understand, to learn the language of, and of course, ladies to talk about, is intimacy.

Esther
Is intimate the fact that you have bodies mixing and merging together? For some people that is considered deeply intimate, it's a union, it's a spiritual connection, it's sort of, for other people, it's fun and playful.

Yumi
What even is intimacy? And when we think we're craving sex, is what we're actually wanting intimacy?

Esther
What makes this encounter intimate is I care about your pleasure. I care about your experience. I'm checking in with you. I'm not just masturbating with another body. 

Yumi
Yes, intimacy can be about physical closeness, the touch of a hand, a sexual act that you share with a loved one, simply sitting a little nearer to one another on the couch than you need to. But intimacy can also be entirely intellectual, as it's a feeling based on closeness, understanding and trust. Now, lots of us feel like there's a lack of intimacy in our partnerships. So how can we get more of this elusive elixir? Someone who knows all about relationship intimacy is internationally renowned relationships expert, psychotherapist Esther Perel. And before we get into it, Esther Perel is kind of a big deal. I posted a photo of the two of us sitting together on the couch for this interview, and more people have asked me about that than any other photo I've posted in years. What was Esther like? Did you really meet Esther Perel? Is she amazing? Well, the answer is yes. We meet her in her hotel and it's a brilliant sunny day, like an ad for Sydney. She's there with a publicist and members of her family. And you can tell she's busy and important and in demand. But when Esther enters the room, it's all OK. My producer Alex and I are immediately put at ease. Hi. Hi. I'm Alex. Nice to meet you. Nice to see you. She's warm, she's ready and she wants to engage. I'm Yumi Steins. Ladies, we need to talk about intimacy with Esther Perel. Esther Perel, thanks again for talking to Ladies, We Need to Talk. Welcome to the show. My pleasure. I'm happy to be back. I wanted to talk about intimacy with you. I think a lot of us don't understand what it means. What actually is intimacy?

Esther
So I think that probably a way to start is to say that intimacy means different things in different cultures and in different eras in history. We had a long tradition of intimacy that really meant sharing everyday life together. We worked the land together, we raised the children, we had family life. This convivencia, this living together was called intimacy. Intimacy moved through its romantic interpretations into me now sharing with you not just my time, my tasks, but my inner life, my feelings, my worries, my anxieties, my dreams, my aspirations. I am going to talk to you and I want you to really listen to me and to make me feel seen and heard. I want you to validate me and I want you to reflect back to me. I want through this communicative experience to transcend my existential aloneness. And this new definition of intimacy I like to call into me see. And that's very different. So we tend to think about relationships as intimate relationships and they generally mean that they include this kind of sharing, this kind of exposing of my inner life to you and vice versa. Today we have really brought it at the center of our committed relationships. We want this kind of intimacy, but too often we reduce it to talking. And that means that it often becomes a certain kind of feminization of intimacy. We define it in feminine terms, sharing, talking, rather than sometimes the body speaks. And that also is a form of intimacy. So if we're going to put intimacy at the center of our relationships today, we shouldn't just be monolingual. We should be at least bilingual. And that means body and words.

Yumi
Right. And when you say into me see, it's not just see my secrets or see my deepest fears. It's, you know, see something that you know makes me laugh or understand a spot on me that's tickly and if you touch it, I will laugh. 

Esther
Yes, absolutely. You recognise me. You see me. You know me. Into me see means you know me. I feel known by you. And this I feel known by you makes me feel less alone next to you.

Yumi
A lot of us do feel very alone. And is that because of the lack of intimacy in our lives? Is that too big a question? 

Esther
No, I think it's an amazing question. I think if you're going to talk about intimacy, you could say that the opposite of it is the feeling of being alone. But the interesting part about modern loneliness is that it's not just about being socially isolated. It's often about actually being next to the person that you're supposed to not feel alone with and experiencing them kind of semi-present and semi-absent. You know, scrolling away on social while you're sitting next to them and you're not really sure are you there or are you gone? Am I talking to you really? And are you really answering me or are you doing uh-huh? You know, that uh-huh thing that just says keep talking, but I'm not really listening to what you're saying. And there is that little delay, that lag that lets you know that the person isn't fully attentive. That makes people feel very alone. I'm sharing something important with you. I want to have a connection with you and you're somewhere else. That's the opposite of intimacy too.

Yumi
Have you noticed, I guess in your work, in your touring, in your extensive speaking engagements that a lot of people don't know what intimacy is?

Esther
I think that intimacy is a word that is being used in many, many different ways. For example, I want you to know what I want without having to tell you is a kind of a distortion of intimacy, right? It's like you should just know. I shouldn't have to tell you. And if I have to tell you or if I have to ask, it diminishes what you're going to give me because you should have guessed. So this notion, this hyper-romantization of being known, so known that I don't even have to tell you who I am, that's a problem of intimacy. Sometimes you have to tell people, no, that is not intimacy. On the other hand, sometimes intimacy is tell me what you think. I have a right to know what you think, what you feel. Like I have a right to have admittance into your inner life rather than no, no, it's an invitation. It doesn't come upon demand. It's something that people invite you, they open up and they say, come visit my neighbourhood. You know, but these days we think that we are entitled to it and that you owe me and that you owe me to know what goes on inside of you rather than maybe I wait and slowly you unfold in front of me and you open up as you feel more trusting, as you feel more appreciative of me, as you experience my curiosity and not my anxiety about the fact that I should know what you think because otherwise I feel alone and I feel unsettled. And so intimacy is actually a screen to look at a lot of other issues that people bring into their intimate relationships.

Yumi
What's the difference between intimacy and sex or intimacy and physical touch?

Esther
Affectionate touch. Let's be clear. Not all physical touch are intimate. Affectionate touch can be very intimate. First of all, if I get to touch you, I get to come close to you. I have an entry and I get to put my hand on you. That is a crossing of a certain boundary. And if you welcome it, then we have a connection. That connection is intimate. We do it with our babies. We do it with our friends. We do it with sometimes total strangers with whom we are experiencing a deep moment of connection. Intimacy is not predicated on knowing people for a long time. You can have moments of intimacy sitting in an airport where everybody is stranded. You know, intimacy is an experience. It's not a structure. That's a very important distinction to make. So you can have intimate moments just being in queue to the movies with somebody where you have a recognition of something, a complicity. You have a shared understanding, a shared humor. All of those are intimate moments. Sex can be intimate and sex cannot be intimate. Those are two different things. You can have sex that is deeply intimate and highly connecting. And that tells a story beyond the act itself. And you can have a sexual encounter that is deeply intimate, but it doesn't go any further than the encounter itself in the moment. And you can have sex that is not at all that intimate. So depends what you call intimate. Is intimate the fact that you have bodies mixing and merging together? For some people that is considered deeply intimate, it's a union, it's a spiritual connection, etc. For other people, it's fun and playful and they may experience it as intimate. So then the question becomes, is intimacy something you can measure or is intimacy something that is experienced by the person themselves? And only they can tell you if it was intimate or not.

Yumi
OK, I had an experience this morning. So I was at my exercise class and the instructor said, do this with your arms. So we had to rotate them in opposites. And I could see just out of the corner of my eye, an almost friend, you know, when you're not quite friends, but you know each other by name, you have a chat. And he couldn't get his arms to do the right thing. And I caught his eye and we both laughed. And I thought that was a very enjoyable little moment that we shared. That doesn't mean anything like it's not a sexual thing. It's an intimate moment. But it was a little intimate moment. So that counts.

Esther
Of course, because I know that you know that I know that you know. I see that you struggle and you know that I see that you struggle, but you smile at it together and we could have made into a big fuss. But instead, we made it into something sweet and amusing. That's deeply intimate. It's a whole communication. It's maybe a 10 second thing. But so much was conveyed between two people in those 10 seconds. And that's a lot of intimacy in that.

Yumi
And a lot of joy. And I'm glad that that's OK. You know, intimacy is not always solemn. No.

Esther
Humour is a deep form of intimacy. Yeah. Actually, shared sense of reality, complicity with all those things. You know, gazes. You can have intimacy that is just purely the gaze. I see you that you see me and we both noticed it. Did you notice? Yes, I did. Those moments of connection are often very intimate moments.

Yumi
One of the things that's come up in our podcast, because we speak to so many young women, is that the sex they're having is often hook up sex. It's outside of a relationship and it exists without intimacy. Can it be satisfying to have a sexual connection without an intimacy that you share with the other person?

Esther
You can have a sexual encounter with someone that is intimate in the moment and it won't go beyond that. But what makes this encounter intimate is I care about your pleasure. I care about your experience. I'm checking in with you. I'm not just masturbating with another body. That's what changes it here. It's not that there is a plot that goes beyond the evening or the moment, you know, the exchange. The hookup is often disaffiliated. It's meant often to not be remembered, to put it like that. That doesn't mean that good recreational sex isn't intimate. There are people who have wonderful recreational sex that is perfectly intimate in the moment, and it's not meant to be beyond that. But for a lot of the young girls, I think the issue is this. It's not about is it hookup, is it intimate? It's that it is often not satisfying. It is very unsatisfying. And what does it mean unsatisfying? Doesn't just mean reaching orgasm. It's having the experience that someone delights in you, that someone is interested in you, that someone is curious about you, that you feel free to tell them, I like this. I would like a little more of that. This feels nice. This doesn't. Or I would like to stop for that matter. All of that is part of what makes the experience something that the next morning or the next whenever you say, I'm OK with this versus. What was that? You know, and if you have to be too drunk to even remember it the next day, you know, I always say to people, you don't seem to want to get drunk when you climb a mountain. You don't seem to want to get drunk when you're on your motorcycle. And you actually would like to remember it the next day because you hope that you can tell the story. If you need to be so checked out and out of it in order to get through with it, because of the next day, you don't have to feel so bad about yourself, then something is off. And the issue is not, is it recreational or is it a hook up? A nice fling is a nice fling, but you can have a lot of plot in a very short story. When it's plotless and then it becomes people-less and it's just a bunch of organs playing with each other, that leaves a lot of young girls empty. 

Yumi
Isn't that a shame? Well, do you have any ideas about what we can do about it?

Esther
I mean, there's a lot of things people can do about it, you know. First of all, is educate yourself. Educate yourself and know something about you and about your body and about how you breathe and how you move, how you like to be touched, how you like to touch. Don't just throw yourself in there, you know. And have a sense as to who you are in that experience. Sex isn't just something you do, it's a place you go. So where do you go inside of you? What do you seek to express there? Where do you want to be met? What do you like to experience in that moment? That, all those questions I find very important to ask every young girl. And then take your time. Take your time. Are you in the mood for this? Do you know what you're doing? Do you really want to be here? Do you feel that this person is actually interested in you for the good reasons? You know, all of that, rather than the pressure to perform. It's a whole performance industry that everybody joins in. Men as when, you know, they, them, her, she, every pronoun you want is into the performance industry rather than the pleasure industry. Pleasure is very different, you know, and that means that you also have to know yourself, that means that sex isn't always partnered. It's also with you. I think it's very different if you have queer sex. Two women together have very different experiences than most women with boys or men, because they know themselves more. So that's a whole other experience too. So sometimes it's about have a range of experiences, you know, but the main thing is ask yourself, what would I want now? How do I feel about being here? How much do I feel like I'm compromising? Like I'm foregoing a lot of things that are important to me just to conform to something, just to get through with this, just to let him finish because he's already so far along and all kinds of things like that, you know, and that means be more demanding in a way or deserving. And that comes with experience and age and maturity too. I don't expect a 20 year old to feel so deserving. Entitled. You know, in the good sense of the word, in the healthy sense of entitlement. But as a result, I say to the young girls, slow it down, you know, and if they can't wait or if they won't like you because you say not yet or not now or not this way, then you haven't lost a thing. No, that's so true. You haven't lost a thing.

Yumi
Back to the idea about intimacy. It still feels a bit sort of taboo or embarrassing to talk about intimacy in a relationship. I know not for you because you're very, very fluent in this stuff. 

Esther
I want to tell you a story of intimacy that I just heard today. So it's really on my mind. I did an episode on where should we begin on my podcast with friends because I really want us to extend the word intimacy beyond romantic relationships and especially into friendships or family relations. And I did this beautiful session with two young men in their early 20s. The story was basically one of them thought, I still like you more. I still want to be with you more, but you seem to have become so not needing of me anymore, less interested in our friendship. And this idea, you know, I still want us to be more together, but you don't want so much. That dance. Every two friends know this story. Anyway, I did a whole bunch of things with him. I don't remember every detail. I should go listen myself to the episode. But they both wrote me letters now a year later that I received last night and I read them this morning. And I just thought this is intimacy. This the way these two young men who had grown up together and spent so much time together and needed to find each other again. And he describes to me, you had said to us that we should meet four times a year and have a ritual together where we both say to each other, you still matter to me. You still my best friend, even if we're not in the same city and we're not. But we did the first two and then we couldn't keep up. And then I thought, oh, no. And then he says, because we began to see each other every month again. So we actually accelerated it because we reconnected with that deep sense of intimacy. And I just thought, oh, man, if I could do that with many, many other people. So friendship is intimate. That's a very important thing is people who've grown up with you, people who've seen you in your family, people who have seen you go through major crisis and major transitions. All of those things are intimate experiences.

Yumi
I heard that episode with the two friends. And one of the things that stood out was they had to be vulnerable, particularly the one who was saying, I want more. And that's, is that part of it? Do you have to be vulnerable? To be intimate with somebody?

Esther
Intimacy is vulnerable. It's not you have to be vulnerable to be intimate. Intimacy is vulnerable. We want to be known. And it's also scary to be known, because if you know me, will you still like me? That comes with the part. But vulnerability is what you experience when you feel exposed, when you allow somebody in. It's the opposite of defensive and walled off. So it's not you need this for that. Is that the experience of intimacy comes with vulnerability, comes with sensibility, comes with tenderness, comes with kindness, comes with a lot of other things, with humour, as you said, with mischief, with wit. All of these things are part of intimacy, not just vulnerability.

Yumi
Picture a married couple. I'm thinking a man and a woman. And it's been maybe a decade. There's a feeling of lost intimacy where we're coexisting. We're housemates. Can people come back from that to re-find their intimacy and how?

Esther
Yes, people can absolutely reconnect. I think relationships are continuously going through the dance of connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting. That's the rhythm. One, two, three, one, two, three. You know, so this is not. But sometimes the reconnection is, would you like me to bring you tea? I think John Gottman has a very good definition that he works with that he calls bids for connection. And those bids are where I turn toward you. And, you know, imagine you're telling me something that you read. That's an example he often uses. And I can just continue. Yeah. Uh-huh. And, uh, but by the way, did you get me the water? You know, and you have a full sense that you've been talking basically to the wind. But if instead I turn around and I say, tell me more, that seems really interesting. And then what happened? That is a bid for connection. Are these bids for connection intimate? Yes. In what sense for me, they make you feel that you matter. I think that what you want in a long-term relationship is not to have a feeling that you've become the couch. That is just in the room and that people walk around or on occasion sit on, but there's nothing that happens on the couch. And it's about how do you continue to let people know that you matter? So it's an amazing thing how often people ask anybody they meet, how are you? And it's an amazing thing how often people who live together do not ask each other, how are you? At best it's how was your day? And then if there are kids around, usually the answer is about the schmurfs and not about themselves. You know, it's all these small gestures that I'm so happy I'm waking up with you this morning or, you know, let's meet up this evening and go for a drink before we go home. Or can I pick up, can I do something for you? And here is a very interesting shift of intimacy. I assume I bring you coffee, tea, water, whatever. And you can say that's very nice that you brought me the coffee. That's a perfectly nice thing to say. But imagine instead that you say that's very thoughtful of you. That's a very different statement. The intimate statement is when I make a comment about you. The lesser intimate statement is when I make a comment about the gesture. So if we've been apart, you want those things. Thank you for doing this. Not because it's a good thing that you folded the laundry, but because I enjoy when you think of me and you know that I appreciate not having to do this task because somehow you hate it less than me.

Yumi
Esther, what happens when you're bidding for your partner's attention and they don't receive the bid? Sucks. 

Esther
Sucks. Yeah. And sometimes you do it again and sometimes you become frustrated and sometimes you start to become passive aggressive and sometimes you retaliate and sometimes you close up and shut down. Lots of things people do. You either become more explosive or more implosive. It's a very lonely thing. I mean, that is what people describe as loneliness in a relationship. I reach out. I make the overture. I ask the question. I do things for you. I do what is often called the emotional labor and you basically take it. Sometimes you actually take it. It's not even that you don't take it, but you don't do any of that yourself. I do all the initiating for making love. I do. It goes on and on. That is what brings a lot of people to therapy is that experience of loneliness, of being unloved, of being rejected, of feeling like they're doing it all. And then becomes a question. What do I do with this? You know, do I stay? Do I leave? Do I find other people who fill in that gap? Do I become a person who excuses my partner left and right because I find ways to explain why my partner can't do these things? Do I begin to check to ask myself if I want too much or I have a partner who tells me that I want too much, you know, on and on like this, that those are the issues of couples.

Yumi
Yeah, totally. And have you got a magic wand solution?

Esther
No, there is no one size fits all. By the time they come to me, this dynamic has gone on for a while. So they're not very nice. So the first thing you say, because the other person says she always, they always yell at me. They always give me grief. It's always criticism. I can never do it right. But you know that that didn't start this way. It started with somebody who said something very sweetly. You know, I would love it if on occasion you too did whatever. So you say, how did it become like this? You don't take this as a description of your partner is really insane and annoying. What have you done to make your partner become so critical? That's a very important question rather than assuming you have a critical person. You know, most people started out asking things nice and over time they got fed up.

Yumi
Can a romantic relationship survive without intimacy?

Esther
No, but I think the definition of a romantic relationship is the trust and the affection and the sense of belonging. Those are the elements of intimacy in romantic relationships. So no. Can a marriage survive or can a relationship exist that is not intimate? Yeah, plenty of them do. Well, they survive. They don't, they're not living. They're not thriving. Everyone understands the difference between a relationship that isn't dead and a relationship that is alive. So yes, structures can continue to exist, but a romantic relationship by definition comes with intimacy.

Yumi
Yeah. You speak about the language of intimacy and basic fluency comes down to a collection of verbs. I've got them here if you want to have a look. I know them. I just, I'm terrible at remembering those sorts of things. Do you mind talking us through those verbs? Right.

Esther
We speak with our bodies for 18 months before we utter the first words. So intimacy is not always about talking or at least talking verbally. And every one of these seven verbs or eight verbs that I'm going to be playing with could be expressed with the body as they could be expressed in spoken language. Right. And the way I came up with those verbs is that I just looked at how I learn a language because I think that intimacy is a language and I learned a lot of languages. I speak nine of them and there's always a cluster of the key verbs that you need to know in order to be able to form your first sentences to be, to have, to go. Right. So in relationships, I thought one of the first one is to ask, how do I feel about asking? Do I trust that if I ask you would pay attention and you would want to give, do I feel loved enough, cared enough that you would want to give? Do I feel deserving enough that I can ask? Do I even know what I want to ask? Giving. How do I experience giving? Do I experience it as a generosity and I enjoy giving because it expands me. It makes me feel bigger. The more I can share with you or do I give in order not to owe you or do I give in order to buy your love or do I give in order not to have you resent me for not being more giving? What is my experience around giving? What is my experience around receiving, which is the most vulnerable one of them all? You know, how do I feel about letting you give to me and, and, and accepting that sometimes it's a hit and miss and not think, how could you give me that gift? If you knew me, you would never buy me that kind of a birthday present and no sharing the mutuality, the reciprocity, you know, how good am I in that experience? Or do I find myself often competing and wanting to have a one-up? Playing, you know, how creative, how curious, how mischievous, how rule-less can I be with you? So it's asking, giving, taking, taking, you know, one of my powerful images when I see young kids play, little infants is how they grab that toy and they hold on to it and it's mine, you know, and that greediness is such a clear sense of entitlement that often little ones have, and then many of us lose. So taking, do I feel deserving to take, you know, do I know, can I eat at my, at my hunger or do I always eat too much or too little? And this eating is not just physical food, but also emotional food. And refusing, can I say no? And because if I can't fully say no, I can't ever really fully say yes either. So these verbs I have enjoyed playing with, when I say playing, it means they're easy and everyone can quickly map themselves, you know, for every one of these verbs and they can do it in the relationship emotionally as well as sexually and physically. They know, they know how they experience giving, taking, receiving, sharing, playing, refusing, asking, and so forth.

Yumi
There's so much there, Esther. I just wonder about the very young women that listen. That sense of entitlement is a learned thing. That sense of I deserve that, I deserve to be cherished or I deserve pleasure. It's really tricky to try and tell a 20 year old or even explain it to her, how she could possibly deserve something like that.

Esther
I think the support that girls can give each other is about feeling entitled to say no when it doesn't feel right. That's the first one. And then feeling entitled to say, I want this. Somebody asked me what I would whisper to my younger self. I said, you know, I remember because it's easy for me to talk now. So when you ask me a question about a 20 year old, I remember my 20 year old. And my 20 year old, when I was, often wanted you to like me so that I could like myself. And if I think about what I would whisper to my younger self, it would be this. It's like not everybody has to like you. Some people, yes, you really want them to appreciate you, but not everybody's opinion matters equally. Choose the ones that you really think have something to say that makes a difference. And don't think that everybody's opinion is there to shape who you are. And once you find that balance, every time somebody's, you know, crushed you with something, you ask yourself, how valuable, how important is that person in my life that what they said makes a difference? And weed them out and keep a few in the high court and then let go of the others. And that's what I would say to my younger self. And I think it's a message I would like to share with the younger women who listen to your podcast.

Yumi
I love that. Nicola, one of our listeners said, my question is how to maintain intimacy in non-romantic relationships. Getting older, I find it difficult to stay as close with my friends, especially long distance friendships or those who are at different life stages like having kids.

Esther
Yes, yes, yes. I think it's a great question. I think that if you have friends with kids and you're not there yet, or you may never be there, it's a, and you really care about maintaining the relationship with the friends, take their kids away for the night, have the kids go and stay with you if you can. And they'll feel like you still are interested in what goes on with them. And you will feel like you have a way of staying connected with them rather than wait till the kid is asleep and you have a babysitter and you can go out together alone. Yeah. That's also very important, but that's what people typically do. I think what you really want is become a part of the stage of the other person and have them continue to be a part of yours. On occasion, they would love to be able to go out with you who still can come home and anytime you want without having to have a curfew. So it's about staying really involved in the stage that isn't yours, that doesn't have to be yours, but that you can dip into just enough to maintain the thread.

Yumi
Rebecca says, I'm 46 and single and very much enjoy my singleness. About nine or 10 years ago, after a string of disastrous relationships, I decided it was easiest to be on my own. I've just reached a new contentment, but recently met someone who could potentially become someone with a capital S.

Esther
Just as you thought that you finally have it set, someone is coming to create turmoil. Yes.

Yumi
So she's afraid of losing herself and wants to go into any future relationship with her eyes wide open and making considered decisions about what she wants.

Esther
So she answered her question. She just said, you know, this idea of how do I enter a relationship without losing myself? This is obviously not the first time this woman is asking that question. It's not because you're 46 and you had decided to not live in pursuit of a romantic relationship. I really think that the essence is about having multiple connections. It doesn't have to for everybody to be the romantic relationship. And even the romantic relationship doesn't come in a one size fits all. If you don't want to move in with someone and you want to remain at this stage at 46, you can decide if you want to move in together, if you want to live on your own and be in a relationship, if you want to meet all the time or if you want to meet a few times a week with, you know, if you want to have concentric circles that overlap and you blend your lives together, or if you want to have a strong knot of deep connection, but you want to have long, big circles of individuality that you each preserve, you can be creative and you can change as well. It's not like you start with something and this is going to be the model for the next 30 years. Use the fact that you're 46, that you have a whole life, that you actually can say what's with this person today at this point, what do the two of us think would be the way to be together?

Yumi
You said something that I thought was really interesting, just about how you can get the intimacies that you need from many different people in your life. It's not it's not all sort of pitching into that one

Esther
particular person. No. And even if you have the primary person, you cannot have one person give you what the whole village should be providing. So no matter what, if you have a primary relationship, you want to have a deep group of friends and of acquaintances and of colleagues and a couple mentors and you want to try. Really, this is not meant and relationships, by the way, romantic relationships do much better when the people inside them have diversified their connections. That's the research of Eli Finkel and it's I completely agree with that. You want other people. If your partner is not a hiker, then just go with somebody else. If they don't want to be in a book club, then do it with other people. Maintain the parts of you that make you feel like you're living and thriving and then be in a relationship rather than give up anything you can't share. Yeah. Because that does not give enough air to a relationship and fire needs air.

Yumi
When I interviewed you a couple of years ago, you said something offhand. I don't think it even made the podcast, but we all talked about it afterwards, which was that you just had a big party to celebrate your birthday. You mentioned offhand that you'd had guests at your party from every decade, born in every decade. And we're all like, that's really cool just to have that diversity of friends from a diversity of ages, occupations, obviously. But how interesting to have this gathering of people in your garden of friendship. For people who are listening, how do you be successful attending that garden?

Esther
I call people. I text people. I love to speak to people. I check in. I travel with friends. I share things that I'm thinking about with friends. I'm part of a movie club that has people on four continents. I'm part of a book club. I mean, I have lots of different structures, units that connect me with people so that on a regular basis. And that's what's pandemic, you know, I stayed in touch with them and I had something to talk about. Because if you discuss a movie, you have a good two hour conversation right there in front of you. It's not just how you're doing and what's up, what's up with you kind of thing. I am a strong fan of intergenerational friendships. And that means that I have younger friends who just are having babies as I have my own who are out of the house. And I think that to not just be trapped in your own generation is extremely important and a lot of energy. It's very it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to be an older person, not just with your kids. Yeah, right. But with other friends for whom that your experience actually makes a difference. But on the other hand, I draw a lot on the energy of my younger friends that I don't always have anymore to just join them and go do things with them. So it's it's an amazingly rich superposition when you deal intergenerationally.

Yumi
Thank you for that answer. I love that so much. Let's go to another question. I came from Fiona Estere-Perel. She's got a question, which is that with her partner, anytime they want to be close, it seems to involve less talking and always leads to sex. She'd love to create intimacy through laughing a lot more and wants to know if you've got any practical ideas to help.

Esther
You want to make sure that you don't think sex only starts because I have desire. Yeah. Sex doesn't just start because you have desire. It may start because there's a touch that touch suddenly awakens you. It feels nice. You want another touch. And then from that, you become aroused. And from that arousal, you become desirous. It's circular. And it's it doesn't just mean I'm in the mood. I'm not in the mood. Then you say to your partner, if you made me laugh, I think I would be a lot more interested. This is way too serious. And then you say, OK, let's tell stories or let's cook together or let's whatever you want to do, but just break it. But don't break it as in this is what you want and this is what I want. It's break it by saying to get to what you want. We need to do a little bit more of what I'm bringing in here because I think it's going to get us to the place where we both want to be.

Yumi
What you're saying reminds me of something that you said in mating in captivity, which is about couples being so wedded to the idea that sex should be spontaneous, that they refuse to schedule sex and thus have no sex at all. Right. So this idea of intimacy, you know, you actually have to formalize it sometimes with a structure like a game. Well, it should really begin. That's why the name

Esther
is the right name. But, you know, it's not just this. Sex isn't just you have a five minute warm up foreplay towards the real thing and the real thing ends when you have an orgasm and then, you know, sex took place. If we've broadened the definition of sex and we make it not about the measurable outcome, but we make it about just a fun, pleasurable, connecting experience, then a lot of things start to feel like they are sexual. And they have to do with kissing and tickling and nibbling and stroking and caressing and pinching and slapping. And not all of it has to be heterosexual, heteronormative, penetrative sex. And because we have such a narrow definition, heterosexual couples have often a lot less sex.

Yumi
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. It was really, really great to talk to you yet again. Yay, Esther Brown! If you've enjoyed hearing Esther's insights into relationships and intimacy, please scroll back in the Ladies We Need To Talk feed for another episode featuring Esther. It's called How To Have A Hard Conversation. And don't forget to tell your friends about Ladies, We Need To Talk. And if the mood strikes you, leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. We're also stoked to share that we are now transcribing ladies episodes so that everyone can get involved in these vital convos about sex, health and relationships.