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Women want to talk first, connect first, then have sex. For men, sex is the connection. Sex is man's language of intimacy

Esther Perel

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Esther Perel
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 1
Author
Psychotherapist
Antwerpen
First
Connect
Men
Connection
Connections
Sex
Talk
Language
Women
Firsts
Intimacy

More quotes by Esther Perel

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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
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We used to moralize today we normalize, and performance anxiety is the secular version of our old religious guilt.
Esther Perel
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You know what happens to sex in marriage? Instead of inviting desire, you monitor it. Especially men: You let her sleep late, you take the kids to the park, and all that time you're thinking, Tonight I'll get some. That doesn't work.
Esther Perel
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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.
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There is no neediness in desire ... there is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is mightily loving, [but] it's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac.
Esther Perel
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It's our imagination that's responsible for love, not the other person.
Esther Perel
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In my community there were two groups of people, There were the ones who did not die and the ones who came back to life.
Esther Perel
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Are you asking a question because you want to know the answer or are you asking the question because you want your partner to know that you are having this question?
Esther Perel
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Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.
Esther Perel
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Today, monogamy is one person at a time.
Esther Perel
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Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with you are not liking the person you have become.
Esther Perel
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The secret to desire in a long-term relationship
Esther Perel
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Most of us will get turned on at night by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day - the erotic mind is not very politically correct.
Esther Perel
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In desire, there must be some small amount of tension. And that tension comes with the unknown, the unpredictable. You can close yourself off at home and say, Whew, at last I'm in a place where I don't have to worry, or you can keep yourself open to the mystery and elusiveness of your partner.
Esther Perel
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You never know your partner as well as you think.
Esther Perel
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Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at either extreme.
Esther Perel
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In dating, if you say no, your lover goes on to the next person. In marriage, if you say no, the person stays.
Esther Perel
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What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery of eroticism.
Esther Perel
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Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.
Esther Perel
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Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss rekindles desire, makes people have conversations they haven't had in years, takes them out of their contrived illusion of safety.
Esther Perel