Answers
What does Esther Perel mean when she states that desire and responsibility butt heads?
I believe that she means that responsibility that is marriage where your partner gives you status, children, companionship and to be the best friend and all other things and in marriage all of us have duties and responsibilities. And love is the desire. And when you love then marry you need not only to maintain the desire but also give comfort, supply your partner with all necessary things and that is why because of all your responsibilities, you forget about the desire.
What were the differences between the groups in regards to their sex lives? Why might this be an important analogy?
Those people who did not die were upset, they looked to the ground; they even did not think about pleasure, they could not trust, they thought only about safe. And those who came back to life, they looked at the eroticism as an antidote of the death. They knew how to feel alive. The couples with which she worked, said they wanted more sex, but actually they wanted better sex.
What is the difference between those two questions which Perel differentiates and why is that distinction important?
She asked them “what turns them off” and “when they turn them off”. They told different things like they were old, bad appearance. And the point is that when you say what turns you off, you are out of the question even if the person is dead inside and your beloved does everything for you. That is why everyone should ask the opposite question – “when I turn me off”. It is important to differentiate these two questions as both partners influence their erotic desire to have sex. You need to solve all the problems which may ruin your desire as your own so the partner’s.
Personally I think that the desire in long-term relations is very important. The couple should work on it the whole life they are together. They need to amaze each other, to share different thoughts, to experiment, to travel, to leave each other for some time in order to miss. Because when you are bored with your beloved there is not any kind of desire. And when your life is every day routine only, what kind of sex can you have? Boring or none of it at all. So, the couple should work hard on desire and relations.
