It is clearly possible to have love without sex. My parents and sister loved me without any physical excitement in me or them. However, sex is important in human life and I have seen two TED talks recently that have some important insights into the subject.
Esther Perel is a therapist and author. Her TED talk on desire in marriage was put on the TED web as part of Valentine's Day. Her talk is a shorter version of her ($3 on Kindle) book "Mating in Captivity". She talks knowingly and helpfully about people being very hot for each other but slowly, or sometimes rapidly, cooling off during marriage. She explains connections between our early upbringing and our interest in exploration and excitement. She asks,"How can you desire what you already have?" Perel makes a good case for the right balance in marriage between comfort/security and excitement/novelty.
Laura Morgan Steiner has a TED talk on domestic violence. Steiner explains that she had a boyfriend that slowly increased violent behavior toward her and eventually beat her as much as two times a week. He also held a loaded gun to her head several times. She talks about the question everyone asks: Why does she stay? Why doesn't she leave? She says that in the midst of that relation with its beatings and danger, she never thought of herself as a person in a situation of domestic violence. She mentions several contrite, dramatic apologies made to her by her boyfriend accompanied by deep, persuasive assurances that he would not behave that way any more.
A search of the TED site on "sex" resulted in more than 1800 TED talks on the subject. You might not find the ones on bonobo or plant sex all that exciting but then again, you might. The anthropologist Helen Fisher has dozens of TED talks on sex and love and is a well-known thinker on those and related subjects.
Most TED talks are 20 minutes or less and attain a surprising amount of depth in that short time. They are free and can be viewed through any internet connection.
Esther Perel is a therapist and author. Her TED talk on desire in marriage was put on the TED web as part of Valentine's Day. Her talk is a shorter version of her ($3 on Kindle) book "Mating in Captivity". She talks knowingly and helpfully about people being very hot for each other but slowly, or sometimes rapidly, cooling off during marriage. She explains connections between our early upbringing and our interest in exploration and excitement. She asks,"How can you desire what you already have?" Perel makes a good case for the right balance in marriage between comfort/security and excitement/novelty.
Laura Morgan Steiner has a TED talk on domestic violence. Steiner explains that she had a boyfriend that slowly increased violent behavior toward her and eventually beat her as much as two times a week. He also held a loaded gun to her head several times. She talks about the question everyone asks: Why does she stay? Why doesn't she leave? She says that in the midst of that relation with its beatings and danger, she never thought of herself as a person in a situation of domestic violence. She mentions several contrite, dramatic apologies made to her by her boyfriend accompanied by deep, persuasive assurances that he would not behave that way any more.
A search of the TED site on "sex" resulted in more than 1800 TED talks on the subject. You might not find the ones on bonobo or plant sex all that exciting but then again, you might. The anthropologist Helen Fisher has dozens of TED talks on sex and love and is a well-known thinker on those and related subjects.
Most TED talks are 20 minutes or less and attain a surprising amount of depth in that short time. They are free and can be viewed through any internet connection.
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
