Sex - does it exist in marriages any more?

You hear it whispered at coffee mornings, at the school gates or on nights out with the girls. After a few bottles of wine have been consumed, it's on the agenda at dinner parties, along with property prices and the outrageous cost of child care.


Sex - or more accurately the lack of it - is a hot topic among British middle-classes.

Smug Marrieds, it seems, aren't quite as smug as they pretend to be. Wherever thirty and forty-somethings gather it has become the norm to make light-hearted references to the lack of nookie in their lives.

There might even be a little jocular one-upmanship about the length of time they've been in the desert. "Every two weeks? You lucky devil!" I heard a 40-year-old lawyer friend cry.

'Marriage had very simple functions'
Esther Perel, a New York psychologist, doesn't think the famine so funny.

Her book, Mating In Captivity - Sex, Lies And Domestic Bliss, is an elegant sociological study, complete with erudite literary and anthropological references, that zoomed up the bestseller lists in the US last year and put the conjugal emergency among the professional classes on the map. Subtitled Reconciling the Erotic and Domestic, everyone from Oprah to the intellectually exacting New Yorker magazine has raved about it.

Now the 48-year-old mother of two is to spread the word abroad.

"The sexlessness of couples is something that's being discussed very seriously in the US. It's not just about sex. It's about what is going on with today's couples in general," Perel says. "Why is it that the generation that had all this sexual freedom finds itself unable to sustain desire now?"

As far as Perel is concerned, this issue is too important to be limited to discussion in the pages of women's magazines. It is, she says, a crisis in our culture, reflecting the state of modern marriage.

Couples need another life that is separate from domesticity
Figures published last year by the Office for National Statistics, which revealed Britain to be a "sexless" society, support this view: one in eight women, including married or cohabiting women, claimed to have had no sex in the past year. After the age of 35, the "no sex" figure is about one in 10 for men and women, rising to 12 percent at age 40 to 44 (men nine percent).

Perel may be right about the need for a sober re-assessment of coupledom.

That is certainly the belief in New York where packed auditoriums hang on her every word. Her audiences are made up of the young and old, male and female, eager to hear her prescription for alleviating this unwanted celibacy. They are in for a shock.

The received wisdom is that the way to fix a problem - any problem - in a relationship is to communicate more, to become more intimate, just keep on talking.

Perel turns this notion inside out. For a pleasing sex life, couples need to create some distance. If the atmosphere in your marital bedroom is to be even vaguely erotic, there must be an edge. Love needs closeness, she says, desire does not. Spend some time apart.

"We've become hooked on this idea of greater intimacy but it doesn't always work. It works in a friendship, and, of course, it's great to have a good friendship with your partner, but the price we have paid for this is sex," says Perel.

"My book gives value to the idea of separateness, and it's something that men are familiar with. They are often the ones who take that position in the relationship. Men, in particular, have found what I say very appealing because I think it is what they are often trying to say but don't feel they are allowed to.

"I want to stir up a discussion about why so many couples aren't facing up to this; rather they are just dismissing it by saying they're too busy and too stressed."

There's something else at stake that needs to be addressed. Why is there a market for all these books about spicing up your sex life? Clearly, they are not working.

Perel points out that the generation now approaching middle age is one that grew up without a prohibitive approach to sex. Born after the sexual revolution, they "bonked" their way through university and, typically, settled down after some serious love affairs. They were inculcated with the belief that we can and should talk about our desires; that love and marriage is about sharing everything, thus laying the foundations for a lifelong physical fulfilment. So what went wrong?

"Social and economic changes over the centuries have brought us to this point," says Perel. "In the past, marriage had very simple functions. It was for reproduction; it was an economic arrangement; it was for respectability. If love grew out of it, that was great.

"But now look at the long list of things we expect from a marriage: an intense friendship, economical and emotional support, romance, love, a family. "It's only since the '50s that we've wanted all this from one person. In cities, we live increasingly isolated lives and the most important social unit is the couple and immediate family. We are asking our spouse to provide what, in the past, took a whole village, a community or an extended family to provide. And on top of that we're expecting to have an erotic life with that person, too."

Many couples blame the arrival of children in their lives for an absence of sex, but, says Perel, we have only ourselves to blame. Typically, professional couples are having children well into their thirties and are desperate to be perfect parents.

"There is a culture of hyper-parenting that has contributed to couples not drawing boundaries between their family life and their other areas.

Couples need another life that is separate from domesticity and children, she says, and creating this "erotic atmosphere" in your relationship is not always as saucy as it sounds. Women in particular must learn to enjoy doing things by themselves.

"Go to the theatre and the cinema. Do things that you might call selfish that have nothing to do with the family," urges Perel. Husbands and partners can be included in this autonomy. "When did you last meet your husband for lunch? That kind of thing creates a new atmosphere.

Perel is less forthcoming about the goings on in her own relationship, but fizzes with pride when she talks about her husband, a doctor, to whom she has been married for 25 years.

"Between us, we cover pleasure and pain," is all she will say.

It's safe to assume, then, that things are ticking along very nicely in the Perel boudoir.

A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that:



Attractive people flirt more, even those with partners.


One in four marriages continues because partners couldn't find a better alternative.


Women generally seek status, occupational prestige and intelligence in a male partner, while men, in general, seek physical attractiveness in women.


To help maintain a successful relationship, you should say five positive things to your partner for each negative statement about them.


When scientists gave MRI scans to 32 people who were madly in love and showed them a picture of their partner, it activated the part of the brain that responds when you feel the rush of cocaine.


Obstacles heighten romantic love.


The first three minutes of a married couple's argument indicate whether they will get divorced within six years.


Lower testosterone levels are associated with better marital satisfaction and higher quality parent-adolescent relationships.


Unmarried women have a significantly worse death rate from cancer than married women.


Marriage is the greatest source of conflict as well as the greatest source of satisfaction, but the married are generally much happier than the unmarried. - London Independent


Mating In Captivity by Esther Perel is available from Exclusive Books at R179.


This article was originally published on page 16 of The Star on April 18, 2007


Published on the Web by IOL on 2007-05-08 08:58:00


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