Dan Savage & Esther Perel | Love, Marriage & Monogamy | Talks at Google

LOGAN URY: Thank you all so much for coming. My name is Logan Ury. I work in the Mountain View office and am very excited to be here in New York for this special edition of our Modern Romance series. This is a series I started in Mountain View last year and this is our fifth event. And we're very lucky to have Esther Perel and Dan Savage here with us. They are excellent experts in modern romance. You probably know a little about them, but I'll tell you more about our guests. Esther is a practicing psychotherapist and also a celebrated speaker.

She is widely celebrated as one of the most insightful and provocative voices on personal and professional relationships and the complex science behind human interaction. She is also the author of the best-selling "Mating in Captivity Unlocking Erotic Intelligence." She is a native of Belgium and speaks nine languages ​​fluently. Her Ted Talks have also been viewed more than 10 million times. Welcome, Ester. And of course, we also have Dan Savage with us. Dan is a writer, television personality, and activist best known for his political and social commentary, as well as his honest approach to sex,

love

, and relationships. He is the author of the widely syndicated sex advice column "Savage Love" and the host of one of my favorite podcasts, "The Savage Love Cast." He has also written several best-selling books, including "American Savage." Along with her husband, Terry Miller, he is co-founder of the It Gets Better project and her son, DJ.

DAN SAVAGE: DJ Co-Founder. LOGAN URY: Yeah. I thought you'd like that. Welcome Dan. So we're going to chat for a while and then leave 20 minutes at the end for questions. And we're also selling books, so don't miss out. That's why I want to start talking about infidelity. You've both written extensively... DAN SAVAGE: You didn't see that coming, did you? ESTHER PEREL: No. LOGAN URY: Who would have guessed? I just want everyone to know what to expect today. Both have written extensively on this topic, and because there is no universally accepted definition of infidelity, researchers estimate that between 26% and 75% of people cheat during relationships.

Let's start by talking about why you think people cheat on you and what you think couples should do when there has been a betrayal. Feel free to participate, any of you. ESTHER PEREL: You first. DAN SAVAGE: Me first? ESTHER PEREL: Yes. DAN SAVAGE: People cheat because it's cheating. People cheat because we have expanded the definition of what cheating is to such a ridiculous point that essentially everyone is a cheater. People cheat because monogamous commitments are a fucking cheat. I don't know. I must not be very eloquent. This is literally the first time I've spoken out loud today.

LOGAN URY: DAN SAVAGE: People cheat because they're bored. People cheat because they are not satisfied. People cheat because there is an opportunity. People cheat, as Esther points out in "Mating in Captivity," to feel alive. People cheat for all kinds of reasons, not all, and usually when I start talking about this these days, because I'm a big fan of Esther, I start quoting Esther at length, so you'll have to sit here while I do this. People cheat because... it's not always because they're not in

love

with their partner that you can cheat on someone and still be very much in love with them.

There are other reasons why people cheat. It seems to me, and the conclusion I've come to after 25 years of writing "Savage Love" and being buried under emails, that it's not that we're failing

monogamy

. The thing is,

monogamy

has failed us and we have to rethink it. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to all monogamous commitments, or that I think everyone who makes a monogamous commitment or wants a monogamous commitment is a fool or deluding themselves. But the way we talk about monogamy sets up all monogamous relationships for failure because what we tell people is that sexual exclusivity is the most important marker of love and commitment, and a failure in that means the relationship is completely a failure.

And we tell people that if you're in love, you won't want to fuck other people, when we all know in our guts and in our junk that you can be in love and still want to fuck. other people. And the people who are most hurt by that lie are the people who really believe it because they are in love. They make a monogamous commitment. Suddenly, someone crosses their radar, walks ahead of them at the gym, or has a crush on someone at work. Suddenly they want to fuck someone else. And if they believe because they've been told that love and desire are a zero-sum game, where if you want to fuck someone else you must no longer be in love with your partner, then they will act accordingly.

That undermines a monogamous commitment. Destroys relationships. And finally, the last thing I'm going to say is that we have to stop telling people that monogamy is the only thing that you have to execute perfectly 100% of the time to be considered good at it, that you can fall off your bike and still win the damn Tour de France. And you can fall in love with snowboarding and still be an excellent snowboarder. We need to tell people that if you're with someone for... actually, now, because of increasing life expectancy, 50, 60 years, if you make a commitment in your 20s, or in your 20s, 30 years, yes You're with someone for 50 or 60 years and they only cheated on you a handful of times, and you only cheated on them a handful of times.

They were both pretty good at monogamy, not bad at it. That's mine, which is now 30% yours. I keep reading you. LOGAN URY: Did he do well? ESTHER PEREL: A lot. Yes, yes, absolutely. But it's very interesting because I think one thing we have to be careful about is that in some ways the conversation about infidelity is not the same as the conversation about monogamy because infidelity also happens in consensual and non-monogamous couples. So the first thing I would say is look at what word we're using, "cheating." And when it's not cheating, it's betraying, violating trust, being unfaithful and adulterous.

First of all, there is no morally neutral language to talk about this. So we are trapped in the very words we use. For most of history, monogamy was for one person for life. And right now monogamy is one person at a time. And many of us go around saying, "I'm monogamous in all my relationships," and that seems totally natural. For most of history, fidelity, fidelity, had nothing to do with love. Basically it was an imposition by men on women to know who gets the cows and whose children they are. And it was about heritage and lineage, and it was just a double standard.

It applied to women, and rarely to men, in fact, even if it is written in the text. But when I think about infidelity, the first thing I often think of is, you know, it's the only commandment that is repeated twice in the Bible, once for doing it and once for just thinking about it. Then someone understood that human inclination is not necessarily so singular and monogamous. But why do we go out? I would say like this. But I'm a therapist, and in that sense, I still work a lot with couples around the world, and there are some things I'm very clear about: The vast majority of people who cheat in my practice are actually not your chronic womanizers.

They are not the ones who continually cheat. They are often people who have been faithful for decades. And then one day, they cross a line, a line that they often, in fact, never thought they would cross because they are often monogamous in their values ​​but plural in their behavior. And they experience a conflict between their values ​​and their behavior. And these people are sometimes going to risk everything they've built over the years. And then you say why? And then, the word you learned, which when I wrote it in "Mating" was quite a few years ago. Now I have gone around the world with this word that people will tell me when they have an affair.

I'm not just talking about fucking and sex. I'm talking about something that's probably a little more complicated and sometimes a love story. It's just that they feel alive. And that word, "alive," actually goes beyond sex. It is about transcending one's own limitations, the limits of the life one has lived, the limitations of the

marriage

one finds oneself in, the mortality that is knocking at the door. The essence of infidelity is transgression. It's actually about breaking rules, including your own, internal and external. And that transgressive power actually makes people feel alive, free, bold and autonomous. When you have an affair, when you cheat, when you do something that's just for you, then you know that you're not taking care of anyone else, that you're not being a good citizen, that you're not being that responsible.

And we have always had two sides, the side that wants to be good, docile, obedient and correct, and the side that thrives on breaking the rules. Just watch how children play. LOGAN URY: So that's... DAN SAVAGE: I would add one thing to all of that: monogamy was imposed for millennia on women. There was a huge double standard. And about 100 years ago, we started making

marriage

more fair and equal. ESTHER PEREL: But instead of giving more rights to women, we take them away from men. DAN SAVAGE: Instead of extending to women the same license that men had always enjoyed and abused, we imposed on them the limitations that we had always imposed on women.

And it has been a disaster because men are just as bad at it as women. ESTHER PEREL: Or the other way around. Women are as itinerant as men. Give the woman a car and then we will see the true nature of her. DAN SAVAGE: There's a lot of talk about... ESTHER PEREL: Let her leave the house. DAN SAVAGE: There's a lot of talk about sex, about women with low desire, and this is becoming medicalized, and pills are coming out to treat low desire, and there are all these sex therapists and researchers working on the problem of low desire.

And one thing that keeps coming up is that they will work with this person, and the low desire to not have sex in the marriage is destroying the marriage. And the woman (often she is the woman, but not always) has no desire, no desire, she cannot get it back. The marriage is in danger...she is working very hard to get it back. Nothing works. There is a divorce. Suddenly, she's fucking horny again because she now has this chance to be free again, and she didn't get that chance to be free in her marriage. And we have to find a way to give people freedom in their marriages and that autonomy within their marriages so that that desire for freedom or autonomy doesn't eat away at and corrode their marriages.

ESTHER PEREL: Can I add something? LOGAN URY: Yes. ESTHER PEREL: Sorry. I think I'm totally... the problem is that we don't disagree that much. But if you listen closely, there are places... DAN SAVAGE: We're in a violent agreement here. ESTHER PEREL: No, it's not really just about whether he gets divorced. I think there are two things I would like... the first is something you said before that I want to emphasize. The romantic ideal that we are part of (that is, about 150 years) is that I am going to be the chosen one and I am, and I am irreplaceable, and I am indispensable.

And I'm the one, and when I'm the one, it means you don't think, or want, or look at anyone else again. So, if you have everything you need with me, there is no need to look elsewhere. Therefore, if you look elsewhere, it means that there is something wrong with me, with you or with us. And this is the current model of infidelity, it is a model of lack. It only happens because something is missing, and it is general... But I always say that you can't... after all, millions of people can't all be pathological. So make it a disease or a disorder when it is a phenomenon.

And that, combined with this secret truth that's just starting to come to light, is that in committed relationships, women do, in fact, get bored of monogamy much sooner than men. Men's desire decreases very gradually. Women's desire often plummets. And it is not the fault of the couple or the marriage. It is about the institutionalization of the relationship, familiarity with the partner and, particularly, the desexualization of roles. There is not much appeal for the wife and mother. And so, every time you have the opportunity to change the plot, your hormones change too. And it is that piece that has actually been mistranslated.

It has been decided that because you lose interest, your sexual desire is less strong. First of all, we can question the concept of drive. But it is not that his impulse is any less strong. It's just that to want sex, there have to be six of them worth wanting, and he's simply not interesting enough in his role, not with the partner, but in his role. DAN SAVAGE: Can I add anything to that? LOGAN URY: Yes! Lets chat. ESTHER PEREL: Let's... Logan! DAN SAVAGE: That idea that someone has to be all the things... you used the phrase "the one" and that's a phrase that drives me crazy.

And I'm always yelling at people but there's no such thing as "the one." And you know that's a lie about you. Why am I not everything to you? Because you're looking at someone who you know isn't everything to you and can't be. And the best any of us can hope for is a 0.64 which we round up to one. And that is an act of will, an act of love, respect and care.towards someone, treating them as if they were something that doesn't really exist in the world, that they are your perfect partner, or someone who can be everything. things for you or that you can be everything.

And if we can move away from these myths and lies, it won't destabilize our relationships. It doesn't make them any less valuable. In fact, it makes them stronger. It's really hard to look at someone every day and live a lie. It's easier to look at someone every day and tell them you're not the one. There is no one, but I treat you like one and the same. And by treating you that way and you treating me that way in return, we are being so good and kind and loving to each other, and there is value in that, and greater value in that than anyone else out there. .

And then, if people knew... of course, he looked somewhere else, or she looked somewhere else, or they want to fuck other people, or you want to fuck other people. Or sometimes you turn to your friends for emotional satisfaction that you can't get from your partner, and that's okay. Two people cannot be everything to each other. ESTHER PEREL: We should let Logan... DAN SAVAGE: I know. I'm sorry. LOGAN URY: I'm enjoying it, yes. So I think you both violently agree that monogamy may not be the right answer, and I know, Dan, you're... Okay, I'll let you answer that.

But I think you're famous for your idea of ​​monogamous relationships, which you can argue about. But if you could redesign marriage from scratch with any different type of contract (maybe rethink it every five years), how would you redesign marriage? DAN SAVAGE: This time you go first. ESTHER PEREL: Well, redesigning marriage depends above all on power. After all, marriage is an institution that stabilizes power, basically, and obligations (small freedoms, but for the most part), so I wouldn't have the same answer when asked this question in North America, and if I were asked this question in Turkey. So this is a very global question with a localized answer, okay?

In our context, I don't know if we really need marriage. Marriage used to be an economic enterprise. And by the way, infidelity was an economic threat. Now, marriage or committed relationships are a romantic arrangement and, therefore, infidelity is a romantic threat. That's really what changed. So in this romantic arrangement, we've replaced... it's like in the economy in general. It used to be that marriage was part of the production economy, and you created children, you created assets and all that. Marriage is now part of the service economy. Like the general economy, the service economy is intimacy, trust, affection, sex.

That's service in the best sense of the word, right? That's why trust has also become so central. I don't know if we need marriage. I think... but, of course, you need a State that then takes care of things. That's where Europeans get married much less than Americans. By the way, Americans love to get married. They love to get married and can get married several times. And you can sit in the audience and say you're divorced three times and no one bats an eyelid. But if I were to ask you here: "Has anyone here been unfaithful or deceived?" Not many of you would respond publicly because the stigma has changed.

It used to be divorce. Now it's infidelity. Then I would redesign marriage. First of all, there needs to be equality of power. There needs to be a system where maternity leave is not disability leave. There needs to be a system where there is affordable child care and family leave for both people. Then we can start talking about relationships that are not going to crumble under pressure or in which the supposed equality suddenly collapses completely the moment you have children, which is, after all, the main thing in marriage. It has to be a fluid and flexible system, like any other organism.

It does not survive if it does not combine stability and change, homeostasis and novelty. But if it introduces too many new features and is too unstable, it will be chaotic. And if it's too stable and doesn't change much, it will fossilize. There is very little fluidity in marriage. Most people are creative, imaginative, persevering and active, and all this before they get married. And then, once married, many, many times they will settle into a state of complacency, in which you do the minimum. People treat their friends much better. They behave much better at work. They dress much better when they go out with other people.

Literally, the partner is usually... the home is usually the place where many people bring the leftovers, actually, not the best of themselves. Therefore, it is necessary to reevaluate every few years the idea that we live twice as long but we will be left with something that is impossible to do. And most people today will get married two or three times in the West anyway, and some of us will do it to the same person. DAN SAVAGE: I would say that marriage has been redefined, and it would be wonderful if everyone was aware of how thoroughly it has been redefined.

During the marriage equality debate in this country, we gay people were accused of wanting to radically redefine marriage. And the truth was that straight people had already radically redefined marriage to the point that no logical, secular argument could be made for excluding same-sex couples from the institution, as straight people redefined it, lived it, and lived it. They practiced it. Now, after millennia of being something very different – ​​in the West, in this country – it is the legal union of two autonomous and equal individuals. Period. The end. And marriage is as patriarchal as the two people in it decide to make it.

A marriage can be monogamous or not. It can be for life or not, for children or not. It may or may not have a religious component. It depends on that couple. Every marriage is its own universe, and homosexuals (same-sex couples, not all homosexuals) said we want that too. And it is no longer a gender institution. There doesn't have to be children. No children required. Otherwise, Pat Buchanan is not really married to his wife. And if I were to change anything about the definition of marriage, it wouldn't be so much to change that definition. I feel very comfortable with that definition of marriage.

It would change people's expectations about what marriage means in the long term. As someone who is, as a gay guy, he's been open about the fact that my husband and I are not monogamous, much to the dismay of some gay rights groups fighting for marriage equality and gay parenting organizations, because We are parents too, I am often very offended by what you say, people who have been married two or three times, people who are monogamous in all their relationships... those people will look at me and say I don't mean it. in love or committed to my partner because we are not monogamous.

And then the next thing out of his mouth is, "I've been monogamous in every relationship I've ever had. All of my marriages, plural, have been monogamous. That's how committed I am, not to my partner, but to monogamy. " And that seems idiotic to me. And if there's one thing I'd like to redefine or get into people's heads, it's that marriage, especially if it's long-term, is going to evolve. There will be stages. Its going to change. What is very, very important one year from now may not be as important 20 years from now. You can reevaluate it. You can reevaluate.

That idea of ​​having to re-engage after a few years... it shouldn't just be re-engaging for that partner, but re-opting everything that you said was important to your marriage or your definition, or what you wanted. . of your marriage. That changes over time, and we have to move on, if we are going to be more committed to commitment than to never touching anyone with our genitals again, which seems like a ridiculous and very limiting definition to me. of marriage or engagement. But for many people that's all, that loyalty is something we only demonstrate with our genitals. Any other form of loyalty, any other way of expressing it, has less value than having touched someone with your penis again if you are a man.

And I find that I am often accused of placing too much importance on sex, too much emphasis on sex. I think that puts too much emphasis on sex, when you say that the most important way to express love, commitment and loyalty is with your genitals. So if I were to redefine it, I would remove it. But it's not in the definition. That's just an attitude people have. LOGAN URY: Definitely. ESTHER PEREL: One of the things that happened is that before you were married until death do us part, and now you are married until love dies. This is a fundamental change and divorce laws have also fundamentally changed.

You need to be able to leave in order to choose to stay, and that is not always the case. I think on many levels there are certain freedoms that, like redefining monogamy as a primary emotional commitment that may or may not include sexual exclusivity, is one of the most important things that straight couples can learn from gay couples because in the heterosexual discourse, that is always considered impossible. And it is not intrinsically impossible. It is not biologically impossible. It's become culturally impossible over millennia, and there's a tremendous freedom that can come from... DAN SAVAGE: Well, if there's one thing that straight couples can borrow from gay couples...

ESTHER PEREL: A lot. DAN SAVAGE: --is that monogamy for gay male couples has always been a voluntary conversation. And therefore, gay couples don't realize, after 5 or 10 years of relationship, that they are on very different pages about this. But for heterosexual couples, because monogamy is the default setting and it's assumed, there are people who, after two or five years, realize that they've made a commitment that they're incapable of keeping because they just got carried away. swept up in the cultural hangover, or have made a commitment to someone who was incapable of keeping that commitment because they couldn't have a conversation about whether that was a commitment they wanted to make, or whether monogamy was something they were going to do. do.

And in almost every relationship between gay men that I have witnessed, and every study confirms this, monogamy is not important enough to destroy a relationship and everything else in that relationship. ESTHER PEREL: Sexual exclusivity. DAN SAVAGE: Sexual exclusivity. LOGAN URY: Do you think legalizing gay marriage is going to change that? DAN SAVAGE: No. LOGAN URY: Okay. Do you want to talk more about that? DAN SAVAGE: I get asked that a lot. Now that we can get married, will we all go to the suburbs and die? And I don't think you'll see that confirmed. I haven't witnessed it in the last six months since then, but we'll see in 10 years.

I don't think gay people being open about who we are and being accepted is changing gay people. I think our acceptance and the truth we tell about our lives and our experiences is changing straight people. You already see a lot of things in straight culture that have basically been copied, borrowed and renamed from gay culture. We had tricks. You connect. We had shitty friends. You have friends with benefits. It's always much more polite for straight people to try. The way most straight people live now in their 20s and 30s is the gay lifestyle, something that social conservatives condemned and caused sexual panic 30 years ago: moving to urban areas, having multiple sexual partners, having many relationships, not settling down, not becoming an economic unit and generating the next wave of human consumers.

That delay in marriage and parenthood, like people who are straight are doing now, is basically what you see is straight people all over the country living the gay lifestyle until they're 33 and then they go off and live the gay lifestyle. "heterosexual life." "So what we know now is that there was nothing gay about the gay lifestyle, nothing straight about the straight lifestyle. It was just a matter of what boxes people were put into. ESTHER PEREL: But you know, Family life has changed enormously, and the configuration of the family from the single-parent family, the mixed family, the gay family, the traveling family.

We have really developed a multiplicity of models for the family, but we are still very monolithic for the couple. Actually, I wouldn't say marriage per se. I would even say couple. And although marriage as an institution has always been in transition, but the couple, once romanticism enters, we become really devoted to it. tenacious and disconcerting that has invaded Western culture DAN SAVAGE: Stephanie Kuntz's book, "Marriage: A Story, The Triumph of Love Over Marriage" is an excellent read, and I am sometimes surprised to learn that social conservatives. They vigorously opposed marriage for love, that it was undermining what marriage was. actually about 250 or 300 years ago.

You married for property. You married for status. You married through legitimate descent. You didn't get married for anything as fleeting as lust, desire, sexual passion, or even love. you hada spouse recognized by law and you had love. ESTHER PEREL: Actually what she says is that adultery was the space for love. Marriage was too commercial an institution to look for love in, and that's why you went out looking for love. But now that we have introduced love into marriage, adultery destroys it. That is an important change. LOGAN URY: That was great. Thank you. I want to change gears a little.

Dan, one of the topics you are passionate about is sex education and how abstinence-only education seems very dangerous to you. So if you could design a class, whether in high schools or online, that everyone should take before entering into adult relationships... ESTHER PEREL: Can we start at age four, please? LOGAN URY: Yes. At four years old, preschool, what... ESTHER PEREL: How should it be done? Not high school. LOGAN URY: Okay, yeah. Let's listen. What would you do? I want to teach people about... DAN SAVAGE: There are people in high school with four-year-olds. It's too late in high school.

LOGAN URY: Okay. Preschool, first day. What should people learn about healthy adult relationships? DAN SAVAGE: Oh my God. I am a terrible person. A sexual education course must be comprehensive. It has to be... it has to start very young and it has to be age appropriate, but that terminology is very subjective. Who is going to define what is appropriate age? There are people, many of them, who believe that an 18-year-old child is not yet ready for comprehensive sexual education because then he or she will want to have sex. If I were to design the program, it would be continuous, lifelong, and comprehensive.

It would be inclusive for homosexuals. I would address the kinks. It would address the 99.99% of sexual relationships that people have throughout their lives, which is not procreation. It's recreational sex. Even what many of us liberals and, as I gesture broadly toward the room, assuming we're all liberals and progressives, even often what we consider to be an example of really good sex education, when you look at it and dig deeper into it , it's just reproductive biology and you can cover it in about 11 minutes. Any idiot can have a baby. Bristol Palin made two. What trips people up is not fallopian tubes, zygotes, and sperm.

What trips people up is consent, desire, what it means, and the 99.99% of sex people have, which is sex for pleasure. And we need to educate young people about the options that most adults who have overcome the obsession with vaginal or anal intercourse know, and that is that not everything is vaginal or anal intercourse. There are many things that young people can do sexually that create those feelings of intimacy and liberation, and that bond that doesn't involve the high standards, high stakes, and high stakes that come with penetrative sex. But imagine a sex education course. They are children of 15 years, 14 years and 13 years.

First boyfriend, first girlfriend, first non-binary friend... maybe you'll masturbate together, roll around, and have oral sex. You don't have to worry about birth control if you're not already having vaginal sex and there's plenty of time for it. Get to know each other's bodies, learn your own body and enjoy them. And you can wait on that. Good sex education trains people not necessarily to have sex, but to make their own decisions, their own decisions about when and how. I always compare the sex education that we receive, and speaking of abstinence, I was very excited in 2008, during Barack Obama's first inaugural address, when he said that we are going to return science to its rightful place.

I thought that meant not having more money for abstinence education because science has shown that not only does it not work, it is counterproductive because children who have received abstinence-only sex education can delay sexual activity by about six months , but it is much less likely. use protection, much more likely, once six months after their peers to have sex, have an unplanned pregnancy, contract a sexually transmitted infection. I thought it would be the end. But Republicans pooled $250 million in funding for abstinence education with Obamacare and put Obama in the position of having to veto Obamacare to stop funding abstinence education.

And that's why it still exists, and in many places it is the only sexual education that children receive. And it's destructive, and it destroys the lives of not just straight kids, but queer kids as well. And this has to stop. Particularly reproductive biology. I always compare it to a driver's ed class, where they teach you how the internal combustion engine works, but not how to drive, or how to brake, or what the red hexagon at the end of the street means. And then you give someone the car keys after that sex education, or after that driver's education, and they're going to hit someone.

And yet, that is our sexual education. This is how your internal reproductive combustion engine works. Here are the keys to your pants. Now go. LOGAN URY: Esther, what do you think? You have a very global perspective on what people... ESTHER PEREL: I'm even more extreme than this. Look, I've been married for 30 years. I have two children and I was going to ensure that they did not become victims of the American system. We have comprehensive sexual education. It starts at four years old. It doesn't talk about private parts. It's not a plumbing class. Look... it's something more procreative, but it connects... it

talks

about pleasure.

Talk about love. Talk about relationship. This is the book you read for four-year-olds. Talk about how it compares to other living creatures. It's... the one I'm thinking of is definitely a heterosexual story, but it plants the seeds very clearly that this is part of how we relate. This is part of how we express our love, our connection, our affection. This is pleasant, etcetera, etcetera. And establishes from the beginning freedom, autonomy, respect, pleasure, connection, that. He had a son in public school in Manhattan. He had two hours of sex education. It was like this. Two people entered.

One said, "When you have sex, you get AIDS. The other said, 'I had sex.' Therefore, I have AIDS." That was the end of her sex education. A very respectable public school in Manhattan. The other one was very, very lucky. In fact, he had a very good program that I was able to review. But still, It was about diseases. It was about dangers. This is what is wrong in America. Therefore, this is the only country that does not have a public health policy on adolescent sexuality. of the abstinence campaigns, the activity begins two years earlier than the Dutch liberals, eight times more teenage pregnancies than in the entire EU and 35 other countries combined and a proliferation of STDs.

On the one hand, there is a complete madness around health and safety policies. the cautionary principal and all the assault stuff you have on campus, and then you just swipe and fuck the next stranger. You can't talk to anyone here and here is this... and these two extremes. They are typical. It's always a combination of repressive tactics and complete, massive excesses, with nothing that's just a built-in issue because in the US sex is the risk factor. In Europe, being irresponsible is the risk factor. Sex is a natural part of life. As a result, there are signs everywhere about the fact that 14- and 15-year-olds will have sex and should use protection so they can enjoy sex, not to avoid getting sick.

In reality it is a very different conception. I can't even tell you where to start with this. It's wrong from the beginning. It's wrong from the moment you have pink and blue. The distinction still exists. It starts with the fact that all... that masculinity here is... if you don't play sports, for God's sake, most men would never be touched. At this point, most... This is all about sexuality for me. Sexuality is not about performing the act, sex. It's about being sexual people. It's about a way that... it's the distinction between violence and everything else. It starts with the fact that... ugh, I can't go.

I can go on and on. It's really that bad. Most kids right now in the US get their sex education starting at age 11 from one source, and that's pornography alone. Pornography is perfectly fun, but it's terrible sex education. It's really terrible sex education. And if you leave a void, the people who enter will always take advantage of the void. And then when you have a good English teacher here who starts teaching sex education in the class, people come saying you shouldn't be doing this. It is a public health problem. It's not even... it touches all levels because sexuality in every society is the place where you will find the most archaic, most deep-rooted, deep-rooted values ​​of a society, and it is also the place where you are We are going to find the most radical changes and progressive.

It's really a lens into society, and especially around violence. And that's why you don't have real and comprehensive sexual education, and that happens at four years old. Why four? Because at four years old you start to know, where will grandma go when she dies? And then you have a conception of death. And once you know where we're going, you also need to know where we're coming from, most of us. That's the first place, why he is so young. But this is also a country that thinks you should only start learning foreign languages ​​in high school. LOGAN URY: Phew!

Dan, it sounds like... DAN SAVAGE: I think the problem goes back to Australia getting the convicts, Canada getting the French, and us getting the Puritans, which was a shitty deal. LOGAN URY: So, Esther, you mentioned masculinity, and there was something I heard you say on a podcast that really fascinated me around women and perfectionism, how women really need to feel sexy to have sex and a lot of desire and the Passion revolves around making women feel sexy, and that is at odds with perfectionism because women have a voice in their head that is always critical of themselves.

And I think this is a high-functioning audience, and a lot of women here are trying to be the perfect employee, the perfect mother, the perfect wife. Can you talk a little about femininity, desire and perfectionism? ESTHER PEREL: Wow. But I'm going to rephrase this a little. I am going to say that being self-critical is one of the most effective tools of a consumer society, and in reality it is not only a privilege of women. I think men have their own list of things about which they may feel not good enough, insufficient or inadequate. So in that sense, I would say something different.

And I think that's probably... you need to tell me what you think about this because we haven't really talked about this. If you think about sexuality... I'm going to take a small detail. If you think about sexuality and the experience of letting go, right? Letting go to be able to enjoy, to be able to experience pleasure and all that. One would think, then, what are the blocks that prevent letting go? In a direct narrative, you will often hear a man say that nothing turns me on more than her. Yeah? Because if she's turned on, then he knows he's not hurting her.

She likes it. She can get around the main obstacle for men, which is predatory fear. If she likes him, if she likes him, then he doesn't have to worry. This is actually what appears on the screen. The woman on the screen always likes him, he never has a headache, he always says me too, he always says more, more, more, and he doesn't have to feel inadequate, afraid of rejection, or worried if she he likes it, which are the three most important internal experiences for men, psychologically and sexually. What is it for her? Why do I say predatory fear?

Because I believe that the obstacle in sexuality is the opposite of the social role. If you were raised to be a protector, then the obstacle has to be that you need to free yourself from the role of protector in order to enjoy, play and have fun. For her it is the parallel, the same. It's care. She doesn't say that nothing turns me on more than seeing him turned on, or her turned on, for that matter. She doesn't make any difference. If she doesn't like it, he can stay there with the biggest erection, without making a dent.

The store is closed. Nothing is going to happen. What turns her on is being herself, and that is the great secret of female sexuality is that it is enormously narcissistic. It is the opposite of caring about others, of feeling responsible for others. If she can think about herself, then she can participate. And in order to think about herself, she needs to like herself. Therefore, she cannot have a critical voice. That is the perfect piece. If she starts thinking about everything that is not good enough or she doesn't like her, she will shut down. Before asking a woman if she would make love to a man or another woman, ask her if she would make love to herself.

If she doesn't want to make love to herself, she won't let anyone else do it either, and that's where the perfection piece comes in. That voice is harder for her to turn off because she is more self-reflective than she is. for him. And I think that between two types, theThey teach sex education because that is basically teaching young people to talk. people to fuck you. How do you get to yes? What does a yes look like? What's a no? And what is an implicit no? Very important. And all my conversations with my son, he didn't want to have them.

I know that. We don't have to talk about that. But I couldn't know that he knew because I knew he would tell me that he knew because he wanted me to stop talking to him about sex, so I had to have those conversations with him whether he wanted to have them or not. , and whether he needed him to have them with him or not because he couldn't be sure that he didn't actually know. So I summarized it and thought, "Here are the things we're going to talk about. The more you fight this conversation, the longer it's going to take." And so we had those conversations.

But children are really inhibited when it comes to searching. You would think...in particular, the people in this room are probably looking for information and ran out and accessed it even when they were young. And many young people, particularly young women and girls, will be embarrassed before seeking out the information they may need. LOGAN URY: I think you two should pair up and teach an online sex education class. That would make a lot of people... DAN SAVAGE: But then we have to force people. That's why we need the national standard in actual sex ed curriculum, and we can't even have a national geography curriculum without the right shitting their pants every day.

ESTHER PEREL: There are two things you don't understand when you go online, and it's also a problem with sex education. In sex education as I know it, everyone is in class at the same time. It's not that boys receive their education, it's girls who receive their education. That's number one. Secondly, you learn to relate. You learn to listen to the nuances. The problem with the whole debate about consent is that it has become part of a culture that has lost the ability to read nuances and navigate ambiguities. The relationships are ambiguous. They are not fuck/no, in/out, yes/no.

Life is not like that in the extremes in the relationship, and that cannot be achieved from a screen. LOGAN URY: So we have time... DAN SAVAGE: And the other thing... a quick comment about sex education being mandatory and across the board is that we can be very proactive in educating our children. about sex, but our children are not. sleeping only with other people: the children of other parents who are hyperactive when it comes to raising their children. It is the agitation among the general population of children who know nothing about sex that endangers all of our children, whether or not they have good or decent sex education.

LOGAN URY: We have time for one more question and then I don't want to miss the book signing in the back, so go ahead. AUDIENCE: So when you think about it and rationalize the idea of ​​no more monogamy, it makes sense. However, the feelings and emotions do not follow, as society has programmed them to feel bad about it for decades. So how do you cut the cord and get your emotions to match your thoughts, and what was the process like for you? DAN SAVAGE: Are you referring to jealousy in particular? AUDIENCE: Yes, and other feelings. DAN SAVAGE: People often say that in conversations about non-monogamy or monogamy or whatever, they bring up jealousy as a disqualifier in some way, that these feelings of jealousy mean that we shouldn't have this type of relationship, or I.

I am incapable of having this type of relationship, or because there is jealousy within our relationship and we, as a couple, obviously cannot be non-monogamous. I don't think all couples should be, or should be, or would be happier if they weren't monogamous. I'm not prescriptive about it. But in my experience, processing that jealousy, talking about it, and working through it is how we showed each other that this was the right model for us, that we were capable of doing this. So it was in dealing with this that many people think is a kind of disqualifying kryptonite that we developed the emotional tools, and really the connection, to do this.

So I don't think jealousy as an emotion and as an experience means you can't or shouldn't do it. It's how you process it and how you handle it. And it is a specific case. For some people, jealousy is too powerful, too strong, too destabilizing, and too risky, so maybe something non-monogamous isn't the best idea for you... it's not the best idea for you right now. The first four years of my relationship with Terry, we were strictly monogamous because he was very, very jealous and a little insecure about everything and that. But who he is now is very different from who he was 21 years ago.

The relationship is now old enough to drink in all 50 states. ESTHER PEREL: But for me maybe it's different: if I have a position, it's that we need multiple models. We need something that breathes, that is alive, that changes and thrives. And if for you you say "I like a person", if there is no passion, it is generally monogamous. Passion is not shared well. It's later. When you are passionate, you love single-mined. You are very, very focused on one person. And when you've had a lot of insecurity in your life and massive trauma in your life, sometimes it makes you want to have someone who is there for you, who is reliable, stable, safe, and you don't want to have to deal with that. unknown of multiples.

We have many different parts of us that come to this question, and the goal is not for you to try to see how I can be non-monogamous. If your nature, if your sensitivity is simpler, stay that way if you like it, if it works for you. If one day you change, do it accordingly. Don't align yourself with an ideology. The problem with the open/closed monogamy conversation is that it very quickly becomes ideological, fractured, and polarized. I don't think that's right. I think we need a conversation. Monogamy has been evolving all the time. I think premarital sex was something inconceivable not long ago, and today having sex within a relationship with others is for some people inconceivable, but it's the same line.

It all happened because someone democratized contraception, by the way. Without that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So you stay true to your sensitivity and your... DAN SAVAGE: While you recognize that your sensitivity can change, and what's working for you now may be something you need to revisit later, and you have that ability and that power to review later. This gets me in trouble with non-monogamy proselytizers when I say this. But in my experience, all anecdotal, but with tons of mail and tons of eyewitness material, relationships that weren't monogamous from the start usually don't "succeed." And we can discuss what the definition of success in a relationship is.

Together until you are both dead or until one of you is dead is the idea. If you're together for three months, six months, two years, 10 years, 20 years, and you break up and you both learned, you both grew, there's still affection there, it was a low-conflict relationship and you both survived. I think those relationships should also be considered successful relationships. But if what you want is a long-term commitment, someone by your side for the long term, in my experience, and confirmed by email and what I have seen in my communities, those who are not monogamous that first week are not long-term relationships; not necessarily failed, but not long lasting either.

LOGAN URY: That's all we have time for, but thank you very much. This was a fascinating conversation.