Say More - Miranda July and Esther Perel on The Rebirth of Desire

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Say More - Miranda July and Esther Perel on The Rebirth of Desire"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
• Episode: Say More - Miranda July and Esther Perel on The Rebirth of Desire
• Host/Author: Esther Perel Global Media
• Release Date: September 23, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Where Should We Begin?, renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel engages in a profound conversation with artist and author Miranda July. They delve into Miranda July's latest novel, "All Fours," exploring themes of desire, relationships, and the intricate balance between personal fulfillment and intimacy.

Exploring "All Fours"

The Genesis of the Conversation

Esther Perel opens the discussion by expressing her admiration for Miranda July's new novel, describing it as a "tour de force" and likening it to a fictional counterpart of her own work, Mating in Captivity. She emphasizes the book's relevance to women aged 45 to 50 who are navigating the complexities of desire and personal fulfillment (00:00).

Esther Perel [00:00]: "It's actually a fiction version of Mating in Captivity. It explores the tension between the domestic and the erotic..."

Miranda July's Public Engagement

Miranda July shares her experience post-release, highlighting the exhaustion she felt despite positive feedback. She candidly discusses the challenges of maintaining privacy and the intense public response to her work (03:21).

Miranda July [04:21]: "It's what I hoped for. I felt like I was consciously risking, but knowing I wasn't alone."

Themes of Desire and Autonomy

Balancing Security and Freedom

The conversation delves into the core themes of desire depicted in All Fours. Both Perel and July explore the delicate balance between seeking security within a relationship and yearning for personal freedom and adventure (07:01).

Esther Perel [07:06]: "It's actual change that is selfish. It's change that suits her."

The Role of Motherhood

They discuss the societal expectations placed on women, particularly mothers, to prioritize others over themselves. This often leads to women struggling to reclaim their identities beyond their roles as caregivers (07:50).

Esther Perel [07:50]: "She’s a woman. She's...she’s not just being risky to...but a form of creating security."

Defining Erotic vs. Sexual

Distinguishing Concepts

A significant part of the dialogue centers on distinguishing between erotic and sexual. Perel asserts that eroticism transcends mere physical acts, embodying aliveness and a rich, imaginative connection (20:45).

Esther Perel [21:37]: "Eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It's the poetics of sex."

Miranda July's Perspective

July concurs, highlighting that eroticism involves a playful, turn-on feeling that doesn't necessarily lead to physical intimacy. She emphasizes the importance of emotional connections and the struggle to reignite passion in established relationships (20:50).

Miranda July [21:19]: "Sexual to me means like you're gonna get into it more, whereas there can be a sort of turned on feeling that just lives..."

Maintaining Desire in Relationships

Strategies for Sustaining Passion

Esther Perel outlines various strategies to maintain desire in long-term relationships. These include introducing novelty, cultivating humor, engaging in shared activities, and prioritizing personal well-being (43:19).

Esther Perel [43:34]: "It's about laughing... doing new things together... the friendship part of a relationship loves to be cozy, but the erotic part seeks novelty..."

Personal Narratives

July shares personal anecdotes about her relationship dynamics, illustrating the fears and challenges of maintaining individuality while fostering intimacy. She recounts moments of vulnerability and the transformative power of open communication (11:19; 16:02).

Miranda July [16:02]: "I've been more afraid of suffocation. But it can flip around, can't it?"

The Intersection of Language and Sexuality

Navigating Conversations

Perel and July discuss the complexities of communicating about sexuality, advocating for a language that transcends crude or sanctimonious tones. They emphasize the need for playful and metaphorical expressions to articulate desires and frustrations effectively (48:46).

Esther Perel [48:06]: "Sexuality is a very treacherous language... I've tried to provide a vocabulary for talking about sexuality that is neither smut nor sanctimony."

The Power of Metaphors

July highlights the significance of metaphors in making abstract feelings tangible, sharing how unexpected twists in her narrative aim to surprise and engage readers authentically (50:15).

Miranda July [50:15]: "I have to be interested and surprised by anything I'm writing for it to come alive."

Final Insights and Recommendations

Embracing Change and Aliveness

Both discuss the importance of embracing change to foster aliveness within relationships. They agree that cultivating a vibrant, energetic connection requires continuous effort and mutual understanding (46:03).

Miranda July [47:55]: "You need to understand both pain and pleasure."

Call to Action

Esther Perel encourages listeners to read Miranda July's All Fours and explore her own course, the "Desire Bundle," to further understand and rekindle desire in their relationships.

Esther Perel [52:00]: "If listening to my conversation with Miranda July inspires you to want to learn more, I invite you to read All Fours by Miranda July. And I invite you to explore my course, Desire Bundle."

Notable Quotes

• Esther Perel [00:00]: "It's actually a fiction version of Mating in Captivity. It explores the tension between the domestic and the erotic..."
• Miranda July [04:21]: "It's what I hoped for. I felt like I was consciously risking, but knowing I wasn't alone."
• Esther Perel [07:06]: "It's actual change that is selfish. It's change that suits her."
• Esther Perel [21:37]: "Eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It's the poetics of sex."
• Esther Perel [43:34]: "It's about laughing... doing new things together..."
• Miranda July [47:55]: "You need to understand both pain and pleasure."

Conclusion

This episode offers a rich exploration of desire's role in sustaining vibrant relationships. Through the intersection of Miranda July's literary insights and Esther Perel's therapeutic expertise, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how to balance personal autonomy with intimate connection, ultimately fostering a more fulfilling and alive partnership.

Transcript

[Esther Perel]

I just read All Fours, the new novel by Miranda July, and it's a real tour de force. It's actually touted as a manifesto for a generation, the generation often of women 45 to 50 who are in the next biological clock crisis, which is the narrowing down of the pinnacle of their libido. And who is wondering, is this it? Am I going to live that for another 20 years? What's now? I read the book and I thought, wow, this is a book, a fiction version of Mating in Captivity. It explores the tension between the domestic and the erotic, between our need for safety and our need for freedom and adventure, between stability and aliveness. And I thought, I would love to have a conversation with Miranda July. I am releasing a course on sexuality. It's a desire bundle. It's a duo corset for all the people who sit in my office day in, day out talking about the dilemmas of desire, about the stalemates that they are in, about the sexual gridlocks they are experiencing, about the spark that has gone. And I thought, how about if I read her book and I invite her to take the course and we have a conversation about desire in relationships, particularly more so from the lens of the woman. I invited her here in Los Angeles, so I thought since the book takes place in a room of her own, a la Virginia Woolf, I am going to invite her not in a studio and not in an office, but I'm going to invite her in a bedroom, which is beautifully designed and where we can talk very fluidly between her and her characters. And I invite you to to listen.

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[Esther Perel]

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[Miranda July]

Well, this is the first conversation I've had publicly since the book came out. So if you can imagine, everyone else I've talked to in a public sense was before the entire experience with other people.

[Esther Perel]

When did it come out exactly?

[Miranda July]

May 14th. And then I actually kind of went through a period of intense exhaustion such that I've really laid low. I actually canceled everything. So I've. The whole experience of it coming out has been alone in a way, like. Has been through, you know, wonderful emails and messages and stuff. But I think in a way friends have had. Have reported back and also with my having had the experience with the world, which of course changes it a bit from when you're just talking about a theoretical book that no one's read and. Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

Are you surprised? Do you feel recognized not as you, the person, but also in terms of what you captured?

[Miranda July]

It's what I hoped for. I felt like I was consciously risking, but knowing I wasn't alone. And so the whole bet was, okay.

[Esther Perel]

This represents the lives of.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, that I'm not just being risky to, you know, to risk or for. To place precarity in my life, but actually to be able to have this conversation for the rest of my life. So that in fact it wouldn't be a big risk. It would actually be a form of creating security. In a way. The risky feeling that this was a secret or shameful or that something bad would happen if you spoke openly the way you might with your best friend about marriage and desire and domesticity. And not just those things. Right, We've talked about all those things. But a kind of a fear that the way you feel inside has no place in life, even in what seems to be a very good life. That somewhere along the way, or maybe from the very start, you are living according to other people's rhythms. And that as you come into yourself, you know, start like waking up, growing up, you know, for me, this was during perimenopause. Another big secret that not fitting into your life feeling might become so great that it's a sort of secret agony that you just bear because what is it? It's nothing. It's just you complaining or. You know what I mean?

[Esther Perel]

It's so easy, that line, that moment where one of her crowd sourcers that basically says, just swallow it for the next five years, you'll come out on the other side and you'll be happy that you didn't jump ship.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. That you didn't blow up Your life, which I mean, doesn't that sound sort of like. Not from you, but sort of sounds like sound advice, like. Because I think also, especially as women, like don't be erratic, don't be messy, don't be a basket case. Right. There's so much shame around kind of intuition or actual change. I mean, we are erratic.

[Esther Perel]

It's actual change that is selfish. It's change that suits her.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, right.

[Esther Perel]

I think it's that it's not the change in and of itself. She could. If they all move to Paris, changing schools.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, we've done that a lot of times. Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

It's the change where she puts herself at the center rather than her care and worry for the well being of others.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

Which is actually part of the definition of motherhood. Which is why so many women struggle to retrieve the woman behind the mother. Because motherhood has to come with a certain chastity, a certain sacrifice, a certain abdication of oneself for the well being of all the others. And so a mother that is selfish is a woman.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

She's. I mean there's.

[Miranda July]

Right, right, right.

[Esther Perel]

I mean it's less, less categorical than that. But it, the woman comes with autonomy, comes with freedom and the mother.

[Miranda July]

Right. And in some ways, if you don't have children, one way you can show you're good is by caretaking.

[Esther Perel]

In other ways, your children can be elderly parents, can be the parents of your partner, can be your alcoholic brother.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

Are you being accused by the moral police of trying to influence women to.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I worried about that. I actually, yeah. Had right before it came out, I, I was having real anxiety. That didn't make sense to me because I was like, well, I'm excited. I have the sense this is going to go well. You know, like, what is the anxiety? And it's like, oh, I'm. I'm going against like my dad, my. You know, just like a whole sort of patriarchal structure of good men, you know, like. And there was the feeling like, what happens when you do that? Like, I literally thought like, am I safe here? I mean, I guess it's still early days, but.

[Esther Perel]

So you didn't treat this book as a novel. When you speak like this, the auto fiction part of the book seems to be. It's as if you, you took a responsibility for your characters.

[Miranda July]

I mean, as far as I can speak to the relationship to my own self, it is something I thought about a lot. Cause I didn't name the character and her job. You could map my career onto hers. And that Was initially she was a writer. Her name was Marion. And I think after a while I just was like, well, this, this is a book about the body partly. And like, rather than conjuring up this sort of fictional body, like, it seems more useful to kind of generously loan some parts of myself to this narrator. And it doesn't take very much reality to make something come alive. It's like red food coloring or something. You just need like a little drop and suddenly the whole thing is pink. And I thought, I think that might be interesting. And that's kind of where we're at with fiction and selves and social media. You know, everyone is already so busily constructing themselves that it just seemed like, I think we're sophisticated enough to handle that this is fiction, but that I haven't gone out of my way to prove that.

[Esther Perel]

You know, there was a woman yesterday who asked a question that she. She had divorced after whatever years, and she wanted to know how she could start a new relationship in which. Or she was basically in a new relationship, but she was constantly worried that she would lose herself again. Which I think is a question that I don't hear as often from male identified people. I hear it more from women. This notion that coming close to someone, holding on to another, often stands in opposition with holding on to oneself. What do you think of that?

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I'm thinking about the beginning of my. So me and my girlfriend both came out of long marriages, and I remember the beginning of our relationship as just this joyful pleasure state. And then for some reason that made me think of just this one day where maybe a couple months into the relationship, you know, it's going so well, so new. And she said something in an offhand way, but for some reason I had this like, wait, do I even know this person feeling. And then I did what I do, which is just kind of turned off, like. And in the turning off, it was like these bright lights that had been shining on us just went off. And I was like, oh, why did I think this was like this great new thing? This was just like a drug state and now it's worn off and this is just nothing. And. And right, I'll go home and whatever, just live my life. And this is sort of awkward now. And it was such a dramatic drop and I was so sad about it. And I. And I had this nagging feeling of like, I felt this before. I, you know, throughout my life I've had this utter disappointment and because we'd done pretty well at talking about things so far, I was like, I'm going to force myself to just say this. And I did. And I was nervous because in the.

[Esther Perel]

Past, somebody who's been swimming out in the ocean and suddenly realize they've kept swimming and they're very far, well, I.

[Miranda July]

Just didn't care about her suddenly anymore. I just.

[Esther Perel]

So you disconnect?

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I just. Well, what my experience was just like, fuck, like, I built this person up and now. Yeah, I just. I don't. I just don't feel that way anymore. And I. In the past, if I'd said something along those lines, even if I said it with self awareness, like, this is kind of weird. This just happened. I'm not sure what to think. The person would have in the past been like, well, that makes me feel pretty bad. Like, here I am, we're driving along. I thought we were having a great day, but there was somehow this new thing about her. And so I just said it. I just said, I don't. You know, I don't know what to make of this, but I'm just gonna be honest. This is what is going on inside me, why I've been quiet for the last few miles. And she said, yeah, it's really scary, isn't it? Vulnerability. And I was like, what? Like it hadn't occurred. I was like, vulnerability. That's why I shut off, because I scared myself.

[Esther Perel]

Yeah, that's what I meant by I swept so far.

[Miranda July]

Right. Yeah, you got it. And then I turned her because she'd been so into me.

[Esther Perel]

That had very little to do about her and a lot more to do about us.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, right, right. And she'd been so into me. And that's also part of why I turn off. And then I said to her, well, do you ever feel this way? Like you, you know, you don't. I know this is a thing about me. I can be hot and cold, whatever. And she was like, oh, yeah. When I dropped you off the other night, I thought, maybe I'll just burn this whole thing down. And I was like, I so gleeful, like, just, like, felt so in love. I was like, you're kidding me. You were going to. She's like, yeah. I was like, maybe I'll just never call again. And I just loved her so much. And that was sort of the beginning, in a way, of realizing, like, oh, there can be trust. Like, I'm neither going to lose myself nor disconnect to a degree that I can't be found again, like, but it's all still very new to me, you know? It's been like a little more than a year and a half.

[Esther Perel]

It really joins what I began to answer the woman yesterday, but I broadened it and I said, there's often a tension, in the good sense of the word in a relationship between one person more afraid of losing the other and one person more afraid of losing themselves. We all feel both, but we often outsource one side of the fear to the other person. So one person more afraid of abandonment and one person more afraid of suffocation.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

If you.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, no, and I've been more afraid of suffocation. But it can flip around, can't it? Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

I think flexibility in a relationship is when, in fact, people can go back and forth.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

What often happens is that people take on one side of the equation and they project onto the other person the part of the equation that is more challenging to them.

[Miranda July]

Right. Yeah. Kind of outsourcing that. Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

But you outsource the part that makes you more vulnerable than the one you keep.

[Miranda July]

Right. Oof. And we do that all over the place. Right.

[Esther Perel]

So once she tells you, I do this too.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

For one, your fear gets diffused. The extent of. Oh, I can disconnect to such a level gets a little diluted because you've got someone else who said, I thought I was gonna drop you off and never call you back.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And so suddenly the part of you that doesn't want to lose her comes up.

[Miranda July]

Right, Right. I'm going to be abandoned.

[Esther Perel]

Yeah, exactly. So now you're in both places. I can be cold, but I also don't want you to leave me. Right now you're experiencing both parts of the. Of what I think is what we all have. We all need security and we all need freedom.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

But you can experience freedom better when the other person doesn't threaten you with their freedom.

[Miranda July]

Right. Well, wait, break that down for me.

[Esther Perel]

Okay, I'll break it down. Like, I love your metaphor, so I'll try to give you a metaphor. The little kid sits here on your lap.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

Doesn't have to be your kid. A kid. And at some point a child gets up and goes into the world.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

To explore, to play, to discover.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

And at some point, they turn around.

[Miranda July]

Are you still there? Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

Yes. And when they see that you are there, what do they do?

[Miranda July]

They can go a little farther.

[Esther Perel]

Exactly. That's it. Your freedom doesn't exist on its own. It feels that it can go further into playful, unself conscious, carefree risk taking. Because there is a solid base here.

[Miranda July]

Yes.

[Esther Perel]

That you can come back to when you're done. If this base goes and does the same, that is often scary for people. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.

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[Esther Perel]

Do you use the word erotic and sexual interchangeably?

[Miranda July]

No. I guess sexual to me means like you're gonna get into it more, whereas there can be a sort of turned on feeling that just lives that's, you know, maybe it's playful in some moments, like with your partner throughout the day, you know, but maybe. Yeah, but it's not something that has to be acted on.

[Esther Perel]

Just a second. I'm curious what you think of that. I often think that modernity has reduced eroticism to sex and that in the mystical sense of the word eroticism has been about aliveness.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And your character is in search of aliveness. It involves sexuality, but it is not the most central element. Eroticism is what gives sexuality meaning. You can do sex and feel very little, right?

[Miranda July]

Oh, yes, right.

[Esther Perel]

I mean, women have done that for centuries. So I make a point of saying sexuality and eroticism, two different things. Sexuality is the pivot. It's the basic instinct. But eroticism is sexuality transformed by the human imagination. It's the poetics of sex. It's what gives it meaning. And then it means that it's about a quality of vibrancy, vitality, curiosity, playfulness.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

That's what makes it erotic, makes it alive. And when I wrote the State of Affairs and I went around the world talking to people who had affairs, the one word that they all shared was I felt alive. They didn't talk about the sex. Some of them had had once. Some of them had lot. Some of them. That really wasn't the cent. But alive was the word. Alive and vibrant, vital, energetic, something reconnected with oneself. What do you think of that?

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I like that so much in your course that it extends out of. It's not just this thing in bed or something. Like it's in all of life. And you kind of cultivate it, you know, it's like something that can be in you all the time. I did. Yeah. I wanted to get that across in the book. And that. That's why, you know, so she has this kind of affair, emotional affair. But the reason why it's so hard to go home is because once you've been alive, it's really hard to go back, you know, and it's. And she's made one thing very alive. This is where I can be alive in this room, you know, or with this person. And then she's just, you know, this home is not where I feel alive. And I think it's like, since we're talking about such ephemeral things, like there's no real reason why that's true. You know, there's no. I mean, I do think there's real reasons kind of built into the structure of marriage or what people, you know, don't realize they're agreeing to. And you have to kind of re. Agree to other things. But I guess it's not putting it all back in the box when she goes home, that creates the problems, because that's tremendously painful to be faced with. How little space you've given yourself. Moment to moment to feel alive.

[Esther Perel]

The fascinating thing for me Is that you call it an emotional affair?

[Miranda July]

Yeah. Maybe it's not. I think I got that from other people.

[Esther Perel]

Yeah. But this is a real cultural conversation.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

I mean, in the United States, there is a real desire to make a distinction between a sexual affair and an emotional affair.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. I don't actually myself, I realize, like, I feel like I've had affairs with people. I've, you know, only touched their hand, you know, and I've always sort of joked that I'm a bit Victorian. But I think it's also just that sex can be a lot of things. I mean, I've also, like, had repeated intercourse that didn't really seem very.

[Esther Perel]

Exactly. So I think of it sometimes as puritanical hair splitting because there was no penetration. Then it's no longer a sexual affair. But there were feelings, so there was an emotional affair. When in fact, you know, you can have a very erotic experience without touching anything. Because your imagination, you know, it's like Proust's famous line. It's not the other person that's responsible for love, it's your imagination.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

So the character has a very erotic experience in this room. To me, it's as sexual as they come. And I think one of the things I try so hard, especially in my work with heterosexual couples, is to decouple sex from intercourse. That if there is no penis entering a vagina, then that meant there was no sex, which is actually a thing that two women can really sidestep much more easily. But it is so entrenched that this is where sex starts. And then it becomes so narrowly focused on those genitals, which, when those genitals are not as available, people don't really know what to do.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I know. I do feel like all the little comments throughout the day are sex to me.

[Esther Perel]

You know, like foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm. That's.

[Miranda July]

That's.

[Esther Perel]

That's the thing. Right. It's the ways that you keep that energy that you continue to eroticize or your partner. You see, you. You sexualize your partner. That doesn't mean you're constantly thinking about having sex with him. Means that you see them as a sexual being and rather than you see them as your partner. In Management, Inc. And then at the end of the day, you know, you think that you can just roll around and suddenly be all hot and sweaty.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

You live together.

[Miranda July]

No.

[Esther Perel]

Do you think that that structure, by definition, allows for the preservation of that energy in a way where setting up home, living together, paying bills together, maybe having children together? You know, being a couple even without the legality of marriage. But being a couple in a system.

[Miranda July]

Right? Yes.

[Esther Perel]

I mean, rather than you are a couple outside of a system.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. I mean, I know plenty of, like, divorced moms who went on to find a new person and that became a new family unit. Right. I didn't want that. I wanted to get to live alone with my child and kind of figure out what my home was like. What? Like, just sort of almost start from scratch. Like, here's who I really am. Sorry it took so long, but just, we can just. I'm just going to be me day and night.

[Esther Perel]

It takes so long. Life. We get to know ourselves better, we develop confidence. We may even have had those thoughts 20 years before, but that didn't mean that we had the confidence to live by them. And I think it's developmental. I don't think people at 20 or 30 know necessarily what you call who they are.

[Miranda July]

I know. I really. Yeah, I agree. And I've kind of had to tell myself with my. You know, when I think about my child kind of going through all this, it's like, well, I'm showing them change. Like, I'm modeling. Like, you get to change. You get to grow and change your whole life and become more yourself, like, as you get older.

[Esther Perel]

And how old were you when you started to write the book? How long did it take?

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I started at 45 and finished at 49. Now I'm 50.

[Esther Perel]

So I think I started meeting probably around 42.

[Miranda July]

Oh, wow.

[Esther Perel]

You know, and I wrote it over two years. I actually had never thought about what stage I was in when I started to write it.

[Miranda July]

Wow.

[Esther Perel]

That I began to think as I was reading your book. I thought of it as the stage of. My youngest is 5. I can finally start a project where I can read a book and remember the beginning when I reach the end and I'm ready to do something new and something creative. And so I took a year to write the initial article, and then the book project came out. But I didn't associate it with where I'm at. I just thought about all the things that I had learned professionally, too, that I questioned. Premises that we were instructed with about the meaning of sexuality in relationships. How do we interpret sexual stalemates in the context of the overall relationships? All these truths that I had kind of learned, and I began to question them one by one. And that's when I said, okay, love and desire, they relate, but they also conflict. And therein lies the mystery of eroticism. And that's What I want to probe what is the nature of desire in long term relationship? Because in effect, you don't challenge the love of your relationship. You challenge desire and you challenge a certain experience of deadness that creeps up in you. And in him. Yeah, and in him. I mean, he's actually. I think he's a very important character in the book. In the book. And not spoken enough about. Well, I'm a couples therapist, so I'm not just looking at the female partner, but in this case he's a man. But I'm very interested in his character, in his energy, in his own fantasy life, in his own relationship with Caro, which energizes him, which he then bring. He seems to be able to bring it home.

[Miranda July]

I mean, it's interesting. I've gotten so many messages and emails from women who said, I never would have been able to say all the these things to my husband, but I gave him the book and somehow he was, he was able to understand it. And now we've changed everything. We've begun these conversations and I think.

[Esther Perel]

In some ways it's exactly the goal of my courses.

[Miranda July]

It's really interesting companion.

[Esther Perel]

Yes. They really go together. It's amazing how little people talk about this, especially with the person they're having sex with.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

Keep going.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. It's so hard. I mean, I see you with the course really brilliantly trying to figure out how do you. It's like seeing around a corner that you just can't see around, you know. And I think it does begin with a lot of questions, like you were saying when you started writing mating, like, why are things the way they are? And she begins to ask that in the relationship. And he's. It was really important to me that he's a good guy. Like, I didn't want the book to be about him in the sense, like if he's doing terrible things or things that are, you know, you can't live with, then like. Well, of course it's a less universal story. In a way. It had to be about her. And I think in doing that, I sort of accidentally gave him more personhood because he's not just the instigator of her, you know, as often happens in a, in a story.

[Esther Perel]

But he's presented as less complex.

[Miranda July]

Well, she was going into her darkness and he was sort of content to have the darkness of women near him.

[Esther Perel]

Without having to go into his own.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. And that in some ways that's often the women's role in this culture. Like, I will contain all the, all the emotional turmoil and complexity and badness sometimes, you know, and you can remain like an upstanding citizen of a world that frankly was made for you. And I guess, I mean, it's been interesting as the book comes out, like I mentioned, some, you know, women have given it to their husbands and so forth. There's also been a lot of men who've written me who just identify with the narrator and with the woman. And it kind of made me think, oh, just as my whole life I've read these heroes journeys and learned and gotten very good at being ambitious and brave and conquering and all these things that we attribute to the masculine or whatever. I mean, I'm great at those things. I'm a great, you know, archetypal man in a way. But the whole like world of interiority that I have with my friends, like when we spend five hours in a row together, those men have no access to. And until it's sort of modeled for you, like this is how intimately we're allowed to talk as humans, you know, any of any gender. You can talk in this much detail. You can feel this much. The emails I've been getting or the dms, I should say, are like as if they were deprived of that knowledge and they feel almost like they shouldn't get to know it. You know, they shouldn't even get to know about this kind of thought or conversation. But they are identifying it with their deepest selves, you know, not maybe with their lived relationships, but with their own feelings. And that's. I didn't, you know, that isn't what I was thinking about when I was writing, but it's quite moving to me.

[Esther Perel]

It's interesting when you talk about the institution of marriage and you say that it was created to serve men. Yes, there's a lot of that. But I also think that when we look at the kinds of relationship that you write, there's no winner. Yeah, this thing is not working better for him than for her.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

Even though men are more social, if they are in a relationship, they are less likely to be in a bad health situation, they're more likely to live longer. I mean, there's a lot of indicators that say that the well being of men in the context of a relationship goes up and the well being of women goes down. But that's, that's really by choosing certain kinds of indicators, I think in terms of losing oneself, in terms of disconnecting from one's own sense of pleasure, from one's desires, from one's sense of aliveness I don't know that the situation is by definition worse for women than men. And in same sex relationships it exists no less. There's something about the needs for creating the structure of the domestic that exists somewhat. Well, the way that Stephen Mitchell says is like, you know, we all have two sets of fundamental human needs. Security, adventure, stability, change, predictability, surprise, familiarity, novelty. And these two sets of needs actually spring from different sources and pull us in different directions. And basically for me, the fate of desire in modern relationship is about reconciling these two seemingly opposing sets of human needs.

[Miranda July]

Right, Right.

[Esther Perel]

So it's always like there is a certain context that is more likely to maintain desire, but it is not the same context that is more likely to, you know, what a love story needs is not the same as what a life story needs.

[Miranda July]

Right, Right.

[Esther Perel]

And this is the mystery for me. We have to take a brief break, so stay with me and let's see where this goes.

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[Miranda July]

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[Miranda July]

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[Miranda July]

In your course. There's lots of experience of it. Actually no, it's really pretty remarkable. I feel like it's one of those things like Sometimes, you know, when you read, like, a great text when you're young or at a certain point in your life, you read it, but it doesn't really click. And then you might continue living your life, and suddenly you're like, oh, that's what she was talking about. Like, you know, like, people should feel reassured that even if they don't feel like they're doing it well or getting it all, it's all going in and it's now a resource so they can recognize it in their life. You know, I had all these questions, but I was like, oh, she's not going to want to talk in detail about her life. But I guess, like, I wanted to know. Like, I know what's erotic for me or what's foreplay for me. Like, I could. And I. The, like, writer in me wants some details from you. Like, I want to know what you like.

[Esther Perel]

You know, it's interesting. It's not a direct answer to your question, but it's something that I was talking before because you go to see this endocrinologist and she's starting to talk with you about hormones and all of that. One of the very interesting findings about hormones therapy in women is that the placebo response is around 50 something. 52, 54, if I remember. Well, can't be the exact number, maybe, but it's astoundingly high. So you ask yourself, what does that say if half the women respond to a placebo? It says that if she goes to get help, because she says, I want to experience some arousal again, even spontaneous arousal. I want to experience the energy of my body that I used to know and not just feel completely numb. If she thinks about herself, if she attends to herself, if she pampers herself, all of those things will have an effect comparable to the hormones. Or in other words, in your case, if you give her a new plot. Sometimes she doesn't need hormones. Just give her a new story. A story that motivates her, engages her, ignites her, you know, so that, to me, is a very important piece. So it's like, how do. For me, it's a ton of different things, right? You know, sometimes it has to do with music and singing. I love to sing and I love to dance. Now, the difference is that you can sing and be very, very sad, but you cannot dance and be sad. The body just won't dance when it is completely collapsed. And so I love both of these things. And anytime. I mean, there's probably not much else that can get me out of a mood than to Move.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And then it's about, you know, paying attention to. I grew up above a clothing store, you know, above my. And I grew up in a clothing store of my parents. So clothes. Clothes make a big difference.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

You know, to paying attention, to making yourself feel good, to. It's that. Then it's about laughing. I mean, I have a partner who has a phenomenal sense of humor and can really take me out of different situations. And I find humor is an exquisite form of intelligence. And then a lot of it is doing new things together with my partner, things that we haven't done, from travel to art to projects that we do together. It's throwing ourselves into expansive and new situations rather than settling on what is more cozy and familiar. It's like, you know, the friendship part of a relationship loves to be cozy.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And comfortable. But the erotic part of a relationship wants to experience novelty and mystery and surprise. And so I am very an active seeker of those kinds of things. So it's a lot. It's a lot of different things, you know, and I think, because sometimes it could feel like, oh, you're just an experienced junkie or something. And it's really not. The reason I'm actually really, really interested in eroticism is because I grew up in a community of people who had experienced massive trauma. They were all holocaust survivors. They all had lost pretty much their entire family, their entire life. And I was fascinated by how does one get up after all of this and still find the taste to live? And maybe even a joie de vivre. So that's why my interest came up and why I keep thinking about aliveness. Because aliveness is freedom, possibility, adventure, you know, self definition, self determination. It's. It's all of that. It's not just excitement.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, I know.

[Esther Perel]

You know, and part of why I got then hooked myself in it is because I thought, if you are the child of that legacy, you better do something with your life. And that meant I wasn't going to have a little life. Whatever I defined as little. I wanted a rich life. Not money, not fame. Rich, rich with people with experiences, with meaning. With meaning. And because I had to make up for all those who hadn't had a chance to live.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And it's from that place that my drive comes. It's a very young, old drive. And I spent decades not connecting the dots.

[Miranda July]

Yeah, isn't that wild?

[Esther Perel]

You know, so when you say, like, you know, why didn't I do it earlier? Because earlier you plant the seeds, Right. But you don't Always know why.

[Miranda July]

Yeah.

[Esther Perel]

And then one day I write my book like you wrote your book. And I. And I remember the conversation with Jack about that where I just really understood that distinction between. I'm not writing a book about sex. I see loads of people who have regular good sex, fine. But that doesn't make them feel alive. And I know people who have not that much sex anymore, but they have an energy in their relationship. Relationship that sparked that je ne sais quoi. What is it?

[Miranda July]

Right, right.

[Esther Perel]

That's what got me interested.

[Miranda July]

Yeah. Oh, that's so important because it also. It sort of cuts through this idea that pleasure is kind of connected to luxury or something. You know, that there's a. Like, I feel like when I've been forced to contend with my body the most, it's been out of suffering, you know, and. And that's when I've been kind of most in my body and learned to notice what it feels and wants. And I think somehow sex and pleasure got very divorced from the same body that feels pain. And there really is all the same. And you need. In a way, you need to understand both. To understand either of them.

[Esther Perel]

Can you understand pleasure without understanding pain?

[Miranda July]

Yeah, that's sort of. Right. And somehow humor connects them too, right?

[Esther Perel]

Yes. I mean, it's the same as can you be happy without having known sorrow?

[Miranda July]

And humor is the part that's like points at kind of the wrongness of that, you know, and that that's okay, you know, that they're mixed up. The suffering and the pleasure and the pangs and the different. That pleasure isn't this one creamy thing. I mean, you speak really eloquently about that and. Of course, but that it's like a whole person, you know, along with their childhood and all their, you know, all their suffering is part of what they have to work with and pleasure wise.

[Esther Perel]

So the one thing that I was thinking about that, you know, you brought up humor as well, and playfulness, but also the playfulness of the language. Sexuality is a very treacherous language in itself. It is a very interesting language, as in vocabulary. And talking about sexuality is often especially, I have to say, in this society, it's either smut or sanctimony.

[Miranda July]

Right.

[Esther Perel]

And it's very. I mean, so much of what I've tried to do is to provide a vocabulary for talking about sexuality that is neither of these extremes. And that just helps to develop a comfortable metaphorical language to talk about one's desire, one's preferences, fantasies, fetishes and frustrations, for that matter. But you bring, you know, you've got a ton of these fantastic metaphors from the one that everybody quotes of the whistling tea kettle to. But it is an amazing image. You kind of visualize it immediately. That's what metaphors do. So I'm very curious about your quest for that language, your playfulness in the language. It's not just that it's raw and unvarnishedly direct and all of that. It's more than that.

[Miranda July]

I mean, I guess I have to be interested and surprised by anything I'm writing for it to come alive. And so with any topic that's kind of been hit a lot, it's like I go off the path in order just to feel surprised and to feel it as it really happens in life. Because when it's interesting, presumably all the sex in the book is worth writing about, then you want to come up with, I remember what that feels like, you know, but it doesn't. It's not going to work just to write something that happened in my life because I'm not surprised by that anymore. So I have to be surprised all over again, you know, like, have my breath taken away. I remember the point. There's a character, I don't want to give stuff away or whatever, who's kind of a smaller character in the beginning and who comes back midway through the book and the narrator spends, like, a night with her. And I was so. I kind of knew this night was going to happen in some form, but I was so shocked that it was her, and I was like, oh, my God, she was there all along. Great.

[Esther Perel]

I think it's a great place to stop. Thank you, Miranda. And Miranda July is the author of All Fours and a tour de force and an artist that you absolutely want to discover. So it's a pleasure.

[Miranda July]

Thank you. Such an honor.

[Esther Perel]

If listening to my conversation with Miranda July inspires you to want to learn more, I invite you to read All Fours by Miranda July. And I invite you to Explore my course, D'Esterre Pirel Desire Bundle. It has two parts. Bringing Desire back for if you are really stuck, and playing with desire for if you actually want to take the flicker and see to what extent it can become a more heavily burning flame.

[Sponsor]

Where should what we Begin with? Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and the Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller and Julia Natt. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider and the executive producers of Where Should We Begin? Are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller and Jack Saul.

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