Free Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

language for closeness that hasn’t been spoiled. Through sex, men can recapture the pure pleasure of connection without having to compress their hard-to-articulate needs into the prison of words.
    The adherents of talk intimacy (often, though not always, women) have a hard time recognizing these other languages for closeness, hence they feel cheated when their partners are reluctant to confide in them. “Why won’t you talk to me?” they plead. “You should be able to tell me anything. Don’t you trust me? I want to be your best friend.” In this setup, the pressure is always on the non-talker to change, rather than on the talker to be more versatile. This situation minimizes the importance of nonverbal communication: doing nice things for each other, making attentive gestures, or sharing projects in a spirit of collaboration. A priceless smile or a well-timed wink expresses complicity and attunement, especially when words are unavailable.
    Eddie, a longtime friend of mine, had a history of getting dumped by women who were dismayed because he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—“open up.” The consensus among these women was that Eddie had a fear of commitment. “Whatever that means,” he said. They never knew how he felt about them. He would respond defensively. “What do you mean? I see you every day, don’t I? How can you not know how I feel?” When he met his wife, Noriko, she spoke almost no English, and he spoke no Japanese at all. Their courtship was literally speechless. Twelve years later, with two children in tow, he reflects on the early days. “I really think that not being able to talk made this whole thing possible. For once, therewas no pressure on me to share. And so Noriko and I had to show how much we liked each other in other ways. We cooked for each other a lot, gave each other baths. I washed her hair. We looked at art. I remember one day I had just seen some amazing sculpture this homeless guy Curtis had made on Lafayette Street—he was crazy but brilliant. Try explaining that in pantomime. Whatever we couldn’t say, we showed, so I put her coat on her and led her by the hand all the way across town. Her face lit up when she saw it. It’s not like we didn’t communicate; we just didn’t talk.”
When Too Much Is Still Not Enough
    I am not convinced that unrestrained disclosure—the ability to speak the truth and not hide anything—necessarily fosters a harmonious and robust intimacy. Any practice can be taken to a ridiculous extreme. Eddie and Noriko remind us that we can be very close without much talk. And the reverse is also true—too much self-revealing talk can still land us on the outskirts of intimacy.
    In the wonderful movie
Bliss
, a scene of passionate lovemaking—dim lights, vague body parts, and the roaring groans accompanying orgasm—is immediately followed by a couples therapy session. The therapist, played by Spalding Gray, adheres to an ideology of openness which the husband finds more than a little difficult to take.
Therapist:
How’s the sex?
Joseph:
You go first.
Mary:
OK. I have a confession to make. I fake my orgasms. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you.
Joseph:
You’ve never had an orgasm?
Mary:
Not with you.
Therapist:
Joseph, it’s important that Mary can tell you how she feels, and for you to be able to hear it.
    Obviously, knowing everything about the other, and having him know everything about us, does not always promote the kind of closeness we want. If words serve as venues of connection, they can also stage insuperable obstacles. Needless to say, I don’t advocate this kind of therapeutic intervention.
    The mandate of intimacy, when taken too far, can resemble coercion. In my own work, I see couples who no longer wait for an invitation into their partner’s interiority, but instead demand admittance, as if they are entitled to unrestricted access into the private thoughts of their loved ones. Intimacy becomes intrusion rather than