Mating in Captivity and the Lost Rituals of Desire
What modern relationships forgot about mating.
This week Esther Perel celebrates 20 years since she released her seminal work Mating in Captivity: How to Keep Desire and Passion Alive in Long-Term Relationships.
In this incredible book, Esther explored such questions as:
How do we sustain desire inside familiarity?
How do we hold the paradoxical need for safety and excitement in a relationship?
And can we want what we already have?
Esther concludes that couples who successfully sustain desire become adept at holding the paradoxes of desire:
“Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion…..Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner while recognizing his persistent mystery; creating security while remaining open to the unknown; cultivating intimacy that requires privacy. Separateness and togetherness alternate…Desire resists confinement, and commitment mustn’t swallow freedom whole”
In the new foreword to the 20th anniversary edition of Mating in Captivity, Esther reflects on the cultural shift during that time and how today individuals and couples are much more willing to discuss their sex lives.
A lot has changed — dating apps, the conversations around sexuality, the injection of BDSM into the mainstream zeitgeist — but what hasn’t changed is the centrality of our need and desire for sex.
This is one of the reasons I became obsessed with exploring the psychology of desire.
Through ethnographic research, writing, surveys, and nearly one hundred episodes of The Erotic Realm podcast — where I interview everyone from Dominants and submissives to tantric practitioners, queer creators, fetishists, and therapists — I’ve spent years immersed in conversations about eroticism.
After years exploring this realm, I’ve landed on one core principle:
To desire and be desired is a pivotal human experience.
Why then does desire come with so many difficulties and complexities?
And what can we learn from communities who consciously play with desire?
Sex ≠ Mating
Re-reading Mating in Captivity, I began wondering whether many modern struggles around desire emerge from a subtle but important cultural collapse:
We seem to have replaced mating with sex.
And perhaps something essential was lost in the process.
Esther herself says she refers to the book in short as “Mating.” A simple word, yet I feel it captures the core principle of both the message of the book and what I’d like to discuss here.
When a lot of us hear the word mating, we think of sex.
But does mating really equal sex?
According to the Oxford Dictionary:
Sex = physical activity between two people in which they touch each other’s sexual organs, and which may include sexual intercourse.
Mating = the act of sex between animals, often specifically to produce young. It is used to describe the breeding, copulation, or pairing behavior of animals, often involving specific courtship rituals and behaviors prior to sexual union.
Do these sound like the same thing to you?
When we use the word sex, a lot of what is captured by the word mating is lost.
The courtship.
The rituals.
The behaviors prior to sex itself.
I’m not just talking about foreplay, but the whole process that leads to the desire for sexual behaviors with your chosen mate.
If we replace the word sex with mating, we broaden the exploration of desire to include an entire erotic ecology.
When I first heard of Esther’s book many years ago, the phrase Mating in Captivity really stood out — it’s not often we think about the fact that we humans are, in a sense, mating in captivity.
Mating Rituals
Many animals have mating rituals, and a lot of us have witnessed them with glee and awe. Animals that use mating rituals, such as a penguin choosing a particular rock to “propose” to its mate, or a bower bird who meticulously crafts a nesting site and decorates it with the colour blue, are some of the most fascinating parts of David Attenborough documentaries.
I believe that we find these scenes fascinating not only because they are often visually stunning, but because many of us long for a more ritualised experience in our own mating.
As Esther points out about one of her therapeutic clients:
“What Sarah looks forward to is more than sex; it’s the ritual.”
The modern mating ritual of a simple right swipe and “wyd” doesn’t quite compare, does it?
Esther points out that the difference between animal and human mating is the erotic:
“Animals have sex; eroticism is exclusively human. It is sexuality transformed by the imagination. In fact, you don’t even need the act of sex to have a full erotic experience.”
We have created a world separate from nature, one in which we don’t often think of ourselves as animal, and yet at our core we are still animalistic in our nature — our desire included.
So how do we bridge the gap between the two — our animalistic nature and our modern lives?
In my ethnographic exploration of different sexuality communities around the world, including tantra, BDSM, and queer communities, I’ve encountered people who break free from the heteronormative scripts modern society has become accustomed to.
These communities not only preserve aspects of mating rituals but actively play with them, and unsurprisingly this often results in greater sexual satisfaction.
Tantric traditions often approach sexuality less as performance and more as presence. Through practices like eye gazing, breath work, movement, and intentional touch, sex becomes less about a physical act and more about attention. Tantric sex becomes less about performance and more about a co-created ritual of energetic exchange and pleasure that is witnessed and experienced by the two people involved.
BDSM (Bondage, Dominance/submission, Sadism/Masochism) is a ritualised sexuality where typically a dominant and submissive (or top and bottom) will engage in explicit pre-scene negotiation and then engage in those activities in a ritualised way — referred to as play.
As Esther highlights in her discussion of successful couples:
“Every so often, I meet couples who get it, who maintain a sense of playfulness with each other, in and out of the bedroom. They are physically and sensually alive — two people whose desire for one another hasn’t been left to languish.”
“...playfulness is central to their relationship and eroticism extends beyond the sexual act…they take time to nurture an erotic space.”
It is within these scenes that participants often explore symbolic identities or particular aspects of their personality. Scenes often result in experiences and emotions ranging from relief and happiness to anger, sadness, catharsis, and even transcendence.
It is not uncommon for participants in BDSM to describe deeply erotic experiences that did not include the act of sex. (For specific examples of this, I recommend listening to the Peak Erotic Experience episodes of The Erotic Realm, where I ask guests to describe an erotic experience that has stayed with them. You’ll notice that many do not include sex or penetration at all.)
Queer individuals who do not fit into heteronormative scripts have often had to create their own. It’s not uncommon for two men in the gay community to quickly discuss their desired roles in the bedroom, for example. This negotiation of wants and needs often leads to a greater sense of sexual satisfaction.
Studies on BDSM, queer relationships, and tantra-like mindfulness practices all seem to point toward the same thing: when people approach sexuality with more communication, intentionality, presence, and freedom to negotiate desire, they tend to report better sexual and relational outcomes.
Together, these findings hint at something bigger: that erotic fulfillment may have less to do with any one identity or practice, and more to do with consciousness, communication, and the permission to engage desire more intentionally.
Mainstream sexuality can learn a lot from these communities, as they are consciously preserving, defining, and recreating aspects of mating culture.
For them, sex isn’t just about sex.
It’s about cultivating desire, creating a ritualised space of mutual pleasure, and evolving the ecosystem of mating to include the full range of human emotions and experiences.
Desire Needs Psychological Space
One of Esther Perel’s central insights in Mating in Captivity is that desire requires a certain degree of psychological distance.
Not disconnection.
Not emotional coldness.
But space.
The ability to see your partner not only as the person who helps with groceries, pays bills, or lies beside you every night — but as someone slightly unknowable.
Someone separate from you. Someone capable of surprising you.
When mating becomes reduced to sex, and sex becomes reduced to routine, we stop consciously creating the psychological conditions that allow eroticism to emerge.
Many mating rituals are, at their core, symbolic acts of transformation.
Dressing differently.
Lighting candles.
Eye gazing.
Taking on roles.
Entering a scene.
Allowing yourself to be seen differently.
These rituals do more than create mood. They create psychological space. They allow us to momentarily step outside the ordinary structures of daily life and encounter one another again with imagination rather than familiarity.
This is something I’ve repeatedly noticed in the communities I’ve explored.
A person is not only a husband, wife, accountant, parent, or partner.
They may also become: a seductress, a dominant, a brat, a worshipper, a tease, even a stranger.
I’m often struck when I interview guests for The Erotic Realm at how different their everyday persona they describe at the beginning of our conversation is from their erotic persona.
Our eroticism often lives in the parts of ourselves that exceed our ordinary social roles.
Perhaps this is why ritual and play matter so deeply.
The art of mating interrupts the predictability of everyday life and allows us to see each other through a completely different lens.
The Art of Mating
Perhaps modern and long term relationships aren’t suffering from a lack of sex per se.
Perhaps they are suffering from the disappearance of mating.
The loss of ritual.
Of anticipation.
Erotic play.
Psychological seduction.
Curiosity.
Of the slow unfolding tension that exists before touch itself.
Not simply the loss of intercourse — but the loss of the erotic world that once surrounded it.
Twenty years after Mating in Captivity was first released, I think Esther Perel’s title captures something even more relevant now than it did then.
We are, in many ways, animals mating in captivity, separate from nature.
Creatures with ancient nervous systems attempting to sustain desire inside lives increasingly shaped by routine, technology, productivity, exhaustion, and constant familiarity.
And perhaps one of the great challenges of modern relationships is not simply learning how to love one another — but learning how to remain erotically alive to one another.
How to continue seeing our partners not only through the lens of function, but through the lens of imagination.
How to create moments of mystery inside familiarity.
How to preserve playfulness inside commitment.
How to consciously cultivate the psychological space desire needs in order to breathe.
This, I think, is what many queer, kinky, tantric, and alternative erotic communities are often exploring so consciously: not simply different forms of sex, but different ways of relating to eroticism itself.
Different ways of mating.
And perhaps the invitation hidden inside all of this is not necessarily to become more kinky, more alternative, or more experimental.
But to become more conscious. More curious. More playful.
More intentional about the erotic ecosystems we create together.
Because desire is not something we find once and then permanently possess.
Desire is something we continue entering together.
And perhaps the flame of desire survives where two people continue consciously returning to the unique shared erotic realm between them — and the ongoing choice to meet each other there again, and again.
Questions to ponder
What is your mating ritual?
What stokes your desire? And your partner’s?
What is a mating ritual you would like to co-create with your partner (or future partner)?
When was the last time you felt playful during sex? How can you cultivate the feeling of playfulness with your partner (or future partner)?
What’s a way that you can create space and otherness in your relationship(s)?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments if this article resonated with you or opened your mind to new ways of exploring.
Thanks for reading!
Emma
Founder of Psychology of Desire | Host of The Erotic Realm podcast
Want to explore the psychology of your desire?
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p.s Want to explore my writing?
The Psychology of Desire Case File Series:
The Sole of Desire: Foot Fetish Origins | Psychology of Desire: Case File #1
The Female Orgasm Demystified | Psychology of Desire: Case File #3
Auralism: The Psychology of Erotic Sound. Why Do Some People Hear Desire?
My Erotic Journey: From Repressed to Expressed
The Shadow’s Playground: When Suppressed Desires Visit Us in Dreams
The Sole of Desire: Foot Fetish Origins | Psychology of Desire: Case File #1
What Your Erotic Dreams Reveal About Your Deepest Desires
The Secret Life of Your Desire
Why Your Desires Are More Normal Than You Think.
What If Everything You Know About Men and Women Is Wrong?
The Hidden Key to Lasting Desire: It’s Not What You Think
Are Men and Women Wired Differently For Desire?
And don’t forget my Jung of Sex Series:
The Jung of Sex | The Archetypes of Desire
References:
Mating in Captivity
Perel, E. (2025). Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (20th Anniversary Edition).
Carty, A., & Davidson, A. (2024). Directness of Communication Mediates Sexual Satisfaction: What We Can Learn from a Positive View of BDSM Practice. Journal of Positive Sexuality, 10(1), 8–16.
Mallory, A. B., et al. (2022). Dimensions of Couples’ Sexual Communication, Relationship Satisfaction, and Sexual Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(3), 350–362.
Hoff, C. C., & Beougher, S. C. (2010). Sexual Agreements Among Gay Male Couples. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(3), 774–787.
Leavitt, C. E., et al. (2021). Linking Sexual Mindfulness to Mixed-Sex Couples’ Relational Flourishing, Sexual Harmony, and Orgasm. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50, 3597–3610.
Sánchez-Fuentes, M. M., Santos-Iglesias, P., & Sierra, J. C. (2014). A Systematic Review of Sexual Satisfaction. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 14(1), 67–75
Great piece, thank you for sharing ❤️
I agree with the premise that sex does not equal mating, and that when ritual and the unexpected are removed and replaced by repetitive, predictable routine, things begin to go downhill. I suspect that as a result, some relationships may effectively have a built-in "sell by" date.
<< It is not uncommon for participants in BDSM to describe deeply erotic experiences that did not include the act of sex. >>
Of course! I have encountered masochists who either orgasmed or experienced immense arousal from pain, one woman who climaxed from bondage, and a number whose bizarre fetishes (e.g., garlic-play) led to sexual fulfillment without "sex" per se.
Thank you for a fascinating post! I have added *Mating in Captivity* to my TBR list!