What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? … Therein lies the mystery of eroticism.

Esther Perel, a Belgian psychotherapist known for her work on modern relationships and erotic desire, repeatedly frames eroticism as a paradox: it thrives on both connection and separateness. This line reflects themes she developed in her public talks and writing in the 2000s–2010s, especially her exploration of how long-term intimacy can dampen sexual desire when partners collapse too fully into familiarity. The quote is posed as a set of guiding questions—typical of Perel’s style—inviting readers to examine how attachment (love, security, care) and erotic charge (desire, novelty, risk, imagination) can coexist, and why their tension is central to erotic life.

Perel is pointing to an enduring tension: love often seeks closeness, reassurance, and stability, while desire frequently depends on distance, uncertainty, and the perception of an “other” who remains partly unknown. They relate because desire can grow from affection and admiration, yet they conflict when the needs of attachment—predictability, caretaking, fusion—reduce the space in which erotic imagination operates. Calling this “the mystery of eroticism” suggests there is no simple formula; erotic vitality is less a moral failing or a technical problem than a dynamic balance between safety and freedom, intimacy and autonomy, the familiar and the elusive.