Esther Perel Instagram – Last month on @billmaher’s show @realtimers, I illuminated the difference between sexuality and eroticism, between a perfunctory act and the multi-sensory journey of pleasure. Many of us, when it comes to sexuality, tend to do what we think we should do rather than what we’d like to be doing (and this is not just a statement about women). We get stuck in ruts and disconnect from our imaginations. We would love to experience new things with our partners but we can be afraid to invite ourselves or them. A minor annoyance or a major impasse can both be catalysts for shutting down sexually. Sometimes we’re “not in the mood;” other times we wonder if we’ve lost what once made us desirable to our partners. We tend to think of these as sexual issues. Really, it’s an erotic dilemma. Contrary to what we are taught, eroticism isn’t purely sexual; it is sexuality transformed and socialized by the human imagination. The imagination creates the plot. Flirtation, longing, and anticipation all play within our mind’s eye. Engaging in eroticism enables us to maintain a sense of aliveness, vibrancy, and vitality.  As Octavio Paz has implied, eroticism is the poetry of the body the way that poetry is the eroticism of language.