Anniversaries are arrivals. We come upon them like thresholds and move through them in a heightened state of experience. Sometimes we arrive to celebration, fondness, nostalgia. Sometimes we arrive to uncertainty, grief, even fear. This is because anniversaries are also departures: a sphere of time has passed, and with it the certainty of what we have known. Meanwhile, a new sphere offers itself from the future, ripe with uncertainty, change, and opportunity. Where do we go next? Well, we can only go forward.
As I arrive at twenty years since I published Mating In Captivity, I have been reflecting on the questions and conversations I focused on in that book: Can we want what we already have? Why does great sex so often fade for partners who love each other as much as ever? Why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex? As I think about where we go next, I am thinking about the new questions that have evolved, and I am struck by how very ripe with uncertainty they feel:
How do we sustain desire in a world of endless options and constant distraction? What is gained, and what is lost, when intimacy becomes mediated by technology?...
