Marianne Brandon Ph.D.
The Future of Intimacy
SEX
Lust flourishes where risk and vulnerability lie.
KEY POINTS
- Passion can spike when something’s at stake: uncertainty, novelty, and the possibility of being truly “seen.”
- Long-term love builds safety, but it can quietly drain the edge that fuels erotic intensity.
- Passion returns when we invite vulnerability and risk back into the bedroom.
- Couples benefit from understanding this dynamic so erotic connection doesn’t get outsourced by default.
Source: Rocketclips, Inc./Shutterstock
This is why it’s easier to feel excited in a new relationship: The relationship is unpredictable, which creates a sense of vulnerability and sparks excitement, which in turn allows for more vulnerability and even more excitement. It’s a powerful, intoxicating feedback loop. At least, for a while.
Unfortunately, the opposite cycle is also true. In long-term love, we usually work hard to make everything feel safer and more predictable. Unfortunately, this comfortable emotional state can make it harder to create the sense of risk and vulnerability that feeds passion. When lovers know each other well, and trust their partner, and they’ve enjoyed all the creative sexual experiences they are willing to try, then the risk is gone. They feel less vulnerable, and thus less lustful. When they are less lustful, and less willing to be vulnerable, sexual touch feels intrusive and leads to more closure, which makes passion that much more elusive. Particularly for women (see my blog post for more on this), vulnerability helps unlock passion, but passion is also necessary to unlock vulnerability. But again, allowing for this vulnerability is super-challenging if she’s not feeling lustful already. It is here when women say things like “I don’t know what feels good,” precisely because very little feels good when she’s not comfortable feeling sexually open and vulnerable. It’s often the reason I hear women say things like, “I used to like it when my husband went down on me, but I don’t like it anymore.”
Some couples counteract this dynamic by introducing sexual novelty: new positions, toys, lingerie, a weekend away. Those can definitely help, but they can’t always fully address what’s really missing: feelings of vulnerability, risk and exposure.
Why Affairs Can Feel “Alive”
Affairs, like new relationships, can bring passion roaring back. In an affair, the stakes are obvious, the risk is real, and the longing amplified. In therapy, people say that their affair makes them feel more awake and alive. Even when they’re ashamed of their behavior, and even when they’re scared, the mix of novelty and exposure can feel powerfully compelling. But this is also why affairs typically age just as other relationships do: Once vulnerability lessens and predictability grows, passion diminishes.
Porn and Vulnerability
Porn can tap a different, but related channel. People become closed when they feel over-exposed — that is, when they feel too much vulnerability. In some situations, porn gives people access to experiences and fantasies that would make them feel too vulnerable to share with a human lover. They can explore the “unexplorable” without feeling over-exposed, risking someone else’s reactions or judgments of them. They can thus experience the lust they long for without taking the risk that stings the most: being rejected in your most vulnerable moments.
Making Sex Sexy Again
The couples who revive passion aren’t always the most “adventurous.” They’re the ones willing to bring vulnerability back into the room. That might mean flirting with your partner even when you don’t feel perfectly confident, letting desire show on your face, naming a want instead of implying it, or allowing a more intense emotional tone, not just a different technique.
It also tends to work better when both both people are on board. When couples decide together to experiment with a little more exposure, dynamics can shift. This is one reason some couples are drawn to practices like BDSM. For many, the draw is the intensity created by deliberate exposure: giving up control, taking control, being watched closely, being “read,” feeling the emotional vulnerability inherent in the dynamics of powerlessness and surrender.
Why This Matters More Now
Sexual stimulation outside the relationship is getting easier to access, and it asks very little of us emotionally. Sex tech — whether that’s VR porn, interactive cam experiences, or sexting with a chatbot — can meet certain needs quickly and privately. This doesn’t mean that tech is the villain. It just means the easier option is always nearby. If couples don’t understand that partnered passion often requires active effort to create risk and willingness to feel exposed, it’s easy to misread normal long-term changes as “we lost it,” while a low-effort alternative quietly fills the gap.
Long-term desire isn’t doomed. But it isn’t automatic either. Passion often returns when we’re willing to allow a little risk into the bedroom, and thus feel more exposed with each other again.
