Why Women Get Bored With Monogamy Faster Than Men | Esther Perel

Nov 24, 2025

Esther Perel, a renowned psychotherapist and author specializing in relationships, dives into the intricacies of desire and monogamy. She reveals how the shift from duty to desire in sex has altered expectations in long-term relationships. Women tend to experience a quicker decline in desire due to the mundane nature of routine intimacy, while men may view foreplay too narrowly. Perel emphasizes the importance of romance and storytelling, highlighting that sustaining passion for a lifetime is a grand experiment in modern partnerships.

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INSIGHT

Sexuality Transformed In 60 Years

Sexuality shifted from procreation to identity and pleasure in about 60 years.
Contraception and social movements transformed sex into a lifestyle, creating new relationship expectations.

INSIGHT

The Grand Experiment Of Lifelong Desire

We're conducting an unprecedented experiment wanting lifelong erotic sex with one partner.
Esther Perel calls this ideal amazing but historically unprecedented and challenging.

INSIGHT

Women’s Desire Drops Faster Than Men’s

Research shows women's desire in long-term relationships drops faster than men's.
The decline often reflects boring sexual dynamics, not lower sexual interest overall.

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"We want sex with one person in the long haul that is fun and connected and intimate and playful. And we live twice as long. Go figure." - Esther Perel

For most of human history, sex was procreation and duty. Women's pleasure didn't matter. Marriage had nothing to do with desire. Then everything changed in just 60 years. Contraception freed women from the terror of pregnancy and death. The women's movement challenged ancient power structures. Suddenly we started marrying for butterflies and attraction, expecting those feelings to sustain us for decades. But here's what nobody prepared us for: research shows women get bored with monogamy much faster than men. Not because women want less sex, but because they want less of the boring sex that shows up in long-term relationships. The romance dies. The seduction disappears. Men think foreplay is five minutes before intercourse, but Esther explains that for women, foreplay actually starts at the end of the previous orgasm. It's the tease, the pacing, the way animals circle each other without overwhelming.

This conversation strips away everything you thought you understood about desire in relationships. Esther walks through why sustaining passion with one person for 60 years is literally unprecedented in human history, and what actually kills desire in marriage. The plot disappears. The character gets stale. Couples stop seducing each other and wonder why the spark died. She reveals the essential ingredients that make eroticism possible, why women's desire needs romance and mystery to survive, and how most relationships accidentally destroy the very conditions that create turn-on. This isn't about trying harder or scheduling more date nights. It's about understanding that we're living through a grand experiment of humankind, asking for something no generation before us has successfully achieved, and most of us are doing it completely wrong.Retry

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