the times | Monday August 3 2020 1GT 5
times
In long-term relationships
it is almost impossible to
keep an active sex life
without an intention and a will
to keep it going. For some of the
women who come to me for
therapy, all sorts of things shut them
down, sexually speaking; family life
with children and pregnancies and
sleepless nights and all the
resentments about who has or has not
done what. Even the idea of having sex
when you have small children and
have spent all day dealing with
tantrums and vomit is exhausting.
For most women there needs to be
a cut-off point between being a
mother and being a sexual being with
appetites and desires. In my therapy
room women talk endlessly of feeling
like a drudge, of having to have sex to
shut their partner up, of how it is used
as a bargaining chip. They very rarely
get to experience themselves as
embodied sexual beings with a libido.
The relationship expert Esther Perel
says in her bestselling book Mating in
Captivity that to keep a marriage
passionate, partners need to become
more mysterious to each other, more
seductive. This rings true to me. Play
and fantasy can have a significant
effect when it comes to kick-starting
GETTY IMAGES; ZAC FRACELTON FOR THE TIMESrelationships and I have spent many
pounds in lingerie boutiques such as
Coco de Mer and Ann Summers and
enjoyed that experience.
I have a friend whose marriage
had hit the rocks. We talked about it
endlessly. At some point it became
clear that she had a fantasy about
meeting her husband again at, say, a
dinner party, where he would be there
charming everyone and being his
handsome charismatic self. She knew
these qualities were there, but had lost
sight of them. So they arranged a
dinner party with some friends at
a romantic restaurant. They agreed
to arrive separately, him first. They
both made an effort to dress up. When
she arrived she found her husband
there holding court, entrancing the
assembled company. She sat opposite
him. She told me it was like seeing him
with fresh eyes.
“I realised just how amazingly
sexy he was,” she said. Their sex life
was rekindled that night. Gone are
the sighs and eye-rolls. Now they
feel vibrant and alive. It’s very
magnetic to witness.
Another friend, Helen, told me she
goes to her local country pub in a
raincoat underneath which she iswearing suspenders and a basque. “I
meet my husband there every Friday
night,” she says. “Only he and I know
what I’m wearing underneath. I find it
really titillating. It really feels so erotic
and it has revitalised our marriage.”
My friend Ed and his girlfriend go
to strip clubs together. “We had that
conversation about what would
turn us both on, and this is what
we agreed on. I don’t care what
other people think. It’s been
a revelation to us to find out
we now have this physicality
between us that seemed
to have died.”
One couple I saw in therapy
go on Tinder and regularly find
a third willing person to come
into their marital bed. One
friend’s husband books a swanky
hotel room once a month and they
meet in the bar, pretending to be
strangers. Some couples spend
weekends on tantric sex courses.
The advice I give to couples is to be
really curious about what each other
wants and enjoys. It’s not easy. Often
couples have rubbed along without
ever having the courage to sit and
listen to how the other one feels about
sex or what they desire.
Part of it — as the women’s stories
on Dirty Diana demonstrate — is
about being brave. As Feste said:
“I wanted to create a show about
a marriage that felt genuine and
compelling and so erotic it made you
want to have sex with your partner
after listening to it.”
Of course, a sexy podcast alone can’t
save a bad marriage, but it can remind
us that we have to be honest with
ourselves about who we are and what
we want. It is all too easy to blame our
spouse for not making us feel fulfilled.
We all need to take responsibility for
our part in what has gone wrong —
and right — in our marriages.Selling Sunset — TV’s
new property porn
By Hannah Rogers
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Shana Feste. Left:
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left: Demi MooreT
o say we’ve
been spoilt
for reality TV
in recent
months
would be a gross
understatement.
From Tiger King
to Love is Blind,
I will look back on
lockdown as a golden
age of the genre. But
in my household one
show topped them
all: Selling Sunset.
Have you watched it? If not, why
not? The programme, which follows
the highs and lows of the Hollywood
Hills mega-realtor the Oppenheim
Group, has been trending on Netflix
for months. I stumbled upon it and
ended up watching a whole season in
one day, so addictive is its narrative
(and so weak my self-control). But
don’t take my word for it — ask your
friends. I bet more than one has been
savouring it as a Sunday night guilty
pleasure, and is eagerly awaiting the
release of season three on Friday.
The question is: why? Because, to
be clear, Selling Sunset is lowbrow.
Gloriously so. It’s semi-scripted,
Botox-pumped, stiletto-wearing,
cash-flashing reality. It’s a throwback
to the early Noughties, when The
Real Housewives reigned supreme.
The drama is inane and short-lived,
the characters shallow, beautiful and
rich. Normal People it ain’t.
I have my theories, though, about
why we’re just as hooked on it. For
starters, Oppenheim is no normal
estate agency. It is the No 1 property
brokerage in the Hollywood Hills.
This means that the homes on the
show cost several million dollars. The
buyers and sellers are celebrities,
whose people have people. The
homes have helicopter pads, cinema
rooms, rooftop pools and kitchen
islands so big even Nancy Meyers
would think them de trop.
In short, the show is peak
property porn — and
comes with high stakes.
Which broker will sell
a $44 million mansion
is a key storyline
in season one,
for example.
Dramatic stuff.
Then there are
the brokers.
Oppenheim is
owned by twin
brothers Jason and
Brett. These two are
the sort of high-
functioning types
you suspect live off
green juice and get
up at 3am. They
are very short,
bald, tanned and
disconcertingly ageless.?Ifnotwhy
Christine Quinn, Maya
Vander, Davina Potratz
and Heather Young.
Above: 8408 Hillside
Avenue, Los AngelesForget them, though. It’s the
small team of alpha women they
employ that make the show so
compelling. Selling Sunset provides
viewers with a cast of highly
successful career women who fight
over six-figure commissions as well
as friendships.
Here are reality TV stars you don’t
only want to ogle for their clothes,
grooming routines, viper-nest
bitching and glamorous La La
Land lifestyles, but their hustle.
This is the show’s modern and
feminist slant. Bravo, Netflix.
There’s plenty of surface-level
drama to get invested in too. See
Christine, the 31-year-old Amazonian
ice queen who makes a new enemy
every day. She has the highest net
worth (rumoured to be $2 million).
Then there’s Mary, 38, mother hen
and recent bride to an impoverished
twentysomething French chef who
barely speaks English. Mais oui, he’s
extremely good-looking.
Maya is the super-cool Israeli with
a high-flying husband, two babies
and zero regard for the LA lifestyle.
We would all like to be Maya. Then
there’s sickly sweet Chrishell and
32-year-old Heather, perhaps the
least tolerable of the lot. Watch it,
you’ll see why.
So, like I said. Gloriously lowbrow.
But brilliant too — don’t try and
pretend you’re above it.