ABSTRACT
Christopher Clulow has done a wonderful job of highlighting some of the many technical dilemmas and poorly understood areas we face when contending with sexual difficulties in a couple. Clulow implicitly reminds us of the essential notion that a couple who locates the lack of desire in one partner is often unconsciously fending off something as a couple. Clulow begins by using attachment theory to address the struggles with accessing desire in intimate relationships. Clulow is suggesting that some couples who are unable to manage desire in an intimate relationship may be unable to tolerate the underlying separateness and loss that desire involves being in contact with. Benjamin suggests that in our culture, we can use gender polarity as an alternate register to manage otherwise unbearable unconscious tension. To summarize, we might extend attachment theory to include the unconscious world of object relations and phantasy in order to grasp the unruly, capricious nature of sexuality.
