The Promises of Pleasure: Bringing Desire to Life (and Life to Desire) A dialogue in honor of Robert Stoller

An almost symbiotic relation between drive theory and behaviorism has facilitated an avoidance of direct examinations of the psycho-dynamics of eroticism. Drive theorists have emphasized motivation, but rarely attended to the details of actual sex, while behaviorists attended to observable sexual activities, but generally glossed over issues of motivation. The pursuit of sexual pleasure, usually considered synonymous with orgasm, provided the link between these two perspectives.

More recently, in the context of a growing diversity of erotic styles, we've come to recognize the significance of intrapsychic processing of sexual experience. Indeed, as sexual pleasure increasingly is seen as more the servant rather than the master of sexual desire, we face an opportunity, if not mandate, to go beyond current conceptions to wider and deeper levels of understanding of this emergent diversity. This panel will examine and critically appraise current thinking on this promising and expanding frontier.