The Balance Between Finding a Morally Good Partner and a Physically Attractive One

how does one strike the appropriate balance between finding a morally Good Wife versus a hot wife [Applause] that's really that really is an excellent question I did great by the way [Applause] I was watching uh clip that someone pulled out of I think talk I did at Cambridge where I talked about this a little bit and uh talked about the observations I've had of people when they they move to incrementally destroy the attractiveness of their partner so imagine it's not that hard to imagine imagine that you're that you have the capacity to to become jealous and and to waver in your trust and so then imagine we'll talk to the man about this first imagine that your wife is attractive and you're dubious about your own utility maybe you have reason to be dubious and so the fact of her attractiveness although attractive to you is also in principle an enticement to those who might steal her from you not least as a consequence of your own insufficiency and so the question is well what should you do about that and a typical answer is punish her repeatedly and subtly for any manifestation whatsoever of that dangerous attractiveness and so how would you do that wait until she presents herself in an attractive manner let's say with a sexual Edge maybe you're going out for an evening and then when she asks you how she looks continue looking at your phone or attend to something equally trivial make a slightly cutting comment and deflate her adult teacher and then do that 50 times and then you won't have to worry about whether or not you have a heart wife because she'll be so demoralized that the answer will be no and then if you really want to play the game more effectively that's when you can start complaining to her about how badly she's let herself go because then you can blame her for what you just did and then you get to well not have your cake and not eat it too let's say and you can dispense with all the moral blame and if you don't think you do that you should watch very carefully because one of the things that people do is take the Shine off those who are shining around them so that they don't look dim in the reflected light and that's a terrible thing to do and so then one of the things you might consider both of you in a marriage is when you see your partner do something that you regard as attractive well first of all you need to admit that right and that's hard actually because you might have moral qualms about your own lust and you should because it's a dangerous Force but in principle you want that sexual tension to exist in your relationship but you need to have it bounded by the necessity for integrating all the other elements of your life around it right it can't be a predominant and impulsive Force because it will break everything apart so it has an intrinsic danger and because of that intrinsic danger that's the danger of sexuality itself you might have moral qualms about its manifestation in your own soul and and fair enough it has to be integrated in relationship to the desire let's say to maintain the relationship but over the long run in a in a reciprocal and and mutually beneficial and respectful manner that would be the ethical end of the the story and that was also held in question but just because something can get out of control doesn't mean that it's intrinsically bad and I would say that's certainly the case about sexual attraction and if your partner is doing things that you find attractive you might think really hard about rewarding that and then you may find that you're afraid to reward it because you're afraid of your own urges or you're afraid that if your partner becomes too attractive they'll leave you and then I would say well maybe you should up your auntie a bit so that they're less inclined to leave you because and and maybe you should think through your own sexual morality in more detail and discuss that with your wife so you don't stumble over your own um very funny very funny yeah you filthy-minded creatures yeah tongue how's that um so that you can each properly reward each other for keeping the erotic spark alive in your life and I think that's a high form of art to manage that now we know that married people have better sex lives than people who aren't married and the whole culture in some sense advertises the opposite but there's no data to indicate that that's true because the vast majority of people who aren't in permanent monogamous long-term relationships are isolated and alone and so it's not a good solution you can have a harder erotic life within the confines of a marriage but it's a very difficult Balancing Act to manage but then you might ask yourself well you want the alternative right even though it's difficult and challenging the absence of that is in some sense a catastrophe of Adventure right I mean because there are a few reliable sources of profound motivation in life and certainly sexual attraction is one of them and if you can keep that dynamically alive in the confines of an ethically constituted relationship you can have the best of both worlds [Music]

Channel: Jordan B Peterson Clips

Views: 734,507

Keywords: psychology, philosophy, Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan Peterson, JB Peterson, jordanbpeterson, jordanpeterson, personality, understandmyself, selfauthoring, neuropsychology, jordan peterson clips, jp peterson clips, jp clips, jordan peterson podcast clips, jordan peterson live, jordan peterson livestream, jordan peterson shorts, jordan peterson tiktoks, jordan peterson motivational clips

Id: V9uZWRgmam4

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023