What happens when desire fades, sex feels effortful, or intimacy keeps getting interrupted by resentment, pressure, or exhaustion?

In this episode of Practicing Love, I'm joined by Elana Auerbach, author of The Sure Thing: A Pleasure Practice to Revive the Spark, for a refreshing and deeply human conversation about desire differences, sensual connection, and what actually helps when intimacy takes a back seat.

Rather than pushing through, fixing, or forcing desire, Elana offers a radically different orientation: pleasure as a practice of presence, intention, and safety.

We explore:

• Why desire often disappears in long-term relationships, even when love is strong

• How resentment, withholding, and "trying to get it right" block sensual connection

• A new definition of orgasm as how much you can surrender to pleasure

• Why Responsive Desire needs context, safety, and curiosity to arise

• What to do when intimacy gets interrupted, and why nothing is lost when you pause

• How short, intentional pleasure practices (even 10 minutes) can rebuild closeness

• Learning to know what you want, and how to ask for it without pressure

• How devotion, play, and self-attunement can reignite the spark over time

This conversation is for anyone who wants more aliveness, more connection, and more honesty around pleasure, whether you're partnered, single, or somewhere in between.

Find out how to have the best love and sex of your life!

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burble
License code: CHROXRSGACRHE8NP