Forbidden fruit – the formula for perpetual hot/romantic love...or why illicit love affairs and hard-to-get sex are so hot. Exploring a rather odd way to keep it exciting.

The all illusive quest for eternal passionate love (a.k.a. endless desire combined with romantic love)
may be found by understanding of two concepts: wanting what you can’t have, also known as the forbidden fruit and deprivation - a.k.a. not getting enough of your most precious desires. Interestingly, both of these strong forces governing passion are the basis of illicit love affairs. Think about it: when one is involved in an illicit affair, the notion is clearly that of forbidden fruit and deprivation of the desire in that you can’t freely see this person whenever you want, i.e you can't have the sex whenever you want. It works! After all, the affair must be pretty "hot" if people are willing to risk it all - their marriages, their careers, their respect and dignity for the sake of the affair.

Yes, have an illicit affair and you shall have perpetual passionate love! Well, not really. You see, someone is going to get hurt because of the term illicit. Once this other person finds out about the affair and is hurt by it, they may leave you to be with your new lover. You may find yourself very much available to this no-longer illicit affair. Suddenly, its no longer forbidden fruit and there is no depravation since you can be with your new love 24/7. And that's often when problems begin. This is like being able to have the best pizza every day – each and every day. All of a sudden it’s not so special and you realize that which you thought was everlasting passionate love (the best pizza) turns
into the same thing you had before...maybe worse.

For truly endless passionate love it takes much more than the illicit affair. It takes
something unique that can turn the mundane into the exciting, everyday things into
the forbidden and make the great things in life not so abundant that there is no longer any
desire (remember the pizza example). To accomplish this usually elusive goal you need to put forth much energy as well as sacrifice. And most important you need to have integrity.

So how does this work? You really have to stop seeing each other every day so as to set up a state of deprivation and forbidden fruit in one fell swoop. You can’t “get it” every day so you feel deprived,
and because you made this new rule about not connecting at will, it is now forbidden. This is often the set-up seen with couples when one or both are on the road, a lot. You know. The traveling salesman/woman who is away from home for days, weeks or even months at a time sets up the right dynamic. The longer you are apart, the more the deprivation and the more it feels like forbidden fruit. You can't wait to connect and the sex is great.

This only works when there is fidelity in the relationship. If either party is having an affair while apart,
they may be getting the forbidden fruit power on their side, but obviously the deprivation is only being felt by the honest partner, so that can’t work.

If you don’t travel, perhaps you can make certain times taboo for sex/passion. If you go a
week or two (two days for those with strong sex drives) without sex and maybe sleep in
different rooms, you now set up the forbidden fruit as well as the deprivation that may keep your relationship stronger by perpetuating the passion. You may even find that one of you sneaks into the room of the other to “get it on.” Now that is passion that can last a long time if you can only keep deprivation and the forbidden fruit alive, the two components of human nature that are needed for the hottest sex.

This offering may sound silly, inconvenient, and impractical, but if it works for you, so what? There are too many relationships that have left the realm of passionate and fallen into disrepair. If relationships are neglected for too long, they fail, or at minimum, your quality of life suffers irreparable harm.

Withholding sex  creates the forbidden fruit and deprivation paradigm, however, it destroys passion over time, as it produces frustration, anxiety angst and physical infirmity. While it may work for some relationships, it is more often destructive and should not be part of your mating behavior.