It's often reported that men think about sex 19 times a day, compared with a meagre 10 for women. Whoever worked out those averages clearly didn't speak to Dr Galit Atlas. A psychoanalyst and professor, she eats, sleeps and breathes sex. When Atlas isn't counselling celebrities and other clients on issues ranging from infidelity and sexual abuse to divorce and sexual orientation, or teaching sexuality at New York University, she's writing works with titles such as Sex and the Kitchen: The Mystery of Female Desire and The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing and Belonging in Psychoanalysis.
Atlas loves a wordy title, and her latest is no exception. In Emotional Inheritance: Moving Beyond the Legacy of Trauma — her first book aimed at a general audience rather than fellow clinicians — she explores how the tragedies, secrets and damaging behaviour of one generation affect the next — and not just with regard to their sex lives. As children we are constantly monitoring and registering what goes unsaid between our parents and grandparents and, according to Atlas, these secrets and omissions seep into our unconscious and shape us in subtle but far-reaching ways.
The therapy sessions Atlas holds at her Manhattan practice — in which she helps patients uncover and face up to unspoken family traumas — form the basis of the book. "I always believe that there are at least three generations in the room with us," she says. "The way I listen to a patient is to listen to what happened to them, to the relationship with the parents and also to the family history."
Atlas shares stories about forbidden love, depression, suicide, infertility and the challenges of friendship. One chapter recounts her sessions with a woman, Eve, a wife and mother, who has embarked on an affair. Atlas blames this on a generational scar from before Eve was born: when Eve's mother was 14 her own mother died. Traumatised by the loss, she later became an emotionally distant parent to Eve. As a result Eve feels broken and dead inside, and is seeking the comfort she lacked as a child. Atlas says that in many cases affairs are related to death.
"There is a lot of evidence that death, and the death of a parent or the death of somebody close in the family — God forbid, the death of a child — brings that urge for sex and sexuality. And there are a lot of affairs that are based on grief."
Atlas, 50, is not just a cool observer: she willingly shares details of her own life too. Her personal stories of love and loss are woven through the book. Alongside the stories — hers and her clients' — there is a distilled account of decades of research into the concept of emotional inheritance, which began in the aftermath of the Second World War.
She is speaking to me from her office, dressed in a black jumper and with jet-black hair hanging loosely below her shoulders. Every now and then she employs a turn of phrase that hints at the fact that English is not her first language. She was born in Israel after her Jewish parents emigrated there when they were young (her father, Yaakov, from Iran, her mother, Shoshi, from Syria). She grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and moved to America at the age of 30. She writes of the unspoken rules of her childhood. "We never asked about death. We tried not to mention sex, and it was better not to be too sad, angry or disappointed and absolutely not too loud."
She felt the pull of psychotherapy from a young age. "I was so interested in the mind. My mother used to call me very curious. Every time there was some note in the building [where she lived], I would read it and want to know who wrote it. Who did they write it to? What did they mean? So I guess that's how a psychoanalyst is born."
Atlas has had an unparalleled insight into the sexual fallout from the pandemic. Behavioural studies in the UK and the US have suggested that adults are having less sex than previous generations and the pandemic has further dampened the mood. A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal suggested that nearly a third of men and women had not had sex in the previous month, up from about a quarter in 2001. Karex, the company that makes one in five condoms sold globally, has seen sales drop by more than 40 per cent over the past two years. "The pandemic hurt people's sexual life, there's no doubt about that," she says.
Not one of her patients reported a boost to their sex lives, despite all the enforced closeness. She believes that anyone who did is a rarity. "I'm sure they exist, but I think they're the minority for many reasons. One reason is the anxiety. When we are anxious, sex is not the first thing we want to have. The other reason is that people were trapped with each other. When we're too close there is too much togetherness. It's not sexy and it doesn't make you want to have sex with a person you're with. There is something about separateness and being a little bit apart that is better for sexual life than just being enmeshed and together all day."
The third reason has more to do with the unconscious. "This virus made us worried about being close to each other and touching each other. Consciously we're not afraid of our partners, but unconsciously it created a real emotional drama around our bodies and how close we are unconsciously going to be with other people. And you could see it. There was a window where the pandemic was a little better and a lot of people still did not want to meet other people. There was this fear that lingers and it's not rational."
War, on the other hand, can have a libidinous effect. "Unlike the threat of a virus and lockdowns, we know that 'end of the world' sex can become a way to cope with fear and devastation," she tells me. "When set against a backdrop of life and death, it is sometimes the erotic that offers a lifeline, an illusion that one can survive and a way into the land of the living."
'Sex needs some mystery'
In the book she explains that the secret to long-term love involves a delicate balance between security and danger, the familiar and the novel. Sexual romance, she writes, thrives on danger and adventure. Her advice to anyone looking to give their sex life a post-pandemic boost is to get back out into the world as individuals rather than sticking together at home.
"Sex needs some mystery, so don't be so familiar, go out, come back, have separations, have reunions. Those are the ways to rediscover each other."
Is it safe to assume she is an advocate of the "maintenance shag" — the hook-up middle-aged couples have to plan because they're so busy? She nods vigorously. "Desire can die easily and it needs the fire. You always need to put more wood in the fire. When you do it less, you want it less, when you do it more, you want it more."
Atlas has three children: fraternal twins Emma and Yali, 16, and another daughter, Mia, 11. She is no longer with their father. Her husband, whom she met after her children were born, passed away some years ago. She now has a new partner, Bob, whom she describes as "my rock and my sanctuary".
As you'd expect, she talks to her children much more openly about sex and relationships than her parents ever did to her. They're not always grateful for it, however. "I'm not a therapist with them," she explains. When Emma was having boy trouble, Atlas channelled her grandmother, who used to tell her she was "beautiful" and "the best". Emma rolled her eyes and replied: "I hope you don't give this advice to your patients."
Despite the occasional rebuff from her children, it's easy to imagine Atlas quickly establishing a rapport with her clients. When people discover what she does for a living, I expect they confide in her and ask for advice. She confirms that some are thirsty to tell their stories or want her counsel — so much so that "I don't always tell them what I do. I try not to work outside of work because otherwise you are going to take care of every person that you see."
So what does she tell them instead? "Sometimes I say that I'm a stay-at-home mom, that I don't work," she says, adding "especially on a flight". Being cornered by a stranger seeking sex therapy on a plane? That's a mile-high club no one would want to join. "That's the truth. The flight is the most dangerous thing."
Written by: Audrey Ward
© The Times of London