This chapter reframes sexuality as a domain of responsibility and choice, not only sensation, within a Gestalt therapy lens. While Eros cannot be willed—one does not choose whom to desire—the ego is a boundary function that lets us identify with a situation, assume consequences, and transform desire into deliberate action. A mythic interlude (Uranus–Gaia–Chronos) illustrates a vital balance among Eros (desire/pleasure), Eris (discord/conflict), and Aphrodite (love/beauty): development needs both union and differentiation; sexuality requires aggression-as-boundary to become creative rather than overwhelming. Hence, love is treated as a self-regulating principle grounded in equality, distinct from patriarchal “law” and expert authority.

Applied to therapy, Eros is present in the very support for contact—closeness, warmth, and co-creation—which patients may experience as sexual attraction. The task is not repression but awareness: distinguish what is felt from what is chosen; we are not responsible for desires or emotions, only for what we do with them. Rigidly denying erotic resonance risks confluence and enactment; acknowledging it within firm, conscious boundaries sustains aesthetics and vitality at the contact boundary (Id, ego, personality). The chapter critiques past abuses in which therapists justified sexual acts as “cathartic,” and affirms parity: both therapist and patient bear responsibilities, and limits should be self-chosen supports rather than external prohibitions. Therapy must not become a place to live a life that cannot be lived outside; the setting is for experimenting with new adaptations to be realized in the world. Finally, the chapter distinguishes crime (a choice) from altered states that may accompany sexuality, and it foreshadows a focused discussion on sexual orientations and gender identities to clarify frequent confusions in clinical work.