Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2011 18:21:30 GMT -5
Love is a subject on which writers, thinkers and everyone else has put forward an opinion.
It is abundantly clear that, more perhaps than most emotions, it is not remotely rational.
The most common attempt to rationalise love, particularly among those who hold to the Behaviourist school of psychology, is to equate it with sexual attraction.
Few people would deny that there is a relationship between the two but it is certainly not the case that there is a one to one relation.
Of course what one person considers to be sexual attractiveness will vary from one individual to another and even cultural features come into it. In some parts of the world, for instance, the fatter a woman is the more attractive she is considered. In others the ideal of sexual attraction is seen as the slim female.
Men also have other aspects that they find physically attractive in a woman. Some like them tall, others medium height, others short. Some prefer blondes, others brunettes, still others redheads.
Some prefer black, Asian (I use the term in the British and European sense of the word in which case it refers to people whose ethnic origin is the Indian subcontinent), Orientals, and some mixed race.
Even given the extreme individuality of sexual attraction, a man or woman can love one another without there being any sexual element present (pace Freud and his cohorts.)
In the same way a man or woman can be sexually attracted to a person they cannot stand.
Sex between people who dislike one another intensely is not at all uncommon. In my younger days before I was married I would occasionally have sex with women whom I could not stand. I have also known women do the same thing with men they despise.
So what is this thing called love? What is it that makes us give up our selfishness and put the needs and wishes of another person first?
I shall write more but this post is already far too long!
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Post by beth on Jan 9, 2011 2:43:31 GMT -5
"Love, at best, is giving what you need to get." ~~~ Rod McKuen True or False
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Post by mouse on Jan 9, 2011 4:50:13 GMT -5
love ...is not love which alters where it alteration finds
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aubrey
Journeyman
There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance
Posts: 385
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Post by aubrey on Jan 9, 2011 6:49:25 GMT -5
Hell.
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Post by fretslider on Jan 9, 2011 8:31:22 GMT -5
No, hell is being locked in a room with your friends, Aubrey - especially if they are French existentialists Love (between people) is biochemical, while love of art etc is something else.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2011 10:55:44 GMT -5
Bichemical, Fret?
Love is clearly not the same as sex (which is biochemical).
No behaviourist explanation can account for the self-sacrificing nature of love.
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Post by fretslider on Jan 9, 2011 11:12:25 GMT -5
Bichemical, Fret? Love is clearly not the same as sex (which is biochemical). No behaviourist explanation can account for the self-sacrificing nature of love. No, love is not the same thing as sex. But lust can be a part of love, just as attraction, attachment or altruism. Love is quite literally legion, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But its still biochemical. Think about the first time you fell in love.
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Post by annaj26 on Jan 9, 2011 12:06:08 GMT -5
"Love, at best, is giving what you need to get." ~~~ Rod McKuen True or False Both. True because we can understand what we need better and project it. False because love causes us to move away from ourselves and try to make the other person happy.
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Post by mouse on Jan 9, 2011 12:57:21 GMT -5
love and sex are two different things..one can have an over whelming love for one children the love for a parent the love for a friend the love for a pet love of country love of..music..art..words etc and the love for a lover..all are different and yet all are love
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Post by beth on Jan 9, 2011 15:26:45 GMT -5
I agree with you, mouse. Mike, you don't say but it sounds like you are talking about romantic love. That's in a class by itself, isn't it, and certainly has to include sex. The old saying is ... first the eyes (physical attraction), then the mind, then the heart. There's no trick to falling in love, the magic is in staying there ... keeping it alive. My parents were "in love" (not just loving) until they died. I had a friend whose parents had the same wonderful relationship. It was a happy experience to be around them. So .. "what is love" is a trick question of sorts. It depends on the kind, the degree and the sustaining power. And ... at the most basic .. we have to love ourselves, at least a little, before we can freely give our love to someone else.
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Post by fretslider on Jan 9, 2011 15:35:56 GMT -5
And ... at the most basic .. we have to love ourselves, at least a little.... I can be a real heartbreaker. I don't know what I see in myself!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2011 16:53:04 GMT -5
I agree with you, mouse. Mike, you don't say but it sounds like you are talking about romantic love. That's in a class by itself, isn't it, and certainly has to include sex. The old saying is ... first the eyes (physical attraction), then the mind, then the heart. There's no trick to falling in love, the magic is in staying there ... keeping it alive. My parents were "in love" (not just loving) until they died. I had a friend whose parents had the same wonderful relationship. It was a happy experience to be around them. So .. "what is love" is a trick question of sorts. It depends on the kind, the degree and the sustaining power. And ... at the most basic .. we have to love ourselves, at least a little, before we can freely give our love to someone else. Unfortunately my post was already too long and I have had to telescope together many different things. There are many aspects of love. Romantic love certainly ODES include a sexual component. However, it is not the only variety of love. I don't know why it is that we are capable of having sex with someone we dislike and despise (I have been guilty of doing it myself in my younger days) and yet holding off with someone for whom we feel enormous attachment. I would recommend a book by the great French writer Stendhal, 'Love,' in which he analyses it perhaps more profoundly than any other work on the subject I have come across. I feel not the slightest sexual desire towards my children and yet I would cheefully lay down my life for them. I feel no sexual attraction towards my friends (well, perhaps one or two of them! and yet I will gladly put myself out for them and they for me. Love is rather a complicated process and as Stendhal rightly says it takes place in a series of stages. Primarily of course Stendhal IS speaking of romantic love although he does deal with other aspects of the emotion as well. Even with romantic love, however, the depth of the feeling goes far beyond the mere process of sexual attraction which we know and understand immediately. One of the most beautiful girls I ever knew has always suffered from a lack of interest from the opposite sex. Had I met her when we were both unattached I might well have married her. However, other men felt entirely differently towards her. Her flaming red hair appeared to act as a kind of invisible barrier in their eyes making her an object that was not desirable in any way.
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beez0811
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Post by beez0811 on Jan 9, 2011 17:02:03 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2011 17:03:14 GMT -5
Howard Jones, 'What is Love?'
embed by fret
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Erasmus
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Post by Erasmus on Jan 9, 2011 18:42:55 GMT -5
Oh Frig! Any answer to What is Love is wrong! I'm happy with God is Love, Love is God but that is as informative as Lewis Carrol's revelation that the Snark was also a Boojum.
It's nice to get all Zen: "I love you" is a meaningless statement because when you do love each other, there is no I and Thou. Love is a defective and reflexive verb with only a plural conjugation.
I rather like the languages that don't distinguish between Like and Love but instead change the pronoun from formal to intimate.
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