Love vs Sex
Sex. Small word; big subject; massive uptake! Yes, as people in the industrial world turn away from the yoke of religion, they stop briefly at the chemists before shacking up with some like-minded person. “Why not?” is the reasoning. “Sexual compatibility — it’s very important. Once I find that, the love will follow.”
I’m afraid not; it doesn’t work like that. Each sexual partner you have ‘dilutes’ the degree to which you can love any one person. And increases the difficulty you will have remaining faithful to them.
The reason is that love (romantic love) is all about pair bonding, and pair bonding is all about knowing that you’re with the right partner — one with whom you can successfully raise strong offspring to adulthood. The more partners you have, the more difficulty you have committing to one. You like the body of one, the personality of another, the finances of another, the sex with another, and so on.
And if you happen to find all those things in a single partner, after a while, when the novelty has worn off, and with only diluted love to glue things together, the enticement of new pastures wins out, buoyed by memories of past liaisons.
The evidence to support this is all around us — celeb news, friends & family, and the reasons for the failures in our own relationships. What’s surprising is that it’s just not discussed. There’s plenty of talk about religious, moral and social values, STDs, pregnancy, etc., but none about the simple concept that we’re all searching for love, yet many of us are shooting ourselves in the foot!
Well, all that’s about to change! At Guru, there’ll be plenty of posts about love and sex — after all, they’re my two favourite subjects!!!
Continued: In Celebrity Love vs Sex we find out why Charlie Sheen is a knob, what’s causing Jordan to screw Peter André over and why Katie from BB06 is a sweetheart...
I’m afraid not; it doesn’t work like that. Each sexual partner you have ‘dilutes’ the degree to which you can love any one person. And increases the difficulty you will have remaining faithful to them.
The reason is that love (romantic love) is all about pair bonding, and pair bonding is all about knowing that you’re with the right partner — one with whom you can successfully raise strong offspring to adulthood. The more partners you have, the more difficulty you have committing to one. You like the body of one, the personality of another, the finances of another, the sex with another, and so on.
And if you happen to find all those things in a single partner, after a while, when the novelty has worn off, and with only diluted love to glue things together, the enticement of new pastures wins out, buoyed by memories of past liaisons.
The evidence to support this is all around us — celeb news, friends & family, and the reasons for the failures in our own relationships. What’s surprising is that it’s just not discussed. There’s plenty of talk about religious, moral and social values, STDs, pregnancy, etc., but none about the simple concept that we’re all searching for love, yet many of us are shooting ourselves in the foot!
Well, all that’s about to change! At Guru, there’ll be plenty of posts about love and sex — after all, they’re my two favourite subjects!!!
Continued: In Celebrity Love vs Sex we find out why Charlie Sheen is a knob, what’s causing Jordan to screw Peter André over and why Katie from BB06 is a sweetheart...
Labels: happiness, love, philosophy, sexuality, society
posted by Al Cad at 1/31/2007 07:00:00 am
4 Comments:
I like this. It destroys a lot of the usual sexual practices and misconceptions, especially since this generation's getting more and more promiscuous. I read this ebook that kinda defined how you can improve a relationship sexually without having to find that "sexual connection." It's helped me out a lot. :)
The dilution that you describe, is something that I've seen as a form of operant conditioning. It's not unlike the Pavlovian canine, with a different medium, involving people who condition themselves to believe that variety, and subdivided attention, enables a fast track approach to the soulmate.
I also think it's the duration of the partnerships, how long they are, but like you mention, many partners do dilute. Twenty people in a year means less than a month per person, and if they're all juggled, then there's no real way to truly bond or understand the other person. A vicious circle.
Deborah, your comment seems to be spam – you visited only this one post and your comment seems to be about having good sex with someone you don’t really know, which goes very much against what I’m saying here.
The eBook seems to have a target audience of adults who have had, are having, or might at some point have sex! It creates seemingly meaningless terminology for different sexual lifestyles in the way I gently ridiculed when I talked about ‘massaging your ulna’, and pretends it has something of value to say about each.
Guru readers, consider yourselves warned! And would-be spammers, know that not all publicity is good publicity after all!
Anastasia, yes, definite Pavlovian aspects. Sex is highly addictive as is sexual variety. Without religious or social constraints there seems no reason not to go for your life! But actually it’s important to make sure there aren’t more notches than bedpost!
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