We use the word “love” to mean so many things. We “make love;” we love ideas; we love inanimate things. I believe love is a lot simpler than that. The first time an animal stayed with its eggs and fed, protected and nurtured its off spring, love came into existence.
At first living things simply divided into two equally structured beings. There was no gender or copulation. A paramecium needed no other paramecium to become two of same. Any diversity that occurred was purely of the mutation kind. Ordinarily, clones were the order the day.
For whatever reason, diversity became more important and as life forms became more complex, gender appeared and reproduction became a team (of two) effort.
When a male frog deposits sperm on a female frog’s eggs, is that love? I don’t think so. When a male dog copulates with a female dog to produce puppies is that love? Again, I don’t think so. When a male human has intercourse with a female human, is that love? Nope. To varying degrees, these acts are driven by instinct or pleasure seeking (in the case of humans, anyway). They are not about love.
We don’t make love by fucking. We make love by feeding. When a mother suckles a newborn, that’s love. When someone feeds a starving being, that’s love. When someone protects a being from harm, that’s love. When someone teaches another being how to survive, that’s also love.
So often we use the word “love,” to mean mutual pleasure seeking, or pride, or joy. So, let’s call a spade “a spade” and say you please me, or I am proud of you, or you make me feel good. Whatever that means.
For many of us, growing up in dysfunctional families, we find it hard to describe our parents’ relationship as loving. But, if mom fed dad, or helped him walk after knee surgery, or helped him recognize the error of his ways, she loved him. Respect, admiration, comfort…that’s another story.
I’m not trying to demean love. It is a wonderful thing that enabled larger, more complex animals to survive. But, I disagree with making it have meanings far beyond feeding, protecting and nurturing. There are other terms for feelings and actions associated with pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance. Let’s not confuse them.
If I recited poetry, used digital and oral stimulation, and had intercourse with the same person frequently, but never fed, protected or nurtured that person, in my belief system, that’s not love. It’s about pleasure. And, that might well be enough. Why make things more complicated? Why call them what they are not?
So much of our manipulation by media (books, magazines, film, social media) is about ascribing love to things which are not about love. I find it interesting that we can elevate someone based on their appearance, something which changes constantly over time, and yet ignore the substance of their character, which may not change at all.
Why is thin, blonde, blue-eye’d more attractive than stocky, brunette and brown-eye’d? Is it a natural (i.e. instinctive) preference, or a learned preference? Do we come by our preferences based on what we sense and interpret, or what we believe others believe?
There is money to be made by confusing love with pleasure-seeking, and, boy, has Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and social media made oodles. So many of us spend so much time and money worrying about how we look rather than how we think and behave. How sad.
I tell my dog I love her all the time. And, I do. I feed her twice a day. I walk her three times a day. I comfort her when she freaks out to the sound of gunfire or fireworks. When I pet her, though, that’s not an act of love. It’s an act of giving pleasure (I hope) and deriving pleasure in return. And, pleasure is good. It just deserves its own special identity distinct from love, and vice-versa.