Love & Sex Have Nothing To Do With Each Other: On Love - Part I

Do you even have the capacity to love?

The concept of Love is daunting. Its current incarnation is flimsy and diluted, but its existence remains extremely, immeasurably potent. Love affects everyone at the most fundamental level yet is cringe to discuss as a concept, rightfully so. Being honest about that which immediately yields vulnerability is very uncomfortable. It’s also messy — love is an indefinable word which is both a noun and a verb.

Common modern ideas about love are simplistic and naive, like the folksy coping assumption “there’s someone for everyone out there.” Oftentimes there isn’t, because they themselves are either objectively unlovable, feel unlovable, or do not have the capacity to love someone else.

There are also misconceptions about the role of love in matters of sex, romance and passion. This is a fatal wrongdoing of Hollywood and industries who benefit by rotting the conception of Love into the ground.

In this series of essays I will define what Love is from my understanding and attempt to separate these very distinct and complex experiences, and how men and women are molded to them differently.

Did Your Parents Do Their Job?

To feel Loved is the closest replica of the safety you felt in your mother’s womb. A home made just for you where you had no obligations, other than to just be. You were provided for, not judged, had no expectations and were in a total state of warmth. You were being nurtured to become a person of the living, changing, breathing world. But you were ripped out of that naturally caring and safe place by Time itself and thrown into the world of chaos and unpredictability. Everyone, at their core, wants to go back.

How to go back? Well, if your parents did their job, which was to nurture you and protect you, then they replicated your experience in the womb the best that they could (hopefully). Were you fed regularly? Were they there for you when you truly needed them? Did they have your back? Could you trust them? If you answered yes to most of these, then you are very lucky. You are probably open to feeling love from people other than your parents, and are also highly likely to feel comfortable expressing love to someone you care for. Both inward and outward experiences may be second nature to you. 

What if that wasn’t your experience? What if your parents didn’t pay attention to you very much? What if you felt like you weren’t their favorite child? What if they discouraged you, were overbearing, suffocating, neglectful, or straight up mean to you? What if they only showed love to you based on arbitrary rules or conditions? What if one of them abandoned you? Then they weren’t doing their job. Because of that, you may find it hard to feel lovable and difficult to truly love.

All of these matters, of course, manifest into your “dating experience” and how you relate to the opposite sex. And both men and women experience and express the effects very differently.

Setting The Definitions

“Med, this word is starting to annoy me. What does ‘to show love’ even mean?”

To show love does not mean simply having the capacity to feel warm feelings toward someone else. That isn’t particularly hard to do. You can love your pet.

If we’re talking about Love with a capital L, in the most human sense, it’s something much stronger than that. It’s unbreakable. It means being there for someone when they need you, which is very different from allowing someone to take advantage of you, or enabling their behavior. It means supporting and encouraging. It means accepting someone for who they are. To cheer them on when they win and to root for them to pick their head up and improve when they lose. Looking at them and knowing that you cannot change them. Hoping they find their own unique path and admiring their journey, because it’s theirs, not yours, whether or not it involves you or whether or not you agree with it.

This is a lot to ask of someone, because it’s very rare and oftentimes very difficult. These are the big questions where few are willing to go. Talk therapy attempts to deal with these issues, with little to show for it. Psychiatry never wants you to go this far, it’s much easier to pop a pill. Most people aren’t willing to go there. Rightfully so, it’s scary stuff. Are you willing to ask yourself how you truly feel about your parents? Where do you fall short in relationships? What do you require from someone in a relationship? Are you needy? Are you prone to using someone as the father or mother you never had? To do what they were supposed to do? Are you willing to take the time and make the sacrifices to sort these questions out without burdening someone else? What would that require of you?

Women often complain about finding themselves acting as a mother in relationships. Men complain women won’t do the basic household duties women have traditionally done. A lot of these grievances are tied up with fundamental childhood experiences.

By the way, did you notice how my description of Love had nothing to do with sex?