There was this discussion I had the unfortunate luck of being involved in some ten years ago at a palm wine joint somewhere in
So does love have any relation with sex? What I mean is this—when people say ‘I love you’ what are the factors they consider?
Yes, I understand that people can say the three-letter word to confirm different feelings. For instance one can love a painting, music, a book or a genre, drink and the likes. One can also love a person for what he does. But my concern here is the kind of love between say Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton, culminating in their wedding; the kind of feelings between a married couple or people with amorous relationship.
I was once in a relationship that lasted for six years. When the togetherness was about three years old, the lady moved into my apartment; and for about three months we were on trial marriage. She later moved back to her rented apartment. On the dot of the sixth year of our relationship, we fell apart on principle—she wanted me to be a church going Christian; I wanted her to start a supplementary business. That was some five years ago. In spite of our disagreement, I still have deep feelings for this woman; very intense feelings. Is that love? If it is not love can we call it infatuation? The text she sent me last week when she reminded me of my birthday was a confirmatory statement; it practically asserted my feelings towards her; the feelings I have not told her about since we parted.
Is love transferable? Does it wane with time? Is it resuscitatable?
Honestly, I had expressed the words to quite a number of women in my existence and it just occurred to me that each time I had said the words; I merely reacted primarily to the sexual effects, the feelings after a sexual encounter. Does it mean that, an engaged Christian couple who, because of their observance of the Christian doctrine refrained from sex before being wedded may expressed love from a different dimension to mine? Does love manifest differently in different people? Does it emanate from common sources? What is the definition or description of love?
What about love and marriage? Must one be in love before getting married or love can develop after marriage? We can resolve this second puzzle (love and marriage) after we must have amicable resolved the definition of love. Or is it one of the ingredients for cooking the concoction called love? I am confused.
Honestly speaking, the best thing in life is to love yourself and only relish and savour the sexual pleasures from the opposite sex just as Sege rightly said. True love does not exist again. Everybody is selfish and mean.
Your problem is bigger that you think.My advice to you would be that you seek counseling from specialist. You fear commitment and that is why despite the fact that your relationship lasted for 6 years, you could only stay together for three months. Really sex can't exist without love.
I have felt very deep feelings for female friends that lingered for years after we had parted.Some of these were mutual, while some were one-sided…and I still have married female friends that somehow I know deeply love me for the right reasons that their husbands do not bat an eyelid…more of pure brotherly-sisterly love kinda thing. Yet there're people I know I have met that stirred some other kind of deep feeling…an alluring thing that i know would lead to sex…and for such am cautious cos I had taken a vow not to lay any woman who is not my wife. While I delay that gratification, I have enjoyed some depth of loving feelings for some close friends….the type I have for my younger sisters that wont make me lay with them, yet doesnt stop my being loving and tender towards them.Such that I could hold their hands tenderly and give them loving pecks and not risk incest. I am yet to know what the feeling of a sexual experience is…but that doesn't ban me from enjoying the feeling of giving and recieving love.Until then, i think am content with the degree of lov I have experienced with the significant women in my life.Not withstanding, there's a deeper love that I can only share with just ONE woman at a time, and in that one, sex becomes a major stakeholder that I think helps to give better expression to the love that we already have shared heart-to-heart before the advent of sex.I think you need not confuse sex with love cos love is not about the 'act' alone, it's about the 'thots' that need not be expressed thro a singular act called sex…that is!
I loved reading your article and the openness with which you presented it. You were open about aspects of your life, and you even admitted in the end that you were confused (vunerable).
It is amazing that you would write about this, for some friends of mine and I had a conversation about the various types of love. In that you can be close to a person, and really love them and no sexual encounter has, or posssibly, ever will happen between the two of you. At one time, perhaps, there were genuine feelings of love, or at least you may have felt like that, but the timing, situation, or circumstances prevented anything from happening, which should NOT have happened in the first place–if the truth be told.
Being a woman, I felt that women freely express that four letter word of "love" freely due to an emotional attachment, but I also have come to realize that men, in particular voice that word freely during love making, but do they really mean it, or is the feelings that are so overwhelming during the rhythum of lovemaking contributing to that four letter word.
My friends and I came to the conclusion that there are many types of love, and you can love many different people in different ways.
I believe also when we feel that intense emotion of love, at that given moment, that in that moment it is very real to us. However, how we behave after that situation passes that evoked the emotion will, hopefully, let us see whether we were really in love or simply in lust at the time–if the truh be told.
Perhaps it is just a passing fancy that felt very close to love and satisfied the desire of the moment. As Rosie said in Comment #1, "Is it love? We may never be able to know that for sure"–if the truth be told.
The best advice I got on love is this: If it feels right, you will know. You just know if that person is the one you should spend your life with. You just know.
I have loved some men, but marrrying them never felt right. It's hard to describe. The search for a life partner really hinges on a deeper connection with another human. Is it love? We may never be able to know that for sure.