WHAT IS LOVE? THE BEST DEFINITION.

WHAT IS LOVE?









Is Love Definable?--Raising a Corner of the Veil--Two Opinions of
  Love--The First Opinion: Sexual Intercourse and Love--The Second
  Opinion--The Grain of Truth in Each--The Truth Concerning
  Love--Foundation of Love--Sexual Attraction and Love--The Frigid
  Woman and Her Husband--Puzzling Cases of Love--The
  Paradox--Blindness of Love and the Penetrating Vision of
  Love--Limits of Homeliness--Physical Aversion and Genesis of
  Love--Mating in the Animal Kingdom--Mating in Low Races--Love in
  People of High Culture--Difference in Love of Savage and Man of
  Culture--Distinctions Between Loves--Varieties of Love and
  Varieties of Men--"Love" Without Sexual Desire--Refraining and
  Wanting--Cause of Love at First Sight--"Magnetic Forces" and Love
  at First Sight--The Pathological Side--Differentiation of Phases
  of Love--Infatuation--Difference Between "Infatuation" and "Being
  in Love"--Sexual Satisfaction and Infatuation--Sexual
  Satisfaction and Love--Infatuation Mistaken for Love--Love the
  Most Mysterious of Human Emotions--Great Love and Supreme
  Happiness.


I shall not attempt to give a definition, either brief or extensive,
of Love. Many have tried and failed, and I shall not attempt the
impossible. Nor shall I attempt to discuss Love in all its innumerable
details.[9] To do so would alone require a book many times more
voluminous than the one you have before you. I shall, however,
endeavor to raise a corner of the veil which surrounds this most
mysterious, most baffling and most complex of all human emotions, so
that you may get a glimpse into its intricate mechanism and perhaps
understand what Love is in its essence at least.

=Sexual and Platonic Love.= There are two widely different, in fact
diametrically opposite, opinions as to what constitutes Love. One
opinion is that Love is sexual love, sexual attraction, sexual desire.
To people holding this opinion love and sexual desire or "lust" are
synonymous. And they laugh and sneer at any attempt to idealize love,
to present it as something finer and subtler, let alone nobler, than
mere sex attraction. The writer has heard one cynical woman--and more
than one man--say: Love? There is no such a thing. Sexual intercourse
is love, and that's all there is to it.

The other opinion is that Love, true love, ideal love, or, as it is
sometimes called, sentimental love, or platonic love, has nothing to
do with sexual desire, with sexual attraction. Indeed, people holding
this opinion consider love and sexual attraction--or lust as they like
to call the latter--as antithetical conceptions, as mutually
antagonistic and exclusive.

Both opinions, as is often the case with extreme and one-sided
opinions, are wrong. Both opinions have a reason for their existence,
because there is a grain of truth in both of them. But a grain of
truth is not the whole truth, and if an opinion contains ninety-nine
parts of untruth to one part of truth, then the effect of the opinion
is practically the same as if it were all false.

Here is the truth, or at least what I think is the truth, as it
appears to me after many years of thinking and many years of
observing.

=Foundation of Love.= The _foundation_, the _basis_ of all love is
sexual attraction. Without sexual attraction, in greater or lesser
degree, there can be no love. Where the former is entirely lacking the
latter can have no existence. This you may take as an axiom. Some may
call it love, but on analyzing it you will find that it is no such
thing. It may be friendship, it may be gratitude, it may be respect,
it may be pity, it may be habit, it may even be a _desire_ or a
_readiness_ to love or to be loved, but it is not love. Experience has
proved it in thousands and thousands of sad cases. And the girl who
marries a man who is physically repulsive to her, who possesses _no_
physical sexual attraction for her, though she may experience for him
all of the feelings mentioned above, namely, friendship, gratitude,
respect and pity, is preparing for herself a joyless couch to sleep
on. Unless, indeed, she happens to belong to the class of women whom
we call frigid, that is, if she is herself devoid of any sexual desire
and feels no need of any sexual relations. Such a woman may be fairly
or even quite happy with a husband who repels her physically, but whom
she likes or respects. And what I said about the wife applies with
still greater force to the husband. A man who marries a woman who is
physically antipathetic to him is a criminal fool.

I repeat, sexual, physical attraction is the _basis_, the foundation
of love. It is true we see certain cases of love which puzzle us. We
cannot understand what "he" has seen in "her" or what "she" has seen
in "him." But let us remember this paradox, which paradoxical though
it be, is true nevertheless: Love is blind, but Love also sees acutely
and penetratingly; it sees things which we who are indifferent cannot
see. The blindness of Love helps her not to see certain defects which
are clearly seen to everybody else; but, on the other hand, her
penetrating vision helps her to see good qualities which are invisible
to others. And a homely person may possess certain compensating
_physical_ qualities--such as passionate ardor or strong sexual
power--which, render him or her irresistible to a member of the
opposite sex.


But homeliness, ugliness or deformity have their limits, and I
challenge anybody to bring forth an authenticated case in which a man
fell in love with a woman--or vice versa--who had an enormous tumor on
one side of the face, which made her look like a monstrosity, or whose
nose was sunk in as a result of lupus or syphilis, or whose cheek was
eaten away by cancer. Love under such circumstances is an absolute
impossibility, because there is physical aversion here, and physical
aversion is fatal to the _genesis_ of love. A man who loved a woman
may continue to love her after she has become disfigured by disease,
but he cannot fall in love with such a woman.

I will repeat, then, and I trust you will agree with me on this point:
sexual attraction is the foundation of all love between the opposite
sexes. Where sexual attraction is lacking you can give the feeling any
other name you choose: it will not be love.