True love is more than a sexual relationship

Hey guys, it's a bit out-fashioned, I wrote it when I was studying in Year 2, kind of philosophy stuff. I found it quite ineresting as what I wrote was not really what I think... but anyhow, that's something interesting to share with your guys.

True love is more than a sexual relationship. What is love in general? It involves maternal love, fraternal love, friendship, romantic love, etc. In general, true love here refers to romantic love. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word “true” means genuine, rightly called what one it is called. So true love is different from love. Love is a boarder term, it involves and includes many things. According to Zick Rubin, he argues that romantic love includes three elements, they are 1) attachment, 2) caring and 3) intimacy. In addition, Robert Sternberg argues that romantic love is composed of intimacy and passion. He views love into 3 different elements, i.e. intimacy (liking), passion (infatuation) and commitment (empty love). Is sex necessary for romantic love? By referring to D.H. Lawrence, “Love without sex and sex without love are sinful”. On the other hand, Plato holds the belief that love is spiritual, without any physical sexual intercourse and without obligation. Nowadays, it is a bias topic whether true love is equivalent to sex and whether love is one of the elements of true love. Here is going to discuss the relationship between true love and sex. And what is true love and sexual relationship.

First of all, what is Platonic love? It was stated that love here refers to “pure beauty” and not affected by any external or internal factors. According to what Plato stated, love was established between same genders, and as Plato was male, the love he stated was between male and male. And derived from his study, the relationship between male and female was purely sex only, and had nothing in between, and so there was no love. The love stated by Plato concerned more about spirit and was very sensible with no sexual relationship in between.

Nowadays, in general speaking, true love is composed of pure love and sexual relationship. Moreover, love can be defined as a party giving out his/her concern and love without return; devoting one’s best to protect the beloved one without obligation. Is sexual desire necessary for romantic love? Or is actual sexual relationship necessary for romantic love? Basically, sex is natural and is human basic instinct, everyone has his/her need, no one can ignore. Furthermore, sexual intercourse is a process of reproduction and given by God, what is wrong if one has sexual intercourse with another? Not having sexual relationship means true love? Can purely sexual relationship substitute true love? What are the components of true love?

Love is very complex, it involves physical and mental feelings. Love brings happiness, warm hearted feeling. More obviously, nowadays lovers will hand in hand when they are in love, it is a kind of communication and identification. As love is a kind of happiness sometimes, it involves all the things that can bring happiness, sexual relationship is only one of the ways to bring happiness. So sexual relationship cannot be ignored. But besides sexual relationship, many things should be added, e.g., the communication between lovers, the concern, the awareness, etc. If true love is equivalent to sexual relationship only, then there is no different between prostitution and true love. Is one night stand true love? Generally speaking, getting one night stand is searching for physical happiness, not involving any mental communication. True love involves pure love and concern, etc, so a pure search of physical happiness, i.e. sexual intercourse is not true love. Is there true love between prostitutes and their customers? It had better say it is an exchange of benefits with each others. It involves obligation, offer and acceptance, it is a transaction between money and sexual intercourse. If there is only sex and no love, it is simply a satisfaction in physical state but not spiritual state, there is no different between animal’s mating for reproduction.

And if true love is equivalent to sexual relationship, then can a sexually disable guy receive true love? If it is true, then sexually disability will lead to the absent of true love. Is that true? It is no doubt that one with sexual disability can also receive true love, then what involve in true love? Respect? Love? Can Platonic Love applied here? Partially can be applied, spiritual communication, pure love and love not affected by other factors. So sexually relationship is one of the elements in true love, but not all. Love is very different from true love, love is based on sex, but true love is based on sex, pure love and other elements.

What if there are no respect and concern in true love? What will it be? If making love with lover without respect and concern, it is merely a mating process or critically, it is raping rather than making love. Sexual relationship is a bridge of communication and shares of happiness and the way to higher the relationship between lover. Bringing them into another stage of love. In view of some religions, premarital sexual relationship is prohibited, then can true love exist before marriage? If there is true love, what link the lovers together? Merely, trust, frank and care are the components.

The case of the young man’s admiration and respect of an ugly old woman without sexual desires: does he fall in love with the old woman? This case is similar to the case of one who bares sexual disability. True love really not only involves sexual relationship, the admiration on one’s strength can also be a part of true love. The stage of sexual relationship and true love is very different, sexual relationship is the stage of physical need, while that of true love is spiritual stage. The 2 stages cannot be compared. According to Marslow, there are 5 stages of human’s need, the lowest is physical need, the highest is spiritual need. Sexually relationship and true love lie in extreme stages, so it is not appropriate to put an equal sign between them. There are still 3 stages in between, they are biological stage, biological logic stage, biological cultural stage. So these 3 stages need to be added so to achieve true love.

True love is more than a sexual relationship. True love involves care, frank, trust, sacrifice, concern, respect, etc, sexually relationship is just one of the components of true love. In order to establish a concrete true love, many other factors need to be concerned rather than sex. True love is not only equal to sexual relationship.