Fraternal Love (Frappe?)

Philia, I believe.

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I wanted to see the original post that Hec is responding to so I did a search for "sex," which is less than the four-letter minimum. It seems wrong, somehow, that one can't search for "sex" on the porny Phoenix board.

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I have enought mac and cheese to feed an army ( at least 12) there are only two of us. I can't seem to make a small amount. This batch has ham, spinach, 5 or 6 cheeses, and fresh basil. I am envisioning serving it with fresh died tomatoes spinkled on top. Anyone need dinner?

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Anyone need dinner?

Oh my, that sounds good.

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I wanted to see the original post that Hec is responding to so I did a search for "sex," which is less than the four-letter minimum.

Yeah, you can't search for ita or Hec or Oz either.

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I am going to my pregnant friend's house for dinner, and bringing CI cupcakes with orange buttercream.

Mmm.

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Gloomcookie, the conversation started/turned here Kat "Natter 37: Oddly Enough, We've Had This Conversation Before." Aug 12, 2005 10:28:28 am PDT. Hec's last big post was partially in response to me, and partially in response to Jessica, and I don't know who all else.

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and I don't know who all else.

bon.

I think I can sum it up more quickly. It's not that I'm disagreeing with anybody else's notion of love or it's relation to sex. I think we've inherited a set of false distinctions which make the whole discussion impossible to untangle. Culturally, we've got bad tools for even understanding the dynamic.

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Maybe you haven't had enough hateful sex yet. (Also a joke, yet perhaps closer to my true feelings on the matter.) With no glib whatsoever - in my experience deeply in love sex has not been as intense as some other less warm, less uh...conventionally intimate kinds of sex.

I'm not following you at all, because it seems to me you started out contending that sex is a kind of love (as opposed to a part of some loves), and yet here, when you're talking about sex you've found particularly pleasing, you're categorizing it as sex between people who weren't particularly emotionally intimate, and/or who didn't have particularly warm feelings for one another. How is sex then love?

I'm sort of a monist on these things and I think I'm arguing that if this distinction between love and sex isn't exactly a false one, then it's a muddier one than most of our cultural compasses can accurately gauge.

I do agree that it's too muddy to separate, when there is both. That is, in a loving relationship that is also a sexual relationship. But I have seen plenty of sexual relationships that weren't loving. I have seen plenty of loving relationships that were not sexual.

It seems that I am arguing a couple things: (1) I don't trust the USian/Western taxonomies of "love" in all its varieties;

Could you define that? You keep referring to it, but it needs fleshing out (take the pun if you'd like).

(2) that the Greek notions of Eros, Agape, Fraternal Love (Frappe?) seem more accurate to me. And Eros is a kind of love and it is about cute butts on the street.

How is eros love, in any way except translators have rendered it thusly? It is involved in some relationships that involve feelings which we, using English, term "love", but how is it love, do you think?

And so I don't leave you all alone in the "I think I've just repeated myself" corner...

It's more that I'm saying that putting sexual attraction and love in separate boxes winds up creating more confusion than anything. That however we're dividing that complex of feeling is false and misleading.

I don't think anyone was putting them in separate boxes, except to acknowledge that sometimes, one does exist without the other, although they both often are tied up together. When you originally came into the conversation, the point Jessica was making, is that although bonded-pair relationships involve a love that has a sexual component, there are plenty of sexual relationships that do not involve love. I still haven't seen you say anything that convinces me otherwise, and a lot of times, it seems like you're arguing with your own point (like at the very top).

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Okay, and now that I've read your most recent post, maybe that one of mine is asking for a conversation we can't really have.

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