On Loving

as commonly defined, to 'make love' is to engage in sexual intercourse.

put simply, 'making love' is 'having sex,' but this former phrase is

ascribed a status lacked by the latter. making love is sex with all the

frills--intimacy, emotion, affection, romance, et cetera; where having sex

assumes none of these things, and is more a general description of the act.

i am not sure whether the phrase under discussion qualifies as an

idiom or not, but for the sake of critical analysis, let us interpret it

literally to gain an alternate view on its meaning. 'make love,' as it is

commonly understood, means to engage in an act of loving, or to have sex

lovingly. what if 'make love' were interpreted as an act of creating love

where it previously existed in lesser quantity? more to the point, by way

of the physical act of sexual intercourse, the emotion, love, is elicited

from either participant and directed toward the other.this interpretation

casts our subject in a new light; it implies that love is a by-product of

the sexual act. while viewed somewhat distastefully by modern moral

standards, this understanding seems to jibe well with common experience.

it is certainly true that pleasurable sex can and does evoke a powerful

emotional response, and that this response in any other context would

qualify as love.

i do not ascribe any mystical or magical attributes to love. love, to me,

is a relative quantity, and may be understood very simply. it is the most

powerful feeling of affective attraction that a being has thus far

experienced. so often i have heard persons decry the "crushes" and

infatuations of youth as cheap folly. i deny this. those immature

feelings were as genuine as the mature love we come to experience years

later. the love from youth was likely not of the same depth of feeling nor

did it likely carry the same objective breadth. regardless of these

deficiencies, the feelings held as much validity in their own time as do

the loving feelings we now cherish.

juvenile love is simple, innocent, humble, undemanding. if love were

likened to a drug, our tolerance to it when young is pitifully low. it is

no surprise that adolescents can and do fall do irrevocably in love, as did

romeo and juliet. as our tolerance for emotion grows, we are better

prepared to forestall the gravitic effect of attraction in order to

deliberate in the experience of acquaintance. that process of "getting to

know you" (GTKY) is so precious, (normally occurring only once, if that

often) that i deem it essential to conduct thoroughly and enjoy just so.

for reasons not thoroughly understood, after initially making love, the

process of acquaintance sometimes changes in character. sometime the act

of sex can stunt an acquaintanceship; sometimes it can catalyze.

regardless of the outcome, it can hardly be denied that once physically

engaged, a couple will never be the same. the consequences are sometimes

obvious; without taking the time to determine what is required to allow the

personalities to mesh, relations are like to be ill-founded.

i am of the belief that most any two personalities can mesh agreeably IF

compromises, concessions, and the like are made and adhered. in this way,

relations are like nations sharing a border. war can be avoided if both

nations are dedicated to the idea of peaceable relations, and harmony can

thrive in an atmosphere of peace. during GTKY, assessments reveal the

initial level of compatibility, and the character of the relation to ensue.

even a passive nation can have harmonious relations with a warlike nation,

if it submits to the other. if the appropriate treaties are not set in

place and adhered, if the appropriate appraisals and compromises do not

occur, if the partners don't agree to agree, the relation may not work.