In a previous post on this series I emphasized the difference between Love and Desire. On my article On Love and Loving, I began examining the issues of Love and Sexuality and relationship obstacles; and how these two factors interfere with human happiness. In a previous post, I gave my own definition of Love (see this article). I explained there that Desire and Love are two different things.
The GAP between LOVE and DESIRE
On occasion, Love and Desire go hand in hand; but, more often than not, they run separate courses. There is a Gap between them. In this post, I will start focusing on Love and Desire on the side of man where this GAP is most noticeable . In my next one, I will continue with this matter in a more specific way and will look at the preconditions of men’s love and desire. And in posts to come, I will examine the matter on the side of women.
Overall, Love is a much wider, positive, and persistent feeling towards others than Desire. Unconscious Desire—which is the driving force of individual wishes—is constant and intense but it operates from behind the scene.
Wishes are rapid and variable and they stem from unconscious Desires. Desires or wishes tend to go up and down rapidly with sexual stimulation and they repeat themselves in unending cycles. Sexual Desire may manifests in multiple and different sexual wishes or fantasies that change over time and are unquenchable.
“Erotic love,” on the other hand, is a deep, strong–and prolonged–feeling of attraction in an individual for a particular other considered sexually attractive. As stated above, sexual Desire is spontaneous; it appears rapidly, intensely, and in unexpected ways. Desire is then contingent and twisted, while Love is lasting and predictable, if it is true love.
Differences between Erotic Love and Other forms of Love
The main difference between erotic love and fraternal/filial love is that the former demands EXCLUSIVITY. While the other forms of non-erotic love can be shared with many people—erotic love cannot be shared.
A mother, for example, can love her five children all at the same; or a man can have many friends he loves. For the mother, loving one of her children does not mean she does not love the others just as much. In the case of the man that loves his friends, loving one does not mean he does not the others just as much.
In that sense, in the area of filial or fraternal love (the kind of Love of the “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”) love is inexhaustible. You can keep giving Love away to as many people as you want and you will never run dry. But, sensual erotic-love demands exclusivity. If a man or woman stops being exclusive and loves another person–even if it is with the same intensity, the original loved one—if he/she finds out—feels betrayed. The corollary of these facts of our love lives it that we all want to be LOVED SINGULARLY and UNCONDITIONALLY.
We all desire to be loved “in our singularity:” This is the origin of our possessiveness and our jealousy in love matters. In erotic love, we usually do not admit competitors. We want to possess our loved-one and we demand total exclusivity.
Defining True Love
True Erotic Love encompasses a desire for the well-being of the other person beyond their objectality (what they are as objects to others). This desire in love applies to both men and women alike.
Keep in mind that in every human relationship there are always two relationships going on at the same time. Your sensual relationship to the other as object (to their body) and your subjective relationship to the Other as Subject (your inter-subjective relationship with the other person as an individual—not as an attractive piece of flesh and bones). This psychological dichotomy of our love lives ALWAYS applies; and it affects both men and women in the same way.
Below you see Jacques Lacan Lambda Scheme that shows this double relationship to others (small others or @ and the Unconscious Subject that Inhabits the other A.
Lambda Scheme
So, if you want to improve your relational life, always remember:
1-The greatest and deepest of Humans desires is to BE LOVED UNCONDITIONALLY.
2-The greatest difficulty for Humans is to GIVE unconditional Love.
When A Man Loves A Woman
When a man is seriously in love with a woman, he is not in love with just her body, as the song goes, but with her entire being. Even more so, he is in love with that which is invisible in her. The man loves her entire BEING that is inside her body. In his love, he aims for “Who” she is as a Subject—and not as an Object. As a result, in his love, the loving men aims for the “Who” and not for the “What” she is.
The GAP between LOVE and DESIRE GRAPHIC
Because of this rare set of feelings that only show up when a man falls in love, he cares about her well-being, he pays attention to her needs, and he listens and respects her Ideas. Ideally, if he really loves her–and stays in love after the initial crush–he also wishes for her realization as a human being not just as a gendered being. He sees her as an equal, as another Human being just like him with desires of her own that go beyond him, and not just “as a woman.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery put it this way in his wonderful little story The Little Prince that I strongly recommend you read, if you have not done so yet:
“Some things are only seen with the Heart. The Essential is invisible to the Eyes.” (Bold is mine)
The Signs that Someone Is Truly in Love
What distills from this beautiful phrase is that love is not about what is seen but about what is not seen in someone. When you are in love, not only are you attracted to him/her physically, but you also care deeply about the invisible aspects of the loved-one’s Self. This Love goes beyond the sex-appeal of the external “package.”
True Lovers care about the loved-ones’ desires and their Spirits. They are not just attracted to his/her physical shape, popularity, success, or material possessions. In other words, True Lovers are attracted to the brains and the hearts of those they love. They love—not just their bodies—but they appreciate even much more the person that resides in that body.
The True Lover appreciates who he/she IS as an Individual completely different from all others: A Human Singularity.
In short, people who are truly in love are happy when they are helping their loved ones fully develop their individuality and when they are collaborating in their loved ones Quest for Self-actualization.
Desire and Its Dynamics
In my article on Desire and the Problems of Love life, I articulated the problem of Human Desire. I indicated there that Desire is always “the want for something that is missing.” There is no desire in presence, only in lack. Sensual Desire then falls on the side of pure physical sexuality. Desire is sensual, carnal; while Love is Spiritual.
Desire is the compass that orients the sex drives and runs on the fuel of sexual libido (which is largely organic sexual energy). Love is the strong attachment that develops when someone feels so attracted to someone else that they do not want to lose them for any reason.
As I explain in The Biology of Desire: How Your Biological Makeup Interferes with Your Relational Happiness and expanding on this topic:
- Libido is the QUANTITATIVE aspect of Desire.
- Desire is the QUALITATIVE direction of your libido.
- Love is the long-term ADHESIVENESS of your Libido manifested in the realm of your subjectivity.
- Sexuality and sensuality are at the bottom of the foundation of our erotic lives, why Love resides at the Top of the Pyramid of Human relationships.
Desire Is Imitative
Desire proper, in in distinctive qualitative aspects, is determined by our psychological make ups and by our interpersonal relationships. In its quality, Desire is oftentimes determined by the Desire of others. Desire is thus eminently imitative. We desire what others desire, particularly, what we perceive others we admire desire.
This reality of the intricacies of Desire is the cause of the so frequent interpersonal love tragedies and the eternal relational snuggles we find ourselves involved in when we love. This characteristic of desire is the source of more than one friendship breakup; and definitely, of more than a relationship or marriage demise. It is also the main source of jealousy, competition, and envy that pervade all the relational conflicts in our lives.
The Mechanics of Desire
So, Desire usually is on the side of sexuality: Desire stems simply from what turns you on sexually.
This turn-on is specific for each individual—it works differently in the two sexes—and it is not commanded by will. You either get turned on by someone or you don’t—you cannot force it; and oftentimes, you do not even know why that is. This is particularly true for men, in whom a deficit in Desire will impede sexual performance. It is like when you like (“love’) a fruit and not another. If you “love” Strawberries, for example, and do not care for Apples, it is exclusively a matter of taste that cannot be explained. The Source of your Taste is a gigantic Enigma, an “X” or a Mystery in your psyche.
What turns one person on does not turn another. Arousal is determined by unconscious forces of which we are hardly aware. And what turns a woman on is really different from what turns a man on, hence their total unpredictability.
What turns a man on
This strong connection between Desire and Sexuality is particularly true for men, as I have expressed in previous posts.
Men are strongly sexual beings: Sexuality thus takes center-place in the life of men. In the case of men, who in sexual life are on the position of “the Desiring ones” (this applies to men in heterosexual relationship), what will turn a certain man on is some physical trait that he finds attractive in the a woman’s body (a part of her body such as her shape, her breasts, her rear-end, her glance, etc.). These elements of sexual attraction operate as part-objects that turn on men’s sexual desires.
So, in that sense, the body of a woman is—even if in a certain way a Gestalt or a complete body form—at the same time a series of part-objects. These parts have the power of arousing sexual desire in a men’s sexual unconscious. This fact about men’s sexual dynamics puts women perennially in the place of an Object—or part-objects—of men’s sexual desires.
Women As Objects
This position in gender relationships as sexual “object” is intolerable for most individuals—and particularly for women. This is the reason behind the common complaint heard from women that men “just want us for that” or that men just “look at us as objects.”
Women HATE TO BE OBJECTIFIED. This feminine complaint often takes the form of “they never take us seriously” (as individuals with a mind of our own)—and not just as sexual “objects.” This structural dynamics of the psychology of men is the perennial plight of women and it constitutes a powerful unconscious incentive for feminist ideology.
So, even if for men–and especially those with hysterical structures–the desire of other men may play a critical role in indicating the direction of their desire, the reality of most non-hysterical men is that they develop early on in their lives a fixed sexual script according to their own early sexual experiences. This fixated unconscious “script”–or “the fixations of their libido”–acts as a format for the arousal of desire in specific sexual situations in adult life.
This sexual “script” in men has three sets of elements that operate coordinately in any man’s unconscious life:
- The parts of a woman’s body that turns them on
- The type of scenes that arouse them.
- The part of a man’s body they wish to be stimulated on in their interaction with a women.
I have to stop here. In the next post, I will continue to examine the dynamics of men’s desire and their love lives dynamics. If you want to know more about this subject, the erotic psychology of men and women, read the next post.
Your comments and questions as always are welcome.
See you soon.
Dr T