Sexualities - All About Love - Essay Example

Sur All about love Love and relationships are some of the most controversial and heavily discussed topics in the contemporary society today with some people citing it as an emotional attachment while others see it as the actions that people do for others. There is however the romantic aspect of love as people who are in love are commonly referred to be romantic and engaged although love is not expressed in the same way by the male and female gender. This paper looks at the different explanations by different researchers and writers on the topic of love and how they relate to each other in making up the true conceptualization of a loving relationship. According to hooks (2001), love is based on affection, respect, commitment, trust and care between two people who are attracted to one another and are willing to strive and conquer together. Love is said not to be based on gender stereotypes, domination, control and aggression by one of the parties who are in love and the affectionate aspect makes up love. There is also a conceptualization of the relationship that exists between love and the erotic aspects of sex. In today’s western world as opposed to the past sexual contacts are not firmly established on loving relationships making a distinction between love and erotic sex (Cancian et al., 104). One of the things that have been vaguely discussed is the levels of intimacy and freedoms that people in the current generation are exposed to with many people blaming the lack of love to be the source of moral decadence in today’s society. The expanded sexual freedom that is in the present day has eroded much of the relational commitments and has created unrealistic expectations for personal happiness. In the present generation most people are exercising their sexual freedoms and are not concerned about the pursuit of happiness that could only be found if two people were in love with each other. There is no basis for majority of the relationships that are in existent and as the cliché goes ”friends with benefits” people are engaging in erotic sexual relations for lust other than on grounds of being in love with each other. However it is commonly believed that in order to maximize on the level of happiness and value that one place on erotic pleasures and sex the people should be in love (Cancian et al., 104). This has however changed and the people are looking to push for the material satisfaction that is on the outside rather than the love that brings people together. According to Hooks (2001) “We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love. Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.”  This exemplifies that people are nowadays driven not by the love they have for each other since they have finally realized that they cannot get the perfect partner but merely by the lust and physical attachment that they have formed with their partners. According to Seidman (104) these attachments were considered to be important in the 19th century and the concept of love, life and happiness has changed in comparison to the current American culture. Seidman further asserts that one cannot judge the contemporary culture as having moral decadence and yet they are using the Victorian period standards to measure the intimacy levels. The current culture has framed love to involve sex as a medium of love. The current generation therefore sexualized love to involve the erotic nuances as a source of romantic bonding between couples. The generation has adopted a form of intimate solidarity as the main unifying source between two people since the other forms that were used in the past such as kinship, patriarchy and economic dependency slowly lost their power to do so (Cancian et al., 106). This has been a change from what was previously conceived that in order for people to involve intimacy and erotic expressions in their lives they first had to be in love. There is also a change in the erotic aspects of sex where one finds that the pleasurable and expressive aspects of sex have acquired legitimacy in their lives and moved from the settings of romantic intimacy that was formed in the past. These sentiments are however not shared by Hooks and he sees them as a cop-out or a way that people use to rationalize their failed relationships. According to Hooks (2001), “To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. It is often believed that these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.”  This means that people will always look for the easy way out in order to spite others for the love they felt but has since been taken away and instead of striving and working hard for the relationships they have had they turn to romantic relationships (Cancian et al., 108). According to Cancian, there is a difference in the way the men and women express love. In today’s contemporary society the form of love that is exhibited by the male and female gender is different as love has been feminized as the women are referred to be more skilled in love than the men. There is however the fact that there is an aspect of love that is expressed through the physical aspects such as providing help, sharing activities and sex that are also forms of love as expressed by the men since their love is expressive (Cancian et al., 98). The men are said not to be emotionally attached and not to incorporate emotions in their loving nature but are said to be expressive through the actions that they show the women. According to Hooks however, to love is the task of meaningful relationships and it does not only take the efforts and expressive attitudes towards the women for one to be truly in love. Hooks therefore concurs that in order for men to love they need to be more like the women and incorporate emotions in their love towards their women. The assertion by Cancian is however different since she believes that men are expressive and will do anything to prove their worth to the ladies and not only on the grounds of emotional attachment (Cancian et al., 98). Love is one of the most complicated aspects of the human nature as people try to fathom and understand the relationship with their partners to come up with the best ways to show love. The contemporary society has changed and the people have found new freedoms that have ultimately led to a new definition of love and sexuality in the present society. Love is therefore an important subject and needs to be critically examined in order to come up with the best assertions that best describe and define love. Works Cited Cancian, Francesca M. "The Feminization of Love." Signs (1986): 692-709. Print. Hooks, Bell. All About Love: New Visions. New York: William Morrow, 2000. Print. Seidman, Steven. "Romantic longings." love in America (1993): 225-229. Print. Stevi, Jackson. "Women in heterosexual love: complicity, resistance and Change. “Heterosexual in question (1990): 113-122. Sage Publications. Print Read More