The four loves

[Tabouli]

OK.  We have philos, the love of friendship.  We have eros, sexual love.  Erm, run the other two by me again?  They weren't love of country and love of God, were they?  I do have dim memories of the "loves" from childhood Sunday School classes, but I'm sure there were only three then.

For the record, I agree thoroughly with Elkins and Amy Z on society's obsession with eros to the detriment of philos.  And I'll go out on a limb and add that I think this obsession is a major contributer to the male suicide rate.  You see, another perennial media theme is that men are, first and foremost, sexual beings.

Now, OK, hormones are powerful things, especially when they're first starting to pump through the system.  However, there also seems to be this belief about that ANY very intimate relationship involving at least one man must therefore have a sexual element, whether realised or not.  If a man is very close to a woman, it can only because he has ulterior sexual motives about her.  If a man is very close to a man, the same is true, and therefore he must (gasp!) be gay.  And while society remains homophobic, this leaves a lot of men in a position where the only person they can safely be close to is, indeed, their female sexual partner.

It's very pervasive, this one.  All the jokes about the LOTR characters, for example.  (Sam loves Frodo so much there just *has* to be sex involved, right?)  Not that I don't find some of them funny, I just think they're a reflection of this eros obsession.

You get articles about research on this every now and then.  How men feel uncomfortable hugging male friends except in the most back-slappy, macho fashion.  How a much larger proportion of men completely fall apart when their marriages break up.  How men ring up their *ex-girlfriends* in crises because they are the only people they feel comfortable being vulnerable with.  I even read one particularly alarming one which said that women, living alone, typically have lots of both female and male guests over one at a time, whereas men were unlikely to have just one male guest over because they were afraid this would imply they were gay (unless they were, of course, but even then).

Very sad, I've always thought.  Which is one of the major reasons why I loathe homophobia.

Then there's the "sexual relationships are the aim of life and most exciting thing in it" message, which has eight year old girls in lipstick and crop tops.  Don't even get me started on that one.

Amy Z:
> Yeah, you're certainly made to feel like persona non grata if you're 
single. Now here's a thought: maybe these morose people are not 
just buying into a myth, but are *lonely.* In which case one might 
ask why we don't put a lot more energy into promoting *friendship.*<

I'm sure they *are* lonely.  But it takes *time* to build up and maintain the sort of mutual trust and respect and intimacy you need for a deep connection with another person.  I wonder if part of the problem is that most adults' lives just don't have the time for this level of contact with more than one new person (old friends are different - it's already been built, though maintenance can be tricky. That old catchcry: you spend too much time with your friends!  What about me?  I'm supposed to be your partner!)  At least not face to face...

Long live email and the telephone!

Tabouli.





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