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Myth of Love and Role of Sex
Perhaps the first story of love is in the Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, although this depends on the definition of the term love. It is clear from the myth that Pyramus and Thisbe were in some way attracted to one another, but what the attraction is based upon is never clear.
It would seem that “love” is a word that has long been used to refer to an attraction that was usually unexplained. It was often assumed that this is a basic feeling that Homo Sapiens have that comes from some unexplained interior place. Perhaps it is similar to the Christian word “soul”. Definitions of love in dictionaries stated that it included a wide range of strong, positive emotional states, which of course does not say what “state” it is. The word was used for strong feelings towards very many things. One could love some types of food, and/or a geographical place and/or animals and/or other Homo Sapiens, both groups and individuals, etc. In the western world, many of the changes involved what earlier had been important Christian values, especially concerning sex and belief in God. As individuals changed from thinking that Christian beliefs were the basis for a good society, they replaced these beliefs with other beliefs such as Luckman’s invisible religion. Douglas wrote about how when he was young, he had learned that almost everything about sex was immoral except for having children. He did know that most adults had sex with the person they married, and so when he got married, he had sex, but not before. He relates that he had learned not to have any conscious positive feelings in his penis. As written earlier, during the 1960-70s the importance of sex changed significantly. Physically, of course, sex had been somewhat regulated in Homo Sapiens, partially through children having long dependence on adults and taking many years to mature. |
