Some
distinctions
It can help to see this clearly if one remembers that, contrary to what some people seem to suggest today, sex and love are not the same thing. Far from it. Subordinated to love, as we have just noted, sex has a noble role. But sex that dominates, sex on its own, sex in isolation - what is properly called lust - is anything but noble and is very different to love. Sexual desire after all can be towards any attractive member of the other sex; sexual love is towards one in particular. Further points of contrast quickly suggest themselves:
- Love is generous; sex is selfish;
- Love seeks to give; sex, to take;
- Love wants to please; sex, to have pleasure;
- Even physically, love is gentle and tender; sex is rough and aggressive.
We could continue with the contrasts:
- Sex can be bought; love cannot;
- Love laughs, is light-hearted; sex is grim and intent;
- Love opens a person to the good of others; sex closes one up in one's own selfishness;
- An act expressive of love makes a person feel happy and uplifted; a sexual satisfaction (I repeat, I am speaking of sex isolated from love) leaves behind a sense of sadness and even of degradation.
So, people can be raised up by sex - by the attraction between the sexes - if they see and live it in the context of God's plan for personal maturity and for human love and marriage. Or people can be pulled down by sex, can become enslaved in selfish desire and so close themselves to the possibility of loving truly or of being truly loved.
Therefore not all sexual activity shows love or fosters love. We all have a general attraction towards the other sex. But when this attraction becomes particularized towards a concrete person, it is elementary - if one wants to know oneself and to know where one is going - to ask: is this an urge to love, to show my love for someone, or is it an urge to self-seeking and to use someone as a means to that end? If we do not ask this question, then we do not know ourselves and perhaps do not want to know ourselves.
Attraction and possession
Sexual attraction can be just bodily; then it is physical desire rather than love for the person. Physical sexual desire needs little or no time for development. It is quickly aroused and seeks immediate satisfaction. It wants possession of the body but involves no real commitment of the heart. It is fickle, it tends to change, it can lead to promiscuity.
But sexual attraction will also enter into what may be a true love. Now love, if it is to be more than mere infatuation, does need time to develop. It is love not just for the body but more importantly for the person, and the person can only be gradually known. The more a person worth loving is known, the more he or she will be loved. This is a process that necessarily takes time, but does not necessarily work out well. As the person is gradually known, he or she may turn out to be less lovable than one thought. Or as oneself is known, one may be discovered by the other as less lovable...
We all have defects. Only a vain person thinks he or she has no defects. And, at marriage, only a very superficial or immature person thinks his or her spouse has no defects. Marriage is always a love match between two defective people. That is precisely why enough love has to be there - has to be developed - before marriage, so that one can say, I love him or her with his or her defects, I think he or she loves me with my defects, and I also think that we can make a go of it nevertheless, and be happy together.
It can help to see this clearly if one remembers that, contrary to what some people seem to suggest today, sex and love are not the same thing. Far from it. Subordinated to love, as we have just noted, sex has a noble role. But sex that dominates, sex on its own, sex in isolation - what is properly called lust - is anything but noble and is very different to love. Sexual desire after all can be towards any attractive member of the other sex; sexual love is towards one in particular. Further points of contrast quickly suggest themselves:
- Love is generous; sex is selfish;
- Love seeks to give; sex, to take;
- Love wants to please; sex, to have pleasure;
- Even physically, love is gentle and tender; sex is rough and aggressive.
We could continue with the contrasts:
- Sex can be bought; love cannot;
- Love laughs, is light-hearted; sex is grim and intent;
- Love opens a person to the good of others; sex closes one up in one's own selfishness;
- An act expressive of love makes a person feel happy and uplifted; a sexual satisfaction (I repeat, I am speaking of sex isolated from love) leaves behind a sense of sadness and even of degradation.
So, people can be raised up by sex - by the attraction between the sexes - if they see and live it in the context of God's plan for personal maturity and for human love and marriage. Or people can be pulled down by sex, can become enslaved in selfish desire and so close themselves to the possibility of loving truly or of being truly loved.
Therefore not all sexual activity shows love or fosters love. We all have a general attraction towards the other sex. But when this attraction becomes particularized towards a concrete person, it is elementary - if one wants to know oneself and to know where one is going - to ask: is this an urge to love, to show my love for someone, or is it an urge to self-seeking and to use someone as a means to that end? If we do not ask this question, then we do not know ourselves and perhaps do not want to know ourselves.
Attraction and possession
Sexual attraction can be just bodily; then it is physical desire rather than love for the person. Physical sexual desire needs little or no time for development. It is quickly aroused and seeks immediate satisfaction. It wants possession of the body but involves no real commitment of the heart. It is fickle, it tends to change, it can lead to promiscuity.
But sexual attraction will also enter into what may be a true love. Now love, if it is to be more than mere infatuation, does need time to develop. It is love not just for the body but more importantly for the person, and the person can only be gradually known. The more a person worth loving is known, the more he or she will be loved. This is a process that necessarily takes time, but does not necessarily work out well. As the person is gradually known, he or she may turn out to be less lovable than one thought. Or as oneself is known, one may be discovered by the other as less lovable...
We all have defects. Only a vain person thinks he or she has no defects. And, at marriage, only a very superficial or immature person thinks his or her spouse has no defects. Marriage is always a love match between two defective people. That is precisely why enough love has to be there - has to be developed - before marriage, so that one can say, I love him or her with his or her defects, I think he or she loves me with my defects, and I also think that we can make a go of it nevertheless, and be happy together.
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