Does the Pursuit of Eroticism & Romantic
Infatuation Lead to Disatisfaction or Fulfillment?
In all times and places human beings have found sex close to irresistible, and
this even apart from the relief of bodily craving. Sexual union is the one activity in which a man can feel wholly himself, having his way, neither God
nor man intervening, the woman responding. In the four-thousand-year-old
Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the prostitute, having seduced the virginal Enkidu, says to him, “Now you are like a god.” So any man might feel, for
about ten minutes. What else in our world makes a man feel godlike, even
for ten minutes? There is a mystical, magical element in sex which survives
any number of unmagical, un-mystical experiences of it.
Frank Sheed
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Shakespeare (Sonnet 129)
It is not difficult to see why vested interests are liable to favour a sexual revolution. Nothing is more calculated to induce acceptance of the social and
economic status quo than erotic obsessions when they are divorced from love
or procreation. These, especially the former, can prove subversive forces in
that they stimulate individual and particular emotions and loyalties, whereas eroticism is generalised and therefore conducive to a conformist state of
mind. Bread and circuses have to be paid for by the State; pornography is
cheap and in plentiful supply. Marx said that religion was the opium of the
people. Sex is better.
Malcolm Muggeridge
[In the following passage from Aldous Huxley’s novel Those Barren Leaves we get,
I believe, quite an accurate description of the effect sexual infatuation—
commonly and misleadingly called ‘love’ in everyday English—has on some men,
especially young men who are intensely idealistic and intellectual.]
The weeks passed. I saw her almost every day. And every day I loved her
more violently and painfully, with a love that less and less resembled the
religious passion of my boyhood. But it was the persistent memory of that
passion which made my present desire so parching and tormenting, that
filled me with a thirst that no possible possession could assuage. No possible
possession, since whatever I might possess, as I realized more and more
clearly each time I saw her, would be utterly different from what I had desired all these years to possess. I had desired all beauty, all that exists of
goodness and truth, symbolized and incarnate in one face. And now the face
drew near, the lips touched mine; and what I had got was simply a young
woman with a ‘temperament,’... And yet, against all reason, in spite of all the
evidence, I could not help believing that she was somehow and secretly
what I imagined her. My love for her as a symbol strengthened my desire for
her as an individual woman.
All this, were it to happen to me now, would seem perfectly natural and
normal. If I were to make love to a young woman, I should know precisely
what I was making love to. But that, in those days, was something I still had
to learn. In Barbara’s company I was learning it with a vengeance. I was
learning that it is possible to be profoundly and slavishly in love with someone for whom one has no esteem, whom one does not like, whom one regards as a bad character and who, finally, not only makes one unhappy but
bores one. And why not, I might now ask, why not? That things should be
like this is probably the most natural thing in the world. But in those days I
imagined that love ought always to be mixed up with affection and admiration, with worship and an intellectual rapture, as unflagging as that which
one experiences during the playing of a symphony. Sometimes, no doubt,
love does get involved with some or all of these things; sometimes these
things exist by themselves, apart from love. But one must be prepared to
swallow one’s love completely neat and unadulterated. It is a fiery, crude
and somewhat poisonous draught.
[In C. S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce, souls in hell can hop on a bus and visit heaven
whenever they like. Some do, but in heaven they are like ghosts, and most of them
don’t stay because they find their new surroundings uncongenial. To feel at home
they will have to change, and change is hard—as the following excerpt cleverly shows
in the case of a ghost who is tormented by lust, represented by a little red lizard sitting
on his shoulder, twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear.]
“Yes. I’m off,” said the Ghost. “Thanks for all your hospitality. But it’s no
good, you see. I told this little chap” (here he indicated the lizard) “that he’d
have to be quiet if he came—which he insisted on doing. Of course his stuff
won’t do here: I realise that. But he won’t stop. I shall just have to go
home.”
“Would you like me to make him quiet?” said the flaming Spirit—an
angel, as I now understood.
“Of course I would,” said the Ghost.
“Then I will kill him,” said the Angel, taking a step forward.
“Oh—ah—look out! You’re burning me. Keep away,” said the Ghost,
retreating.
“Don’t you want him killed?”
“You didn’t say anything about killing him at first. I hardly meant to
bother you with anything so drastic as that.”
“It’s the only way,” said the Angel, whose burning hands were now
very close to the lizard. “Shall I kill it?”
“Well, that’s a further question. I’m quite open to consider it, but it’s a
new point, isn’t it? I mean, for the moment I was only thinking about silencing it because up here—well, it’s so damned embarrassing.”
“May I kill it?”
“Well, there’s time to discuss that later.”
“There is no time. May I kill it?”
“Please, I never meant to be such a nuisance. Please—really—don’t
bother. Look! It’s gone to sleep of its own accord. I’m sure it’ll be all right
now. Thanks ever so much.”
“May I kill it?”
“Honestly, I don’t think there’s the slightest necessity for that. I’m sure I
shall be able to keep it in order now. I think the gradual process . . .”
Thoughts about Eroticism
As bees their sting, so the promiscuous leave behind them in each encounter something of themselves by which they are made to suffer.
Cyril Connolly
Coquettes know how to please, not how to love, which is why men love
them so much.
Pierre Marivaux
Free love is sometimes love but never freedom.
Elizabeth Bibesco
How desolate and ultimately disastrous and destructive is the pursuit of
Eros for its own sake.
Malcolm Muggeridge
In my second marriage I tried to preserve the respect for my wife's [sexual] liberty which I thought my creed enjoined. I found however that my
capacity for forgiveness was not equal to the demands I was making on
it.
Bertrand Russell
None of us know what exactly is the sexual code we believe in, approving of many things on paper which we violently object to when they are
practised by those we care about.
Beatrice Webb
Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
Anatole France
Sex is the closest that many people ever come to a spiritual experience.
Indeed, it is because it is a spiritual experience of sorts that so many
chase after it with a repetitive, desperate kind of abandon.
Sex without love is an empty experience; but as empty experiences go,
it's a pretty good empty experience.
Woody Allen
She often dined with me at the Cecil Hotel, where her appearance in the
dining-room always created a marked impression. This I liked. In relations between the sexes, there is a strong element of exhibitionism.
Malcolm Muggeridge
The anger of lovers renews their love.
Terence (from The Woman of Andros, 166 BC)
Sex attraction doesn’t necessarily bring affection in its train. Sometimes it
thrives on hostility. Sex can mix and blend with any strong emotion, of
which love is only one.
The Freudian psychologist insists that the sexual impulse is the chief
source of psychological suffering and disorder.
The journey from erotomania to erotophobia is shorter than many people
think.
The only thing that sanctifies sex is desire.
Germaine Greer Interview
The sexual freedom of today for most people is really only a convention,
an obligation, a social duty, a social anxiety, a necessary feature of the
consumer's way of life.
‘Tis an affect worth consideration, that they, who are masters in the
trade, prescribe as a remedy for amourous passions the full and free
view of the body a man desires; so that, to cool his ardour, there needs
no more but at full liberty to see and contemplate what he loves.
Montaigne
When you’re in love your instinct is to contemplate the beloved. When
you’re in lust your instinct is to contemplate your enjoyment.
Whenever we attempt to exploit sex like any other natural force or try to
turn it into an intellectual problem and a matter of conscious emotion,
we make a mess of it. Sex is good. It is the intrusion of the rationalising,
exploiting mind that pollutes it and makes it turn rotten.
Christopher Dawson