Woman / Her Sex and Love Life

by William J. Robinson

The platitudinous objection might be raised that "human nature is human nature," that all our feelings are born with us, and as such are inherited, that they have been with us for millions of years and that we cannot possibly originate any entirely new feeling. True from a certain viewpoint. We cannot originate intellect either. The germ of intellect with all its potential possibilities was present in our most primitive tree-climbing ancestors. But as much difference as there is between the intellect of an Australian bushman and the intellect of a Spinoza, a Shakespeare, a Darwin, a Victor Hugo, a Goethe or a Gauss, so much difference is there between the love of a primitive savage and the love of the highly cultured modern man. The love or so-called love of the primitive or ignorant man (and woman) is a simple matter and is practically equivalent to a desire for sexual gratification. The love of the truly cultured and highly civilized man and woman, while still based on sexual attraction, is so complex and so dominating a feeling that it completely defies all analysis, all attempts at dissection, as it defies all attempts at synthesis, at artificial building up.

As previously stated, some writers attempt to make a clear distinction between sensual and sentimental love; many reams of paper have been used up in an endeavor to differentiate between one and the other; the first is called animal love or lust; the second pure love or ideal love; the first variety of love is said to be selfish, egotistic, the other—self-sacrificing, altruistic. These distinctions read very nicely, but they mean very little. There is no distinct line of demarkation between the two varieties of love, and one merges imperceptibly into the other. Most, if not all, of our apparently altruistic actions and feelings have an egotistic substratum; and the quality of the love depends upon the lover. In other words, there are not two separate, distinct varieties of love, but there are separate, distinct varieties of men. A fine and noble man will love finely and nobly; a coarse and brutal man will love coarsely and brutally. A man who is fine and noble may not love at all, but he cannot love coarsely and selfishly; and a coarse and brutal man can never love nobly and unselfishly. Which once more means: the difference is not inherent in the love, but in the lover.

But to say that a man may deeply love a woman and not have any sexual desire for her is nonsense. A man who loves a woman and does not want to possess her (to use the ugly ancient verb) does not love her—or he is completely impotent. Whatever the feeling may be for her—it is not love. He may abstain from having sex relations with her if the circumstances are such that sex relations may lead to her unhappiness and suffering, but to refrain from doing a thing, when reason and judgment lead us to refrain, does not mean not to want the thing.

Love at First Sight. Nothing is more firmly established than the fact that a person may fall passionately and incurably in love with a person of the opposite sex at the very first sight, in the twinkling of an eye, in the literal sense of the word. One glance may be sufficient. And such a love may exist to the end of life, and may, if reciprocated, lead to supreme happiness, or if unreciprocated to the deepest unhappiness.

What it is that causes love at first sight is unknown. Some have suggested that the beloved object sets in motion or fermentation certain internal secretions (hormones) in the lover which cannot become "satisfied" or "neutralized" except by that person; and the possession of the beloved object becomes a physical necessity. This explanation really means nothing. It is a hypothesis unsusceptible of proof. But whatever the cause of love at first sight, it is so mysterious a phenomenon that it gives the mystics and metaphysicians some justification for their talk about "electric currents" and "magnetic forces." These phrases also mean nothing, but are an attempt at explaining the suddenness and irresistibleness of the attack. So powerful is the attraction of love at first sight that people have been known to cross continents and oceans merely to get a glimpse of the beloved object; and people have been known to sacrifice everything—their career, their material possessions, their social standing, their honor, and even their wife and children, in order to gain their object. And a mother may give up her children whom she loves dearer than life, may risk ostracism and disgrace, only in order to be with the object of her love. This shows that love, then, becomes pathological, because any feeling which so completely masters an individual that he is willing to sacrifice everything he has in the world is pathological.

Infatuation and Being in Love. While, as said, the feeling of love does not readily lend itself to dissection, to analysis, still we can differentiate some phases of it. We can differentiate between "being in love," "infatuation," and "love." Being in love is, as just indicated, a pathological, morbid phenomenon. The person who is in love is not in a normal condition. He can see nothing, he cannot be argued with, as far as his love is concerned. She is the acme of perfection, physical, mental, and spiritual; nobody can be compared with her. And, of course, the man is anxiously eager to marry the object of his love—unless insuperable obstacles are in the way; for instance, if the man happens to be married.

Infatuation may be as strong as any "being in love" feeling. But with this difference. In infatuation the man may know that the object of infatuation is an unworthy one, he may despise her, he may hate her, he may pray for her death, he may do his utmost to overcome the infatuation. In short, infatuation is a feeling, chiefly physical, which the man can analyze, the unworthiness and absurdity of which he may acknowledge, but which he is unable to resist or overcome. He feels himself bewitched; he feels himself caught in a net, he is anxious to tear asunder the meshes of the net, but is not strong enough to do it.

And this is a pretty good way to differentiate between being in love and being infatuated. If in love the man does not want to be free from his chains; he does not want to cease to love or to be in love. When infatuated the man often uses his utmost will-power to break his shackles. Sexual satisfaction is often sufficient to shatter an infatuation; it is not sufficient to destroy love—it often strengthens and eternalizes it.

Neither being in love nor infatuation can last "forever"; they are acute maladies of high tension and relatively short duration. Infatuation may change into indifference or disgust; "being in love" may change into indifference, hatred, or into real love—a steady, durable love.

This will answer the often asked question: How do marriages turn out which are the result of a sudden, violent passion, or of love at first sight? No ironclad rules suitable for all cases can be given. Some turn out very unhappily, the couple gradually finding out that they are altogether unsuited to each other, that their temperaments are incompatible, that their views, ideas, likes and dislikes are different. In some cases what was supposed to be a great love is soon seen to have been merely an infatuation. And satiety and disgust follow. But in other cases, as mentioned, the sudden consuming passion turns into a warm, life-long love and the people live happily ever after.