do you need some body to love?

What follows is a chat conversation I had a few days ago. The person here began by making reference to my entry about the Seven Capital sins and something I say about Lust. However, what fueled this conversation was something he said, a quote about love: "the only sexual abnormality is the incapacity for love". I think that'd make all humans sexually abnormal.

Someone:
can i just make an annoying statement about the world population increase?
Someone:
it's an exponentiating curve
Someone:
more people = more reproduction
Lucy Phermann:
yeah that was my point
Someone:
it's not like everyone has gotten progressively lustier
Lucy Phermann:
no, that wasn't what i mean
Lucy Phermann:
but people are obviously being fucking a lot thru all human history
Someone:
yeah
Someone:
but what constitutes excessive sex is a notoriously arbitrary consideration
Lucy Phermann:
we're weird. everybody likes sex but at the same time everybody has at least something against it
Lucy Phermann:
i'm not meaning excessive sex
Someone:
i read a wonderful quote yesterday
Someone:
"the only sexual abnormality is the incapacity for love'
Lucy Phermann:
i'm just pointing out that this society (that's is, us. you, me and they)
Lucy Phermann:
likes sex a lot
Lucy Phermann:
and it has been like that throughot all the times
Someone:
it makes evolutionary sense that people would enjoy sex
Lucy Phermann:
exactly, i mention that
Someone:
indeed
Lucy Phermann:
the whole article is just poiting out that qualities that we exhibit as a society, qualities that are promoted and reinforced in one way or another for the same society, are considered Capital sins according christianity. and the irony that in that society, christianity is one of the , allegedlly, more practiced religions, and many of our morals stem from it
Lucy Phermann:
and about the quote you mentioned, i think the only sexual abnormality, is believing sex is ok only with 'love'
Lucy Phermann:
we're raised to feel guilty about sex. to see it as something dirty in one way or another, but sex is our means of reproduction, so they sell you the idea of an idealized and sublime feeling that makes sex ok
Lucy Phermann:
that's bullshit
Lucy Phermann:
love is not a cozzy feeling. it's not caring for the one you love. it's not missing them. it's not needing them. it's not wanting to entwine your lives together.
Lucy Phermann:
it's not sharing a special and meaningful relationship
Lucy Phermann:
those are just lies with purposes
Lucy Phermann:
behind that, only exists the biological mechanism to ensure reproduction
Lucy Phermann:
that is, sex
Lucy Phermann:
people's inner urge to find 'the one', and the settling down when they find them, it's just that biological mechanism.
Lucy Phermann:
many animals do that too, and in a more effective way
Someone:
i really don't buy that
Lucy Phermann:
you don't agree with what i say?
Someone:
love is a fundamentally different phenomenon from mating partnerships
Lucy Phermann:
that's my point exactly. but what people do is associate them
Someone:
if love were a function as you describe it would preclude relationships between partners incapable of reproducing
Lucy Phermann:
we, as a race, pass on more than our eyes color and skin tone. we've developed an specialized nervous system that has made the phenomenon of perception possible, thus allowing to perceive and shape reality. thoughts, ideas, social schemes and alot more are part of this too, so reproduction is not the only way to fulfill our role as species
Lucy Phermann:
still, what fuels that urge to find someone to share our lives with, is a mechanism of propagation. based on a big feeling of isolation and a sense of vulnerability
Lucy Phermann:
again, this is something anyone will refuse to believe, for it'd put in risk the way we're programmed to function
Lucy Phermann:
i'm not denying the existence of love. i'm jus pointing out that, jus as it happens with god, people have no idea of its true nature and addopt misshapen images of it. After all, God is love
Someone:
i think you're misconstruing the impulse to live gregariously with the impulse to mate
Someone:
*as
Lucy Phermann:
you do? so tell me, what is love?
Lucy Phermann:
would you fall in love with somebody that you'd find unpleasant?
Lucy Phermann:
would you fall in love would somebody that doesn't make you feel 'complete'?
Someone:
no on both counts
Lucy Phermann:
ok. then think about it and what these things mean
Lucy Phermann:
also, you can ask yourself why doesn't make sense to you, why something in you feels uneasy when i say that what people think is 'love' is a biological mechanism, even when i'm not denying that love exists
Someone:
i don't feel uneasy
Lucy Phermann:
i'm not asking you to believe what i say is true. i'm asking you to listen to what i say and with a terrifying objectivity, try to see ways from that point of view and question what you think, just to see what you find. after all, i think we all have in a higher or lesser level, a wish to understand the nature of our lives and the world we live in
Lucy Phermann:
you're not giving you the chance to really consider these ideas, to play with them, to observe them. your reactions are "i really don't buy that" and "you're miscontruing". you're rejecting the idea, something in you really dislike it. something in you says it just can't be that way. it seems absurd and "a misconstruction"
Lucy Phermann:
call it "cognitive dissonance"
Someone:
i consider the brain in parts
Someone:
the amygdalal brain and the rest
Someone:
anything can reproduce, fight and whatever else with the former
Lucy Phermann:
why disgregate what the brain is? is the whole just the sum of the parts?
Someone:
this isn't a matter of cognitive dissonance - you're creating hyperbolic links
Someone:
no, it is not
Someone:
it's a stepwise refinement
Lucy Phermann:
if i touch your hand, am i touching your hand or am i touching you?
Lucy Phermann:
hyperbolic links and stepwise refinements...
Lucy Phermann:
possibly. but that doesn't really invalidates what i'm saying
Lucy Phermann:
does it?
Someone:
well yes i think it does
Someone:
love is an artefact of having a lot more processing power to spend on social thinking and empathy
Someone:
observe that likewise we are the only species that tortures
Someone:
what's the low level evolutionary purpose there?
Lucy Phermann:
i don't see any low level
Someone:
reproduction is a pretty low level requirement of a species
Lucy Phermann:
i wouldn't say that
Lucy Phermann:
in fact, for most species, i'd say reproduction is one of the highest level requirements
Someone:
no no
Someone:
low level = fundamental
Someone:
reproduction is the fundamental trait of life as a self-sustaining concerted chemical reaction
Lucy Phermann:
see? perhaps we don't disagree much after all, but what you can call 'llow' maybe I call it 'high' that's why i ask you to give the chance to play with the ideas before assuming a possition towards them. otherwise you'll never really understand much
Someone:
low level is a pretty universally understood objective definition
Someone:
cf. low level computation
Lucy Phermann:
well, i've just proved that's not that universal
Lucy Phermann:
but I know what you mean. maybe I only got lost in translation
Lucy Phermann:
remember I normally speak spanish
Lucy Phermann:
but, here and now, I think is pretty interesting that fundamental=low level, but it makes a lot of sense
Lucy Phermann:
it just depends what reference point you take really
Lucy Phermann:
but, back to the topic, being reproduction a fundamental trait of every species life, don't you think it makes sense that the activities directly involved in this purpose, are fueled by a biological mechanism to ensure it?
Someone:
yes but you can guarantee reproduction even with a very simple brain
Someone:
in fact
Lucy Phermann:
and, if that's the case of what people call 'love', what's the problem with it?
Someone:
higher brain functions in humans can be contrary to reproductive instincts
Someone:
we can become celibate, or be not in the mood or cut our balls off
Lucy Phermann:
in that case, that'd mean that hihger brain functions can be a direct threat to life itself
Someone:
yes
Someone:
but what else is new?
Someone:
we have far more overarching malfunctions that threaten our species
Someone:
like our love for warfare
Lucy Phermann:
I like to think of it as 'plague control'
Lucy Phermann:
Every creations holds the key of its self -destruction. Being humans one of the more threatening species for the rest of the system, I think anything that can dwindle their numbers is.. beneficial for the whole
Lucy Phermann:
hey, Do i have your permission to post this conversation in my blog?
Someone:
erm
Someone:
nah
Lucy Phermann:
please, i won't give your email address or anything. i can even delete your nickname if you want
Lucy Phermann:
it's really important to me. it's very interesting and i'd like to share it
Someone:
i'd really rather not
Lucy Phermann:
i can delete the parts that make reference to your private life
Someone:
do you want to post it because you consider it a valid argument?
Lucy Phermann:
I think that it shows 2 different and reasonable points of view, another that's different than mine, so i'd like to share it so people can make their own conclusions and share their oppinion too
Someone:
on the sole condition that i am in no way personally or pseudonymally identifiable
Lucy Phermann:
ok. i won't mention your name, nick or email address anywhere. anything else?
Someone:
that's about it
Lucy Phermann:
Thank you very much