Has anyone besides me ever noticed ..... (Page 2)

Love is also caring for the welfare of another human being because no man is an island unto himself. Just saying.

Posted by Este8
Love is also caring for the welfare of another human being because no man is an island unto himself. Just saying.

That's what I call "family love", the romantic love is a rather modern invention, and it contains suffering as a fundamental element of itself, as it is an idealization of the difficulty of having sex simply in society.
In the middle ages it was purely an aristocratic symbol of standing (courtly love) and common people had no idea what it meant.
One of the few advantages of the modern version of the myth is that it helps poor people get laid/married and keep modest people happy of their condition rather than constantly looking to move up the spousal social ladder.

Posted by hydorah

Posted by Este8
Love is also caring for the welfare of another human being because no man is an island unto himself. Just saying.

That's what I call "family love", the romantic love is a rather modern invention, and it contains suffering as a fundamental element of itself, as it is an idealization of the difficulty of having sex simply in society.
In the middle ages it was purely an aristocratic symbol of standing (courtly love) and common people had no idea what it meant.
One of the few advantages of the modern version of the myth is that it helps poor people get laid/married and keep modest people happy of their condition rather than constantly looking to move up the spousal social ladder.

click to expand

Actually common people in the middle ages did marry. They just might not have had the hoopla of a formal ceremony. Don't forget that the family also represents survival, especially back in the day. I think you've got some dangerously wrong ideas about marriage and family. The best shot a normal or poor person has to increase their wealth and provide security for the down times is to join forces and marry. Marriage is also about preserving the family and the family has been under attack since I was born. My family life wasn't perfect but it was good and I was very well cared for and protected even tho we never had a lot of money. I had what most children today don't have: two loving parents who watched over them. My father's father divorced my grandmother when my father was only a child and he had no contact with him since the divorce. That hurt my father like you can't imagine tho he made lemonade out of lemons by being the loving father and devoted husband. Children need their mothers and fathers and that's not a social construct. The "angry black male" to the extent it is true reflects the high level of fatherless households. African Americans used to be the group that stayed married the longest before welfare forced men out of the home. Family is way more important than sexual gratification because there are children involved. They provide protection during hard economic times and a home for children who need both parents. We're more messed up now to the degree the family has been degraded. So sad how few people seem to get this.

You didn't understood what I wrote

I'll sum it up:

-marriage/family
-recreational sex
-romantic love

3 diff things, the last one is a literary invention

Posted by hydorah
You didn't understood what I wrote

I'll sum it up:

-marriage/family
-recreational sex
-romantic love

3 diff things, the last one is a literary invention

Oh I understood what you wrote. What kicked this off? Me observing that love is not sex and that love is caring for the welfare of another. You choose to make the "literary construction" argument which really doesn't respond to my original post. I don't chop love up into these categories because real love encompasses them all, except for "recreational sex" (aka masturbation, singly or shared). Romantic love has existed since Man has and it's absurd to reduce that fundamental human emotion to a literary construct. And before we rehash the oh but it's only the institution of marriage argument, you ignore or seem not to know that families whether codified by "the law" reflect our tribal identities and were a huge strategy of survival. Back in the day, it mattered far less whether you loved your partner but whether you banded together to survive. We've lost that communal sense of responsibility with the me-first, consumer mentality, over-sexualization of our society. We only believe we're removed from th past - don't need marriage/family to survive--until another depression hits. Look at Spain. Thay have 20+% unemployment but people are surviving b/c the family hasn't been corrupted and they ahve s a strong extended family. They band together. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Namaste.

Posted by IrresistableScorp

Posted by hydorah
You didn't understood what I wrote

I'll sum it up:

-marriage/family
-recreational sex
-romantic love

3 diff things, the last one is a literary invention

Books don't write themselves so obviously romantic love entered the culture through humans before literature. Romantic love is a human construct.

click to expand

Bingo! What hydorah is confusing is the "conventions" of courtly love that emerged in the middle ages but romantic love existed since the beginning and it's foolish even arrogant to imply otherwise. It's akin to say we invented "falling in love" when we clearly didn't. Conventions do change like dress over time but love is always love.

Whoever started this thread is full of shit... people who speak in such absolutes usually are. I have no problem admitting I have some feminine tendencies, such as caring more about art and fashion than most men, and not being completely obsessed with sports (though coming from Wisco I am a Packers fan)...

...but I can also vouch that I really really really really really really really like vagina. In fact, I've even joked that if I were a woman, I'd be a lesbian because that's how little I can fathom the idea of being with another man. It actually gets pretty annoying when I answer the "Who would you go gay for?" question honestly and get accused of being an insecure homophobe. I don't have a problem with gay guys, gay marriage or even gayness in general. It's simply that having a relationship with another man or having sex with a partner who lacks a vagina are not appealing to me. At all.

love is a complex process, it mixes several different affections.
In the literary world, people are supposed to find the perfect spouse and crown their relationship in a happy marriage and a family.
In reality it generates hordes of bitter people endlessly complaining on the astro boards.

When something is an amalgam, I like to separate the different elements and exploit each of them to their true potential, thats why I have set to identify the different components of love. It is a personal process.
The elements that I had previously retained were : sex, family structure and ideal romantic love. But I have since identified a new element : aesthtetic attachment.
It happens when you see someone that is really very pretty and you feel a very materialistic attraction toward this person. This type of love transcend the sex barrier, but it is not a very noble one and it treats people like belongings.

I won't continue into this discussion anyway, it's boring and I prefer the salacious gay outing thread of the begining.

Posted by DemonsEye
I have no problem admitting I have some feminine tendencies, such as caring more about art and fashion than most men, and not being completely obsessed with sports

That sounds FABULOUS

Posted by P-Angel

... that all Pisces men are gay, or bi

I'm actually a gay man at heart, trapped in the body of a child-woman.

Yes, I have, but not literally. They seem gay, hunk adam levine, but so are the girls.

I noticed some of them seem too quiet sometimes, while others too wild. But I think it's nature.

I have no problem admitting I have some feminine tendencies, such as caring more about art and fashion than most men, and not being completely obsessed with sports

Only a fool watches professional sports.

A FOOL.

Aside from some college football, hockey and maybe some Boston Red Sox, the entire sports industry should die. Especially the NBA and NFL, what a corrupt cesspool of Jew owned waste.

It's got to be the most idiotic thing I have ever seen, and people who obsess over it are usually among the most ignorant and uniformed people I meet. Ask them about the situation in the Ukraine, or the terrorist attack in Nigeria yesterday and they don't know shit. But they sure as hell know about the dumbshits in the NBA. Think back to the Roman Empire with their days of "bread and circuses."

Posted by P-Angel

... that all Pisces men are gay, or bi

Pangel,
Have you observed that piscean grannies over 55 tend to involve themselves in bestiality?