just a few thoughts
Submitted by Pat on November 14 1999 at 01:09:05
In reply to Hey you! Submitted by BLues. on November 13 1999 at 18:13:53
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hi. I'm new here :-) Faith and BLues, you both seem to implicitly state the accepted assumption that parental love is 'pure', i.e, devoid of sexual attraction. However, I am not convinced on this matter, and certainly, if we examine the practices of many primitive (and not-so-primitive too) peoples, there are many instances in which parents expressed physical love for their children (and vice versa). I think the advent of Christian morality, for one, "cleansed parental love of all physical elements, at least theoretically. My own observations of interactions between parents and children (esp. b/w fathers and young sons) in less- inhibited Pakistan makes the presence of the physical element quite eveident to me. And let's not ascribe that to a shortage of women for sex (another myth). While I agree with most of your arguments, BLues, I think you've fallen into this trap of neatly (but ultimately futilely) putting love into little boxes ('parental, 'brotherly', 'sexual', ..even 'boylove'). (Though, I agree that boylove seems to be a most 'complete' type of love!) best regards, Pat |