Love language is anything but loving



Love language is anything but
loving
Date 5/13/2004 12:00 AM | Topic:
Opinion
I sat down, trying to place words into phrases and sentences,
into paragraphs creating a thesis and finally concocting what would
become my final Chips column.


I struggled in deciding what my final examination of reality
would entail.
I sought advice, turning to my partner in crime, Tendai, who
recommended that I scrutinize a topic that people could directly
relate to.
Apparently global AIDS, fertility control, same-sex marriage and
war are all issues less observed.
So I decided to talk a little about love.


Romantic kind of - you make it - kind of
love.
I figured that there is enough craziness surrounding the
subject,
why not?
I want to address the complexities of the physical expression of
love and the removal of love from sex.
To start off with, we call it: Beating #*$ - Screwing - Knocking
it - Hitting that - Clearing that - Whipping that - (and my
favorite) Tearing that *&% up.
And the only time it doesn't sound like an order from a military
commander is when we are: Tapping it.


So it is like the post-conquest phase when we start pumping for
oil!
Even in biological terms, we hear of penises
penetrating/invading/breaking vaginal walls - with the rare
occasion when the books include a brief mention of a little
woman-on-woman, man-on-man action attempting to not be completely
heterosexist.
Whether or not we have ever explicitly requested rough sex, we
are still involved in a violent exploit, acted on someone by
another.
If our definitions of sex themselves sound like a rape scene, it
is no wonder that we struggle to identify boundaries and establish
consensus in regard to sex.
Tendai tried to explain the difference between sex and making
love.

She states, "making love is when you take your time to
explore your partner, every touch and every kiss is communicating
feelings of love, passion, trust and yearning. And sex, it's just
sex. There are no feelings attached to it; lustful feelings maybe."
She added, "There are just some times when you want your partner to
just break you off, to be ravaged.

"
This was quite confusing.
It seems to me that when you invite someone inside yourself in
such an intimate manner, communication, passion and trust, at
least, would be involved. Yet, while passionately expressing
"love," there are times when a purely savage sexual act is
welcomed.
There is little space between the two.


It seems fair to conclude that due to the
nature of its definition, "sex"
presents the danger of being a
fairly oppressive experience.
Yet, people we have sex with are often referred to as lovers.
Yet when using such a term myself, I associate it with persons I am
emotionally engaged with, intellectually stimulated by or fairly
intimately connected to.
When we include the authority of that large unmanageable thing
called "love," we allow a space that combats the potential for a
pornographic and oppressive encounter that is laden within
definitions of sex.


Yet we remain obsessed with this "emotion-free" idea of sex,
creating and maintaining entire industries based upon the pillars
of patriarchal "break me off and ravage me" sex.
Entering into this discussion, Tendai requested that I refrain
from giving the social paradigm blah blah blah lecture that often
characterizes my writing.
"Do something different!"
Well, it seems to me that due to poor language about sex, there
are repercussions.
Most seriously, men and women miscommunicate too often; while
one believes that they had sex, the other often silently feels
assaulted.


Sexual assault aside, the manner with which we describe sex,
love and
relationships obviously
participates in a larger system of confusion.
If this stuff was so easy, why would we spend so much time
obsessing over it, buying magazines offering silly advice and
watching "reality" television shows to get clues about appropriate
plans of action?
Love language must be re-evaluated.
--
Danai Mupotsa

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