Love
My local Public Radio station in Boston peddles roses before Valentine's Day (February 14) to raise funds for its news programs. On the surface, this seems harmless enough. A win-win, by the standards of American materialism. I do not view it this way. The destructive effect of the rose-growing economy on labor rights in South America aside, the patter of the announcers reveals a deep immaturity in the popular concepts of love in the Athens of America.
Tying love to money, in the form of a tax-deductible charitable purchase, is probably the most honest part of this campaign. The institution of state-sanctioned marriage, as we know it, was founded on the transmission of money and property, not love. The Valentine's campaign is focused on sexual coupling, which has become entwined with the modern marriage concept, even among GLBT people. So, inevitably, sex is also tied to money. At the same time, sex for money in Massachusetts is verboten, as evidenced by the public outrage over the Craig's List Killer Case.
Let me pull some of these concepts together. It's fine for a bourgeois radio station to peddle roses for enhancing sexual relationships (romance). It's bad for poor women or men to sell sex itself to survive. And, none of this really has anything to do with love.
Love is not about selling things or buying things. Love is not sex. Sex is sex. At best, sex is a shared expression of affection and/or attraction between human beings, based in physiological need. Coupling itself is not love, though it may be based in love and respect. Coupling, usually initiated with sex, is often based in reproduction and social convenience. Reproduction is not love. Reproduction is reproduction. Much of what is called love between parents and children is physiological and hormonal response. The proof of love between parents and children comes with their development of intentional relationships as the children mature to adulthood.
Loving cannot be bought with money or manipulative behavior. Loving has nothing to do with money. It is a challenge to love freely. It is a challenge to accept love freely. Being a loving person entails accepting and caring for real people with real individual personalities and needs in each moment. Loving entails mindful sensitivity to your own needs and the needs of others. Loving yourself and others is the intentional work of becoming a truly good human being.
Tying love to money, in the form of a tax-deductible charitable purchase, is probably the most honest part of this campaign. The institution of state-sanctioned marriage, as we know it, was founded on the transmission of money and property, not love. The Valentine's campaign is focused on sexual coupling, which has become entwined with the modern marriage concept, even among GLBT people. So, inevitably, sex is also tied to money. At the same time, sex for money in Massachusetts is verboten, as evidenced by the public outrage over the Craig's List Killer Case. Let me pull some of these concepts together. It's fine for a bourgeois radio station to peddle roses for enhancing sexual relationships (romance). It's bad for poor women or men to sell sex itself to survive. And, none of this really has anything to do with love.
Love is not about selling things or buying things. Love is not sex. Sex is sex. At best, sex is a shared expression of affection and/or attraction between human beings, based in physiological need. Coupling itself is not love, though it may be based in love and respect. Coupling, usually initiated with sex, is often based in reproduction and social convenience. Reproduction is not love. Reproduction is reproduction. Much of what is called love between parents and children is physiological and hormonal response. The proof of love between parents and children comes with their development of intentional relationships as the children mature to adulthood.
Loving cannot be bought with money or manipulative behavior. Loving has nothing to do with money. It is a challenge to love freely. It is a challenge to accept love freely. Being a loving person entails accepting and caring for real people with real individual personalities and needs in each moment. Loving entails mindful sensitivity to your own needs and the needs of others. Loving yourself and others is the intentional work of becoming a truly good human being.
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