Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Lust Transcends Love

Illustrated by LAURIE-ANN BECH

I was out for drinks on St. Laurent last Saturday with my girlfriend. You know the bar that prepares those amazing Moonshines… when a young guy approached me and said “Let me buy you a drink”. He caught me off guard but he was cute which made it undoubtedly harder to say no. Several laughs later, he asked me if I wanted to go someplace quieter. I declined his offer and he got upset with me. He told me that I was rude for having led him on. I was confused, led him on, since when did agreeing to have a drink with someone suddenly mean that you were into them. He was an ordinary guy, solely judging me on my looks; it was your typical lust at first sight scenario. It is not like I sent him away; I just did not want to leave the bar. I feel like if anyone should have been upset in this case, it should have been me.

While this was not an unusual event, and most people would call this your typical Saturday night, I wondered what happened to the idea of romance. For centuries, the definition revolved around the idea that love drew more on emotion than libido. Socrates, a Greek philosopher, stressed this definition, “love is partly lust but that lust is not solely what constitutes love”. He explains that lust is not love but lust must be a component of love to make the relationship romantic.  For, I guess, lust stirs a certain excitement in the pool of love. As well, Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst believed that it is impossible to find love through sexuality. Of all the times he has seen men and women master the art of seduction, the feeling that resonates is an empty one.

On the contrast, love relationships evoke pain and pleasure. In fact a relationship without pain is inevitable, dare I say, necessary. The truth is that most relationships are laced with drama, for the simple reason that without it, the relationship is unfulfilling and dull. Whether one is going so far out on a limb to declare their feelings for someone only to realise they are standing alone or withhold the opportunity for friendship at the end of a relationship, true love truly tugs on our emotions. At the end of a relationship, we feel compelled to hate the person, who hurt us, and regardless of our current relationship status, we never want to know about the new person that our ex is dating. Lust on the other hand leaves no room for permanent feelings, and without feelings you are guaranteed to never get hurt. With this, one should not wonder why lust surpasses the manners of love. To an extent, this is what brought a new favourable attitude towards just having sex. Instead of searching for that perfect, indescribable, and passionate love, people just look to share passion with someone as well as have the option to leave them once this desire fades.

With the idea that lust surpasses love, and that you can never find real love via sexual activity does this mean that love has been ruled out? If yes, could this be because we have an instinctive distaste for monogamy, or is it more than that? In this day in age, self-gratification repels the idea of a relationship because relationships require two people and their efforts, it takes two to tango. Or are we simply overthinking this…maybe the key to attraction is the keep things simple.