Love Cannot Be Defined

I believe that love cannot be defined. I believe that there is no one out there in the world who is completely straight or completely gay, that there are varying degrees of attraction. There have to be, because without attraction, we would not be able to be friends with members of the same gender. Something about them ‘attracts’ us to them, and that attraction is important in basing the bond of the relationship–friendship is intimate, even if it’s not sexual. Sex is nothing but a physical thing and it requires absolutely no love or attraction for it to happen. Friendship, partnerships, marriages–those things require attraction. Sex is just sex. So no one is 100% on either side of the scale, or else no one could ever have friends or love or care about someone who was the same gender.

I do not believe we control the attraction that we experience.

Have you ever been sitting in public somewhere and a guy or a girl walks by, and you turn your head and look, and you find that person attractive, even though, perhaps, they don’t fit your usual ‘type’ of person? Have you ever turned your head and watched someone from a short distance and thought, “Man… I’d do that…” Have you ever been intrigued by someone you had never met or perhaps only knew at a distance, but you found yourself thinking about them often, or they invaded your thoughts at inopportune times? That’s attraction, and married or not, single or not, happy or not, we don’t control attraction.

We don’t CHOOSE to be attracted to someone.

Of course, we absolutely choose whether or not we act upon the attractions we feel. Every person in your life right now is there because something about you and that person attracted you to one another. It might be something as simple as you both happen to work for the same employer to something as complex as you are soul mates destined to spend all eternity constantly seeking each other out in multiple incarnations. Hey, it could happen.

My point is, we don’t choose the attraction and we rarely choose the circumstances that cause the attraction, but we do choose what to do with the attraction when we have it.

Love and attraction are very different things. We can eventually love someone we are not attracted to, and the attraction will come, but usually, the attraction comes first, and that can lead to love… or not.

Have you ever had someone in your life, someone you dearly love, but you just aren’t in love with them, and you know they’d be good for you, you know they’d be good to you, but you just can’t find it inside of yourself to love them the way you feel you should? I’ve had that in my life. That someone I wanted so desperately to love, but I just couldn’t find it in me. I just wasn’t attracted to him in that way. It just wasn’t there, no matter how hard I tried.

But then there is the guy I loved madly, and madly is the right word here too. The type of love that leads to insanity. The attraction is so high, the intensity is so real, and yet, some part of you wishes you didn’t love him, knows he’s not good for you, not right for you. Perhaps doesn’t even LIKE him…

We don’t control attraction.

So when people come along and tell you that gays and lesbians and bisexuals should control these attractions, deny them, pretend they don’t exist – or worse, say that they are broken or somehow ‘wrong’ for feeling this way — think about the last time you saw someone you were attracted to that you had no right to be attracted to, maybe the cute waitress at the cafe, or the good-looking guy taking tickets at the movie theatre, maybe the new boss at your work who smells so fantastic… ask yourself, “Did I DO anything to feel this attraction?” The answer is, nope, you didn’t… because you don’t control attraction.

Now, if you are straight, and you don’t have to control your attractions, and you can admit that you have no control over your attractions, why can’t you conceded that gays might not have control over theirs? Why should they, unlike you, have to deny what they feel and deep down who they are?

They shouldn’t.

And quite frankly, I have a solution to the whole gay marriage/straight marriage debate: do away with marriage completely. The government shouldn’t have any hand in marriage whatsoever. Leave marriage up to individuals or churches and get the government out of it completely. I realize that means losing some tax breaks, but oh, well. Anything to get the government out of my bedroom where they don’t belong is fine by me.

I believe that it’s hard enough to find love in this world so that when you do find it, you shouldn’t have to turn it away, just because it doesn’t ‘look’ like someone else thinks it should. I’m not advocating sex with minors or animals either–there are some things that are important here, consent being one of them, and minors and animals can’t consent. Why do I mention this? Well, if you’ve kept up with the gay marriage debates and arguments, you’d see the slippery arguments some of those against gay marriage are making, saying that once we open the door to gay marriage, we open the door for men marrying donkeys and having sex with young children. What is so freaking hard to understand about consent? When all parties involved are consenting adults, what do YOU care what (or who) someone does in their bedroom?

Anyway, my point: do away with marriage completely, and leave it up to churches and individuals. Ceremonies, if a couple wants one, can be held privately with friends and family, or if religious, at a church with their minister and their God of choice. Commitment to one another isn’t dependent upon a piece of paper. Sure, I realize this brings up other issues like custody and property, but these things exist with and without marriage, but a lot of marriages end up in court for divorce, when the couples would have just been happy to walk away and leave things as is. The courts can still separate property and manage custody without marriage – THEY ALREADY DO IT ALL THE TIME for people who aren’t married but have lived together or have had a child together even if they didn’t live together. This is no different.

I support love.

Gender is just gender, biological. Attraction isn’t choice. Marriage isn’t a piece of paper.

The world will be a better place when people realize that and allow consenting adults to have love without ridicule, torment, dissent, condemnation, judgement, intolerance and hatred being part of the picture.

And that’s my take.

Love and stuff,
Michy

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