The Nature Of Love

Dear Humanity,

The nature of love has been explored vigorously within human art from poems to songs and art to film it's a continuous theme in exploration of the lives we all lead. Of all of humanity that's contemplated the subject it would seem that only the works of Buddy Holly collectively present and examine every stage and facet of love from crush to dating to heartbreak, denial of heartbreak, and more. Though if you want to explore heartbreak in more depth I'd suggest Roy Orbison. If you want the concise and complete score go no further than "The Power Of Love" by Huey Lewis & The News.

Some people ask, "What is love?", and here's some thoughts to help clarify that. Love, sex, and affection are really three separate things, but when all three combine that's when the magic happens.

Love transcends the physical. If you truly love somebody then sex doesn't matter. Now I know that just sounds like virgin talk, so here's an example. Let's say your wonderful loving sexually ferocious significant other gets in a bad accident, gets paralyzed or even worse happens to get prostrate cancer and just doesn't have all the fully functioning equipment anymore, or if they have heart problems they may not be healthy enough to have sex. If you love them you'd stay with them despite losing their ability to fulfill your sexual needs and desires. They may still be able to hug, kiss, cuddle or hold hands which shows affection, but the equipment down below may be out of order.

Affection shows compassion and caring in social creatures, and although it enhances love, it can be given by lovers, family, or friends. When backed by love it adds sentiment and when backed by love and added to sex it makes things sensual.

Sex is the wild card. It can be meaningless primal gratification. It can be a sensual sensation and affirmation of two loving souls symbolically combining and connecting to feel the ultimate closeness and to procreate and make a physical combination as a child, and that's sex with meaning. Or it could just the evil violation of a person's space by forcing it, and thus sex in a negative manner.

Now, procreation isn't necessary to have meaningful sex. Many people unfortunately deal with biological infertility or chose to be infertile themselves, or others such as Homosexual couples completely lack the physical capability to procreate with one another. Just because a couple can't physically create their own children does not mean they can't be good and loving parents.

Now, for the straight guys out there I want to give some quality advice on being abstinent, and staying a virgin until you're married. Right now I bet you expect to hear some religious reasons for that, but that's not why I advocate the no-sex method of birth control. Condoms can break, a lady may forget to take the pill, and you never know if she forgot on purpose. Not that long ago in the news there was a pregnant lady selling her used positive pregnancy tests online to other women so that these women could trick guys into marrying them!

The main reason you shouldn't have premarital sex though? Here's a scenario if you don't have sex with her and if you do. Let's say you decide to wait for marriage and DO NOT have sex with the lady, but then the lady becomes pregnant! Now, because you never had sex with her you KNOW you are NOT the father without stressing out for 9 months about a DNA test and as a bonus you know she cheated on you and you'd have justification for dumping her based on that fact alone. In that scenario keeping it in your pants saves you 9 months of worrying, stress, feeling like you should marry a lady when you shouldn't feel pressured, and you won't be paying any child support or forced into starting a family before you're ready emotionally, maturely, financially, and responsibly. Now let's do the reverse and say you did have sex with her and she becomes pregnant. First off, don't just up and marry her right then and there because you still want that DNA test done to prove whether or not you are indeed the father. You'll most likely worry about this for the next 9 months and it may throw your relationship into flux if she insists you are the father. If you are the father and she doesn't marry you then you may have to pay child support for 18 years if you do not get custody of the child. If you're not the father then you're off the hook and can dump her if you want because obviously if the DNA doesn't match then she cheated on you.

Don't think this can happen? Think again. I knew a white lady that got pregnant and she believed the father was a black guy she'd been seeing while still seeing other men as well. Now the black guy was honorable, he stuck with her, thought the child was his because he knew he had sex with her and the timeline fit. They got engaged, she met his parents, and it all seemed like a done deal. Then the baby was born and was as white as snow. The black guy was NOT the father. Turns out the father was a white guy the lady did the night before she did the black guy. After all that drama played out was when I figured out that keeping it in my pants until married was the best policy for my own protection against drama like this.

Loyalty is a virtue, and in today's world it's unfortunately sorely lacking...amongst both men and women. With men the above scenarios are an easy way to tell if a woman's been cheating on you, but how can ladies tell if their guy has been untrue? Or in homosexual relationships where pregnancy isn't a scenario that can play out without extensive planning? The only answer I have for that is good old fashioned detective work.

Marriage is about more than procreation, and it's an institution designed to honor love and dedication to another human being that you faithfully want to spend the rest of your life with. Love is the basis for any great marriage, and you can't have a good marriage without love being its cornerstone. There's nothing more beautiful on this Earth than when two souls love one another and loyalty, devotion, dedication, and life long friendship and partnership springs forth out of that love. Gender doesn't matter. It never has, but it's one of the trivial things that humanity gets hung up on because it's a way to classify or group people together. To quote John Lennon, "All you need is love.". Making a war on love is the most idiotic thing anybody could ever do because don't we all know by now that love conquers all?

Sincerely,

Bobby J. Mayberry