Are You In Love Or Lust?

Are you in love, or is it lust? Love and lust are inextricably intertwined. Lust is ground zero for hormones -- it's nature's way of bringing the opposite sexes together to mate. In fact, without lust, it's doubtful that love between a man and a woman would have a chance to prosper at all. The driving force of the sexual imperative bridges the gap between the almost incompatible brain styles of the two sexes. So lust can be seen as one end of a broad continuum, which may or may not culminate in romantic love. And love is the most ennobling of human emotions -- transcendental, exalted and capable of engendering emotional states that can make the male of the species want "to be a better man." Men fight wars over lust, but they make homes and families for love. In love with lust For men, lust is a heady experience; the brain goes on hold and red-hot surges of testosterone run the show. Lust, like love, is truly blind. This is why, especially at the beginning of a relationship, it can be hard to tell whether you're in lust or love -- whether she may be "The One," or merely a passing fancy who'll have your blood boiling for only a short while. This is because men are perfectly capable of engaging in sex before they forge emotional bonds with a woman -- and those raging hormones can easily disguise themselves as feelings of love. The real danger is that both lust and love can rob a man of his natural strength and defenses -- and then it's all too easy to hand his male power over to a woman for sex-ploitation . Lust is especially dangerous because it causes a man to think with his crotch and throw all reason and logic to the wind. When a man's in lust he doesn't care if he and his partner have anything in common. He's not interested in where she comes from or where she's going. His brain is only focused on using his key to unlock the door to the secret cave. If his partner's only in lust, she'll use this against him, but if they're both falling in love, this sexuality is a bond.

A Young Viagra Salesman Sees Lust Turn Into Love

Since most romantic comedies take place in a perky, generic present, you may be surprised to see a note in the opening titles informing you that the action in “Love & Other Drugs” starts in 1996. Why so specific? Is there some world-historical event looming on the horizon that will change the characters’ lives forever? Or does the director, Edward Zwick, simply want to evoke a bygone-but-not-too-distant era when a young person could have a lot of fun and make a lot of money without worrying too much about whatever it is young people nowadays worry about (war, terrorism, recession, Facebook)?

Related
It’s the Relationships, Stupid (November 21, 2010) The answer is, to some extent, both. The year 1996 was, among other things, that of “Jerry Maguire,” and in its freewheeling, fast-moving first act, “Love & Other Drugs” seems to be staking out similar thematic territory. (It also has some affinities with the more recent and somber “Up in the Air”).

We are introduced to Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal), a fellow brimming with self-confidence and cheerful aggression but not quite sure what to do with himself besides sell stuff (home electronics and then pharmaceuticals) and sleep with a lot of women. The underachieving son of an eminent Chicago doctor — Jamie’s sister is also in medicine, while his brother is a geeky software millionaire — Jamie has more charm than ambition. He’s a Clinton-era free spirit: feckless, a bit lost, waiting to see what kind of luck or love comes his way, but never doubting that something will.

Which brings us to the world-historical event that makes Jamie’s fortune and takes some pressure off the screenwriters (who are Mr. Zwick, his longtime collaborator Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph, author of “The Life of David Gale,” among other things.) In 1998, you may recall, the real-life company Pfizer, the fictional Jamie’s employer, began marketing sildenafil citrate under the brand name Viagra. The rest is late-night talk show monologue history, and the filmmakers are not too proud to stoop to some easy, naughty and in some cases very funny jokes and gags, including an extended sequence involving the drug’s most notorious side effect.

Supply your own double entendre here. I’m not really allowed to. But “Love & Other Drugs” does not really stand or fall on the basis of its smutty, sexual humor. It does have some elements likely to be cherished by connoisseurs of coarse laughs, notably Jamie’s younger brother, Josh (Josh Gad), who is the tubby, shlubby, erotically challenged (if not downright gross) sidekick every big-screen player seems to need.

But low farce is only one substance in the film’s dispensary. “Love & Other Drugs” is a sometimes intoxicating, sometimes headache-inducing cocktail: a sweet, libidinous love story; a candid comedy of bedroom and workplace manners; and, most bravely, if also most jarringly, a medical melodrama involving a chronic and very serious disease.

Assigned to a rusty, reasonably picturesque stretch of the American heartland (and to a supervisor played by the reliably put-upon Oliver Platt), Jamie tries to persuade a hot-shot doctor (Hank Azaria) to prescribe Pfizer’s drug Zoloft instead of Prozac. The task has some perils (being punched out by a rival played by Gabriel Macht), and a few perks as well (going to bed with one of the doctor’s receptionists, played by Judy Greer). It also brings about a cute meeting with Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), who sees right through Jamie’s game (not long after he peeks at her breasts) and plays along with it anyway.

Maggie is an artist (she seems to have moved into Melissa’s loft from “thirtysomething,” which remains Mr. Zwick and Mr. Herskovitz’s best work), an adventurer, and a bit of a cynic in matters of the heart. She also has early-onset Parkinson’s disease, an affliction that casts a complicated shadow over her relationship with Jamie and gives the movie a gravity it does not quite know how to handle. Now and then she experiences tremors and bouts of self-pity, but most of all her illness makes her wary of growing too close to Jamie and provides an explanation for her no-strings, commitment-shy approach to intimacy.

Ms. Hathaway and Mr. Gyllenhaal are frequently delightful to watch, and their ease together is a rebuke to the self-conscious, emotionally cautious protocols of modern movie romance. They look good in what might be considered period clothes — wayfarer sunglasses and crisp suits for him, waifish ensembles of knitted layers for her — and also in their birthday suits. Jamie and Maggie have fun in the sack, and on the floor, and wherever else the mood strikes. Their intense and almost immediate sexual connection opens the door to emotions that neither is quite prepared for but that neither wants to resist, and the actors are at their most appealing and persuasive when they explore the borderland between ardor and ambivalence.

But there is an asymmetry in the way the characters are conceived that undermines the film’s credibility. We know a lot about Jamie’s temperament, his ambitions and his background. His parents, played by George Segal and Jill Clayburgh (in her last film appearance), are on screen briefly, but they ground Jamie in a social and familial milieu and help us understand who he is.

Maggie, in contrast, is less a person than a sentimental, fairy-tale conceit: a tragic affliction, an artistic attitude and an unchecked libido conjured out of thin air to test her lover’s resolve and deepen his soul. That she often seems like more is entirely to Ms. Hathaway’s credit.

And it is to Mr. Zwick’s credit that “Love & Other Drugs” almost works, sustaining its blend of melodrama, low comedy and graceful wit for a good hour or so, but then succumbing to treacle, evasion and maudlin convention at the end. Unfortunately the effects of the movie, therapeutic and intoxicating though they are, wear off before it is over.

“Love & Other Drugs” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). A lot of sex, some (mostly legal) drugs.

The Porn-star sex and psychology

By Joey Garcia
After a five-year dating dry spell, I finally met a really great guy. We’ve been dating for eight months, and the only problem is our sexual connection. This is going to sound weird, but it’s like a raunchy porn video. I do enjoy it most of the time, but just once (OK, more than once), I would like him to be romantic and loving. How do I talk to him about something that he probably doesn’t consider a problem? He has never said it, but I know he loves me. Please help, I don’t want to screw this up!


Um, interesting choice of words, missy. First, I would not assume that your man loves you unless he says so. Love is a commitment that some people refuse to enter. Second, here’s one possible reason why your man has a different approach to sex than you desire: prep during his teen years. Surveys of teenage boys reveal that a lot of them watch pornography online because they believe it will be instructive. They are fearful of not knowing exactly what to do sexually, so they look to their trusted childhood baby sitters—television and computers—for answers. According to studies, some of the pornography teen boys encounter communicates values such as: All women like whatever men do—or all women always want sex from men—and any women who don’t will be persuaded by force.

The revelation of discovery and the experience of learning how to have sex uniquely with one partner is missed on this path. And since these boys usually masturbate while watching porn on their computers, their bodies and minds associate porn sex with orgasm. Which, of course, brings us to your man. It’s possible that, during puberty, he trained his brain with porn, so that’s what his body responds to now. According to modern psychology, changing that pattern is not impossible, but it is difficult. The things that turn us on sexually become deeply embedded in our nature.

Porn sex is not about intimacy, yet intimacy is what you’re seeking when you desire a loving sexual experience with your man. Communication—which literally means to become one with—is at the heart of intimacy. So you must gather the courage to talk to your boyfriend about your wishes. If he bolts, he simply was not the right one for you. But don’t hold on just because he’s the first good match after a long dry spell. Be open to seeing that he might simply be helping you prepare for the real Mr. Right.


My brother won’t grow up. He’s 44 years old and has been a teacher, store owner, real-estate agent, general contractor and now wants to study law. Every time he starts a career, he gets frustrated and within a few years he quits. Then he wants me to bail him out or help him pay for school for the next endeavor. He always convinces me that it will be different, but it never is. Giving him handouts always compromises my own dreams, but I don’t want to abandon him.

Sibling loyalty is an expectation of emotional support, not the endless financing of a brother’s (or sister’s) life. Selecting one line of work can provide security and financial stability, but it’s also possible that your bro’s varied background will coalesce into a brilliant career. If you opt to stop offering financial aid, it’s likely that he will be angry. If you are mature enough to understand that he is allowed to have feelings in response to your choices, you will ride the wave of his emotion to a satisfying end. Until then, you are abandoning yourself (by delaying your own dreams) whenever you begrudgingly give him money.

SEPARATING LUST AND LOVE

Connecting with other persons is an important dimensions of living.

One of the first things that draws us to other people is our sexual response.
But because lust responds to abstract characteristics of the other,
we might find simple sex a deficient basis for an on-going relationship.

Parallel to our sexual responses we also find ourselves 'falling in love'.
This emotional response has deep roots in our Western culture.
But romantic love is also a deficient basis for a meaningful relationship.

Beyond lust and love, it is still possible to create relationships
based on the persons we are inventing ourselves to be.
Beyond sexual and emotional givens,
we can love freely and creatively.

OUTLINE:
I. LUST—RESPONDING TO IMPRINTED SEXUAL FANTASIES.

A. Where Does Lust Come From?

B. Does Our Lust-Response Change and Mature Over a Life-Time?

C. How Should We Respond to the Lust We Find within Ourselves?

II. ROMANTIC LOVE—HOW OUR HEARTS WERE TRAINED TO 'FALL IN LOVE'.

A. Where Does Romantic Love Come From?

B. Does Our Romantic Response Change and Mature Over a Life-Time?

C. How Should We Respond to the Romantic Feelings We Find within Ourselves?

III. BEYOND BOTH LUST AND LOVE—CREATING UNIQUE RELATIONSHIPS.

A. Where Do Relationships Come From?

B. Do Our Loving Relationships Change and Mature Over a Life-Time?

C. How Do We Conduct and Transform Our Loving Relationships?

SEPARATING LUST AND LOVE

Teenage Pregnacy: Right or Wrong? Love or Lust?

Teenage Pregnancy is all around these days. Some big quetions are: Are they [the teenagers] Easy? Was it free will? Was it rape? Was it love? Was it forced? Is it right?

I don't know about anyone else, but these are just a few of the questions that buzz my brain constantly lately. My oppinions are as follows:

Don't always call the mothers-to-be easy until you know what really happened. They could very well be, but they could also be forced, by the "father" (aka SPERM DONOR), their parents, friends. They could've been threatened, beaten or raped. IT IS NOT ALWAYS BECAUSE THE GIRLS ARE EASY!

Now the bigger question: Right or Wrong. A lot of older people may think its wrong, because of the day and age. I know my grandmother thought so, at first. Until my cousin (who is 16) got pregnant. We changed her thinking. When my grandmother was 16, she was married. Had her first child (my father) at 18, and my aunt at 20. So my cousin isn't necessarily in the wrong. When the older generation was younger, they were getting married at 13, 14, 15. Having babies that early. Why do they think its wrong? If they could find love at that age, why can't we? I know times may have been a little different, like early deaths and all, but how about now-adays. At least if we get married at the same ages, we could possibly enjoy as much time with our spouses.

I'm just tired of teenage pregnancy coming out as a bad thing. It's not ALWAYS bad.

comments

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You have a great point.
Submitted by Meaghan Kochheiser on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 12:03pm.
You have a great point. People are too quick to jump to the "she's a whore" conclusion, and that's not always the case.

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Exaclty my point
Submitted by FS_college_kid2007 on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 12:06pm.
I know for a fact that my cousin was forced, and then she left the guy, Found out she was pregnant and now they are back together, even though she doesn't want to be. She needs the money and support

i♥jeremiah kent♥

I tend to think it's more
Submitted by truelife90 on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 12:38pm.
I tend to think it's more about lust than love unless the two people agree to have a child. That's why people would prefer their kids after sex after they are married. The idea of us having sex to lust is just absurd to older generations. They programmed us what is right, what is wrong, when to do it, and when not to do it. Parents themselves probably made a lot of mistakes so they don't want to see their kids follow the same path. Thus, they avoid talking about it openly. My parents don't talk about it much. I was so naive about the whole sex topic. But school and friends taught me a lot. So, I never really did it with anyone. I'm waiting for someone to come along...and it doesn't necessary mean I will only have sex when I get married. What if I'll never get married? OH Gosh, I'll die as a virgin.


young and pregnant
Submitted by jayala20 on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 12:47pm.
i do not agree with you. how can you think that at 15, 16 or whatever is ok to have a baby! it's not. especially in this world today it is even worse. Years ago things were different and back then having kids at that age was ok and nothing else to do, but now we know we need education and more. I think and beleive that eveyone should have at least somewhat of a college education when they have kids but if it was becasue of a rape or something than i would understand on having a baby. but there are also adoptions options that one can do.

For spies, 'Lust' isn't everything ;Lust caution

Not just to embody but to act the throes of passion, with every inch of flesh exposed - that's what first-time movie actress Tang Wei does to the hilt, and way beyond the hilt, in Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's otherwise ponderous tale of intrigue in Japanese-controlled Shanghai during the Second World War.

Tang Wei brings a terrible and awe-inspiring purity to an impure character: the key performer in a patriotic theater cell that becomes an assassination unit for the Chinese Resistance. At its best, the film presents a nightmare case of a performer getting lost in her role. The target of her seduction, a married collaborator and secret service chief played by Tony Leung, takes charge of their sexual relationship in a repulsive rape.

But Tang Wei holds you, first with her character's willingness to eroticize anything, even rape, for the sake of her cause, and then with her reluctant but real lust. As this dangerous liaison expands, her bed becomes an arena for extreme variations on conquest, fear, desire, even love.
For about a quarter of an hour of this unendurably long movie, she and Leung stir up an amorous whirlpool. In the film's one minute of verbal brilliance, she pleads for help from her Resistance boss:

"He not only gets inside me, but he worms his way into my heart," she says with a bloodcurdling urgency. "I take him in like a slave. I play my part loyally, so I too can get inside him. And every time he hurts me until I bleed and scream ... before he feels alive. In the dark, only he knows it's all true. That's why I can torture him until he can't take it any longer, and I will keep going until I can't go anymore."

The rest of the film is so ceremonious and dull, it's as if Lee emerged from these sessions similarly spent. Expanding on Eileen Chang's 48-page short story of the same name, Lee wants to craft a variation on Hitchcock's great Notorious - an NC-17, morally ambiguous version in which there is no substitute for Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman's shady lady actually falls in love with Claude Rains' Nazi.

But Lee, always a plodder, lets the tension shrivel and the ardor go slack. His big ideas, like staging a horrendously clumsy fight to the death to reveal the horror of all violence, are old and lame - though to be fair, moviegoers have such short memories that they hailed David Cronenberg for similar would-be feats in Eastern Promises. (They all derive from a scene in Hitchcock's otherwise atrocious Torn Curtain.) Lee ultimately tenderizes and sentimentalizes the central relationship with a tender song. And he fails to make the political goals of the woman's cadre cogent and compelling - a disaster for a story in which, as Chang's translator, Julia Lovell, notes, "irrational emotional reality" wins out over "tidy political abstraction." In Lee's Lust, Caution, that's a Pyrrhic victory.

Am I in Love?

How to Know if You're Really in Love
It is a very common question, "How can I tell I'm in love?", but it is not an easy question to answer. What feels like love to one person may be nothing more than attraction to another. Some people fall in and out of love quickly and often while others are never really in love as much as they are in lust. This can get confusing when you are a teen because romantic love is a relatively new concept for you and you don't know what to expect. You are overwhelmed with all sorts of new feelings and social pressures. They are confusing. What is love? What makes you want a romantic relationship with one person and not another? How does your heart choose a partner? Why does love end? These questions can't be easily answered.
One of the most confusing quasi-love feelings is lust. Lust is a very powerful, very intense feeling of physical attraction toward another person. Lust is mainly sexual in nature - the attraction is superficial based on instant chemistry rather than genuine caring. Usually we lust after people we do not know well, people we still feel comfortable fantasizing about. It is very common for people to confuse lust for love. But why? What is it about lust and love that make them so easy to mix up? If lust is all about sex, how can a relationship without sex be about lust? Teens struggle with this because they see lust in the Biblical sense, but lust isn't that sinister. Lust is about physical attraction and acting ONLY on physical attraction. Love is about much more than that. Yet many teens (and to be fair, many adults) confuse an intense attraction for some sort if divine love. For teens, since feelings of attraction are still new and since pop-culture sells sex and love as one package, it is very easy to get the two mixed up.

Lust is clearly not love. Love is based on more than just physical attraction. Sure, attraction is a factor, but love goes deeper than that. Love is based on caring, friendship, commitment and trust. When you are in love it is as if you have your best most trusted friend at your side AND you feel physically attracted to them. It is the best of both worlds! Love is a shared feeling between two people who have a vested interest in one anothers happiness. Love is not about jealousy. It is not about conflict. It is not about testing. Love is a positive feeling. If it is tainted by mistrust, jealousy, insecurity or spitefulness it is not really love but merely a pale copy. Love is the total surrender of your heart to another person with the security of knowing they will treat it better than you will. Love should feel good. It should not feel bad. Love should make you want to be a better person, it should not lead you to do something self destructive. Love is not demanding of your spirit but lifts it and makes it glow. Love is a good thing. Anything less is lust, deep friendship or attraction. So the sappiness aside, the question remains, how can you tell you are in love?

There is no easy way to find the truth behind your feelings or the feelings of another person but there are some tell-tale signs that love is blooming (or growing deeper). If you agree with 7 of the following 9 statements you are probably in love.

You know, because you have been told by your significant other, that your deep feelings are returned in kind.
The object of your affections makes you feel special and good about yourself.
If/when you feel jealous it is always fleeting; you trust your partner not to betray you or hurt your relationship.
Nothing makes you feel as serene as when you and your partner are together.
When you fight with your partner you usually make up within a few hours and you always agree that nothing is more important than you both being able to express your true feelings (even if they sometimes cause conflict).
Your partner never asks you to choose between him/her and your loyalties to your family and friends - if you do choose him/her over them you always have a good reason and it is always YOUR decision, and your decision alone.
Neither you or your partner feel the need to test the other's loyalties or feelings.
You are more yourself when with your partner than you are with anybody else.
If sex is part of your relationship it is by mutual desire and agreement without the slightest hint of commitment testing or persuasion.

lust attracts