Many people find themselves embarrassed to use the word Love in all but a very few situations for fear of it being misunderstood.
Love is a very hard working word! It has to do many jobs.
We only have one word to cover many kinds of Love. The Romans were better off. At least they had two different words for different kinds of love. The Ancient Greeks were even better provided for, they had five words for different kinds of Love.
Sadly, for many people the word has become exclusively associated in their minds with intimate relations between couples which involve sexual intercourse. Yet if you said to these people do you love your children, or your parents, they would agree that is different.
On thinking about it, these people would also agree that there are many other kinds of love. These include love of friends, animals and communities. It also extends to football teams, counties and countries.
Having said all that, my book Love Sex and the Midlife Woman talks exclusively about ’intimate love’. Because of the embarrassment factor people rarely discuss this subject openly.
Little is written about it outside romantic novels and pornography.
There is much to say about intimate love, including that it changes over time. It is evident that love experienced by 20 year olds is different from that experienced by their grandparents.
In the next post I will talk about these phases which I call ‘The Seasons of Love’.
PS: This is the third in a series of blog posts dealing with issues raised by my book Love Sex and the Midlife Woman. This post is not written to get you to buy the book. If you follow my Blog Posts over the coming weeks you will get much of the content of the book without having to buy it.
PPS: Don’t forget to come and see us on our Facebook page to get the latest news from the New Midlife Woman project.
Love
I think that there is so much confusion (and subsequent hurt) in our culture about love precisely because we don’t have separate words for all the different kinds of love.
You are contributing to the education of people on this matter, so thank you 🙂