The Biological Relationship Between Sex and Love

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-1991

Abstract

From the perspective of the individual human being, love and sex are certainly distinct phenomena (although a happy concomitance is often observed) that can be, and often are, pursued independently of one another. Taking a broad species approach rather than an individual one, the human sciences appear to be coalescing around the position that love is an epiphenomenon of sex, a position exemplified by the statement that "Love is a snare set by sex to ensure the survival of the species."1 While I agree with the general thrust of this proposition, I view love as being much more than a simple derivative of sex. Love springs from sex, and thus shares with it a certain oneness of essence; but love pursues an independent existence, and in doing so elevates and ennobles that from which it sprang.

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