I think love requires a common purpose. And I think that it would be a good definition of what love is - to say that it is seeing another human being's approach to a task. This may be hard for some of you to accept, given the schmalzy definition of love that we have come to hear regaled in popular music, for example. But I believe that if you muse about it a bit, you'll see that there is always is this common denominator wherever there is love.

There is one very profound kind of love - and that is the bond between people of different age groups. And given my model, I would say that the reason this is profound is that there is a natural purpose which is always there and doesn't need to be established from some external circumstance. That purpose is to help the younger person achieve her or his own aptitudes... and to move forward in life.

In this kind of love there are two sides of the coin. And I'm going to define these things according to the perspectives of each individual. Each person is admiring the other, so that's where their focus is. There is the role model, and there is the budding flower. The younger person has an intense admiration for his mentor because he can study a person who is really adept at approaching a certain task. That approach has many many nuances... and there's always parts of approach you don't see but you can deduce. There's a very engaging and enriching mental excercise.

The mentor is enriched in a different way - He sees the learning processes of this young person. And in that - he can anticipate what this person will do in his future - both for himself and for others. And also, he can study the social interactions between this young person and his peers, and that gives him insight into both society today, and society as it will be tomorrow, when those kids grow up and and come into their own in their thirties. Furthermore there's an opportunity here to be a catalyst to help social things come together, and not only to help one young person achieve personal growth.

It seems to me that the lines of the playing field for the big discussions we have in our country are far too often drawn out by unconscientious mean bratty people who happen to also be loudmouths.

In particular today, I was thinking about this thing which we in the ethnically european world call "sex" and "sexual attraction." There was a time before abortions and birth control became as modern and convenient as they are today, that there were large groups of loudmouthed inconsiderate people who were making a straw man by combining all the ideas around human affection into this one thing "sex;" some of these antagonists belonged to groups which forbade people to dance with eachother, some of them believed in imposing dress codes much like we see across the middle east today - gender specific rules. There was a problem with families having more kids than they could care for, and then there were children working in dangerous conditions in factories, and there were depressing orphanages of varying types. These moral dualists haughtily believed that they had the solution to it all: We should out and out segregate the genders; and if people were intimidated enough, we could end these social ills.

By the 1960s, the procedure of abortion had become safe for the women, and there was a big trend in North America towards making the practice a routinely available thing. At the same moment, of course, there was a lobby pushed by the more thoughtful folks in society. They found it was very easy to enlist the help of the young adults in encouraging the idea of free touch between adults. After all, these young people had experienced a lot of touch and caressing as kids, and would want to continue in that practice.

But they made a big mistake. They decided to come to the discussion on the same level as the prudes. They decided to accept the straw man portrayal of "sexuality" which had been posited around this discussion. They accepted the idea that all these different concepts could be united in one term: sexual attraction:

wistfulness

longing

affection

desire to commit yourself to someone

desire to nurture

appreciation of beauty

bashfulness

desire to touch and be touched

idealizing about someone

wonderment about the approach a person takes to different situations

And even nearly fifty years later, those of us who are deeper thinkers are still avidly supportive of the trend towards more "sexuality" in our society. The big debate now is around gay marriage.

Come on, people! I think those of us who can see a bit more clearly ought to dispense with this idea of "sexuality" and "sexual attraction." I think this is a misnomer. All the things I mentioned above exist in their own right, and should be experienced and appreciated, without worrying about all the emotional baggage people associate with "sexuality."

We have won, indeed. It's amusing to watch the last bastion of folks who see themselves as "conservative" talk about "culture wars" - because they lost this war long ago. But for us, on the other side, it would seem that ours is a hollow victory. The idea of sexuality tends to push people apart, rather than draw them together. Isn't that ironic?

It's certainly natural that the young among us deep thinking folks long to return to the state of affairs which we had as children - where we cuddled, and wrestled and otherwise enjoyed touching a large number of different people. But we're not going to make any headway by trying to convince people around us to be more "sexual." In fact, our lobby is wearing on the nerves of many people, even though they are entranced by the idea.

North american men, why are you scared of affection? I'll tell you why I think it is... it's because of a prejudice against men which women have. Women have a stereotype about men which originates from folklore passed among them over the years when they talk about us. It often isn't prettty what they have to say about us. There have been many loud voices in the feminist movement who have insisted on denigrating and scorning and demeaning men, and male affection. Many men these days are raised by single mothers, who unwittingly create the very kind of man who they dislike, by raising their boys to conform to the stereotypes which they have about men. I know one woman, for instance, who recently finished her divorce proceedings, and has been sending her boys to martial arts classes because that's what she thinks men need, in order to protect themselves. It's quite shocking, actually.

In our society, the first decade of a child's life is spent with these immersive physical interactions - they are held and caressed by their parents, they wriggle around with their siblings and friends. The next ten years is spent insisting the child unlearn all that. When a boy hits puberty, he is told that his desire to touch other people has this odd connotation. All of a sudden, it's called "sexual attraction" - and except in very few situations, if he has this desire to touch someone, people say it reflects poorly on his character. Children throughout our country are accustomed to calling this kind of touching they do with caring adults "love". Young children will see it as personal rejection if an adult refuses to pick them up and hold them. Children still adore cuddling with their parents and caregivers into their elementary school years. When the indoctrination into the adult ritual of "sexuality" starts, a boy going into his teenage years begins to conflate affection with sexual attraction. At the end of his teens, the boy will usually have learned to spurn the act of giving and receiving affection - it's seen as too socially hazardous to risk your affections being misinterpreted by others. Thus young males become brash, and distant and cold. They won't even see this attitude in themselves; they think that they are being conscientious in that they are avoiding any problems associated with people misreading their expressions and body language.

We have to set a new trend, people. This is unacceptable. Single mothers need to really be conscientous to find their children good male role models. All of us men need to be smiling at kids we pass on the street. The secret, I believe, is to make sure the next generation feels secure in accepting affection from men, and giving affection to men. Boys will then grow up and see the way forward for themselves in their own adult lives - when they have seen this kind of affection modeled.