“他丢下我找了个年轻的模特儿。”一个中年已婚妇女哼道，她一直极力避免在婚姻的早期便经历由于摩擦和琐事而致的激情退却，而揭开面纱以后才发现自己的婚姻如此空洞。
说不出任何不满的理由的一方，常常是安于现状、安于婚姻关系和双方利益的人。但渐渐地，他/她突然发现，另外一半，在经历了多年的安逸生活以后，却在力图寻找自由。
看起来，任何情感的、身体的吸引或是常识都是靠不住的，都不能成为两个人在一起的充足保障。那么，什么才是让两个人牵手一生的力量呢？是不朽的爱情吗？有这么一回事儿吗？还是爱原本有其他的作用和功能？
在终了，所有都可归结为价值。只有当两个同样投入的人分享着同样的价值观念的时候，关系才能坚固而持久。
When a man and a woman are drawn together, the attraction, I believe, is always sexual. Whether firing instantly, flaring bright, or taking its time, smouldering in secret, flickering, rekindling, before burning itself out.
The theory of love at first sight is appealing, but really, there is no such thing. Love comes later, an afterthought, once desires are sated, needs overcome, wishes fulfilled.
Sex is instinctive, possessive, commanding: a force to be reckon-ed with, dangerous when unleashed. Since we never know where it will take us, it needs to be handled with care.
Love, on the other hand, is never a threat. It is deliberate, fashioned by choices, generous to a fault; happy to put the other person’s interests ahead of its own.
If sex is the ultimate in self-expression, love is the opposite: an on-going challenge to vanquish the self. A formidable task, much against the grain of human nature.
Our ability to love is constantly tested, as we are faced with hurdles that call for mutual negotiation. If we succeed in clearing them, the result will be a deeper attachment, greater affection, a closer bond.
Conversely, no relationship, however passionate, will survive if love is lacking. Without love we fall at the first fence.
Proponents of the 1960s sexual revolution had a noble aim in mind: to liberate us all from the age-old tyranny of insipid morality, religious condemnation, secrecy and shame, repression, guilt and inhibition.
Love was the new currency, intimacy a birthright, to be enjoyed along with carnal pleasures and made freely available as a healthy, natural means of expression.
Loneliness would be a thing of the past, every type of relationship respected; physical and emotional fulfilment available to all, with no fear of disapproval or exclusion.
Little did these humanitarians anticipate that, before long, their idealistic concept would be hi-jacked by commercial interests and used for crass material ends with no regard for any values other than financial.
Today, sex is a prime marketing tool exceeding all others. From all directions it is forced on to an unsuspecting public, sparing no one, not even little children, from the delusion that nothing but your sexuality gives you a place in the world.
How can anybody be expected to withstand this onslaught, brain-washed as we are to accept as the real thing casual couplings or mindless drunken encounters; and to live with the consequences of increased violence against women,more sexually transmitted diseases, children who should never have been born, abuse, confusion and deviation, not to mention emotions laid waste
Good-bye intimacy. Hello loneliness.
In the days when marriage was the only accepted arrangement for living together ? or even sharing a bed ?you went to the altar without asking why. (Unless, that is, a baby was on the way.)
