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Who says erotic love is not love?
Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, discussed four kinds of love — storge, philia, eros and agape. Christian love is commonly identified as “agape,” due to its universal and unconditional nature. On the other hand, “eros,” or romantic love, is commonly known as person-specific and conditional. Conventional wisdom has it that only agape is divine. Eros is definitely not.
As I get older (and less Christian), I have become more and more skeptical of this conventional view, which is closely associated with Christianity, which is patriarchal, and not with the Goddess and pagan religions. If God is love as John’s Gospel proclaims, then divinity can be found in all four kinds of love. In the Greek conception of Eros, Eros is definitely much bigger than the erotic love between two mortals. In the pagan view and in Jungian psychology, Eros is more like the primal life force which drives the universe. In some Eastern religions and philosophies also, Eros is closely related to divinity. Tantra, for example, is commonly understood as a kind of sacred sex. In religious Taoism too, the sexual energy is not seen as merely mundane. Rather, it is closely related to the Tao. As opposed to the anti-sex tradition of Christianity, Taoism sees sex as essential to one’s overall health and well-being.
We may even argue that Christianity is not intrinsically anti-sex. The anti-sex…
