Eros

I found Lewis’ chapter on Eros in The Four Loves to be fascinating, offering new concepts and ideas to me. Eros is the love shared by lovers. Lewis starts by distinguishing this from the sexual desire that a man and a woman have for each other. Lewis points out that we are wrong when we say a man prowling the streets hoping to get laid wants a woman. He wants sex, for which he needs a woman. He has no use for her once he is done. Lewis says, “Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved.”

            People sometimes say that sex without Eros is wrong, but Lewis discusses how in history very seldom have marriages been built on Eros. Arranged marriages even from a young age have been more the case. There was nothing unwholesome about many of those good Christian unions. It has made me think that Eros as a necessity for marriage is more of a modern concept. We think that we have to be head over heels in love with a person to join with them in holy matrimony.

            So most of us single Christian college students are looking in our lives for Eros and eventually a spouse. We described the ideal male and ideal female lover on the board. For a woman caring, honesty, beauty, self-confidence, and adventurous were a few that made the board. In being sexually desired beauty is perhaps the only one of those qualities that is necessary or even looked at. Lewis says that very rarely does sex occur and then Eros comes into play. In my thoughts I’m extending this to if a man first sexually desires a woman, is it likely that he later feels Eros for her? I’m not sure I’m ready to answer that question, but I think it is less likely if he first desires her sexually. Sex is a funny thing; it can even come to control us. I’ve seen people who become so obsessive over chasing sexual pleasure that they no longer search for or seem to care about Eros. I think that a woman who is more beautiful can sometimes have a harder time having men feel Eros for her as they may first be sexually attracted to her.

            In order for people to feel Eros towards us, I think we have to exhibit the traits of these ideal lovers described. People today work very hard at looking as good as possible, but we also have to find ways to convey that we are caring, honest, strong… It is by conveying emotional depth and that we can carry a lover through the rough patches in our lives that they fall in love with our personalities.

           It isn’t even a choice to “fall in love.” There is a choice made down the road to “be in love.” I think this puts the choice more on the person who is being fallen in love with. If one shows that they have these characteristics they can almost make someone fall in love with them. Whether or not this lasts is another story.