It's The Love... Stupid!

Eros. It's what turns you 'on?' It's whom or what you desire?

There is something basic and fundamental with regards to Eros vis-a-vis human existence. You can sense the utter difference between someone who is 'turned on' by life--by living, by being alive--and someone who has lost (or perhaps never fully integrated) the erotic nature of being human into their daylight character. I am not talking about getting an erection, nor feeling that heat build in the soft space between one's legs (though that is part of the story). What interests me is how we are 'excited' or not. What intriguies me are the ways that we are 'turned on,' and how even the most mundane and a-sexual examples of being 'turned on' are the province and domain of the Greek God of Love, Eros.

For instance, I wonder if the discussion regarding sexual differences (Homo- and Hetero-) would be better left behind for a discussion of the common feature shared in both cases--which is the unambiguous presence of Eros. Eros rules. So what if someone is 'turned on' by sexual sameness or sexual otherness. Big flippin' deal!

What I suspect is lost is the forest for the trees--that, in focusing upon the different trees of sexual orientation we lose sight of the fact that each of these trees are an embodiment and expression of the forest, the forest of Eros. Eros is the atmosphere and the climate; the pervasive environment wherein we find ourselves 'turned on.' Archetypal psychologist James Hillman might say that in our fixation on the particular and the different we are more susceptible to losing sight of the archetypal presence of a God... a Deity. The result is that we don't get a sense of how it is that Eros rules the roost of our attractions. We come to think of Homo- and Hetero- as these alien species, one to another... rather than being the common subjects operating under the law of Eros.

As you may sense, my gut feeling is that the dialogue surrounding our sexuality could stand much benefit from honouring and acknowledging the omnipresent nature of Eros in Hetero-, Homo-, Bi-, and Trans-sexual circles. So that rather than defining ourselves (and our orientation) in relation to strict differences that only serve to separate and divide we could instead appreciate those differences as the diverse expressions of Eros. An Eros that is so full of Love that there is no end to the ways that 'excitation' expresses itself. An Eros that is so abundant with Love and (Com)Passion that there is simply no avenue of desire and longing and devotion and worship and connection that is not explored.

An either/or approach to sexuality is simply to limited for Eros. Eros is a God, thus, infinite in the expression of excitation over the existence of Male and Female, Man and Woman, Flower and Bee, Trans- and Bi-, Earth and Sky. Eros is, in other words, supposed to be infinitely creative and omnipresent in its workings. Eros is not supposed to be localized into a fetish of Hetero-sexuality... or any other narrow definition of whom or what is worthy of being loved.