What is love, anyway? I mean, if you ask 100 different people, you’ll get 100 different responses. It’s like asking who, or what “god” is. Everyone has a different interpretation or way of trying to express something that perhaps cannot even truly be expressed with words anyway. But, please, let me try…

Most people think that love is a noun. I believe that it is energy and therefore falls under the category of a verb. Love manifests itself as action, it inspires, and it activates and brings light, not darkness into our lives. You know it when you experience it! However, as obvious as love can be, it is often confusing. The biggest obstacle I see, with so many people, is this confusion between sex and love. Most people think these two words are the same. Maybe because they can both be experienced at the same time. However, they are not always. When you have sex with someone that you first love, it becomes a totally different experience than without it. Imagine being with someone where you are both giving, connecting, sharing a powerful energy that can actually heal your souls and inspire great deeds. Not bad, eh? You can even have love without sex! Like the rainbow, love has many colors.

Now…what about sex without love? Think about an experience where it was all about self-gratification. There’s an agenda, there are needs to be met, desires and fantasies that must be acted out. It doesn’t matter with whom, as long as they meet the criteria of what it takes to get you off. It doesn’t matter who people are on the inside as long as they look the role on the outside. There’s exhilaration, a surge of fiery energy that is intoxicating, and even passion. Don’t worry; this is all only a chemical reaction that happens in our bodies around certain people. The funny thing is that we are not even in control with whom this happens. However, when we are under this influence, we think this is love. It feels like love, we think, because we feel something…something powerful. Maybe this is why sex and love are so often confused. Also, maybe this is why so many of us end up with the wrong partners. We think that sex, when it’s good, is love.

Sex, on it’s own, is what it is…potentially physically gratifying, but somehow always leaves us empty at the end of the day when we are eating dinner alone…again. Sex with love, is consistently more physically, emotionally, and spiritually fulfilling. If someone is only experiencing one aspect of who you are, they are not experiencing the whole experience of you. There is a universe within each of us to share so, why make it such a limited experience by sharing only one small piece of yourself? Seeing each other as only objects instead of as whole individuals, devalues everyone involved. We are more than that! Shouldn’t we, in the gay culture, advocate and teach this example instead of being known only for our sexual freedom of expression? Aren’t we more than that?

Namaste.