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| Is romance dead? | Is romance dead? |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Mary Beard: Ovid knew the art of love | Mary Beard: Ovid knew the art of love |
| I've never quite understood what "romance" means, though I think it exists somewhere on that messy borderline between obsession and flirtation. In which case, we can happily track it back to the Greeks and the Romans, who knew all about such messy borderlines. | I've never quite understood what "romance" means, though I think it exists somewhere on that messy borderline between obsession and flirtation. In which case, we can happily track it back to the Greeks and the Romans, who knew all about such messy borderlines. |
| Sappho in the sixth century BC found romance (and heartbreak) at the dinner table, watching her beloved with a male partner. But it is the poet Ovid – in cosmopolitan first century BC/AD Rome – who is unrivalled in the elaborate choreography of the games of love. He wrote wonderful verses about "sex in the afternoon" ("such afternoons come rarely …" he observed), and capped everyone ever since in his dissection of the romantic lover and their follies. | |
| Best of all, try his three books on Ars Amatoria, "The Art of Love" – volumes of advice to young men and woman about how to pick up a partner and how to keep them. It's the usual mixture of sincerity, artifice and deception that underpins most romantic encounters. Don't ever forget your partner's birthday, and try rubbing your knee against hers in those squashed seats in the theatre, and so on ... It's not all quite so modern, though. Ovid was also worried about how you got your slave to help you (or not) in your romantic endeavours. Not our problem. Romance may not be dead, but in some aspects at least, it's certainly changed. | |
| • Mary Beard is professor of classics at Cambridge University | • Mary Beard is professor of classics at Cambridge University |
| Giles Fraser: Why the church is ill at ease with romantic love | Giles Fraser: Why the church is ill at ease with romantic love |
| Why does the church feel so ill at ease with romantic love? After all, Valentine is a saint – or at least, the legend of a saint. Perhaps it fears that Agape and Eros are natural competitors – that the love of one's fellow human being is given mad inflection by the intense particularity of loving one person to the exclusion of all others. | Why does the church feel so ill at ease with romantic love? After all, Valentine is a saint – or at least, the legend of a saint. Perhaps it fears that Agape and Eros are natural competitors – that the love of one's fellow human being is given mad inflection by the intense particularity of loving one person to the exclusion of all others. |
| Perhaps it fears that, deep down, they inhabit a similar space, as the erotic dreams of the mystics suggest. Like faith, falling in love is falling, it is being out of control. The 13th-century Muslim poet Rumi puts it thus: "The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. The birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it?" And he answers: "They fall, and falling, they are given wings." | Perhaps it fears that, deep down, they inhabit a similar space, as the erotic dreams of the mystics suggest. Like faith, falling in love is falling, it is being out of control. The 13th-century Muslim poet Rumi puts it thus: "The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. The birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it?" And he answers: "They fall, and falling, they are given wings." |
| Faith and love are about allowing oneself to fall in the hope that one will be given wings. One cannot learn to fly on the ground. That is why argument cannot help us. It is about letting go. Jumping. And jumping always risks a hard thud against the concrete floor of reality. Who knows if there is enough reality to that which one hopes will bear us up and suspend us in the air. Little wonder that love and faith are both described as blind. | Faith and love are about allowing oneself to fall in the hope that one will be given wings. One cannot learn to fly on the ground. That is why argument cannot help us. It is about letting go. Jumping. And jumping always risks a hard thud against the concrete floor of reality. Who knows if there is enough reality to that which one hopes will bear us up and suspend us in the air. Little wonder that love and faith are both described as blind. |
| • Giles Fraser is priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington in south London and writes the Loose Canon column for the Guardian | • Giles Fraser is priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington in south London and writes the Loose Canon column for the Guardian |
| Peter Stringfellow: My romantic side and my business aren't in conflict | Peter Stringfellow: My romantic side and my business aren't in conflict |
| Romance is the essence of humanity. We've been romantics for thousands of years – since people in caves decided who to sleep with and raise a family with. The minute romance dies, the human race goes with it. | Romance is the essence of humanity. We've been romantics for thousands of years – since people in caves decided who to sleep with and raise a family with. The minute romance dies, the human race goes with it. |
| Some say that Valentine's Day is a commercial con, but so what? Forget the cynics, guys, Valentine's is an excuse to spoil your girl. Cliches don't matter – a bit of champagne, some flowers. The most romantic of all, I think, is to cook your partner a homemade meal – it doesn't matter if it's beans on toast, just as long as you make the effort. | Some say that Valentine's Day is a commercial con, but so what? Forget the cynics, guys, Valentine's is an excuse to spoil your girl. Cliches don't matter – a bit of champagne, some flowers. The most romantic of all, I think, is to cook your partner a homemade meal – it doesn't matter if it's beans on toast, just as long as you make the effort. |
| I'll be spoiling my wife this Valentine's by booking a table overlooking the moon-soaked beaches of Barbados. Valentine's day has a special significance for us as we married on 14 February four years ago – we are now celebrating our first pregnancy. Does romance extend beyond our difference in age? Of course, it's a major part of the way I live – how horrible it would be if you lost the feeling of romance as you got older. | I'll be spoiling my wife this Valentine's by booking a table overlooking the moon-soaked beaches of Barbados. Valentine's day has a special significance for us as we married on 14 February four years ago – we are now celebrating our first pregnancy. Does romance extend beyond our difference in age? Of course, it's a major part of the way I live – how horrible it would be if you lost the feeling of romance as you got older. |
| I see no conflict whatsoever with my romantic side and the businesses that I run. In fact, this year we're running a special Valentine's night – telling our members that "your favourite angel is waiting to be your Valentine". Of course, the guys who turn up – assuming they're not married or have a girlfriend – will have the most romantic night. I'll be sad to miss it, but making my wife happy gives me the greatest kick of all. | I see no conflict whatsoever with my romantic side and the businesses that I run. In fact, this year we're running a special Valentine's night – telling our members that "your favourite angel is waiting to be your Valentine". Of course, the guys who turn up – assuming they're not married or have a girlfriend – will have the most romantic night. I'll be sad to miss it, but making my wife happy gives me the greatest kick of all. |
| • Peter Stringfellow is a nightclub owner | • Peter Stringfellow is a nightclub owner |
| Slavoj Žižek: In the future we'll outsource sex | Slavoj Žižek: In the future we'll outsource sex |
| Romance is maybe not yet totally dead, but its forthcoming death is signalled by object-gadgets which promise to deliver excessive pleasure but which effectively reproduce only the lack itself. | Romance is maybe not yet totally dead, but its forthcoming death is signalled by object-gadgets which promise to deliver excessive pleasure but which effectively reproduce only the lack itself. |
| The latest fashion is the Stamina Training Unit, a counterpart to the vibrator: a masturbatory device that resembles a battery-powered light (so we're not embarrassed when carrying it around). You put the erect penis into the opening at the top, push the button, and the object vibrates till satisfaction … The product is available in different colours, levels of tightness and forms (hairy or without hair, etc) that imitate all three main openings for sexual penetration (mouth, vagina, anus). What one buys here is the partial object (erogenous zone) alone, deprived of the embarrassing additional burden of the entire person. | The latest fashion is the Stamina Training Unit, a counterpart to the vibrator: a masturbatory device that resembles a battery-powered light (so we're not embarrassed when carrying it around). You put the erect penis into the opening at the top, push the button, and the object vibrates till satisfaction … The product is available in different colours, levels of tightness and forms (hairy or without hair, etc) that imitate all three main openings for sexual penetration (mouth, vagina, anus). What one buys here is the partial object (erogenous zone) alone, deprived of the embarrassing additional burden of the entire person. |
| How are we to cope with this brave new world which undermines the basic premises of our intimate life? The ultimate solution would be, of course, to push a vibrator into the Stamina Training Unit, turn them both on and leave all the fun to this ideal couple, with us, the two real human partners, sitting at a nearby table, drinking tea and calmly enjoying the fact that, without great effort, we have fulfilled our duty to enjoy. | How are we to cope with this brave new world which undermines the basic premises of our intimate life? The ultimate solution would be, of course, to push a vibrator into the Stamina Training Unit, turn them both on and leave all the fun to this ideal couple, with us, the two real human partners, sitting at a nearby table, drinking tea and calmly enjoying the fact that, without great effort, we have fulfilled our duty to enjoy. |
| • Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities | • Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities |
| Kathy Lette: Girls, don't check yourself into romance rehab yet | Kathy Lette: Girls, don't check yourself into romance rehab yet |
| Some shrinks have claimed that romantic comedies are bad for a woman's psychological and emotional wellbeing. Sentimental movies, they allege, create false expectations in the female psyche, that we'll all be rescued by a knight in shining Armani. One report from 2011 maintains that such unrealistic hopes lead to disappointment and frustration. In the future, romances like Sleepless in Seattle and Bridget Jones's Diary could come with an official warning: could be dangerous to your health. They'll be classified as contraband – as hazardous as cigarettes and alcohol. | Some shrinks have claimed that romantic comedies are bad for a woman's psychological and emotional wellbeing. Sentimental movies, they allege, create false expectations in the female psyche, that we'll all be rescued by a knight in shining Armani. One report from 2011 maintains that such unrealistic hopes lead to disappointment and frustration. In the future, romances like Sleepless in Seattle and Bridget Jones's Diary could come with an official warning: could be dangerous to your health. They'll be classified as contraband – as hazardous as cigarettes and alcohol. |
| But girls, don't check yourself into romance rehab just yet. The main problem is that to us, romance means "happy ever afters", while your average bloke thinks it's a "meaningful" one-night stand with seven bisexual hookers. But any woman with an IQ above plankton knows the difference between fantasy and reality. Although weaned on fairytales, we don't build castles in the air or dream of being draped decoratively over a man's arm. No, we tuck a couple of capital venture portfolios up each sleeve instead. Although addicted to shoes, our wardrobes have no room for glass slippers. | But girls, don't check yourself into romance rehab just yet. The main problem is that to us, romance means "happy ever afters", while your average bloke thinks it's a "meaningful" one-night stand with seven bisexual hookers. But any woman with an IQ above plankton knows the difference between fantasy and reality. Although weaned on fairytales, we don't build castles in the air or dream of being draped decoratively over a man's arm. No, we tuck a couple of capital venture portfolios up each sleeve instead. Although addicted to shoes, our wardrobes have no room for glass slippers. |
| Yes, we're still looking for romance. But not the tall, dark and bankable pecs appeal of those romcom love gods. When it comes to romance, women want one thing – a bloke perfect enough to understand why we're not. | Yes, we're still looking for romance. But not the tall, dark and bankable pecs appeal of those romcom love gods. When it comes to romance, women want one thing – a bloke perfect enough to understand why we're not. |
| • Kathy Lette is the author of 13 novels about love and romance, the latest of which is The Boy Who Fell to Earth | • Kathy Lette is the author of 13 novels about love and romance, the latest of which is The Boy Who Fell to Earth |
| Jane Czyzselska: Routine is the death of romance | Jane Czyzselska: Routine is the death of romance |
| I'm with French philosopher Alain Badiou on this one. What would an old Marxist interlocuter know about love, you might ask? Plenty, it seems, since he and his current beloved have been together for yonks, attributing their romantic longevity to their shared belief that love is a risk based on a chance encounter. It's also a conscious collaborative act requiring frequent affirmative rituals. Rituals that will transform the habitual intimate whirr into relationship gold. Rituals like bracing yourself at dawn's crack to scrape icy love hearts on the frozen windscreen of your beloved's car to make her daily commute a bit zingier. | I'm with French philosopher Alain Badiou on this one. What would an old Marxist interlocuter know about love, you might ask? Plenty, it seems, since he and his current beloved have been together for yonks, attributing their romantic longevity to their shared belief that love is a risk based on a chance encounter. It's also a conscious collaborative act requiring frequent affirmative rituals. Rituals that will transform the habitual intimate whirr into relationship gold. Rituals like bracing yourself at dawn's crack to scrape icy love hearts on the frozen windscreen of your beloved's car to make her daily commute a bit zingier. |
| The internet has massively expanded the possibilities for romance, so if you're looking for a Geordie lawyer who's into cider and the Smiths, you're much more likely to meet them today – but beware. Dating sites, says Badiou, want to eliminate risk too, so it becomes like shopping, never allowing chance to do its magic. | The internet has massively expanded the possibilities for romance, so if you're looking for a Geordie lawyer who's into cider and the Smiths, you're much more likely to meet them today – but beware. Dating sites, says Badiou, want to eliminate risk too, so it becomes like shopping, never allowing chance to do its magic. |
| But the real risk is making a commitment, acting on wanting to be with someone and not holding back. Being in it for the long haul needs to be constantly sexed up. Use your differences to surprise each other, never stop saying "God, your arse looks gorgeous in that dress". Routine and wanting to merge into sameness is the death of romance. | But the real risk is making a commitment, acting on wanting to be with someone and not holding back. Being in it for the long haul needs to be constantly sexed up. Use your differences to surprise each other, never stop saying "God, your arse looks gorgeous in that dress". Routine and wanting to merge into sameness is the death of romance. |
| • Jane Czyzselska is the editor of Diva magazine | • Jane Czyzselska is the editor of Diva magazine |