The Best Things in Life: A Contemporary Socrates Looks at Power, Pleasure, Truth & the Good Life by Peter Kreeft

Author:Peter Kreeft [Kreeft, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2009-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

9 On Sex and Love

Socrates: You seem very happy this morning, Felicia. Have you succeeded in your life’s great quest?

Felicia: What quest do you mean?

Socrates: Have you “known thyself” and thus attained felicity?

Felicia: I’ve attained felicity, all right. But the name of the game isn’t knowledge; it’s love.

Socrates: I would say those two things are ultimately one. But what kind of love do you mean?

Felicia: The total kind. I just spent an absolutely fabulous night with my boyfriend.

Socrates: That’s nice. And what did you do during the night that made you so happy?

Felicia: Stop pretending to be naive, Socrates. We made love, of course.

Socrates: What kind of love did you make?

Felicia: Do you want details? Why, that’s none of your business, you dirty old man!

Socrates: I mean, was it agape or philia or storge or eros?

Felicia: That’s all Greek to me. Speak English.

Socrates: Was it charity, or friendship, or affection, or sex?

Felicia: Charity and friendship and affection are not nighttime loves, Socrates.

Socrates: Oh. I had not realized that the clock limited them so severely. But I think I understand you now. May we bring your nighttime love into the light of day? Or does it fear exposure to the light of reason?

Felicia: Somehow I knew you’d find a way to spoil my fun.

Socrates: If we love a thing, do we not also love to know more about it?

Felicia: Yes.

Socrates: Then you should welcome looking at this thing that you love so much.

Felicia: But it seems so strange to analyze love!

Socrates: Why?

Felicia: Because love is like fire, and logic is like a pale light. I don’t see how you could add to the light of my fire with your little logic; it’s like shining a flashlight on the sun.

Socrates: How can you be sure it’s like that until you try? Perhaps there are some dark spots on your sun, and perhaps my logic can x-ray those spots. A sex ray, so to speak.

Felicia: But trying to be logical about sex—it sounds so silly!

Socrates: I thought being silly meant being illogical.

Felicia: There’s a time and a place for everything.

Socrates: But no time to think about sex? You prefer all heat and no light? A dark fire?

Felicia: My fire has its own light. “The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know,” you know.

Socrates: Then let it teach me its reasons. I am willing to learn. Are you willing to help me? Will you share the great good of this mysterious light of yours with me?

Felicia: In words, you mean.

Socrates: Of course. I am much too old for the other thing.

Felicia: How old are you, by the way?

Socrates: Much older than I look, but never too old to learn.

Felicia: Are you too old to have sex anymore?

Socrates: What a silly question! Of course not.

Felicia: I’m curious. How often?

Socrates: Continuously, of course.

Felicia: Wow! You mean continually, don’t you? You’re resting now, at least.

Socrates: No, I mean continuously. I am male now. My sex is masculine continuously. Does yours change?

Felicia: Oh, that “sex.” I meant doing it.

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