Love and Desire Brain Systems for Survival and More

To begin the lecture, Lucy Brown started off with a quote by Mumford and Sons: “In these bodies we live; In these bodies we die; Where you invest your love, You invest your life.”  This quote is essential because it conveys how love is important for survival not only for a species, but also for an individual.  Love consumes everything we do because we want it to.

Brown began the lecture by asking the question that human beings have been trying to answer since the beginning of time: “What is love?”  While many people think of romance and infatuation when they think of love, there are many other types of love that people can experience.  There is maternal and paternal love, which is the love a parent has for a child.  There is companionate love, which is the love for a friend that is merely platonic.  There is also positive association love, which is when we assert that we love something such as a type of ice cream or movie.

Brown’s focus in her studies is the Early Stage, Intense Romantic Love.  This is when two people just meet, and are starting to get to know and like each other.  During this stage, and individual may experience intrusive thinking about the person they desire, special meanings of the persona and overlooking their faults, intense energy making it hard to sleep, loss of appetite, mood swings, craving to be around the person, and rearranging their daily plans to be around the other person more frequently.

Love is very complex in why people are so addicted to it.  However, love, at least the beginning stages, is a natural euphoria.  In studies where they examined the brain, the same parts of the brain lit up when someone was in the beginning stages of love, which was similar to when someone was craving cocaine.  Therefore since love creates that euphoric feeling, so many people crave it as if it were a drug because it is a “natural” addiction.  Another interesting factor about love is that it is a cross-cultural phenomenon.  No matter what part of the world you are in and no matter what the culture is, there is the desire for love in individuals in each culture.  This goes to prove that love is built in our brains for survival.

Romantic love is important because it is a mammalian drive.  It is used to pursue a preferred mate, to create a mating system, and it is a brain reward system.  There are three different stages in romantic love: lust, attraction, and attachment.  Lust is the physical and sexual aspect of love, and it is what gets individuals to put themselves out there in order to find a mate.  Attraction is the romantic phase and it is when you focus your attention on one individual and try to get to know them better.  Then the attachment aspect is what keeps a couple together because they have reached a higher stage of love.

For me, personally, I would like to believe in the concept of “love at first sight”, so naturally I wanted to know if there is something in the brain that can prove that it does exist.  While we did not learn of any definite aspects that would prove this correct in the lecture, we did learn about a study, which shows how couples were able to stay together.  In the study, the scientists studied couples in their beginning stages, and then they examined the relationships three years later.  What they found is about half the couples split up and half stayed together.  The interesting commonality between the couples that stayed together is that in their brains, they suppressed negative judgment and the concept of self.  Therefore, the couples learned to put the other partner first and not criticize their partner.  While this does not prove “love at first sight”, it does give insight on how to keep a lasting relationship.

Slavery Inferior- Cinema Performative Traumas of History

Anthony Reed spoke during the last seminar about slavery in cinema and how it affects history.  Reed went on to discuss this topic further in the two movies, Amistad  and Django.  Before I discuss the movies, I quoted something that Reed wrote which is that "slavery is the art of keeping one alive who would rather die."  This quote is very important because it is true in the sense that essentially it is an art form, while albeit a negative one, that studies human beings and their suffering.  It is when people know what makes others suffer that they inflict that upon another and gain control.  It is this control that is practiced for years and years that makes slavery almost like a painting or another art medium.  Everyone has to use a paint brush, stroke the brushes the same way, use the same paint, put something on the canvas- so it is this repeated action that is practiced and studied that makes it artistic in a unique way.  I just found this quote to be interesting because one never usually thinks of slavery from this angle.

Amistad was made in 1997, and the film touches upon slavery as well.  Some critics referred to the film as the "end of history".  The most important scene in the film which was discussed is the "Give us us free" scene.  In the scene, an enslaved black man extends his chained hands out while in the courtroom begging for his freedom.  A couple of things are important to make note of this scene.  The first factor is the score during this shot.  When the character is sitting down pondering his desire for freedom, African tribal music is playing.  However when the character begs for freedom and the white men in the courtroom are outraged, an american score begins.  The latter score seems to be so loud that the character cannot even hear his own thoughts.  This symbolizes how african americans lose their identity and own thoughts through slavery.  Another important factor is the enslaved man extending out his hands in chains.  This symbol  was very common all throughout America during the 1830's and on. This image represents the acceptance of slaves fates and them giving control to their masters.  

Django is a recent film that just came out.  Ultimately an enslaved man gains his freedom and after some training comes back to save his wife who is still a slave.  The most important quote from the movie is when Leonardo DiCaprio, the white slave owner, says that he "grew up around all black faces, and [he] wondered why they didn't rise up."  Basically his character is saying that it does not make sense that the blacks did not take back control since they outnumbered their white owners.  While many people did fight back in their own way, I think a main reason why they didn't or didn't succeed is because slavery is a practiced form of one person submitting to another and giving that person control whether you choose to or not.  

I think from the slave's perspective, they are filled with desire.  Slaves have an unfulfilled longing for freedom, and this desire is suppressed from the slave.  The slaves lust for freedom, but ultimately they cannot really define it for themselves.  I think that this also relates to why slaves didn't "rise up".  Anyone can have desire, but if it cannot be defined clearly and rationally in terms of one's life then it is essentially useless.  Slaves desire for freedom was merely just a desire because they could not define it in terms that they could actually strive to achieve for in real life.  Thus, they had to remain slaves and suppress their desire for real freedom.

Before Sunset

Maybe it is the hopeful romantic in me, but after we watched “Before Sunrise” I wrote in my blog post that I thought Jesse and Celine would meet up six months later.  I truly felt like both of the characters made such a connection in Vienna during the one night they had with each other, so I was so surprised and a little disheartened to find out that they did not end up meeting each other and in fact, it took nine years for them to see each other again.  As it would turn out, Celine could not meet up with Jesse in Vienna when they were supposed to because her grandmother passed away shortly before they were supposed to meet up and because they did not exchange phone numbers, she was unable to call Jesse and tell him that.  Since Jesse and Celine did not meet up, they continued their lives without each other.  Jesse got married, had a son, and wrote a bestselling novel based on his time with Celine.  Celine, on the other hand, has a boyfriend and is a photojournalist and environmental activist.  Because Jesse is on a book tour in Paris, he has to catch a plane an hour later after meeting up with Celine again, so the two only have a short time to connect again like their first meeting.  I think that time plays a huge factor with these two characters.  In the first film, the couple only had a night to spend time together before they had to part again.  In this film, the couple only had an hour before Jesse’s plane to go back to the United States.  Because the couple always has a restricted time allotted to them, they have to get down to their core and show who they really are.  This says a lot about how sometimes traditional dating is not always the best approach.  When people usually date, they are expected to be dating for a year before they can be serious and in love, however, this is not always realistic.  Traditional dating leaves a lot of room for “fluff” because you can pretend about who you are and not be as up front.  Whereas, Jesse and Celine have to be straightforward with each other because they have no choice and they find true love.  An example of this “love at first sight” concept can be seen with Khloe Kardashian.  She made headlines in magazines all over the world when she met her now husband and married him thirty days later.  Khloe Kardashian was scrutinized for this in the media because society does not accept love that is not traditional.  However, there is no traditional way for people to fall in love, which is shown with Jesse and Celine.  Also, another important idea of time in the films is that it relates to love in general.  Just like how Jesse and Celine were constricted with time, couples in general are restricted in time.  People never know when their life will end, and so it is important for people to love when they are given the opportunity to even if it does not last.  Jesse and Celine did not know for sure if they would ever see each other again, but they loved each other anyways in the time they had because when it comes to love, time should never be wasted.

Steve Almond Lecture

I'd like to start off by saying that Steve Almond is without a doubt one of my favorite speakers thus far! In his writings, he perfectly combines love and desire to create romantic and lustful scenes in his stories that are still very realistic.  The reality of sex is a key element throughout Almond's writings and is something he emphasized in his lecture.  In today's society, people especially young men have this fantasy about sex.  Sex is so quick and easy to obtain these days because of porn on the internet, but there is no reality to porn.  Yes, the actors in porn are very well experienced in the physical aspect of sex, but they completely lack the emotional side of sex when two people connect with each other.  Another aspect that many young men do not understand is that porn appears to be perfect because there is a crew doing the lighting, the makeup, the editing, and the scenes are not done all at once, so this makes up for why there are no awkward moments in porn like there is in real life sex.  The most interesting story that Almond read was without a doubt "Skull".  The story is told by a narrator who is hanging out with his friend getting drunk.  The narrator's friend goes on to tell the narrator that his girlfriend has a glass eye because she was shot in the eye with a play gun as a child.  As the friend goes into more detail, he expresses that his girlfriend likes to take her eye out and have him massaged her skull tissue in a very sexual and graphic manner.  The line that stuck out to me the most and I wrote it down was "that's what we all want, a lover to accept the most damaged part of us".  The woman fears rejection because even though her body is very gorgeous, she has a scar that she feels insecure about.  Therefore, to expose her weakness to her boyfriend shows that she trusts him because he accepts her.  This idea of acceptance in the story is ultimately what everyone strives for.  Everyone has a physical or emotional part of us that is damaged that we try to hide.  However in  reality, all we want is for someone to see that damaged part of us, accept it, and love us anyways.  While this story may be a little out there, it gets down to the core of human desire which is not always purely sexual, but sometimes emotional.

Sexuality and the Police State in "Halfaouine"

In Ferid Boughedir's film "Halfaouine", the main character, Noura who is a twelve-year-old boy, comes of age in Tunisia during the 1960's.  The movies plays a lot on nostalgia of Noura missing the previous Tunisia he knew as a child because the current state of Tunisia is controlled under a strict dictator.  The movie also touches upon Noura trying to be an adult in a world with separate spheres.  Therefore, there's a parallel between patriarchal oppression and the brutality of the police state throughout the movie.  One theme that I find very interesting in this film is the concept that "eroticism is a form of liberation."  At twelve years old, Noura still goes to the baths with his mother and all the other women in the town, and it is here that he begins to become aroused by the female body.  This movie takes place in an Arabic country, but sexual expression is very opposite than one would think.  Noura wants to express his sexual desires, like when he has sex with the maid, but he struggles with living in a society that promotes "penis dominance."  Because Noura is an Arabic male, he needs to suppress his desires in order to become a patriarchal figure, which will ultimately prove him to be an adult.  The irony that I find is that while typically the men should be free to express their sexual desires, in Tunisia, they have to suppress it while the women are free to enjoy the pleasures of life.  It is also ironic that Tunisia, still an Arabic country, has equal rights for women unlike any other Arab country.  It seems that neopatriarchy really does cause dysfunction because the males have to suppress their desires to be seen as dominant, when Boughedir is trying to say that everyone should "follow your desire".  In the film, we see women wearing the typical headdress that Arabic women are supposed to wear, but they wear it loosely and they even take it off.  This speaks a lot about how women in Tunisia are more control of their bodies and sexual desires than in most places in the world.  Usually, especially in Arabic countries, the men are in control as the patriarch, but also in terms of their sexual desires.  In many Arabic countries, men have multiple wives, and can have sex with whomever they please.  It is very interesting because in Tunisia, it is the women who are the ultimate temptresses.  We see this in the scene when the two young boys follow the girls at the market.  The boys and all the men are drooling over the women, not knowing how to act, while the women, even some younger girls, yield seduction and have control over making men want them.  It seems that while patriarchy does exist in Tunisia, it really is not as powerful as people think.  While men do technically control their households, they are ultimately pawns of the seduction of women’s sexual desires.  I think that this says a lot about how influential desires can be.  I think that this movie shows that desires can be more powerful than any other influence like the police state or patriarchy, which is why it should not be oppressed.   

Richard Freund Lecture

While at first it didn’t seem that Richard Freund’s lecture on archeology would relate to our class or love and desire in general, this is actually wasn’t the case.  Freund started the lecture with the definition of love, passionate love, and desire.  Love is defined as an emotion of a strong affection and is personal.  Passionate love is defined as it is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love.  Desire is then defined as being like “love” and it is and intellectual and physical concept.  One thing that Freund mentioned is that it is very easy to take an artifact and come up with some ideas and concepts that it represents, but it is much harder to start with a concept such as love and desire and translate them into artifacts.  Something that stuck out to me was when Freund said that in ancient time, people were not supposed to make an image of anything because it was in the commandments and it would be a sin.  I find this interesting because people clearly went against this.  This then leads me to the question: was religion really followed in ancient times or did the religious figure make it appear that it was followed so that we (in current times) would think that it was?  Therefore, should we take religion so seriously if it really wasn’t in the ancient times?  All those questions aside, one thing I find ironic is that desire is so prevalent in ancient artifacts.  The little naked statue of the woman who was put in homes because she represented fertility was a very full and curvaceous woman who had to cover her hair in order to be modest.  I find it ironic that in today’s society it’s a complete and total flip in terms of what we consider to be desirable than what it was in ancient times.  Today a woman must be skinny, have beautiful long hair, and must cover up so that she does not get the reputation of being a “slut”.  Thus, Freund’s statement that “love and desire is in the eye of the beholder” holds very true.  Desire has completely changed from ancient times to now.

Lecture #1

     When I signed up for this course, I had expected to discuss erotic and romantic love as the title of the course is "Love and Desire".  Therefore, it had never really occurred to me and I did not expect to discuss the topic of friendship and how it ties into love.  When you think about it in depth, friendship is a type of love that is just as important as erotic and romantic love, even though it is less touched upon.  I'm sorry, I do not remember the lecturer's name, but the professor who gave us her opinions on love and friendship mentioned that Aristotle said that "friendship is most important to life".  This particular quote stuck out to me because it ties into some of the material that we have discussed in class.  The very first class we had in the beginning in September, we watched an episode of Sex and the City.  Sex and the City was a popular show in the late 1990's and early 2000's.  The show follows four adult women who live in New York City, and it shows how they del with love, sex and friendship.  While sex and love play a big role in that show, it is really friendship that makes that show so popular among young women.  Friendship is just as important if not more important for humans to have than romantic love.  When girls break up with their boyfriend that they were in love with and they're heartbroken, it is always their friends that they turn to.  The love of friendship tends to be more genuine and stabile because unlike romantic and sexual love, it does not take physical attraction into account; it's based on personality more than anything.  Another thing that the lecturer said was that "when we name an enemy, we name something like us."  This reminded me of young women once again.  Most of the time, when young women do not like someone, it is often because they are similar and people do not want to be friends with someone who is too similar to them.  Ultimately, I thought that this lecture was very interesting and different.  The topic is a unique angle, that does relate to this course in many ways.