Love and Sex: Exploring the Symbiotic Relationship

Running head: LOVE AND SEX
LOVE AND SEX
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LOVE AND SEX
Introduction
This particular essay seeks to show the symbiotic relationship between love and sex from
a philosophical perspective. In this age sexuality which is purely a physical urge and love which
is more emotional and platonic in nature have become synonymous because of sex being easily
available at the easiest behest. Theories of love provide a better understanding of it and shall be
discussed in the following sections. Given the level of complexity that has pervaded the lives of
the people that the personal relationships of the people are being affected by it and that is being
manifested in the spousal relationships. The contemporary period provides relatively more
leverage to the people to explore their instincts and as a result of it people are exploring their
sexuality and their romantic inclinations which were otherwise considered to be perversion and
deviation in the bygone era. These deviations and paradigmatic shifts have been explained using
the philosophical means to arrive at theories of love.
In this essay a film by the name ‘Her’ shall be analyzed against theories of love in the
following sections to show the relationship between love and sex. The thesis statement for this
particular essay shall be explain the theory of love that is apt for the chosen film and the reason
behind considering the theory of love as apt for explaining the expressing the form of love
expressed in the film shall also be provided.
Explanation of the Loving Relationship between the characters in the film
The film ‘Her’ revolves around the love story of a man who has been divorced by his
wife with a robotic, artificial intelligence powered personal assistant designed to impersonate a
biological woman from the visual and the audible angle. The love between the male protagonist

2LOVE AND SEX
Theodore and the artificial intelligence powered personal assistant named Samantha is the central
aspect of love in the film, which tends to provide the meaning of love the film had wanted to
convey ("Her - (HD) Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams", 2019).
The kind of love that has been shown in the film is the conventional form of love which
human beings desire, monogamous and the desire for a conjugal and emotional with one person
throughout one’s life. The male protagonist Theodore had been unable to find that one woman
in his life, hence he had sought to create a Artificial Intelligence powered personal assistant who
personified a female figure with a female voice named as Samantha. The relationship between
the human and robot impersonating a female figure was indeed a loving one as the male
protagonist Theodore had tended to develop insecurities at the thought of getting estranged from
Samantha. The platonic and emotional quotient of the love affair had been more important than
the physical ones (Sternberg, 2018).
Apart from that the relationship between Samantha and Theodore tends to convey that the
unfathomable human expectations for perfection in a partner and the lack of it leading to the
falling apart of the relationship shows that the element of compromise is missing in human
beings in the contemporary times. The relationship between Theodore and Samantha went about
smoothly as there was no scope for compromise in the relationship and things went smoothly
between them without any skirmishes. Had there been skirmishes, then their relationship too
would have fallen apart, like Theodore’s relationship with his wife ended up in divorce.
However, the film ends on a positive note with Theodore apologizing to his wife after the
departure of Samantha to the world of aliens (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2018).
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