What is Love?
Podcast Transcript Season 1 Episode 16
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Speaker 1: Love is a type of thing that you kiss someone and you love them forever. You know when you’re in love when you see your match and that they love you.
Liz Goldwyn: Hello and welcome to The Sex Ed. I'm your host, Liz Goldwyn, founder of thesexed.com, your number one source for sex, health, and consciousness education. On this first season of The Sex Ed podcast. I've interviewed everyone from third-generation sex worker, Catherine Clay, to a specialist in sexual medicine, Dr. Joshua Gonzalez, to the queen of burlesque, Dita Von Teese. For our final episode of the season, I wanted to change up the format by asking 50 strangers about love. For no one is an expert in love. There's no degree you can achieve, no rational school of study to help make sense of it. No formula of its molecular compound. Science and medicine haven't even invented a pill to take to get over heartbreak. I want to thank the people whose voices you'll hear in this episode for sharing how they experience love. Some of them were recorded at the University of Southern California, when I was teaching a class, others on the streets of downtown LA, hence the background noise.
My first question was, what is love?
Speaker 37: It's undefinable. Nobody actually it knows what it is, but everybody's searching for it.
Speaker 3: I love all human beings. I love-- I wish that everyone loved human beings and this world would be a much better place. I love that. I love my wife, Laura. And that's love. It's a good thing.
Speaker 4: I think it's like in those awkward silences that you can have with someone that you do love. That you're just okay being with.
Speaker 5: I think it's a matter of knowing that that person is going to be, like, as there for you as you are for them. And that, like, the same way that you love yourself and you accept all of your flaws as a part of, like, your beauty. You do that with another person.
Speaker 6: Finding someone who embodies all the positive and negative qualities about yourself and reflects the best and the worst in yourself.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure it's real. I think it's a… social construct, maybe. At my age, divorced, you know. It's too elusive to be a tangible thing.
Speaker 8: In one of my classes last year. We studied Hindu philosophy and there's this kind of idea that love is this God that possesses two people and kind of, as this almost parasitic force, and not inherently negative. But that's an interesting thought to me.
Speaker 9: To me, love is acceptance; no barriers, no expectations, no boundaries. It's just acceptance. You love the person for who they are.
Liz Goldwyn: Does love hurt?
Speaker 10: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I don't think, even if there's love at first sight, maybe it hurts because it wasn't love at first sight for them or something. I think love is such a deep emotion that if we didn't experience pain with it we wouldn't know how great it was.
Speaker 11: It hurts cause it's so good it hurts. And it can be so bad that it hurts. Either way, in a good or a bad way, it hurts.
Speaker 12: I think that's part of love. Because if there is an emotion so profound and deep as love, then of course it hurts you. It's part of your being.
Speaker 13: Yes. I've been hurt by love. It's not a good feeling. It takes a long time to heal from it. But, yeah. I've been hurt.
Speaker 14: Yeah. Yes, so I avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 15: Yes.
Speaker 16: That was really quick. Yes, of course it can hurt. And I would say to people, "You know, if you don't feel loved. If you're going to put all your effort into it. That you'll never feel their whole desire."
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 16: That’s what really love is about. There's always a chance.
Speaker 15: Yeah. You have to feel the hurt. You have to feel the hurt to feel the joy. Some of the time.
Speaker 16: Yeah. You don't want it. You don't want the hurt.
Speaker 17: Some people will say that it has to hurt in order for it to be love. But, I don't know. I don't believe that.
Liz Goldwyn: Is love scary?
Speaker 18: Not at my age.
Speaker 19: Fuck, yeah. Yeah. It's super scary. Cause you just elevated your expectation of what you're going to gain from something. You build up this positive feeling, you know, and now you have the opportunity to lose it. It's really scary.
Speaker 20: Love comes with a promise. Maybe, I'm talking about marriage too. But for me, they're kind of intertwined that doesn't have to be like that for everybody. But in a relationship, it's a contract with the person you love and you kind of got to bring your A game. And, you know, living up to that can be scary. So, you want to make sure you do a good job.
Speaker 21: Intimacy can be scary. It can be hard too. Whether it be just physical intimacy or long-term intimacy that can always be intimidating for people to sort of engage in that. In something that's more long term. I think that does-- it scares me at least sometimes. I mean, I deal with in terms of, like, larger intimacy issues, or I think people-- everyone wants love. Then it's when you're faced with it head-to-head, one-on-one. It could be intimidating. Can be scary. Absolutely.
Speaker 22: I think as you get older and you become more into yourself and more settled that it does-- it's not as scary.
Speaker 23: When you love yourself. It's a different kind of love that you put out there to another person that you're falling in love with. I think when you're younger, it's like, "Bam, you're in love.” And then “bam, you're not in love," but as you get older and like you said, "Wiser" you love yourself. So the love that you would like to be reciprocated. Would be something that you are giving.
Speaker 25: It's a bit of a risk, you know, like gambling or something. You place your bet, put your heart in there and you could (laughs) bankrupt yourself, emotionally.
Speaker 26: It's scary to be vulnerable. Scary to get to know somebody new. Scary to expose yourself.
Speaker 27: The more you do it, the less scary it becomes. So, I think it is scary, but it can be less scary over time.
Speaker 28: Love scares me by… it doesn't scare me at all.
Liz Goldwyn: Have you ever been in love?
Speaker 29: Yes. Twice. I always thought I'd be in love three times. So I'm waiting for the third.
Speaker 30: Yes.
Speaker 31: I have to say yes. She's my wife. (Speaker 30 and 31 laugh)
Speaker 30: I think, I don't think I would've-
Speaker 31: No, yeah.
Speaker 30: We would've gotten this far if we weren't. And so I think, the four years leading up to us actually committing, like, in front of others and by law, I guess really. I don't know. I think we definitely knew at that point. What we felt and that it was mutual. It was reciprocated, but it was real.
Speaker 31: Yeah.
Speaker 30: It's real, right?
Speaker 31: Yeah.
Speaker 30: You don't have any doubts?
Speaker 31: No.
Speaker 30: Yeah, that's what I-
Speaker 31: Not at all. No fear.
Speaker 32: I thought so, but looking back now. It was just like co-dependency or, you know, lust. But when I talk to people who were in happy relationship to happy marriages and how they describe it, I've never felt that for someone. I've never felt that butterflies, can't live without them feeling for someone.
Speaker 33: I've said it to six people and I meant it every time.
Speaker 34: I think there's a difference between being in love and loving somebody most definitely. And being in love for me, takes a lot of trust… and honesty. So, but yeah, I've been in love. I miss it.
Speaker 35: I've been married twice, my second marriage. So I'm very much in love with my husband. I have a girlfriend that lives a couple hours North and I love her a lot. I just haven't been able to tell her the words, but I think about it all the time.
Speaker 36: I've definitely been in love with, like, idealized mental models of people. And I'm trying to get at falling in love with actually real people.
Speaker 37: I don't know. I think so, but I guess like my-- I don't know. Like, it's harder when it comes to queer, male body people finding that kind of intimacy. I mean, obviously sex is easy to come by. But, finding softness isn't something that's, like, openly encouraged. So, it's more a question of whether there were times I have found intimacy, whether it's shared mutually or if it's something, like, a romanticization or slash a crush. So it's always unclear in that regard. Could I ask you, like how you know, like if someone loves you back?
Speaker 38: I think, a younger me back in my twenties thought that love was about, like, sex. And then as you get older and become wiser, you realize that it has nothing to do, in my opinion, with sex. It has more to do with, you know, giving and taking and being good and kind, and, you know, respect. Love is definitely respect. So, we just celebrated our 24th year, January 2nd. So we've been together 24 years. We were married, legally, on our 20th anniversary in 2015.
Speaker 39: It's the only thing that matters. And I don't have enough of it. I have a wife, we're not always in love. But, I definitely felt a profound experience when I met her and we fell in love. And I still feel that little kernel of that is still there with her. It's not totally gone, thank God, like, but, it definitely dims. And then it explodes. And then it's down.
Speaker 40: I don't want to die alone. I have this fear of just being this cat lady and then dying. And then no one finds my body for two weeks. And then, like, my cat’s eaten my nose and ears. If there is such thing as the one, to connect with that person, that's the challenge then, right? So the one is out there. There's someone for everybody. How are you supposed to find that person? Do you find ‘em on fucking Tinder? That's what I'm doing. It's not working. But I'm trying. I haven't, like, even though I have no hope, I still try.
Speaker 41: I think love lasts forever, but circumstances and people and different things change. You either work through it, suffer through it, move on, you know. You do what you have to do and you still have the memories.
Speaker 42: For us. It's always thinking about being the one who gives a little bit more because eventually as time goes on, it turns itself around. (Laughter) When we were first married, he did everything. And now I was turning around and I'm helping him out a little bit more. We're giving-- I don't think --I could go on forever-- but I don't think... I think a lot in our era, a lot of kids started --kind of hippie era-- 50, 50, 50, 50. But I really think it's important that one person maybe try to do a little bit more than 50. And eventually, because of that, you recognize that love of someone giving a little bit more and then you just want to do it naturally. And it just works. And it works itself out to where it's, like, a hundred percent on both ends.
No one gave us a manual. We did the best we could and it worked. So far, it's worked. We have three beautiful children, three beautiful grandchildren, and we have each other 47 years.
Liz Goldwyn: What's the secret to staying in love for 47 years?
Speaker 43: I go back to the mutual respect and working at it. It doesn't come easy. You have to work at every day love to make it work long term.
Speaker 44: I've experienced love. I mean, I met my husband when I was in the fourth grade. And, actually when I saw him I said, "We were going to get married,” we were in the fourth grade, but we grew up together. We lived in the same neighborhood. We grew as friends and then we eventually got married, but we were friends. We laughed together. We cried together. Ups and downs. We couldn't disappoint each other. We just accepted each other for who we are. So we had a wonderful, loving, long-lasting relationship.
Wouldn't trade it for the world. And I don't think there's anyone I could ever meet that can compare to that. That love that-- I am sure I could be in love again, but that true essence of love, I think it’s once in a lifetime.
Liz Goldwyn: Does love transcend time then?
Speaker 44: Yes. Yes it does. I still love my husband. I still love the time that we had. I still love the experience that we shared. I still love the growth that we had together. I still love what he left me to cherish. I love the person that he helped me become. I love everything about our relationship. So yes, love transcends time. Yes.
Liz Goldwyn: Thank you so much.
Speaker 44: Thank you.
Speaker 45: Thank you very much.
Speaker 44: You're welcome. Good luck.
Liz Goldwyn: This episode wouldn't have been possible without the incredible people who took the time to respond to my questions. I hope you find something to relate to in their answers. I know I did. I went into this episode with four seemingly simple questions about love. But what I found was when it comes to unpacking love, my questions only scratch the surface and all the ones I want to ask. Does love last? Is there such a thing as true love? Is there someone for everyone on this planet? How do you know when you're in love? I'd love to hear what you think.
A huge thank you, to you, the listener, for tuning into the first season of The Sex Ed. Be sure to keep an eye out for season two, premiering later this year. In the meantime, you can read exclusive content on thesexed.com. Follow us on Instagram at thesexed. And listen to past episodes anywhere podcasts are streamed.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us. Wherever you listen to podcasts. The Sex Ed is hosted by me, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was recorded and edited by Jeremy Emory and line produced by Chloe Cassens. Louis Lasar made all of our music, including the track you're listening to right now. As always The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness.