Don't mean to fuss, but one of the most marvelous things I know is the immense capacity of people (as a whole) to fall in love with people with really major handicaps. I had a quadriplegic student who was extraordinarily intelligent, good looking, had no money from his injury and whom many of the girls liked immensely. I understand that many men with spinal chords can have erections and orgasms -- not that they know about it -- but for some men, the joy of sex is largely that of pleasing a partner, so despite the inconvenience some quadriplegics are capable of being a satisfactory partner. Many impotent men claim that pleasing a woman demands no erection. I have had students and friends who were sterile, emasculated, extremely disfigured, and obese who have developed loving relationships that seemed stronger than many of those between "normal." If a woman really love's a man for his intelligence, she could hardly do better than Stephen Hawking. I admit marrying Germaine Greer would be tough duty, but Eleanor Roosevelt needed terminal orthodonture -- though it was not a major handicap.
The key to love I think is in specifics. A woman conceivably could love a man too old, too sick, and too fat to be worth loving if he had offsetting virtues -- perhaps something as simple as loving her completely. For myself, personal appearance, health, working limbs are only preludes or limitations to love. Should any thing happen to my lover after we were in love, I swear it would matter not to me. If I fell in love with one who I had never met (as I have), and she turned out to be handicapped or disfigured it would not bother me at all.
One loves a person, not a batch of aptitudes or disabilities. Love alters not when it alteration finds. |
