There was this discussion I had the unfortunate luck of being involved in some ten years ago at a palm wine joint somewhere in Abeokuta. The issue was the definition of love. Various views ranging from the realistic, the sublime, the controversial, to the absurd were aired. I lapped them all up. Then it was my turn to contribute. Before that day, I had had my fair share of the forbidden fruit. Is sex a forbidden fruit? If we are not being sentimental or outright hypocritical, sex is the sweetest thing on earth. Its sweetness is incomparable. It is the only thing that does not touch your palate yet you relish its succulence in the very core of your oral cavity, oral cavity? Its sweetness overwhelms and subjugates your entire system. Its tenderness and intimacy is astounding. Even as I pound these words I can still feel the warm glow in my crotch as I erupted in my lover’s pot of honey yesternight; and her orgasmic moan is still a lingering pleasure.

So does love have any relation with sex? What I mean is this—when people say ‘I love you’ what are the factors they consider?

Yes, I understand that people can say the three-letter word to confirm different feelings. For instance one can love a painting, music, a book or a genre, drink and the likes. One can also love a person for what he does. But my concern here is the kind of love between say Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton, culminating in their wedding; the kind of feelings between a married couple or people with amorous relationship.

I was once in a relationship that lasted for six years. When the togetherness was about three years old, the lady moved into my apartment; and for about three months we were on trial marriage. She later moved back to her rented apartment. On the dot of the sixth year of our relationship, we fell apart on principle—she wanted me to be a church going Christian; I wanted her to start a supplementary business. That was some five years ago. In spite of our disagreement, I still have deep feelings for this woman; very intense feelings. Is that love? If it is not love can we call it infatuation? The text she sent me last week when she reminded me of my birthday was a confirmatory statement; it practically asserted my feelings towards her; the feelings I have not told her about since we parted.

Is love transferable? Does it wane with time? Is it resuscitatable?

Honestly, I had expressed the words to quite a number of women in my existence and it just occurred to me that each time I had said the words; I merely reacted primarily to the sexual effects, the feelings after a sexual encounter. Does it mean that, an engaged Christian couple who, because of their observance of the Christian doctrine refrained from sex before being wedded may expressed love from a different dimension to mine? Does love manifest differently in different people? Does it emanate from common sources? What is the definition or description of love?

What about love and marriage? Must one be in love before getting married or love can develop after marriage? We can resolve this second puzzle (love and marriage) after we must have amicable resolved the definition of love. Or is it one of the ingredients for cooking the concoction called love?  I am confused.