This text is on the nature of love throughout history, its development in response to the changes in the economic base, and a vision of the future of love in the society of the soviet revolution.

I am also not the best at reading theory, and please i ask of you to criticize how i have understood things, be critical of my thoughts and responses.

By and large i agreed with this text. The laying out of how relations of love and sex have developed was interesting, made sense, and seemed in line with the other research and writings ive read. I will not be speaking so much about the things i agree with, but rather the things i do not agree with. To be clear, this text is 100 years old. I do not think it was inappropriate or wrong in its context or its time. However i think it has aspects that are applicable to my world today and aspects that are not.

The main issue i had with it was the subservience of love to the collective. I do not think that love-comradeship should not exist; it should be exalted and praised. But i do not wish to see a denial of base selfish lust. Many if not most people experience selfish lust. That feeling of “fuck i need someone inside me right fucking now” is a regular occurence, and is not oriented around who the “someone” is but around the “inside me” aspect of the lustful feelings. I do not think denying this in pursuit of the love of winged eros is appropriate, and i dont think the pursuit of winged eros is exclusive to this lust. There appear to be three criticisms of this “wingless eros”:

“Wingless Eros” contradicts the interests of the working class. In the first place it inevitably involves excesses and therefore physical exhaustion, which lower the resources of labour energy available to society.

This is not to my eyes a negative. I want a society organized around fulfilling the needs of all people, and that includes sex and love, both the base selfish sex, the slightly less base unselfish sex, and the “winged eros” of her essay. I do not want a society that chastises one for having too much sex and exhausting onesself. I do not want a society that shames a person for engaging in a weekend marathon of bondage and discipline and domination. I want a society that recognizes the desires of a person, and upholds them until such a point as they harm another. While sometimes the excesses can harm another (through for example being too tired to accurately do QC at the insulin factory) this is not at odds with excess as a whole; it is a restraint upon excess, not a denial of it. In other words, “i had a giant multi-day orgy this weekend” should be an acceptable reason to call out of work or use a personal day.

In the second place it impoverishes the soul, hindering the development and strengthening of inner bonds and positive emotions.

I fail to see how a debaucherous weekend with people one does not experience comradely love for impoverishes the soul and hinders the development of inner bonds and positive emotions. Truly, i do not know what specific inner bonds are referenced, and likewise what emotions qualify as positive. I do not know the soul she speaks of. I do not want to see subservience, i want to see primarily a fulfilling of everyones basic needs, and secondarily a fulfilling of our nonbasic needs. The former may neccessitate some subservience, but not pure and strict subservience. I wish to see us removed from bondage and freed from harm in all realms, including the sexual. Paradoxically, in some specific cases being freed from proverbial bondage may involve being placed into bondage.

And in the third place it usually rests on an inequality of rights in relationships between the sexes, on the dependence of the woman on the man and on male complacency and insensitivity, which undoubtedly hinder the development of comradely feelings.

It is here that she and i reach a point of strong agreement. The destruction of patriarchy and liberation from the gender system is neccessary to remove this set of social norms and interactions. Participating in society as ones full self (at any one point in time and to the degree that a person can know their full self (life is a continual discovery of self)) is a neccessity both for treating each other well and for developing that comradely love. How can i love a society that wishes to see me dead, that oppresses and negates my very existence, that enacts this negation through small words and grand physical violence?

Moreover, this criticism seems to be predicated on the property relations of bourgbrained society. The feudal and capitalist ownership of women and children, for example. By ensuring social safety – the practical, economic, and relational safety – to leave a harmful social interaction or environment characterized by ownership we make possible the destruction of these property relations.

Further, perhaps this is me being a bourgbrained selfish bitch, but

But in proclaiming the rights of “winged Eros,” the ideal of the working class at the same time subordinates this love to the more powerful emotion of love-duty to the collective.

I resent capitalism for removing me from my loved ones. I would similarly resent communism/the collective for removing me from my loved ones. She goes on to present this not as an imposition but as something that would arise naturally:

However great the love between two members of the collective, the ties binding the two persons to the collective will always take precedence, will be firmer, more complex and organic.

This does not sit well with me. My love for others is devotional. I do not experience it for all people, and i do not think i am capable of that. Perhaps this is due to the bourg society i have grown up and exist within, perhaps this is due to the limitlessness of love but the strict limits of time and energy; i can love society, but i cannot do so on an individual level - i cannot devote my mind to every individual member. I reserve that for those individuals who i am closest with. In this manner, society becomes itself an individual, or more accurately an ideal, in my relation and devotion to it (tho it is worth noting that i am not currently devoted to society, but rather to the destruction of society and the birth of a new one in its place).