In Praise of Asymmetry in Love

[WavesInEternity]

Critics of AMSC often point to the fact that the feelings of the two partners are necessarily quite different, as if this were inherently a significant issue... but what would be falling in love if one's feelings were perfectly identical to those of one's partner? At the extreme, this could only exist in self-love, as two minds are never exactly the same. In fact, if two different people strongly desire each other, they logically must have different desires.

All heterosexual romance inevitably involves a substantial asymmetry of desires: male sexual desire is different from female sexual desire, and there's even more variation to be found from one individual to another than between the two genders.

The fact that two partners have different desires toward each other should not be viewed as an obstacle to a romantic relationship. Asymmetric desires can nonetheless be highly compatible, and there is something profoundly satisfying, if not transcendentally positive, in the harmonious mingling of opposites: male and female, younger and older, dominant and submissive, sadist and masochist...

I would argue that the asymmetry of desires involved in AMSC is a strength of such relationships rather than a weakness, much like for dominance and submission in BDSM. Two dominant or two submissive partners with perfectly identical desires could never have a romantic relationship. This shouldn't be too hard to understand for vanilla people, as two men who are both gynephilic (attracted to women) can't be in a relationship, either.

It may be argued that there are benefits to homosexual love, and the data does seem to suggest that homosexual partners tend to feel more satisfied by their sexual encounters, especially lesbians. However, even homosexuals frequently make some distinctions such as between "top" and "bottom". Nobody would argue that the paragon of a perfect romance is between two very similar gay "bear" men or two "butch" lesbians! In any case, for those of us who are strictly heterosexual, this is irrelevant.

[Fragment]

Totally agreed, yet as I said in my interview with gone_fishinq, I don't think anyone that hasn't experienced it, especially in the adult-minor context can even really understand it.

To many of them, children are there to be controlled and groomed into "proper adults", so it means that the sexual desire is one of control and grooming, too.

But the beauty of asymmetry in a teacher-student relationship is amplified and even more beautiful in a BL-YF (or GL-YF) relationship.

[WavesInEternity]

Totally agreed, yet as I said in my interview with gone_fishinq, I don't think anyone that hasn't experienced it, especially in the adult-minor context can even really understand it.

To many of them, children are there to be controlled and groomed into "proper adults", so it means that the sexual desire is one of control and grooming, too.

It's very similar to the situation with dominance & submission in BDSM. Many people who don't practice it believe it's about the dominant partner controlling and having power over the submissive partner. Indeed, perhaps they think that way because they generally view other people through the lens of power and control, and would themselves take advantage of a person's submissiveness if they could.

Of course, boundaries can sometimes be difficult to respect perfectly for inexperienced practitioners (I made a few mistakes myself), but no-one engaging in BDSM ever intends or desires to overstep their partner's boundaries, or take advantage of them.

Even books like Fifty Shades of Grey fall into many common pitfalls—such as the psychologization (and implicit pathologization) of kink and the notion that the dominant partner really wants to have control over the submissive partner's life—leading the BDSM community to the conclusion that the author likely has little real-life experience with BDSM.