Erich Fromm. The art of love (№ 418368)

Sexual desire requires fusion, but physical attraction is based not only on the desire to get rid of painful tension. Sexual desire can be inspired not only by love, but also by anxiety and loneliness, a desire to conquer and be subdued, vanity, the need to hurt and even humiliate. It turns out that sexual desire is triggered or easily merged with any other strong emotion, only one of which is love. Due to the fact that sexual desire in the understanding of most people is connected with the idea of love, they easily fall into the delusion that they love each other when they are physically attracted to each other. When the desire for sexual confusion is caused by love, then physical intimacy is devoid of greed, the need to conquer or be subdued, but full of tenderness. If the desire for physical union is not motivated by love, if erotic love is not yet complemented by brotherly love, this will never lead to a unity that would be more than an orgiastic transitory union. Sexual attraction creates for a brief moment the illusion of unity, but without love, this unity leaves strangers as strangers to each other as they were before.