Beauty Inspires Love or Lust?

[Bakiryu]

Inside beauty is more beautiful than external. Phsical beauty is not truly beautiful.

[Lote-Tree]

Inside beauty is more beautiful than external. Phsical beauty is not truly beautiful.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #18
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

[Bakiryu]

I love Shakespeare.

[Scheherazade]

I love tea.

I love cheese, too, but not necessarily with my tea.

[Bakiryu]

who voted the last one?

[Lote-Tree]

I love tea.

Is that with or without lust or neither or you are blind to this love :-)

[Pensive]

I love tea.

I love cheese, too, but not necessarily with my tea.

They say tea with cheese brings double fun...of course one doesn't have to necessarily agree with that!

[_JadeRain_]

Inside beauty is more beautiful than external. Phsical beauty is not truly beautiful.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #18
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here's another:

Sonnet 130 - Shakespeare
My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lip's red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
In some perfumes there is more delight
Than the breath with which my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
Music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

[Lote-Tree]

Here's another:

Sonnet 130 - Shakespeare
My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lip's red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
In some perfumes there is more delight
Than the breath with which my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
Music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

LOL :-) Are we having The Battle of Sonnets? :-)

Take that!!!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

[SleepyWitch]

I also voted for the "I am blind" option.

I won't lie and say I don't notice physical beauty, because I do. But, I have always believed that ultimately outer beauty is defined by that which is within. For me, if somebody who is physically attractive is an awful human being, they are ugly and the only thing they inspire is revulsion.

I can only fall in love with somebody if I connect with them at a profound emotional level, for me, this is the key. That person's physical appearance means very little to me. Even if we are talking about pure, unadulterated lust, I still need to feel as though I can communicate with somebody beyond a few mono-syllabic grunts

I'm similar... usually when I first get to know someone, I don't notice whether they are beautiful or ugly... well of course there are "objective" standards of beauty, like the right number of eyes and ears, straight facial features (although I personally prefer the rugged type).
of course some actresses/actors are considered beautiful by lots of people, but when I only see them in a pic and don't know their voice, facial expressions, character etc, I just can't decide whether they are beautiful or not...

back to my first point, once I've gotten to known someone better (and I mean as a friend, not as in dating) I usually discover 'beautiful' things about them. when I like a person, I usually find them beautiful, even if they are not super-models.
so in my case it's the other way round "love inspires beauty"

well, I must confess I can be quite look-ist in this respect. there are some people I will never find beautiful.. e.g. this extremely fat woman I know... but i think the reason i don't find her beautiful isn't because she's fat but because i don't like her character. maybe if i liked her character I wouldn't notice how fat and ugly she is...

as for lust... can there be love without lust? (I mean between men and women/between gay man+man or woman+woman; not love between parents and children, friends etc)
what about the opposite?
can there be lust without love?
i know, some people seem to be able to feel lust without love, but personally, whenever I fancied someone, it didn't take long for emotions to set in... I've never managed to feel lust for someone without at least liking them

[ulvmane]

i think that beuty inspires lust, lust can potentialy inspire love, and then when the beuty is gone so is the lust and all that leaves is love...in a perfect world anyway LOL

[Virgil]

i think that beuty inspires lust, lust can potentialy inspire love, and then when the beuty is gone so is the lust and all that leaves is love...in a perfect world anyway LOL

Or when the beauty and lust are gone, then love goes too is another way to look at it.

[ulvmane]

Or when the beauty and lust are gone, then love goes too is another way to look at it.

aye, this is why i said "in a perfect world" LOL i think you're alot closer to the truth in modern society LOL

[Redzeppelin]

Beauty inspires desire - the desire to experience that beauty; lust is the desire to possess that beauty for one's self and to use that beauty to satisfy said desire; love is the choice to honor that beauty by enjoying it for what it is. Love transcends beauty; lust feeds on it.

[Turk]

Yeah.

In the story of Leyla and Mecnun (Laila and Majnun) there's this part;

Sultan hears about Mecnun's (Mecnun means "Mad, Crazy", original name of him is Imr-ul Kays, but then because of intense of his love people starts to see him as "mad") and takes him to his palace, and asks about his problem. When he hear Leyla's love made Mecnun semi-crazy he orders his men to bring Leyla to palace. When soldiers brought her to palace; Sultan disappionted and asked Mecnun;

"Is this the girl that her love made you Mecnun? I can't see anything special at her."

And Mecnun answered;

"My lord, you don't see her with eyes of Mecnun".