Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions between Romantic Love and Sexual Desire

Although sexual desire and romantic love are often experienced in concert, they are fundamentally distinct sub jective experiences with distinct neurobiological substrates. The basis for these distinctions is the evolutionary origin of each type of experience. The processes underlying sexual desire evolved in the context of sexual mating, whereas the processes underlying romantic love?or pair bonding?originally evolved in the context of infant-caregiver attachment. Consequently, not only can humans experience these feelings separately, but an in dividual's sexual predisposition for the same sex, the other sex, or both sexes may not circumscribe his or her capacity to fall in love with partners of either gender. Also, the role of oxytocin in both love and desire may contribute to the widely observed phenomenon that women report experiencing greater inter connections between love and desire than do men. Because most research on the neurobiological substrates of sexual desire and affectional bonding has been conducted with animals, a key priority for future research is systematic investigation of the coordinated biological, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional processes that shape experiences of love and desire in humans. KEYWORDS?attachment; sexual desire; gender; sexual orienta tion; evolutionary theory It is a truism that romantic love and sexual desire are not the same thing, but one might be hard pressed to cite empirical evidence to this effect. In recent years, however, researchers in fields ranging from psychology to animal behavior to neurobiology have devoted in creasing attention to the experiences, physiological underpinnings, and potential evolutionary origins that distinguish love and desire. The results of these investigations suggest that romantic love and sexual desire are governed by functionally independent social-behav ioral systems that evolved for different reasons and that involve different neurochemical substrates. Furthermore, there are gender differences in the interrelationship between love and desire that may have both biological and cultural origins. This emerging body of theory and research has the potential to profoundly reshape the way we conceptualize human sexuality, gender, sexual orientation, and social bonding. INDEPENDENCE BETWEEN LOVE AND DESIRE Sexual desire typically denotes a need or drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities, whereas romantic love typi cally denotes the powerful feelings of emotional infatuation and at tachment between intimate partners. Furthermore, most researchers acknowledge a distinction between the earlier "passionate" stage of love, sometimes called "limerence" (Tennov, 1979), and the later developing "companionate" stage of love, called pair bonding or at tachment (Fisher, 1998; Hatfield, 1987). Although it may be easy to imagine sexual desire without romantic love, the notion of "pure," "platonic," or "nonsexual" romantic love is somewhat more con troversial. Yet empirical evidence indicates that sexual desire is not a prerequisite for romantic love, even in its earliest, passionate stages. Many men and women report having experienced romantic passion in the absence of sexual desire (Tennov, 1979), and even prepubertal children, who have not undergone the hormonal changes responsible for adult levels of sexual motivation, report intense romantic in fatuations (Hatfield, Schmitz, Cornelius, & Rapson, 1988). Furthermore, extensive cross-cultural and historical research shows that individuals often develop feelings of romantic love for partners of the "wrong" gender (i.e., heterosexuals fall in love with same gender partners and lesbian and gay individuals fall in love with other-gender partners, as reviewed in Diamond, 2003). Although some modern observers have argued that such relationships must involve hidden or suppressed sexual desires, the straightforward written reports of the participants themselves are not consistent with such a blanket characterization. Rather, it seems that individuals are capable of developing intense, enduring, preoccupying affections for one another regardless of either partner's sexual attractiveness or arousal. Address correspondence to Lisa M. Diamond, Department of Psy chology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530 East, Room 502, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0251; e-mail: [email protected]. 116 Copyright ? 2004 American Psychological Society Volume 13?Number 3