Eros refers to the state of "being in love," the sort of love lovers are said to be "in." It is not equivalent simply to sexual desire, because the latter can and does exist without love.

Sexual desire wants sex; eros wants the beloved. If this were not part of experience, we would think it odd that what can be desired is a person, and not the pleasure, the joy, or the service the person can give. But this is what eros wants. Eros is not interested in what the person can give. It wants the person himself/herself.

Within eros , sexual desire changes. All our other desires are facts about ourselves, i.e. we experience hunger and thirst, and so on. In eros , desire becomes a mode of perception, a way of "knowing," as the Bible put it.

Adam knew Eve, when they came together. Eros is also entirely a mode of expression. It's something that feels objective, something outside ourselves. This is why at its best it doesn't think about pleasure (the "my" pleasure of the one feeling it) except as a by-product. The focus is always the other, the beloved.

Eros abolishes the distinction between giving and receiving - which other loves strive after, and only infrequently obtain. Some people who serve others selflessly ( agape ), may not know how to receive. They give and are comfortable only in giving.

A developed friendship may experience mutuality of giving and receiving, but in eros mutuality is the very nature of the expression. The lover gives and in giving receives; the beloved receives and in receiving gives.

For Christians mutuality is what describes the love within the Trinity. Trinitarian relations are relations of complete self-giving. All that the Father has is the Son's and vice versa.

The Father keeps nothing for Himself, but gives all to the Son, and the latter does the same. The Spirit is the fruit of this mutuality - it is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. It is this ideal that parents and children - the family - are said to represent, and one can see how it fits.

The sexual component in eros involves the body, but ideally not without elements of play and laughter. One of the prevailing misconceptions in attitudes to sex is that people think that the opposite of pornographic is serious.

We should not attempt to find an absolute in the flesh, and one way of keeping our perspective in the matter is to surround the act of love with laughter and play.

Eros at its height not only satisfies but also creates longing. In eros the body mediates love and renders it at the same time something attainable only in fleeting moments -- at the height of union. Two long deeply to be one, but no matter how intense the longing and how total the desire, they inevitably return to being two.

Another relevant element here about Eros is that it doesn't really aim at happiness. This sounds like a contradiction, but experience clarifies. It's useless, we know, to separate lovers by telling them that their marriage will be unhappy. This is not because they will not believe you. Even if they do, it often makes no difference.

It is the very mark of eros to want to share unhappiness with the loved one than to be happy on any other terms. Even when the lovers are shown beyond any reasonable doubt that what they have cannot realistically last, or that they will not be happy for long, or that it's bound to end badly, eros never hesitates to say: "Better this than parting. Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break, provided they break together."

It is precisely in this grandeur that the seeds of danger are concealed. The danger in erotic love is not the passion, as is often thought, but the idolizing of love itself. We must not deny the god-like quality in eros. But if eros is honoured without reservation, and obeyed unconditionally, it becomes demonic.

The danger is not that lovers may idolize one another, but that they may idolize love itself. When lovers say of some blameworthy act: "Love made me do it," the admission assumes a certain tone. Quite unlike saying: "I did it because I was angry" or "I did it because I was frightened."

The lover puts forward as an excuse something that he or she feels needs no excusing. A temptation speaks as if it were a duty; a betrayal is referred to as unavoidable necessity.

All sorts of actions that persons would not have ordinarily dared, are sanctioned.

"It's because of love that I neglected my children." "It's because of love that I cheated on my partner, or my friend." The lover may even feel that he or she has given all to love because they have given their conscience.

And yet the eros that is served in this unconditional way is also something notoriously fickle. Eros is ever quick to boast of permanence.

"I will always be true" is its standard protestation. We should not regard this as hypocritical. Eros means it sincerely - but it's a delusion from which eros cannot cure itself.

In a sense eros speaks truly when it speaks of always being true. It must speak like that. No love worthy of the name ever says "I will be true for a year." But such love always promises what by itself it cannot perform.

It needs to be regulated by principles other than itself, if it is to fulfill its promise. Eros - and affection and friendship - all require the input of agape .