PLATONIC LOVE

Recently I've been stumbling upon the same word for the last couple of two days and it made me think further of how it would contribute to my understanding of love and relationship. "PLATONIC", to some of you might think that this terminology is unfamiliar. Platonic derives from the word "Plato" which literally refers to the famous Greek philosopher who developed his Idealism by engaging to Socrates, his teacher.


Plato had his own identity in defining relationship especially for the sacred term of love. Platonic love often transcends physical desire and tending toward the purely spiritual or ideal, theoretically, which literally means a relationship which is free from physical desires. Plato did not invent the term or the concept that bears his name, but according to his own perspective he had foreseen sexual desires between two unions as potential obstacles towards reaching a higher level of love. So as theories were developed by his followers, the term "platonic love" came to be used for verbalizing a spiritual and emotional love between persons of opposite sexes.

But the question is, does platonic love exist or is it just a platonic nonsense?
Platonic love seemed to be rarely spotted among most monogamous relationship in the more sophisticated and complicated modern world nowadays where people tend to be more physically affectionate to overcome stress than years before.

According to Jhon Grays book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”, he noticed that men and women act upon hormones, which are working against people achieving monogamy in a stressful world.

Oxytocin is best known for its anti stress roles; helps relax and reduce blood pressure and cortisol levels. Oxytocin increases pain thresholds, has anti anxiety effects, and stimulates various types of positive social interaction. In addition, it also promotes growth and healing. The release of Oxytocine is stimulated by ingestion of food, olfaction, as well as by certain types of sound and light. In relationship, positive interaction involving physical interactions and psychological support are also recognized as purely a psychological mechanisms which can trigger the release of "anti stress hormone for female"

So in other hand long-term relationships generate Oxytocin, which is also defined as the "love hormone", encourages bonding between couples and helps to lower female stress levels. But that advantage bear on for the opposite counterpart. "With oxytocin and men, as the women's stress level goes down when she gets Oxytocin from a loving monogamous relationship, the man's Testosterone level goes down, so therefore men become more stressed. To cope with this inclination or to literally to stimulate the production of Testosterone level, a man usually seeks out risky behavior such as physical actions, competition, or sexual interactions to push it back up again.

So, if  males and females are able to control the mind followed by their physical desire there will still be possibilities for platonic love to occur in a relationship but yes it would need a great effort to do so. So it comes back again to ourselves and our own decisions that we make.

JustRandomThoughtsOf Nadya Victoryka

reference:
http://startpagina.paginablog.nl/startpagina/2011/05/What_drives_Alpha_males_to_keep_on_having_affairs_United_States_.html
http://www.raysahelian.com/oxytocin.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Platonic