Chapter 11 May: Existential Psychology 337result, children learn to disassociate will from the blissful love they had previ-
ously enjoyed.
Our task, said May (1969b, 1990b), is to unite love and will. This task is
not easy, but it is possible. Neither blissful love nor self-serving will have a role
in the uniting of love and will. For the mature person, both love and will mean a
reaching out toward another person. Both involve care, both necessitate choice,
both imply action, and both require responsibility.
Forms of Love
May (1969b) identified four kinds of love in Western tradition—sex, eros, philia,
and agape.
Sex
Sex is a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some
other release of sexual tension. Although it has become cheapened in modern
Western societies, “it still remains the power of procreation, the drive which per-
petuates the race, the source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure
and his [or her] most pervasive anxiety” (May, 1969b, p. 38).
May believed that in ancient times sex was taken for granted, just as eating
and sleeping were taken for granted. In modern times, sex has become a problem.
First, during the Victorian period, Western societies generally denied sexual feel-
ings, and sex was not a topic of conversation in polite company. Then, during the
1920s, people reacted against this sexual suppression; sex suddenly came into the
open and much of Western society was preoccupied with it. May (1969b) pointed
out that society went from a period when having sex was fraught with guilt and
anxiety to a time when not having it brought about guilt and anxiety.
Eros
In the United States, sex is frequently confused with eros. Sex is a physiological need
that seeks gratification through the release of tension. Eros is a psychological desire
that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring union with a loved one. Eros
is making love; sex is manipulating organs. Eros is the wish to establish a lasting
union; sex is the desire to experience pleasure. Eros “takes wings from human imag-
ination and is forever transcending all techniques, giving the laugh to all the ‘how to’
books by gaily swinging into orbit above our mechanical rules” (May, 1969b, p. 74).
Eros is built on care and tenderness. It longs to establish an enduring union with
the other person, such that both partners experience delight and passion and both are
broadened and deepened by the experience. Because the human species could not
survive without desire for a lasting union, eros can be regarded as the salvation of sex.
Philia
Eros, the salvation of sex, is built on the foundation of philia, that is, an intimate
nonsexual friendship between two people. Philia cannot be rushed; it takes time to
grow, to develop, to sink its roots. Examples of philia would be the slowly evolv-
ing love between siblings or between lifelong friends. “Philia does not require that