feels that it is one's person, not merely one's body, that is the cause of the pleasure felt by one's partner. One feels,
in effect: ''Because I am what I am, I am able to cause her (or him) to feel the things she (or he) is feeling." Thus,
one sees one's own soul—and its value—in the emotions on the face of one's partner.
If sex involves an act of self-celebration—if, in sex, one desires the freedom to be spontaneous, to be emotionally
open and uninhibited, to assert one's right to pleasure and to flaunt one's pleasure in one's self—then the person one
most desires is the person with whom one feels freest to be oneself, the person whom one (consciously or
subconsciously) regards as one's proper psychological mirror, the person who reflects one's deepest view of oneself
and of life. That is the person who will allow one to experience optimally the things one wishes to experience in the
realm of sex.
Most people experience great difficulty in identifying the cause of their romantic-sexual choices, not only because
most people are poor introspectors, but also because the factors that bring about a (healthy or neurotic) romantic
attraction between two individuals are enormously complex. "A mutuality of mind and values" is a very wide
abstraction. What, more specifically, does it entail?
To answer that question, we must consider a concept that is basic to an understanding of romantic love: the concept
of "sense of life."
Romantic Affinity
A "sense of life" is the emotional form in which a person experiences his deepest view of existence and of his own
relationship to existence.
It is, in effect, the emotional corollary of a metaphysics—of a personal metaphysics—reflecting the subconsciously
integrated sum of a person's broadest and deepest (implicit) conclusions about the world, about life and about
himself.
The formation of a sense of life begins in early childhood, long before the child is able to think about the world and
himself in philosophical terms. The conscious philosophical convictions he acquires later may or may not be in
accord with his sense of life; his explicit, avowed philosophy may give articulate, conceptual expression to his
sense of life, may alter or modify it, or may be in