Mistresses: "You don't get to choose who you love."
Mistresses is a US TV show which premiered on June 3, 2013, and is a remake of the British series of the same name. It's about four friends and their involvement in complex and of course, adulterous sexual relationships.
"You don't get to chose who you love." This is a quote by Yunjin Kim, one of the show's actresses, giving her opinion in an interview on her character. Shortly after reading this I saw another review on the show in which actress Jes Macallan also declares: "You can't help who you love."
This got me thinking about their point of view. They seem to be saying: "Yes, adultery isn't such a good thing, but it happens, a lot - so at the end of the day we have no control over it and should accept it. It's an understandable thing because we can't control who we fall in love with or who we end up having sex with so we are not to blame nor to be held responsible for any wrong-doing."
I disagree completely with this concept. First of all - love isn't a feeling - love is something you DO, it's an action. And I'm not talking about sex! True love does not have to be sexual love - we really should have different words for these terms in English, but unfortunately we do not. True love can be between family members, friends, etc. It's not about feelings or words - these can be false and deceptive. True love is proven by actions. True love is when you would give up your life if it means saving the life of the other person. It's not about what you can get out of the relationship, and it is regardless and independent of whether the other person returns the love, or is worthy of the love, or even likeable.
"Love" in an adulterous relationship is purely about what the lovers can get out of it for themselves - they get sex and attention and try to get whatever is missing in their marriage. If a woman falls in love with a married man, and truly loves him, she would not sleep with him no matter how strong her feelings were, because she would know that that would ultimately harm and hurt him in his relationship with his family.
So we can help who we love. But can we help who we fall in love with? Can we help who we are attracted to? Can we help who we have sex with? Are our feelings stronger than our ability to control ourselves, leading to us having illicit sex against our better judgement?
My argument is that we can help all of these things. To say that we cannot control who we fall in love with is to say that we cannot control our feelings - that our feelings control us, that we have no choice. It's to say that we are slaves, and our Feelings are our Master. We are puppets, and our Feelings are manipulated by the Puppeteer. We are robots, and our Feelings are our Programmer, making us do whatever they want us to do, not what we want to do. Is this the truth? Of course not! We have free choice - this is what makes us human. Yes, falling in love happens sometimes without any warnings and can hit us like an atomic bomb. But we can choose how we respond to those feelings of sexual attraction. We can choose to take a step back and analyse them with our mind - why do I feel this way? How did I get here? What do I want from this person? Why? Why am I attracted to them, really? Would this relationship be a good idea? Is this a person that I could spend the rest of my life with? If the person is already married, or you don't think it's a good idea to enter into this relationship, then you can make a choice. You can choose to stay away from that person, you can choose to not focus on your feelings for them. To try to change our feelings is ambitious, and onerous, but to say that it's not possible is to deny our free will. Having the choice to not be controlled by our feelings but to step back and analyse them with our minds and choose is an essential part of our humanity.
And yes of course you CAN choose not to have sex with someone, despite having extremely strong feelings for them. Will that make life boring? Possibly. But don't say you can't choose, because you can.
So make sure you exercise your mind and don't become a slave to your emotions.
"You don't get to chose who you love." This is a quote by Yunjin Kim, one of the show's actresses, giving her opinion in an interview on her character. Shortly after reading this I saw another review on the show in which actress Jes Macallan also declares: "You can't help who you love."
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| Yunjin Kim |
This got me thinking about their point of view. They seem to be saying: "Yes, adultery isn't such a good thing, but it happens, a lot - so at the end of the day we have no control over it and should accept it. It's an understandable thing because we can't control who we fall in love with or who we end up having sex with so we are not to blame nor to be held responsible for any wrong-doing."
I disagree completely with this concept. First of all - love isn't a feeling - love is something you DO, it's an action. And I'm not talking about sex! True love does not have to be sexual love - we really should have different words for these terms in English, but unfortunately we do not. True love can be between family members, friends, etc. It's not about feelings or words - these can be false and deceptive. True love is proven by actions. True love is when you would give up your life if it means saving the life of the other person. It's not about what you can get out of the relationship, and it is regardless and independent of whether the other person returns the love, or is worthy of the love, or even likeable.
"Love" in an adulterous relationship is purely about what the lovers can get out of it for themselves - they get sex and attention and try to get whatever is missing in their marriage. If a woman falls in love with a married man, and truly loves him, she would not sleep with him no matter how strong her feelings were, because she would know that that would ultimately harm and hurt him in his relationship with his family.
So we can help who we love. But can we help who we fall in love with? Can we help who we are attracted to? Can we help who we have sex with? Are our feelings stronger than our ability to control ourselves, leading to us having illicit sex against our better judgement?
My argument is that we can help all of these things. To say that we cannot control who we fall in love with is to say that we cannot control our feelings - that our feelings control us, that we have no choice. It's to say that we are slaves, and our Feelings are our Master. We are puppets, and our Feelings are manipulated by the Puppeteer. We are robots, and our Feelings are our Programmer, making us do whatever they want us to do, not what we want to do. Is this the truth? Of course not! We have free choice - this is what makes us human. Yes, falling in love happens sometimes without any warnings and can hit us like an atomic bomb. But we can choose how we respond to those feelings of sexual attraction. We can choose to take a step back and analyse them with our mind - why do I feel this way? How did I get here? What do I want from this person? Why? Why am I attracted to them, really? Would this relationship be a good idea? Is this a person that I could spend the rest of my life with? If the person is already married, or you don't think it's a good idea to enter into this relationship, then you can make a choice. You can choose to stay away from that person, you can choose to not focus on your feelings for them. To try to change our feelings is ambitious, and onerous, but to say that it's not possible is to deny our free will. Having the choice to not be controlled by our feelings but to step back and analyse them with our minds and choose is an essential part of our humanity.
And yes of course you CAN choose not to have sex with someone, despite having extremely strong feelings for them. Will that make life boring? Possibly. But don't say you can't choose, because you can.
So make sure you exercise your mind and don't become a slave to your emotions.
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