Relationships based on lust
Common Signs and How to Tell the Difference
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Save Article IconA bookmarkShare iconAn curved arrow pointing right.This article was medically reviewed by Rosara Torrisi, LCSW, CST, MSSW, MEd, PhD, a certified sex therapist at the Long Island Institute of Sex Therapy.
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Lust is often one part of being in love. Oliver Rossi/Getty Images- The main difference between lust and love is that lust is purely sexual attraction while love is both passionate and compassionate.
- Signs of lust include spending most of your time with a partner being physically intimate, having little interest in their life outside the bedroom, and having different values.
- Signs of love include being emotionally vulnerable, looking forward to meeting their friends and family, and feeling secure in the relationship.
If you have butterflies in your stomach, feel giddy when you see them and daydream about your life together, you might be in love. Or is it lust? At the beginning of a relationship, it can be hard to tell the difference between the two.
Understanding the difference between lust and love
Lust and love are often thought of as two distinct feelings, but anthropologists theorize they exist on a spectrum that can be broken down into three categories:
- Lust: The craving for sexual satisfaction that drives humans to seek out sex partners.
Lust is driven by a hormonal desire for sexual gratification. - Attraction: Also called passionate love, attraction is associated with feelings of excitement, cravings for emotional connection, and intrusive thinking about the beloved. It involves the brain's reward center and can imitate the feel of drug addiction.
- Attachment: Also called companionate love, attachment is characterized by feelings of calm, emotional union, and security. This mostly comes into play in long-term relationships including friendships, families, and committed romantic partnerships.
"The most commonly understood distinction between lust and love is that lust is purely physical and sexual, whereas love includes care for someone well behind their function as a source of yearning and sexual gratification," says Alexandra Stockwell, MD, a Relationship and Intimacy Expert at Alexandra Stockwell Coaching and Consulting.
While the categories can overlap, different hormones and brain chemicals are implicated in each stage.
Here's how you can recognize the signs of lust vs. love.
Signs of love
Love can be divided into two spheres — passionate and companionate.
Passionate love, also referred to as attraction or infatuation, is defined as a state of intense desire to be with another person. Emotional arousal and sexual passion are prominent features of passionate love, and people experiencing this type of love are usually distressed when their relationship goes awry.
When a person feels attraction towards another person or thing, the brain produces "feel good" chemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine that affect the same pathways associated with drug consumption and addictive behavior. This phenomenon explains the obsessive, euphoric behavior often seen in the early stages of romantic relationships.
Companionate love is characterized by strong feelings of intimacy, affection, and commitment to another person. It's often slow to develop and can be seen in close friendships and long-term romantic partners.
Companionate love involves the brain chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin which are associated with pair-bonding, like in the relationship between mother and child.
What the research says: A small 2014 study found oxytocin was significantly higher in new couples compared to single people. The elevated oxytocin levels remained during a 6-month follow up, and couples with higher oxytocin levels at the beginning of their relationship were more likely to stay together.
According to Stockwell, signs you may be in love include:
- You think of interesting things to tell one another.
- You look forward to meeting friends and family.
- You share vulnerable, tender things like challenges you are facing.
- You know that if you live in different cities for a few months it will be okay.
"Love feels like security, respect, and admiration and typically includes a sense of safety and commitment within a partnership," Neidich says.
In addition, Stockwell says both types of love can result in physical symptoms like sweaty palms, genital swelling or secretions, and the feeling of butterflies in your stomach — but lust can also cause these physical symptoms.
Signs of lust
"Lust is purely sexual attraction which is often accompanied by physical arousal. Lust occurs both within loving relationships and external," says Haley Neidich, LCSW, a psychotherapist and relationship expert at Haley Neidich Consulting. "Lust is a natural human occurrence. Lust is not always something we act on, it is a sense of sexual interest."
According to Stockwell, you might be experiencing lust if:
- When you think of the person, your thoughts immediately go to what your bodies do for one another.
- When you think of the person you start smiling, feeling flushed, have sensations of excitement, and being turned on.
- As soon as you see one another you want to kiss.
- You don't necessarily have much in common, but when you are touching it really doesn't matter.
Lust is an intense feeling that dominates our thoughts and can drive us to do things against our better judgment in order to satisfy longing, Stockwell says. Feelings of lust are controlled by the brain's hypothalamus, which stimulates the production of sex hormones testosterone and estrogen.
Can lust become love?
Relationship experts agree lust can turn into love — but warn that feeling lust does not guarantee an eventual loving relationship.
"Sometimes lust can lead to love and is often experienced within a loving relationship. However, the presence of lust speaks to absolutely nothing about partners compatibility long-term," Neidich says.
The blinding nature of lust means partners can miss potential "red flags" like dishonesty or selfishness, and have trouble determining if a sexual partner is a good fit for a serious relationship, according to Neidich.
Recognizing the difference between hormone-driven lust and real love can help you determine if there's more to your relationship than just sex. According to Stockwell, your relationship might be limited to lust if:
- You spend most of your time being physically intimate with one another, and when you do anything else it's not engaging.
- They aren't interested in getting to know you beyond the bedroom.
- They are unwilling to make plans for the future.
- It often feels like you have different values.
Insider's takeaway
Love and lust are exhilarating emotions, but it's important to be able to distinguish between the two when navigating relationships.
"New love can feel intoxicating and exciting when a couple is first falling in love and imagining their life together. However, long term love that continues to feel "addicting" is actually quite concerning." Stockwell says.
"That feeling of 'addiction' is often a major red flag that one or both partners may have a co-dependent attachment style which can lead to unhealthy partnerships."
- 7 signs of a toxic relationship and how to fix it, according to therapists
- Popular types of couples therapy and what to know when choosing a therapist
- What to expect at your first couples therapy session and the 4 relationship skills it can teach you
- How often couples should have sex, according to 3 sex therapists
- 5 health benefits of sex — and how much sex is healthy
Lia Tabackman
Lia Tabackman is a freelance journalist covering health and science topics for Insider.
com. She can be found on Twitter @LiaTabackman.
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Lust vs. Love: 8 Ways To Tell The Difference Between Them
Lust is an intense sexual attraction to another person. At its best, lust can be the glue that draws us to a partner and allows for deep physical connection. At its worst, lust is fueled by idealization and projection of what we want to see rather than the reality of the person and situation. Additionally, it is a wild and dangerous misconception that ongoing lust is the expectation for a long-term relationship.
Love is a bit more complex. One of the most popular subjects in literature and the arts, love in all its delights and sufferings has often appeared a mystery, defined in an infinite number of ways throughout human history. From an attachment perspective, love is a basic human need that keeps us bonded to the people who matter most. A secure, loving attachment with a romantic partner involves a deep affection, trust, and acceptance of a person, flaws and all.
It is no surprise people have a difficult time discerning between love and lust given that the two phenomena activate similar neural pathways1 in the brain that are involved in view of the self, goal-directed behavior, happiness, reward, and addiction. Love and lust, however, are not identical and can appear in any combination, with or without the other, to varying degrees, and even fluctuate between the two states over time.
RELATED: Infatuation vs. Love: 19 Differences + Signs Of Each
While there are no rules when it comes to love, here are some helpful distinctions to consider if you are worried that the relationship is simply based on lust and not sustainable for a long-term relationship:
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1.
Why are you interested in the relationship?
Lust alone is interest only in the partner sexually. Love is interest in getting to know the person over time.
2.
Are you open to the hard work?
Lust attempts to keep the relationship on an ideal level. Love expands to having difficult conversations and exploring painful emotions.
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3.
How do you feel about the person's flaws?
Lust loses interest when you discover a person's flaws. Love accepts a person's positive and negative qualities.
4.
Does the relationship get better over time?
Lust is about immediate gratification. Love develops trust and commitment over a long period of time.
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5.
Where is the thrill coming from?
Lust enjoys the fantasy and excitement of the interaction. Love feels risky and vulnerable because it involves opening yourself up and letting yourself be known.
6.
How secure do you feel in the relationship?
Lust can be impulsive and desperate. Love tends to be steady and secure.
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7.
Do you feel "obsessed"?
Lust is a high that can feel like an addiction and consume all your mental space; it's closely linked with infatuation. Love holds a more balanced perspective and allows for the ability to maintain a balanced life.
8.
Is there longevity?
Lust dissipates over time. Love persists.
Our culture spins a narrative that romantic love starts with a strong physical attraction (lust), but the process of falling in love is usually more complicated and involves a negotiation of many factors including physical appearance, intelligence, similarity, and resources.
Some people experience an instant sexual attraction while others feel a strong emotional bond that gradually develops into romantic attraction.
Regardless of how your love develops, here's a quick guideline to help you sort out your romantic stage. Biological anthropologist and well-known relationships researcher Helen Fisher, Ph.D., has studied romantic love and outlined three key stages humans move through in romantic love:
1.
Lust
In lust we are intensely sexually attracted to another person, causing our hormones to rage. Testosterone and estrogen are supercharged, and we're ready to get it on. Signs you're in the lust phase:
- You feel intensely driven to tear the other person's clothes off.
- You desire sexual gratification from this person.
2.
Attraction
You'll know you've arrived in this phase when you feel like your world has been transformed by another person, and they've taken on a new level of importance in your life.
All you want to do is spend time with them. Attraction is defined by changing levels of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. Norepinephrine energizes you and can suppress your appetite and need for sleep. Increased dopamine leads to goal-directed behavior, and depleted serotonin is associated with obsessive thinking. Signs you're in the attraction phase:
- You can't think straight because you're fixated on your partner.
- You want to be close to your partner all the time.
- Your friends are asking where you've been.
- You're not sleeping well.
- You're rarely hungry.
- You get butterflies in your stomach when you're near your partner.
3.
Attachment
This is the phase of commitment and growth. You know you're here when the tidal wave of emotion has calmed, and life feels more normal again, yet somehow better. The stability and emotional trust you've created make you feel safer to face life's challenges.
Vasopressin (a hormone associated with monogamy) and oxytocin (the "cuddle" hormone associated with mating and mother-infant bonding) are in high gear. Being in this stage doesn't mean sex and excitement is over, but you'll have to be more intentional in maintaining desire and intimacy. Signs you're in the attachment phase:
- You feel a sense of calm and contentment.
- You hold your partner in mind (but not all the time).
- You're focused on developing and growing with your partner.
- You easily make eye contact with them.
- You're able to openly express your needs and anxieties.
Reflecting on whether a relationship is love or lust only goes so far. To get to the heart of the matter, think about why you are asking the question.
Stepping into any romantic or sexually charged experience with another person is a vulnerable act. When we step into this unknown place of romantic attraction, we can easily find ourselves in a sea of overwhelming feelings that can drive us to seek a sense of safety and control.
Before we ask the question, "Is it love or lust?" it might be more helpful to ask which anxiety is making you ask this question in the first place. Are you wanting a committed relationship and worried it won't develop in that direction? Are you worried you're staying in a relationship because of a strong physical connection? Are you having a sexy fling that's suddenly making you think you might want more?
In love and lust, there are no norms, no shoulds, no right way. You can fall in love after a single passionate night and end up married with three kids. You can be friends with someone for years and with a single touch or change of perspective, find yourself head over heels. You can have a year of steamy casual sex with someone and never fall in love. You can love someone you're not sexually attracted to anymore. You can find yourself feeling dead inside after years with a partner and have passion reawakened by touching your partner in a new way of seeing how desirable they are in the eyes of another.
All of the above and everything in between is possible.
If you're asking if it's love or lust, you might really be asking how much you should invest in a relationship. Instead of trying to define the relationship and place it in a box as love or lust, check in with yourself about how the other person makes you feel. Do you trust them? Do you feel free to be yourself with them? How aligned are your values and dreams for the future? Maybe instead of asking, "Is it love or lust?" ask, "How am I experiencing myself with this person, and what does that tell me about what I'm wanting or needing?"
RELATED: What Does True Love Feel Like? 10 Feelings You Get When You're In Love
If you're struggling deciding whether you're experiencing lust or love, you're not alone. The two terms are normal stages of a relationship.
Just remember to take your time and really invest in getting to know the person you're with—flaws and all.
10 Signs You Feel Lust, Not Love - HEROINE
Passion flares up quickly, but burns out just as quickly.
If you've been dating a guy for a while and you feel that your spark has gone out, or that your relationship doesn't look like you imagined it, then it may not have been a relationship in the beginning, and all that is between you is a passion that won't last forever.
To help you sort out your feelings, we have selected 10 signs that you are only physically attracted to your partner, and that there is no smell of love here. What to do with it, decide for yourself: leave and look for a new relationship, or give your passion a chance to grow into something more.
1. Your relationship revolves around sex
If your relationship with your partner is built only on physical desire, and not on sincere feelings, then the only motivation for you to be together is sex and everything connected with it. This means that all the cute things that you do for each other actually lead to bed, and not to strengthening an emotional connection. Love is different. Loving people appreciate any time they spend together, and appreciate everything that a partner wants to share, even if at first glance it is something boring and mundane.
2. Your feelings are based on appearance
If you experience lust, not love, then the most important thing for you will be external attractiveness - both yours and your partner's. You dress to seduce him, keep fit to attract him physically, and constantly wonder if you're good enough. You expect the same from a guy. All this is not because you are eager to improve in all areas of life for your own sake, but because you are pursuing the goal of having sex with someone who attracts you. For loving people, what a person really is more important than how he looks. Although external attractiveness is not prohibited by law.
3. Your partner seems perfect to you
Physical desire makes you live in an illusion where your partner, as the object of desire, appears in a completely unrealistic way. You yourself add all those wonderful qualities to him simply because you want him on a physical level. You cannot judge objectively, you do not notice the real advantages and disadvantages of the one with whom you sleep or just want to sleep.
Trying to make the best impression is good, but in love people should remain sincere, and also love each other not for an ideal image, but for real qualities, whatever they may be.
4. There was no “friendship” stage between you
Despite the fact that not all happy couples start out as friends, this statement makes sense. Those whose romance started only because of sex may still be together for the same reasons. For many couples, friendship has helped to bond emotionally before realizing that something more is possible. But if your interest ends outside the bedroom or his pants, then most likely you still don’t have deep feelings for honey.
5. You don't know him at all
Being in a relationship with someone just for the sake of sex can be a very powerful experience. There is passion between you, you seem mysterious and interesting to each other, nothing binds you, you don’t owe each other anything, craving for the unknown - all this is terribly sexy.
But in order to consider yourself a couple, emotions are not enough, because in love there is no feeling that the person in your bed is a stranger. If you know nothing about your partner, or his friends, or family, or at least an approximate state of mind, then most likely there is just a passion between you that will either end and you will part, or turn into something more. if you both make an effort.
6. You are ashamed of your problems
In true love, it is customary to share your doubts, fears and worries, even if you feel not quite sure that it is worth doing it. Just a loving person is distinguished by the ability to understand and accept any truth and assure you that you can trust him to trust, and that it is normal to feel this, and if not normal, then you can figure it out together. If your relationship is built only on sex, then there is no point in talking about emotional closeness and support. That is why you are worried that your partner may find out about a secret that you are not ready to share with him.
Also, each of you may feel that your problems are an unnecessary burden that will kill all romance.
7. There is no intimacy between you
Although you most likely have sex all your free time, this does not mean that you have automatically achieved intimacy. Intimacy isn't about having sex, it's about trust, protection, and emotional attachment to your partner. In love, you can spend time with your boyfriend and feel tenderness and awe every moment, even though there is nothing sexual in your actions.
8. You have no obligation
For those looking for just a casual romance, a lust-only relationship is a great option because it doesn't involve commitment. If you don’t feel that when making decisions, you take into account the feelings and desires of your partner, or if there are no such concepts as “monogamy” and “fidelity” between you, then perhaps you only feel passion for your partner. But the difference between these relationships and those in which there is love is that love can last for a long time, but passion will burn out immediately as soon as you meet someone who will attract you more.
9. You don't plan a future together
Girls are interested in sex without commitment as much as guys. But if you are not inclined to such a deep analysis of your relationship, then you can understand that your relationship is based only on sex if you do not have any plans for the future with your partner, or if you do not see your future together in principle.
Relationships based on true intimacy develop only when each of you begins to include the other in your life. If you do not do this and do not want to do it, then enjoy the emotions that your passion brings.
10. Are you bored with sex?
Ironically, in a relationship built only on sex, sex becomes boring sooner or later. It's not that you both became bad in bed or lazy, it's just that your spark burned out due to a lack of intimacy, commitment, trust, and affection. It's like listening to the same song over and over. At first, he repents that more pleasure cannot be imagined, but in the end, the song starts to make him sick.
So it is in relationships where there is only lust. Sooner or later you will want something new, even if not a serious relationship, then at least new sex with a new person.
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From lust to love and a little sacred...
I think the reader here is observant, and therefore is aware of the fact that love has varieties and shades. For example, in ancient Greece, 8 types of love were distinguished (4 types and 4 subspecies), although if you start to understand this deeper, then there will be much more shades. Well, you know, those 50 shades. .. 😆
But I will not go into the wilds and description of shades, but I suggest you look at the source of love: what it consists of and how it is expressed in modern society. And in order not to overload the topic with a global one, we will consider love between sexual partners.
Why did I undertake this at all and who am I to trust my writings? :-)
Let's just say that I am a person passionate about the philosophy of life, especially relationships and what is commonly called love . Moreover, I studied this issue, both in theory and in practice...
Not so long ago I finished the book " The Succubus Plan" , where much attention is paid to sensual intimacy and the study of the source of love:
So, what is love ?! Surprisingly, Love is a complex, cultivated feeling. Perhaps for many of you this will be a revelation, but how people understand and show love depends on their mentality, education, upbringing and... emotional intelligence!
There will be amusing details below, but first, let's look into the original basis of this sacred concept...
If you look at the basis of love on the Universal scale , then this feeling will be comparable to attraction (gravity).
That is, love as “cosmic glue”, through which the Universe is pacified and united!
But we live and interact through the body, in which instincts and hormones play, so now I will try to write love through three components: body, mind and spirit.
In primitive times, the concept of love was not yet formed, there was only animal lust, the desire for dominance and glimpses of concern for the object of desire, based on attachment and pleasure. There was little intelligence there, and our spiritual self, for some reason, dozed off 🙂
With the development of culture, emotions and instincts began to form into feelings, including different shades of love. The spiritual component began to wake up, and reason and logic dictated their conditions! The feeling of love was cultivated into a complex concept .., and became burdened with a moral burden. If we take a European society, then morality is something like this: you can only love one person, relationships must be legalized, you must be responsible for your partner, and so on .
.. All this is interesting in its own way, but I want to give you the concept of a sensual (not overloaded with morality) love .
Look, initially there is an instinct for reproduction or let's call it lust , and since modern man is a cultural and sublime being (though not all, but, I hope, most of us), then aesthetic (spiritual) feelings are added to this and we are already we get not naked lust, but lust (as a combination of physical and spiritual). Well, then, satisfying his sexual instinct, a cultured person does it not mechanically, but skillfully, enjoying the process, which can be designated as voluptuousness . Well, if the process is skillful and mutual, and the couple is able to enjoy it, then in addition to a banal orgasm, the delight of desires can give a state of bliss (the highest form of sensual pleasure)!
Of course, being in the body, hormones play a big role. A person in love gets a good dose of endorphin, dopamine, and if he has access to pleasure, serotonin.
But even if we assume that the release of hormones occurs automatically (according to the programs of the body and mind, which is not entirely true), then this is not all that we enjoy (pleasure). In close contact with a person, another interesting thing happens that is not obvious to everyone, but if you pay attention to it, you will definitely feel it! And I'm talking about the exchange of energies here ( in my novel I put a lot of emphasis on this )!!!
The exchange of energies can be different, including negative ones, when people are in conflict, etc. But if we are talking about contact for love, with delight, then bliss flows between people (the energy of tenderness and love) and this energy spiritualizes and enriches us! And if you learn how to use it, then the process itself can be turned into a spiritual practice; It is not for nothing that there is such a thing as Tantra. And these are not just words or speculation, it can be experienced in practice!
For example, in of my novel , I introduce the term Merger (or Sacred Coition), which helps the characters to enrich themselves energetically and get more information about each other.
