Why I Say "I Love You" Often

Consider letting the people in your life know that you love them.

Yesterday I returned from a few days deep in the country communing and playing with 150 sex-positive and kinky gay men. I was entirely out of cell and internet range. So, it was true disconnection amid those men, many with whom I already had or there formed some deep love bonds.

Love is an interesting word. We use it in so many ways.

“I love my job”.

“I love that television series.”

“I love sushi.”

And so on. Along with, of course…

“I love you.”

In “We need a new word for love.,” apart from the cultural use of the word love often replacing what would otherwise be the word like, even when referring to our feelings for other people, love can have so many nuances.

Let’s break it down — what does ‘love’ actually mean? You feel fondness, warmth, admiration and affection. Being near them brings you pleasure. Basically, they make you feel all the warm-fuzzies.

This topic is on my mind because I realized I said the sentence “I love you” to at least 20 of the 150 men in attendance at the event from which I just returned. Admittedly, much of the crowd in attendance were men I know well including some with whom I’m deeply intimate, physically and otherwise.

But still, I also said it to many men there for whom I have deep fondness, warmth, admiration, and affection. On different levels and in different ways they all give me the warm-fuzzies.

I titled this newsletter “Love at the Edges” quite intentionally. While I talk about all kinds of sex, erotic play, and relationships, at the core of it all, at least for me, is love. I simply don’t want to repeatedly erotically connect or intimately befriend anyone for whom I don’t experience some type of love. That’s just how I’m wired.

Whether you navigate within active sex or kink communities or adventurous forms of relationship configurations, or not, I think it would benefit all of us individually and collectively if we started telling people we love that we do.

Some people reserve the word love for only one person in their life, at least when it comes to longer-term relationships. That’s their right. But I still contend that uttering the words that express love for our sexual intimates or good friendships is worth considering.

Perhaps some people are taken aback when someone says I love you outside of the confines of a one-on-one partner relationship. Yet, I’ve rarely encountered anyone who upon a moment of reflection hasn’t smiled and said I love you too back.

To all my sex-positive readers, consider saying I love you more often.

To all my kinky readers, consider saying I love you more often.

To all my nonmonogamous or polyamorous readers, consider saying I love you more often.

To any readers who have graced me with your readership but who doesn’t fall into any of those categories, I bet your life would benefit from telling people you love that you do more often.

Letting people in my life know I love them has improved my life in a multitude of ways. Perhaps it will for you too.

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