What is love?

That is a good question… Don’t we ask ourselves that question at least once in our lives ?

Is love an emotion, a feeling, an attraction, lust, or just desire?

I was very impressed by looking at the movie "Lust Stories" (2018), made in India.

It seems rather interesting to see how some Indian female movie directors see love, desire, lust, and attraction.

The movie is divided into four different parts, each with a different type of point of view seen on the screen, according to four different women: Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, which was also awarded the International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actress, distributed by Netflix.

How is sex perceived in India through its culture, religion, customs, and beliefs?

This movie follows up with a second part, "The Lust Stories 2" (2023), by R. Blake, Konkona Sen Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh, and Amit Ravindernath Sharma, made in India and distributed by Netflix.

In India, couples usually have arranged marriages by their families of origin; they meet their husband or wife, get married, have sex for the first time with them on their first wedding night, and then are "stuck" with their significant other for the rest of their lives.

In our society, is a woman allowed to feel pleasure and have a simple and good orgasm? Or is pleasure just considered a man’s treat and priority.

We are raised and brought up to fulfill our family’s desires and expectations; after that, come our partner’s or the ones that society has in store for us.

When are we actually ready to fulfill our own needs and desires?

Having dreams is allowed, woman! Making our dreams come true is also allowed, women! Being a woman and believing in something other than having family and children is allowed. I’m allowed to be myself and who I want to be and become in my life… I’m allowed to be allowed, and I do not need anyone’s permission, approval, or emotional support, other than myself. I’m in charge of my own life.

I can be a crazy dog lady, enjoy the pleasures of life, and still not be ready to have a husband and children…. I can still desire to love and be loved without having to get married and have children.

In Western culture, things are pretty much different; people no longer wait to get married to have sex with someone. Actually, the contrary… Dating and going out with people are based on a new culture of having just sex with someone.

Nowadays, people meet on online dating apps, have dinner together, have sex, and then maybe never see each other again…

We are living in a capitalism and consumerism era, even in the realm of relationships. We are used as people, and we use others accordingly to our own needs, then throw each other away when things seem to no longer meet our expectations of one another.

We get married, have children, and then get separated, then divorced.

Do we really love someone, or is it just a matter of lust and desire?

I’m allowed to cancel appointments, to stay in and not go out at all, if I opt to… I’m allowed to be confused and change my mind about people and things…

Especially about men, a topic that I have been confused about the most during my life as a woman, growing up…

The movie also talks about being in an all-girls school, like the one I have been to; in particular, in my case, it was a weekly boarding school. And the fact that you hardly understand anything about the opposite sex once you get out of there at the age of 18, and this made me feel kind of lost in relationships with the opposite sex. Still are actually, at the age of 35.

And yet the question naturally comes back again…. What is love?

Is it a race, of catch and grab, cat and mouse, chasing one another and running away far from each other?