RECLAIMING PHILIA
or the Mis-Sexualizing of Relationships
revised from the original, posted 6/20/02

Rather than simply repost an old entry, this time, I'm going to update the entry a bit by integrating what originally constituted two separate posts, without (I hope) repeating myself too much. Nonetheless, the original entry bounced off three other entries, and I still want to situate it in that original context, so folks can understand what inspired it.

Back in June of 2002, there was a series of (X-men) related LJ entries discussing the lack of friendship stories in fanfic (as opposed to romance stories). "Shackleton (the whys and why-nots of slash)" by Amanda (qodarkness), "Three Slash Myths That Have to Die," by Andraste (andrastewhite), and "I'm the one you love to hate," by Victoria P. (musesfool). Mostly, the discussion revolved around slash, asking why (some) slash writers tended to sexualize most of the relationships they encountered -- not as a slap against slash as a category (consider the authors) -- but as a question about the prevalence of a certain kind of story.

A remark by andrastewhite in the various comments made me consider the whole question in a larger context . . . and led to this entry. I think this tendency to mis-sexualize relationships extends beyond same-sex pairings, and it's unfair to view it in those terms. The real tendency is to sexualize ANY emotionally intense relationship -- opposite sex as well as same sex -- as if there could be no other kind of "real love" than the sexual/romantic kind (or maybe familial). Friendship is "lesser," and assumed to be less interesting, I fear. That subtle but pervading assumption bugs me -- even though I am, myself, often described as a "shipper."

So let's yank this whole discussion out of the realm of "friendship versus slash." Frankly, I think that narrows the focus too much. It's not about slash at all, only that our social biases make the real issue more visible with regard to slash because same-sex relationship run counter to social expectations. But consider the difficulty people have believing that a (heterosexual) woman and man can have a deep and intense friendship without it turning sexual. Since our society accepts such a pairing as the "default" (assuming neither is married), we rarely pause to question the fact that we make such an assumption in the first place. Maybe we should.

Now granted, if you put together two people who could be sexually attracted to each other, at some point, the question will probably come up: Do we want to romanticize this? It may never be verbalized, even subtly, but one or both individuals will ask it at least privately. And the answer may well be "NO" -- and not because one or the other is repressing the attraction, or because it's not possible to pursue it. There can be a lot of reasons for answering "no." Lord knows, even before I married, I had instances where I considered an attractive long-time male friend and thought, "Hmmm?" But it never got any further than that -- which was a good thing, and I valued the friendship as friendship, not as "failed romance."¹

Love doesn't have to be sexual; this is something I think we all know, but let me push it further. Crushes don't have to be sexual, either, if by "crush" we mean an intense emotional attraction to someone. They certainly can be, but they don't have to be. I think most of us have had crushes on people who were not the same gender to whom we're normally sexually attracted -- and that may have felt confusing, but only because of this persistent assumption that powerful emotion felt for a non-family member must have a sexual component. It may. But it may NOT, too -- and not because one is in denial.

Now that I've got your attention by asking some rather radical questions, and being a systematic type, I should set my own comments in some kind of historical context, so I've pulled out that funky Greek term philia that turns up in English words ranging from Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love) to philanthropy (kindness to human beings).

For all English's exceptionally large vocabulary, it's sometimes a bit impoverished. Consider the word "love" itself. We can love pizza, love our kids, love a movie, love our Spousal Unit . . . and in the process, "love" is reduced and confused to mean a lot of things. I'm hardly the first person to note that. C. S. Lewis wrote an entire book titled The Four Loves, and he used Greek, too, as a starting point to address the matter. In ancient Greek, one had a wider variety of verbs to chose from. I'm only going to address three: eros, philia and agapê. All three could (unimaginatively) be translated in English as "love."

Eros is recognizable in our word "erotic," and that's what it is: erotic, or sexual love. The "fire of desire." The ancient Greeks regarded it as a sickness of the mind, even while celebrating it in some remarkably racy poetry (when it's translated right). Agapê is sometimes translated as "charity" or "selfless love." "Charity" isn't a bad translation of the ancient concept, although "charity" in English has different connotations -- more formalized, I think. We give "charity" to the poor, but we do it (ideally) from agapê. Curiously, "philanthropy" is probably closer to agapê than to philia. Philia is more personal.

Yet philia can pose a problem. It's often translated as "friendship," and that's moderately accurate, but misses the point, really. Philia -- not eros -- is used for the very strongest affective relationships that human beings can form. Eros was understood to run hot, but not necessarily long-lived. There was something rather . . . shallow about it. But to say that one felt philia for another was the GREATEST passion. "Passion," remember, doesn't necessarily imply the sexual, although it can include it. We have to remember that things can be inclusive without being comprehensive.

And it's really philia that I'm interested in here, and which I think sometimes gets short-shafted in our society. Modern Western culture isn't too sure what to do with that kind of passionate love when it falls outside family or romantic relationships. Sure, we can feel philia for our lover. In the best of circumstances, we DO, and we can write a philia story that is also an eros story.

But can we feel something THAT passionate for another if it isn't sexual or familial?

It's often assumed not -- and ergo, there must be something else going on.

I'd like to suggest that's a limited view. It's also a modern, Western view. If we try to apply those assumptions to other cultures and other times, we're committing an anachronism. Moreover, I think we shortchange ourselves when we make those assumptions about our own lives and relationships, here and now. There can be heated passion between philoi that not only ignores the sexual, but outright eclipses it. From Somewhere I Have Never Traveled: the Second Self and the Hero's Journey in Ancient Epic by Thomas Van Nortwick (Yale UP, 1992, 17-18):

"We need to be careful not to misunderstand this intimacy (of the alter ego or second self) . . . Friendship in general is a difficult relationship to fix, seen in our modern [western] cultures as existing on the boundaries of other bonds, familial or sexual, which provide the categories through which friendship itself is defined. The poems we will read here [Epic of Gilgamesh, Iliad, etc.] offer another model for friendship, one accommodating a greater degree of intimacy than is often accorded to nonsexual friendship these days. The first and second selves are intimate because they compose, together, a single entity . . . -- at this level of intensity, sexual love is sometimes inadequate as a model because it may not be intimate enough."

Not intimate ENOUGH. What a novel thought! For our modern times, anyway.

Now, anyone who really knows Greek knows that I've oversimplified for the sake of argument. The Greeks, like us, did use both philia and eros in as many silly and far-ranging ways as we do. But they enjoyed a clearer distinction between the two that we don't habitually make. And eros -- sexual or romantic love -- was always the moon to philia's sun.

Interesting, no?

Now, here's where the rubber hits the road. I don't think philia has really gone away. I just think we tend to forget to factor it in as a real possibility. qodarkness talked in her journal entry about the 'passion of care' that arises between men in extremity. It's the same argument that Jonathan Shay makes in Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (Simon and Schuster, 1995).² For instance, he says:

"Modern American English makes soldiers' love for special comrades into a problem, because the word love evokes sexual and romantic associations. But friendship seems too bland for the passion of care that arises between soldiers in combat" (40).

The intensity of combat is unlike much else that human beings suffer. It builds remarkable bonds between people (usually men until recently). I find that important to keep in mind for a fictional world like the X-Men (or various other fandoms where it may apply). In our 'normal' lives, "pair-bonding" may be a -- if not the -- dominant form of attachment ... but in many fandoms, the people we write about aren't living lives anywhere close to ours, and that's important to keep in mind. We may well be writing about characters who live with the mentality of a foxhole, not a garden party, or even a dining room table at supper. The attachments that X-Men, or cops, or combat soldiers make are not the same as ours. And however casually death may be treated in the Marvel universe (dead X-Men never seem to STAY dead, do they?) -- how many times have these people faced death? That, itself, has to build some of that "passion of care." They are combat soldiers, and combat soldiers can love (feel philia for) one another without necessarily LIKING one another. Their situation is unique. (Jean Grey [Phoenix] tells Warren Worthington [Angel] (X-Factor #41): "We both won . . . and lost, didn't we? But we grew up as the first X-Men, fighting . . . always fighting . . . It was exciting . . . But I don't think a normal life would feel . . . right to any of us, anymore . . . We've lost that ability.")

Similar sentiments are sometimes expressed by long-term combat vets. Yes, Jean is romantically interested in Scott Summers [Cyclops], but that doesn't lessen her friendship with Warren, Hank McCoy [Beast], or Bobby Drake [Iceman] -- the other original X-Men (in the comics). Those are her primary ties, and they always will be. Would she sacrifice herself for any of those three, as much as for Scott? Yes. Unquestionably. The same could be said for Harry Potter and his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. If Ron and Hermione did/do wind up together romantically, Harry wound up with Ginny -- yet it was clear all along that Ron or Hermione would die for Harry if need be (and he for them).

Interestingly, though, this angle isn't often explored in X-Men fic. There's a tendency to see relationships romantically . . . whether those relationships are same-sex or opposite sex. I think andrastewhite was correct when she argued that saying there is "too much of" one thing is usually just a covert way of saying, "I want more of . . ." So I'm not sure there is "too much of" romantic fiction.

But there ARE various ways of defining a "shipper." I call myself a "shipper" because I'm interested in relationships of ALL types, not just romantic ones. In fact, I find romantic relationships more interesting when placed within the large context of friendship and familial relations, and I tend to get rather bored by stories that are only about the romance. I've had several people write to me about An Accidental Interception of Fate or Finding Himself to say that they were (pleasantly) surprised that my little "How Harry Met Sally, X-style" or my Harry Potter Book 5 AU wasn't pure romance -- there was all this other STUFF in there. Yet to me, how could I write any kind of extended story about Scott and Jean or Hermione and Cedric Diggory and not deal with the web of their various relationships? Anything else wouldn't be so much "dishonest" as simply DULL. But more to the point, we don't exist in a vacuum, and neither do our romantic relationships.

Not all passionate love stories need to be sexualized. I got downright irked at times, as I was writing Climb the Wind, over the number of people who wrote to ask if I were going to slash Scott and Logan -- and who expressed disappointment when I said I wasn't. . . despite the fact I'd noted at the outset that Climb was a LOVE (philia) story not a SEX (eros) story. Obviously, I have nothing against slash (*cough*Aorist Subjunctive*cough*). Still, slashing them was neither necessary nor desirable for that story -- even if poor Scott had been anywhere near ready for a new relationship (which he wasn't). Scott and Logan learned to love one another very, very deeply, but it had nothing to do with sex. Considering how unexpectedly popular that story turned out to be -- despite how dark it was -- I'd say that people did find a philia story to be engrossing. Love doesn't always have to be sexual to be interesting. I could say the same thing about the Warren-Scott relationship in Special: the Genesis of Cyclops. Warren may combine both philia and eros for Scott, but Scott doesn't return the eros, only the philia. Does Scott therefore love Warren less? Absolutely not.

Human relationships are far more complex (and messy) than standard formulae would paint them.

Just because two individuals have a passion of care for one another doesn't mean their relationship is concealing sexual tension and they're in denial. Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't -- and I think the automatic assumption that there must be a sexual subtext (whether homoerotic or heteroerotic) is dismissive of the broad range of human feeling.

Our most significant relationships do not have to be romantic. While the ancient Greeks might have been rather silly about rather a lot, I think that's one thing they got right. Philia is stronger than eros, and while philia might, in fact, include eros -- it doesn't require it.

This isn't an anti-shipper, anti-romance manifesto. I'm a shipper. Nor is it an anti-slash manifesto. I may not write much slash relative to het (Harry/Cedric being something of the exception), but I do read and enjoy a lot of it.

I don't like such polarization -- don't believe it necessary -- and being a contrary, I hate being forced to choose a side. I'll take a little of both, thanks. There's no need to choose a side. Eros (especially eros mixed with philia) can be a lot of fun to write about; but I do sometimes find myself wondering why romantic fanfic seems to be, if not the only type, then certainly a dominant type saturating fandoms? I do believe that philia is, ultimately, the more powerful of these two forms of love, or at least, the longer lasting, but as I noted, philia can exist both with and without eros. My query is why do we (as a society) have such difficulty seeing non-familial, non-romantic philia as powerful -- perhaps even more central for some than romantic love?

I mean consider -- how often have we heard: "They're just friends." Hmmm? What's with this "just," kimosabe? Sometimes we imply a surprising amount about our cultural values in our off-the-cuff phrasing. We (as a society) don't know quite what to do with "philia on the boundaries." It's regarded with suspicion. If it's passionate, there must be something else going on. I find that assumption weird.

What I'd like to do, rather than polarize, is to highlight that there are a wealth of powerful relationships to write about beyond romantic entanglements -- and friendships do not have to be sexual to be meaningful. I'd also like to remind us that even when writing about romantic entanglements, they still exist within a larger context. Too steady a diet of pure romance bores me, and I don't think I'm alone. It's too easy to burn out on it. And really, I think that what readers may want isn't so much "romantic love" as powerful emotion -- which may or may not be sexual. There's plenty of room for both.

Thus, while I'm not sure we need less romance, I would love to see more of OTHER "shipper" stories -- friendships, familial relationships, even the hostile relationship of "best enemies" (that doesn't necessarily end in the bedroom). These are, after all, also 'shipper stories.

Philia deserves to be returned to a prominent place on our emotional mantle -- not seen as the "lesser" (and less interesting) love. It's not. It's the greater.

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¹I can think of one in particular. Delightful, handsome, smart dude who I liked a lot. We were old friends, as in 'shared the same crib and bottle' old. But -- 'it' just wasn't there, the spark. And that was okay. I learned more about men and dating from John than from most of the guys I went out with. And some 20 years later after we'd graduated and gone our separate ways . . . was I looking up old boyfriends? Nope. I looked up John, just to see what he'd done with his life. We spent an hour on the phone, trading stories about Spousal Units and kids, just as I would have if he'd had two X chromosomes. Could we have been lovers? Maybe. But really, I think we were both better off as buddies.

²Some of you may recognize that book as being the one I cited as one source for Climb the Wind. But even if one never reads the novel, if you're a fan of Homer, read Shay's work. I'm rarely THAT enthusiastic about a nonfiction book.