(From The Symposium, page 37, line 207). How are reproduction, sex, and love immortal? Is it immortal as a writer's or artist's work, presuming we believe that such things are immortal? How are humans immortal when we do, in fact, die? Is sex or the first time having it a path to become God? Are reproduction, sex, love equivalents to death? Sex is the loss of innocence, but is it also death in that sense, the death of one stage of life and the beginning of a new one? If one fears these three human qualities, does one therefore fear death? If one never experiences them, does one escape death?
Reproduction does make the woman more immortal than the man because it is her product, her artwork. (And here can be answer the question "what is art?" Art is everything because everything is created in some way). But the man, on the other hand, only contributes his features to the child. Of course, the child's upbringing could also change the potential for immortality. Sex could be viewed as the act of immortalizing but the idea that virginity is forever lost through the act of sex also makes it immortal. Love, depending on who it comes from, can be immortal. If it is a fairytale true love, it could be forever, eternal, immortal.
Human beings are immortal through their thoughts, if recorded, and their offspring and their actions. There is a legend that when an actor speaks something on stage, that something floats off and becomes essence in the universe forever. That, too, is immortal.
Definitely, some people would view sex as divine and holy while others think it is sinful and impious. But it is a state at which human beings are completely unleashing all their emotions and senses. The only other action that humans do that I think could compare with that is creating art or being creative in general. So, it is the highest state of mind humans can get to; does that mean we are gods in a way when we have sex or when we create something magnificent?
Yes. Reproduction, sex, and love are death. Reproduction is the death of beauty, to some people, the death of youth. Sex the death of virginity and innocence and love, the death of loneliness or hurt. These three experiences begin new stages in human beings' lives and shape our entire lives until we reach physical death, and what of that? What do we become after that?
I think if someone does fear these experiences, then one does fear a type of death and change. For, with this logic, change is a kind of death. Death is such a negative word and maybe we can define it better. Death is the ending of one thing with the possible chance of something else beginning. To never experience these three concepts is not immortalizing in any way, but by dying, we immortalize ourselves. To find a way to cheat death is to discover oblivion.
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