14 February—To celebrate Valentine’s Day, here’s my essay on love and lust from 9 October last. With an illustrated appendix of startling revelations about self-love.

Hobbling home from the post office the other day, just past the Noyes Memorial Building (a.k.a. the Litchfield Historical Society) on East Street, I was rather taken aback by a couple on the sidewalk in flagrante delicto. Indulging in sexual intercourse, brazenly copulating in public. They obviously didn’t care who saw them humping, screwing, getting it on, schtupping. And, of course, fucking. Our friends across the pond call it rumpy-pumpy. It was East Street, so what the hell, you say. But was the audacious couple making love?

That got me to thinking about the word “love.” What does making love really mean? Does love at first sight actually have anything to do with love? Or is love merely a euphemism?

Consider the concept of love. But first let’s get the tennis expression out of the way. In that sport’s scoring, love means nil, nought, bupkes. Or zero. A zero is an oval. Goose egg. Or just plain egg-shaped. The French for “the egg” is “l’oeuf.” Brits mispronounce all languages (including American English), so they made l’oeuf into love. Easy as that.

Leaving tennis, then, love, simply defined, is a state of feeling that manifests itself in solicitude, delight, affection, and other nice, desirable things. So can a person actually love a perfect stranger? Or is love at first sight simply and more accurately lust at first sight? Isn’t the spark between two people really lust rather than love?

If you’re lucky, physical attraction—lust—will lead to love. Familiarity certainly can breed contempt, but it can also breed love.

And the very expression “making love” is totally ridiculous, even ludicrous, a brilliant euphemism if ever there was one. The act of copulation is purely physical and neurological, after all. It feels good. That’s why all animals strive to copulate; they don’t consider that they’re procreating in order to propagate their species and they probably don’t know anything about love. If actual love is involved (in whatever species), it’s only because anything and everything feels better when you do it with someone you love. But it’s an indisputable fact that in the real world love isn’t a requirement for sexual intercourse among Homines sapientes, even religious ones.

And I’m not going to quote Cole Porter’s “Let’s Fall in Love.”

Incidentally, the couple copulating on the East Street sidewalk were bumblebees. Evidently they didn’t want to do their rumpy-pumpy in front of their friends in the hive.

And here’s the appendix on self-love. First, in the interest of completeness and on the subject of bumblebees, one of the three Saints Valentine is the patron saint of beekeepers.

Getting on with it, then, you can’t seriously discuss love and lust with any integrity unless you include self-love in the discussion. Self-love conventionally means having a high regard for one’s own well-being and happiness, taking care of one’s own needs, not worrying about others. Self-love, therefore, is in essence conceit, egotism, narcissism, self-interest, and all those traits we’re not supposed to admire.

But, just as what most people euphemistically call love is really lust, self-love can also be self-lust. Autoeroticism. Masturbation. Stimulating oneself sexually. Assuming you don’t care about growing hair on your palms or going to hell, intrapersonal or self-lust is also safer than interpersonal lust or sexual intercourse. What are you going to catch from yourself? And of course it’s more convenient.

Autoerotic behavior is popularly known by often gender-specific hyponyms. Males can, among other things, beat it, beat the meat, bop the bishop, choke the chicken, jack off, jerk off, knock one out, play pocket pool, play with themselves, pleasure themselves, toss off, wank off, do a J. Arthur (as in J. Arthur Wank), or whack off.

While females can indulge themselves with many of the primarily male hyponymic masturbatory procedures, they can also, among other things, buff the muffin, diddle themselves, flick the bean, jill off, itch the ditch, pet the kitty, play the clitar, polish the pearl, or ring the devil’s doorbell.

Shortly after the novel coronavirus panic engendered—in addition to largely useless masks—shutdowns, lockdowns, and quarantines in 2020, mechanical masturbatory aids began to appear on internet spam from China. And they’re still appearing, along with LED flashlights, smartphones, and 3D printers. The three illustrated devices are from banggood.com.

I don’t think banggood.com has any retail locations anywhere, so the “Email only” stipulation in all three ads would appear to be gratuitious. But, in all events, I’ve never been to China and have no intention of ruining my perfect record.

The 10 Vibrating Masturbator Cup Dicks Trainer, evidently for men, and the 10 Speed Vibrators Stick Clitoris Stimulator For Women, obviously for women, probably require batteries; the expensive one should have a rechargeable battery built in for that price. Notice that the male device is illustrated with a male weightlifter in the background and that the female device is illustrated massaging a peach.

All that said, the best buy clearly is the Male Masturbator Cup Oral Vagina Anal Realistic Pussy Sex Toys, especially if you get all three for $8.66. Even if you get only one for that price, the colors—Golden St . . ., Daisy Touch, and Prickly Rose—are most tempting. And the device is politically correct, because it does the job for males, females, and presumably non-binary individuals.

And you have to admire banggood.com’s honesty in admitting that their most expensive device is “Not Expensive But Good Enough” . . .