Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.

–Nietzsche, "Beyond Good & Evil" 120

“Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

The circles I’m in tend to be rather religious. People in them “get married to have sex,” as one very wise friend put it. That leads to the idealizing of sexual intercourse and an unhealthy obsession with romance.

We all know sensuality can lead to people using each other for sex. But what about the problem of two falling in love physically too much and too soon?

It is a strange problem. Right now I’m thinking the section of Beyond Good and Evil from which this aphorism is taken depends on supposing truth a woman. Is the love discussed here between man and the truth? If so, the danger of truth could be that it ultimately hastens self-knowledge to a degree one falls apart. Sensuality, on this reading, is something like an attempted body-soul unity.

That makes some sense to me. But I’d like to know why two actual people could fall out of love precisely because of their strong physical attraction. Nietzsche gives a hint with the plant metaphor. A couple, just like one’s knowledge, has to grow a certain way. You can’t just memorize the encyclopedia and call that wisdom. Something about self-knowledge may be critical for knowledge generally. Something about a less-than-physical future is necessary for even a more erotic love.

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