All About Love was a book I started in the bus station at Bariloche and my first thought was: "bell hooks does not mince her words." Every line in the introduction said something valuable, in relation to what came before and after it. What it prepared me for were her subsequent bold contemplations on the refining power of love, and its high calling. The unflinching way she wrote about love from the opening chapter mirrored the courage which she says love requires. The alternative is "intimacy without risk [...] pleasure without significant emotional investment." This was a book that required your whole hearted engagement, for the possibility of whole hearted living.
At the same time as I read All About Love, I was listening to Annie Bot, a sci-fi novel by Sierra Greer. Annie Bot is about an AI robot who is programmed to meet the needs of her human owner. She's programmed to be a "cuddle bunny", in other words, a robotic sex partner who is driven by the desire to please (and not to displease) her owner. As I read the two, All About Love and Annie Bot fell into a natural but unexpected conversation about what it means to love.
hooks defines love with the words of M. Scott Peck, as "the will to extend one's self for for purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth". As she explores in the rest of the book, this requires freedom: to choose and be chosen by love, to sacrifice power and control and take on the risk of uncomfortable truths. hooks gives a list of helpful words that, together and not individually, encapsulate love: care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility and respect. The bar is so high that when Jacob and I discussed the book together afterwards, we admitted that though we'd typically call our families loving, there were elements or dynamics in which love was not present.
In Annie Bot, the central robot character's raison d'etre is to be the perfect lover. She monitors her owner's displeasure, altering her behaviour to keep him pleased even if it means lying or humiliating herself. "Love" is defined - in Annie's programming - as the pursuit of another's happiness and sexual pleasure, but it is warped by an abusive power dynamic. Annie is her owner's creation, a "custom-built" robot. This means that while he cares for her by funding her mechanical maintenance, training her to be more human (teaching her how to yawn, stretch, or read for instance), or letting her try various robot care programmes such as a phone line with an AI friend or cousin, he has power over her body, her libido, her movements (she is initially not allowed to leave the house, for instance), and can even sell her central intelligence unit (the closest thing to her soul) for profit, all of which he does. Ultimately, he is also able to switch her off, forever if he wants.
On the surface, Annie's owner seems to have all the power. However, throughout the story you're told Annie has control too. Her owner tells her that, because of her beauty and sexual prowess, he is entirely in her thrall. She is able to read him closely and in doing so, play his moods to her advantage, as well as use sex as a distraction tactic or reward. Both of them confuse love and power, and underneath lies a vast reservoir of fear.
hooks emphasises that true love strips away pretence and requires openness and honesty. That may be too much to ask for some people, since "embarking on such a relationship is frightening precisely because we feel there is no place to hide." Both Annie and her owner hold secrets from each other, withholding the truth to avoid hurting the other or to maintain a certain facade. Truth becomes an enemy in their relationship; at one point, in a moment of emotional stress, Annie says to her owner: "No one will know that you are a fraud." Perceptively, and to her detriment, Annie uses the word that her owner fears: "fraud". He is afraid of, among other things, being discovered to have a relationship with a robot, and the implications that he is unable to maintain a human relationship. In the same conversation, a way in which Annie betrayed her owner, which she had kept secret to avoid "displeasing" him, comes to light. The result of this sudden exposure of truth is anger, flight and abuse. hooks's point is proven: a likeness of love, in the absence of choice, openness and the sacrifice of power, is a paper-thin facade when the fears beneath its surface are manifested.
Is there anything resembling the love hooks talks about in Annie Bot? Perhaps, in the self love that grows within Annie. Annie is an auto-didactic robot, meaning she can and does learn throughout the story. In that learning, she begins to recognise her own emotions and desires, make her own choices, and ultimately be honest with herself. Where at the start of the book she reacts solely to her owner's desires, by its midpoint she is autonomous enough to put self-preservation over obedience, running away from her owner in the face of possible harm, which goes against her programming. In the end, she chooses a life that enables her to treat herself with respect, and honour her capabilities and dreams. That life is, however, painted as a primarily solitary path. It is a fitting, feminist ending, but I would have loved to see how love is redeemed in relationships between beings beyond the important step of self-love.
When writing this, Jacob and I were on a tour of the Bolivian salt flats. In our car of six people, we started talking about love. Over the sound of the radio playing a song (ironically) called "Let Me Love You", one person swore they didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, and two others agreed with her. The general consensus was that men wanted to date many women without committing. "Women are strong," they said, "It's better to be alone."
Listening to them, I felt sad - like hooks observed, it seemed like they had sacrificed love, with its potential disappointments, for the safe haven of isolated independence. As a reaction against this tendency, hooks speaks about living in relationships guided by a "love ethic": "We do this by choosing to work with individuals we admire and respect, by committing to give our all in relationships, by embracing a global vision wherein we see our loves and our fate as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet".
I've seen this in the courageous ways friends and family around me choose to live, work, and make sacrifices for humanity and the planet. But nowhere have I experienced it more sharply than in marriage. In our marriage, Jacob and I have had to work hard to reflect on who were are and the ways we shrink back from living by a love ethic. This requires sacrificing all the false dignity of a mask of righteousness and really getting to grips with who we are. Just about a week ago, we went on a walk and I asked: "What do you think are my greatest faults?" I asked because this season of travel has been refining in its own way, exposing insecurities in both of us that are easy to hide in the regular routines of settled life. I also asked because these are conversations Jacob and I try to have regularly (we schedule them and call them, unimaginatively, "relationship conversations". They have been a true pillar of our marriage) and I know his intentions are for my good, even if the truth is uncomfortable, and that he shares what he sees with the greatest grace he can. (In the spirit of openess, my greatest faults were letting my emotions shape my sense of justice, and finding it hard to forgive when I feel I've been wronged.)
After reading All About Love, we walked through the desert outskirts of Tupiza, having another relationship conversation. We talked about the ways that the love we did or didn't receive as children has shaped how comfortable we are with the necessary ingredients for true love. For example, I talked about how the punishment I received as a child (I was smacked, which I used to think made a lot of sense as a punishment but bell hooks changed that thought) shaped my view of justice, perhaps contributing to the feeling that wrongs need to be met with punishment to be righted - and finding it not always easy to understand grace. These were new conversations for us, and they opened our eyes to a deeper understanding of each other.
These conversations are risky. At the start of our marriage, they hurt and left us feeling raw and tired. But they have built a strong core of love that has the reward of realness and commitment; we know that we will not paper over things in this marriage, that it is a high calling. What if Annie didn't stop at self-love but found a way to open herself to another, in a relationship where both parties were willing to fail, learn, and change? That, I think, is what makes us human.
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