by the rivers of Babble-on (Part 2): Love me tender

It's April in the Northern Hemisphere. Two strangers meet accidentally and have sex in a park in full view of passers-by Joan, John, and a professional comedian named Mr Fool.

JOAN: I think it was Tennyson who said, "in spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

JOHN: It's just sex, or lust: love's got nothing to do with it.

FOOL: And yet you're looking at the same thing! But neither of you knows what's in the hearts or minds of the coupling couple.

JOAN: We don't know what's in their hearts and minds, but I see tenderness in the way they're embracing each other.

JOHN: Sex can be an act of love or lust or both. And there's no law that says lust must never involve tenderness. Or that love must always be expressed with tenderness.

JOAN: Here we go again. You know John, I'm really fed up with the way you're always criticising me, correcting me.

JOHN: WTF Joan, and I'm fed up with getting vibes from you every time we have a conversation. I'll just be quiet and not express my views, in case you think I'm correcting you.

FOOL: You're both idiots. It's just a vocabulary issue. Why don't you just invent some new words, and erase the old words from your respective memories. You need a word for "love with tenderness" and a word for "love without tenderness".

JOAN (to FOOL): You're the fool. We already have enough words. We call sex without tenderness "lust", and sex with tenderness, "love".

JOHN: No, love is far more than just sex with tenderness. A psychopath can rape a woman with tenderness.

JOAN: Oh puh-leeze! That wouldn't be tenderness at all.

FOOL: See what I mean? Now you're disagreeing about the the meaning of the word "tenderness". All you need to do is agree on a new word to be used from now on, whenever a psychopath rapes a woman in a way that could be mistaken for tenderness by idiots like John. How about "psychoness"?

JOAN: OK, in those terms I agree that it's possible for a psychopath to rape a woman with psychoness.

JOHN: OK, in those terms I agree that sex with psychoness is not love. But sex without psychoness is not necessarily love either.

FOOL: So there's really no substantial difference between you on these issues, is there? Just superficial disagreement about words, about what labels to apply.

JOHN and JOAN: Let's get some lunch.

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