When you talk to people, more often than not they will tell you that the feelings they have for their own parents (present or past) are quite different from the feelings they have for their (sexual) partners and/or friends later on in life.
Now, without wanting to simplistically understand every (sexual) partner as another version of either your mother or your father, it seems striking to me how effective and total the retrospective (or should I say retroactive?) erasion of (sexual) desire for your parents is. Parental love, presumably, though it is - naturally - the most intimate and innate, deep and unconditional feeling we are supposedly capable of, has nothing to do whatsoever with the kind of love and desire we seek later on in life, or the kind of love and desire we are able (or willing) to give, or the relationships we are able to forge and live.
There seems to be a distinct, yet immensely important gap between the feelings that exist between family members, and the feelings you have for your (sexual) partners. The incest taboo (and concomittantly, the fear of castration) is so strongly embedded in our culture, that we supposedly cannot admit even the slightest sexual inuendo in familial bonds. Hardly any crime seems to shock us as much as incest; and it does not only shock us, but make us react bodily with disgust and revulsion.
I am not in any way trying to make a case for incest and/or sexual violence and/or sexual abuse in families.
But I am currently struggling with the fact that I had such an intense, deep, intimate relationship with my mother; a relationship so complex and manifold that I seem to unconsciously live out parts of it even in my relationships today.
I am, I guess, trying to make a point for desire (which is, to me, also something different than saying sexuality is everywhere or, like in Harry & Sally, that women and men can't be friends because there is always sexual attraction between them).
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