Tenderness is a pacified residue of violent sexuality

Evidence

In this experience there survives an intention of something other than nature, of love which is not restricted to sex. Tenderness, however, by far the least physical form, is transformed sexuality; the passing of a hand over a head of hair, a kiss on the forehead, which express the delusion of spiritual love, are pacified forms of the blows and bites of the sex act as performed by Australian aborigines. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 88

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A startling inversion: the gentlest acts are not the transcendence of sexuality but its tame form—civilization as sublimated violence, undoing the common-sense opposition of tenderness and lust.
• XREF: connects to: Pleasure and love are intrinsically bound to cruelty and pain, not tenderness.