The amatory feeling is an exception within that larger exception that eroticism is to sexuality. But it is an exception that appears in all societies and all periods. There is no people or civilization that does not possess poems, songs, legends or tales in which the anecdote or the plot – the myth, in the original meaning of the word – is the encounter of two persons, their mutual attraction, and the labours and hardships they must overcome to be united. Their encounter requires, in turn, two contradictory conditions: the attraction that the lovers experience must be involuntary, born of a secret and all-powerful magnetism; at the same time, it must be a choice. In love, predestination and choice, objective and subjective, fate and freedom intersect. The realm of love is a space magnetized by encounter.