Key takeaways

• Love and will must coexist for healthy intimacy.
• Power without care leads to domination.
• Desire becomes destructive when disconnected from responsibility.
• Eroticism requires agency as well as vulnerability.

Love and Will is Rollo May’s exploration of intimacy through an existential lens. He examines how love, desire, power, and responsibility interact — and how modern culture often separates them in damaging ways.

Why this matters for consent and power

Consent culture requires a nuanced understanding of power. May’s work helps readers see how desire can slide into control when will is disconnected from care, offering insight that remains relevant in both vanilla and kink contexts.

Why it still matters

Few books explore eroticism and responsibility with this level of philosophical depth. Love and Will remains a challenging but valuable read for anyone interested in ethical intimacy.

Related reading

These pieces continue the same thread around kink and BDSM consent.

• How do I stop idealizing Dominant figures unrealistically?
• How do I handle guilt about wanting kink more than my partner?
• How do I explore kink after leaving an emotionally manipulative partner?