Do you need love?
I am talking from man to man here.
And I do not mean: Do you need sex? Because you can have a lot of sex without loving her, and without her loving you.
But let’s first clarify what we are talking about. Love isn’t well defined. I would say that love has to be a strong emotion. I do not usually see this in the long-term relationships of married couples.
I am more willing to assign the term "love" to an intense, even burning, and quite possibly exclusive desire for another person.
One can engineer such feelings in women, and in oneself. Like so much in human life, it’s really just a matter of knowing the right psychological triggers.
But do I really want love? In myself and my partner?
My experience with women who love me has been that this can turn very messy. Women who love me do not want to share me with others. They demand a lot of attention and are suspicious of any free time I have. If there are reasons for jealousy, they may even become quite violent.
If I feel that sensation of burning love, I have strong sexual urges directed toward her. I can go many rounds, no Viagra needed, and orgasms are powerful. I will likely cut off other sexual relationships for lack of interest. And I may want her to love me, too.
If this can be engineered, isn’t that perfect?
Actually, it can be engineered to a degree, possibly with pharmacological aids, such as dopaminergics, which can cause hypersexuality as a side effect, or herbal supplements like Butea superba, which are marketed to enhance libido. The experience can be quite good, indeed. The downside is that I will enter into a lot of commitment, financially and otherwise.
Because she will be possessive, I will not have many opportunities otherwise, at least not within the same country.
The real challenge is getting out of this before she does, because I do not want to be left with this burning love sensation toward a woman who is no longer available to me.
As for such a relationship of burning desire for each other being lifelong... that is not a realistic perspective anyway.