clipped from: www.independent.co.uk   
Attraction. The very word attracts. Why should it not? Attraction is fantastically attractive.
Away from the object of desire, one is fretful and distracted, unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable to concentrate. All that matters is the next encounter, for with its consummation one will feel euphoric, blissful, thrumming with life and with tenderness.
people don't really like it when scientists tell them that attraction is all down to pheromones

The Greeks portrayed sexual attraction as a weapon, a dart that might pierce the flesh and possess a soul, causing chaos among humans and gods alike.

For Dante or Petrarch, courtly love was a kind of divine torture, with young men pining and fading for years at the sight of a chaperoned maiden who besotted them. The great literature of love Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary warns of the dangers of being driven by desire.

forbidden love leads to disaster and death
Introducing a major two-week series, Deborah Orr considers the enigma of sexual and romantic magnetism