The Privilege of Love

Love is blind, or so we are told! It’s a universal human experience, widely accepted as a fundamental need alongside food, shelter, and water. It’s often mythologised as something ever-present and universally accessible that fate will lead us to, but who gets to believe that love will simply find them? 

Here I aim to challenge this idea and explore whether love is, instead, a resource that is subject to privilege and therefore unevenly distributed, with some people assumed to deserve it while others must constantly prove themselves worthy of it.

In order to explore this, I'll start by assessing love through the lens of some of the common hallmarks of privilege.

1. Privilege not only determines who gets access to resources, but it also compounds

   
   

What this means is that an initial, unearned advantage also attracts further advantage and opportunities.

This may be better illustrated with an example from outside of romantic love: someone who has a lot of social capital (status) will be more likely to have access to a good education, and will be better-connected to access high-paid, high-status jobs, enabling them to maintain or grow their status further.

Status attracts status, which really challenges the idea of success - whether in the job market or in dating - being based on individual merit alone.  

How does this play out in the world of love? Well, we are often led to believe that if we “put ourselves out there” and “just be ourselves”, then love will find us. This assumes that if we are simply good enough then it’s a level playing field when, in reality, access to love is socially determined more than individually earned. Desirability is highly influenced by social status, with those holding the most status generally also being seen as more lovable. 

Being deemed desirable because of your alignment with society’s dominant norms means that you are more likely to find love. Being loved by someone can build your confidence and sense of self-worth, which then makes you more lovable and desirable, and so on. Love therefore doesn’t only reflect desirability; it amplifies it. 

So far, I've focused on how privilege determines access to love, but what about the uneven distribution of privilege that starts way before we start dating? Our earliest experiences - or lack - of emotional security have a huge impact on our ability to love and be loved. Secure attachment is not the default that it should be and is also not evenly distributed, making it one of the most powerful forms of privilege we can carry into adulthood. As a dear friend once said to me: “When we are not fed love on a silver spoon, we learn to lick it off knives”. In other words, early love shapes not just how safe we feel — but how possible love feels later. The positive news here though, is that you don't need social capital to experience secure attachment. Rather, you need consistent experiences of being loved and cared for.

2. Privilege is invisible to those who have it

Privilege often feels like “just the way things are” to those who have it. It can make it hard for us to notice or understand the challenges others face. Here it means not having to worry about access to love and the other things it gives us access to, such as affection, intimacy, a sense of security that allows us to work towards building a future, and social legitimacy. 

If you have plenty of opportunities to meet new people because of your strong social circle and social skills, if you've never had to wonder whether your ethnicity is impacting the number of connections you make on dating apps, or whether that person ghosted you because you told them about your health condition, then you hold some privilege when it comes to accessing love.

Privilege affords us grace - to be imperfect and yet still be chosen. 

Why does this matter? Because when we deny that privilege exists here and that there are factors other than who we are influencing who has access to love, not finding it (when we want to) can feel like a personal failure. There can be a huge emotional cost to those who have less privilege and less access to love that is reinforced by messages that they need to try harder to be desirable. This challenge to their sense of self-worth keeps people feeling as though there is fundamentally something wrong with them, which leads to shame, which in turn often leads to violence turned inwards or outwards.

The invisibility of privilege also shows up in some of the expectations and assumptions people have about being in a loving relationship. Did you grow up having relationships like yours portrayed in stories, songs, TV, and films? Do you feel free to express affection - or even talk about your relationship - in work or in public without fear of judgment, discrimination or violence? Would you be able to visit your partner in the hospital without question? 

These are all privileges that not everyone in love experiences, when some forms of love are invalidated or minimised (e.g. queer love, non-monogamous love, platonic love, love that arises out of practical necessity rather than romance). 

In non-monogamy, the term “couple's privilege” refers to the additional perks that primary partners have - such as social legitimacy, legal recognition, and being the default +1. In that context, the term doesn't exist to make these things bad, but to make them visible. What’s interesting is that we rarely apply the same honesty outside of those relationship structures. 

3. Privilege persists

   
   

If love is a resource that is subject to privilege, then that privilege wouldn’t disappear once you access love - it would exist within it too. It would shape how love is experienced within a relationship.

Love is vulnerable and risky. To engage with it fully requires a baseline of safety and security, which doesn't show up equally for everyone. For some, vulnerability is a little awkward but exhilarating. For others, it can be dangerous. For some, being rejected is something they can take in their stride, or, at worst, it might sting a little. For others, it can feel as though their world is collapsing around them. To be able to grow and expand through love, we need those solid foundations to be in place. 

Those who have less privilege - in society and in their relationships - are often required to trust more and take greater risks in a world that may have taught them that it’s not always safe to do so. Oppression in other areas of life can often mean giving beyond your means and not having access to the resources you need. In love and relationships, the same can apply. Someone with low capacity and little security in their life is more likely to override their own needs (and nervous system) to stay in a relationship. 

Privilege informs whose needs get centred by default, who backs down in a conflict, who shapes their life to fit into the others, who does the most relational labour, and more. When we assume that being in a loving relationship makes us equal, when we deny the presence of privilege, we risk the person with the least capacity giving the most. We allow love to not only reflect power but to reinforce it, over and over again. 

So, who gets centred in your relationships, and why? 

Relational power as a form of privilege (and what to do with it!)

If you find yourself in a loving relationship that is stable, socially validated, and resourced, then you have a form of power that, for now, I'll call "relational power". Sometimes, we can even have a surplus of this power when we are in a relationship that effectively meets our needs, and this can show up as boredom, restlessness, or the sense that something is missing even in a secure and nourishing relationship. The question isn’t whether that feeling is right or wrong — it’s what we do with the capacity it reveals.

I think one of the mistakes many people make in loving relationships is trying to hoard the power that they generate and keep it within the relationship.

But, if we think of this relational power like other forms of power, then a question we can ask ourselves is: Where can you use the power and capacity generated here to benefit your social circles and communities? Who can you help out? Whose voices could you amplify? Who can you protect? Like all forms of power, I believe we have a responsibility to use what we have for good.

So can you let love increase your empathy and care - not only within your relationships but beyond them? When we see love as generative, we can use love as the resource it is, to empower us and give us capacity to do good in the world, to be brave on behalf of others, to broaden our understanding. 

If these three hallmarks hold up - and I think they do - then we can’t keep idealising love as something we can all just tap into when we want. We can’t keep pretending that love transcends power. And if you have the privilege of access to love, then maybe take a moment to reflect on how you use that power.

This blog post is based on a talk I gave at the February 2026 Sex Lectures. You can watch the recording of me giving my talk here.