What is your love style? Lovins!

Love is not sex and sex is not love but lovemaking is a way to describe a type of sex and sex is a way of demonstrating love. So I Sexplain Lee's colors, a model of love styles designed by psychologist John Allen Lee in the 70's. It was reviewed in the 80's, again in the 90's and is used today still to describe the six different way we love. Before I reveal them and their meanings, it would be much more fun to find out your love style first.

Clyde and Susan Hendrick designed a 42-item questionnaire to match Lee's love styles so that you can determine which one you are. It's called the Love Attitude Scale, or LAS. Google-able.

There's also a second method, which is faster and shorter. 18 items. For the 18 statements, use a 5-point Likert scale, 5 being strongly agree, 1 being strongly disagree, and 3, neutral. The instructions suggest basing your responses on your most recent relationship and if you haven't been in one, imagine how you think it would be. Go ahead, pause me. Or follow along with my commentary.

1. My partner and I have the right physical chemistry between us. Yes!
2. I feel my lover and I were meant for each other. Moderately agree.
3. My partner fits my ideal standards of physical beauty and handsomeness. Hmm, freckles...
4. I believe that what my partner doesn't know about me won't hurt him or her. No way! My secrets make me sick and I don't suffer silently.
5. I have sometimes had to keep my partner from finding out about other lovers. Ah, maturity...
6. My partner would get upset if he or she knew some of the things I've done with other people.
7. Our love is the best kind because it grew out of a long friendship. There's some pretty awesome love ignited by immediate sparks.
8. Our friendship merged gradually into love over time. Into a different kind of love, yes.
9. Our love relationship is the most satisfying because it developed from a good friendship. Uh, half and half.
10. My main consideration in choosing my partner was how he or she reflected on my family. Minimally, I suppose...
11. An important factor in choosing my partner was whether or not he or she would be a good parent. Only because a good parent usually means goodness.
12. One consideration in choosing my partner was how he or she would reflect my career. Respectful lover, check!
13. When my partner doesn't pay attention to me, I feel sick all over. Ahh, the art of self-soothing.
14. I cannot relax if I suspect my partner is with someone else.
15. If my partner ignores me for a while, I sometimes do stupid things to try to get his or her attention back.
16. I would rather suffer myself than to let my partner suffer. No!
17. I cannot be happy unless I place my partner's happiness needs before my own. Nope!
18. I'm usually willing to sacrifice my own wishes to let my partner achieve his or hers. Strongly disagree! No sacrifice needs to be made, I can negotiate.

Ok, now bracket the statements into chunks of three and add them up. The highest score for a love style would be 15, the lowest, 3. Wow, this reflects a very different Lindsay than my adolescence. Alright, now for the breakdown of what each of these love styles say about you.

Eros is passionate. It's like being struck by Cupid's arrow. Immediate attraction, like love at first sight. And because Eros lovers like touch, they tend to become more intimate than other love styles. The emphasis is on high-intensity romance, so it's a little less sustainable and a lot shorter-lived.

Ludus is playful. It's a flirtatious love about the pursuit and the seduction. Relationship? Bleh. When the seeker wins over the sought, it's usually marked by sex and the game, I mean relationship, is over, sometimes with another chase already in place so there's never a moment without action.

Storge is friendly. In Greek, it means "natural affection." It may start off as a close friendship and then develop into intimacy. Relating to one another precedes passion and sex and if the romance dissipates, then the friendship withstands.

Pragma is practical. Pragma, like pragmatic. It's like a business partnership. The person is looking for whatever is convenient and advantageous, what is going to serve them in a partner. Good person, good parent, good mate, good cook. It all precedes passion and romance.

Mania is possessive. It's a destructive passion, like when a person says "I'm madly in love with you." Watch out. Lovers of this style may experience the greatest highs when they're swelling with love, which is why many people who are new to love find themselves in mania. The danger comes when the pendulum swings over here and you have extreme lows of unreasonable jealousy, obsession and neediness.

Agape is selfless. To some, agape is the ultimate form of love. To others, it's clearly martyrdom. Kind of like love a mother might have for a child. But not a healthy love for two partners because then it becomes all about giving when love should be a balance between giving and receiving. There are qualities of agape that are admirable, like it's non-demanding nature, it's generous, kind and patient. Let's just make sure it's not long-suffering.

You may be curious to know how your love style is compatible with another's. I've made you a picture. In return, I ask for your pop-culture examples of each of these six love styles. Please put them below.

There are many other models and theories about love out there. Go find them! Stay curious.