【eroticism group】

It’s Summer Lovin’ Weekhere at Mashable,eroticism group which means things are getting steamy. In honor of the release of Crazy Rich Asians, we’re celebrating onscreen love and romance, looking at everything from our favorite fictional couples to how Hollywood’s love stories are evolving. Think of it as our love letter to, well, love.

Before I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, I'd had a movie crush or two. Bernard the Elf from The Santa Clauseheld my interest for a few weeks around each holiday season, Rufio from Hookwas a minor childhood obsession, and I was not immune to the goofy charms of Kel Mitchell on All That.

Crushes are one thing though, and true first movie love is another. From the moment he appeared on screen I knew from the fluttering feeling in my 10-year-old tummy that I felt love at first sight for Frodo Baggins, future savior of Middle Earth.

Heck me if I know why Elijah Wood was the one to finally move that dial for me. I can squarely place at least some blame on whoever chose to litter The Lord of the Ringswith long, close up shots of Wood's shockingly blue eyes, so famous for their color that "elijah wood eyes real" autocompletes on Google. It also may have been that Frodo was smooth and small, more familiar and less threateningly adult than Viggo Mortensen's stubbly Aragorn or Orlando Bloom's intimidating Legolas. I liked his gentle voice and his sunshine-y smile.

If at age 10 I'd had any insight into hero's journeys or character construction I might have been able to see that part of my love stemmed from identifying with Frodo's dichotomous bravery and fragility. I admired the ordinary boy who was driven to save the world not because he was born into a magical destiny, but because he just kept choosing the right thing. He wasn't supernaturally strong or resolved; he had moments of disappointing weakness and he faltered often. Frodo was the kind of hero a normal girl like me might be like if my weird uncle had a magic ring.

I wanted to be Frodo. And he was beautiful to me. So I also just...wanted him.

The first person to harness and bottle the energy produced by pre-teen girls in love will solve the Earth's energy crisis in perpetuity. There are few forces stronger than the first uncorked rush of hormones and feelings that come from young women discovering that desire is one of many emotional possibilities available to them. It's both embarrassing and sweet to think about how fiercely I loved Frodo Baggins (in hindsight I may have come off a bit rabid), but I couldn't hear a single word spoken against him or his character for years.

I searched the internet for pictures of Frodo. I talked to my friends about Frodo. I dreamed up universes where black girls like me had a place in Middle Earth and lived in the Shire, or were part of a clan of beautiful brown elves who saved Frodo's life when his chest was pierced with the morgul blade. I wished that I had long, flowing hair like Arwen and had the privilege of dabbing Frodo's sweaty forehead with some soft, lacy, magically absorbent elven towelette. I was ridiculousand it showed.

I am unashamed to report that I have not, in the sixteen years since meeting Frodo, become less ridiculous. I have learned in my maturity that it is impossible for me to hide the freak flag I fly for fictional characters. If my level of rabidity is lesser these days it is only because I, unlike a ten-to-fourteen-year-old, sometimes have other things to do besides sweat about hot people who don't exist. But I still get the fever for movie loves, or TV loves, or book loves, and I find real human joy in surrendering myself to it completely.

What I know now that I didn't know then is that the first one is always formative. Formative movie loves are weird. They set precedents no one can tell are set until they pop up years later. In my real adult life I find myself attracted to shorter men, dark-haired men, curly-haired and sunny men with dimpled chins. I'm an absolute sucker for the occasional blue-eyed man and I melt like a ring of power in the fires of Mount Doom if I see a smile with a space between the two front teeth like Frodo's — rather, Elijah Wood's.

I obviously find many different physical traits attractive, but the inclusion of such Frodo-specific features seems to me like key points on a checklist I started before I even knew I was writing it, like a passed-down prank of attraction my 10-year-old self is playing on me from the inside.

In some way I'm comforted by that. Knowing that my first love for Frodo actually impacted who I grew up to be retroactively makes the hours of pining and dreaming more important than just the weird hormonal bloom of a girl who liked a movie once. Those dreams were shaping me as I dreamed them, and I love the idea of a younger me accidentally working the magic that would guide her towards real love — in-person love, requited love, with a person who exists — so many years in her future.