Jean-Luc Godard’s movie Contempt opens with an unforgettable scene: laying on the bed, a wife asks her husband if he likes her feet. He says yes. She then asks if he likes her ankles, her calves, and so on, and as she goes through the list of her body parts, he responds each time in the affirmative, finally ending with her face. By way of summation, she asks, “Then you love me totally?” He answers, “I love you totally…tenderly…tragically.” It’s a beautiful scene, artfully staged with gentleness and a sensitive musical score. It certainly captures a common way of conceiving of love, that to love a person is to love everything about a person. If you really love somebody, you think of them as…

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