This sort of erotic energy is essentially life force energy and it IS very primal. It has a sexual component, but is so much more than that, and it can be used in all sorts of ways beyond romantic love, as you noted. As someone involved in Consensual Non-Monogamy, I've often experienced it with people I like, but don't love or don't intend to be in a romantic relationship with.
Yael Wolfe wrote something a while back about experiencing this energy in different places in nature. Not that she wants to have sex with rocks, but that the energy of the place is simply filled with that primal life force energy similar to what you said about Rhodes.
A couple of years ago, I wrote this.
“The word shakti literally means power. Shakti the innate power in reality, has five faces. It manifests as the power to be conscious, the power to feel ecstasy, the power of will, or desire, the power to know, and the power to act.”
I think we'd have a lot healthier culture if we understood this energy better.
