Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior

Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior PDF Author: Victor C. de Munck
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031302443X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Westerners believe that love makes life worth living; that sex is a natural desire different in kind from love; and that only cynics reduce our love life to a calculation of economic or genetic factors. In this volume, essays explore these and other assumptions about the relationship between romantic love and sex. This represents the first interdisciplinary social science study of love and sex. Contributors ask and answer questions such as: Is love just sex idealized, or is it a transcendent and divine emotion? Is love a cultural construct that is shared by members of the same culture, or is it a matter of personal taste? What keeps promiscuous people from using condoms even when they know they are at risk? Are black professional men so rare that their conceptions of love and sex differ from those of white professional men? Are brutal sexual fantasies an exclusively male domain, and are they always excluded from love fantasies among normal adolescents? Is divorce a culturally induced response to evolutionary reproductive strategies that compel individuals to maximize their genetic legacy? Are marriages or relationships less satisfying or stable when an actual mate falls short of the fantasy of the ideal mate? Is there a universal core to love and sex that is camouflaged by other cultural norms such as modesty and sexual segregation? Is rape perceived as more acceptable when the rapist says he was motivated by love? What do cult movements and romantic love have in common? As they attempt to answer these and other questions, the authors extend our understanding of the variety of ways that love and sex are conceptualized, connected, or separated.

Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior

Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior PDF Author: Victor C. de Munck
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031302443X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
Westerners believe that love makes life worth living; that sex is a natural desire different in kind from love; and that only cynics reduce our love life to a calculation of economic or genetic factors. In this volume, essays explore these and other assumptions about the relationship between romantic love and sex. This represents the first interdisciplinary social science study of love and sex. Contributors ask and answer questions such as: Is love just sex idealized, or is it a transcendent and divine emotion? Is love a cultural construct that is shared by members of the same culture, or is it a matter of personal taste? What keeps promiscuous people from using condoms even when they know they are at risk? Are black professional men so rare that their conceptions of love and sex differ from those of white professional men? Are brutal sexual fantasies an exclusively male domain, and are they always excluded from love fantasies among normal adolescents? Is divorce a culturally induced response to evolutionary reproductive strategies that compel individuals to maximize their genetic legacy? Are marriages or relationships less satisfying or stable when an actual mate falls short of the fantasy of the ideal mate? Is there a universal core to love and sex that is camouflaged by other cultural norms such as modesty and sexual segregation? Is rape perceived as more acceptable when the rapist says he was motivated by love? What do cult movements and romantic love have in common? As they attempt to answer these and other questions, the authors extend our understanding of the variety of ways that love and sex are conceptualized, connected, or separated.

Adolescent Romantic Relations and Sexual Behavior

Adolescent Romantic Relations and Sexual Behavior PDF Author: Paul Florsheim
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135648638
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Developmental and clinical researchers have only just discovered the phenomenon of adolescent romance as a topic of serious scientific inquiry. This discovery may be related to the overwhelming evidence that adult romantic relationships are failing at alarming rates. Dramatic increases in the rates of divorce, out of wedlock childbirth, and relationship violence lead to questions about the developmental precursors of romantic love and commitment. What's wrong with love and can it be fixed? This book brings together a diverse group of experts from various disciplines to address a serious gap in the understanding of adolescent development. Part I focuses on romantic relations and sexual behavior from the perspective of normative adolescent development. Part II centers on high-risk adolescents and Part III explores the practical implications of current theory and research for clinicians, educators, and health administrators. Together the chapters in this integrative and clinically useful book lay a foundation for understanding how adolescents successfully navigate the tumultuous waters of young love.

The Making of Romantic Love

The Making of Romantic Love PDF Author: William M. Reddy
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226706281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a vision of love as something quite different from desire. Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert resistance. In The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, William M. Reddy illuminates the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes out from this historical moment on an international exploration of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.

Love and Attraction

Love and Attraction PDF Author: Mark Cook
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483279723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
Love and Attraction is a collection of papers presented at the International Conference on Love and Attraction. This book is organized into 12 parts encompassing 78 chapters that cover various aspects of the subjects, including friendship, intimacy, and sexuality. The introductory parts deal with the psychological aspects of physical attractiveness, non-verbal intimacy, attraction, and friendship. The subsequent parts examine the geographical difference in mate selection, marital relations, and romantic love. These chapters also look into the structural features of personality, behavior, and romantic love. These topics are followed by discussions of exchange theory applications to love and attraction; the social psychology of human sexuality; relationship between sexual behavior and society; and sex therapy. The final parts are devoted to other sex related topics, including sex therapy, erotica, arousal, child sexuality, and pedophilia. This book will prove useful to psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and other academic and clinical workers.

Dynamics of Romantic Love

Dynamics of Romantic Love PDF Author: Mario Mikulincer
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 1593852703
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
A theoretically and empirically rich exploration of universal questions, this book examines the interplay of three distinct behavioral systems involved in romantic love. This integrative volume will be of interest to both researchers and clinicians.

The New Psychology of Love

The New Psychology of Love PDF Author: Robert J. Sternberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847568X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
This is a much-needed update on the latest theory and research on love supplied by leading scientific experts. It is suitable for psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and anyone with an interest in love and what has been learned from scientific studies of it.

Relationship Maintenance

Relationship Maintenance PDF Author: Brian G. Ogolsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108419852
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Provides an interdisciplinary perspective on behaviors and strategies used to maintain intimate relationships.

Sexuality in Close Relationships

Sexuality in Close Relationships PDF Author: Kathleen McKinney
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317783506
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This is one of the first volumes to examine the interface between research undertaken in sexuality and that in close relationships from a social psychological perspective. Experts from several different disciplines offer chapters that contain theory, extant literature, and their own original research on such topics as jealousy, extradyadic sexuality, communication, love, and sexual coercion. Aimed at a fairly wide audience, this book will be of interest to students, faculty, and other professionals in social psychology, sociology, communication, and family and women's studies. It is also a valuable source of information for teachers, researchers, and clinicians working in the areas of human sexuality and/or close relationships.

Positive Approaches to Optimal Relationship Development

Positive Approaches to Optimal Relationship Development PDF Author: C. Raymond Knee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316589250
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
How can we get the most out of our close relationships? Research in the area of personal relationships continues to grow, but most prior work has emphasized how to overcome negative aspects. This volume demonstrates that a good relationship is more than simply the absence of a bad relationship, and that establishing and maintaining optimal relationships entails enacting a set of processes that are distinct from merely avoiding negative or harmful behaviors. Drawing on recent relationship science to explore issues such as intimacy, attachment, passion, sacrifice, and compassionate goals, the essays in this volume emphasize the positive features that allow relationships to flourish. In doing so, they integrate several theoretical perspectives, concepts, and mechanisms that produce optimal relationships. The volume also includes a section on intensive and abbreviated interventions that have been empirically validated to be effective in promoting the positive features of close relationships.

Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior

Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior PDF Author: Peter B. Gray
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674074394
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Few things come more naturally to us than sex—or so it would seem. Yet to a chimpanzee, the sexual practices and customs we take for granted would appear odd indeed. He or she might wonder why we bother with inconveniences like clothes, why we prefer to make love on a bed, and why we fuss so needlessly over privacy. Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior invites us into the thought-experiment of imagining human sex from the vantage point of our primate cousins, in order to underscore the role of evolution in shaping all that happens, biologically and behaviorally, when romantic passions are aroused. Peter Gray and Justin Garcia provide an interdisciplinary synthesis that draws on the latest discoveries in evolutionary theory, genetics, neuroscience, comparative primate research, and cross-cultural sexuality studies. They are our guides through an exploration of the patterns and variations that exist in human sexuality, in chapters covering topics ranging from the evolution of sex differences and reproductive physiology to the origins of sexual play, monogamous unions, and the facts and fictions surrounding orgasm. Intended for generally curious readers of all stripes, this up-to-date, one-volume survey of the evolutionary science of human sexual behavior explains why sexuality has remained a core fascination of human beings throughout time and across cultures.