Freud's discovery of the preeminent role of sex in creating neuroses resulted in theories that changed the thinking of the world. He was a champion of greater sexual understanding in a society that only whispered the words he used out loud. This pioneering study of the nature of sexuality and love remains a monumental achievement. The importance of sexuality and infantilism in shaping individual destiny sets the general theme for these groundbreaking studies. Elaborating his now-famous frustration theory, Freud dramatically illustrates how a person's sexuality can be stifled to the point of neurosis by a sex-scared society. With utter frankness, he explains various aspects of homosexuality, incest, frigidity, impotence, masochism, sadism, and fetishism. Here is Freud at his most brilliant, raising the curtain on a new era of sexual and social awareness -- Publisher description.
This volume brings together Freud's main contributions to the psychology of love. His illuminating discussions of the ways in which sexuality is always psychosexuality - that there is no sexuality without fantasy, conscious or unconscious - have changed the ways we think about erotic life. In these papers Freud develops his now famous theories about the sexuality of childhood and the transgressive nature of human desire. In the famous case study of the eighteen-year-old 'Dora', we see Freud at work, both putting into practice and testing his sexual theories that were to change the modern world.
Is love “blind” when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of the context-dependent nature of female sexuality. Lisa M. Diamond argues that for some women, love and desire are not rigidly heterosexual or homosexual but fluid, changing as women move through the stages of life, various social groups, and, most important, different love relationships.This perspective clashes with traditional views of sexual orientation as a stable and fixed trait. But that view is based on research conducted almost entirely on men. Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: “I fall in love with the person, not the gender,” say some respondents.Sexual Fluidity offers a new understanding of women’s sexuality—and of the central importance of love.
At the time of publication our understanding of sexuality relied heavily on biology, and also on morality, as was particularly evident when homosexuality and bisexuality were discussed. In this title, originally published in 1990, the author presents a compelling case for viewing the sexual dimension of life through an understanding of its symbols. The potent figure of the devil serves as his avenue of approach. In the first part of the book, the author presents a detailed case history of a young man who began psychoanalytic therapy with him because of a terrifying conviction that he could be possessed by the devil. In the course of therapy it emerged that the devil had entered into his consciousness as a vehicle to express a complex of homosexual wishes and fears that were deeply troubling to a man whose life history had been entirely heterosexual. The author argues that the assumptions about male psychology that came to pervade psychoanalytic theory after Freud’s death could not account for the nature of this young man’s conflicts or for the outcome of the analysis. In the second part of the book, the author cites historical and anthropological data to demonstrate that the depth and breadth of male psychology extend beyond the limits of what was considered normal by the neoconservative theorists who revised Freud’s theories to exclude his ideas about bisexuality. Rejecting the reduction of sexuality to biology, the author asserts that sexuality can be properly regarded as symbolic, in the same way that meaningful works of art and rituals are symbolic. The power of sexual images and actions comes from their ability to combine important meaning with intensely felt emotion. Finally, the author examines the way in which culture affects sexuality through its control of consciousness and its influence on what kinds of sexual symbols may be utilized and what kinds of meanings they may express.
“[A] fascinating collection of essays” on the complicated relations between men and women from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Art of Loving (The New York Times Book Review). The renowned social psychologist delves deep into the fraught relationship between genders, drawing upon the influential insights of Bachofen, Freud, Marx, and Briffault. Not primarily interested in the existence of anatomical and biological differences between the sexes, Fromm instead analyzes how these differences have been made use of throughout human history. Drawing from Bachofen’s Mother Right, Fromm expounds on how matriarchal and patriarchal social structures determine relations between the sexes in essential ways, and how they are shaped by the dominant orientation of the social character at any given time. He posits that the most important question concerning gender relations is which characterological orientation determines human relationships: love or hate, love of life or fascination with force. Thus, it will not be gender conflict that will determine humanity’s future but whether we opt for love of life or love of death. “As these essays show, Fromm was a wide-ranging thinker whose writings sometimes manifested brilliant insights or practical wisdom.” —Kirkus Reviews
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.
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.
This book offers a detailed road map for overcoming sexual and relationship impasses originating from painful childhood experiences. Large numbers of adults with histories of childhood trauma and neglect suffer persistent relationship and sexual difficulties. Unfortunately, most have failed to receive adequate help with emerging from these deep and complex problems. Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples with Histories of Childhood Trauma and Neglect explores the enduring impacts—physiological, psychological, and behavioral—of childhood trauma and neglect. Author Ruth Cohn, drawing on 25 years of experience working with trauma survivors and their partners and families, lays out a practical and actionable course for recovery in clear, accessible language. This book provides direction and hope to those with trauma backgrounds while also serving as a unique resource for professional readers. Integrating in-depth information on attachment and relationship, trauma and neglect, and sexuality, Cohn details a practical, hands-on treatment approach for revitalizing love, health, and passion.
Social psychology has made great advancements in understanding how our romantic relationships function and to some extent, dissolve. However, the social and behavioral sciences in much of western scholarship often focus exclusively on the more positive aspects of intimate relationships--and less so on more controversial or unconventional aspects. The goal of this volume is to explore and illuminate some of these underrepresented aspects: aspects such as non-monogamy, female orgasm, sadism, and hate, that often function alongside love in intimate relationships. Ultimately, by looking at intimate relationships in this way, the volume contributes to and advocates for a more holistic and comprehensive view of intimate relationships. Throughout the volume, contributors from social, clinical, and evolutionary psychology cover love and hate from a variety of (sometimes opposing) perspectives. The first section, covers love and the changing landscape of intimate relationships. Its chapters review the current literature and research of understudied topics like non-monogamy, female orgasm, sexual fantasies, and the viewpoint of love as something other than positive. The second section explores hate and how hate can operate in intimate relationships--for example, the appearance of sadistic behavior and debates the nature of hate as either a motivation or emotion. The volume concludes, by looking at ways in which the appearance of hate in relationships can be dealt with and overcome successfully. Taken together, these two sections reflect the full variety of experiences within intimate relationships. With the aim of exploring how love and hate can-and frequently do-work together, The Psychology of Love and Hate in Intimate Relationships is a fascinating psychological exploration of intimate relationships in modern times. It is an invaluable resource to academics and students specializing in psychology, gender, and sociology, including clinicians and therapists, and all those interested in increasing our knowledge of intimate relationships.
