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Background: Interpersonal touch is an essential element of human social life. It's unclear whether the neural patterns of interpersonal touch are specific to intimate relationships or generally apply to other social relationships. Romantic lovers are typically intimate and have a high level of interpersonal touch. Currently, researchers focused on the neurobiological basis and neural processes of romantic love. Methods: 110 participants finished two resting-state blocks, no-handholding and handholding conditions, with Electroencephalogram (EEG). We aimed to explore the differences in the brain-brain synchrony pattern of interpersonal touch between romantic lovers and strangers by calculating dynamic interpersonal functional connectivity (dIFC) via EEG-based hyperscanning. Results: Our results supported that the neural processing of interpersonal touch is a dynamic process. At first half, both groups tended to adapt, and then interpersonal touch increased the dIFC between romantic lovers and decreased the dIFC between strangers. Finally, we employed Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify EEG signals into two different relationships. SVM recognized two relationships with an accuracy of 71% and 0.77 AUC of ROC at the first half, a 73% accuracy and 0.8 AUC of ROC at the second half. Conclusions: Our study indicates that interpersonal touch may have different meanings between romantic lovers and strangers. Specifically, interpersonal touch enhances the dIFC between romantic lovers while reducing the dIFC between strangers. The research has important implications for planning touch-based interventions in social and medical care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within romantic relationships, secret-keeping has been related to negative outcomes whereas self-disclosure has been related to positive outcomes. Exploring young adult women's pornography use disclosures to their romantic partners can provide further avenues for understanding aspects of sexual and relational health. Using an open-ended survey informed by the Revelation Risk Model (RRM), this study explored young adult women's reasons and perceived relational outcomes of disclosing their pornography use to their romantic partners. Data from 32 young adult women (M = 20.8 years old), were thematically analyzed. Women in our sample reported disclosing for three main reasons: disclosed to be close, disclosed because we are intimate, and speaking our minds. They also reported that their disclosures resulted in emotional, sexual, or no relational changes. Further, we found that women who engaged in more in-depth conversations following their pornography disclosures perceived there to be more positive relational changes in comparison to women who had surface-level conversations following their pornography disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent trends in marriage include delaying marriage, the rise of singlehood, and romantic or companionate marriage. In studying these developments, including in Indonesia, anthropologists have largely focused on urban, educated, middle class youth, where ideals of romantic love and couple-focused fulfilment are evident. To broaden this perspective, this article focuses on the experiences of young, lower-class, low-income newlyweds. Drawing on diverse ethnographic life stories from Indonesia (metropolitan Java, rural West Sumatra, and coastal Papua), we show that marital ideas and practices stressed broader family expectations and social legitimacy, social and economic forms of care, and interdependence with extended kin. They did not generally express middle class romantic and companionate notions of love or marriage. These accounts highlight the salience of everyday material, social and economic aspects of care in marriage that have received less consideration recently due to the anthropological interest in romance, intimacy, and care as loving attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has experienced substantial transformations since the Economic Reform in 1978, as echoed by cultural changes in many facets of life. Previous research has examined cultural changes in China by focusing on books and other cultural products, albeit with a limited scope across various life domains. In the current study, we aim to explore a more comprehensive range of realms encompassing diverse aspects of Chinese life. To achieve this, we utilize an informative yet underexamined cultural product: TV dramas. Successful TV dramas appeal to the audience's preferences and needs and reflect cultural characteristics of the time. We collected information on top-rated Chinese urban TV dramas between 1980 and 2019 and coded them into 17 common themes reflecting various aspects of life. We then examined the trajectory of each theme over time from 1980 to 2019. Overall, the following themes became more prevalent in TV dramas over time: affair, divorce, family, romantic love, wedding, the pursuit of wealth, dinner party, house rental, house purchase, shopping, and death. The early 1990s mark a pivotal period. Specifically, the depiction of career pursuit in TV dramas switched from decreasing to increasing in the early 1990s. Around the same period, the depiction of survival stopped increasing and started to go down. Consistent with past literature, we found rising trends for themes indicating both traditional (e.g., family) and modern values (e.g., divorce), suggesting the coexistence of modernity and traditionality in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it mean to feel passionately for the subject one teaches? What does such a passion entail for those involved in the teaching–learning situation? This study focuses on the teacher's passion for their subject. Nine scholarly texts were reviewed, which allowed for four distinct notions of passion to be discerned: i.e., romantic, friendly, erotic, and divine love. Findings showed also combinations of these notions as well as ontological variations. Inductively created themes revealed that the foundations of these different notions of passion ranged from love of the Truth and the Good to a calling from the subject, and that the character of these notions ranged from them being about intellectual and emotional allure to being about their being disclosed and brought to fulfilment. It also revealed what the different notions of love entailed for the teacher, the student, and the subject itself: for the teacher—from a demand to seek the good in the subject to a requirement to perceive the subject as a voice, the subject in turn making their life meaningful; for the student—from becoming part of the community of "we who love subject X" to a "homecoming of self-hood"; and for the subject itself—from beginning to reveal itself to holding teachers and students accountable. The usefulness of the findings for teacher education and research on teacher–student relations is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to provide validity evidence and reliability of the Scale of Myths of Romantic Love (SMRL) in Peru among young and adult individuals. Focusing on how romantic love myths affect relationship satisfaction and their ties to interpersonal violence, sexism, and gender inequality, the methodology involved 308 participants, mainly females (75%), using the SMRL and Relationship Assessment Scale. Bayesian Confirmatory Factor Analysis (BCFA) assessed the scale's structure and reliability, complemented by descriptive statistics and correlation analyses to examine the myths' impact on intimate relationships. Results showed the SMRL's two‐dimensional structure, confirming its robust psychometric properties and satisfactory internal consistency. Descriptive findings revealed a skeptical view of traditional romantic myths among participants, indicating the scale's good reliability and successful adaptation to the Peruvian context. This validation highlights how debunking romantic love myths can improve relationship dynamics and satisfaction and addresses their wider societal effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between romantic love and polyamory. Our central question is whether traditional norms of monogamy can be excised from romantic love so as to harmonize with polyamory's ethical dimensions (as we construe them). How one answers this question bears on another: whether ‘polyamory’ should principally be understood in terms of romantic love or instead some alternative conception(s). Our efforts to address these questions begin by briefly motivating our favored approach to romantic love, a ‘narratival’ one inspired by 1930s cultural theorist Denis de Rougemont, wherein such love is exclusive, supernatural or promising transcendence, painful, impeded, and, ultimately, fatal. We maintain that, even once exclusivity is removed as an official component, tensions with polyamory's ethical dimensions remain: romantic love's other elements rationalize acting and feeling in ways that privilege a singular beloved above others. A tempting solution is to further revise romantic love. However, we are skeptical that this leaves space for distinctively romantic love. Our tentative proposal, then, is that polyamory's ethical dimensions favor rejecting romantic love as ultimately desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "lovebirds" is often used to describe the loving behaviors and interactions between two romantic partners, but what specific processes distinguish these flourishing lovebird relationships from other committed but "numbed" relationships? The present study aimed to address this knowledge gap through the development and preliminary validation of the Lovebird Scale. The Lovebird Scale describes the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and habits that constitute and maintain relationship flourishing, which in turn could promote aspects of individual flourishing such as positive affect. We conducted three studies using data collected from 996 English-speaking U.S. adults (64.2% Female, M = 39.2 years old) who reported being in a romantic relationship for at least six months (M = 11.2 years). In Study 1, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis to determine the underlying factor structure. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model nested within a higher-order factor representing lovebird relationships. In Study 3, we cross-validated the higher-order structure, examined the construct validity of the scale, and explored associations between the Lovebird Scale and affective state. Finally, we discuss how the Lovebird Scale contributes to the growing field of positive relationship science as well as conceptual and clinical implications of the scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common conceptions of romantic love suggest that romantic love is associated with increased sexual activity with more frequent sex in the earlier stages of a romantic relationship. To our knowledge, no studies have investigated individual-level factors and sexual frequency using a validated measure of romantic love. This study tested a number of hypotheses about the factors associated with sexual frequency among 720 sexually active young adults experiencing romantic love from the Romantic Love Survey 2022. We hypothesized that relationship duration, the intensity of romantic love and obsessive thinking about a loved one, commitment, and hypomanic-like features would be associated with sexual frequency. Using hierarchical linear regression, controlling for known covariates, we found no significant associations between any of our variables of interest and the sexual frequency and our entire model of 14 well-reasoned predictors explained only 4.06% of the variation in sexual frequency. The findings are surprising and highlight how little is currently known about sexual activity and sexual desire among individuals experiencing romantic love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's low fertility rate has been a concern for over thirty years. Despite a vast literature on the topic, numerous policies and measures to boost the country's fertility rate, and the will of Japanese people to have a family, Japan seems powerless to remedy the problem commonly called shôshika in Japanese. Yet, Southern parts of Japan show that it does not equally affect the archipelago. Remote islands in Japan have an exceptionally high fertility rate compared to other developed countries. The paper aims to understand the reasons for their high fertility rate by focusing on late and lifelong singlehood (bankonka and mikonka) as a critical factor of the shôshika. It will particularly pay attention to the perception of love and romance in one of those remote islands: Tokunoshima. It will argue that the absence of commodification in romantic intercourse facilitates matchmaking that would result in the creation of a family. People are more likely to meet someone with whom they will have a family when the dating process is not embedded with commodified gestures. On another note, although their view of dating is similar to individuals in other developed countries, the practice of dating takes alternative forms that force them not to rely on the commodification of romance, which increases their chances of matchmaking. As a result, inhabitants of Tokunoshima quickly find a marriage partner, which contributes to the absence of late and lifelong singlehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The given text does not provide any information or content that can be summarized. It consists of a list of references and acknowledgements related to a paper or research article. [Extracted from the article]

This research explores into the experiences of teachers in Department of Education public schools, focusing on their demonstration of "love for children" in the teaching environment. It employs an auto-ethnographic qualitative research design, involving three current Department of Education employees in SOCCSKSARGEN. Four themes emerged from the participants' shared experiences: service of love, presence, positive discipline, and belief in the young. The "service of love" theme highlights teachers' commitment to providing exceptional support and nurturing environments for children. "Presence" underscores the importance of teachers being fully engaged and emotionally invested, creating a valued and safe atmosphere. "Positive discipline" emphasizes constructive and empathetic methods to guide behavior, maintaining dignity and self-esteem. Lastly, "belief in the young" recognizes every child's potential, with teachers nurturing and encouraging it. This study offers profound insights into loving children in teaching, emphasizing love as service, being fully present, using positive discipline, and unwavering belief in every child's potential. These insights can enhance academic learning and holistic development, with implications for teaching philosophy and practice in public education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's paper on the three caskets is revisited. His view that the lead casket represented death is supported by extracts from The Merchant of Venice, in particular the song, "Tell Me Where is Fancy Bred". It is argued that the acceptance of death is a necessary step in the transformation of romantic love to mature love. With experience of reality a disillusion of romantic idealisation becomes possible, but this means that losses have to be accepted and mourned. It is argued that this is made more bearable if an ironic stance enables an acceptance of the pleasures of romance without believing them to be literally true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A romantic trajectory that has received little attention in the literature is "situationships," which is a colloquial term used in some Western cultures to describe a complex relationship situation. According to Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love, experiences of companionate and/or consummate love are often preceded by romantic love. However, situationships may be experiences of romantic love, without increases in commitment. The goal of this study is to describe situationships using a mixed-methods, exploratory approach. The first phase of this study involved 28 participants in one-on-one, semi-structured Zoom interviews regarding their entire relationship history, and then identifying if any of these experiences were situationships. For the second phase, 261 participants completed an online survey regarding their three most recent relationship experiences. The goal of the first phase (qualitative analyses) was to define situationships and describe how these relationships were different from other relationships. The goal of the second phase (quantitative analyses) was to differentiate situationships from non-situationships using empirical data based on results from the first phase of the study. Using reflexive thematic analyses, situationships were defined as romantic relationships with no clarity or label, low levels of commitment, but similar romantic behaviors as established couples by means of affection and sexual behaviors and time spent together. Independent samples t-tests using Bonferroni corrections provided some support for the prescribed definition as there were significant differences regarding relationship quality and similarities regarding affectionate and sexual behaviors between situationships and non-situationships. These results reflect that people in a situationship are, for the most part, emotionally and sexually invested even if they are not in a fully committed relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Interpersonal touch is an essential element of human social life. It’s unclear whether the neural patterns of interpersonal touch are specific to intimate relationships or generally apply to other social relationships. Romantic lovers are typically intimate and have a high level of interpersonal touch. Currently, researchers focused on the neurobiological basis and neural processes of romantic love. Methods 110 participants finished two resting-state blocks, no-handholding and handholding conditions, with Electroencephalogram (EEG). We aimed to explore the differences in the brain-brain synchrony pattern of interpersonal touch between romantic lovers and strangers by calculating dynamic interpersonal functional connectivity (dIFC) via EEG-based hyperscanning. Results Our results supported that the neural processing of interpersonal touch is a dynamic process. At first half, both groups tended to adapt, and then interpersonal touch increased the dIFC between romantic lovers and decreased the dIFC between strangers. Finally, we employed Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify EEG signals into two different relationships. SVM recognized two relationships with an accuracy of 71% and 0.77 AUC of ROC at the first half, a 73% accuracy and 0.8 AUC of ROC at the second half. Conclusions Our study indicates that interpersonal touch may have different meanings between romantic lovers and strangers. Specifically, interpersonal touch enhances the dIFC between romantic lovers while reducing the dIFC between strangers. The research has important implications for planning touch-based interventions in social and medical care.

The essay examines the metaphysical possibility of romantic self-love. It makes difference between two forms of such love feeling like de re and de dicto. Based on this difference, the impossibility of romantic self-love de dicto is demonstrated, since this would violate one of the constitutive conditions of such a love feeling — the requirement of the numerical distinctness between the lover and the beloved.

Abstract What does it mean to feel passionately for the subject one teaches? What does such a passion entail for those involved in the teaching–learning situation? This study focuses on the teacher’s passion for their subject. Nine scholarly texts were reviewed, which allowed for four distinct notions of passion to be discerned: i.e., romantic, friendly, erotic, and divine love. Findings showed also combinations of these notions as well as ontological variations. Inductively created themes revealed that the foundations of these different notions of passion ranged from love of the Truth and the Good to a calling from the subject, and that the character of these notions ranged from them being about intellectual and emotional allure to being about their being disclosed and brought to fulfilment. It also revealed what the different notions of love entailed for the teacher, the student, and the subject itself: for the teacher—from a demand to seek the good in the subject to a requirement to perceive the subject as a voice, the subject in turn making their life meaningful; for the student—from becoming part of the community of “we who love subject X” to a “homecoming of self-hood”; and for the subject itself—from beginning to reveal itself to holding teachers and students accountable. The usefulness of the findings for teacher education and research on teacher–student relations is discussed.

This article aims to present and generate reflections on the theme of romantic love and romantic encounters in the lives of trans and travesti women, crossed by a binary, cisheteronormative society governed by neoliberalism, which places all those subjectswho are not in a idealized love relationship as a failed subject, which is violence towards dissident bodies, having their subjectivity and singularity undermined in the field of affections. Through a theoretical study from the perspective of Queer Theoryand intersectionality, some answers were possible to be collected, which are briefly highlighted here. Love is a central theme for humanity, the constitution of the subject and their place in the world. However, for bodies that disobey gender and sexual norms, there is a ban on the right to affection that occurs due to the high rate of violence and its layers. Trans and travesti people end up being victims of a social imaginary that, although it defends love as universal, prohibits this possibility from them. It is argued that love is a product of culture and language and that travestis must have the right to love in their own way, if they so choose. This must occur to the detriment of neoliberal devices in a society marked by gender differences, social binomials and cisheteronormative coloniality.

A recent wave of academic research has highlighted the wide-ranging and negative impacts that stigma against kink has on kinksters. As scholarship continues to explore prejudice and discrimination around kink, this article argues that fresh insight can be found by drawing on adjacent work around other stigmatized sexualities. Over the previous decades, scholars in sexuality studies and queer studies have developed a powerful conceptual framework of “phobias” and “normativities” for thinking about the marginalization of sexual differences. This framework has its origins in the concepts of homophobia, heteronormativity and homonormativity, but its naming conventions and analytical insights have since been extended to address reproduction, romantic love, monogamy, gender identity, etc. This article argues that this conceptual framework should be expanded once again, this time to encompass kink. Building on the nascent use of this conceptual framework within kink scholarship, this article defines and expands on the concepts of kinkphobia and vanilla-normativity, and introduces the new concept of kink-normativity. This article demonstrates how these concepts can help us better talk about and think through the marginalization of kink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People commit to monogamous relationships with the intent of maintaining sexual exclusivity but often fail to do so. Existing research has focused on individual and relationship characteristics that render relationships more vulnerable to infidelity, paying less attention to strategies that decrease the likelihood of straying. Three experiments investigated the impact of one strategy that might encourage people to enact relationship-protective responses toward alternative partners, perspective-taking. In all studies, participants either adopted the perspective of their partner or not and then evaluated, encountered, or thought about attractive strangers, in Studies 1–3, respectively. Participants' pro-relationship orientation and reactions during these experiences (interest in alternative and current partners, commitment to current relationships, and fantasmatic themes) were recorded. Results showed that perspective-taking decreased sexual and romantic interest in alternatives, while increasing commitment and desire for current partners. These findings suggest that partner perspective-taking discourages engagement in behaviors that may hurt partners and damage the relationship with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the poetry collection Susy, secretos del corazón (1989) by the Argentinian poet, playwright and cultural manager Susana Villalba (Buenos Aires, 1956) establishes a critical dialogue with the comic strip of the same name, published in the sixties and seventies in Latin America. The collection of poems also engages in dialogue with other cultural references through an enunciative process that reveals the social constructs aiming to define and establish femininity. The critical stance of the text becomes evident as it illuminates how the experience of romantic love in women is codified. At the discursive level, from the use of textual mechanisms related to collage and pastiche, an open, mobile, multiple, playful poetic voice is generated-it unfolds to reveal the role of social factors in the construction of subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 16th century at the latest there were strong political, cultural and literary ties between the Iberian Peninsula and the Dutch speaking regions in north western Europe. Literature in general and especially romances from the 'south' were printed, translated and adapted in Dutch. After an introduction in which the contribution presents a short overview of the translation and adaptation of Iberian romances in Dutch the focus will be on the 'Amadijs' tradition especially. For the first time the Spanish source and the 'Amadijs' are compared, including an analysis of the paratextual elements of the first Dutch edition of 'Amadijs' (1546), which clearly shows that Nuyts did not follow his source as an inspiration for the design of his edition, but copied the design of earlier Dutch editions of narratives as a marketing strategy. Part four shows that the Dutch 'Amadijs' was obviously read by everyone in the early modern period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the intricate relationship between the artist and his work in Rousseau's "Pygmalion." Topics include the distinction of Rousseau's version from Ovid's by emphasizing artistic creation over romantic love, the portrayal of the artist's soul embedded within the artwork, and the legal and metaphoric implications of authorial ownership in the 18th-century literary market.

Copyright of Pedagogía Social is the property of Pedagogia Social and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Pedagogía Social is the property of Pedagogia Social and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: This study examined the associations between romantic attachment and relationship satisfaction as mediated by interp ersonal schemas (friendly × hostile) with Turkish couples. Background: Previous studies showed that adult romantic attachment is strongly associated with couple relationship functioning, and many efforts have been made to identify the mechanisms underlying this link. However, no study has considered interpersonal schemas when investigating the connection between romantic attachment and marital adjustment in couples. Method: In total, 230 Turkish married couples completed measures of interpersonal schemas, adult attachment, and marital adjustment. Results: Attachment anxiety is indirectly related to marital adjustment in couples via interpersonal schemas. However, attachment avoidance is both directly and indirectly related to marital adjustment via interpersonal schemas. Whereas friendly schemas are related to attachment anxiety negatively, hostile schemas are related to both attachment anxiety and avoidance positively. Conclusion: The current study extended previous research by providing evidence concerning the influence of each partner's attachment dimension on the interpersonal schemas and marital adjustment of both spouses. Implications: In romantic relationships being aware of the impact of interpersonal cycles on dyadic adjustment in clinical settings can help therapists shape their strategies in therapy sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We explored how young adults discussed their experiences with singlehood and their reasons for being single. Background: Despite singlehood being normative during young adulthood, less research has focused on the diversity of singlehood compared to that of romantic involvement. Method: In Study 1, 35 young adults participated in in‐depth qualitative interviews about their romantic histories. We explored singlehood meanings and reasons in the context of their relationship histories. In Study 2 we used data from 155 single young adults to explore the factor structure, internal reliability, and initial validity of the Reasons for Being Single (RBS) scale, which we developed for this study. Results: In Study 1 we found that singlehood is not simply the time in‐between relationships, but represents its own, unique aspect of romantic development. In Study 2, our analyses indicated that the RBS was comprised of three subscales: (a) self‐defeating reasons, (b) self‐enhancing reasons, and (c) lack of interest. Self‐defeating reasons were negatively associated with young adult well‐being, whereas self‐enhancing and lack‐of‐interest reasons were positively associated with young adult well‐being. Conclusion: Singlehood, like other aspects of young adults' romantic lives, is a diverse and varied experience. Singlehood is also neither an entirely positive nor entirely negative experience. Yet, framing singlehood more positively may aid well‐being. Implications: Within relationship education, being single should be treated as a diverse experience. Helping single young adults gain clarity around why they are single and identify their romantic goals may increase the efficacy of relationship education efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant is usually considered a cold moralist who does not give any importance to feeling and emotions. In this paper I show that Kant has a place for love although he uses this word in different meanings through his work. I will analyze the use and meaning of five different uses of the term love: self-love, practical love, love as affect, love as passion, and sexual love. I show that Kant has a place for love in his theory, in a plurality of shades and meanings, going from the practical love to romantic love. Some of their expressions are meaningful for the moral life, such as practical love, some are not. Kant portrait romantic love as a silly affect, sometimes as a dangerous passion who can even call for medication. And about sex, he claims that it is nothing but the use of the other as a means, which may obtain a higher juridical status if this use is reciprocal, in the case of marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the assumption that romantic partners tend to act from a first-person plural perspective, how should the love that binds them be understood? This paper approaches this question by focusing on romantic practical integration, understood as the tendency of romantic partners to integrate their practical perspectives in such a way that allows them to have ‘reasons-for-us’: reasons for action that apply to them as a group, in a collective and non-distributive sense (Westlund 2009). After dispelling some reservations about the connection between romantic love and the first-person plural perspective, I argue that the resources offered by one leading account of love, due to Bennett Helm, fall short of accounting for romantic practical integration. Building on Stephen Darwall’s account of romantic love as a ‘second-personal attitude of the heart’, I develop an alternative proposal. The proposed view foregrounds the relational and non-deontic normative character of romantic love, by conceptualizing it as an addressing attitude that intrinsically seeks – but doesn’t demand – reciprocation. On this view, the attitude of romantic love co-involves the addressee of the attitude as a (potential or actual) member of a narratively unified interpersonal community, in light of which putative reasons-for-us may be taken on board or rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Under modern conditions, "romantic love" forms a central source of social recognition. However, its increased significance, frequently signaled by the use of religious semantics, simultaneously ensures an increase in the vulnerability of the individual. This text explores the tense nature of the sphere of recognition of love under modern conditions. The focus is on two contemporary authors who have dealt with the ambivalences of contemporary love relationships in a particularly impressive way: the cultural sociologist Eva Illouz and the writer Sally Rooney. After an introductory look at the themes common to both authors, the focus turns to specific experiences of insecurity associated with the rise of love as a central sphere of recognition. Then the tension between recognition and autonomy, also characteristic of romantic relationships, is considered. Finally, theological considerations follow, which tie in with Illouz's own remarks on the religious dimension of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Full of men and women in love, Shakespeare's comedies have triggered abundant discussions of the dramatist's treatment of romantic relationships, which, however, nearly ignore the importance of language use. This pragmatic reading of Shakespearean comedies undertakes to explore the speech act of promising of characters in love. By incorporating quantitative data and qualitative insights, the research outlines the attributes and distribution of promising in four comedies, compares gender differences in the use of promising, and scrutinises the change of promising during the shift in love dynamics. In doing so, we anticipate providing a fresh interpretation of speech acts and Shakespeare's dramas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What's love got to do with it? Everything—suggests Ama Ata Aidoo, whose oeuvre, virtually without exception, foregrounds romantic love as part of a woman's well-being, obstacles to which constitute a decidedly feminist concern. Throughout Aidoo's career, her fiction highlights romantic love as the human relationship that has the greatest potential to achieve social justice, since it often transgresses boundaries of ethnicity, race, class, and various social taboos. At a personal level, union through love represents a reconciliation of broader political differences. In this sense, as in a range of others to be considered, the personal is shown to be political. Romantic love in Aidoo's project, furthermore, has the catalytic potential to transform and bring into congruence disjunct social relations, which, in a postcolonial context, disproportionately impact the lives of African women. The earliest recognition of the significance of eros in Aidoo's meditation was an unconscious one, where she echoed the dominant assumption of the African literary scene at the time, which saw love as a trivial personal concern. In a provocative self-critique, Aidoo reverses her earlier position when she acknowledges her own preoccupation with love across her career. A careful study of Aidoo's work suggests, however, that despite its power, romantic love finally is beset by obstacles to its realization, which leave social barriers in place and patriarchal structures untransformed. This black-eyed squint clearly does not see the world through rose-tinted glasses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to feminist cultural studies on the creative industries by offering an ethnographic account of the lifeworld of a female and creative entrepreneur. Drawing on interview data and ethnographic observations collected over the course of 10 years, I offer a thick description of the personal and professional trajectories of Alexandra, through the rise and fall of her fashion brand and first marriage and on to her second marriage and new job as an employee for a marketing firm. I focus on the ways in which she becomes her own microstructure, building connection between love and career in a de-regulated and de-territorialised environment. I argue that she engages in what I call 'romantic opportunism', a biographical device that enables her to spot instrumental connections between different dimensions of life, whilst unifying them into a romantic plot. The story of Alexandra can therefore be seen as an instantiation of 'freelance feminism', whereby life emerges as the combination of parallel and interdependent projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romantic love unites a man and woman as a couple. The birth of a child confirms the righteousness of this union and prolongs it into eternity – so the myth goes. Simultaneously, the demand for a well-planed and economically optimized parenthood is increasing. How do (potential) non-monogamous parents deal with these multiple demands? Based on an intersectional multi-level-analysis of 13 interviews, the article describes three gender-specific modes of subjectivation: A strong self-identification with the ideal of the autonomous subject, deconstructing fatherhood while reproducing motherhood and poly-parenthood as a project of social planning. The article shows which narratives of personal development occur empirically in relation to relationship management and parenthood, and how these narratives are either reconciled or weighed against each other. It becomes clear that the idea of polyamory as a means for personal development is widespread and is partly accompanied by an ideal of individual independence of an autonomous subject which does not go well with parenthood. Deconstructing fatherhood while reproducing motherhood turns out to systematically reinforce traditional gendered modes of subjectivation. It also became evident that there is an underlying idea of community development in which children become a part of a comprehensive project of joint self-improvement [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Education History / Historia Social y de la Educación is the property of Social & Education History / Historia Social y de la Educacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

What is the role of intimacy in sex? The two culturally dominant views on this matter both share the implicit assumption that sex is genuinely intimate only when connected to romance, and hence that sex and intimacy stand in a contingent relationship: it is possible to have good sex without it. Liberals embrace this possibility and affirm the value of casual sex, while conservatives attempt to safeguard intimacy by insisting on romantic exclusivity. I reject their shared assumption and argue for a necessary connection between intimacy and sex, in that sexual activity as such aims at a specific form of intimacy, irrespective of whether it takes place in casual encounters or romantic relationships, and the difference between good and bad sex consists in whether this end is attained. To defend this view, I develop a general account of intimacy and apply it to isolate its specifically sexual form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For 25  years, the predominant evolutionary theory of romantic love has been Fisher’s theory of independent emotion systems. That theory suggests that sex drive, romantic attraction (romantic love), and attachment are associated with distinct neurobiological and endocrinological systems which evolved independently of each other. Psychological and neurobiological evidence, however, suggest that a competing theory requires attention. A theory of co-opting mother-infant bonding sometime in the recent evolutionary history of humans may partially account for the evolution of romantic love. I present a case for this theory and a new approach to the science of romantic love drawing on human psychological, neurobiological, and (neuro)endocrinological studies as well as animal studies. The hope is that this theoretical review, along with other publications, will generate debate in the literature about the merits of the theory of co-opting mother-infant bonding and a new evolutionary approach to the science of romantic love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College is a significant transition in the growth of individuals, and romantic relationships play an important role in the future development of individuals. Understanding young people's attitudes toward love is helpful for formulating strategies to guide them to form correct attitudes toward love, promote the formation of positive and healthy attitudes toward marriage and life. This study aimed to explore the trajectories of college students' attitudes toward love, reveal the development law of their attitudes toward love, and identify the influencing factors that lead to changes in their attitudes toward love. Descriptive and correlation analyses were performed on participants' attitudes toward love, followed by utilization of a growth mixture model to explore latent trajectory classes and a multinomial logistic regression model to analyze influencing factors across trajectories.The results indicated that romantic attitudes could be divided into three groups: "high-increasing", "low-decreasing" and "low-increasing", and realistic attitudes could be divided into three groups: "high-increasing", "low-increasing" and "high-decreasing". Gender, major, extroversion, and hometown location were factors influencing whether students fell into different trajectory classes. Overall, society and colleges should pay more attention to changes in college students' attitudes toward love, provide timely intervention and guidance, and prevent them from suffering from behavioral, physical, and psychological problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]