Sexual Landscapes: Why We Are What We Are, Why We Love Whom We Love

By James D. Weinrich

Book Overview

The power of love is (as the song says) a curious thing. Rock stars sing about it, comedians tell jokes about it, and just about every advice columnist writes about it. Scientifically, however, just how curious love is, is still an open question. "Love" is a four-letter word to many people-and "sex" is the shortest four-letter word of all. Society builds taboos around these words, but there's no denying that love and sex are spectacular.

This is a book about sex: typical and atypical, loving and lustful, sensible and ridiculous. Sexual Landscapes takes on the most challenging puzzles of human sexuality and incorporates the latest scientific research, experts' theories, and the author's own work to explain them.

Why are we attracted to the people we love? Why are we hetero-, homo-, bi-, or transsexual? Who's controlling the communication when a man and a woman meet for the first time? Why do there seem to be more gay men than gay women? More bisexual women than bisexual men? Why do men and women say they're aroused by different things, but when tested with actual erotica, appear to be aroused by the same things? Why are we afraid to educate our children about sex? Does homosexuality run in families? How do things as delightful as sex and love become intertwined with pain and violence? Dr. Weinrich challenges our assumptions and popular taboos as he presents the results of fascinating research and controversial theories about why we love and lust.

Sexual Landscapes is a provocative, challenging guided tour of our sexual selves that will delight, inform, and instruct.

BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: The Power of Love - Introduction Chapter 2: Gender Transpositions - Erotic subtypes discussed in the book Chapter 3: Ten Unsolved Problems - about the science of sexual arousal Chapter 4: The S*x Taboo - and how it cripples our society Chapter 5: Reality or Social Construction? - Are things like 'homosexuality' real, or just constructed by society? Chapter 6: Limerence, Lust, Bisexuality - A new theory of types of attraction that explains how someone might 'fall in lust' with one sex but only 'fall in love' with the other sex Chapter 7: The Periodic-Table Model - How the gender transpositions can be arranged Chapter 8: Plethysmography - Direct genital measurement as an amazing and insightful scientific technique Chapter 9: Families of Origin - How sexual preferences are related to childhood personality traits and parental caring patterns Chapter 10: When Sex and Violence Mix - How can something as wonderful as love sometimes get connected to pain and suffering? Chapter 11: Courtship theory - The secret ways women attract men, and why men don't know about them Chapter 12: Homosexuality in Animals - Gay or bisexual animals? Why not? Chapter 13: Sociobiology - How evolution explains sexual orientation Chapter 14: The Big Picture - Solving the ten problems posed in chapter 3 Chapter 15: Conclusions - Why responsible openness about sex is vital to society References Index - The index page numbers do point accurately to page numbers in this printed edition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1478347244
• ISBN13: 9781478347248
• Release Date: April 2013
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 450 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Taxonomy of Love

In SEXUAL LANDSCAPES, sociobiologist and sexologist James Weinrich provides the reader with more detail about sexual orientation (especially comparing heterosexual and homosexual patterns) than almost any other work on sex. Often humorous, Weinrich combats what he calls the general "sexual taboo" with assertions such as "sex and love are spectacular...how curious that everyone goes around pretending that they are not spectacular at all." In the first chapter, he cites the universality, addictive properties, and adaptive aspects of sex and love-and devotes another chapter to "The S*x Taboo." And in a note about possible funding for studying orgasms in female rhesus monkeys, he writes, "if the Kinsey and Hite statistics are to be believed, the committees judging such a proposal can be presumed to have many male members who don't even care if their wives have orgasms, not to mention whether female monkeys do." Weinrich analyzes studies on "sissies" and "tomboys"-and particularly the gender crossing of berdaches (men who take the role of women in Native American tribes). He asks what role such people played in the overall reproductive strategy of human groups. From a sociobiological and evolutionary point of view, he wants to know what is "right," adaptive, or positive about such people because they are much too numerous to be mere genetic mutations (as perhaps transsexuals may be). He asks and tries to answer a series of puzzles including "The Erotica Puzzle"; "What Is Bi About Bisexuals?"; "Pseudolesbian Porn"; "The Little-Girls/Teenaged-Male-Buttocks Puzzle"; and "The Exhibitionism Puzzle." In the course of this wide-ranging review and series of studies, he provides a preliminary periodic table or taxonomy of love. He sets up a matrix that places the major categories of sexual orientation according to a two-factor biological model (embryonic development) of defeminization and masculinization-and a behavioral continuum of mounting and mount-receiving. He also proposes a theory of lust (sexual impulse for a certain type of person or love object) and limerence (erotic-love response to a particular person, perhaps developed over time), which explains some male-female differences. He quips, "if your love is blind, then it's limerence. If your love is blond, then it's lust." Weinrich's support for this model is impressive. He draws on research from anthropology, psychology, animal research, and biology and sexology in general. Occasionally, Weinrich gets too detailed and esoteric for the average reader-but those who wade through such rough parts will be rewarded with some thought-provoking insights or a good laugh. Anyone interested in the sociobiological basis of sexual orientation will be richly rewarded by reading SEXUAL LANDSCAPES.