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Sex Signals: The Biology of Love
Sex The Biology of Love offers new insights about why people behave the way they do when they meet, flirt, touch, and fall in love. Dr. Perper's ideas are based on more than 900 hours of scientific observations made wherever men and women meet -- in singles bars, restaurants, parties, train stations. He concludes that intimacy develops not through magic or "good vibes" but through a clearly defined courtship sequence that involves the two people in a mutual, escalating, and interlocking series of from the approach, through talking, turning to face each other, touching, and synchronizing movements. Dr. Perper sees love and intimacy as part of a tapestry that weaves together strands from culture, history, psychology, and biology. Sex Signals will interest general readers as well as biologists, social scientists, and students of human behavior and sexuality. Chapter 1: That Ole Black The Lover's Eyes/The Scientist's Eyes/An Infinite Regress/Fidelity of Transmission/Variation Within Limits/Deus Ex Machina/The Biosocial Approach/An Example -- Templates/Why Biology? (sets the stage for an analysis of courtship from the perspective of both biology and social science) Chapter 2: Nature and Ethnobiology/ Nature as Divine (what biology is and what it is not) Chapter 3: The Biosocial Structure and Function/Biosocial Functionality/The Biological Capacity for Behavioral Variation/Biology and Courtship (how biology and culture interact and interpenetrate) Chapter 4: The Course of True The Courtship The Core Sequence/Escalation and Response/Some Implications, Practical and Otherwise/Theory and Practice for Lovers and Scientists/Feedback and the Stability of Courtship (the "body language" and behavior of two people when they first meet and begin to feel attracted to each other) Chapter 5: Sexual Repression/An Ethnographic Short Circuit/Proceptive Women and Responsive Men/As the Kid Goes for The Proceptive Tradition (how women take the initiative in courtship) Chapter 6: Three Faces of The Rules for Smart and Proper Sex/Outright Rejections, Heroic Deeds, and Good Opinions/U.S. and Canadian Women Writing About How to Reject Men/The Tradition of Giving the Man a Chance/Finding a Good Man/Envoi/Biology Once Again and a Transition (how women reject men and postpone sexual involvement) Chapter 7: Love Hatred and Partisanship/Men Talking and Writing About Seduction/ A Biosocial Pathology of Courtship/Men and Courtship/Poetry (how men talk about women and courtship) Chapter 8: The An Ethnographic Short Circuit -- and a Caution/Durkheim and the Concepts of the Sacred and the Profane/On the Threshold/Pure and Impure/The Rhythm of Life (how and why sexuality and marriage are deemed "sacred" in social rules and customs) Chapter 9: The Biosocial Function of the Sacred/Biosocial Reality/The Social Sciences as Mythology/The Social and Biological Sciences in Crisis/Reweaving (the scientific revolution, the sexual revolution, and the future) The Art and Science of People Observations in the Neoclassical and Realist Visions in the Expert Mode/A Multiplicity of Visions/Visions in a Confused Mode/Visions in the Neoclassical Mode/Neoclassicism and Social Science/Visions in a Realist Mode/Reality is Observable/Interviewing in the Realist Mode/The Real World in Focus (how to observe, and how NOT to observe, courtship behavior in public)
323 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 9, 2008
despite the saucy title, it's primarily a very cogent and well-argued discussion of precisely how fallacious it is to make "nature" and "culture" into a dichotomy.
as for the stuff about love, he points out something i think very true about human females -- the courtship process is basically a way of finding out how responsive the male is. if i need something, will he provide it? if i say no, will he stop? so, the female might be attracted to a male and know she wants him right away, but some other males she might not be so sure of, but not sure they AREN'T good either, so she does an intermittent/delayed rejection strategy to see how well he can adapt to her.
reading this helped me understand some of my own more confusing and emotionally-driven behavior i have done in this area of my life, which is cool. i always find it comforting to see the adaptive purpose behind behaviors, and then the next time the urge arises to do them, i can use my conscious mind to get some insight as to whether they really are adaptive in the modern-day situation i find myself in. instead of just crying and writing bad poetry. well, in addition to i guess.
and what men want from women? the author says men believe a fully yielding woman = magical solution to all their emotional needs (same for ladies feelings about men, i might add). he described pornography as that which portrays the female body as "a living vault of emotional and sexual gold" and also that it tells males that if he were a real man, no woman would have power to say no to him, ever, and that's why it can mess up men's heads. it's taunting the poor with what they don't have, like other forms of advertising do
as for the stuff about love, he points out something i think very true about human females -- the courtship process is basically a way of finding out how responsive the male is. if i need something, will he provide it? if i say no, will he stop? so, the female might be attracted to a male and know she wants him right away, but some other males she might not be so sure of, but not sure they AREN'T good either, so she does an intermittent/delayed rejection strategy to see how well he can adapt to her.
reading this helped me understand some of my own more confusing and emotionally-driven behavior i have done in this area of my life, which is cool. i always find it comforting to see the adaptive purpose behind behaviors, and then the next time the urge arises to do them, i can use my conscious mind to get some insight as to whether they really are adaptive in the modern-day situation i find myself in. instead of just crying and writing bad poetry. well, in addition to i guess.
and what men want from women? the author says men believe a fully yielding woman = magical solution to all their emotional needs (same for ladies feelings about men, i might add). he described pornography as that which portrays the female body as "a living vault of emotional and sexual gold" and also that it tells males that if he were a real man, no woman would have power to say no to him, ever, and that's why it can mess up men's heads. it's taunting the poor with what they don't have, like other forms of advertising do
May 31, 2014
I loved this book. Perper offered a great mix of science and philosophy regarding sexual attraction in this comprehensive book.
September 10, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews