Read more
How and why does sexual attraction happen? This book is an exploration of the universal yet highly individualized experience of being sexually attracted to another person.Incorporating interviews, research findings, and excerpts from romantic and erotic literature, lyrics, and film,
Sexual Attraction: The Psychology of Allure explores a subject that is central to the human experience and highly relevant not only in personal, intimate interactions but also other relationships as well. Although the causes and effects of sexual attraction have been studied, sexual attraction itself-how we experience others in terms of their sexual attractiveness-remains a neglected, rarely researched topic.
Scholar James Giles presents jargon-free information that is accessible and fascinating to the general reader as well as highly useful and informative to students and researchers in social psychology, sexology, sex and marital therapy, and relationship counseling. The book explores subjects such as how sexual attraction is fundamentally different from other forms of interpersonal attraction and how at the heart of sexual attraction lies the experience of allure-something that makes one feel helplessly drawn towards an intimate physical joining with the sexually attractive person. The allure of strangers, cross-sex friends, sexual friends ("friends with benefits"), and romantic partners are all addressed, revealing the often subtle heterosexual attraction that typically exists between males and females in all their relationships, including between those who are ostensibly "just friends."
List of contents
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Interpersonal attraction and sexual attraction
Ways of being attracted to other people
Sexual attraction and physical appearance
Allure
The origins of allure
2. Exchanging glances
Types of strangers
The allure of strangers
Strangers in dreams
3. Just friends
Friendship
Cross-sex friendship
The allure of the cross-sex friend
4. More than just friends
Sexual friendship
The place of sex in sexual friendships
The allure of sexual friends
5. It turned out so right
The romantic relationship
Lovers and friends
The allure of romantic partners
6. With the help of helplessness
Notes
References
Index
About the author
JAMES GILES is a lecturer in the University of Cambridge Institute for Continuing Education. His writings on philosophical psychology, metaphysics, and human relationships are widely discussed. He is best known for his version of the no-self theory of personal identity, the vulnerability and care theory of love, and the theory of sexual desire as an existential need. Giles' works are typically interdisciplinary and intercultural, drawing on such areas as philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and biology, while exploring their expression in different cultures.
