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Love and sex provide two of the primary motives of human life;
the need for intimate human contact and to propagate
our species. Sex is a powerful, sometimes irrational urge
or instinct, but as rational creatures our human understandings
and expectations of love transcend mere sexuality.
Our
cultural tradition says that love ideally finds its fullest
expression in marriage, it says that sex properly presupposes
marriage, and that the goal or purpose of sex
is to eventually conceive children. Sex also can be seen as
a source of pleasure and emotional intimacy, or as a special
way of communicating care and concern. These different views
have profound consequences for what we take to be moral and
immoral, or proper and perverse.
There
are essentially four sexual paradigms (or frameworks) for understanding
sexual behavior:
- The
reproductive model sees sex as the means toward the
ultimate end of procreation; heterosexual intercourse
is the ideal.
- The
pleasure paradigm sees sexuality as enjoyable for
its own sake; this involves sensuality and our psychological
needs and desires.
- The
economics paradigm defines sex as a matter of exchange;
here sexual relationships are bound up with economic and social
roles and commitments.
- In
their communication model, sex is a special, nonverbal
way of communicating care and concern, or perhaps less worthy
(even malicious) emotions.
The
concept of love changes with time and culture. In ancient Greece,
homoeroticism was an accepted expression of love, while marriages
involved power, property, and the domestic task of procreation.
During the Middle Ages, love was ideally a spiritual or religious
phenomenon; only in the 17th and 18th centuries did "romantic
love" emerge. It is little recognized that marriages now tend
to be more concerned with love than ever before.
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On
two audiotapes - about three hours in length.
Narrator: Cliff Robertson
Author: Dr. Robert Solomon
Editor: Professor John Lachs
Publisher: Knowledge Products, Inc.
This
title is part of the Audio Classics Series by
Knowledge Products. Knowledge Products publishes a variety of
audio presentations on the great ideas and events of history.
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