Ann Brooks - Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society: Love in an International Context

Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society reflects on relationships in contemporary society and the role of love and intimacy in framing lives. The book draws on sociological perspectives, cultural sociology and gender theory perspectives.

It looks at how love and intimacy is experienced differently and intersected by gender, ethnicity, race and sexuality. This book aims to encourage people to understand theories of intimacy, emotions and desire by examining these concepts contemporaneously and cross-culturally. It also explores how love and intimacy is experienced by young people and how it is impacted by age. It looks at its representation in the media and film and focuses on how gender, ethnicity and sexuality offer different perspectives on love and intimacy.

The book shows how relationships are impacted by social networking and new technologies and the opportunities and challenges posed by these new platforms for building relationships. Finally, the book examines how intimacy has become commercialised in late capitalism and how that acts to change relationships. The book is written in an accessible way and explores a range of theoretical debates and contemporary research around emotions, which can be useful for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral study.

Ann Brooks is a Visiting Professor at the Australian Catholic University in 20182020. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). Her latest books are Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacy and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity (2017) and Women, Politics and the Public Sphere (2019).

First published 2020

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

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2020 Ann Brooks

The right of Ann Brooks to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Routledge and the Author acknowledge permission given by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, for the reproduction of the original artwork by Sanne Mestrom, Soft Kiss, 2011, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brooks, Ann, 1952 author.

Title: Love and intimacy in contemporary society : love in an

international context / Ann Brooks.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019029763 (print) | LCCN 2019029764

(ebook) | ISBN 9781138572935 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138572331

(paperback) | ISBN 9780203702123 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: LoveCross-cultural studies. | Intimacy

(Psychology)Cross-cultural studies. | Interpersonal

relationsCross-cultural studies. | GlobalizationSocial

aspects. | Technological innovationsSocial aspects.

Classification: LCC GT2630 .B76 2020 (print) | LCC GT2630

(ebook) | DDC 306.7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029763

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029764

ISBN: 978-1-138-57293-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-57233-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-70212-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Ann Brooks is a Visiting Professor at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne and Sydney), at the Institute of Religion, Politics and Society in 201820. She is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). She has held senior academic positions in universities in Australia, Singapore, the UK and New Zealand. Most recently, she was Professor of Sociology at Bournemouth University. She has also held research fellowships at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Ann has been an international research investigator with the Australia Research Council funded Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions 20112018 in Australia. She is author of Academic Women (Open University Press, 1997); Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms (Routledge, 1997); Gender and the Restructured University (Open University Press, 2001); Gendered Work in Asian Cities: The New Economy and Changing Labour Markets (Ashgate, 2006); Social Theory in Contemporary Asia (Routledge, 2010); Gender, Emotions and Labour Markets: Asian and Western Perspectives (Routledge, 2013) and Emotions in Transmigration: Transformation, Movement and Identity (Palgrave, 2012) (with Ruth Simpson); Popular Culture, Global Intercultural Perspectives (Palgrave, 2014); Consumption, Rights and States: Comparing Global Cities in Asia and the US (Anthem Press, 2014) (with Lionel Wee); and Emotions and Social Change: Historical and Sociological Perspectives (Routledge, New York, 2014) (co-edited with David Lemmings). Her latest books include Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacy and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity (Routledge New York, 2017) and Women, Politics and the Public Sphere (University of Bristol/Policy Press, 2019).

Australian culture often appears profoundly ambivalent about romance and marriage. On the one hand, we apparently have an insatiable appetite for American romantic comedies, melodramas about love and marriage, love songs and local versions of American romance-based game shows or reality television programs such as Perfect Match, The Bachelor/Bachelorette , the Danish-based Married at First Sight , or the British-derived The Farmer Wants a Wife and First Dates . These are all local adaptations of foreign concepts that sell or play with romantic love. Original, home-grown examples of romantic love in Australian culture whether high or popular culture are rather more difficult to find. While Australian popular culture certainly has examples of love songs, romantic comedies and dramas, and a flourishing romance novel industry, we as a nation are generally more famous for our feminist denunciations of love and marriage. In The Female Eunuch (1970), Germaine Greer complained that the concept of romantic love had devastating effects on women, teaching them to cherish the chains of their bondage (Greer 1993: 176). Greers work triggered a slew of ground-breaking books in Australian feminist scholarship such as Anne Summers Damned Whores and Gods Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia (1975) and Miriam Dixons The Real Matilda: Women and Identity in Australia, 17881975 (1976) critically examining the deleterious effects of colonialism, industrialisation and marriage and family life on women in Australia. Only recently has there been a turn towards an exploration of romantic love and intimacy in Australian culture (Maroske 1985; Simmonds 2005; Teo 2005, 2006, 2014, 2017; Grossi 2014, 2015). Mostly, however, the subject of romantic love has been ignored, buried, condemned in scholarship or self-consciously addressed and often mocked in popular culture.