While collecting piles of articles from Mademoiselle and Redbook on the subject of love, sex and science, I was caught by the first sentence of an essay written by Barbara Ehrenreich in 1992: "Few areas of science are as littered with intellectual rubbish as the study of innate mental differences between the sexes."1 Ehrenreich goes on to argue that sex differences are mostly cultural, and that the move towards scientific explanations of these differences is politically motivated:
We are cultural animals and [educational decisions] are ultimately cultural decisions. In fact, the whole discussion of innate sexual differences is itself heavily shaped by cultural factors. Why, for example, is the study of innate differences such a sexy, well-funded topic right now, which happens to be a time of organized feminist challenge to the ancient sexual division of power? Why do the media end to get excited when scientists find an area of difference and ignore the many reputable studies that come up with no difference at all?2
While it is true that the media get excited about these studies, media representations of science are not science, nor do they proportionally represent the interests of the scientific community, as Ehrenreich points out.3 Like studies of sexual difference, the media "get off" on biological explanations of love.
The conflict between proponents of a scientific understanding of love and their starry-eyed adversaries is as old as Freud. In the last twenty years, however, the source of this scientific understanding has shifted largely from psychology to biology. As the mainstream media pick up on these biological theories of love, presenting biology as a fully objective and undeniable authority, they use specific rhetorical strategies to present these issues to their presumably romantic and skeptical readers. Even as magazine articles reassure their readers, they simultaneously play upon a fear of domination from the insidious inevitability of biology.
I looked at articles in women's and other popular magazines as well as at the pop-science books that inspired the theories presented in these magazines. The scientific explanations of love that I found tended to identify themselves with three main trends. In 1985, Robin Norwoods' notorious Women Who Love Too Much popularized the first trend by talking about the psychology of the "love addict." Modeled on discourse about alcoholism, the rhetoric of addiction makes claims to a biological basis. Love addiction was not invented by Norwood; it had flourished in the media in 1983 and 1984 through discussions of luteinizing-hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) and phenylethylamine (PEA). (If you can't remember the term PEA, you can surely remember discussions of chocolate (which contains PEA) as a "love drug.") This disease-oriented conception of love gradually changed from that of hor-mones to that of the psychological addict before it faded in the early nineties. The pub-lication of Robert Wright's book The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life in 1994 began a second trend, turning the public's attention to the "science" of evolutionary psychology: the application of Darwin's principles of evolution to universal human behavior.4 More persistent through the eighties and the nineties is a third trend: hormonal explanations of love, such as those enumerated in Theresa Crenshaw's book The Alchemy of Love and Lust.5 The idea of a "chemistry of love" is unique in its tenaciousness, perhaps because of its close relationship to the revered field of biology.
These movements in the popularization of biology are by no means discrete. Love addiction originated in the study of hormonal influences, separating and becoming its own problem with Norwood's study of it. Discussions of how hormones influence behavior are necessary to evolutionary psychology because they explain how men could evolve differently from women, while hormonal discussions simultaneously refer back to evolutionary psychology to give some motivation for what otherwise seems to be an arbitrary domination by chemicals. What all these trends have in common is a similar rhetorical strategy that presents science as the ultimate, undeniable authority.
In mediating the conflict between biology and a more "romantic" romance, the authors I discuss are ultimately reluctant to allow science to deny romance entirely. "But I am not a hamster, nor was meant to be," insists Jeffrey Steingarten.6 It would be cruel (and terribly unpopular) for these authors to create the bogeyman of biology and then condemn us to follow its every command. Having opened a Pandora's box of unconscious domination by nature, the authors feel a responsibility to give reader-romantics a weapon to protect their humanity. These weapons range from cigarettes, Neo-Synephrine and fishnet stockings to patience, enduring love and commitment, morality and rationality. All of these weapons require first and foremost a knowledge of the enemy: without knowing how hormones or evolution make us behave in certain ways, we cannot begin the struggle to protect our increasingly fragile free will. Hence, the authors argue, the struggle against biology requires both knowledge and constant self-evaluation in order to differentiate between what we are compelled to do and what we choose to do.
Chemical Control: Oxytocin and Pheromones
Hormonal or evolutionary explanations of love invoke the undisputed authority of scientific knowledge. Science becomes a compilation of definite and proven facts with no room for interpretation, even when the authors' own admissions of speculation deny this view. "Lets face it," writes Diane De Simone in a 1986 article in Mademoiselle, "The sex hormones are the most powerful and subtlest chemicals in nature."7 Despite the dubious nature of this claim (Glucose? Chlorophyll? DNA?), we still need to "face the facts," and for De Simone, the facts are that men are different from women, but not necessarily better. Theresa Crenshaw believed she was the same as a man until she "began to observe men and women objectively." For her, arguing for the similarities between men and women is politically motivated, while seeing mental differences is objective fact.8 Wright assaults those who criticize evolutionary psychology for its ethical implications by accusing them of committing the "naturalistic fallacy," or drawing "the inference of 'ought' from 'is'."9 The field of ethics may overflow with discussion about what ought to be, but, according to Wright, it is biology that has the privileged and objective word is, and therefore when biology tells us the facts, ethics had better pay attention.
Articles about oxytocin, one of the most popular hormones in the media now, display a similar disparity between scientific "fact" and creative speculation. Oxytocin is believed to promote not only sexual attraction but also enduring love between mates and between parents and children. Some find it obvious that the same hormone that promotes parent-child bonding would also promote mate bonding: University of North Carolina researcher Cort Pederson is quoted as saying:
Human relations are influenced by the model of the parent-child relationship in that they include the notions of nurturing, care, help.... The deficiency of a hormone tied to that parenting instinct may account for some of the anti-social behavior we think of as psychopathic.10
Oxytocin, which is increased by touch, is unique in being able to "remember" the touch and voice of ones' lover or child. Crenshaw writes, "If you spend time in that person's presence, a more profound lifelong pattern [of oxytocin surges] develops.11 This lifelong pattern is supposed to be the prime motivation for monogamy in women. In an article in Mademoiselle magazine, Modahl explains the increased influence of oxytocin on women by saying that "it takes more oxytocin for women to achieve orgasm." This results in large amounts of useless oxytocin in the blood stream after intercourse, and this excess of oxytocin translates into "an excess of emotion."12 The power of oxytocin over not only sexual behavior but also emotion makes it dangerous:
Science offers another angle on the feelings Louisa describes. During sexual activity, particularly intercourse, women produce a hormone called oxytocin. We also produce oxytocin when they [sic] give birth and breast-feed, and scientists believe it is one of the chemical catalysts for mother-child bonding. The logical conclusion: Sex triggers both carnal and maternal instincts. Oxytocin is part of women's most meaningful and passionate experiences, says Elizabeth Davis, a mid-wife and author of Women, Sex & Desire (Hunter House). But its important to recognize its power and be selective about the bonding it engenders.13
Oxytocin is just one example of how media representations of scientific inquiry too commonly leave out the inquiry, assume hypotheses that are under fire as truth, and feel free to speculate on im-plications while still insisting that the information has the authority of science. Wright's blithe statement that "a natural chemical called oxytocin is found to underlie love"14 does not represent any claim of biology. Feminists and humanists misidentify their foe when they critique the scientific community for studies that have been misrepresented in media interpretations.
The idea that the power of biology is greater than humanistic conceptions of love has led to a marketing boom and a science-fiction-like panic. In 1993, the Erox Corporation publicized their research on human pheromones and their intention to market these pheromones in the perfume industry. If the idea of biology controlling love relationships is frightening, then the possibility that corporations (and, more importantly, that sleazy old man at the bar) could control your biology is even more so. Hence the extreme paranoia that even creeps into the writing of Crenshaw, the most optimistic presenter of hormonal influences on love:
If this potion is genuine and effective—and it is theoretically possible—we now have a substance on the market that may elicit an involuntary response from another person. Where does informed consent fit in here?15
Crenshaw has seemingly become yet another victim of the media's exaggerated presentation of hormones, for the professed intentions of the company were not quite so drastic. In his 1993 article for Vogue, Jeffrey Steingarten writes:
Erox claims that [the pheromones] ER-670 and ER-830 have only a more modest sensual effect, making female subjects feel warmer and more open and male subjects feel more confident and self-assured.
Nonetheless, even Steingarten, a professed skeptic on the subject of pheromones, sarcastically imitates fear at their possibilities. He jokingly describes his own opportunity to try on ER-670 and ER-830: "In truth, I was ten times more anxious about my right hand, with its male attractant, and wore a glove during all waking hours until the scent had finally dissipated." The humor that pervades Steingarten's article becomes darker when he presents his final, apocalyptic vision:
I don't know about you, but I am beginning to find the idea of human pheromones extremely scary, mainly because they affect us unconsciously, without ever entering our awareness.... How can we struggle against the changes these pheromones may be causing in us? How many of our decisions and actions are influenced by forces of which we are unaware, forces as menacing as the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Or as menacing as an adolescent human male with a spray can of Spanish fly in his hand? Or, as Max Lake suggests, thousands of Nazis raising their arms in unison, exchanging pheromones in a ritual of group intoxication?16
Even without the addition of mind control through biology, the existence of natural hormones and pheromones is presented as a "bully"17 or a threat. A caption for a 1990 article in Mademoiselle reads "He picked you up two hours late, and then he made you pay for dinner. You know he's not right for you, but you're crazy about him. What's the story? In a word: oxytocin."18 The caption calls to mind the stereotypical defense of the battered woman—she ought to leave him, but she loves him. Indeed, the article says that "it's one explanation for why some women... keep returning to bad relationships." The woman who has never been in an abusive relationship should not think that she would be any wiser, she should just feel lucky that her boyfriend's problem is chronic lateness, not chronic abuse. Oxytocin can stick men with less than desirable mates, too—Crenshaw tells a story of a man whose oxytocin levels "chemically commit" him to his marriage-crazy girlfriend.19
Psychoanalyis or psychobiology?
Crenshaw consoles her readers: "romantics need not worry that science is going to eliminate the wonder and mystery of love in favor of a set of equations or charts with long, unpronounceable words."20 Crenshaw is not the only defender of the physiological constructions of love and sex to address this anxiety about science. Yet scientific research in recent years has not produced this debate between emotion and science. In Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 thriller Spellbound, Ingrid Bergman played Dr. Peterson, the mouthpiece for a scientific view of love that was, in this case, psychoanalytic:
Dr. Peterson: I think the greatest harm done to the human race has been done by the poets.
Dr. Edwards: Oh, the poets are dough-boys, most of them, but they're not especially fiendish.
Dr. P: Why, they keep filling people's heads with delusions about love—
writing about it as if it were a symphony orchestra, a flight of angels, which it isn't, eh? Of course not. People fall in love as they would because they respond to certain hair color, or vocal tones, or certain mannerisms that remind them of their parents.
Dr. E: Or sometimes for no reason at all.
Dr. P: But that's not the point. The point is that people read about love as one thing and experience it as another... for they expect kisses to be like lyrical poems and embraces to be like Shakespeare dramas.
Dr. E: And when they find out differently, they get sick and have to be analyzed, eh?
Dr. P: Yes, very often.21
As the love relationship in Spellbound develops, however, it becomes clear that Dr. Peterson's psychoanalytic view of love is barren and naïve (just as Dr. Peterson, in the early part of the movie, is barren and naïve). The literary view of love is more persuasive: kisses are like lyrical poems, and intuition and emotion are able
to see the "truth" where the cold science of psychoanalysis can not. It is, significantly, a female doctor who must face this truth, for Dr. Peterson
also learns that love
and intuition are the
more appropriate (and therefore correct) "sciences" for a female mind. Hitchcock's decision to validate the romantic idea of love reflects the unpopularity of reducing such an honored emotion to data. In recent discussions about love, however, Freud and psychoanalysis are just as much of a fairy-tale as Shakespeare was for Dr. Peterson, despite the constant profession of debt to Freud. Despite the fact that most biological theories of love were born in the discipline of psychology, neurobiology always "trumps" psychology, especially psychoanalyis. The opposition now is both between the brain and the heart and between the brain and the mind.
The Alchemy of Love and Lust is full of both fictional anecdotal stories and case studies (many verging on erotica) that attempt to demonstrate the way in which hormones function in human relationships. All of these stories presuppose that a knowledge of biology and an acceptance of the ways in which it compels us to act can help us avoid troubling and even devastating relationship problems. Crenshaw begins her book "It's appalling, but a seemingly trivial lack of information about hormones can destroy a marriage."22 The story of Janet and Richard that follows introduces both the underestimated importance of hormones and the unquestionable superiority of biological (versus psychological) explanations. The newlyweds Janet and Richard initially have a happy marriage and a passionate sex life. After the birth of their first child their sex life, and consequently their marriage, suffers. The theories that Janet and Richard adhere to as they desperately seek the cause of the impending failure of their marriage loosely parallel the history of these theories, and in the process of describing them, Crenshaw demonstrates their weaknesses.
Before Richard and Janet seek any kind of help, they have already formulated their marital problems in a distinctly Freudian and Oedipal context:
By the time three months had gone by, Richard was so jealous of the baby that he couldn't even bear to watch his wife nurse. He wanted to be at her breast instead, and blamed the destruction of their sex life on the child. He became increasingly alienated, critical, and withdrawn. Janet resented his attitude toward the baby. She thought it was foolish and immature for a grown man to be jealous of his own child—infantile, actually.23
Crenshaw goes on to imply that the Oedipal interpretation of their sexual problems fosters hatred and conflict: Richard hates the baby for stealing Janet's love, and Janet hates Richard for hating the baby. As a result, the marriage suffers even more: In what seemed like no time, the tension grew into open hostility punctuated by loud arguments. By this point sex was no longer the issue; they were talking divorce.
Turning away from the Oedipal complex, Janet and Richard decide to see a marriage counselor. The marriage counselor, whose method emphasizes feelings, is not as destructive as Freud, but neither is she particularly helpful:
The therapist advised them that childbirth had brought to the surface previously repressed relationship conflicts. With all good intentions, she explored Richard's jealousy toward the baby and Janet's reservations about sex. The counseling helped to restore better communication, but did nothing for Janet's libido. At this point, the counselor referred them to me.
The solution to Janet and Richard's marital problems lies in the "facts," but not the sordid, exposing truth represented by Freud. Crenshaw's knowledge of these facts allowed her to quickly solve the problem: "Nothing deep and pernicious was at play. No involved psychotherapy was in order. The cause of all this turmoil was strictly biological. Nursing!" Janet's excess prolactin inhibits desire for, but not enjoyment of, sex. This knowledge cannot change Janet's lack of desire, but it can change her response: Janet is advised to push herself to have sex with Richard, whether she thinks she wants to or not, and Janet and Richard once again enjoy a rewarding sex life and a happy marriage. "Had they been deprived of this critical information much longer," Crenshaw writes, "their problems would no doubt have persisted even after Janet stopped nursing."
Protecting yourself—from your body
Warnings like the above statement are frequent in Crenshaw's book. Romantics who rhapsodize about abstract soulmates may miss their chance at true love if "the One" walks in while testosterone dominates over estrogen (for women) or vasopressin (for men), causing them to be orgasm driven and reluctant to commit. Nor does Crenshaw omit a stern warning to skeptics that are less romantically inclined: reluctant and indifferent Eric is trapped by Robin when he makes the mistake of moving in with her. Sleeping next to her raises oxytocin levels, and as a result he is "chemically committed." Crenshaw explains "He didn't really change his mind. Proximity and chemistry changed it for him. Had he understood the predictable effect of oxytocin bonding, he would probably not have cohabited as a temporary defense."24
The Alchemy of Love and Lust is written for a general audience, and Crenshaw must therefore address a resistance to biology in her readers. She does this first by arguing that hormones control the lives and romances of even those readers who deny their importance. Only by accepting the role of sex hormones in our lives, argues Crenshaw, can we begin to develop strategies to combat them and regain control over our love lives:
This book may shake you up a bit, even provoke you; it's unsettling to think that our most private personal problems have underlying chemical causes that we didn't even realize existed, and that molecules can manipulate our minds, even our mates. But its also liberating—the idea that a long-standing roadblock may very well be your hormones acting up means that you can take stock and consider how to manipulate them in return.25
The metaphors of hormones as both unpredictable and all-powerful continue throughout the text: hormones are "errant," they have a "hidden agenda," they are even "dictators," and mutiny is in order: "This book offers... practical suggestions that will turn the tables on your hormones and put you in charge for the first time."26 It is not by denying the influence of hormones that we gain control of our lives, but rather by recognizing how many decisions are made for us without our knowledge.
Crenshaw's suggestions on how to combat hormonal problems are varied. "In some cases," she writes, "this can be as simple as changing our environment. In other cases, it might be necessary to take supplements or medication."27 For each hormone that she describes, she lists things that influence its levels in the body, so that her book becomes a virtual shopping mall for hormones in which anyone can pick their favorite hormone and adjust it. Men whose relationships suffer because they just "can't control themselves" can find out what drugs and activities increase vasopressin, and thereby become more clear-headed and faithful.
More typical, however, are Crenshaw's discussions of how people can take control of chemicals without fighting them with more chemicals. She suggests that "changing our environment" helps, just as it would have helped Eric by keeping him from being chemically committed to Robin. More importantly, Crenshaw describes another way in which the tyranny of hormones can be defeated: through a more romantic and idealized love than that created by PEA and oxytocin. After detailing why twenty year old men and twenty year old women should not be able to get along hormonally and sexually, Crenshaw provides smitten twenty year olds with at least some hope by arguing that "love is the great equalizer at any sexual stage."28
There is a difference between fighting chemicals with other chemicals and assuming that rationality and perseverance can defeat the body, and the latter method is more comforting and more popular. Discussion of "love addiction" has used both. In a 1984 issue of Esquire, Ron Rosenbaum discusses reliance on the amphetamine-like effects of PEA. Phase One love, explains Rosenbaum, "is characterized by a chemistry of stimulation and euphoria." Phase Two love, which is the attachment phase, replaces amphetamine addiction with opiate addiction as relationships become more settled. Problems occur when "the opiate-dominated neurochemistry of Phase Two" does not set in, and lovers are afflicted with "the pains of amphetamine withdrawal," better known as "lovesickness."29 Individuals who suffer from lovesickness jump from one relationship to another in an attempt to maintain high PEA levels. Dr. Michael Liebowitz terms lovesickness "hysteroid dysphoria" and claims that it is a specific type of depression which responds only to MAO inhibitors (MAO speeds the breakdown of PEA in the brain). Ruth Winter and Kathleen McAuliffe also cite Liebowitz's argument for MAO inhibitors in their discussion of a similar amphetamine addiction in 1984, but their hormone of choice is LHRH rather than PEA.30
Taking MAO inhibitors is not the only, or the best, way to defeat your love addiction. Jane DeLynn describes her own "love addiction" when she identifies herself as a "passion junkie" in Mademoiselle. Although DeLynn makes no mention of either PEA or LHRH, the terms she uses to discuss her "addiction" are identical to the hormonal descriptions cited above:
A junkie's drug wears off, prompting her to seek another, stronger fix. We passion junkies fall out of love, and go off to find ourselves a newer, handsomer, more exciting lover. Other people enjoy falling in love because it's the prelude to something else—like the beginning of a long-lasting relationship. Passion junkies aren't interested in that something else.31
Rather than MAO inhibitors to "cure" the passion junkie, DeLynn recommends self-knowledge and strict self-control. She tells the stories of her friends who have overcome their addictions, or at least learned to live with them. DeLynn's friend Ruth describes the cure she has found:
"Not long ago, I was shocked at how I use crisis and melodrama to keep my relationships interesting. So I've worked at changing this pattern, mostly by becoming more patient. I try not to rush things so much at the beginning. If I find my attention waning, I'm not so quick to say good-bye and end it. I can't control my feelings yet, but at least I can control my actions better." In short, Ruth is trying to be less rash, not by kicking the passion habit entirely, just by easing into other emotional territory slowly—testing the waters....32
Ruth's division of feelings and actions follow the rhetoric of scientific discussions of love, where feelings are controlled by chemicals and actions are controlled by human willpower.
The split between uncontrollable feelings and controllable actions also appears in a discussion of love addiction in 1988.33 Marilyn Webb's article owes more to Norwood's Women Who Love Too Much then it does to PEA, but the idea of a drug-
like remains. Webb proposes that addicts can find help in a modified version of Alcoholics Anonymous:
Women Who Love Too Much groups and Sex Addicts Anonymous, are modeled on the famous AA 12-step program. Relationship addiction is just like any other, the theory goes, always involving an addict looking for a "fix." And the recovery process is also the same. The first step is to admit that one is an alcoholic; in subsequent steps one learns to take one day at a time. None of the Al-Anon groups have a professional leader; all are based on the notion that mutual support and a higher power can help even the most dependent to recover.34
Through an admission of love addiction, addicts can learn to identify their chemical urges. In this case, there is a higher power that can (and must) come to the aid of their willpower. In Webb's article, as in Ruth's testimony, feelings can never change. As addicts go through the steps of recovery they will find that they still want the passion that they are trying to defeat, and 'real love' seems dull by comparison: "Without pain, addicts have a hard time believing this ho-hum, slow and caring progression can be real love." What is missing is that "there are no bells ringing, no tears and no pain."35 Webb quotes Norwood as saying:
We ask of a relationship that it give us a sense of meaning and identity and purpose, that it take away our feeling of isolation and soothe our fear of abandonment. We expect that if we are with the "right" person we will feel safe in an unsafe world… but a relationship with another human being was never meant to provide us with all this.36
Love addicts, like alcoholics, can never again enjoy their drug in moderation. Instead, they must be constantly vigilant in order to distinguish between impulses that are chemical and decisions that result from clear thought. Only then can they "go through all the stages of intimacy with [their] brain in gear."
In the conclusion of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault discusses how sex became a political issue:
On the one hand it was tied to the disciplines of the body: the harnessing, intensification, and distribution of forces, the adjustment and economy of energies. On the other hand, it was applied to the regulation of populations, through all the far-reaching effects of its activity. 37
If discussions of welfare, teenage sexuality and abortion can be seen as regulatory of populations, then the claim to scientific knowledge about sex "harnesses" and regulates the population on an individual level by becoming a foil for a therefore even more desirable and normalized ideal of love. Foucault argues that in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, "the natural laws of matrimony" received less attention then the actions of those "perverts" who were "prey to a strange evil that also bore the name of vice and sometimes crime."38 In recent scientific discussions of love, however, it is nature as biology that is the origin of sexual perversity. We are all, therefore, perverts, for hormones or addictions or outmoded environmental adaptations can make us behave in ways that we do not want to behave and in ways that we should not behave. The romantic ideal that is represented in the literature I have reviewed is not always marriage and otherwise "authorized" sexual behavior, but it is always behavior that results from free choice.
Wright defends the ethical goals of his book by asking:
Can a Darwinian understanding of human nature help people reach their goals in life? Indeed, can it help them choose their goals? Can it help distinguish between practical and impractical goals? More profoundly, can it help in deciding which goals are worthy? That is, does knowing how evolution has shaped our basic moral impulses help us decide which impulses we should consider legitimate?
The answers, in my opinion, are: yes, yes, yes, yes, and, finally, yes.39
Without a knowledge of our own biology, we can never know ourselves, for popular scientific explanations of love and sex assume a difference between the body (and the brain as body) and the mind. The difference varies from a typical Cartesian split in that the mind is in constant danger of infection from the will of the body.
The rhetoric of popular biological explanations of love construct our biological bodies as enemies. The danger in biological motivations lies in the fact that they are indistinguishable from the self without constant introspective surveillance and intensive questioning. The knowledge that popular biology provides us with purports to tell us how our bodies try to make us behave. Only by ceaselessly looking for ourselves in lists of "facts" about our bodies can we ever know if the decisions that we make are truly our own.
Notes
1 Barbara Ehrenreich, "Making Sense of la Difference," Time , 20 Jan 1992, 51.
2 Ibid., 51.
3 Dr. Michael Liebowitz, who is partially responsible for the furor over the love molecule PEA, complains "Its not the kind of thing that helps you in the profession… I don't put it on my curriculum vitae." Quoted in Rosenbaum, Ron, "The Chemistry of Love," Esquire June 1984, 100+.
4 Usually sexual behavior, altruism, or aggression. Wright, Richard. The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life (New York: Random House, 1994).
5 Theresa Crenshaw, The Alchemy of Love and Lust: How Our Sex Hormones Influence Our Relationships. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Crenshaw's book informs many articles about sex hormones in women's magazines, including a 1996 article in Harpers Bazaar (Fox, Marisa. "Sex Chemicals" Harpers Bazaar, Feb. 1996, 92-93.
6 Jeremy Steingarten, "The Sweet Smell of Sex?" Vogue, June 1993, 204-207. p. 205.
7 Diane De Simone, "You're No Weak Sister, Sister: The Tough Truth About the Tender Gender," Mademoiselle , May 1986, 152+. p. 152.
8 Crenshaw, xix. Emphasis mine.
9 Wright, 330. By Wright's own admission, many of his theories are "sheer, if plausible, speculation" (149). My purpose in pointing this out is not to condemn scientific speculation, but to draw attention to the disparity between the real formulation of scientific hypotheses and their presentation to the public.
10 Joanne M. Schrof,"The Chemistry of Romance and Nurturance," U.S. News & World Report, 24 June 1991, 62.
11 Crenshaw, 92.
12 Charlotte Modahl, "The Love Hormone," Mademoiselle , November 1990, 112.
13 Lynn Harris, "Casual Sex: Why Confident Women Are Saying No," Glamour,
September 1997, 314+. Oxytocin has, it seems, been the subject of much debate amongst scientists who claim it has an affect on the monogamy and maternal behavior of prairie voles, and scientists who protest that it mainly (or only) affects lactation. See J. Travis, "A Hormone's Reputation Takes a Beating," Science News ,19 October 1996, 246-7. Many discussions of oxytocin in mainstream magazines say that in humans, oxytocin rises during sexual intercourse and especially during orgasm, but none cite any studies to support this idea. Crenshaw, 97; Schrof, 62; Modahl, 112; Harris, 315.
14 Wright, 351.
15 Crenshaw, 69.
16 Steingarten, 206, 207.
17 Crenshaw, xvi.
18 Modahl, 112.
19 Crenshaw, 93.
20 Ibid., xxiii.
21 Spellbound., dir. by Alfred Hitchcock, Twentieth Century Fox, 1945, film. Dialogue is my own transcription.
22 Crenshaw, xiii.
23 Ibid., xiii.
24 Ibid., 93.
25 Ibid., xxvi.
26 Ibid., xxii, xxv, xv, xxii.
27 Ibid., xvi.
28 Ibid., 32.
29 Rosenbaum, 102, 106.
30 Ruth Winter, and Kathleen McAuliffe, "Hooked On Love," Omni , May 1984, 78+.
31 Jane DeLynn, "Passion Junkies," Mademoiselle , October 1983, 108+. p.109.
32 Ibid., 236.
33 Marilyn Webb, "Borderline Obsessions: Sex, Work, Weight," Harper's Bazaar , April 1988, 206+.
34 Ibid., 224.
35 Ibid., 226.
36 Ibid., 226.
37 Michel Foucault,, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. 1., trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Random House, 1990). p.145.
38 Ibid., 38-40.
39 Wright, 10.
