Authors: Betsy Prioleau
206 Remembering her obsession with Klimt: See account of this in ibid., 73.
206 “not a particularly”: Nina Kränsel,
Gustav Klimt
(New York: Prestel, 2007), 48.
207 “a refined and delicate form”: Colin Scott quoted in Havelock Ellis, “Love and Pain,” in
Studies in the Psychology of Sex
(New York: Random House, 1933), vol. 1, 67.
208 Aggression, fear, and power: See Reik,
Psychology of Sex Relations
, 96, 94–95, where he says that without challenge and negative emotions to overcome there can be no passionate love. Many scholars have weighed in on this controversial issue. See especially Elaine Walster, “Passionate Love,” in Bernard I. Murstein, ed.,
Theories of Attraction and Love
(New York: Springer, 1971), 87; Robert J. Stoller,
Sexual Excitement: Dynamics of Erotic Life
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), 6, passim; and Konrad Lorenz’s theories discussed in Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt,
Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns
(New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 126, 127, 128.
208 “aversion to conflict”: Louann Brizendine,
The Female Brain
(New York: Broadway Books, 2006), 130.
208 women seem strangely partial: See a new study from Massachusetts General Hospital in which researchers found from videotapes of 156 couples that “women tend to want to engage around conflict” because the intensity of their partners’ response showed they were invested in the relationship. Psychologist Shiri Cohen, quoted in “Health & Science,”
Week
, March 23, 2012, 21.
208 “Conflict”: Quoted in Jane Shilling, review of
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off: Love Quarrels from Anton Chekov to ZZ Packer
, ed. Kasia Boddy, Ali Smith, and Sarah Wood,
Telegraph
(London), February 14, 2009.
208 confirmed this proclivity: See Meston and Buss,
Why Women Have Sex
, 245, 241, 249–250. For the aphrodisiac of jealousy, see ibid., 100–106; and David M. Buss,
The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is Necessary as Love and Sex
(New York: Free Press, 2000), 217.
208 Women, they also found: See Meston and Buss,
Why Women Have Sex
, 134; and Fisher,
Why We Love
, 195.
208 “feel like an intellectual equal”: Quoted in Michael Munn,
Richard Burton: Prince of Players
(New York: Herman Graf Books/Skyhorse, 2008), 151.
208 “are a sign of strength”: Robert C. Solomon,
About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times
(New York: Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster, 1988), 312.
208 periodic bacchanals: This is a paraphrase from psychiatrist Ethel Person that the release of a quarrel often feels like “a periodic Bacchanalia or Carnival,” and “allows passion to continue.” Person,
Dreams of Love
, 65.
208 Like opposition, jealousy: Jealousy is a classic aphrodisiac. Theorist René Girard believes the “triangle” is the prime mover of desire, arguing with Buss and others that jealousy both sparks and rekindles sexual passion in relationships. See Montaigne, “On Some Verses of Virgil,” 72; René Girard,
A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Buss,
Dangerous Passion
.
209 Great lovers read: Havelock Ellis, “Love and Pain,” in
Studies in the Psychology of Sex
, vol. 1, 185.
209 “the right amount”: Phillips,
Monogamy
, 84, 28.
209 “Queen of the Palace”: Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, eds.,
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer
(New York: Harper and Row, 1983), 34.
210 “Look how aroused”: Sylvia Day,
The Stranger I Married
(New York: Brava/Kensington, 2007), 44.
210 “I have just enough”: Ibid., 70.
210 “sad and deeply distressed”: Derek Watson,
Liszt
(New York: Schirmer Books/Macmillan, 1989), 70.
210 “prodigy of love”: Tom Antongini,
D’Annunzio
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1938), 59.
210 “Even if all the women”: Quoted in Philippe Jullian,
D’Annunzio
, trans. Stephen Hardman (New York: Viking, 1971), 92.
210 After this “game”: Quoted in ibid., 121.
210 “I hate D’Annunzio:” Quoted in ibid., 112.
211 “gentle man”: Linda H. Davis,
Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life
(New York: Random House, 2006), 127.
211 Barbara Skelton: Ibid., 168.
211 “It was impossible”: Quoted in ibid., 306.
211 “all the ladies”: Ibid., 312.
211 “God’s own mad lover”: Irving Wallace et al.,
The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People
(New York: Delacourt Press, 1981), 156.
211 “his fate”: Quoted in James L. Haley,
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
(New York: Basic Books, 2010), 163.
212 His adventures began: Clarice Stasz,
Jack London’s Women
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 62.
212 When star-struck candidates: Haley,
Wolf
, 190.
212 first time she beat him: Clarice Stasz,
American Dreamers: Charmian and Jack London
(Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 1988), 101.
212 He hailed her: Ibid., 166.
212 “Dearest love woman”: Quoted in Haley,
Wolf
, 279.
213 “When self-improvement stops”: Solomon,
About Love
, 156.
213 forever-interesting type: Christiane Bird, “Almost Homeless,” in Harriet Brown, ed.,
Mr. Wrong: Real Life Stories about the Men We Used to Love
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 71.
213 “Someone who will enlarge”: Ibid., 77.
213 “There is no end”: Roberto Mangabeira Unger,
Passion: An Essay on Personality
(New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1984), 95.
213 “like a mine”: Quoted in Helen Handley, ed.,
The Lover’s Quotation Book: A Literary Companion
(New York: Barnes and Noble, 2000), 67.
214 growth-fueled, polysided mate: See Miller,
Mating Mind
, 151–157; David Schnarch,
Passionate Marriage: Love, Sex, and Intimacy in Emotionally Committed Relationships
(New York: Owl Books/Henry Holt, 1997), 73; and Solomon,
About Love
, 341.
214 No wonder women in surveys: See John Marshall Townsend,
What Women Want—What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 150–151; Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel,
What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know about Sex, Romance, Passion, and Pleasure
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2000), 507; and Dalma Heyn,
The Erotic Silence of the American Wife
(New York: Plume/Penguin Books, 1997), 146–147, 258, passim.
214 “I mean my husband”: Ibid., 147.
214 Love at its best: See Rollo May,
Love and Will
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 81.
214 Maslow distinguished: Abraham H. Maslow,
Toward a Psychology of Being
(New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1968), 43, 55.
214 “always in a state”: Jong, “Perfect Man,” 179.
215 Rather than a misogynistic rake: Jan Kjærstad,
The Seducer
, trans. Barbara J. Haveland (London: Arcadia Books, 2003), 4.
215 As all twenty-three women: Ibid., 144, 99.
215 His inspiration is reciprocal: Ibid., 148.
215 “No simple Lothario”: Tim O’Brien,
Tomcat in Love
(New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 173, 181.
215 “attractive beyond words”: Ibid., 27.
215 “Omega Man”: This use of “Omega Man” as the all-powerful, sexy individualist comes from Stephanie Burkhart, “Genre Tuesday—Types of Romantic Men,” Romance under the Moonlight (blog), April 13, 2010, http://sgcardin.blogspot.com/2010/04/genre-tuesday-types-of-romanticå-men.html. There are, however, variant meanings for “omega male,” but here it is used as meaning number two in the
Urban Dictionary
: “The highest possible status a man can achieve. Eats alpha men for breakfast. When an Omega male is born its game over. The end.” www.urbandictionary.com/define.pht?term=omega%20male (accessed February 27, 2012).
215 “You make me”: Laura Kinsale,
Flowers from the Storm
(New York: Avon Books/HarperCollins, 1992), 526.
216 “Big-bellied”: Robert M. Myers,
Reluctant Expatriate: The Life of Harold Frederic
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 86; and Bridget Bennett,
The Damnation of Harold Frederic
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 39.
217 While drifting apart: Quoted in Myers,
Reluctant Expatriate
, 87.
217 “a man of power”: Quoted in ibid., 87.
217 He was not, however: Ibid., 44.
217 “sex at every pore”: Quoted in ibid., 93.
218 “the frankest man”: Scott Donaldson, “Introduction,” in Stanton Garner and Scott Donaldson, eds.,
The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or the Illumination
(New York: Penguin, 1986), ix.
218 “great amorist”: From H. G. Wells,
Experiment in Autobiography
, 1934, cited in Prose & Poetry—H.G. Wells, firstworldwar.com, www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/wells.htm (accessed May 16, 2012).
218 “sexual system”: Quoted in Michael Sherborne,
H. G. Wells: Another Kind of Life
(London: Peter Owen, 2010), 170.
218 He sought “lover-shadows”: See H. G. Wells,
H. G. Wells in Love: Postscript to an Experiment in Autobiography
, ed. G. P. Wells (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), 51–57.
219 “seeing Nureyev dance”: Quoted in Sherborne,
H. G. Wells
, 261.
219 Beside him was always: Ibid., 298.
219 Wells thought: See Wells,
H. G. Wells in Love
, 53.
219 “To be equal to his”: Quoted in Sherborne,
H. G. Wells
, 256.
220 “about giving you”:
The Wedding Date
, direct. Clare Kilner, Gold Circle Films, 26 Films and Visionview Production, 2005.
CHAPTER 7: THE GREAT SEDUCER NOW
221 “I say to you”: William Makepeace Thackeray,
Sketches and Travels
, in
Miscellanies
(1847; London: Wildside Press, 2009), vol. 3, 111.
221 “If men knew”: Quoted in Peter Haining, ed.,
The Essential Seducer
(London: Robert Hale, 1994), 54.
223 none on the dating scene: Maryanne Fisher, “Romance Is Dead: Reflections on Today’s Dating Scene,”
Psychology Today
, June 2, 2010. Also see Anahad O’Connor, “Has Romance Gone? Was It the Drug?”
New York Times
, May 4, 2004.
223 “The love experience”: Feona Attwood, “Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture,”
Communication and Computing Research Centre Papers
, Sheffield Hallam University, 2006, 13, http://digitalcommons.shu.ac.uk/ccrc_papers/22 (accessed September 11, 2011).
223 Rather than grand amours: Stephen Holden, “Trailblazers, but Selling a Romantic Kind of Love,”
New York Times
, May 13, 2008.
224 “Sexual boredom”: Quoted in Laura Kipnis,
Against Love: A Polemic
(New York: Vintage/Random House, 2003), 191.
224 Love is “liquid”: See Zygmunt Bauman,
Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds
(Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2003).
224 “dissatisfaction with”: Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfield, “Sex in Bits and Bytes,”
Scientific American Mind
, July/August 2010, 64.
224 Desire has insidiously: Jonathan Franzen, “Anti-Climax: No Sex Please, We’re Readers,”
New Yorker
, April 21, 1997.
224 “a sexual malaise”: Camille Paglia, “No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class,”
New York Times
, June 26, 2010.
224 Nothing is sexy: See Erica Jong, “Is Sex Passe?”
New York Times
, July 9, 2011.
224 note cultural commentators: See Maureen Dowd, “What a Girl Wants . . . ,”
New York Times
, May 24, 2000; Maureen Dowd, “Liberties; Pretty Mean Women,”
New York Times
, August 1, 1999; and Maureen Dowd,
Are Men Necessary? When the Sexes Collide
(New York: Berkley Books, 2005), 178, passim. See, for example, Pamela Haag,
Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting the Rules
(New York: Harper/HarperCollins, 2011); and Alessandra Stanley, “Say, Darling, Is It Frigid in Here?”
New York Times
, August 19, 2007.
225 unprecedented cultural shift: See Hanna Rosin, “The End of Men,”
Atlantic
, July/August 2010; and “Female Power,”
Economist
, January 2, 2010.
225 Feeling increasingly demoralized: See Joe Macfarlane, “Men Aged 18 to 30 on Viagra to Keep Up with Sex and the City Generation,”
Mail Online
, June 14, 2008, www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1026523/men-aged-18-30-viagra-Sex-And-The.
225 “The men of my generation”: Quoted in Allison Glock, “The Man Show,” Review of Charlie LeDuff,
The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man, New York Times
, February 11, 2007.
225 recent retrosexist outbreak: For the Yale incident, see “Title IX Complaint Press Release,”
Yale Herald
, March 31, 2011.
225 “sexual politics are going backward”: Anthony Lane, “Big Men,” Review of
This Means War
and
Bullhead, New Yorker
, February 27, 2012.
226 The biggest surprise: Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel,
What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know about Sex, Romance, Passion, and Pleasure
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2000), 15.
226 For every misogynistic Tucker Max: Jeffrey Zaslow, “Girl Power as Boy Bashing: Evaluating the Latest Twist in the War of the Sexes,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 21, 2005.