Course Code and Title: GE109 – GENDER AND SOCIETY

Lesson Number: Lesson 5 Week 5

TOPIC: Love, Intimacy, and Relationship

LOVE, INTIMACY, AND RELATIONSHIP

INTRODUCTION:

In February 15, 2015, an article featuring a study by McCann World Group, among
30,000 respondents from 29 countries, came out of a national newspaper, bannering the
title “Filipinos most expressive about love among Asia Pacific countries-study” (Hegina,
2015). The article presented an interesting result: the Filipino say “I love you”
approximately 17 times in a week, making us sixth among the countries in the survey,
which are most articulate and expressive.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

● define terms such as “love,” attraction,” “relationship,” and other related terms;

● discuss different theories of love;

 ● identify needs, issues, and concerns experienced by people who are in a

romantic relationship;

● reflect upon one’s attitudes towards love, intimacy, and relationship;

● show appreciation of how the sensorium contributes to our experience of

human sexuality; and

● speak clearly to express one’s opinion and participate in mental exercises.

LESSON PRESENTATION:

Robert Sternberg, a psychologist renowned for his theory of love asked, in his
1986 paper: “What does it mean “to love” someone” Does it always mean the same
thing, and if not, in what ways do loves differ from each other?” We will tackle, one of the
most complex and celebrated human emotion and experience: love.

Love is a human experience differently

defined and conceptualized. Love is construed
as a culture universal. A culture universal is a
phenomenon experienced similarly by people
across time and cultures. This means that
humans, whether those lived in the past or who

are living now and regardless of their geographic

location and socio-cultural identities, have
experience love, in one way or another.
 Said differently, love is an experience that transcends time and culture. People
before us, such as our grandparents, parents, and other adolescent like us who live in
other countries, are believed to know and encounter love as we do. The way we
appreciate and experience this phenomenon may be unique, but it is a similar
phenomenon altogether.

LOVE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Social phenomenon is an event

or experience which ensue within our
interaction and relationship with other
people. Loving entails communication-
the process of giving and receiving
information between and among people.
It also entails the use of a language-
symbols that are culturally agreed upon
as possessing certain meaning and that are used by people to express certain realities
and worldviews.

LOVE AS AN EMOTION

Emotions are physiological responses that

we evaluate psychologically as we experience
particular life events. There are basic emotions such
as joy, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger among
others. There are also complex emotions, which are
a combination of basic emotions in varying
magnitudes and are made intricate by
circumstances surrounding the
experience. Love, as we know it, is a
complex emotion.

LOVE AS A NEUROBIOLOGICAL
EVENT
 With recent advancements in science, love, now, can be studied as a
neurobiological event. Every spilt of a second, information is being passed on within our
nervous system - a conglomerate of organs responsible for our ability to process and
transmit essential information among the many organs in our body.

Neurobiologically, the experience of love is associated with various parts of our

brain. For instance, the loving experience is commonly associated with the activation of
the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of our brain which is just right behind our left eyes. It is
also associated with the increased amount in endorphins - hormones believed to provide
humans a good mood.

THEORIZING LOVE

Since love is a rather complex idea, which can be described, defined and
experienced in myriad of ways, several theories and frameworks offer diverse
perspectives on how it can be understood and explained.

PSYCHODYNAMIC VIEW ON LOVE

Psychodynamic theory is a
collective term, which pertains to the
psychoanalytic tradition forwarded by
Sigmund Freud, as well as the
succeeding theories that support,
redefine, or refute his propositions. The
psychodynamic theory posits that we
have desires and motives fueled by our
life (eros) and death (thantos) instincts.
Hence, from a psychodynamic view,
love can be seen as a manifestation of
our eros and the placement of our libido
(life energy) unto an object (a thing or a person towards who we transfer our psychic
energies to ease pain or achieve pleasure).
COLOR WHEEL OF LOVE

John Alan Lee (1973), a Canadiam psychologist, suggest that there are different
types of love. The primary types are: eros (sexual and romantic), philia (friendly), and
storge (parential/filia love). The
secondary types are: pragma (practical
love), agape (universal love), and
philautia (self-love).

It is possible for us to experience

not just one, but two or more of these
types of love in our lifetime. A child who
loves her parents (storge) might
eventually find new friends whom to like
once they go to school (philia) and then
experience romantic love (eros)
especially during her youth.

TRIANGULAR MODEL OF LOVE

One of the most popular theories of love

is the triangular model by Sternberg (1986), a
psychologist. This theory looks at love from a
psychometric stance, which means that it is
generally concerned about trying to measure
love as a psychological variable and in
determining the various dimensions and facets
that love as experienced by people.
 According to Sternberg (1986), love has three interlocking dimensions - passion,
intimacy, and commitment. Passion refers to the physical/emotional aspect. Intimacy
pertains to the psychological/relational
aspect. Commitment pertains to the agency
component that is the choice we make with
regards to engaging and maintaining the
loving relationship.

ROMANTIC AND COMPANIONATE LOVE

Hatfield and Rapson (1978, 1993), on

the other hand, suggests that there are two
general types of love: romantic love and
companionate love. Romantic love is
characterized by intense passion- “a state of
intense longing for union with your partner”. Companionate love, on the other hand, is
characterized by intense intimacy - emotional closeness - which is also a characteristic of
liking.

LOVE LANGUAGES

Gary Chapman, a world-

renown author, suggested that
people have various ways through
which we give and receive love. He
referred to these unique ways as
love languages. Chapman (1995)
posited that there are generally live
love languages: namely, words of
affirmation, touch, time, gifts, and
acts of service.
 People whose love language is words of affirmation tend to verbally express
their thoughts and feelings of love towards the people they love. They may be
comfortable saying “I love you” and articulating other words of endearment. Those whose
love language is touch, on the other hand, express love non-verbally through hugs,
kisses, or simply, a tap on the back. They value proximity (nearness) and yearns for
physical contact (not necessarily sexual in nature) with their partners. Those whose love
language is time tend to value quality moments with their loved ones.

LOVE AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

Love, although well-studied and variedly-theorized, remains abstract and

obscure unless viewed in the context of human relationship. The Greek philosopher,
Aristotle, has been widely quoted as referring to humans as social animals. This means
that we survive, thrive, and flourish when we are together such that relating to other
humans is not only a sentimental, but also an evolutionary and a practical process.

Social connection is necessary for our growth as individuals. In certain cases, it

also serves as a foundation for family life, which then provides us humans a venue for
nurturance and care and as a platform where we can develop to our greatest potentials.
In other cases, it enables us to secure our social position and provides us human
resources to implement our goals for ourselves and for the greater community.

In his analysis of close human relationships, George Levinger (1982) postulated

that there are stages that intimate relationships go through: (1) acquaintance, (2) buildup,
(3) continuation or consolidation, (4) deterioration or decline, and (5) ending or
termination.
Simply the ABCDE of intimate relationship.
ACQUAINTANCE

Intimate human relationships start in acquaintanceship. We meet up through

circumstances and first learn about basic information about one another. Crucial at this
stage is attraction. What does it take for a person to actually decide to be acquainted
with another? Attraction can take place in an enabling environment. It can happen when
there is propinquity or proximity-when we are physically closed to one another. It can
happen when there is exposure-when due to proximity, there are repeated possibilities of
interaction. It can also happen when there is similarity - common preferences, interest,
and probably beliefs and values.

BUILD UP

Some acquaintanceships build up into deeper relationships. Frequency of

interaction increases. Kinds of activities shared become diverse. The involved parties
begin to introduce one another to each other’s friends and families, thus, making the
social network larger and interconnected. This is the stage when two persons test their
boundaries. They test the waters before engaging fully and so committed in the
relationship.

CONSOLIDATION AND CONTINUATION

The third stage of intimate relationship is consolidation. This stage is when people
commit to a long-term relationship with one another, either through a personal
agreement. What makes people commit to a relationship, to the point of legitimizing it
through marriage?

DECLINE OR DETERIORATION

Unfortunately, some intimate partnerships are unable to sustain and maintain their
commitments or attraction. For one, there may be a change in priorities between the
individual couple, such that the conjoint value of the partnership is not anymore sufficient.
There may be infidelity - the breach of loyalty and promises as agreed upon by both
individuals. Or, in other, there may be irreconcilable differences - which are already
harming each individual and the partnership as a whole.

ENDING

Finally, for those intimate partnership who are unable to address the causes and
circumstances leading to the deterioration of their relationship, the stages culminate into
ending or termination of the agreements made through informal or formal means.

SEX AND SENSES

When we were children, we were taught that there are five bodily organs, which
corresponds to our primary senses, that we use to explore and experience the world
around us. These five senses comprise our sensorium - the totality of our sensory
experiences and perception. While we receive information from our environment through
the senses, our brain has the ability to organize and interpret these numerous stimuli into
meaningful ideas that are useful for our choices (behavior).

HUMAN AFFECT AND THE SENSES

Interestingly, while human beings

are hailed as rational beings who are
constantly making choices and are
behaving through a set of rational
choices made from higher order thinking,
it is hypothesized that our affect
(emotions and feelings) actually play a
major role in our behaviors.

Affective Primacy Hypothesis (Zajonc 1980) postulate that in many cases,

cognitive processing plays a lesser role compared to our responses in eliciting behavior.
By virtue of this hypothesis, by default, our emotions take precedent primarily because
these are only processed and modulated by the limbic system - the emotion part of our
brain which is pore primitive compared to the ones responsible for higher order thinking.

SENSE AND SEXUALITY

Having provided an overview on how human affect, the sensorium, and the brain’s
limbic system coordinate, we are ready to discuss how the various senses play in the
human sexual response.

VISUAL EXPERIENCE

Humans are predominantly visual. Our societies highly rely on visual culture to co-
create meaning and convey information. In the context of human sexuality, some studies
have explored gender differences in visual stimuli and sexual arousal. For instance, the
study of Rupp and Wallen (2007) found that men respond more to visual sexual stimuli
and tend to be influenced by the sex of the actors in a sexual scenario. This means that
when confronted by an intimate interaction, men would tend to be rather influenced by
visual cues. In the same study, on the other hand women were found to be more
influenced by context, although they, too, are responsive to the sexual content of a visual
stimuli. This means that when confronted by an intimate interaction, women tend to be
rather influenced by the nature of relationship they have with another person, e.g., is the
other person someone they know and can trust.

Other studies explored how heterosexual men and women would respond to
female-filmed and male-filmed videos (Lann 1994) and to female-chosen and male-
chosen videos (Peterson and Janssen 2007). These studies established that either
gender respond more intensely on materials filmed and chosen by people of similar
gender. Women and men differ in strategies of viewing sexual stimuli. Women tend to
pay more attention to contextual and nonsexual cues than men (Lann and Everaerd
1995), and thus are putting on subjective valuing of circumstances.

OLFACTORY EXPERIENCE

Olfactory in non-human animals, which are believed to be microsmatic organism,

or organisms having greater sense of smell, have been an interest among psychologists
since the 1950s. Recent studies in the field of human sexuality show that while we
human have limited olfaction, sense of smell may play an important part in our sexual
response.

Scientists have tried to explain how human olfaction influence sexuality. They
identified through possibilities: first, through what is referred to as signature odor (the
unique way that each individual smells) which is associated with the Major
Histocompatibility Complex, a set of proteins signaling our immune system the
presence of foreign substances, and second, through what is referred to as
pheromones, substances putatively excreted by our glands which signals mood and
affects social behaviors.

TACTILE EXPERIENCES

Touch is observed to be an element of intimacy. Our body is covered in skin, often

referred to as the largest bodily organ. Our skin totally accounts for 16% to 20% of our
body weight. It is a sensitive organ as every square inch of it houses more than a
thousand nerve endings. Hence, in social interactions, particularly intimate ones, touch
holds meaning. There are only people who we allow to touch us. There are only parts of
our bodies we allow people to touch. Touching, just like any other behavior, may also be
governed by social norms.

As a sensation, touch has some elements. Tactile element pertains to the

experience relative to the object being felt: is it rough? Is it smooth? Is the surface hard
or soft? Then there is thermal element: Is it warm or cold? Finally, there is vibrational
element: Is the pressure of the touch strong or weak? Is the sensation moving and
pulsating or steady and stationary?

Different parts of the human body also have different threshold of tactile
experience. Areas such as the mount, anus, genital, and nipples are referred to as
primary erogenous zones - as they are very sensitive to touch. The back, cheek, neck,
and buttocks are secondary erogenous zones - as they are also sensitive to touch, but
only supportive of the primary zones in eliciting response.
Often, these erogenous zones are areas of the body involved in the reproductive
and sexual act.

Human touch is essential in social bonds. Often, we only give people we trust the
right to have tactile contract with us. It is always a consensual act to touch and be
touched. When we touch, our body produces a hormone called oxytocin - it is referred to
as the love hormone because it is believed to influence tribal behaviors and maternal
bonding. In intimate relationships, touch is suggested to be one of the love languages. A
person whose love language is touch tend to give and receive tactile stimulation to and
from others through holding, hugging, and other forms of physical connections.

AUDITORY EXPERIENCE

Social interactions are not only visual, but are also auditory processes. Our human
language often has a verbal counterpart to the written language. In fact, historically,
much of the culture are passed on through oral traditions, even before the writing system
was developed.

Sexual activities are also a verbal communication process. Sounds give additional
context to sexual situations. For instance, in sexual interactions, couples may give verbal
erotic encourage-words that triggers sexual response or verbal expression of affection-
words that manifests feelings (e.g., I love you). A survey of popular music will show that
love and sex are among the common themes of songs nowadays. This only emphasize
the value of sound in human sexuality.

SUMMARY:

Humans are social beings and at the core of this nature, is relating and connecting
with others. Central to understanding human relationship is the concept of love, an
experience so abstract, yet so meaningful to many people. But then again, love is
diversely defined inasmuch as it manifests and is experienced in diverse way.
 This chapter tackles the various theories which explain love and its types. It also
tackles the stages which people who are in love and in an intimate relationship undertake
as they progress from acquaintanceship to a deeper form of consensual relationship.
Conversely, reasons for deterioration of intimate relationship, as well as its eventual
demise, are also highlighted. By and large, we are all encouraged to reflect about our
human relationships with the goal of forging healthy, successful, and nurturing
connections with others.

The senses are the windows to our consciousness. We are aware, we learn, and
we experience because we can receive information from the environment through our
sense organs. The brain is a powerful organ that consolidates and processes these
stimuli into meaningful units and wholes.

REFERENCE:

Peralta, Eric Paul D. (2019). Gender and Society: A Human Ecological Approach.
Manila, Philippines: Rex Bookstore, Inc.

Video Clip:

Sternberg's Theories of Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy21ZXZA8Bc