The power of love

Gunnarsson, Lena; García-Andrade, Adriana; Jónasdóttir, Anna G.

doi:10.4324/9781315200798-1

Cited by 3 publications

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“…While this tactic may be conceptualized as a neoliberal feminist sensibility in action in the domain of sex and intimacy, rather than addressing the women as simply absorbers of neoliberal ideology, we need to examine what it is about women's position in contemporary intimacy that makes the transactional rationality appear as an appealing mode of relating to men for some women. I contend that the participants' highly individualized, "cold" (Hochschild 2003;Illouz 2007), and defensive tactic of seeking to gain control over intimate interactions with men derives its meaningfulness in relation, first, to the well-documented and historically long-lasting risks of subordination and exploitation that women face in heterosexual intimacy (Gunnarsson 2014;Gunnarsson, García Andrade and Jónasdóttir 2018;Langford 1999) and, second, to the newer, more generic forms of insecurity characterizing the conditions of intimacy in contemporary societies. When the regular "market" of intimacy is experienced as ill-suited for procuring for women's needs for erotic connection with men in a secure way that does not take more than it gives, the neoliberal rationality, with its promise of control over cost-benefit balances, offers a readily available alternative for seeking to gain control over the flows of intimacy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Katherine Angel (2022) notes, “it is not by hardening ourselves against vulnerability that we—any of us—will find sexual fulfillment,” but in “opening ourselves to” it (p. 99; cf. Gunnarsson 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shift toward more individualized grounds for forming intimate bonds is associated with a drive toward democratic values centering individual needs, freedom, and equality and, not least, with women's relative emancipation from institutionalized oppression and lack of choice in the realm of sexuality and intimacy (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995;Giddens 1992). Meanwhile, the shadow side of the relative dissolving of traditional scripts, rituals, and normative anchors regulating sexuality and intimacy is that intimate bonds have become increasingly fragile (Bauman 2003;Illouz 2012Illouz , 2019 at the same time as erotic and intimate recognition has acquired an increased significance as a source of self-worth in an individualized culture emphasizing self-differentiation and uniqueness (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995;Giddens 1992;Gunnarsson, García-Andrade and Jónasdóttir 2018;Illouz 2012;May 2011).…”

Section: The Social Organization Of Intimacy In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating

Gunnarsson

2023

Sociological Perspectives

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The proliferation of “sugar dating” websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a “sugar baby” and a “sugar daddy,” raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a ”marketization” of intimacy. Based on semi-structured interviews, this article analyzes Swedish “sugar babies”’ investment in a transactional approach to intimate interactions with men, focusing on the emotional rewards that they associate with the transactional setup of sugar dating. While the participants’ transactional approach to intimacy is bolstered by the cultural dispersal of a neoliberal rationality into ever more domains of life, I argue that its deeper roots need to be sought in the precarious conditions of contemporary intimacy. Drawing in particular on the work of Eva Illouz, I claim that the women’s embracement of a transactional approach to heterosexual sex and intimacy may be read as a defensive tactic of seeking to gain control over the flows of intimate interaction in light of the (gendered) insecurities and vulnerabilities of the contemporary market of intimacy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Social Organization Of Intimacy In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating

Gunnarsson

2023

Sociological Perspectives

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“…No obstante, hay que enfatizar que el feminismo y el ideario LGTBIQ+ conforman parte de aquellas tendencias sociales más influyentes de los modelos relacionales contemporáneos. La perspectiva feminista deslegitima la desigualdad hombre-mujer perpetuada románticamente (Gunnarsson et al, 2018). En ese sentido, Sánchez-Sicilia y Cubells (2018) realizan críticas a tesis como la de Bauman sobre cómo se fluctúa entre sostener una relación o su "liquidez", ya que olvida que para "amar líquido" se necesita independencia y libertad personal, y que la defensa del ideal romántico como "verdadero" no asume una función atenuadora en los conflictos relacionales si se evidencia dominación vinculada a este fenómeno y a la construcción de la pareja, en términos de costebeneficio.…”

Section: Fundamentos Teóricosunclassified

Percepciones del amor en población adulta-joven madrileña

Granero

2023

Revista OBETS

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Este estudio exploratorio indaga en las percepciones que la población adulta-joven, entre 18-40 años, y residentes en la Comunidad de Madrid (España), tienen sobre el posible papel significador del amor romántico frente a otras alternativas afectivo-amorosas y de pareja existentes en la sociedad actual, así como en la posible influencia que variables como el uso de redes sociales y aplicaciones online, el feminismo y el colectivo LGTBIQ+ ejercen en ellas. Con dicha finalidad, la metodología utilizada fue eminentemente cualitativa, llevando a cabo 35 entrevistas y 3 grupos de discusión como principales herramientas de producción de datos. Los resultados muestran una coexistencia multifacética entre el mantenimiento del amor romántico, como referente hegemónico, y la desestigmatización de otras posibilidades de construcción y visibilización de nuevas realidades amorosas más igualitarias en cuestiones de género y orientación sexual, donde el sexo podría desligarse del aspecto emocional. Como conclusiones, se señala la existencia de una equidad entre el papel del amor romántico como eje explicativo tradicional de las actuales relaciones de pareja, y un proceso de cambio social, que trata de dirigirlo a una periferia referencial, influido por los idearios feministas y LGTBIQ+, y donde las redes sociales online actúan como inestimable instrumento mediador, a pesar de sus repercusiones en términos de peligrosidad e identidad. Se genera y reconfigura un amplio abanico de alternativas, pero todavía con ciertas resistencias al cambio fundamentadas en la complejidad y cuestiones éticas que implican dichas relaciones, ligadas al marcado carácter personalista y consumista de su construcción y descomposición.

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The pedagogy of love: a register of precarised English teachers in Chile

Schaaf

2022

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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In this contribution, I will look at the imbrication of language, labour and affective capitalism in the exemplary context of a Chilean private university, as part of a larger sociolinguistic ethnography project that seeks to examine processes of precarisation in university teachers. I argue that the affective-discursive practices used by three English Language teachers, which they called the pedagogy of love, constitute a register. This register is one of the many available to women and men, which they can manage, negotiate, manipulate and capitalise on. I show in this article the way teachers enact, align with and detach from the register to make sense of their professional identities and navigate a precarious higher education market, and how the university benefits from it to regulate teachers’ labour and students’ expectations and eventually, obtain financial stability.

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The power of love

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating

The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating

Percepciones del amor en población adulta-joven madrileña

The pedagogy of love: a register of precarised English teachers in Chile

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