PDF version A milk jug is an object with an evident utilitarian function—consumption. However, the Turkana women cherish the milk jug as an aesthetic object. What is so special about milk and the milk jug? The Multivocality of Symbols Symbols … Continue reading
Category Archives: What is it?
How the Australian Bullroarer Invokes the Happiness of Sexual Love
PDF version Aboriginal Australians had a longstanding belief that tjurunga—the bullroarer—brings happiness in life and lovemaking. Why so and how? Over years, anthropologists explored the rituals associated with these culturally symbolic objects. What is the Bullroarer? The bullroarer is a … Continue reading
How You Feel You Are Loved
How do you feel you are loved? Do you? Professor Mengya Xia and her colleagues from the University of Alabama recently conducted an interesting exploratory study on the core elements of love across family, romantic, and friend relationships. This research … Continue reading
How People Experience the Meaning of Gratitude
Reciprocal giving and receiving have the adaptive function of creating interpersonal obligations and maintaining personal bonding between people. In another place, I talked more about what gratitude is and why it is important in our lives. However, the meaning of … Continue reading
“Friends with Benefits”: Single Men and Women in Relationships
Throughout the last couple of centuries, traditional ideals of romantic love have suggested people find their soul mate, marry the loved one, have children, and live happily ever after. The cultural beliefs in love marriages have long shaped people’s dreams … Continue reading
Why Is Gratitude Important?
Gratitude is more than just saying “thank you.” It entails recognizing and appreciating the people and what they do for us. It is the appreciation for whatever our lives bring us. Gratitude makes us feel better and lifts our mood. … Continue reading
The Need to Belong and Love
Everyone has a “need for love” of some kind. For women and men who believe that love is bonding, the “need to belong” is basically the “need for love.” Those who have a strong desire to belong to a group … Continue reading
What Is Unique About Italian Typological Beauty?
Many Italians believe their people are the most beautiful compared to other cultures and other regions of their own country. The Milanese, for example, claim that the men and women in their cities are the most beautiful. But the Venetians, … Continue reading
Italian Beauty: The 19th Century’s View
The question of research interest is whether the standards of beauty are cross-culturally universal or culturally specific to certain nations. Let us investigate the archival legacy of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019). Let us look at how Henry Finck and other … Continue reading
What Aphrodisiacs Are and What They Do for Love
Aphrodisiacs are substances and foods that heighten erotic arousal, sexual attraction, and pleasure in love and sexual relations. Aphrodisiacs can enhance the sensual pleasure that both men and women get from their sexual relationships. The term “aphrodisiacs” comes from the … Continue reading