How the West African “Good Girl” of the Mid-20th Century Behaved in a Relationship

Mid-20th-century Nigerian public media shaped a new image of modern West African girls and women. In particular, the “Milady’s Bower” column in the West African Pilot promoted the cultural ideal of a modern woman at that time. Its columnist, “Miss … Continue reading

What Nigerian Men and Women Wanted to Know About Sex in the 20th Century

The printed media of the mid-20th century paid much less attention to the topics of sex and sexuality compared to the questions of courtship, romantic love, gender roles, the influence of family, and marriage. What about sex? West African editors … Continue reading

Cultural Features of Mangaian Romantic Love

Early anthropological studies portrayed the sexual culture of Polynesian love. Those studies downplayed the love and emotions of indigenous people in the South Seas. For example, the cultural anthropology of Mangaian love presented the freedom of sexual intimacy and love … Continue reading

Three Other Things That Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

As noted elsewhere, Polynesian sex and love are more complex emotional phenomena than people in Western culture previously thought. Mangaian love presents an example of this. Early anthropological research distorted the nature of Polynesian heterosexual relationships. They portrayed men and … Continue reading

Three Things Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

How romantic is Mangaian love? Mangaians are the Polynesian people living in the Cook Islands in the South Seas. The early studies of Polynesian love misrepresented Polynesian heterosexual relationship culture as sexually energetic and sensually obsessive, along with free sexual attitudes … Continue reading

Polynesian Love in Mangaian Culture

Is Polynesian love the same as that in Western European and North American cultures? For a long time, love was considered an exclusively Western concept. According to Western European and North American scholars, ethnographic studies of love add little value … Continue reading