Intimacy Personal Relationships in Modern Societies

by Jamieson, Lynn

• ISBN13: 9780745615745
• ISBN10: 0745615740
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-04
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Are personal relationships deeper and more intimate than ever before or are they increasingly empty and structured by selfish individualism? This exciting new book examines the question in a wide-ranging discussion of the nature of intimacy, focusing on key relationships between parents and children, families, sexual partners, couples and friends.

Author Biography

Lynn Jamieson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

A Story of Intimacy?

The Wider Significance of Intimacy in Personal Life

Dimensions of Intimacy

Stories and Story Tellers

Conclusion

From 'The Family' to Sex and Industry

The Making of the Conventional Modern Family

Visions of the Future

Parenting and Intimacy

Mothers and Fathers as Intimates

More Shared Caring Between Mothers and Fathers?

Parenting: Trends in Intimacy and Democracy?

Are Good Friends All You Need?

Friends, Kin and Intimacy

Gender, Heterosexuality, Friendship and Intimacy

Sex and Intimacy

Introduction

Stories of 'Normal Sex' and Intimacy

The Realities of Sexual Lives

Stories, Practices and Social Change

The Couple: Intimate and Equal?

The Heterosexual Couple: Still She the Housewife, He the Earner?

Domestic Violence and Forced Intimacy

Same-Sex Couples

Intimacy and Relationship Breakdown

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.