visit one of the most important Thinkers of our time: The sociologist Eva Illouz, Born in 1961, is located in your home in a quiet residential area of Jerusalem. According to “The consumption of romance” and “Why love hurts” is doing now “Why love ends” appeared in the subject, to her, so she says, at least, is the final book to your favorite.
Mrs. Illouz, you can research for over 30 years, about love and romance in the consumer society. Her realization: love is a failure. How come you say that?
The ideal image of love has become much too large, to an almost impossible project. Because love is so pleasure to perform many different functions: community, sexuality, friendship,.
And to blame is capitalism?
The image we have of the romantic love, actually comes from the 18th century. Century. Width effective it was in the 20th century. Century, especially through the mass media, such as Hollywood movies. We all have this ideal image in my head, but society has changed: in the past, you could rely on the family, to communities, and today most of the stand alone.
That means Many are lonely, dreams but of the great love. How do we get out of this love trap?
series love and Sex, The German and the love – are what we in the Sex, as the orgasm p> manage By Ralf Sander <I'm a sociologist and not a guide writer. But I think we should appreciate friendship more value. Friendship involves no Drama. Therefore, it is not as quickly to the goods, the commodity that is recycled by the media industry. Friendship is a much calmer feeling. It is not tied to large institutions, such as marriage, it creates no feelings of Desire or crazy jealousy. Friendship is not just for stories that people want to see or read.
But friends don’t necessarily put children in the world that any society needs to Survive.
I don’t want to give up love as a concept. Families need to continue to support it. But it must be because this is a very narrow Form of romantic love? The idea of love is extended, for example of the asexual movement, which is trying to forms love to define the sexuality. Or there are the polyamory: love is not exclusivity. Our company is very fixated on heterosexual love. In the case of the ancient Greeks, love was a very much more permeable concept: men married women and had relationships with men. We should also consider.
her new book also deals with another modern phenomenon: with casual Sex. You say that affected our relationship solid.
casual sex is a direct result of the sexual Revolution. The freedom to have Sex without wanting to immediately get married or at least in a fixed relationship. I wanted to deal with the effects of this freedom.
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Illouz, in her home in Jerusalem. Her new book, “Why love ends”, is published by Suhrkamp.
©Corinna Kern
What have you found out?
We consider our sex life, often as a kind of career. At the beginning we have no experience, then we collect more and more Knowledge. We are trying to be more attractive and the Partner to accumulate. In this way, we also learn us on the back and instructions to prepare. Previously, selected Sex, usually the beginning of a solid relationship. The same is not true today.
What is so bad about that?
casual sex is not bad. But it affects our ability to maintain enduring relationships. Because it generates uncertainty. More and more relationships begin as a pure pleasure, it is a framework which helps the partners lack to develop, to stabilize. The courtship was formerly closely connected with the strict limitation of sexuality, for the protection of the virginity of the woman. The men had to follow a certain procedure – the consent of the parents, courtesy visits, exchange of gifts, which was controlled by the community and the family. Such a moral and social Monitoring of sexuality is not conceivable any more today.
it Is good that you don’t need to get married, if you were together in bed.
for me, This is not a question of good or bad, I want to understand the impact of this social change. The framework for relations today needs to be every Time by the Parties renegotiated. What we want from each other? What are the rules? So many potential relationships do not come out at all from the wings. It’s not like that today, there are no rules at all. You are only individual, chaotic, controversial. Who takes what time is the Initiative? At what point is a relationship as binding? It requires a lot of effort to understand.
From this problem, there is a whole media industry, especially relationship counselors, and women’s magazines and lives today.
A large part of today’s women’s culture is based on this feeling of insecurity, of uncertainty and how to deal with it. Self-appointed Expert trying to draw up rules. What does it mean when he calls you? You should at the time of the third appointment with him to bed? Books and magazines try to reply, but you fail in my opinion. Because we esmer porno don’t know for sure, what is the meaning of such behavior.
women are about this issue, more thoughts than men?
The reason is quite simple: because women are still dominated. Love and sexuality cannot be detached from politics and the economy. The largest part of the wealth of the world belongs to men. Most of the leaders are men. Of the military we don’t need to talk in the first place. If men of business, politics and the military, so the centers of Power, so dominate, control, you automatically love and marriage and have the Power in the sexual Arena. Men dominate the System. Women remains only the Power of the child. You need to resort to strategies in order to look attractive.
the Moment: That men not call after the second Date, has something to do with the Patriarchy?
In marriage and sexuality, women continue to experience a high degree the Power of men. Typical woman phrases are: All men are pigs. Or: men are feeling cold, repellent. For me, this is a psychological Translation of something actually means. The Mighty behavior they escape, are obliged to nothing. You have privileges, and you see no need to renovate anythingresistance, to apologize or justify.
Nevertheless, the views of women is changing. There is the MeToo movement, the theme of sexism and the formula 1 omitted, the Grid Girls, and in the case of failure of elections, there are no Bikinis.
The are exceptions, women’s bodies are still sold. Or there are these marketing tricks, such as cosmetics advertising, which claims: Every body is beautiful. Overall, the pressure for women to become larger, to work on your body, to buy cosmetic products to hide the Older. If there was a counter-movement, then she has unfortunately no effect, on the contrary, The number of cosmetic surgeries is on the rise. The value of a woman is determined to continue the beauty of your body.
you have been around a long time, why love hurts, fails, and ends. The impact of your results on your private life?
If it were, I would not reveal it to you. But that is now disenchanted change the nature of my research area: sociology and de-mystified, that is your job. This may be depressing. On the other hand, it is the base to build something New, without false ideas and ideologies. If something is not working, you want to find out why. Once you know that, you can work on it, that it will be better. Otherwise, the people who fail to think of love, it is up to you is not that something is wrong with them. Rather than feel lonely and blame of one’s own misery, to be clear: It’s not you, and it concerns not only you.
this knowledge Is the most important goal of their research?
I want people to understand that the social structures have a profound effect on your happiness, your love, your sexuality. We can not separate it so easily, how we produce Goods and consume, and how we love. This is all together, it’s in the same System.
How did you originally get the idea for your life?
I studied in New York and had a friend. To his birthday I cook him a nice dinner, but I was broke. So I asked myself: Why do I have this need to buy him something Expensive, good red wine, good food? This has annoyed me. I was 27 years old. At the time, I had started with, research about love, but to me, the focus was not yet clear: love and consumption. And as a youth I was very fond of reading cheap novels, photo novels, the complete and utter Trash. In parallel with Marcel Proust. Romantic love in the culture interested me at the time.
What is your advice as an expert: Should we try, despite everything, again and again, to fall in love with us? Love is all the pain worth it?
Not always, to be honest. Breakers can break the heart, but we have accepted it as an inevitable part of love life. But if people are to participate in the Relationship emotionally hard to miss, they suffer often in the dark, which is never really discussed in public. We say: Unfortunate, but it happens.
What can we do about it?
Our ideas of morality and our ethical maxims should not make sexuality and romantic love. Because people are trying to live sustainably, buy your extra coffee in stores, where the employees are treated fairly, feed for animal welfare reasons vegan – but then you treat your partners like trash. And nobody sees that as a contradiction. The should change. When we leave someone, suddenly, we affect permanently the Ego of the partner, we change his self-perception. We make far too little thought.
