Abstract
The growing instability of heterosexual couple relationships has deep roots in socio-economic change. Yet it also stems from the increased media emphasis on ‘the pure relationship’ as the ultimate source of emotional and sexual fulfilment: according to Giddens, pressures from women for ‘the transformation of intimacy’ clash with men’s dominative sexuality and fear of intimate emotion (Giddens, 1992); and Rubin identifies deep contradictions in the search for self-fulfilment through another person:
we are left [by media images] with an extraordinarily heightened set of expectations about the possibilities in human relationships that lives side by side with disillusion that, for many, borders on despair. (Rubin, 1991, p. 160)
For we live now with a new sexual dogma that allows as little deviation as the old one did… And sex has become another issue that needs time and attention, another obstacle to be overcome, instead of a time out for gratification and pleasure.
(Rubin, 1991, p. 189)
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© 1996 British Sociological Association
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Duncombe, J., Marsden, D. (1996). Whose Orgasm is this Anyway? ‘Sex Work’ in Long-term Heterosexual Couple Relationships. In: Weeks, J., Holland, J. (eds) Sexual Cultures. Explorations in Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24518-5_12
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