Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships Hey fellow HN,
2 years back I asked books which changed your life most and got a massive response. Since then, I have been thinking about asking the question for Sex and Relationships. So here we are, please share the most impactful book you have read on Sex/Relationships. Additional caveat, good if you can add your gender and relationship status along with your answer for betterment of other readers. |
We can find notable takes on this subject from bawdy folk tales/stories/plays/poems from many cultures. For an English translation of many Sanskrit texts from Ancient India on this topic see the works of A.N.D.Haksar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._N._D._Haksar
Boundaries by Henry Cloud [1] - this seems like a basic concept and I thought I knew about this but this book helped. I expect there are others so reading one or two good ones will probably do, but this is the one I read.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl [2] - this is not about sex or relationships but about the meaning of life and why. It helped me think about how others view life and while initially I thought this was about professional and spiritual and intellectual purpose, I realized it’s also about finding and connecting with others and that helped me think about interacting with people on a romantic level rather than just with large groups or organizations. It’s a great book overall and probably fits into any person’s mind who is trying to figure out who they are and where they are in the world and where they want to be.
I’m middle aged and ended a decades long relationship a few years ago, so these books are helpful in updating and improving a worldview for sex and relationships.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9547888
Key idea in the book is that a lot of argument and disagreement arises from mismatched social attitudes/communication between men & women, similar to how cross-cultural assumptions can cause offense.
Presents a model that (typically) men socialise with a focus more on competition, independence, and status, whereas (typically) woman socialise with a focus on cooperation, inter-dependence, and intimacy.
I found that these cover most everything and the combinations are the most interesting and useful.
As I get older, I find that people closer to the middle across these traits are the ones I enjoy being around.
This helps me know what areas I can work on to be a more pleasant human being :)
You could probably find other books on attachment theory, but the application of those ideas in a book that is based on the individual and how to navigate your own attachment issues in the midst of multiple relationships is great.
the alabaster girl by zan perrion - this is an in depth exploration of social dynamics in relationships.
Beautiful women do not care about these things at all. They are attracted to only one thing in men: beauty. And what is the beauty in a man? A lifelong devotion to a personal passion, a passion larger than him, larger than her, larger than the whole wide world, a passion that radiates from his pores until the day he dies. This is the beauty of men. And this is why beautiful women are forever in love with starving artists, musicians, dreamers, iconoclasts. They love these men because they, too, possess a certain, rare beauty. They, too, are set apart.»
-- Zan Perrion, "The alabaster girl"
The Bible is my goto for sex and relationships. I am male and have been married for nearly 30 years. The bible teaches me to keep sex, and sex thoughts, for my wife. This is a very different culture from how I grew up. I think too many sexual partners messes with your head as you get older. You romanticise old connections when the going gets tough with your partner. Testing sexual compatibility is also a nonsense. I can confirm I was downright rubbish at sex. In a loving relationship you find a way and get there in the end.
The bible is also counter intuitive about relationships, love your neighbour and your enemy.
Many of the books and theories mentioned here will be long forgotten. There are still many like myself who lean on the ancient wisdom and teachings of Jesus.
All About Love: New Visions
- Tantra Sex - Kerry & Diane Riley, control & enjoy sexuality on an other level
- Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship - David Schnarch
I know it likely going to be a hated example, but nonetheless I strongly suggest to read it if you are confused or unsure about certain aspects of relationships.
https://www.amazon.com/Human-Relationships-Steve-Duck-ebook/...
The book aims to present research insights in a way to be of practical use for a common person.
Didn’t see them here so:
“Our bodies, ourselves.” The old school primer on exploring your sexuality
“The multi-orgasmic man” a significant change in how to experience sex
“Conscious loving” one of the most effective books in shifting out of fear and into play to growth through relationships
Levine Heller - Attached
(Professional sex-haver tip: sexuality is like nutrition - consistency and moderation is 90% of being physically and mentally fit.)
I'm in a polygamist relationship, have been for just over five years. No one in the community I know thinks monogamy is bad, I don't think monogamy is bad. Neither monogamy nor polygamy is bad.
It's a personal preference that only matters to the ones making the decisions. As long as you are making the decision, there is no wrong answer
Generally I don’t like how the author acts like everything is rooted in science and everyone is forced to act out their biology.
And I don’t like its oppositional nature of men vs women in a zero sum game to get what? Married? Laid?
It’s not a useless book, especially if you want to be an alpha and pick up girls.
But I think I’m looking for a bit more than that and feel there are genuine connections based on interest and purpose and aligned goals. And the other people interested in that would detect and not be interested in the “tactics” called out here.
The book mentions hypergamy many, many times and this is based on the biological inferiority of women to men and for women to seek out men more attractive than them. I think there are now many women with equal or even superior careers and ambitions and passions who aren’t seeking a “superior” mate. The book spends some time calling out how people like me are wrong, etc. but the evidence presented is a bunch of anecdotes.
And every anecdote told just made me think all parties are skeezy and not attractive to me. In that I don’t want to pick up waitresses and randos, etc.
So this may be a situation of the book and technique just isn’t for me. But I wanted to share this because it really is recommended so much to me and it perplexed me how bad the book seemed to me.
The naturalistic fallacy is a pretty easy one to commit, and it seems to be running especially rampant in the genre of "scientific"/"rational" dating/relationship advice.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that evolutionary biology has tons of interesting discoveries that can help humanity understand itself better, and I find it extremely interesting myself.
But the fallacy happens when looking at what there is, in terms of the biological/genetic basis (and frankly, the evidence and science is often not nearly as clear as these books present it), and taking that as a guideline or even commandments as for what there ought to be.
Harari has a nice way of putting this idea in "Sapiens": If there is a defining nature to Homo sapiens, it is that we have a quite strong and persistent capability of not being bound to our biology's defining nature (hope I'm paraphrasing somewhat accurately here).
Of course biology (as the hardware that's running our software) has an incredibly strong influence on our experience, and denying that has caused a lot of needless suffering (and still does), but just explaining away the significant impact of culture and our minds on our biological reality seems overly reductionist.
Or to go with a computational analogy: Our minds are turing-complete, so they can run any software there can possibly exist – some paths do have extremely good hardware acceleration, but efficiency isn't everything in (human) life :)
The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused.
The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s just there, whether you like it or not, whether you believe in it or not.
Things like game exist and will always be because it’s necessary for evolution. On other hand, things like “genuine connection” do not exist outside of your imagination.
It works on a number of levels:
- Confirms many young man's (usually wrong) biases about women.
- Provides a convenient post-hoc rationalization to men who cannot get laid.
- Further mystifies the idea of women by building convoluted pseudo-intellectual structures.
Obviously people might crave companionship. But if one is frustrated in obtaining that to the point of seizing on literature like Tomassi’s book, why keep hitting one’s head against that wall?
Nothing exists outside of your imagination. Reality is a soup of particles interacting with each other, and your mind is trying to make sense of these through a complex layer of abstractions and modeling.
"The game" is no more or less real as a concept than "genuine connection". They're essentially both attempts to model reality, and arguably, they are not even trying to model the same aspects of reality.
So, sure, be aware of our biological needs and constraints, as neglecting them means fighting a hard-to-win uphill battle. But I wouldn't make the mistake of seeing biology as any more or less real than psychology and culture. They're different models for different levels of our stack, and arguably, meaningful relationships necessarily span many more of these layers.
I wouldn't expect biology (alone) to give me meaningful relationship advice just like I wouldn't expect psychology and sociology to tell us how to cure cancer.
> but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes.
What's wrong with a bit of idealism, ideally mixed with a heavy dose of pragmatism? Knowing exactly where you already are is important, but it doesn't tell you where to go next.
There are key differences - "the game" is real, it's mechanisms were arguably as long as evolution out there. It's been developed as a part of evolution process and likely be there for a while.
Now we need to clarify that "game" is not "being alpha and get laid" as some may speculate, it's a much wider definition.
On the opposite, constructs like "genuine connection", "love" and sorts do not exist and are solely a construct being used for whatever reason out there.
> I wouldn't expect biology (alone) to give me meaningful relationship advice just like I wouldn't expect psychology and sociology to tell us how to cure cancer.
Noone is denying that. If you have only absorbed biological context out of the book, perhaps it's time to reread.
> What's wrong with a bit of idealism
Nothing. We are entitled to have any picture of our world. But the more distant it is from reality, the more confused and frustrated it will leave us when - inevitably - the discrepancy hits us on head hard. Nature doesn't care if you believe in this or that, it just follows it's laws.
I think I understand this and I disagree.
Maybe I am idealistic, but I’m ok with that. And there’s many situations where I’ll stay idealistic despite reality, but I think there are many valid outcomes while going my own way and not using anything in this book.
It’s hard to compare outcomes, but I’m content. And, anecdotally, it’s not like there’s shining data for people following this approach.
It’s pretty easy to show that games are necessary now as we don’t need to evolve. Humans aren’t slaves to biology and in many ways transcend what evolution wants us to do.
Evolutionary some creatures openly face adversities, some prefer to hide head in sand pretending everything is alright. There is no right or wrong answer here I guess, whatever gives peace of mind.
Really telling on yourself here.