Guest Author: Dr. Meg Barker

We live in a time of deep uncertainty about romantic relationships. There has never been greater pressure than there is now to be a free and independent individual seeking personal fulfilment and pursuing our goals in life. At the same time, romantic relationships have been hailed ‘the new religion’ with the decline of spiritual beliefs and local communities, and with working life becoming more precarious for many of us. We turn to relationships to provide us with belonging, security, friendship, love, passion, and self-validation at the same time as wanting to remain free enough to follow our own dreams. It is no wonder, then, that we struggle with romantic relationships.

We generally respond to this uncertainty in one of two ways: either we turn back to old rules of relationships which people followed in the past or we try to develop new rules of relationships which might fit our situation better. In both cases there is a danger that such rules will become something that we cling to desperately, in order to avoid the distress of painful relationships or of being without such a relationship. Grasping onto the rules like this often makes things worse rather than better as we aren’t flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances or to make different commitments at different times or in different relationships.

My book, Rewriting the Rules, explores the old and new rules of relationships in a number of areas. For example, in the chapter on monogamy we start by exploring what it means to apply the ‘old rules’ in a world where people often have many close friendships and connect with new people all the time, and where sexual possibilities are available constantly over the internet. Then we turn to those who are writing their own rules in ways that open monogamy up, to additional sexual or romantic partners, for example. In the chapter on sex, we look at ideas about what makes ‘proper’ sex, and pressures to remain passionately sexual throughout a relationship, and we consider people and communities who have different kinds of sex – or no sex. In the chapter on gender we examine the conventional ‘Mars and Venus’ way of understanding problems in relationships and then consider other ways of viewing gender as something that may be more flexible and diverse, and other possible explanations for relationship differences.

In each case, we see that it can be problematic, in these uncertain times, to cling to any rules too tightly: whether those be the more conventional rules that we learnt growing up, or the new rules that are being proposed by various groups and communities. An alternative possibility is put forward: that of embracing uncertainty. What would it be like to recognise that relationships simply are uncertain things? That our desires and needs change over time? That being together is an ongoing conversation? That we connect with many different people in our lives in different ways? Some of these possibilities take the pressure off love relationships to be everything to us, challenging the idea of The One perfect person who will make our life complete. Suggestions are made about how we might do things differently in relation to getting together, relationship conflict, making commitments, and breaking up. Instead of seeing relationships as all good or all bad, we could hold onto the inevitable similarities and differences between us, and the fact that we are inevitably both free and in relationship together.

If we were honest perhaps we would all tick the relationship box which says ‘it’s complicated’, but recognising this can offer much more relief than trying to present a perfect picture of ourselves and our relationships to others. It can open up all kinds of possibilities for love, sex and relationships.

You can grab “Rewriting the Rules” at

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Printsasia.co.jp   (JAPAN)

Author’s Bio: Dr. Meg Barker is a Senior Lecturer at The Open University – an online University in the UK – and also a psychotherapist specialising in sex and relationship therapy. Meg has been researching relationships and sexuality for over a decade and has published numerous academic books and papers on these topics, particularly in relation to openly non-monogamous relationships, sadomasochism, and bisexuality. Meg is co-editor of the journal Psychology & Sexuality, and co-organises the Critical Sexology group in the UK, as well as the organisation, BiUK, who produced The Bisexuality Report in 2012 and ran the first international academic conference on bisexuality in 2010. Meg has recently won an erotic award for their work which includes several books for therapists and other health practitioners on topics such as gender, sexuality and mindfulness. Rewriting the Rules is Meg’s first book for a general audience and you can follow the blog accompanying the book on http://rewritingtherules.wordpress.com/ and can connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

 Guest Author :  Sally Faulkner

I saw my first Almodóvar film, the unforgettable “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown“, when I was an undergraduate student on a year abroad studying and teaching in Toledo, Spain. I was blown away! I adored the lead actress (Carmen Maura), the pace of the plot, the riotous colour palette, and the myriad references to other films and works of art – I later learned that might be called postmodern intertextuality. I always try to include this film on undergraduate courses for first-year students in the hope it will have the same effect on them! Nearly twenty years later, I was delighted to use a still from another Almodóvar film, “The Flower of My Secret“, on the cover of A History of Spanish Film: Cinema and Society 1910-2010. It’s an image of another of Spain’s wonderful lead actresses, Marisa Paredes, here depicted alongside her wayward husband in the film, played by Imanol Arias. Almodóvar captures their embrace in a fragmented mirror: the break-up of the image brilliantly matches the break-up of their marriage.

My motivation for writing on Spanish film is not only to share with readers my enthusiasm for the ways directors like Almodóvar use film form. I’m also fascinated by the interpretations that emerge when you place cinema within wider contexts, both intermedial ones (I considered the relationship between film, TV and literature in Literary Adaptations in Spanish Cinema) and political ones (the focus of A Cinema of Contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s).

While working on those books I became increasingly interested in questions of social mobility and cultural taste (or what Pierre Bourdieu called the acquisition of ‘cultural capital’). How did Spain’s 1920s industrial boom, the 1940s post-Civil War depression, and the mass movement into the middle classes from the 1960s onwards impact on film culture? As Spain became increasingly urban, industrial, capitalist and consumerist from the 1960s, how did this change what films were about? Do Spanish ‘prestige’, ‘middlebrow’ and ‘heritage’ cinemas exist? I wrote A History of Spanish Film to explore these ideas and to place Almodóvar in the context of over 100 years of filmmaking in Spain.

 Among the book’s highlights:

• * Uniquely offers extensive close readings of 42 films, which are especially useful to students and teachers of Spanish cinema.

• * Analyses Spanish silent cinema and films of the Franco era as well as contemporary examples.

• * Interrogates film’s relations with other media, including literature, pictorial art and television.

• * Explores both ‘auteur’ and ‘popular’ cinemas.

• * Establishes ‘prestige’ and the ‘middlebrow’ as crucial new terms in Spanish cinema studies.

• * Considers the transnationality of Spanish cinema throughout its century of existence.

• * Contemporary directors covered in this book include Almodóvar, Bollaín, Díaz Yanes and more.

Browse the book ” A History of Spanish Film: Cinema and Society 1910-2010” at

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About Author :

Sally Faulkner is Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Film at the University of Exeter, where she teaches courses on Spanish and European film, Spanish literature and Spanish language. Her research on Spanish film focuses on the intertwining of film, literature, politics, society and cultural taste, and draws on the theories of adaptation studies, intertextuality and intermediality. Faulkner is the author of Literary Adaptations in Spanish Cinema (2004) and A Cinema of Contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s (2006). Most recently, she completed A History of Spanish Film: Cinema and Society 1910-2010 , which she writes about in this blog. Follow her on Twitter.

Guest Author : Rick Johnson

Dad, you shape your daughter’s future. You impact every aspect of your daughter’s life for her entire life. You show her how women should be treated, how men should act, and how a man shows healthy love and affection toward a woman. You even determine how a girl feels about herself.  And, perhaps most importantly, you set the standard for how your daughter feels she deserves to be treated by other men.

This is a big responsibility, and it’s not always easy to carry out.  A daughter is a gift that needs to be treasured, nurtured, and even protected by a father until she is mature enough to take over that role herself.  The powerful influence of a father’s love and guidance can make the difference between living a healthy, fulfilling life versus one that is full of hopelessness and despair.

In That’s My Girl, I show you how to develop the close relationship with your daughter that you both crave. Using plainspoken common sense, humor, and advice I give you the confidence and the encouragement needed to take up the active, positive role that can change your daughter’s life—starting now.

Topics covered include:

• * A father’s influence (what it looks like)
• * Communicating effectively with females
• * Bonding with your daughter
• * What a girl needs from her dad
• * Dangers she (and you) will face
• * Protecting her
• * Boys & dating
• * She’s becoming a woman (changes—physical, emotional, hormonal, etc.)
• * Character training, and
• * A father’s powerful blessing

Men, your daughters are counting on you.  They desperately need you involved in their lives.  I work on a daily basis with too many women, both young and old, who carry the deep wounds from a father who either abandoned them, did not protect them from other males, or did not protect them from life’s cruel intentions. 

This book will help fathers understand their daughters on a deep level. It will help them develop the close relationship with their daughters that they each need and crave. Finally, it will help a man understand what his daughter needs from him as a father. I’ve also included some touching stories that will resonate with every father. Many women contributed their stories and experiences to help me explain to you how important a father is to a daughter. Please don’t take their input lightly. If you get a chance, read this book with your daughter. I think both men and women will appreciate what they will learn about themselves and their fathers in this book. 

Browse the book ” That’s My Girl” at

 Printsasia.com   (USA)

 Printsasia.co.uk (UK) 

 Printsasia.co.jp   (JAPAN)

Author BIO :

Rick Johnson is a bestselling author of 10 books including, That’s My Son; That’s My Teenage Son; Better Dads, Stronger Sons; and Becoming Your Spouse’s Better Half. He is the founder of Better Dads, Inc. and is a sought-after speaker at many large parenting and marriage conferences across the United States and Canada. Rick, his wife, Suzanne, and their grown children live in Oregon.

To find out more about Rick, visit www.betterdads.net .

Guest Author : Mark Spencer

How often have we said, “I would never do that . . . or say that . . . or believe that,” and then we find ourselves doing, saying, believing? 

My nonfiction book A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House evokes the history of the rundown 1906 Victorian mansion I bought in 2007, a history fraught with the poignant mystery of a previous occupant’s suicide.  On Christmas night 1948, Ladell Allen, a daughter of the wealthy entrepreneur who built the house, excused herself from her mother’s annual Christmas party, went upstairs to her bedroom, and consumed mercury cyanide.   No one could understand why.  After all, she had friends, money, leisure time—and at least publicly, a cheerful disposition.

In the wake of Ladell’s suicide, reports of paranormal activity on the property became common.  Ladell hovered about, sometimes a dark shadow figure, sometimes a woman in white, opening doors, closing doors, crying out in the night, her footsteps ringing clearly on the hardwood floors.  Such were the stories. 

When my wife and I moved to town and started expressing an interest in buying the Allen House, many long-time locals advised us not to—because it was haunted.  I was flabbergasted that so many people seemed serious about something I thought absurd.  Ghosts? Don’t be silly. I would never believe in ghosts.

But I did become a believer, and my journey toward belief is, in large part, the subject of my book, as is the intertwining of that journey with my solving of the mystery behind Ladell’s suicide, the pivotal event occurring one Saturday morning when I awoke feeling compelled to go to the attic.  At first, I resisted the compulsion, but then following it, I found myself kneeling before a small opening in the attic floor, from which I retrieved approximately 90 love letters written in 1948. 

For three decades I had been writing and publishing fiction.  The day I discovered those letters I knew that I would be writing my first nonfiction book, that I had no choice.  Ironically, my fiction had always been grounded in everyday “reality” with no hint of the paranormal, but now here I am with a nonfiction book full of ghosts and in which I describe my awe at having this new dimension opened up to me in such an intimate way by a spirit bent on finally having her story told. 

Still, my aim in A Haunted Love Story is not necessarily to persuade anyone that ghosts float, tread, or hover among us.  I am convinced they do, but I know that many or most people are unlikely to believe in ghosts until they experience them—see them, hear them, feel them—for themselves.  A Haunted Love Story is not just a real-life ghost story but also a history of the Allen family, the story of a mystery that engaged the imagination of a town for six decades, a portrait of my own family and our uncanny experiences in a new home, and ultimately the story of a tragic love affair that reflects the poignant divide separating private lives from public facades and the demands of society in conflict with personal desire.  

Browse the book ” A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House” at

 Printsasia.com   (USA)

 Printsasia.co.uk (UK) 

 Printsasia.co.jp   (JAPAN)

Author bio :

In addition to A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House, Mark Spencer is the author of the novels The Masked Demon, The Weary Motel, Love and Reruns in Adams County, two collections of short stories, and a history book. Over 100 of his novellas, short stories, and articles have appeared in a wide variety of national and international magazines.  His work has received the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award, the Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Bradshaw Book Award, the St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Prize, and four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize. A Haunted Love Story is the basis for episodes of the TV shows My Ghost Story (Biography Channel) and A Haunting (Discovery Network) and will be the focus of two shows on SyFy later this year. He has been Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas at Monticello since 2005.

 Guest Author : Aaron Ben-Ze’ev

Nowadays, one of the most exciting social, as well as romantic, sites to visit is cyberspace. At any moment, millions of people are surfing that space, socializing with each other or having romantic affairs. Their number is growing by the minute. Why do people feel compelled to leave the comfortable surroundings of their actual world and immerse themselves in this seductive space? Why are emotions so intense in this seemingly imaginary world? What is the future of romantic relationships and prevailing bonds such as marriage?

            “Love Online” examines the nature of romantic love in cyberspace and compares it to love in offline circumstances. The Internet has a profound impact upon the extent and nature of romantic and sexual relationships. Describing this impact may be helpful in coping with the online romantic and sexual revolution and in predicting the future development of these relationships.

In this post, I discuss a central issue concerning online romantic relationship: Why the Net is so seductive?

The major features responsible for the great romantic seductiveness of cyberspace are imagination, interactivity, availability, and anonymity.

Love Online: Emotions on the Internet

Interactivity is what distinguishes cyberspace from other imaginative realities. In cyberspace people are not merely imagining themselves to be with an attractive person, they are actually interacting with such a person. Indeed, the reported actions are sexually more daring and exciting. You can do things in cyberspace that you would never do in real offline circumstances. The interactivity of cyberspace fosters a crucial aspect of romantic relationships: reciprocity. Mutual attraction is the most highly valued characteristic in a potential mate—this is true for both sexes. It is easier to express reciprocity in cyberspace, as it requires fewer resources or real actions, and self-disclosure is greater.

Cyberspace is an alternative, available environment providing people with easy access to many available and desired options. It is easy and not costly to reach desired partners and easy to perform desired actions. It is easier to find romantic partners in cyberspace than at bars, shopping malls, or supermarkets. Cyberspace is also highly available in the sense that it is highly accessible. One does not have to do much or invest significant resources in order to step into this imaginative paradise. Millions of people are eagerly waiting for you on the Net every moment of the day. They are available and it is easy to find them. (You must remember, however, that, as is true in offline life, most of those people will not suit or interest you.) Cyberspace is more dynamic, unstable, and exciting than offline circumstances.

The anonymity and distance associated with online relationship reduce the risks of such activities; accordingly, people feel safer and freer to act according to their desires. In offline circumstances, the fear of harmful consequences is one of the major obstacles to conducting many romantic affairs and to significant self-disclosure in those that are conducted. Because of the greater sense of security, self-disclosure is also more prevalent in cyberspace—this in turn increases intimacy and, accordingly, the seductiveness of online relationships is further enhanced.

The above features of cyberspace increase the lure of the Net and make people feel more excited, comfortable, free, and safe while engaging in an online romantic affair. A woman notes: “I experienced cybersex for the first time and I have never been so turned on in my life! It gave birth to and brought out my ‘animal.’ We reveled in fantasyland. It was a constant daily fever—what a rush” (cited in the book). It has been claimed that cyberspace enables one to have more sex, better sex, and different sex. Since many moral and practical constraints are lifted in the Net, people can more easily make sexual contacts when and with whom they want. Cybersex can be more intense, relaxed, and satisfactory—it may also be conducted with people who are not available for offline sexual activities.

A significant advantage of cyberspace is that it is different: it provides desirable situations over and above those found in offline circumstances. It is not an advantage however, if people are unable to draw the lines between online and offline worlds. Blurring the lines is dangerous as it abolishes the advantages of each world. Learning to live within two worlds is difficult as well. The price of the greater freedom available online is the risk of being captured by your own desire. As the Eagles put it in their “Hotel California”: “we are all just prisoners here of our own device.” Cyberspace should complement, rather than substitute for, offline life. Accordingly, people should be moderate in their use of the Internet; thus, they might limit the amount of time they spend online. In light of the great lure of cyberspace, such limitation is hard to achieve as the risk of sliding down the slippery slope is so high.

Author Bio

Aaron Ben-Zeév is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa and former President of the University (2004 – 2012). He is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the study of emotions and romantic love. He is completing now a book on Romantic Compromises. His major books are The Subtlety of Emotions (MIT, 2000), Love Online: Emotions on the Internet (Cambridge UP, 2004), In The Name of Love: Romantic ideology and its victims (With R. Goussinsky, Oxford UP, 2008).

He has a blog on love in Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love

Aaron Ben-Zeév‘s Books Cover  :