“Men Who Hate Women And The Women Who Love Them”, by Susan Forward. [PDF]

“Whenever a client tells me that her partner abuses her, I ask, “Why do you put up with it?”. Often the answer is, “Because I love him,” or, “Because I’m afraid to leave him”. Some say simply, “Put up with what?” indicating that they do not make any connection between their unhappiness and their partner’s behavior. Or, as Jackie told me after ten years of marriage, “I know he yells at me sometimes but underneath it all, we’re really crazy about each other”. All of these answers indicate the same thing: the woman is hooked into a relationship in which she is being mistreated. A relationship with a misogynist is very intense and confusing. Many powerful emotional forces are at work, which makes it difficult for the woman to see clearly what is happening. However, once we learn what these forces are and how they keep the woman hooked, the reasons why she tolerates her partner’s mistreatment become more understandable. […]. Addictive love works like any other addiction, whether it is to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or food. There is a compulsive, driven need for the other person. When a woman is in an addictive love relationship, she experiences intense pain and suffering when she is deprived of her partner; she feels that she cannot live without him. The relationship provides a “high” that nothing else matches—and in order to get those highs, she will tolerate a great deal of abusive treatment. […]. Remember, the misogynist’s jealousy and possessiveness have already seriously limited her world, which further enhances his importance to her. It is a vicious cycle. The more dependent she becomes, the more important he becomes. […]. Fear in intimate relationships operates on several levels. On one level, there are the survival fears—fear of making it financially on your own, fear of being poor, fear of being the sole provider and nurturer for your children, and fear of being alone—which keep women from leaving abusive relationships. (See Chapter 15 for an in-depth discussion of these fears and the ways in which they can be handled). But fear is present in the misogynistic relationship long before the woman begins to think of leaving.“

“Women Who Love Too Much”, by Robin Norwood. [PDF]

“In the words of Stanton Peele, author of Love and Addiction, “An addictive experience is one which absorbs a person’s consciousness, and as with analgesics, relieves their sense of anxiety and pain. There’s perhaps nothing quite as good for absorbing our consciousness as a love relationship of a certain type. An addictive relationship is characterized by a desire for another person’s reassuring presence. …The second criterion is that it detracts from a person’s ability to pay attention to and deal with other aspects of her life.” We use our obsession with the men we “love” to avoid our pain, emptiness, fear, and anger. We use our relationships as drugs, to avoid experiencing what we would feel if we held still with ourselves. The more painful our interactions with our man, the greater the distraction he provides us. A truly awful relationship simply serves the same function for us as a very strong drug. Without a man on whom to focus, we go into withdrawal, often with many of the same physical and emotional symptoms of that state that accompany actual drug withdrawal: nausea, sweating, chills, shaking, pacing, obsessive thinking, depression, inability to sleep, panic, and anxiety attacks. In an effort to relieve these symptoms, we return to our last partner or desperately seek a new one.“

“Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution”, by Sheila Jeffreys. [PDF]

“Heterosexuality as an institution is founded upon the ideology of ‘difference’. Though the difference is seen as natural, it is in fact a difference of power. When men marry women they carry into the relationship considerable social and political power. The organisations of state will back their power through religion, the courts, the social services. Their use of battering and rape within marriage will be condoned through these institutions. The women they marry will generally have less earning power since women’s wages are lower than men’s. The women will be trained not to use physical strength or be aggressive. They will have been inculcated with social expectations of service, obedience and self-sacrifice. But this is not enough to ensure male power. Means of reinforcing the power differences are employed when men choose partners. They are encouraged to seek in marriage women who are smaller in stature and younger in age. The serious taboos that exist against men marrying women who are taller or older are too well known to need emphasis.”

“Heterosexuality in Question”, by Stevi Jackson. [PDF]

“Everyday heterosexuality is not simply about sex, but is perpetuated by the regulation of marriage and family life, divisions of waged and domestic labour, patterns of economic support and dependency, and the routine everyday expectations and practices through which heterosexual coupledom persists as the normative ideal, a ‘natural’ way of life (see, for example, Van Every, 1996). A sociologically informed feminist understanding of heterosexuality requires that we do not over-privilege (erotic) sexuality. Part of the problem we have in thinking about sex derives from the weight we make it carry, the way we view it as qualitatively different from other aspects of social life. This is one of the few points on which I am in agreement with Gayle Rubin (1984). If we are to understand sexuality in context, neither giving it causal priority nor treating it in isolation, then a feminist analysis should consider its interlinkages with other aspects of women’s subordination. There is now a considerable body of work on heterosexual sexual relations which begins to make such connections, which highlights the ways in which heterosexuality is ordered through the institutions and expectations of a male dominated society, which draws parallels between the division of emotional labour in managing intimate relations and divisions of physical labour, which demonstrates that understandings of love and sexuality remain highly gendered (Cancian, 1990; Duncombe and Marsden, 1993; Holland et al., 1998; Langford, 1999).”

“The Male in the Head: Young People, Heterosexuality and Power”, by Janet Holland. [PDF]

“We have been impressed by the power of heterosexuality, but also by the capacity for some young people to develop the kinds of critical consciousness of this power that enable them to challenge heteronormativity in at least some personal encounters. The ‘male-in-the-head’ is neither static, nor simply a discursive construction. By tracing the intertwining of embodied, discursive, experiential and structured dimensions of male power, we can illuminate young people’s agency in their conformity and resistance to the double standard of sexual reputation—and show women’s collusion in male dominance of heterosexuality. Once this collusion is made clear, it can be challenged. …The challenge for women is to integrate intellectual and experiential empowerment; the challenge for men is to open up masculinity and cede privilege.”

“Loving To Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives”, by Dee L. R. Graham. [PDF]

“We ask whether societywide Stockholm Syndrome might account for women’s femininity, heterosexuality, and love of (or affection for) men. If Stockholm Syndrome does account for these characteristics in women, the pervasiveness of the four Stockholm Syndrome-conducive conditions in women’s lives could account for these characteristics being viewed as “normal” in women. “Expert opinion” (men’s opinion) would have us believe that females are inherently feminine, that women are heterosexual because of a genetic command to mate with men and thereby preserve the species or because we lack a penis (Freud, 1925), and that therefore it is only “natural” that women love men. Thousands of scientific studies have been carried out for the purpose of proving or disproving that femininity in women and masculinity in men are genetically determined. The fact of most women’s heterosexuality and love of men is so taken for granted that few have bothered even to question it.”

“Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape”, by Nicola Gavey. [Preview]

“Sex has always been political. Feminists have long recognized this, and since at least the nineteenth century have actively campaigned against men’s sexual exploitation of women. Further back, still, Mary Wollstonecraft (1999) published a searing critique of normative modes of male sexuality in the late eighteenth century. In the early twentieth century, however, feminist attention to sexual politics diminished — a decline that Margaret Jackson (1994) has linked to the development of sexology and its scientific legitimation of what she referred to as “the patriarchal model of sexuality”: that is, a model of heterosexuality in which the domination of women was naturalized.“

“Thinking Straight: The Power, The Promise, and The Paradox of Heterosexuality”, by Chrys Ingraham. [PDF]

“Until the late 1990s, few had pursued a critical examination of institutionalized heterosexuality, one that asks “What interests are served by the way we have organized and given meaning to heterosexuality?” This volume of essays, Thinking Straight, contains important and pivotal works in the emerging field of critical heterosexual studies. Written by prominent academics from across the disciplines as well as from international locations, these works interrogate the meanings and practices associated with straightness—the historical, social, political, cultural, and economic dominance of institutionalized heterosexuality. By examining the power, the promise, and the paradox associated with thinking straight and straightness, these essays provide insight into the operation of institutionalized heterosexuality: its history, its materiality, its meaning making systems, legitimizing practices, concealed contradictions, and the interests of power it serves.”

Mildly related, & recommended:
“The Dependent Personality”, by Robert F. Bornstein. [Preview]

“According to the DSM-III-R, the individual suffering from DPD (1) is unable to make independent decisions; (2) allows others to make important decisions for him or her; (3) has excessive fear of rejection; (4) has difficulty initiating projects or activities; (5) volunteers to perform unpleasant or demeaning tasks in order to please others; (6) feels helpless when alone; (7) feels devastated when important relationships end; (8) is preoccupied with fears of being abandoned; and (9) is easily hurt by criticism or disapproval.”

& Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay on Love (from section 14 of “Die fröhliche Wissenschaft”; PDF).

“The lust of property, and love: what different associations each of these ideas evoke! And yet it might be the same impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something of repose, who are now apprehensive for the safety of their "possession”); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as “good”.“

I haven’t read any of his books, but since I’ve just found out about it, I wanted to signal boost Sam Vaknin’s work, specifically “Toxic Relationships: Abuse and its Aftermath”