title: What does sexual orientation orient? A biobehavioral model distinguishing romantic love and sexual desire.
abstract: Although it is typically presumed that heterosexual individuals only fall in love with other-gender partners and gay-lesbian individuals only fall in love with same-gender partners, this is not always so. The author develops a biobehavioral model of love and desire to explain why. The model specifies that (a) the evolved processes underlying sexual desire and affectional bonding are functionally independent; (b) the processes underlying affectional bonding are not intrinsically oriented toward other-gender or same-gender partners: (c) the biobehavioral links between love and desire are bidirectional, particularly among women. These claims are supported by social-psychological, historical, and cross-cultural research on human love and sexuality as well as by evidence regarding the evolved biobehavioral mechanisms underlying mammalian mating and social bonding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0251, USA. diamond@psych.utah.edu
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Diamond
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007989:Libido; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*