What's Next in Love and Sex Psychological and Cultural Perspectives

What's Next in Love and Sex is a comprehensive examination of contemporary academic findings relating to all matters of the mind, body, and heart. Inspired by questions asked by students, the book covers cutting-edge topics so new that they are rarely addressed in current sexuality texts, providing insight into modern trends such as hookup culture, virtual pornography, robots, apps, and online dating as they evolve in this day and age.

Written by one of the pioneers of love and sex research, Elaine Hatfield, along with historian Richard Rapson and social psychologist Jeannette Purvis, this book uses contemporary scientific findings to provide an updated and relevant explanation for why we do the things we do when we're in love, searching for love, making love, or trying to keep a faltering relationship together. Combining rigorous scholarship with an accessible and entertaining style, no other book will give college students and academics alike such a developed understanding of contemporary love and sex.

Elaine Hatfield is Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and past-president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex. In 2012, she received the William James award for a Lifetime of Scientific Achievement from the Association for Psychological Science. In recent years, she has received Distinguished Scientist Awards from the University of Hawaii, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SSSS), the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, the International Academy for Intercultural Research, and the Alfred Kinsey Award from the Western Region of SSSS. She also recently received the Methodological Innovator Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.


Richard L. Rapson is a Professor of History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa; he has also taught at Amherst College and Stanford University. He has written more than a dozen books, most of which focus on the psychological side of American life, past and present. His most recent books are Amazed by Life: Confessions of a Non-religious Believer (2004) and Magical Thinking and the Decline of America (2007).

Jeanette Purvis is an adjunct lecturer in Social Psychology currently working in the private sector. Her research focuses on the intersection of modern romantic relationships and new technologies. She also works in the community as a social worker for the homeless and is a former Chandler Fellow in Public Policy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.