Acknowledgments

1. Unloving: Introduction to a Sociology of Negative Choice

Love as Freedom

The Malaise with a Critique of Freedom

Choice

Negative Choice

Notes

2. Pre-Modern Courtship, Social Certainty, and the Rise of Negative Relationships

Courtship as a Sociological Structure

Certainty as a Sociological Structure

Sexual Freedom as Consumer Freedom

A New Social and Sexual Grammar

Notes

3. Confusing Sex

Casual Sexuality and Its Elusive Effects

Casualness and Uncertainty

Uncertainty and Negative Sociality

Notes

4. Scopic Capitalism and the Rise of Ontological Uncertainty

The Value of the Body

Producing Symbolic and Economic Value

Evaluation

Sexual Devaluation

Shifting the Reference Point of Evaluation

The Confused Status of the Subject

Notes

5. A Freedom with Many Limits

Consent to What?

Muddled Wills

Volatility as an Emotional Condition

Exiting without a Voice

Trust and Uncertainty

Notes

6. Divorce as a Negative Relationship

The End of Love

Divorce and Women's Position in the Emotional Field

The Narrative Structure of Departing

Sexuality: The Great Separation

Consumer Objects: From Transitional to Exiting Objects

Autonomy and Attachment: The Difficult Couple

Emotional Ontologies and Non-Binding Emotional Contracts

Emotional Competence and Women's Position in the Relational Process

Notes

Conclusion: Negative Relations and the Butterfly Politics of Sex

Notes

Bibliography

Index

The End of Love

A Sociology of Negative Relations