How to Use This Book

For Students

Each chapter follows the same structure. Here's how to get the most from each component:

Main Chapter (index.md) — Read this first. It runs approximately 9,500–10,500 words and constitutes the core learning material. Look for the callout boxes: - 💡 Key Insight — An important concept worth pausing on - 📊 Research Spotlight — A specific study unpacked in detail - ⚠️ Critical Caveat — A limitation, replication failure, or methodological concern - ✅ Evidence Summary — What the literature collectively shows - 🔗 Connections — How this topic links to other chapters - 🔴 Myth Busted — A common belief that doesn't hold up to scrutiny - 🔵 Ethical Lens — A moment to pause and consider ethical implications - ⚖️ Debate Point — A genuinely contested scholarly question - 🧪 Methodology Note — A note on how researchers study this topic

Exercises (exercises.md) — Discussion questions, written assignments, and activities. Some require individual reflection; others work best in small groups. Your professor will assign specific ones.

Quiz (quiz.md) — 10–15 multiple-choice and short-answer questions to check your comprehension before exams. Use these for self-testing.

Case Studies (case-study-01.md, case-study-02.md) — Two applied scenarios per chapter. These require you to apply chapter concepts to real or realistic situations. Great for discussion or written assignments.

Key Takeaways (key-takeaways.md) — A condensed summary of the chapter's most important points. Use this for review, not as a substitute for reading the full chapter.

Further Reading (further-reading.md) — Annotated bibliography for going deeper. Includes original research articles, book chapters, and accessible popular science resources.

Running Examples

Three recurring threads weave through the entire book. When you see these names, you're picking up an ongoing story:

  • The Okafor-Reyes Study — Dr. Adaeze Okafor and Dr. Carlos Reyes are running a 5-year, 12-country cross-cultural attraction study. Follow their methodological debates across 15 chapters.
  • Nadia, Sam & Jordan — Three composite undergraduate characters whose conversations and experiences ground abstract concepts in lived reality. Appears in 15 chapters.
  • The Swipe Right Dataset — A synthetic 50,000-profile dating app dataset used in Python chapters and exercises.

Python Chapters

Eight chapters include computational exercises in Python:

  • Ch 3 — Survey data exploration and effect size visualization
  • Ch 8 — Beauty standards data visualization
  • Ch 11 — Attachment quiz scoring
  • Ch 17 — Linguistic style matching analysis
  • Ch 20 — Dating app data exploration
  • Ch 25 — Racial preference patterns in dating data
  • Ch 36 — Hookup prevalence trends
  • Ch 40 — Meta-analysis forest plots and p-hacking simulation

You don't need to be a programmer to use this book. The Python exercises are designed for students with basic Python familiarity. If you have none, Appendix C includes a brief toolkit introduction.

Install dependencies with: pip install -r requirements.txt

For Instructors

This book is designed for a semester-long undergraduate course on attraction, relationships, or human sexuality from a social science perspective. It works equally well in psychology, sociology, communication studies, gender studies, or interdisciplinary programs.

Suggested course structures:

Full course (42 chapters, 14 weeks): Assign 3 chapters per week. Use capstones as final projects.

Abbreviated course (25 chapters, 10 weeks): Parts I, II, III essential; choose 2 from Parts IV–V; all of Part VI; choose 1 from Part VII; Part VIII recommended.

Seminar format (12–15 chapters): Parts I and VI are essential anchors; choose thematically from Parts II–VIII.

The three running examples are designed to be dropped in class discussion: "What would Okafor say here?" or "How does this apply to Sam's situation?" are generative discussion prompts.

Content Note

This book covers topics including sexual desire, attraction, harassment, coercion, objectification, and intimate partner violence. Chapter 32 discusses harassment and violence in detail. Chapters 30 and 33 discuss manipulation, coercion, and technology-facilitated harm. Instructors may wish to provide advance notice for these chapters.

The book treats all consensual forms of attraction and relationship structure as legitimate. It does not assume heterosexuality, cisgender identity, or monogamy as defaults.