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Revision as of 22:38, 25 January 2006 by Sadi Carnot (talk | contribs) (added see also)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Making love maps was the idea of John Money. The idea grew out of Money's experiences in counseling people with atypical gender identities, paraphilias, etc., but it is possible to create a love map for any human being. The object of this exercise is to explore and to map out the factors that are erotically significant to an individual. Knowing these factors, one could then predict the likelihood that two people would be able to form an erotic bond.
A love map may make note of both positive and negative factors, things that attract or repel the person whose erotic tastes are being mapped. For reasons that are not always easy to understand, one person may be attracted to people of a particular gender, people with particular physical characteristics (such as hair color), people with particular personality traits (e.g., a sardonic sense of humor), and so forth. One may also find certain characteristics so threatening or objectionable (again, for reasons that may be difficult or impossible to ascertain) that it strongly mitigates against an erotic attraction being manifested.
A love map can make note of environmental factors that facilitate the formation of an erotic bond, or that enhance or diminish erotic response. For instance, some people may in general tend to bond strongly to people with whom they share a crisis situation. Some people may find their erotic responses muted in the presence of intimidating environmental factors (observant elders or nosy neighbors, for instance).