Shojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls’ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls’ literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shojo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls’ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies. The author traces the development of girls’ culture in pre–World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls’ comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of “S relationships,” passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys’ love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys’ love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shojo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men. Passionate Friendship’s close literary and visual analysis of modern Japanese girls’ culture will appeal to a wide range of readers, including scholars and students of Japanese studies, gender studies, and popular culture.

God's Love "burns like a blazing fire, like a burning flame" (Song of Solomon 8:6). Drenched with personal experiences and biblical truths, Consuming Love will take you to a deeper level of understanding about God's commitment, friendship, and passion for you. Author Steve Harrison focuses on the deep and...

Ralph Waldo Emerson never tried to reinvent the institution of marriage, but his close friend, the writer Margaret Fuller, was freer to follow the dictates of self-reliance, and choose how she would make her commitments Born in 1810, Fuller received a boy's first-class education, and by the time she was in her twenties, she was so well-read that she had given up any hope of a normal woman's role, in marriage or in society. Still unmarried at thirty, Fuller pressed Emerson for an intimacy deeper than their friendship. Emerson would not betray his marriage, but in their journals, both writers questioned the value of monogamous marriage for men and women of genius. When she realized that Emerson was not as radical as his writing suggested, Fuller went to Europe, where she married an Italian Count. Giovanni Ossoli was barely literate, but Fuller thought that she could still fulfill other sides of herself in other relationships. Fuller never got to live out her experiment in marriage: she and her husband died in a shipwreck on returning to America in 1850. But the questions Fuller's life had raised-about how to reconcile marriage and self-reliance-are still echoing now, in our discomfort with marriage-and with any of the alternatives. An enlightening and emotionally charged narrative, The Dangers of Passion recounts the passionate friendship in which Emerson and Fuller: First learned to trust themselves and their hearts before any other authority; Discovered the delightful freedom of shared intellectual passion; Worked together to advance a philosophy of Transcendental self-reliance; Quarreled over Emerson's inability to give Fuller deeper fulfillment; Questioned the value of marriage for men and women of genius; Consoled themselves in marriages that lacked the intellectual and philosophical passion of their friendship.

Falling in love with the right person is the best thing that can ever happen to you in this lifetime. It creates magical experiences when two hearts beat as one. It adds color and meaning to your lonely existence. It creates relationships. Relationships bring security and happiness. It brings deeper commitment that leads to marriage. As time goes by, the relationship faces many challenges, trials and temptations that can destroy the union. It is necessary for the couple to be strong and remain steadfast on their commitment to stay together. Relationship Advice: How to Rekindle and Cultivate Healthy, Passionate, and Long-Lasting Relationships, Relationship Advice for Men and Women will give you insights on how relationships evolve and how to make it lasts until the end. It takes a lot of effort and time to build a healthy, passionate and lasting relationship. But the benefits lead to happiness and fulfillment. In this book are ways to cultivate this kind of relationship and also the signs that point out if your relationship is in trouble. These telltales are common indicators of a fading relationship. But the good news is there are ways you can do to rekindle the dying embers in your relationship. There are advices for women and men who are the key players in this game of love. Table of Contents Love and Relationships The Stages of Relationship Ways to Make Your Relationship Last Telltales of a Troubled Relationship Ways to Rekindle the Passion in your Relationship (Advice for Women) Ways to Rekindle the Passion in your Relationship (Advice for Men) Conclusion

Who gets caught in the Passion Trap? It's the catch-22 of romantic relationships: The more deeply one partner falls in love, the more distant the other becomes. This is the passion trap, an emotional dynamic that results in increasing desire and desperation in the "one-down" lover, and dissatisfaction, often mingled with guilt and withdrawal, in the "one-up." Now Dr. Dean Delis, a renowned psychologist who believes the passion trap is both common and curable, shows you how to change the patterns that threaten your relationship. Drawing from his counseling work with individuals and couples, he offers fresh insights and powerful, proven techniques--from Trial Closeness to Healthy Distance--to help you and your partner rekindle romance and discover a new equilibrium of love and desire for a lifetime of happiness.

Reproduction of the original.