On the Evolution of Intimacy: A Brief Exploration of the Past, Present, And Future of Gender and Love

In On the Evolution of Intimacy, psychiatrist and futurist Charles Johnston addresses how our times are making possible a critical "growing up" in how we think about intimacy and gender. With intimacy, the changes he describes are as significant as those which brought us Romeo and Juliet–style romantic love. With gender, they take us beyond both the polarizing assumptions of traditional gender roles and the simplistic conclusions of a postmodern unisex ideal. On both fronts, the greater maturity he describes offers that we might understand with a new kind of completeness and sophistication.

The book's last paragraph summarizes where On the Evolution of Intimacy takes us: "The rewards for even just making a start with this needed new chapter in how we understand are immense. We discover the possibility of deeper and more solid identities as men and as women. We also discover the paradoxical fact that engaging identity and love in needed new ways, while more demanding than what we have known, is also in important ways simpler. We can think of it as part of a needed "new common sense."