Pheromones and Romance

A detailed Summary of Pheromones and Romance

They see each other from across the room and all of a sudden, it is as if an unbendable force has been inserted between them. They cannot be separated. They are in love and it only took about one millisecond to happen! We see this happen in many different novels and plays including Romeo and Juliet, Chaereas and Callirhoe, and An Ethiopian Story, as well as in all modern romance novels, television, movies, and in every day life. We all seem to have friends that fall in love with every man or woman that they see as soon as they see them. What is this strange phenomenon and what causes it? This is love at first sight, or better yet not love but simply lust or extreme physical attraction. The cause, many believe is somehow related to pheromones.

When the romance novel genre got started in Ancient Greece, it contained exactly the same elements as novels do now, the elements that we wish were actually contained in our love lives. These elements include love and adventure, a young, wellborn, handsome, couple, travel, separation, misfortunes, virginity and chastity, fidelity, and a happy ending (Reardon, 1989.) This is what we want to occur in our own love lives, but we do not know how to make that happen so we satisfy the w

Since the research on pheromones, a few years ago proved that pheromones could affect humans in some way people have been taking advantage of this idea and of the fact that some people simply do not date very much and are lonely. Many companies, I found at least twenty while researching this paper, are selling perfumes, candles, "pheromones in a bottle", and other such gimmicks to take money from people. It is still not proven that pheromones have any definitive affect on humans but these companies do not care! Some people are willing to spend money on anything if it will help them find that perfect someone and these companies just take advantage of that. Who knows maybe one day we will know for sure and all of these people will not have waster their money, but until then I will rely on old-fashioned methods of dating and finding the perfect somebody for me.

While in Ancient Greece, scientists and writers had no idea what pheromones were or what caused physical attraction, love, or lust, they sure did understand the makings of what young people did when they fell in love. The above-mentioned novels not only made a genre that is still thriving today, they explained, in many different ways, the emotions, actions, and predictors of people deeply in love. While writers may have used love at first site to simply make the novel more exciting and dramatic, to not have to write chapters on the extraneous variables of dating and courtship, and to keep the audience interested in the novel by making them see what could happen to them by giving them a journey to follow, the ancient authors that started this genre thousands of years ago they have yet to be outdone by a modern writer. The original romance novels of ancient times tell us more about love and romance then science ever can. While pheromones may explain part of the reason of love at first site, I think the ancient authors had it right in portraying love as an undying, jealous, merciless emotion that is not controlled by the lover or beloved, but rather by some outside force that pushes the pair together such as a god or as science believes, by pheromones.

ants and desires of our beating hearts by reading, watching, and observing others around us and in fictional stories achieving what we so desperately want. We also try using artificial methods, such as make-up, cosmetic surgery, and perfume, of making ourselves more beautiful in hopes of attracting the object of our desire.

It was not until the 1950's that the term "pheromone", was coined to describe those chemicals that are a great sexual turn on for many insects. Translated, pheromone becomes the more expressive "excitement carrier" (from the Greek words "p

Some common words found in the essay are:
Romeo Juliet, Ancient Greece, Nasal Organ, Habrocomes Anthia, David Berliner, Ethiopian Story, , physical attraction, romeo juliet, love site, fall love, vertebrate animal species, vertebrate animal, animal species, romance novels, love sight, ancient authors, love lives, vomero nasal organ,

Approximate Word count = 1818
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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