ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes a strongly interdisciplinary and multi-theoretical structure. It focuses on the author groundbreaking notion of love power by responding to some typical questions that her theory has provoked. The book reviews the author theory somewhat, replacing the notion of sex/affective energy with the twin concepts of 'love energy' and 'sexual energy'. It demonstrates how contradictions inherent in current western patriarchy make it impossible for both women and men to meet the sexual and love needs that the structures also produce. The book also reviews the central feminist debate on precisely why and in which sense romantic love is problematic, putting it in conversation with the debate over same-sex marriage as played out in the Australian context. It explores the pivotal relation by drawing on Luce Irigaray's feminist philosophy of sexual difference and thematizing the place of silence in the loving encounter.
