ABSTRACT
In the introductory chapter of this book, Steve Duck and Lise VanderVoort proposed three levels of inappropriateness that they called the unconventional, the disapproved, and the forbidden, and which are listed in order of increasing social disapproval. Of the detailed examples of inappropriateness covered in this text, they put within the first category cross-gender friendships (Baumgarte, chap. 6) and culturally disparate marriages (Adams & Rosen-Grandon, chap. 5). Within the second category, they place therapist-patient sexual relationships (Garrett, chap. 8) and marital affairs (Allen & Harrison, chap. 3), whereas in the third category, they include pedophilia (Howitt, chap. 11) and obsessional relational intrusion (Spitzberg & Cupach, chap. 10). Instances of inappropriateness, which they think may be placed anywhere along this continuum or even off it according to the view of the individual, are same-sex relationships (Yip, chap. 7) and interracial relationships (Gaines & Leaver, chap. 4).
