Black Love Matters: Authentic Men's Voices on Marriages and Romantic Relationships

(Paperback)

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Black Love Matters is an in-depth qualitative analysis that focuses on a diverse group of adult black men and their attitudes towards behavior in marriage and romantic relationships. To give voice to the mens narratives, Black Love Matters follows the men for four years, chronicling the experiences and the circumstances shaping their relationship trajectories. Highlights include discussions related to the roles that sex, infidelity, intimacy, trauma, family of origin, masculinity, and environmental factors play in the mens attitudes and behaviors. Given the dearth of literature on black men featuring first-hand accounts from them, Black Love Matters makes a significant contribution to the existing literature that seems to be disproportionately focused on implicating black men in discussions of what ills their families and communities.

Reviews

In this rather slender book, Perry (Univ. of Louisville) attempts to reach a greater understanding of how Black men conceptualize marriage, sex, and romantic relationships during what he labels the "Golden Age of Revelatory Black Male Media" in the US, spanning 2010 to the present. To that end, he undertakes a mixed-methods approach that includes a quantitative survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews with 33 Black men in Louisville, KY. . . the author identifies some of the macrostructures and microprocesses by which Black men attempt to construct and frame their attitudes toward relationships, marriage, and sex. The result is a noble initiation of a much-needed research agenda aimed at addressing the research gap on contemporary Black male sexuality and family relations. Future researchers in this area would certainly benefit by a close reading of this offering. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty.

Author Bio

Armon R. Perry is professor at the University of Louisvilles Kent School of Social Work.