Methodological Reflections on the Relational Study of the Loving Couple As a Sensible Experience

In this paper, the authors present the methodological challenges involved in the study of love as a sensible experience from a relational approach. The authors identify the WE loving relationship as a figuration –in Elias’ sense- in which at least two people are reciprocally conditioned (García Andrade & Sabido Ramos, 2014). In this paper, the authors analyze the information of 105 questionnaires applied to graduate students in a public university in Mexico City. Even though the information is from individual participants, the aim was to understand how they think about love and the performance of love related to the other. 

The methodological tool was divided into diverse sections and considered the sociodemographic profile, sexual orientation and lapse of the duration of the couple. The central sections were oriented by two analytical levels named as semantics and performance (Ibidem). The first one has to do with cultural expectations regarding bodily senses and fluids, and places associated with love and sexuality in the couple. The second is related with particularities attributed to some bodily senses, fluids and spaces according to the experiences of the couple analyzed. The methodological tools used were closed and open questions, and images to activate dispositions in the subjects. The aim of the pictures was to let the subjects relate their perception and appreciation to analyze bodily contact with the couple.

The authors will show how the methodological tool constructed within a relational starting point helps identify: semantic regularities in the couples, semantic regularities in how gender differences are constructed around sensibility thresholds, and performance variabilities in each couple.

Finally, some limitations of the instrument and future agenda will be presented.