What Do You Think Love Is?
10대가 말하고 인류학자가 기록한 오늘의 청소년
About This Book
"I want to marry my first love." "…What are you talking about?"
An anthropological field report & real high-teen romance,
heard straight from teenagers—without prejudice, without judgment
From dating, social media, fashion, and peer culture to hate speech and digital violence
"Unrequited love kind of hurts." "So I followed them first. I didn't even know them." "My friends told me to start wearing makeup, so that's when I began." "My test scores dropped, so now I'm banned from dating." "I didn't even realize it was my period." "And then the older student asked, 'Want to walk the forest trail together next time?'"
What kind of love do today's teenagers experience? What do they even call love? Even in an era when love feels difficult, young people still dream of it. The flutter of a crush, the effort to look good, the sting of heartbreak, and the courage to love again—teenagers opened up and spoke candidly about these raw experiences. An anthropologist listened, recorded their stories, and this remarkable book was born. What Do You Think Love Is? is a "real teen romance" that has never been captured anywhere before—one that even the teens telling their stories didn't fully recognize—and a sharp anthropological report on the dating, bodies, and gazes that today's young people navigate.
From ideal types and how to approach someone you like, to situationships and confessions, to the emotions and dilemmas of dates and breakups—the author, a cultural anthropologist, conveys the real-life love stories of teenagers while never forgetting to critically examine the romantic scripts our society passes down to its youth. The book also tackles the sexual objectification and commodification embedded in the content teens consume daily, as well as digital sex crimes including illegal filming, deepfake production and distribution, and sexual exploitation through online grooming.
Rather than pushing teenagers outside the boundaries of love by insisting that a student's duty is to study, this book invites us to talk together about what we mean when we say love. In doing so, it guides young people to understand their bodies and emotions without shame, to build relationships free of prejudice, and to love willingly. Neither a stale rehash of old lessons on "sex and love" nor a forgettable sex-ed textbook, a new language of love for today's youth has just arrived.