It Really Is That Complicated

Chas Rawlingss It Really Is That Complicated is an often personal, indeed intimate, and sometimes hilarious ride from start to finish through the byways and mazes of mens and womens relationships. He guides through the fits and startssome of the latter false startsthat characterize the dating game, especially with modern-day dating services. He lays out what he calls the horrors of marriage in the degeneration of romance and eroticism into the battle of the sexes in more mundane but often deal-breaking power struggles over control, money, and property. He elaborates on Tolstoys notion that even this supposedly most sanctified of unions is a form of prostitutionwomen dispensing sex in return for material gain and security. At the same time, he asks good old Freuds notorious question My God, what does woman want, since so many of them flee the very rewards they desire along with the generous, often attractive, and accomplished guys who proffer them. He takes us into what in Victorian times was dubbed My Secret Life, the alleyways of escorts who offer up not only sex but also the companionship and even the no-strings intimacy men crave. Well, for a while at leastuntil the courtesan gets conflicted and crazy herself. And, despite all of this mayhem, Dr. Rawlings urges us all, men and women, to take risks and hurl ourselves into the fray, implicitly asserting that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved and lived. Good fun, a great read, and edifying to boot! John Munder Ross, PhD Author, The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life Coauthor of Tales of Love, Sex and Danger