Some authors speculate about "the healing power of love" in romance novels. C. Sue Carter, the director since November of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, at Indiana University, explains it in molecular-biology journals.

As a pioneer in the field of behavioral neuroendocrinology, she has studied the roles of hormonal processes in how humans act and feel, including in relation to desire and love. She says her four decades of studies convinced her that it makes no sense to view sexuality in isolation from other aspects of human sentience.She reasons: "The same neural substrates that regulate sexual behavior regulate social bonds, regulate how we feel the emotional systems of our body. So, even if you wanted to separate them, it would not be biologically possible."