Having sex to the point of satiety (that “I’m done!” feeling) is a mammalian mating signal to lose interest in one mate, and find novel mates appealing.
During this recovery phase lovers may feel needy, irritable, anxious, depleted, or desperate for another orgasm (to ease related symptoms). They don’t realize that they are temporarily off balance. This is a recurring trigger for disharmony and compulsive behavior, and it’s built right into our romantic relationships.
The bottom line is that the subconscious mating program behind our spontaneous sexual appetite works perfectly for maximum gene proliferation. It just doesn’t happen to have our individual well-being at heart.
The texts I was studying suggested that sexual energy could be carefully refined and directed toward heightened spiritual awareness, even without a partner. Sages insisted that orgasm somehow drained sexual energy before it could be used for that higher purpose.
Transforming sexual energy basically means using it for a higher purpose, such as personal growth, spiritual practice, service to others, and so forth.
Evidence was piling up that orgasm had the power to shift perception and self-image. Was this harmless little habit shaping our choices without our awareness?
Our so-called reptilian brain governs self-preservation, aggression, and the most basic life-sustaining processes, such as respiration, circulation, sleep, and muscle coordination. It is instinctive, and repeats the same behaviors over and over. The next region can be thought of as our mammalian brain. It’s often called the limbic system, or emotional brain. Like the reptilian brain, it has been around for at least 150 million years. Emotional bonds between parent and offspring grew stronger as the mammalian brain evolved. (“Warm and fuzzy” does not describe the relationship between an iguana and her hatchlings.) The mechanisms in this part of the brain are pretty much the same in us as they are in all mammals, such as dogs, rabbits, or rats.
The mammalian brain’s neurochemical releases color how we see the world on a given day—and whether we approach, or avoid, something or someone. It is the place where thoughts affect bodily function. It governs emotions, such as fear, joy, and anger. It is the seat of most of our drives and desires, including hunger, mate selection, and sexual urges.
On this basis, your mammalian brain decides whether your rational brain has a good idea or not—that is, whether it feels true and right. It is therefore a big component of your inner compass, and is especially strident when you are stressed, or have been skewered by Cupid.
The rational brain, or neocortex (cerebrum), evolved even more recently. It is actually present in all mammals, but much expanded in dolphins and humans (and other primates). It allows us to invent things and think abstractly.
In humans the neocortex makes up two-thirds of total brain mass. Yet impressive as it is, it relies heavily upon the mammalian brain when weighing choices. In fact, the rational brain spends most of its time planning and executing the desires of the mammalian brain. It may rest atop the mammalian brain, but it certainly doesn’t dominate it. Indeed, the mammalian brain can normally hijack the rational brain whenever it perceives a need.
As we’ll see later, we can use our rational brain to activate, and sustain, our bonding program above our mating program
Meanwhile, we may reluctantly accept that we are “in lust” with that manly political presence or gorgeous young starlet with many child-bearing years ahead of her because our mammalian brain sees, stamped right on the hot one’s forehead, “MARVELOUS GENETIC OPPORTUNITY.” Yet most of us have a lot of resistance to the idea that we’re divorcing because of a subconscious mating program. This is because we rationalize our mating decisions. It gives that large, new part of our brains something to do.
Dopamine is the prime gadfly that activates your reward circuitry, where it equates with eager anticipation. A little bit of dopamine activating the right nerve cells makes life seem worth getting up for in the morning. Too much, and you may bounce around like popcorn; too little, and you may sink into apathy instead. Dopamine itself is what motivates you. You’re not craving ice cream or sex with that film star. You don’t even want to win the lotto or bungee jump. You’re actually seeking more stimulation of your reward circuitry.
Our entire economy plays upon our evolutionary drives. When you enter a movie theater and smell the popcorn, your dopamine rises and stimulates your reward circuitry. You crave that tub of buttery corn. Similarly, the supermodel next to the new BMW signals your mammalian brain that sex, money, and status are right there, in exchange for your credit card. Such a deal.
When we chase things in our lives, we’re not after the things as much as the feelings associated with high dopamine.
This mechanism is subconscious; the rational brain isn’t calling the shots. You cannot force yourself to fall in love or stay in love, any more than you can will yourself to digest a meal or fall asleep. Unless you do something to steer around your underlying mating program, you are likely to fall in and out of love only on Cupid’s commands—despite your best intentions and most sincere vows.
Dopamine is released in response to expectations—rather than actual levels of pleasure. Something that is better than expected results in a bigger surge of dopamine.
Intense stimulation of the reward circuitry (which some call the pleasure-reward pathway) is so overpoweringly compelling that the anticipated reward eclipses the fear of pain. As we’ve seen, instead of an electrode your body uses surges of dopamine to activate your reward circuitry
When falling in love, the parts of the brain that aid with judging character and looking ahead, and the parts that protect us from harm, are switched off. When in this altered state, we’re blind to faults and flooded with the neurochemicals of reward
Perhaps you begin to see why lovers committed adultery even when the punishment was to burn at the stake. By means of this effective, well-hidden mechanism deep in the mammalian brain, our ambitious genes often persuade us that any sacrifice is worth the pursuit of passion (and risk of pregnancy).
Orgasm sets in motion a cascade of programmed neurochemical events, which may continue for approximately two weeks. They change how we feel and how we perceive the world around us, especially a mate. They can speed habituation.
Changed feelings may be subtle and take many forms, such as irritability, cravings for orgasm, fuzzy thinking, emotional neediness, overreactions, and fatigue.
As the mammalian brain triggers habituation, the rational brain generates rationalizations for incompatibility. The passion cycle can activate the amygdala’s stress response, causing us to misperceive a partner as a threat.
While you’re declaring your undying love as orgasm approaches, your body is preparing to play a nasty trick on you. The very intensity of your glorious crescendo will trigger a cascade of neurochemical events, which have the power to shift your perception without your awareness. These neurochemical shifts can affect your judgment and how you experience the world.
Now our addict feels rotten. She has two choices: Take more cocaine to jack up her mood artificially by saturating the remaining dopamine receptors, or suffer withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms arise when the reward circuitry is starving for dopamine.
Dopamine equals anticipation and wanting rather than gratification itself. It is the promise of that juicy roast pig at the end of a long hunt, or a kiss at the end of your first date. Stoked on dopamine, we can waste hours visiting stores (what’s around the corner?), playing video games, fantasizing about someone, clicking to the next porn image (maybe it’s even hotter), or gambling (could be the big one), even if we end up with nothing beneficial to show for it. Dopamine anticipation equates with “the grass is always greener … someplace else.”
Subjects with lowered dopamine had difficulty resisting short-term reward, despite long-term negative consequences.133 The point? Balanced dopamine can keep you from doing stupid stuff.
It bears repeating that a major theme of this book is that the intense pursuit of orgasm tends to raise dopamine sharply. In fact, a preliminary study with normal subjects showed that brain activity associated with sexual arousal looks like that accompanying drug consumption.
The usual relief—orgasm—triggers fluctuations of dopamine over the next two weeks or so.
By altering their behavior, the Taoists altered their neurochemistry.
In 2014, scientists discovered that ejaculation causes key dopamine-producing cells to shrink for at least two weeks, presumably reducing dopamine output. Also at orgasm, dopamine drops and another neurochemical sharply rises in both men and women: prolactin. These changes are like a foot on the brakes, sexual satiation signals. Men may experience them as the “I’m going into a coma now—good night” phenomenon. Interestingly, prolactin rises four times as much after ejaculation during intercourse, as compared with ejaculation during masturbation.
Orgasm may induce changes in the hypothalamus that overwhelm prolactin inhibition [thus, allowing prolactin to rise dramatically].… Prolactin is an important sex hormone with potentially far-reaching daily consequences. It has a fundamental role in sexual activity, and may be the first candidate for a circulating molecule with the capacity to regulate sexual feelings and preparedness.
Serotonin is another possible link in the post-sexual satiety chain of neurochemical events. It’s released right after orgasm. Like prolactin, it appears to inhibit dopamine (once again, affecting that key neurochemical).
In effect, your rational brain and your mammalian brain are playing a form of ping-pong—and your mammalian brain has a much stronger serve. This is because the brain pathways by which the mammalian brain communicates with the rational brain are like superhighways, while the pathways that the rational brain uses to talk to the mammalian brain are like dirt roads in the wilderness, slow and sparse.
When an observation comes to the attention of the rational brain, it connects it with your feelings in the mammalian brain, and then analyzes it further. Through this process you rationalize your feelings.
Indeed, the amygdala can snap shut like a rusty, but fully operational, bear trap. It issues its warnings chemically and so quickly that it can activate your body’s defense reactions before your rational brain even has a chance to evaluate your circumstances. At that point, it is easy to fall into one of three stress responses: fight, flight, or freeze. Your amygdala does not realize that fallout from sexual satiety is a major source of your distress.
The amygdala is our sentry, our security guard. If we want to bond we have to quiet it at the same time we activate our reward circuitry. Otherwise our partner can register in our mammalian brain as “disagreeable”—and to be avoided.
As we have seen, mammals are programmed to mate like mad as dopamine surges—and then, when it drops, go about other activities until their libido recovers naturally.
Here’s the danger in our modern circumstances: When a mammal’s brain hasn’t adapted to the intensity and quantity of a stimulus, that stimulus registers as a superstimulus.
Dopamine is the “wanting,” or craving. It’s why we can still eat dessert when we’re full, and fantasize about another partner when we’re happily married.
Our brain is also designed to remember—and react to—everything associated with intense stimulation.
We’re constantly tempted with empty-calorie, high-sugar snacks, risk-taking opportunities, high-action video games, sexually stimulating images, and, often, opportunities to hook up for orgasms without emotional ties. All promise exciting dopamine surges, which means that many of us suffer withdrawal symptoms, mild or severe, a lot of the time.
The more uncomfortable you are, the more urgently your mammalian brain scans for something to relieve your misery. When it lights on a cue it associates with relief, it sends your dopamine needle into the red zone of your inner gauge. You experience an intense craving. A candy bar may look so vital to your reward circuitry that your rational brain will temporarily ignore your expanding waistline.
A lot of addiction is the result of experience … repetitive, high-emotion, high-frequency experience.
After your dopamine shoots up in response to a superstimulus, key dopamine receptors drop. Frequent orgasm (even without porn) can also lead to a numbed pleasure response, because you aren’t waiting out the recovery period of the passion cycle. (Remember how fried Sooty was after his night of passion?) Withdrawal symptoms, such
Highly potent sexual stimuli [and junk food] are the only stimuli capable of activating the dopamine system with anywhere near the potency of addictive drugs.
One unwelcome side effect of frequent supranormal stimulation is that normal pleasures—the kinds of simple things that would have delighted our ancestors—gradually lose their capacity to delight us.
Another risk of supranormal stimulation is what scientists call cross-tolerance. That is, one kind of intense stimulation (or its aftermath) can make someone more likely to reach for other potent stimuli, such as recreational drugs, alcohol, gambling, junk food, or reckless shopping.
Potent sexual stimulation, gambling, and cocaine can all offer an addict short-term relief, because they activate dopamine production.
Learning and memory are pathways of connected nerve cells—whether they consist of a few connected nerve cells, or millions. When enough neurochemicals are released into the synapses between cells, communication between nerve cells can become a scream: “Tighten up these connections. We have to remember this. It’s important!” Some learning does not involve repetition. A circuit will form instantly if an event has a lot of significance or emotional impact. If a child burns her hand on a hot stove, the synapses are so overwhelmed that the event is etched into her brain. As the saying goes, once is enough. Other examples might be a birth, a car accident, or sexual abuse.
How did the addict get to this point? His brain initially registered a behavior as intensely rewarding and created pathways to remember the actions leading to it. The more enticing or exciting (extreme or shocking) his destination, the bigger the brain’s motivation to get out the weed-whacker and mow a path, and then wear down a rut, so he visited as often as possible.
Addiction results from persistent changes in brain structures and function. Both drugs and behaviors can create ruts. What matters is not type of stimulus, but rather strength of pathway. So gambling and porn use can be as addictive as abused substances if the pathways are strong enough.187 In short, addiction is a brain disease that shows up as compulsive behavior.
Again, once your “beast brain” registers something as valuable, it hijacks the rational part of your brain to rivet your attention on associated cues.
minority of us are especially sensitive to the signals that encourage excess. Greater impulsivity, novelty-seeking, fewer dopamine receptors in different parts of the brain, and childhood stress are all associated with susceptibility to risky behavior and/or addiction.
So it is that the more often you pursue supranormal stimulation, the harder it is to change course. After all, your brain is literally rewiring itself to focus more and more of your future attention on it. The real danger of cues is not their power to grab your attention; it’s their power to grab your controls with a spike of dopamine in your reward circuitry. High dopamine can put you in a sort of altered state of strong motivation—but impaired judgment.
If you now feel like engaging in a frenzy of orgasm, don’t assume your underlying libido has actually increased. More likely, your mammalian brain is just screaming for “medication” (which will ease the short-term symptoms, but trigger another cycle). In short, your addiction is escalating. It may seem hard to believe, but you won’t remember what balance feels like until you step off of the roller coaster for an extended period.
Cues are the reason that addicts who are trying to change direction have to avoid anything that reminds them of their former habit. What happened to Pavlov’s dogs when they heard that bell? They salivated—whether or not the food showed up.
porn addicts' brains respond to porn cues much as drug users' brains respond to drug cues.191a Anyone determined to overcome a porn/masturbation addiction, will make more progress by avoiding both orgasm and porn for a while. Each is a cue for the other.
Although we may choose the behaviors that cause us to become hypersensitive to cues, once that happens, we’re captive. When we experience sex as a superstimulus, we give our mammalian brains the power to override our free will, and set our priorities in ways that may even shock us.
Not only does your mammalian brain increase dopamine when you come across something novel or erotic; it gives you a similar dopamine jolt for “shocking,” “painful,” and “risky.” Domination themes also arouse the mammalian brain, perhaps because of their effects on testosterone (which raises dopamine).
Such images excite the brain in a way that images of cuddly affection do not. This is why so many television shows and films revolve around sex and violence. Such images put you in an altered state that makes you more susceptible
“Erotic + risky” increases both dopamine and adrenaline (fear). Adrenaline is an especially powerful memory-enhancer (neural pathway creator). A dangerous, frightening event, in effect, burns the brain.
We hear a lot about how the human brain is not equipped to handle “information overload.” Today’s erotic stimuli often constitute “reward circuitry overload.” Our nervous system may simply not be designed to handle this deluge—apart from any debate about free speech.
Prolonged elevation of dopamine not only rewires our desires; it also appears to promote depression and anxiety (low dopamine).
For those who persevered, however, the worst was over in four to twelve weeks of consistent abstinence from porn/porn-fantasy and little or no masturbation.
First Aid One measure that can help whenever compulsion strikes is to tell yourself that you won’t act on your urge for at least five to ten minutes. Take some deep, slow breaths. Now, turn your rapt attention to a pre-selected activity. Choose something constructive, such as a breathing exercise, a stretching routine, gardening, pet training, practicing a skill, vigorous exercise, or recording thoughts in a journal. Can’t? Then simply visualize yourself engaging in such an activity, vividly picturing the details. Also imagine how it feels to exercise your will, and what it is like to have a whole team of people you admire congratulate you on your success. When you consciously redirect your attention, you make it easier to do so again in the future. You are rewiring your brain—strengthening the new pathway and weakening your former compulsion.206 Prepare your mind in advance so you are ready for recurring crises.
Past genetic success, however, is no guarantee that our preprogrammed instincts serve our well-being. To the extent that present day conditions are different from ancestral conditions, the ancestral genetic advice will be wrong.
The researcher pointed out that withdrawal symptoms and dips in dopamine levels aren’t evident when meals are moderate and regularly scheduled—
Sexual energy, she wrote, is creative energy. When contained, it can be used to regenerate the body, increase the gift of healing, and give birth to great inventions, humanitarian pursuits, and works of art—which she characterized as nonphysical offspring. Unlike Noyes, Stockham clearly advised both partners to contain their sexual energy, and explained that it increases harmony.
This reward mechanism is not gender-specific; it evolved to bond us to our parents—and our children. It does not operate on words or logic, but rather on specific, frequent behaviors.
Yet even if we often fall in love before we have sex, bonds are secondary in our sexual relationships. Those bonds need only last long enough (on average) for caregivers to bond with their offspring. In our genes’ view, bonds must not interfere with the genetic goal of encouraging infidelity.
Second, as you engage in these behaviors, you awaken a neurochemical ally: oxytocin. The “cuddle hormone” has a special property that distinguishes it from dopamine. As we’ve seen, dopamine induces excitement and puts you into high gear. When stimulated with too much dopamine, your nerve cells decrease their sensitivity to it. What goes up must come down. Your mood changes. Typically, you feel less alive—and very susceptible to suggestions that send up a dopamine flare.
Oxytocin is unusual in that it can have the opposite effect. Not only does it induce a calm, warm mood that can increase tender feelings and openness, but also the more oxytocin produced, the more sensitive some nerve cells become to it (because they activate additional oxytocin receptors on themselves). What goes up stays up, or goes a bit higher—as does your sense of satisfaction.
In fact, one reason addicts become addicts is that they are seeking the neurochemical rewards that they have not found through comforting emotional bonds.This is a key point, to which we will return.
Touching your lover with intent to comfort does two things. First, it creates a space of coziness and safety, which will allow your lover to open up to you again over time. Second, it can actually ease your sexual tension. This paradox is at the heart of karezza, and likely related to oxytocin’s unique power to soothe and reduce cravings.
Many people regard this challenge as more of a male issue, with good reason. On average, men produce ten to twenty times the high-octane testosterone women do. Testosterone increases dopamine, that craving neurochemical. One result is that men tend to be proceptive (willing to initiate sex) a lot of the time. Women tend to be most proceptive around ovulation, thanks to their own sex hormones.
Perhaps you learned in school that your nervous system has two fundamental responses to stimuli: parasympathetic and sympathetic. Comforting stimuli activate the parasympathetic nerves, allowing your system to focus on regeneration, digestion, healing, sexual arousal, and general housekeeping. Karezza, with its emphasis on relaxed, non-goal-oriented affection, seems to rely heavily on activating these nerves.
Although sexual arousal is a parasympathetic (relaxation) activity, the actual drive to orgasm invokes your body’s sympathetic nerves (the ones that enable the fight-or-flight response). Hot sex is an athletic exercise. Your heart rate increases; you perspire. It’s like any other goal-directed activity, particularly when your survival is at stake. Indeed, biologically driven sex is exactly that. You are in performance mode, doing what needs to be done to survive (through passing on your genes).
The buildup to orgasm coincides with an increase in muscular tension and an urge to restrict your breathing. Therefore, if you want to switch over to your relaxation response, rest your abdominal muscles and slow your breathing. Shift your attention to nurturing your partner.
your brain will register more eager anticipation for a new regime (that is, start to produce a healthy amount of dopamine in response to it) if you force yourself to change your behavior for at least two weeks.
Meanwhile, of course, you also have to avoid your usual habits. In fact, the more radically and thoroughly you alter your behavior when creating a new pathway in the brain, the easier it is to create one.
Emotional bonds require both oxytocin and dopamine to stay strong. Orgasm causes dopamine to fluctuate in the reward circuitry, which can destabilize bonds. Bonding behaviors are protective of health because they counter the effects of stress.
Fights with a loved one can put the amygdala, or “inner guardian,” on alert, which erodes bonds. Bonding behaviors (oxytocin) calm the amygdala.
Vasopressin is a neurochemical cousin of oxytocin. It’s so similar that it can bind to the same nerve cell receptors. It also gives males an extra boost of “Don’t step in my burrow, buddy!” That is, they are inclined to guard their mates from those eager gentlemen callers mentioned earlier. In moms, oxytocin also plays a dual role. It’s behind the “Touch my kids and I’ll chew off your paw!” reflex.248 Don’t stick your fingers down a vole hole.
unusually high or low activity in the oxytocin system is associated with autism, as well as social phobia, depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, addiction, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.251 Some claim oxytocin imbalance plays a role in obsessing over a departed mate. We suspect that dopamine dysregulation also fuels such cravings.
This makes the ideal balance of oxytocin and dopamine tough to maintain, especially in relation to each other. Dopamine temporarily fluctuates (or sensitivity to it changes) during each passion cycle. If you’ve exceeded your allotment of “honeymoon uppers” (that extra helping of temporary new-relationship “obsession” neurochemicals), your relationship is likely to suffer when dopamine levels bounce around.
Think of oxytocin and dopamine as the yin and yang of bonding and love. There’s even evidence that these two neurochemicals stimulate each other’s release, so if one is low, it affects levels of the other.
The exact mechanisms are not clear, but one key seems to be oxytocin’s ability to counteract the negative effects of stress.
The mammalian brain evaluates things as agreeable or disagreeable, and it does so very quickly, thanks to the powerful amygdala. Soothing or reassuring stimuli (receiving a massage or a gentle kiss) are associated with a neurochemical mix that includes oxytocin, while stimuli perceived as threatening (a growling dog or arguing with your mate) cause an increase in stress hormones. Information about your environment travels to both the mammalian and rational brains. However, it hits the amygdala first, because the amygdala is the shortest, quickest pathway to launch your stress response.
Your speedy amygdala therefore acts on far less detail than your slower, rational brain receives. The amygdala gets only the headline: “Object rustling grass—left.” You jump to the right, heart racing, breath bated and pupils dilated. A split-second later your rational brain analyzes the rest of the story: “Four-legged, long-tailed lizard scurrying off. Encountered many times. Harmless.” The rational brain sends this amendment down to the amygdala, which turns off your stress response. Your agitation gradually subsides as the body disposes of circulating stress hormones.
When stress is chronic, adrenaline takes a backseat, and the hormone cortisol takes the wheel. Cortisol helps animals cope with extended physical or emotional stress—and affects virtually all body systems. It mobilizes energy reserves for the brain, while also turning down less essential activities, such as reproduction and digestion. It keeps an animal alert, hypervigilant, or even paranoid.
a stressful situation continues, cortisol remains elevated. When threats remain, the body seems to assume that starvation is a risk. Therefore, to ensure that the brain and other vital organs are fed, higher levels of cortisol begin to break down non-essential organs and tissues to maintain blood sugar levels. Like an inner ghoul, cortisol starts to digest bones, muscles, and joints to obtain key nutrients to feed vital organs.
Oxytocin, and the behaviors that produce it, are your best defense against damaging, unproductive stress. In fact, research shows that oxytocin actually counteracts the effects of cortisol on the body,
As we just saw, the amygdala is your inner sentry, the gatekeeper. As a key component of your reward circuitry, it scans every experience and colors the way you see it. It stores links to memories of what it perceives as threatening—or rewarding. You use it constantly in deciding what is good or bad. Without it your life would be stripped of personal meaning.
Being in love deactivates it, thanks to good old oxytocin. Oxytocin turns down the amygdala so you feel safe enough to unite.
When your amygdala perceives a threat, it activates your adrenal glands and the production of cortisol.
Unfortunately for relationship harmony, the amygdala has a much stronger influence on the rational brain than the reverse. The brain pathways running from the amygdala to the rational brain are like high-speed optic cables. In contrast, the rational brain communicates with the amygdala using the equivalent of dial-up. This is why intense emotions can be hard to control. In a tug-of-war, the amygdala wins. On the other hand, if you count to ten when angered, your rational brain has a fighting chance of influencing your reaction—at least for as long as you are counting.
When that stray toothpaste cap causes you to see red, it happens before you’ve really thought about it. Worse yet, even thinking about it may be of limited use, because the amygdala sometimes links memories with events or situations that your rational brain cannot recall. When you later say “I don’t know why I overreacted that way,” you’re telling the truth. Your rational brain may have no idea why you flipped out. Your amygdala’s script may now be “You did something to me, although I’m not sure what it was.” Or “You just irritate me, even though I can’t put my finger on why.” Or “I don’t really trust you.” The scale has tipped to low oxytocin and high cortisol. Now you see how you can project the discomfort of a passion cycle onto a lover and find him or her hopelessly annoying or threatening, without realizing that you’re projecting your own inner turmoil onto your hapless mate.
The amygdala’s high-speed alarm messages tend to be much more intense than the rational brain’s plodding reassurance. The bottom line is that your rational brain is not in control once a spat triggers your amygdala.
Stressful feelings and an overheated amygdala can show up as inability to trust, self-centeredness, irritability, anxiety, decreased libido, putting one’s own needs first, depression, addiction, an us-versus-them mentality, paranoia, insomnia, and fatigue.
If you want to become less reactive and enjoy a more harmonious relationship, choose daily oxytocin-producing behaviors to shift the neurochemistry of the amygdala and turn down its volume. This tactic can also restore your bruised perception of each other.
Since Will and I have been using bonding behaviors more consciously in our marriage, we’ve noticed that discussions about who didn’t clean up a mess or take out the trash occur much less frequently, and even thornier discussions leave virtually no emotional wake. Best of all, we don’t have to “create space” from each other.
Oxytocin appears to limit consumption of both sweets and addictive substances. It also reduces drug withdrawal symptoms. Your brain knows that you’re getting the affectionate connection with others that nature intends, and it registers satisfaction.
However, before you rush off to get your “relationship glue” via orgasm, you should take into account that the brief oxytocin spike at orgasm apparently signals the post-orgasmic rise in prolactin, that sexual satiation hormone we examined in Chapter Five. Prolactin, as you will recall, suppresses dopamine (desire and mood). You need dopamine to feel bonded, so you might want to get your oxytocin in a way that doesn’t result in lower dopamine. This oxytocin-prolactin mechanism may help explain why more orgasmic passion can actually speed habituation to a lover.
What happened about ten thousand years ago? The march away from our hunter-gatherer lifestyle toward modern civilization began. Despite cell phones, books on relationships, and roller blades, civilization has hidden costs. One cost is that our mammalian brain has lost its ideal lifestyle. Important sources of rewarding feelings have slipped away, steadily increasing our levels of stress and anxiety. “Something is missing” feelings make the search for mood medicine increasingly urgent. Some of us have naturally used orgasm to medicate our distress (in addition to other mood-altering activities and stimulants).
Primate brains are molded to find friendly touch, personal relationships, and hanging out with others both rewarding (dopamine) and comforting (oxytocin, endorphins).
Hijacking the reward circuitry of our brains in search of our missing comfort has become such a familiar habit that we have lost sight of that circuitry’s true purpose. It’s there to urge us closer to deeply gratifying contact with our fellow humans. Unlike grizzlies, we don’t thrive on solitude. Research reveals that too little friendly contact with others increases our susceptibility to addiction.
The overactivated brain pathway is likely to be your handiwork. (Good job!) However it happens, once you begin to force orgasm with highly stimulating activities, you strengthen a brain pathway that automatically seeks the same (or even more stimulating) relief repeatedly.
By rechanneling the urge to initiate orgasm, you don’t strengthen the circuitry in your brain that is tapping out those false “surplus” alerts.
At the same time ease your cravings! Avoid the stressful feelings of withdrawal (low dopamine) to the extent you can, using oxytocin-producing activities.
Here’s a soothing-activity list derived from research on oxytocin. A complete list would no doubt be much longer. Voluntary exercise Harmonious interactions with others Support group meetings Caring for pets Voluntary generosity Inspiring scenery Pleasant smells (pine forest, bread baking) Calming music, singing, and tango dancing! Warm and supportive touch, therapeutic massage Companionship Yoga and meditation
Like men, they are counseled to pull the energy upward and circulate it throughout the body. The rising serpent energy is said to be regenerative. It fuels healing work and, when sufficiently refined, is said to permit spiritual revelation. If, instead, the energy remains in the sexual center, it creates exhaustion and imbalance.
Our mating behavior is driven by a very old part of the brain, which we have in common with all mammals. Unlike the rational part of our brain, our mammalian brain can’t “think”; it operates on impulses. It is the seat of our reward circuitry, which is the mechanism that governs our drives, desires, and emotions. It is where we fall in—and out of—love. Falling in love causes neurochemical changes in the reward circuitry. Exciting honeymoon neurochemicals normally keep us slightly addicted to our lovers for as long as two years—although they can wear off at any time. On average, they last long enough to ensure that our children have two caregivers. No mammals are 100 percent monogamous, and very few pair up for life. Adding mates improves our genes’ chances of getting copies of themselves into the future. This, not our happiness, is their top priority.
Sexual satiety (that “I’m done!” feeling) is a mechanism for causing mates to tire of each other. As the honeymoon neurochemistry wears off, the emotionally distancing effects of exhausting sexual desire become more apparent. Neurochemical fluctuations in the reward circuitry occur after orgasm. They can make a mate look less “rewarding,” and we may feel that we are falling out of love—at a gut level (habituation). At the same time, potential novel mates appear very attractive, because we receive a neurochemical jolt for turning our attention to them. This phenomenon—tiring of a mate with whom one sexually satiates oneself, but finding novel partners very attractive—has been observed in both male and female mammals.
The neurochemical fluctuations that follow sexual satiety last for approximately two weeks. They can cause changes in our feelings toward a mate. This two-week passion cycle is sometimes very subtle, but it can make lovers feel unusually needy, anxious, drained, or irritable from time to time. Due to recurring discomfort during the passion cycle, we can begin to perceive our lover—or ongoing intimate relationships themselves—as a source of stress. Orgasm, however, will still register as a great idea. Especially in the case of superstimulation, such as Internet porn, risky sex, or forbidden sex, the low part of the passion
cycle can be so uncomfortable that it causes a person to seek another orgasm in order to self-medicate. When repeated stimulation causes repeated lows, the search for relief via orgasm can become habitual, leading to oversensitivity to sexual cues and compulsive behavior. Reversing this process and restoring equilibrium can require weeks of abstinence from sexual stimuli and orgasm because of semi-permanent changes in the reward circuitry caused by a protein called -FosB. Such things as bonding behaviors, contact with others, visualization techniques, exercise and meditation all ease the return to balance. BONDING—THE “HARMONY PEDAL” The mammalian brain also governs emotional bonding. We could not fall in love without changes in a specific part of
This mechanism is not gender-specific. It evolved to bond us to our parents—and our children. The bonding mechanism operates on specific behaviors, which include eye contact, skin-to-skin contact, soothing touch, attentive listening, and so forth. Anyone can use these cues (preferably daily) at any time in life to strengthen emotional bonds. As these behaviors decline, bonds typically weaken. Humans rely on an adaptation of this infant-caregiver bonding mechanism to form, and sustain, romantic relationships (pair-bonds). A pair-bond is one of the most important determinants of human happiness. The feelings that follow sexual satiation often leave us less enthusiastic about engaging in bonding behaviors. As a result, romantic bonds tend to weaken over time, so that we find novel partners
Bonding behaviors are associated with a neurochemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin naturally counters stress, anxiety, depression, and defensiveness. It also soothes cravings. It is probably the reason that close, trusted—and especially, harmonious—companionship is associated with increased longevity, faster healing, and lower rates of illness, depression, and addiction. We can manage our mating program, keep our bonds from weakening, and gain more of the benefits of oxytocin, when we do two things: (1) consciously use bonding behaviors to keep our subconscious bonding program activated, and (2) avoid sexual satiety as often as possible by learning to make love differently using karezza, or bonding-based sex. Karezza, or bonding-based sex, calls for gentle intercourse interspersed with periods of stillness and lots of generous affection—but no orgasm.
Karezza converts a mating behavior (intercourse) into a bonding behavior. This allows lovers to stop sending the “I’ve had enough” signal that triggers habituation, while amplifying the signals that strengthen their emotional bond. Lovers often attempt to use orgasm (or other addictive behaviors and/or substances) to medicate the discomfort resulting from modern life’s dwindling rewards of close companionship and satisfying intimacy. Bonding behaviors, including karezza, would be better mood medicine.
Variations of bonding-based sex have been recorded in various spiritual and other traditions for thousands of years. Benefits include reduced cravings, improved health, and greater harmony between couples.
