The Coolidge Effect is an ancient biological program that can override your sluggish contentment after
orgasm if there are new mates begging to be fertilized. Without it, there would be no Internet porn. This neurological mechanism perceives each new erotic possibility—including those on your screen—as a valuable genetic opportunity, and jolts you into action with potent neurochemicals.
What happens when you drop a male rat into a cage with a receptive female rat? First, there's a sexual frenzy. Then, the male progressively tires of that particular female. Even if she wants more he has had enough. However, replace the original female with a fresh one, and presto! The male revives and gallantly struggles to fertilize her. You can repeat this process with fresh females until he nearly dies of exhaustion. Scientists know this phenomenon as the Coolidge Effect and it has been observed in females, too.
The rat goes after each new female because of surges of dopamine (a neurochemical) in his brain. Nothing natural comes close to releasing as much dopamine as sex, because our genes want to make their way into the future above all else. Dopamine surges command the rat to leave no willing mate unfertilized.
Dopamine is the "gotta get it!" neurochemical behind all motivation. Without it we wouldn't bother to court, pursue climax, or even eat. When dopamine drops, so does motivation. Dopamine is also the hook in all addictions. An addict's brain grows less sensitive to it, and thus, paradoxically, more desperate for it.
Back to the rat. Following each copulation with the same female his reward circuitry squirts less and less dopamine. Consider the above graph. The fifth time a rat copulates with the same female it takes him 17 minutes to get off. Ejaculation time increases as dopamine released decreases. But if he keeps switching to novel females, he can do his duty in two minutes or less all five times. His brain renews his virility with strong squirts of dopamine in response to each new partner.
Unlike rats, humans are pair bonders. We're wired, on average, to raise offspring together—and to find a fair amount of contentment in our unions (potentially). But the Coolidge Effect lurks in us, too, and awakens when duty trumpets loudly enough. I once had a conversation with a man who had grown up in Los Angeles. "I quit counting at 350 lovers," he confessed, "and I guess there must be something terribly wrong with me because I always lost interest in them sexually so quickly. Some of those women are really beautiful, too."
At the time of our chat his third wife had just left him for a Frenchman and he was discouraged. She had lost interest in him.
Internet porn: the Coolidge Effect on twin turbos
Online erotica can goad a user relentlessly. Endless novel "mates" keep dopamine surging. One guy noticed how novelty was the hook:
I collected a lot of porn. I thought I was amassing some wonderful database of pleasure. But I can't remember ever actually going back. The compelling part is the new star, the novel video, the novel act.
Not surprisingly, numerous studies employing porn show that rats and humans aren't that different when it comes to response to novel sexual stimuli. For example, when Australian researchers displayed the same erotic film repeatedly, test subjects' penises and subjective reports both revealed a progressive decrease in sexual arousal. The "same old same old" just gets boring (habituation, which indicates declining dopamine).
After 18 viewings—just as the test subjects were nodding off—researchers introduced novel erotica for the 19th and 20th viewings. Bingo! The subjects and their penises sprang to attention. (Yes, women showed similar effects.)
Dopamine surges for anything novel—especially if it's sexual. A primitive part of the brain doesn't care if we've already had more than enough sex; it wants genetic results. For example, Sooty, a
male guinea pig, broke into a cage of twenty-four females. For days after he was apprehended, he was knackered. (Research on other rodents shows that full recovery of the brain takes about
seven days, and research on humans also reveals a
post-ejaculation cycle of at least seven days.)
Sooty's genes were happy though; he fathered 42 baby pigs. Such opportunities were once rare for males of all species, but the Coolidge Effect insures that should an occasion arise, males will disregard their natural limitations and go at it till they drop.
Obviously, males need time to recover their potency and vigor after overriding their sexual satiation mechanisms with dopamine/novelty. Yet what happens to today's Internet porn users? How many are overriding their innate sexual satiation mechanisms—without giving themselves weeklong timeouts to recover? There is always another enticing "mate" demanding to be fertilized. Tellingly, when men with porn-induced erectile dysfunction quit using porn they experience an unnerving "flatline." Once they lift their foot off the gas, their libido takes a nap that lasts for weeks—an extreme version of Sooty's recovery period.
Novelty can make mates seem less attractive
Dopamine isn't just released in response to novelty. When something is more arousing than anticipated the brain's reward circuitry releases dopamine and fires like crazy. Internet porn always offers something unexpected, something kinkier.
In contrast, sex with your sweetheart is not always better than expected. Nor does it offer endless variety. It offers other kinds of more soothing rewards. Sadly, a primitive part of your brain assumes quantity of dopamine equals value of activity even when it doesn't.
