Cupid's Poisoned Arrow

The Mysteries of Pair Bonding (Part II)

Marnia Robinson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:41:05 +0000

In Part I, we looked at the neurochemical reality that lies behind our instincts to fall in (and out of) love. We saw that our ancestors may have been pair bonders for a very long time, implying that pair bonding serves important ends for our species. We observed that the same bonding behaviors that effortlessly strengthen our pair bonds also reduce stress and increase well-being.

In this article we'll look at a hidden pair-bonder vulnerability that causes misery both in and out of the bedroom. Namely, the tendency to pursue excess. This hazard came to light when scientists offered amphetamines to two vole species. The species are apparently identical but for one characteristic. One pair bonds, while the other is cheerfully promiscuous. (Think human and bonobo. Our limbic brain possesses the "gear" for pair bonding while the bonobo's doesn't.)

Which species used more of the drugs and showed higher brain levels of dopamine (the "I gotta have it" neurochemical)? The pair-bonding species. Apparently, they have lots of a specific type of dopamine receptor called "D2" in the reward circuitry of their brains. Think of D2 as the "craving" receptor.

In contrast, the non-pair-bonders have more "D1" receptors. D1s play a little-understood role in easing cravings for intense stimulation. When flooded with enough dopamine, these D1 receptors deliver the message, "Okay, I've had enough of this drug, this alcohol, or this crazy rat humping me. Think I'll get on with my day." *

Sex may be fun for chimps, but falling in love (the urge to pair bond) is such an important factor in our species' genetic success that, for us, the phenomenon may rival a drug trip. The experience has been known to launch a thousand ships, destroy political careers, and make priests break vows. By the same token, when a pair bond breaks, it can motivate the abandoned partner to grab a cleaver and hack off an appendage.

Let's not underestimate our pair-bonding program. After all, it's probably an exaptation of a far older mammalian program, the one that bonds infants and caregivers. Parents, too, go gunning when the survival of (bond with) their offspring is at stake.

Soap operas and reality shows are not the only other menaces that arise as a consequence of this potent brain mechanism. So is addiction. Odd as it seems, the impulse to fall in love (and mate to the point of habituation) may be behind the ease with which we hijack our brains using various risky excesses. Our delicate reward circuitry, which produces those all-consuming feelings when we fall in love, is the same pathway that produces the all-consuming feelings many users experience when they substitute drugs of abuse, alcohol, extreme porn, gambling, compelling video games, and so forth.

Obviously, this highly sensitive circuitry evolved to push us past any defensiveness and get us hooked on lovers—at least for long enough to fall in love with our children. It did not evolve to promote addiction to other activities and substances. Only humans can regularly exploit this mechanism with dicey surrogates.

It's as if we pair bonders have an extra "little hole" in our brains whispering, "Fill me up." It evolved in environments where our primary option for filling it was the occasional novel sexual partner (often followed by a "rest" as habituation set in). Artificial substitutes were absent. Sadly, this "hole" can never be filled by today's blitz of brain-hammering indulgences. Too much stimulation dysregulates this part of the brain. It triggers subsequent neurochemical lows while our over-stimulated brains recover. The lows, in turn, can drive even more intense cravings to self-medicate. Voilà! Before we know it, we're sharing our story in a 12-Step group.

This delicate feature of our brains may go far toward explaining why, as a society, we're often looking for the next fix. More novelty. More stimulation. In fact, we don't lack stimulation; we're out of balance.

Our dilemma leads back to Part 1 of this article, which pointed out that bonding behaviors soothe stress at the same time they strengthen bonds. They appear to work because they produce comforting levels of oxytocin for the right receptors. Oxytocin has been shown to reduce cravings for sugar and drugs, and even to reduce withdrawal symptoms. Could this help explain why lovers notice daily bonding behaviors can ease sexual frustration (cravings) and forestall habituation between them in a way that pursuing ever more sexual stimulation cannot?

Even if humans can act like bonobos, we might be more content if we explored our unique options for creating balance as pair bonders.

Whether a particular human chooses to sidestep much of the mating drama by remaining single, unite for life, or pollinate many flowers without any stable bonds, s/he is generally stuck with a pair-bonder's brain. This wiring could have major implications in areas of life that have nothing directly to do with romance. For example, in or out of relationship, too little daily affectionate interaction with others, and too much stimulation can increase distress without our conscious awareness.

The human brain has evolved to fall in love...repeatedly, should opportunity knock. The cycle of pair bonding, mating frenzy (excess), habituation, and pairing up again serves our genes, across populations, in many cultural variations—even when it creates chaos and taxes our capacity for forgiveness.

By becoming aware of our pair-bonding brain's highly sensitive reward circuitry and its impact on our lives, we can more easily weigh the relative benefits of (1) yielding to our programmed impulses and (2) learning to ease them using natural techniques like meditation, exercise, yoga, bonding behaviors, and careful cultivation of sexual energy. Perhaps our pair-bonding program is a major impetus for humankind's many "spiritual" practices that strengthen inner equilibrium.

___

* When vole researchers administer a dopamine-like substance that lights up D2 (craving) receptors, but not D1 (satiety) receptors, the voles hear rhapsodies and see stars—even if Pyramis Vole and Thisbe Vole do not have sex because they're in different cages at the time. In contrast, when scientists prevent activation of D2 receptors (without affecting D1s), there are no valentines exchanged, just gametes. In short, dopamine-induced cravings, triggered by mechanisms within the brain, are critical to pair bonding. Without these mechanisms, even oxytocin, the "bonding hormone," won't cause voles to fall in love.

The Mysteries of Pair Bonding

Marnia Robinson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:24:56 +0000

Human behavior varies a lot. As compared with other primates, we're heavily influenced by culture, religion, family upbringing, and so forth. As a consequence, it's logical to conclude that our fitful monogamy is purely culturally induced and not instinctual. (On the other hand, we readily seem to accept that promiscuous tendencies are wired into our brains.)

In fact, we are programmed to pair bond—just as we're programmed to add notches to our belts. By programmed, I mean that our brains are set up so that we engage in these behaviors with a lower threshold of enticement than we would otherwise. Both these programs serve our genes, as does the tension between them. For example, on average, we stay bonded long enough to fall in love with a kid, who then benefits from two caregivers. Then we may easily grow restless and seek out novel genes in the form of another partner. Italian research, for example, reveals that our racy "honeymoon neurochemistry" typically wears off within two years.

Pair bonding is not simply a learned behavior. If there weren't neural correlates behind this behavior, there would not be so much falling in love and pairing up across so many cultures. The pair-bonding urge is built-in and waiting to be activated, much like the program that bonds infants with caregivers. In fact, these two programs arise in overlapping parts of the brain and employ the same neurochemicals. The Coolidge Effect (that sneaky tendency to habituate to a familiar sex partner and yearn for a novel one) is also a program. The fact that these programs often dominate one another doesn't alter the fact they both influence us.

Even when we override inclinations like these, they lurk. So it is that mates must often grit their teeth if they choose to remain faithful in the face of urges to pursue novel partners. And most humans are wired with powerful parent-child bonding impulses, even if they choose not to have children. It is a rare mother who does not bond with her kids (although it can happen if, for example, drug use has interfered with her neurochemistry). Similarly, people may choose never to engage in sex and orgasm, but groups of interconnected neurons are ready to give them a powerful experience if they do.

Again, such programs are present because of the physical structures in the brain—especially those that make up "the reward circuitry." This mechanism is activated by a neurochemical called dopamine (the "I gotta have it!" neurochemical). This is why falling in love, sex, nurturing a kid, and often pursuing a novel partner all register as rewarding.

Without this neurochemical reward, pair bonders wouldn't bother to pair bond. They'd settle into the usual, promiscuous mammalian program, in pursuit of its rewards. Predictably, there is evidence of unique brain activation in pair-bonding voles (compared with the non-pair-bonding variety). And there is data showing similar brain activity in pair-bonding primates. See: Neural correlates of pairbonding in a monogamous primate. Although more research is needed, it may be that pair-bonding mammals (unlike non-pair-bonding bonobos, for example) share similar neural correlates: neural networks, receptor type and specific neurotransmitters, etc. Neuroendocrinologist Sue Carter expressed this view: "The biochemistry [of bonding] is probably going to be similar in humans and in animals because it's quite a basic function."

While all mammals find sex rewarding, pair bonders also register the individual mate as rewarding. Thanks to this hidden pair-bonding program, our brains light up so we become infatuated. And our hearts ache when are parted from our sweetheart. Pair-bonding voles, too, show signs of pining when separated from a mate.

Need more evidence? Consider the hellish fury that arises when we are jilted for someone new. A cow, on the other hand, is quite indifferent if the bull that fertilized her yesterday does his duty with her neighbor today. Lacking the requisite neural correlates, she is not a pair bonder.

Why should we care that we're pair bonders?

Given the fact that the urge to switch partners so often overrides our pair-bonding inclinations, shouldn't we continue to give this unreliable program scant attention? Maybe not. Even though our pair-bonding urge is clearly not a guarantee of living happily ever after with a lover, a better understanding of it may furnish important clues for relationship contentment, and even greater well-being. We don't have to conform to our genes' friction-prone agenda.

Let's consider some oft-ignored aspects of this program:

First, we may have come from a long line of pair bonders. A recent fossil find suggests that pair bonding could be the opposite of a superficial cultural phenomenon. The discovery of upright early human Ardipithecus (4.4 million years old) means that our line and the chimp line diverged long ago. Some researchers hypothesize that, because Ardipithecus males and females were about the same size, and the specimens do not have large, sharp canine teeth, it's possible that the fierce, often violent competition among males for females in heat that characterizes gorillas and chimpanzees was absent.

This could suggest that the males were beginning to enter into somewhat monogamous relationships with females—possibly devoting more time to carrying food (which would favor walking on two legs) and caring for their young than did earlier ancestors. See: Did Early Humans Start Walking for Sex? In short, promiscuous bonobo chimps, our nearest living relatives, are really not so close. As non-pair bonders, they may have little to teach us about contented love lives.

Second, a happy pair bond offers humans sensations of deep, health-promoting satisfaction. When researchers measure happiness factors, a contented pair bond registers as one of the most important determinants of happiness. This may be a function of our pair-bonder wiring. Research shows that warm, comforting touch between mates appears to be protective of health and longevity. "Increasing warm touch among couples has a beneficial influence on multiple stress-sensitive systems."

Affectionate contact between pair-bonding mates is apparently an exaptation of the same soothing contact that bonds infants and caregivers. Many popular articles emphasize that frequent orgasm benefits mates. Yet that assumption overlooks that we're wired to benefit from bonding and closeness themselves, quite apart from whether orgasm occurs. Clarity on this point can make staying in love more effortless than we thought.

In Part II we'll look at a vulnerability that haunts pair bonders.

Unexpected Lessons from Porn Users

Marnia Robinson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:02:57 +0000

A dedicated member of the "to each his own taste" club, I'm all for freedom of speech. However, my website happens to discuss the highs and lows of sexual satiety in terms of the highs and lows of the typical addiction cycle. To my surprise (and theirs, I'm sure), men from all over the world showed up in my site's forum complaining of addiction to porn/masturbation.

At first it was painful reading their stories. These guys were constantly overheated—due to the many virtual mates that their limbic brains perceived as genetic opportunities. Just a click away, another novel "mate" ached to be serviced—and my visitors' subconscious, primitive mating program was determined to leave not one unfertilized. In fact, when they tried to stop, they faced weeks of intense, fluctuating withdrawal symptoms:

First guy: The whole day I have been shaking with jitters similar to how it felt when I quit smoking.

Second guy: My withdrawal symptoms? Intense bouts of anger leading to interpersonal difficulties, aggressive demeanor, easily stressed out (I'm inexperienced confronting the world without that soup of post-orgasmic sedation), suicidal ideation, severe depression, violent dreams (I actually enjoyed these, but others might consider them nightmares), insomnia, hallucinations (jumped out of bed screaming because I felt a "presence"), "insects" crawling all over me in bed, shakes, mania (energy far in excess of my ability to use it constructively), and inability to concentrate.

Third guy: Bored? Masturbation. Angry? Masturbation. Sad? Masturbation. Stressed? Masturbation. I went from being the first of my class to the very bottom, until I dropped out for good. I found a Web job, making good money with my porn one click away. This was my life, and I didn't recognize I had an addiction until I had surgery and masturbation wasn't an option for fifteen days. On day three, I was literally shaking, and I began to connect the dots. Other symptoms: irritability, inability to focus ("staring at walls syndrome"), mood swings, headaches (sometimes quite strong), sense of pressure in my genitals, flashbacks, paranoia, self-defeating thinking, depression, hopelessness, and fear that I will never have sex because I've learned no social skills since diving into porn eight years ago as a teen.

I also heard: "No matter how many orgasms I have, I never feel satisfied; I just finally collapse in exhaustion, and start again the next day." "To get off, I need extreme material that I never would have viewed before." "I'm more anxious or depressed, and I have a strong desire to avoid other people." "When I try to have sex with a partner, I can't get an erection."

Many had no religious background, and gradually I realized that debates about guilt, morality, sexual repression, exploitation, and freedom of speech are largely beside the point. Quite simply, these guys had thrown their brain chemistry out of whack. It might have happened to anyone—and probably would have happened to me had I been male. Besides, women have vulnerable limbic brains, too.

The men's activities were certainly understandable, but changes in their brain's reward circuitry had nevertheless hijacked their free will. They were hooked.

As Burnham and Phelan explain in Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts, our environment has changed, leaving our primitive, subconscious reward circuitry very vulnerable. It serves our genes before us, so when it perceives "novel mates" around, it can urge us to ignore our well-being...and keep on fertilizing. This is especially true if we aren't engaging in enough of life's more soothing rewards: friendly interaction and affectionate touch.

Extreme stimulation of the reward circuitry is risky. The danger isn't hairy palms or going blind. It's ending up on a high-speed treadmill, trying to stay ahead of withdrawal symptoms. Normal pleasures—the simple things our brains thrive on—gradually lose their capacity to delight. Biologist Robert Sapolsky remarked:

Unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation. This has two consequences. As the first, soon we hardly notice anymore the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward that will come after a long, difficult, and worthy task. The other consequence is that, after awhile, we even habituate to those artificial deluges of intensity. . . . Our tragedy is that we just become hungrier. More and faster and stronger.

Even though evolution has molded us rare pair-bonding mammals to find relationships rewarding, their subtler, healthier rewards don't generate the supranormal stimulation of hours of vivid erotic imagery—especially not as we dull our senses with too much of it. It may be that we need inner equilibrium in order for life's less intense, but more fulfilling pleasures to register as enjoyable.

These days, equilibrium is tough to maintain. Like it or not, today's extreme sexual stimulation is like nothing our hunter-gatherer forebears faced in millions of years of brain development. Sure, there was the odd harem, and cave girls were no doubt cute. But their erotically writhing images weren't airbrushed to perfection, projected on every screen, and relentlessly moaning for sperm donations.

According to Howard Shaffer, Harvard psychologist, "a lot of addiction is the result of experience . . . repetitive, high-emotion, high-frequency experience." And as long-time Princeton researcher Bart Hoebel said,

Highly potent sexual stimuli [and highly palatable foods] are the only stimuli capable of activating the [brain's] dopamine system with anywhere near the potency of addictive drugs.

In The Brain That Changes Itself, psychiatrist Norman Doidge points out that,

The addictiveness of Internet pornography is not a metaphor. All addiction involves long-term, sometimes lifelong, neuroplastic change in the brain. ... The same surge of dopamine that thrills us also consolidates the neuronal connections responsible for the behaviors that led us to accomplish our goal. (pp. 106-8)

The good news in this tale furnishes further evidence that reward circuitry overload was these guys' challenge. As I listened sympathetically, feeling helpless, some of them eventually worked out how to return their brains to balance. Slowly, they rebounded. Things that formerly turned them on, turned them on anew without sexual enhancement drugs. They lost their taste for extreme material. Their anxiety and depression eased. Random feelings of discouragement and remorse evaporated. Humor and optimism bloomed. They started flirting. In fact, they began to enjoy social interaction generally—even if they withdrew into porn as shy teens.

Their path was not easy, and some are still struggling. (Read about their experiences in The Road to Excess.) Those who escaped seemed to need about a sixty-day moratorium on orgasm and all sexual stimulation to reboot their reward circuitry. Social support really helped, because the brain finds it soothing and rewarding. Said one (who now has a sweetheart):

The withdrawal, as it turns out, was harder than cocaine, opiates, booze, or nicotine. I spent a solid week weeping every night after teaching at the university. I couldn't sleep, and I had almost zero appetite. The thought of ever dating made me want to curl up into a ball.

But here I am. I feel free.

Orgasm vs. Intercourse

Marnia Robinson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:26:35 +0000

Curious about why a pope condemned karezza, I recently waded through the late Archbishop Exner's The Amplexus Reservatus (The Reserved Embrace). It traced some eye-opening Catholic doctrine about the purpose of marriage, much of which dates back to Church father Augustine of Hippo (b. 354 CE). He's well known for his prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence...but not yet!"

Less well known is the fact that he (and his intellectual progeny) concluded that because sex is a consequence of the "animal" in man—and animals have no interest in using sex to foster love or unity—the proper use of sex in marriage is strictly for breeding. Whoa!

Actually, the infamous bonobo chimps, whose males sport supersize testicles, nevertheless engage in "rather casual and relaxed" sexual activity for social bonding, frequently without orgasm. And macaque male monkeys ejaculate in scarcely half of their copulations. That's probably more than the Church fathers would have wanted to know, but the point is that primate sex often serves goals other than fertilization or orgasm. Why are we so single-minded?

Augustine's flawed analysis has been used to ward off some of sex's most uplifting gifts. In the last century, when Belgian and French Catholics discovered that gentle intercourse without orgasm was a "means of achieving a more perfect, more spiritual conjugal love," the pope condemned it. In fact, some Church authorities had actually declared such "incomplete sexual acts" mortal sins. Citing Augustine, they rigidly refused to consider that marriage might serve emotional and spiritual goals. Even the more permissive Church authorities still tend to carve out very narrow exceptions to the animal/procreative purpose of sex in marriage—such as "avoiding incontinence," that is, preventing the random dumping of semen.

When it comes to orgasm, Church authorities are not the only conservatives. Whenever I've asked experts about doing a few weeks of research comparing the stress levels or healing speeds of couples engaging in orgasm-based sex with couples practicing karezza, I received the same advice: "That wouldn't get past our ethics committee because sex without orgasm is considered a paraphilia, or sexual disorder." (However, this pro-orgasm experiment passed: electrical devices were implanted in women's spines to see if they would produce climaxes via remote control.)

Now I'm sure that people have sometimes avoided orgasm during sex for pathological reasons. But benefits from the practice of gentle intercourse without orgasm have been reported so often, and in so many cultures, that emotionally healthy people must have made this choice too. I'm curious whether their recorded results can be duplicated.

I'm also starting to ask myself whether the codified conviction that the only healthy sex is sex with orgasm is serving lovers. It creates unnecessary distress and frustration in the less orgasmic or anorgasmic—and their mates. It also indirectly bolsters the assumption that pursuing sexual urges to exhaustion is a neutral, or even beneficial, practice.

For example, a man commenting on a post here recently assured me that, "men ejaculate 1-3 times a day." Persuaded as he is that men are boundless semen fountains, he might be startled to learn that when subjects engaged in mere a "10-day depletion experience," ejaculating an average of 2.4 times per day, their sperm output remained below pre-depletion levels for more than five months. What other not-so-welcome, subtle changes accompany this one, given the powerful influence of our delicate reward circuitry (the brain mechanism behind our drives) on equilibrium and mood?

I suspect that orgasm feels great not because it is an unqualified health or psychological benefit, but because our genes want us to expend our effort on their top priority: propelling them into the next generation.

The neurochemical "Yes!" of climax may not necessarily indicate that we're equipped to engage in orgasm-driven sex every time we feel sexual desire. (Just as a love of fine chocolate doesn't mean that we'd be wise to eat the entire box, even considering cocoa's antioxidants.) As I learn more about the effects of sex on the brain, I can't help thinking it makes sense to take into account how recently, or intensely, we have climaxed.

In humans it appears that frequent, or especially intense, orgasm can create tolerance (a need for increasing stimulation to achieve future orgasms). It can also lead to satiety and habituation, which may show up as subconscious irritation, out-of-sync libidos, performance demands and insecurities. Moreover, inflated performance expectations may promote the use of risky sexual enhancement measures as lovers try to overcome their built-in biological brakes with force. Not to be alarmist, but Viagra, for example, has been associated with sudden, irreversible blindness and has been blamed for deaths through heart attack and stroke. Perhaps such outcomes are signals that we have our foot down a bit too hard on the old orgasm accelerator.

For as long as we ignore the inherent, possibly even beneficial, limitations of lovers, gentle, relaxed intercourse without orgasm will remain "off limits" for Catholics, and "dysfunctional" for the rest of us. As a consequence, if couples don't know about, or have fallen out of the habit of, using other daily bonding behaviors to sustain the sparkle in their relationship, they are quite likely to rely only on sex with attempted orgasm(s) to keep their union strong.

What would bonobo life look like if one of the chimps' favorite social-bonding techniques, rubbing genitals, had to result in mutual climax-or produce disappointment and resentment? I think zoologists would see a lot of cranky chimps.

Could the authentic bonobo lifestyle perhaps inspire us new primates to relearn an old trick: tapping the benefits of relaxed, non-goal-oriented sexual activity, with the primary goals of closer bonds and increased contentment? For pair-bonders like us, such a change may prove especially beneficial. Our nervous system appears to reward us for both close, trusted companionship and the exchange of selfless affection. Interestingly, in other pair-bonding mammals, “sexual behavior is neither especially frequent nor especially fervent.” Many interactions between mates take the form of resting together, mutual grooming, and “hanging out.” (Barash and Lipton, The Myth of Monogamy: 153-154, 190-191)

Sexual Energy and the Single Woman

Marnia Robinson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:31:01 +0000

Mood swings born of subtle neurochemical shifts can produce distress in our lives despite best intentions. (Think PMS.) Want to reduce your inner turmoil? Try strengthening your equilibrium.

There are many time-honored ways to stabilize your sense of well-being: mindfulness meditation, daily prayer, qi gong, balanced diet, exercise, selfless service to others, aligning your will with the Divine or the Dao, and so forth. All have merit. All appear to calm the primitive part of the brain.

However, one of the most ancient, and overlooked, methods of centering yourself is careful cultivation of sexual energy. If you're single, and sexual frustration is distracting you and making frequent self-pleasuring a demanding necessity, you might try the following technique for a few weeks—just to see what you notice. Warning: You'll have to pass up some orgasms to try this. *gasp* This is purely an energetic experiment, not a moral proscription. You'll return to your current habits later to compare results.

The experiment is very simple: avoid orgasm for at least three weeks as you observe yourself. When you feel sexual frustration building, close your eyes, tighten the muscles in your genitals and imagine the sexual feelings, or tension, rising up your spine like a thermometer to the top of your head. Feel tingles? Whether or not you do, imagine a waterfall of energy flowing down the front of yourself, and allow it to pool just below your navel. Do this as often as necessary to relieve your sexual tension. Finally, turn your attention to something productive.

Here's what a friend in her twenties observed:

I viewed this experiment strictly as an opportunity to explore the channeling of sexual energy. I didn't "put a cap on" my sexuality. I allowed myself to experience pleasure and arousal, without trying to go anywhere with it. Dancing, singing, laughing, and jogging all helped. The only thing I tried very hard to avoid was focusing on longings of any type. I did engage in a little self-pleasuring, which, it turned out, was as satisfying as trying to get myself off.

I noticed very little difficulty after the second week. As of tomorrow, it will have been a month since my last orgasm, and my level of sexual frustration is lower than before I began.

We think of energy as a good thing, but our first reaction to having a lot of concentrated energy (sexually, physically, emotionally, etc.) is often to try to get rid of it as quickly as possible ("catharsis"). I now want to flow with high-energy states, instead of trying to escape them. [Note: That was two years ago. She was soon in relationship and is engaged to be married.]

That woman was emotionally stable to begin with. Other explorers with more serious mood swings, substance abuse, severe low self-esteem due to childhood trauma, and so forth, noticed even more dramatic improvement in their emotional health, especially over longer periods of the practice (even with occasional climaxes). A woman of about thirty wrote:

I can honestly say that my physical and emotional health are much better than when I was masturbating frequently, and I still have a healthy sex drive, as far as I can tell! But I learned that I could not just stop masturbating, yet continue doing everything else the way I did before I stopped, such as isolating myself, or zoning out with TV. I had to use the energy toward a larger goal. In my case I went back to school and eventually discovered a field I really like. [She was recently asked to apply for a full scholarship to do a PhD.]

Another, in her late thirties, who hasn't been in relationship, shared:

I've abstained for 31 days or so and I feel OK with it all. Matter of fact yesterday and today I have a sense that I really can accomplish whatever I want... and that is scary, actually. I also feel something deep inside that makes me kind of appreciate the beauty of being a lady (woman). I wanted to hug the Fed Ex guy. And THEN, the AT&T guy pulled up and HE WAS CUTE TOO! (What in the HELL is happening to me???) I never even looked guys in the face EVER, or anyone for that matter, not really, ya know? [She's now getting her art up on line, and has cut back on smoking, quit drinking and lost weight effortlessly.]

Are such results merely flukes? Perhaps not. A curious piece of research supports the idea that frequent orgasm can tarnish women's perceptions. A group tracked their orgasms over thirty days, and then viewed pictures of men they didn't know. Who ranked the men the most unattractive and aggressive? Those who had climaxed most. Moreover, the women who had only climaxed via masturbation ranked the men the worst. Researchers noted that another study associated depression in women with masturbation (although no one knows precisely why). Weird, eh? (Incidentally, it may be that unsuccessful attempts to orgasm also create distress. Perhaps they raise frustration and dopamine to uncomfortable levels, creating inner turmoil.)

Orgasm feels great, but the story unfortunately doesn't end at the glorious peak. A longer neurochemical cycle causes fluctuations in the part of our brain that sets our emotional tone and colors our perceptions— perhaps for as long as two weeks.

Careful observers in ancient China recorded physical and emotional benefits from cultivating sexual energy rather than fighting to repress it, or pursuing it to the limit of desire. Interestingly, even though Kinsey insisted that more orgasms for women would enhance domestic bliss, the women subjects who reported the most orgasms more often either failed to marry or divorced. (Judson Landis, "The Women Kinsey Studied," in Jerome Himelhoch and Sylvia F. Fava, eds., Sexual Behavior in American Society: 112.)

If you make this experiment, set aside all preconceptions. Simply, record how you feel for three weeks. (Expect ups and downs the first two). Continue to observe yourself for two weeks after you return to your previous habits, too.

You may find that balanced sexual energy is one of the most powerful tools for increasing inner equilibrium. With clearer perception, the world looks like a friendlier place.

The Lazy Way to Stay in Love

Marnia Robinson — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:10:53 +0000

Waiting for a concert to begin at our local county fair, my husband and I checked out a reptile exhibit that included an animal trainer with a live alligator resting calmly on his lap. As we stroked the gator, I asked the trainer why it was so tame. "I pet it daily. If I didn't, it would quickly be wild again, and wouldn't allow this," he explained.

I was surprised. Only months earlier I had begun to grasp the power of bonding behaviors (skin-to-skin contact, gentle stroking and so forth) to evoke the desire to bond without our having to do anything more. I didn't realize reptiles ever responded similarly.

Bonding behaviors, or attachment cues, are subconscious signals that can make emotional ties surprisingly effortless, once any initial defensiveness dissolves. Bonding behaviors are also good medicine for easing defensiveness. Here's a dramatic example: Adoptive parents had been struggling for years with a Romanian orphan with reactive attachment disorder. Violent, he put over 1000 holes in his bedroom walls, and as he grew bigger his mother had to hire a body guard. Finally, in his teens, the parents tried daily attachment cues. After three weeks, he finally bonded with his parents and began to form healthy peer relationships as well. Listen to his ‘thank you' speech for an award.

Bonding behaviors are effective because they are the way mammal infants attach to their caregivers. To survive, infants need regular contact with Mom's mammaries until they are ready to be weaned. Bonding behaviors work by encouraging the release of neurochemicals (including oxytocin), which lower innate defensiveness, making a bond possible.

In short, these generous behaviors are the way we humans fall in love with our parents and children. Caregiver-infant signals include affectionate touch, grooming, soothing sounds, nurturing, eye contact, and so forth.

In rare pair-bonding mammals like us, bonding cues serve a secondary function as well (known as an exaptation). They're part of the reason we stay in love (on average) for long enough for both parents to attach to any kids. Honeymoon neurochemistry also plays a role, but it's somewhat like a booster shot that wears off. In contrast, bonding behaviors can sustain bonds indefinitely.

In lovers, bonding behaviors look a bit different than they do between caregiver and infant, yet the parallels are evident. These potent signals include:

· smiling, with eye contact
· skin-to-skin contact
· providing a service or treat without being asked
· giving unsolicited approval, via smiles or compliments
· gazing into each other's eyes
· listening intently, and restating what you hear
· forgiving or overlooking an error or thoughtless remark, past or present
· preparing your partner something to eat
· synchronized breathing
· kissing with lips and tongues
· cradling, or gently rocking, your partner's head and torso (works well on a couch, or with lots of pillows)
· holding, or spooning, each other in stillness
· wordless sounds of contentment and pleasure
· stroking with intent to comfort
· massaging with intent to comfort, especially feet, shoulders and head
· hugging with intent to comfort
· lying with your ear over your partner's heart and listening to the heart beat
· touching and sucking of nipples/breasts
· gently placing your palm over your lover's genitals with intent to comfort rather than arouse
· making time together at bedtime a priority
· gentle intercourse

There are some curious aspects to bonding behaviors. First, in order to sustain the sparkle in a relationship these behaviors need to occur daily, or almost daily—just as the alligator trainer observed. Second, they need not occur for long, or be particularly effortful, but they must be genuinely selfless. Even holding each other in stillness at the end of a long, busy day can be enough to exchange the subconscious signals that your relationship is rewarding. Third, there's evidence that the more you use bonding behaviors, the more sensitive your brain becomes to the neurochemicals that help you feel relaxed and loving. (In contrast, intense stimulation sometimes causes tolerance to build up.)

Fourth, some items on the list above may sound like foreplay, but in one important sense they are not. Foreplay is geared toward building sexual tension and climax—which sets off a subtle cycle of neurochemical changes (and sometimes unwelcome perception shifts) before the brain returns to equilibrium. In contrast, bonding behaviors are geared toward relaxation. They work best when they soothe an old part of the primitive brain known as the amygdala.

The amygdala's job is to keep our guard up, unless it is reassured regularly with these subconscious signals. To be sure, it also relaxes temporarily during and immediately after a passionate encounter. After all, fertilization is our genes' top priority. However, regular, non-goal oriented contact seems to be more effective as a bonding behavior. This suggests that loving foreplay preceding a wonderful orgasm is great...but can send mixed messages. Perhaps these contradictory subconscious signals account for the "attraction-repulsion" phenomenon lovers often notice after their initial honeymoon high wanes.

In any case, nurturing touch not only creates a space of comfort and safety. It can also be surprisingly ecstatic, as a friend shared:

Though it was after 11 PM, we cuddled. For about two hours. Ecstatic cuddling. I had experiences last night that I do not have immediate words for. Rich, deep, full. Subtle. Powerful. Moving. Meaningful. Pointing to greater connection with all life. We were in connection. In the same wave, as she put it, like a flock of birds wheeling in the sky as if with one mind.

Whether or not you experience ecstasy, bonding behaviors are a practical means of restoring and sustaining the harmonious sparkle in a relationship...even with a partner who is snapping like an alligator. Combine them with gentle lovemaking with lots of periods of relaxation (and a minimum of sexual satiety signals via orgasm), and you may find that you can sustain the harmony in your relationship with surprising ease.

Maybe those rare "swans" (couples who effortlessly stay together harmoniously) are largely made, not born. Certainly, I now carefully ponder news stories like this one about a couple married happily for over 80 years. The journalist reported that, "The couple never went to bed without a kiss and cuddle."

Hmmm...cause or effect?

A husband's insights about bonding behaviors:

My wife and I just had guests for three weeks, and kissing, cuddling, complimenting each other, making love, etc, took a back seat. Now, it's like we're partial strangers (again), and it has been something of an eye-opener for me to recognise what is cause and what is effect. If I hadn't been aware of the theoretical importance of bonding behaviours, and their likely result, I would have tended to think, as I have in the past, that our cuddling had dried up because we'd temporarily 'gone off' each other, rather than the other way around. This wouldn't have been particularly worrying. We've been married for ages, and we've had loads of ups and downs. In fact, I used to believe ups and downs were inevitable in marriage; and that the only way round them was to wait for the bottom to occur, and enjoy the passage to the top again. Now, I'm not so sure, since it's become clear to me that 'going off' one another is the result, rather than the cause, of a dearth of cuddling.

Lack of cuddling eventually leads to lack of desire to cuddle, whether through laziness, habit, resentment or indifference. Cuddling (all bonding behaviours included) causes the desire for more cuddles. It is a beneficent biofeedback machine, just as the absence of bonding behaviours seems to be the opposite. Everyone will be familiar with young lovers not seeming able to get near enough to each other. Well, we've experienced the same, repeatedly, as a result of initially scheduling bonding behaviour and watching it snowball.

If serial cuddling doesn't come naturally (i.e., a couple isn't an inseparable pair of young lovers) it seems absolutely critical to schedule bonding behaviours. It's as critical as an exercise regime, should a person have decided they like the outcome of exercise. In this case, assuming a couple likes the idea of feeling as close and as in love as parent and child or star crossed teenagers, time and effort have to be employed.

Actually, it's hardly any effort at all. The effort is in remembering to do it, and in overcoming any underlying resentment that might make that 'remembering' more difficult. Initially, the bonding behaviour need only be one activity a day; and that activity needn't last longer than a minute, though it could, of course, last a lot longer. I think it needs to last at least as long as a minute, as, in our experience, that's enough to start the snowballing effect. Bonding behaviours then become automatic and seem to replicate themselves in abundance. It's not so much that they become a habit, like brushing teeth; they are more like a drink that we develop a liking, and then a recurring thirst, for, not because of the obvious beneficial effect, both short and long term, but because the taste becomes inherently irresistible.

The Passion Cycle

Marnia Robinson — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:45:29 +0000

It seems like a "no-brainer" that more orgasms and more intense orgasms will satisfy more. However, the "I'm done!" feeling after orgasm delivers a powerful subconscious signal to the limbic brain, which can create restlessness down the road. Is it time to rethink our lovemaking strategy?

Both sensual Romans and sex-positive ancient Chinese Daoists recognized that sexual satiety shifts perception. Over two thousand years ago, Ovid, the elegantly earthy poet, wrote that the "cure for love" is to satiate oneself with orgasm. Want to stay in love? The earlier Chinese Classic of Su Nu states, "If one engages in sex without emission...exercising self-control and calming the passion, love actually increases." Could couples improve the harmony in their relationships, by learning to use sex as a bonding behavior while tiptoeing around sexual satiety when possible?

In Orgasm's Hidden Cycle, I suggested that orgasm kicks off a surprisingly long neurochemical cycle. Cycles are not unique to the experience of orgasm. The body constantly restores homeostasis through rising and falling levels of hormones and neurotransmitters. Some are programmed (sleep-wake, menstrual cycles), while some occur in response to changing conditions (blood sugar levels, water levels).

Scientists are beginning to turn up evidence (via MRIs, plasma hormone levels, and glimpses into the brains of rodents) of a "passion cycle" after orgasm. (Details in Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships.) However, researchers don't always reflect on the psychological implications of their findings. What happens when subconscious shifts in our neurochemistry alter the emotional tone of our limbic brain well after orgasm? Might such shifts create feelings, which we unknowingly project outward, onto our mates?

A lot happens after orgasm—although there is still much to learn. It's easiest to envision what is known if you keep in mind that most of the neurochemical events appear to revolve around dopamine and the brain's reward circuitry.

As we become sexually aroused, dopamine (the "I gotta have it!" neurochemical) rises in our reward circuitry. It is also implicated in addictions. In fact, in 2003 Dutch scientist Gert Holstege announced in a press release pertaining to his research that brain scans of orgasm resembled brain scans of shooting heroin. What goes up must come down.

You might think that your dopamine levels would obediently return to baseline levels immediately after orgasm, and that you'd be good to go from where you began, neurochemically speaking. Alas, this is not how the reward circuitry of your limbic brain works. When a thunderstorm roles in, you close all the windows. Your brain does something similar following intense stimulation, except that it assumes another storm is coming, and keeps them closed for a while.

So, at climax, dopamine drops (and/or nerve cell receptors for dopamine decline, leaving your reward circuitry less sensitive to dopamine). At the same time, the neurohormone prolactin shoots up. Like most hormones, prolactin has many jobs in the body. After orgasm it acts as a "sexual satiation" substance, suppressing dopamine. Dopamine is the accelerator; prolactin is the brakes.

Research also shows that after orgasm androgen receptor density in the reward circuitry decreases, and the reduction is greater with each copulation. Lowered androgen receptor density means that key brain centers temporarily aren't responding as strongly to important sex hormones, such as testosterone (which influences dopamine, and thus mood and libido, in both men and women).

Oxytocin also surges briefly after climax (although prolactin is considered a more reliable marker of the Big O.) As oxytocin is known as the "bonding hormone," many people assume orgasm must be first-rate glue for lovers. However, like prolactin, oxytocin performs many different jobs in the body, and the orgasm surge may be related to the contractions of orgasm itself (oxytocin is also behind labor and lactation contractions). This surge also appears to trigger the rise of prolactin (the "sexual satiation" neurochemical) and penile flaccidity. Certainly, if orgasm tightly bonded lovers, we'd see very few one-night stands...and a lot more johns in love with their hookers.

Lovers who wish to strengthen their emotional bonds are likely to make more progress with daily skin-to-skin contact, gentle stroking, and gentle intercourse. This kind of affectionate, generous contact also produces oxytocin and soothes the regions of the brain that need to relax in order for us to bond. The occasional blast of oxytocin at orgasm, which drops soon afterward (along with dopamine), probably isn't as reliable a bonding mechanism. When dopamine drops your mate registers as less rewarding, even if you dowse your limbic brain with oxytocin. We need the right levels of both dopamine and oxytocin for that loving feeling.

In most mammals, these predictable post-orgasmic neurochemical events quiet sexual desire until the brain and libido recover naturally. A novel mate, however, can produce a jump start (dopamine surge). This explains how this "hangover" serves our genes.

We humans, of course, often don't wait. We find it easy to boost sagging dopamine after orgasm. Some options help restore balance without throwing us back onto the dopamine roller coaster: friendly interaction, time in nature, meditation, exercise, and so forth. But many of us reach for stronger "medication" (higher dopamine surges). We gamble, spend money, grab junk food, drugs or alcohol, or fantasize about, click to, or engage in, more sexual stimulation.

Bouncing from lows to new highs, we need never experience equilibrium again! However, as biologist Robert Sapolsky observed, there is a price for blasting our reward circuitry too enthusiastically in our efforts to counter the blues. "Unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation.... Our tragedy is that we just become hungrier." In short, there are advantages to steering for equilibrium initially, rather than always reaching for more stimulation to cope.

Does declining dopamine in response to a partner have the power to disillusion lovers? A few years back, Doctor Kiecolt-Glaser set out to discover whether stress hormones rose during marital conflict. To isolate short-term stress she chose ninety newlywed couples out of the whopping 2,200 newlywed couples she and her colleagues interviewed. Only the most blissful, healthiest, wealthiest, most stable couples were selected.

Conflict indeed raised stress hormones (with possible implications for lowered immunity to disease). However, in following up with the couples, she also discovered that across the board, they reported decreased satisfaction in their marriages by the second year. As Kiecolt-Glaser put it, "Declines in marital satisfaction appear to be a stable response to the first year or two of marriage." That's scientist-speak for "the poison on Cupid's arrow had taken effect." By release of the study, a fifth of her blissful, ideally suited couples had already divorced.

No doubt the natural decline in honeymoon neurochemistry contributed to these results. However, the fact that couples who employ karezza and daily bonding behaviors show resistance to this natural decline suggests that frequent fertilization-driven sex (often followed by growing alienation and therefore too little affectionate contact) may contribute to emotional dissatisfaction between mates. If so, couples could greatly benefit from knowledge of this passion cycle and information about how humans have learned to get around it.

How long is the passion cycle on average? No one yet knows. We do know that in human males the neurochemical sequence after ejaculation is at least 7 days. (Testosterone predictably spikes briefly around day seven.) However, men and women who observe themselves carefully notice changes in mood that flicker on and off for about two weeks. Perhaps this cycle is an evolutionary remnant of an ancestor's mating season.

Among our fellow mammals, rats have been studied the most. Their limbic systems are so similar to ours that they have been called "guiding flashlights" for understanding the primitive mechanisms of our own brain. Interestingly, it takes up to 15 days for male rats to recover their libido fully after sexual satiety. Female rats also show evidence of a 15-day cycle in the form of predictable surges of prolactin after vigorous copulation, whether or not they become pregnant.

Everyone's experience of this cycle is somewhat different. Numerous factors appear to affect how we experience it, such as degree of sexual surfeit, whether a partner and loving affection are present, the type of sex (intercourse or not), and, of course, individual sensitivity to pertinent neurochemicals.

Psychologists are uniquely suited to grasp the implications of this phenomenon. More than most neurobiologists, they are aware that subtle changes in feelings (even those brought on by perfectly normal neurochemical fluctuations) can be projected onto others. Projections then mold our experience of the world—and our perception of our mates—without our conscious awareness. No partner, however tolerant or attentive, can consistently soothe our discomfort, or fill a "hole" inside us, which we are experiencing because we have disrupted our neurochemical balance with too much of a good thing.

Repression or Addiction - Which Is Worse?

Marnia Robinson — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:33:34 +0000

August 25th marks the 53rd anniversary of Alfred C. Kinsey's death. He was a key figure in condemning sexual repression, and I'm grateful for his contribution. At the same time, I hope our society can now exercise the same courage he once demonstrated—by rethinking some of his conclusions in light of recent discoveries about the effects of sex on the brain.

Kinsey fiercely opposed the Victorian attitudes about sex that darkened his childhood. Determined to break the association between guilt and sex, he insisted that repression was our greatest peril. He taught that we'd thrive if we adopted his conviction that orgasm is nothing more than an "outlet," however intense or frequent the stimulation. Seemed reasonable, right?

Kinsey's zeal led to widespread codification of his beliefs—and strident debate with religious extremists. Despite the difference in their perspectives, both forms of zealotry unfortunately discourage a relaxed, inquiring attitude about orgasm and masturbation. At present, mainstream America is pretty firmly persuaded that Kinsey had it right. This has led to a widespread view that we really ought to pursue both orgasm and masturbation frequently or risk unhealthy repression.

Kinsey was certainly right to be wary of repression—for sound neurological reasons that are coming to light now. The pathways in the brain that light up with our earliest intense sexual experiences are very non-specific. They tend to link all elements associated with intense arousal, automatically and indiscriminately.

One of the most regrettable associations arises when initial sexual experiences occur after being forbidden. Excitement and risk intensify the wiring (learning) process in the brain because they increase dopamine and adrenaline. (So does novelty.)

A person whose initial sexual experiences have an illicit or dicey ("I may burn in hell for this") aura, may therefore be at risk for seeking out future shocking, unsafe, and highly novel activities in connection with sexual expression, long after that person sheds any religious conditioning. Even guilt itself can become pleasurable. Why? Simply because a primitive part of the brain once put 2 (arousal) + 2 (risk or "Thou shalt not!") together-without conscious input—and wired itself accordingly.

Kinsey appears to have suffered from some version of this brain-wiring mishap, perhaps as a consequence of his strict Methodist upbringing and/or his sexual experiences at boys' camp. Whatever the impetus, as an adult he struggled with escalating sadomasochism, injuries from which may have shortened his life. (He died at an early 62.) Kinsey advised, "Tell your sadomasochistic friends to observe great caution. The human body adjusts rapidly and the levels are capable of escalating rapidly." According to his biographer James H. Jones, in Kinsey's later years:

There was something grim in the way Kinsey was approaching sex, not only in his private life but in his research. In both areas, he was becoming more compulsive, like a man who had become addicted to risk taking. The sexual escapades in his attic [sadomasochistic acts with his male lovers] were political dynamite. ... Yet not only did he go right on staging these sessions but he compounded the danger by creating a visual record. (Alfred C. Kinsey, J.H. Jones)

Sexual repression that is harsh enough to make a child see sex as unnaturally "risky and exciting" may contribute to sexual addiction. Guilt is thus clearly counterproductive, but awareness of how the brain and sexual stimuli can interact is not. Kinsey, however, insisted that all would be well if we simply adopt the "if it feels good, do it!" rule. Was he right?

I certainly thought so. In fact, I was a dedicated member of the "each to his own taste" club. Then, men began showing up on my web site's forum, desperate to unhook from escalating Internet porn use. Like Kinsey himself, they were trapped in the search for increasingly extreme sexual stimulation, and the withdrawal symptoms when they tried to stop were debilitating (shaking, severe headaches, insomnia, intense social anxiety, and so forth).

When I enquired confidently about their religious backgrounds, I was surprised to learn that many had none. Guilt about sex was apparently not the cause of their addictions. Huh?

I concluded that threats of hell are not the only way the brain can wire itself for sexual addiction. Highly charged sexual experiences of any kind may do it. And today's Niagara of ever-more-extreme Internet porn is apparently ...at least for some... one of those highly charged experiences. (Many of the porn-hooked visitors are in their mid-twenties, having begun using Internet porn years seven or eight years ago, and I'll have more to say about how some are slowly overcoming their challenge in a future post.)

Recently I came upon the words of Harvard psychologist Howard Shaffer, "A lot of addiction is the result of experience ... repetitive, high-emotion, high-frequency experience." This makes perfect sense, given the way the brain's primitive reward circuitry automatically wires intense experiences in order to remember them.

Speaking of experts, the late psychiatrist and addiction expert Gerald G. May concluded that his profession took a wrong turn in the last century when it codified the belief that repression is our primary danger. May was no fan of repression. However, he felt that addiction was far more debilitating, given the way the brain works. As he put it, "addiction limits the freedom of human desire." And without that freedom, a person cannot effectively address challenges—including overcoming repression. (As we'll see in a future post, chronic low dopamine can increase social anxiety, making overcoming repression even more of a challenge.)

Without free will, an addict is destined to keep his attention on repeating a behavior, not because he likes it, or because it's "merely an outlet," but because his brain has adjusted itself to depend upon the neurochemical hit that accompanies his chosen "medication." These neurochemical demands tend to escalate—just as Kinsey's did. (The Chinese observed this very "ratcheting up" of sexual desire after orgasm thousands of years ago. Art of the Bedchamber)

Our culture's current fear of repression may be leading more and more of us to wreck ourselves on the hidden reef of addiction. Perhaps it's time to codify the need for a healthy middle ground rather than focusing solely on the (very real) peril of repression. We could start by learning more about how orgasm (and very frequent orgasm) affect the brain, and how soothing affection and connection promote balance in a way that sexual satiation alone cannot.

Kinsey was, above all, a scientist. New facts ask us to reexamine our conclusions. I suspect that if Kinsey were aware of the recent neurochemical findings that explain how intense experience can wire us for addiction, he would be willing to broaden his early hypotheses that (1) repression is our only risk and (2) orgasm can never be anything but a harmless outlet.

I say we honor the anniversary of Kinsey's death by reconsidering our codified assumptions about orgasm, repression and addiction with the same courage he showed in challenging Victorian thinking. His contribution was vital, but it was only a first step. Steering for neurochemical balance, even if some of us have to learn to skirt especially intense and addictive stimuli and focus greater effort on bonding behaviors, may be more vital to sustained well-being than unfettered sexual expression.

Orgasm’s Hidden Cycle

Marnia Robinson — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:28:13 +0000

Orgasm feels great, and if climax were the end of the story, partners would project the good feelings generated in the bedroom onto one another—and effortlessly dote on each other forever. Few do.

One challenge is that orgasm—especially that "I'm definitely done!" feeling after sex—isn't an isolated event. It's the beginning of a much longer cycle, which often includes subconscious neurochemical signals of discontent that tarnish lovers' perceptions of each other. Consider this verse from the ancient Greek Anthology, which long ago captured the essence of the Coolidge Effect:

Once plighted, no men would go whoring,
They'd stay with the one they adore,
If women were half as alluring
After the act as before!

If you are familiar with the work of Masters & Johnson, you probably think of the "cycle of orgasm" as a brief series of observable genital events: arousal, plateau, climax and refractory period. The experience of orgasm, however, is produced in a primitive part of the brain. Without these neurochemical fireworks, the Big "O" wouldn't feel like an orgasm regardless of what happens in your genitals.

But assuming you're not trying to patent the next billion-dollar sexual enhancement drug, why do you care about the neurochemical aspects of orgasm? Here are two reasons:

1. Neurochemical events can have powerful effects on your behavior, mood and perceptions without your awareness. You probably don't think of sexual arousal as correlating with rising dopamine, or orgasm as equating with surges of endorphins, adrenaline and so forth. Chances are you also don't think of your feelings over the days after orgasm as being linked to a cascade of neurochemical events (fluctuating dopamine and prolactin levels, testosterone receptor declines, etc.).

2. There is growing evidence (details in a future post) that this complex neurochemical sequence after orgasm is much longer than the physical events after climax. It may even continue for up to two weeks after you roll over and snore, or look around for more. During this slow, somewhat erratic, return to neurochemical homeostasis after orgasm, it's not unusual to experience intermittent sensations of lack, neediness, irritability, intense horniness and so forth. Most people climax again before the brain brings itself back to homeostasis. Interestingly, evidence suggests that the more thoroughly you sexually satiate yourself—that is, the more intense or numerous your orgasms—the more acute the overall effects on your outlook. For example, it has been observed that the more orgasms women have over a 30-day period, the more unfriendly and aggressive they perceive pictures of unknown men.

The point is that orgasm may innocently be influencing your subsequent moods, cravings, choices, and perceptions—and for longer than you would imagine possible. This hidden cycle and the subtle feelings it brings up are likely to be a factor in the Coolidge Effect. Scientists already know that, after sex, dropping dopamine (the signal for "less rewarding") plays a role in habituation between mates, just a spike of dopamine ("rewarding!") plays a role in the neurochemically induced attraction to novel partners.

Another consequence of the hidden phase of orgasm is the risk of getting caught up in an escalating cycle of seeking more and more intense sexual stimulation to "medicate" the lows in the sequence. But even if you elude this risk (lots of daily affection helps, for example), this hidden cycle may produce ripples in the harmony of your relationship.

Let's say your neurochemistry hasn't yet bounced back to equilibrium after the great sex you had on the weekend. Because it's normal to project your subconscious mating-induced feelings onto your mate, you may be convinced that you would feel just fine if only your mate would, for example, show some appreciation for all you do, engage in more of your preferred foreplay, or simply put the dang cap on the toothpaste tube. Or you might find the thought of a novel partner (even a two-dimensional one) unusually enticing. As these feelings recur week after week, you may even wonder if you should have married that other person. You know, the one who realized how wonderful you are.

Why would our perception shift for the worse as we satiate ourselves sexually? To make sure we don't go extinct. Inclinations that tend to pass on more genes are conserved. Maybe annoyance in our love lives, with fooling around on the side, or serial romances are ideal scenarios for our genes, whatever they cost us and our families. (Remember, we evolved in tribes, where romantic turnover would have been less harmful to kids.)

Instead of moving to a novel mate, many of us cope with this programmed restlessness in other ways. When your dopamine is low (as it can be from time to time during the post-orgasm cycle), you may feel like...well...like something is missing, even if you can't put your finger on what it is. Perhaps you console yourself with some self-indulgent spending, too many drinks with pals, or a carton of Häagen-Dazs. Such things automatically reward you with brief surges of dopamine. They are especially seductive when you're feeling flat for reasons you can't fathom.

It's rare for people to see the truth of this underlying cycle's influence on their lives until they experiment. However, couples can usually spot its effects after the high-dopamine honeymoon "booster shot" wears off. To do so, they make love for several weeks using a technique like karezza (lots of bonding behaviors without sexual satiation), and then go back to conventional sex with orgasm. During the first part of the experiment they often grow more sensitive to playful affection, snuggling or gentle intercourse. When we experimented, my husband remarked, "Our kissing reminds me of my first teenage kisses."

Eight years later, he interprets those same feelings as "I haven't fertilized you yet, so my limbic system is still enchanted." No fertilization attempt; no Coolidge Effect. And I continue to look cute (at least to him).

After orgasm, however, there tends to be a subtle shift. Here's what one husband observed (who had assured me he experiences no fallout after orgasm):

Things have been good between my wife and me recently (lots of bonding behaviors and increased closeness), but about 12 hours after a night of great lovemaking, I'm feeling really needy around sex. I HATE that feeling. It is so energy depleting, worse than being sick. Only later did I realize, "Okay, THAT'S what this neurochemical cycle does."

It makes a ton of difference to know what's really going on. I can totally see how this feeling would affect a relationship, particularly if one person felt it while the other didn't, or if they felt it at different times. The touch of a needy person is so different, and quite possibly the opposite of sexy for their partner, and it's so hard NOT to project the feelings onto your partner. "Why doesn't she want to meet my needs?"

The truth is that no partner can fully meet a need that is born of a neurochemical low. No wonder it sometimes seems that we just can't please our mate no matter how hard we try, how much Viagra we invest in, or how many orgasms we deliver.

Every recovery cycle is unique, which is one reason couples' sex drives may go out of sync. Often, men roll over and snore—and then over the days following experience some irritability or brain fog (forgetting to take out the trash, perhaps), and feel unusually horny. But orgasm catches up with women, too. Said one woman, "After three orgasms last night, in which my man was delighted to be affirmed of his stamina, I feel grumpy, guarded, and as snappy as an alligator." Personally, I notice (or, at least my husband notices) more mood swings in my second week, when I tend to become judgmental and sharp of tongue.

Despite the glories of orgasm, and the many benefits of close, affectionate contact during intercourse, this hidden cycle after orgasm can evoke surprisingly powerful mood changes, which lovers haven't been connecting with the Big "O." That may be changing. Not long ago, psychiatrist Richard Friedman demonstrated that neurochemicals kicked in by orgasm, are apparently behind the depression and irritability of some patients, even those with no sexual hang-ups. When he gave SSRIs to suppress the intensity of his patients' sexual response, their symptoms promptly disappeared (even before the drugs would have influenced emotional disorders).

Could more subtle versions of these neurochemical effects be at work in the rest of us, clouding the sunny skies of our romances? Perhaps striving for balance in our sex lives by adding to our lovemaking repertoire is more beneficial than we've realized.

So, what's going on between our ears after climax? Although scientists haven't been looking for this "passion cycle" directly, researchers questing after the next lucrative sexual enhancement drug have turned up evidence of it. In a future post, I'll share what little is known.

Another Way to Make Love

Marnia Robinson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:07:01 +0000

Recent posts discuss (1) why lovers might want to know more about what's going on in their limbic brains, (2) how too much intense stimulation of the brain's primitive reward circuitry can lead to subtle mood swings and a need for more stimulation, and (3) how dopamine fluctuations drive the Coolidge Effect (the tendency to lose interest in a mate after sexual satiation.) I've also mentioned that there's a way to make love that helps ease dopamine extremes and promote harmony.

I happened upon this concept decades ago in a book on Daoist lovemaking. After modifying the ideas based on practical experience I eventually read a book on karezza—and realized that it described what my husband and I were doing. Karezza is gentle intercourse, with lots of affection and relaxation, but without the goal of orgasm. (Yes, it still happens on rare occasions.)

This practice has apparently been used to deepen and harmonize relationships for millennia, going by many names through the ages. These include: Daoist dual cultivation, le jazer (cortezia), amplexus reservatus, tantra (in its more relaxed variations), transorgasmic sex, and so forth. To taste the benefits, both partners emphasize daily bonding behaviors (such as skin-to-skin contact, gentle stroking, spooning, and occasional gentle intercourse) and sidestep orgasm for three weeks. (Details in Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships.)

At first, intercourse not geared toward orgasm seems like..."WTF?!" but this may be due, in part, to the fact that we in the West have so thoroughly codified our current biases, even branding sex without orgasm a "paraphilia." Incidentally, karezza creates strange bedfellows. Pope Pius XII also condemned it. In his time, Catholics in France and Belgium were extolling amplexus reservatus (karezza) as a legitimate means of avoiding conception, and also as a means of achieving a more perfect, more spiritual kind of conjugal love. The Pope said it either wasn't "a true marriage act," or, when it did result in inadvertent orgasm, it was dangerous because of its potential for hedonism. Sometimes you just can't win.

Over the last century or so, three medical doctors have written books affirming karezza's benefits. (Stockham, MD, Lloyd, MD and Jensen, MD) Here are comments of some of today's husbands (none of them mine):

The thought of removing foreplay / orgasm etc. is mind-boggling. Your mind fights it. "It will be boring. What will we do in bed?" Once you try it though, at least for me, there is no going back. Not achieving satiety using karezza is truly wonderful. Of course, satiety can never be reached via conventional sex either, but that lack of satiety always seems to result in a lustful feeling of wanting more.... This is different. It is heavenly, for lack of a better word. I am satisfied, but I am not. I do not feel the sense of urgency I usually feel when I am not satisfied. I feel complete somehow, at peace, and best of all, in love.... My wife and I are really bonding again.

My wife and I have been practicing/doing what can be called karezza for a number of years. As time passed, we found the position that works for us, scissors position, and developed a routine that actually leaves out foreplay and makes the whole affair less "hot." We use jojoba oil for lubrication and connect before sleep and each morning. We've been doing this for 6-7 years, and it is great. Every couple hopefully finds their own way to make love often with no pressure, stress, or depletion. Karezza works for us. We stay high and grateful almost all the time. Negativity can't last long because our positive energy is generated and supported daily.

At first my wife resented me taking away her pleasure. So we compromised. We decided to have orgasms on the first of every month and on some special occasions. Now we are in our third month of squirtless loving, "because we do not want to ruin a good thing." We usually stay engaged for an hour twice per week. We comment daily on how cute we appear to each other. I have had opportunities to have sexual relations outside of our marriage over the last eighteen years and I do not know how I remained faithful. Now my attitude is that nothing could ever match what is going on inside our marriage.

Intriguingly, Canadian research recently confirmed that "great sex" is generally not focused on orgasm. The head researcher also noted that, "There is plenty of evidence that most people believe that the secret to sexual fulfillment is technical, that it's about better manual and oral stimulation techniques." However, the study showed that "You could have terrible sex with orgasms and despite orgasms, but you could have optimal sexuality without orgasm."

How could this be? I suspect that karezza yields benefits because it sidesteps hidden neurochemical fallout. Orgasm, and more particularly sexual satiety, is a (delicious) neurochemical blast, which sends out ripples for as long as two weeks while as the body returns to equilibrium. (More in a future post; details in Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships.)

Perhaps those who have been plagued by the Coolidge Effect will find karezza especially beneficial. When lovers make love gently and only rarely "finish," they seldom feel "fed up" with a partner. They also sidestep the potentially risky tendency to cure all post-orgasmic fallout (flatness, heightened frustration, neediness) with more orgasm.

Marriage counselors sometimes recommend that couples seeking to reconcile begin by refraining from conventional sex, but engage in affectionate touch or even non-goal-oriented intercourse. (Both gently raise dopamine and oxytocin without triggering the full passion cycle.)Perhaps bonding techniques of this type restore positive feelings because our "mating" and "bonding" programs operate on distinct subconscious cues. When we project these conflicting signals (of attachment/attraction and satiety/aversion) onto a mate we may feel like we're falling in, and out, of love in bewildering way. In effect, we're delivering mixed signals at a level below the conscious mind.

In a future post, I'll explain what research can already show us about the neurochemicals involved in the passion cycle, and more about how this phenomenon can create unwelcome projections.