Hug the Monkey

Hug Your Monkey Even If You Don't Want Sex

I thought this was a good column from the Times Online: Touching Shouldn't Always Mean Sex.

Relationship expert Pam Spurr points out how hard it can be for male/female couples to send and understand signals about touching. Sometimes, you don't want sex, but you need to be touched and held. She points out:

When our skin is touched, our bodies produce various responses including producing oxytocin, the emotional bonding hormone. This makes us feel good around our loved one. That heart-warming feeling means that we want more of their company. And so the cycle goes on bonding us together.

Interesting that most of the comments are very hostile. I agree it's a bit of a stereotype that he wants sex, she wants to cuddle, but certainly mismatches in how much sex people want are not uncommon.

Fall Out of Love Fast!

Rachel wrote me to ask:

If it weren't for your blog on oxytocin, I would have thought I was going insane. ...Here's the deal:

I met a boy. Gave him my number. He called. When we were both finally free, we got together and hit it off. In fact, we spent 12 hours together on our first date, which was a series of random adventures including going to an outdoor festival, hanging out with my friends and his and eventually ending in a makeout fest with him pushing me into walls and kissing my neck and sucking on my ears generally making me swoon all over this metropolis in which we live. It was hot. It was lovely. But even though I called it a night and we parted and went our separate ways (i.e. no sex), I think I made a huge mistake by making out with him for such a prolonged period of time. 
 
For the whole week after I met the boy, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. The pleasurable "reverb" was so strong, I literally thought I was going insane. It wasn't until I found your blog that I realized what was going on. I guess because the boy was so skilled and I came to trust him, he ramped up my physical response into something like instant love. Of course I know that I don't love the guy, but now I'm a slave. I need release, because I see the signs. The last time he asked me out he texted me three letters: "Tmw?" He hasn't called me in 5 days. I am not a priority. He just got out of a long-term relationship. Blah blah blah. I know pursuing this further is a mistake and I can handle all of this reality in practical terms, but here is my question: HOW DO I BREAK THE SPELL? How do I get the giddy oxytocin butterflies to knock it off? I need a good night's sleep. Please, oh please, help me.

Dear Rachel:

It sounds like you're in the throes of romantic love, which I believe is different from committed love. Using brain scans, Helen Fisher, author of why we love, found that in the brains of people who were newly, madly in love, it was their motivational centers, not their emotional centers that were in high gear. Her theory, with which I concur, is that the neurochemicals of romantic love are dopamine and norepinephrine, with low levels of serotonin.

It sounds like you've got a classic case.

Oxytocin is probably involved as well; all that touching and making out caused your brain to put out plenty of oxytocin, which activated your social memory, pinning all that excitement and fun to this one particular person. What you need to do now to break the spell is uncouple the giddy effects of dopamine and norepinephrine from this one boy.

Dopamine is the neurochemical of reward, but also of focused attention. It seems to impel us to go after a reward. Right now, you're totally focused on going after the reward of this boy. What other short-term or long-term goals do you have in your life? Now is a time when you can really make some progress on achieving on, because you're so charged up. Norepinephrine will help you in this, because it helps you concentrate and energizes you. If you can't identify a specific goal right now, throw yourself into a project, art, a hobby or a sport.

You can also burn off some of this energy with hard exercise or some equally exciting fun that doesn't involve this boy. I always say bungee jumping, but anything thrilling will refocus your attention nicely.

Finally, you can try to bring yourself down by increasing your oxytocin levels. If you like animals, cuddling with something fuzzy has been shown to calm people down and increase their oxytocin. Hanging out and sharing your feelings with close female friends will also give you a nice oxytocin/estrogen buzz.

And hey, use your brain. You're smart enough to have figured out what's going on; keep reminding yourself that these feelings aren't about him, they're something happening in your body. Be glad about that; it's a wonderful feeling, and it will be even better when it's reciprocated.

Romance: Best Enjoyed in the Middle Ages

Last night I was listening to an audio book that mentioned the relationship between Dante and Beatrice, celebrated as an example of romantic love at its finest. Dante, of course, wrote The Inferno. Beatrice was his cousin. He fell in love with her the first time he saw her, when he was nine. They didn't speak to each other until a few years later, and they never had what we would today call any kind of relationship at all. Instead, his love for her was in the mode of "courtly love" possibly "invented" during the Middle Ages.

I've written several times about the problem of mistaking romantic love, which may be evolution's way of making sure a couple stayed focused enough on their relationship to have sex and get pregnant, then keep the baby alive for the first couple of years, with committed love. Romance is fired by dopamine and lowered levels of serotonin, while committed love is fueled by oxytocin. (The theory goes.) Oxytocin produces a more "social" love; the oxytocin bond activates the same brain systems as trust and generosity.

This story from The Independent in the UK, Aspects of Love, illustrates the conflicting definitions we have of love. (Some of the interviewees also state as fact some of the neurochemical bases of emotion that haven't been completely proven yet, as I'm often guilty of doing, such as in the previous paragraph.)

I like what Alain de Bottom says:

One of the things that happened in the modern age was that suddenly people decided that romantic love could be put together with marriage, so the sort of feeling people always had around a lover, an intense romantic passion they thought might last a few months, you could stick that together with what people had always followed which was to get married.

And marriage used to be about "handing on the farm" to the next generation and suddenly it was thought you could have the farm and this great intense romantic relationship. You no longer needed what the aristocracy had suggested you always needed, which was a wife and a mistress, or the other way around if you were a woman. This idea that you can have romantic passion and the practical benefits of keeping a household together – modern society has fallen for this idea and it's making us miserable.

De Bottom is author of Essays in Love, which sounds pretty interesting.

In the Middle Ages and into Dante's time, marriages were arranged, and based on social and economic benefits. People might have had lovers and/or asexual romantic relationships like that of Dante and Beatrice. I don't think we can -- or should -- go back to that, but I wish our culture would learn to celebrate committed love the way we do romance.

The adorable embroidered heart is by Minha lojinha, a wonderful artist.

See also, Sex, Orgasm, Bonding and the Marital Blahs; and Get Over Romance; please, please please?

Science vs. Religion (When It Comes to Love)

Some very heated discussion on the Ave Maria Gratia Plena blog following author Michelle's comments about oxytocin, bonding and premarital sex. It shows how attempts to understand how our biology affects our emotions gets mired in emotion.

In Why I disagree with promiscuity and fear for the FLDS kids that will be taught modern sex ed, she writes that she's worried that the children removed from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints camp will be taught modern society's ways, including acceptance of premarital sex. She goes on to make some statements about how the bonding effects of oxytocin following sex and orgasm can cloud a woman's judgment about a man.

I think she makes some very valid points; I do agree with this:

Ever wonder why so many women are "in love" with total losers and won't end the relationship? O-x-y-t-o-c-i-n...
~ This is why so many marriages fail when the couples have slept together before being wed: a woman that is chemically bonded to a man is in danger of settling for a husband that is totally not compatible with herself. She can't see this because she is trapped in a bond she probably knows nothing about. (When do they teach girls about oxytocin in sex ed classes??)

However, framing these ideas with this really tragic situation makes it a lot harder to examine what she says. As commenters rightly point out, surely the situation these women, and especially the very young girls who were married to older men who had multiple wives, were in a worse situation than someone who finds herself "bonded to a total loser."

Still, many comments accuse her of ranting and twisting science. One wrote,

You made the claim that a woman is bonded to her sexual partner against her will by oxytocin. That a woman falls in love with a "loser" because of oxytocin. You cannot ask me to offer counterproof until you offer some credible evidence - other than a reference to Wikipedia - to support your statements. Then you'll get your "argument".

I really wish it weren't so, but there is plenty of credible evidence that both men and women become bonded to their sex partners -- and women more so than men. I wish we humans were able to create new forms of relationships and new societies based on our ideals, not our biology. But we remain deeply influenced by our animal natures.

It's completely proven that men and women release oxytocin during  orgasm. Following are some studies that, taken together, make a very strong case that oxytocin creates the bond of human love, and that estrogen increases oxytocin's effects:

Bale, Tracy L.; Davis, Aline M.; Auger, Anthony P.; Dorsa, Daniel M.; and McCarthy, Margaret M. 2001. CNS Region-Specific Oxytocin Receptor Expression: Importance in Regulation of Anxiety and Sex Behavior. The Journal of Neuroscience 21(7):2546-2552.

Bales, Karen; Lewis-Reese, Antoniah; Pfeifer, Lisa; and Kramer, Kristin; and Carter, C. Sue. 2007. Early Experience Affects the Traits of Monogamy in a Sexually Dimorphic Manner. Developmental Psychobiology 49:335-342

Carter, C. Sue; DeVries, A.C.; and Getz, L.L. 1995. Physiological substrates of mammalian monogamy: the prairie vole model. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews 19(2): 303-14.

Carter, C. Sue. 2007. Sex differences in oxytocin and vasopressin: Implications for autism spectrum disorders? Behavioural Brain Research 176(1):170-86.

Chung, Wilson C. J.; De Vries, Geert J.; and Swaab, Dick F. 2002. Sexual Differentiation of the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis in Humans May Extend into Adulthood, The Journal of Neuroscience 22(3):1027–1033.

Cushing, B.S. and Carter, C.S. 1999. Prior Exposure To Oxytocin Mimics the Effects Of Social Contact and Facilitates Sexual Behaviour In Females. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 11(10):765–769.

Georgiadis, Janniko R.; Reinders, Simone A.A.T.; Van der Graaf, Ferdinand H.C.E.; Paans, Anne M.J.; Kortekaas, Rudie. 2007. Brain activation during human male ejaculation revisited. Neuroreport 18(6):553-557.

 

Young, Larry J. and Wang, Zuoxin, The neurobiology of pair bonding (Nature Neuroscience Vo. 7. No. 10, October 2004)

Zak, Paul J.; Kurzband, Robert; and Matzner, William T., Oxytocin is associated with human trustworthiness (Hormones and Behavior 48 (2005) 522 – 527)

 

Mommy Your Man or Have a Grown-Up Relationship

There used to be a popular T-shirt that read, "I wanted to have a baby, not marry one!"

In fact, women can easily fall into the trap of mothering their mates. First, women's higher levels of oxytocin make them prone to mothering behaviors. And, let's face it, men who grew up with mommies who took care of them sometimes have a difficult time transitioning to independent adulthood. Finally, many men seem to not care as much as the women in their lives about things like neatness and nutrition.

These factors make it all too easy to fall into mommying him: Picking up after him, reminding him to take care of himself, making doctors appointments for him, etc. According to this article on CNN Living, it's a really bad idea.

Babying the man in your life can mean two things, Tessina says: A. You've been spending too much time being mommy and may need a break from the kids, or B. You need more adult contact, whether it be a weekend away with the girls or a few hours at the mall while the kids are with a sitter.

Tessina says that normal nurturing -- cooking for him, massaging him, tending to him when he's sick -- can feel motherly if you're too controlling about it. "Instead, tell him what you'd like to do to help him, and ask him if he wants that kind of help. This evens the field and makes you equals," she says.

I would add that it can ruin your sex life and your whole relationship. All that oxytocin a woman generates can make sex with him seem unconsciously weird, and oxytocin is not the hormone of desire, it's the hormone of fulfilled desire, aka orgasm. An excess of oxytocin also can damp down the effects of his testosterone -- not a problem when he's a young bull, but increasingly an issue as he -- and the marriage -- ages.

Besides, who wants to make love to a baby?

Read the article for amazing stories of how far some women go.

Do You Mommy Your Husband?

Is Gay Love Different?

If you're interested in my scientifically informed hypotheses about how gay bonding is different and the same from the straight version, please check out my article on Scientific Blogging: Lesbian Bed Death Explained.

Chocolate, Sex and Love

When we're lonely, depressed or bummed out, we reach for the chocolate. Especially for women, the liquor of this magic bean seems to spell relief from the blues.

Science hasn't figured out why, although, intriguingly, chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a substance that seems to be produced in the brain when we're in the throes of romance.

Personally, I think it's simply because chocolate provides sensual pleasure, while its fat stimulates a release of oxytocin into the gut and bloodstream via the vagus nerve. That oxytocin feels just like the oxytocin we'd get from making love or being close to someone we love.

At any rate, Aphrodisiology.com has a fun analysis of the satisfactions of chocolate, as well as a list of reasons why it's actually better than sex:

Chocolate will never ask you to wear a wig and scream "Who's your Daddy?"

The Virginity Dilemma

Kaya at Afropologe riffs on a recent New York Times magazine article on True Love Revolution.

True Love Revolution is self-described as a "on-sectarian student-run organization at Harvard College dedicated to the promotion of premarital sexual abstinence. We strive to present another option to our peers regarding sex-related issues, endorsing ideas of abstinence and chastity as a positive alternative for ethical and health reasons. "

According to the NYT, the club's ideas include:

... the belief that “ ‘safe sex’ is not safe”; that even the most effective methods of birth control can fail; that early sexual activity is strongly associated with all manner of terrible outcomes, from increased risk of depression to greater likelihood of marital infidelity, divorce and maternal poverty. Premarital abstinence, on the other hand, is held up by True Love Revolution as improving health, promoting better relationships and, best of all, enabling “better sex in your future marriage.”

I think the current leader of the organization makes an important point:

Conventional feminism, she explained, teaches that control of your body means the freedom to have sex without consequences — sex like a man. “I am an unconventional feminist,” Fredell said, in the sense that she asserts control by choosing not to have sex — by telling men, no, absolutely not.

I was very involved in feminist culture in the 70s, and we did sometimes lose sight of the idea that freedom of choice includes choosing not to do what others are doing.

Kaya takes issue with one student's comments about wanting to abstain from sex with her boyfriend so she won't become too bonded and then hurt if they break up.

I think this may be an oversimplification -- and so may True Love Revolution's concepts, and/or the article's -- but she is very funny and her post is worth a read. She helps define the contradictions and confusion we all face in our ultra-modern society.

BTW, the folks at Afropologe have a no-quoting policy for their blog, which seems awfully weird and unbloggy, but whatever. 

What Are the Human Pheromones?

  Butt Sniffing Ying Yang 
  Originally uploaded by Tim Dorr.

This is slightly off-topic, but it fits in with the recent guest post, Sex, Love and Oxytocin: A Real Love Story.

Liquid Trust is now "enhanced with male and female pheromones." Now, the idea of human pheromones -- chemicals emitted by one animal that change the physiology or behavior of others of that species -- is not accepted science at this point. There have been a few studies that I find really convincing, and I'd bet that this is another case where we're not so different from the rest of the animal kingdom.

At any rate, I saw a mention of human pheromones in this article, which led me to a pretty good, science-based discussion of human pheromones: Y2K Man and Pheromonal Communication. According to the author, F. Ligabue Stricker, the human pheromones are (or are thought to be) androstenol-androstenone for men and copulin for women.

... in women were found compounds similar to “copulin” detected in Primates (Michael et al. 1971, 1974). Copulin is a blend of aliphatic acids (acetic, propionic, butyric,, isovaleric, isocaproic.) usually present in vaginal fluids of healthy women. They are under hormonal control and their fluctuations during the menstrual cycle communicate the ovulatory period (Mc Clintock, 1971). As in Primates,in fact, near the middle of the menstrual cycle their concentration is higher. The use of hormonal contraceptives reduces the production of copulin and its fluctuations.

In Man the “ musky “ odour ” (Kloek 1961), is due to metabolites of androstenone and androstenol, typically pheromonal substances produced by the testes and present with high concentration in urine, saliva and axillary sweat. The effect on social interactions is more constant and stronger than copulin one (Kirk-Smith 1978).. The higher intensity of the male odour compared to female odour is due to greater amounts of skin secretions and concomitantly more odorogenic microflora.

So, these are likely what's in Liquid Trust. I still wonder if there's enough of anything in this product to make a difference and if there is, how long it lasts after you open the bottle.

The Vasopressin Takeover

Evan of Two Puppies Enter, One Puppy Leaves posted a link to a BBC science podcast in which scientists explain that three years after the birth of a child, oxytocin receptors in the parents' brains wane, while vasopressin becomes more prevalent.

I don't have time to listen to the podcast or follow up on the journal articles right now, but according to his blog post, Lucy Vincent (neurobiologist at the French Scientific Research Center) and Dave Perrett (Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews) said that

after 12-18 months the infant becomes significantly less vulnerable (able to stand and perhaps throw off a bird or small animal attacking it), at which point only one parent would be necessary. And at that point, the oxytocin effect more or less ceases, yielding to increased vasopressin receptor activity- essentially a biochemical foundation for why people tend to “fall out of love” after a few years

I think maybe they were talking about the male brain, not the female's.

Motherhood and fatherhood both change a person's brain; changes in the mother's brain have been shown to be permanent in rats. However, oxytocin receptors, which become profuse during pregnancy, may disappear and/or become less sensitive.

Vasopressin, which is very closely related to oxytocin, may be more involved in male attachment, and lead to the expression of this attachment in protective behaviors. If you have the time, his post and the podcast are probably worth checking out.