The Science of Love and Sex

A Brief Approach

Many of us thinks love and sex are the two sides of a coin. Well, that's true for many of us; but unfortunately, both things are just a chemical reaction that took place inside our neurons. For today we will see what happen in sex, and later on we'll deal about the thing called love. Notice that, I'm not against of those who think sex is good and love is something so much better. I'm just posting what the science says about these two things.

When we have sex (we  human beings, not the author and you, the reader😜) there are three main neuro-hormones that are released for men and women, and a fourth just for men. These hormones impact the way our bodies behave, and influence our minds and thus our perception of reality. 

The first one is Dopamine. Dopamine is the pleasure high, the fireworks, our reward. Dopamine is one of the most fundamental neurotransmitters we have. Basically we are dopamine machines. The expectation of dopamine drives our mind to control our body to do things. You think you wanted a coffee to perk yourself up, but in fact it was a dopamine cycle that kicked in to make your body get up and find a coffee to sate the dopamine expectation. The next is Serotonin. Serotonin is serenity, ecstasy and the state of grace. It is the lingering pleasure sensation we get that is less intense than dopamine, but nonetheless a powerful driver for our behaviors. Serotonin is about feeling good, really good. The third, for both men and women, is Oxytocin. Oxytocin is the bonding agent, the cuddle chemical. This bonding agent makes us want to connect, physically, with another person. And once connected, stay connected. It is a powerful force, one that men sometimes complain about “she wanted to cuddle, I needed to get to work”, and women too “… and then he just left me”.

Oxytocin can be easily fabricated, just with close contact to another human being (or a pet). Just twenty seconds of hug contact, even with a stranger (with a tolerable level of body odor), can dramatically boost levels of oxytocin. It is very much the bonding glue for humans. The fourth chemical is a male neuro-hormone, Vasopressin. Vasopressin is the protection drug, one that kicks in to support feelings of possession and desire to thwart anyone else taking possession. This is now the knight in shining armor threatening to skewer any rival that comes near (or more realistically, the inner thug who would bash someone over the head).

So we have two people (or more, depending on how extreme your lifestyle might be) engaging in a deeply sexual act, and inside the brains you have a rush of chemicals. These chemicals control our bodies response to the act. Moreover, the recollection of this chemical experience will be encoded into our memories so that if we dig back in our minds to experiences past, we can regain at least a part of the actual feeling experienced at the time. Now for some controversy, and this is all based around our vital bonding agent, oxytocin. When you continue to have sex with the same person, there is a build up of oxytocin. You may have noticed that you become closer and closer to a person in the first months of meeting them. There is (hopefully) a desire to see the other person again, to be bonded, and to deepen that bonding. Hence the desire to go on holiday together, do more things together, spend more time in each other’s company (which also prevents someone else sneaking in). Oxytocin has its own expectation effect. Just like the quest for dopamine, there would be a desire to get another oxytocin hit, a friendly hug perhaps, or more. Oxytocin itself becomes addicting and with continued presence of another specific person, this becomes encoded to the other person. Oxytocin helps bond and maintain bonds even if there is no good sense to other aspects of the relationship. One can remain blind to these faults if oxytocin is maintained. And that means continuing sexual relations with your partner. Those of you in longer term relationships, more than two years, will probably have experienced the distance that is created if one does not maintain a sexual relationship. In some cases, this morphs the relationship into a best-friend partnering. At worst, lifting the veil of oxytocin gives one person in the couple, if not both, the opportunity to see the person in a new, more rational light. That often ends in a break up, or a much more argumentative relationship with few benefits. Whilst oxytocin must be maintained, it has a more dampening impact on sex itself. Over time, as oxytocin between a couple builds up, it reduces the impact of both dopamine and serotonin. This would happen anyway as habit builds up in our neuro-systems, so things become less novel, and practical couple issues become more prominent (such as “who is going to take the kids into school tomorrow”). Therefore as oxytocin builds up, sex is just not as fun any more. Certainly not in comparison to the highs of the first months, and maybe couple of years of a sexual relationship.

One other function of oxytocin is even more controversial to those who believe in true eternal love. Oxytocin not only bonds people together. It also, on ‘first use’ has the effect of erasing the memories of the previous partner. If you think about it, this is a handy survival mechanism. In ancient times, you can imagine your first true love, a hunter of saber tooth tigers, lying dead in a ditch, or your wife dying in childbirth. Life without a partner can be significantly more stressful than life with one.

Men have an intuitive understanding of the erasing effects of oxytocin. The most natural response for a guy on break-up is to find someone else to sleep with. This response helps them overcome their feelings of loss, whilst starting the bonding process with another person. Of course, men are also aware of the potential vulnerabilities they might experience, hence the caution over rebound relationships. As for love, this is a much wider topic. Somehow though, it feels unfair or just plain wrong to discuss sex without love. For simplicity’s sake, we will cut short a deep discussion and focus on some core points. Love as a behavioral pattern has a component of desire, an element of pleasure, a need for closeness, and a sense of desperation or anxiety. Fortunately there are good neurological reasons that can explain these experiences, even if they might seem cold-hearted to some. In seeking a new partner, we may find ourselves attracted to someone. (By the way, don't worry about love, 'cause we will see the chemistry behind it too.)

The expectation of the dopamine and desire for serotonin and oxytocin are powerful motivators to find someone to connect with. Even at this early stage, our memories start creating a platform, a structure, for us to fall in love at some point in the future. Our memories are stored in an associative way. We do not store things like a computer, all facts and data points. Instead we store memories as a synthesis of different experiences and emotions, combining facts – our interpretation of facts – with feelings. For the strongest memories, we have an extra chemical charge that is attached to these original feelings. This makes it more likely that the memories will be retrieved, both because they are more intense, and because they give us new pleasure.

So sex is just a product of neuro-hormones that are released inside our neuron system. Due to that cause, some kind of chemical reactions occurs inside our mind and makes the feeling, happiness. After all, we are just a sequence of live chemical reactions. For those, who are reading this and they're in high school, don't screw up in chemistry lesson.