Ever heard the familiar complaints: "All he wants is sex!" and "She's just not the hot babe I got together with!"? Well, they seem to be backed up by actual research. A new study shows that women tend to lose sexual interest in their mates, while men lose affectionate interest in theirs. Researchers found that after 4 years, less than half of the 30-year-old women polled wanted regular sex. Men's desire to engage in tenderness for its own sake fell off just as quickly.
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There's enough research on the effects of sex on the brain (via neurochemicals) to support a more illuminating hypothesis to explain these findings. In fact, it saddens us that researchers fail to consider a possible neurochemical explanation, for reasons we will explain in a moment.
Unpopular as the notion may be, there is growing evidence that the effects of sex on the brain are in some ways similar to the effects of recreational drugs. That is, orgasm is the high phase of a cycle that also has a low phase. During the low phase, lovers' neurochemistry is profoundly different than during the orgasm phase. It changes the way they see each other for the worse.
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Unfortunately, by not addressing our inherent passion cycle, we humans do three things:
* We perpetuate the belief that the only normal sex is sex that keeps lovers locked in a deteriorating cycle of highs and lows.
* When the lows overtake us, this blindspot leaves us vulnerable to the clumsy, and possibly dangerous, sexual enhancement drugs marketed (and soon to be marketed) by the pharmaceutical companies.
* By indirectly targeting the wrong problem for correction, we discourage ourselves from investigating the various lovemaking traditions that would protect our lovemaking from this addictive cycle, and strengthen our emotional bonds.
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The results of the study mentioned earlier suggest that the genders tend to react to the underlying cycle in characteristic ways - men by withdrawing emotionally, women by withdrawing sexually. In fact, however, everyone reacts differently to this drop off of dopamine. Apathy, irritability, mood swings, a sense of depletion, emotional neediness, emotional numbness, and an urge to pursue addictive behaviors or substances, are common responses to the post-passion withdrawal phase in both sexes.
In other words, post-passion neurochemical strategies are not strictly gender-specific. It is not always men who want more sex, or women who want more non-goal-oriented affection. In relationships where the woman's libido is higher than her mate's, he often loses interest in sex - and the woman is equally disinclined to be generous with unconditional affection (i.e., affection without orgasm as her goal).
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We humans tend to believe that an intense urge to have sex is proof of a "mighty libido," but it may turn out that in today's porn-saturated, pro-orgasm culture, it is more often simply proof of "intense withdrawal discomfort" caused by low dopamine following sexual satiation (over-stimulation of the reward circuit of the brain). In effect, a burning desire to make love is not evidence that the withdrawal (or low dopamine) phase has passed; it may instead signal its nadir.
As explained, a male-model lover in the "ebb" portion of the passion cycle is desperate to get his dopamine up - something passion can easily achieve. Not only that, orgasm will usually temporarily bump up his oxytocin.11 So his strategy for returning to feeling "in love" is to strive for orgasm with his partner. Briefly, his strategy succeeds.
Unfortunately, however, when his dopamine plummets shortly afterward, his emotional bond also weakens again. This leaves the post-passion lover in a particularly uncomfortable bind: emotionally distant (because the dopamine, or desire, element of the bonding mechanism is largely absent) and (very soon) sexually-frustrated. One possible outcome is a pattern of cold behavior, completely lacking in affection, punctuated by brief periods of lust (excruciatingly portrayed by Leo Tolstoy in The Kreutzer Sonata).12
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The tragedy is that the harder an uncomfortable male pursues relief, the more he may drive an emotional wedge between himself and his "frigid" lover - and the less inclined she may be to offer the nourishing comfort of sexual intercourse in the future.
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The female response to withdrawal discomfort generally leads to a different overall strategy. It may be heavily influenced by oxytocin, perhaps because a woman naturally produces more oxytocin than a man. As with dopamine, oxytocin has lots of benefits when at balanced levels. Research reveals that oxytocin tends to calm, speed healing, increase sexual receptivity, and counter the effects of cortisol (stress), cravings, and depression. Oxytocin is also linked to emotional bonds. Indeed, we could not fall in love without it.
However, as with dopamine, excessive oxytocin (or oxytocin binding to the "wrong" receptors) can have quite different effects. Recent research shows that relationship distress is actually associated with higher oxytocin (possibly due to high prolactin) — but does not counter a woman's stress response.17 In other words, her high oxytocin doesn't help her cope when she perceives disharmony in her relationship (a common perception during with withdrawal phase of the passion cycle). Indeed, high oxytocin may exacerbate her insistence upon a closer union (making her clingy, demanding, or irrationally jealous).18 She may also seek relief through processing her relationship woes with friends, shopping, eating chocolate ice cream, and so forth.
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All of this means that, during withdrawal, just as a man perceives his first order of business to be raising his dopamine with passion, a woman perceives her first order of business to be resolving the relationship disharmony that is associated with her elevated oxytocin (and prolactin?). Her exaggerated behavior not infrequently drives her partner away…indirectly causing her to fulfill evolution's command to end her relationship and move on.
The media's assurance that a happy sex life is one that conforms to the addictive passion cycle has unwelcome implications for women as well. Researchers tend to pathologize a woman's natural lack of response to a lover suffering from withdrawal (especially during her own withdrawal). Pharmaceutical companies are already seeking approval for drugs that would artificially elevate her dopamine with sexual enhancement drugs. These could very likely have risky side effects.
In truth, her libido is most likely dormant, not ill (as those who opt for affairs will attest.19) More significantly, such drugs cannot duplicate the subtle, complex neurochemical dance required to keep partners "in love." At best they can inflame the addictiveness of sex, and, sadly, the severity of the withdrawal phase itself - creating even more emotional friction.
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Alas, evolution has shaped both men and women to slide from feeling "in love" toward feeling disillusioned. Selfishness and defensiveness replace mutual consideration as the basis of the relationship. This may explain the brevity of the "honeymoon" period during most relationships. One study found that the glow generally begins to fade in the second year of marriage.20
In this way intimate relationships tend to become hostile or flat over time - and yet surprisingly rapidly. We say "surprisingly" because friendships and relationships with pets and children don't suffer such rapid, radical deterioration.
