Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
| Blogs > vansexaddiction > My Blog |
Sex at Dawn and Erotic Plasticity
|
Sex at Dawn and Erotic Plasticity How closely connected are our genitals and our brains? I've been reading the book Sex at Dawn by Chris Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. If you've never heard of it go pick it up either at the bookstore or on Audible.com so you can listen to it in your car. It's a book that challenges the standard narrative that people are monogamous. If you are interested in sex it'll be a good read. We know that the biggest sex organ is found between the ears, but that means many different things. Here's some food for thought: the authors relate an experiment conducted by Meridith Chivers, where both men and women were tested for the level of arousal when shown various visual stimuli. Two ways of measuring stimulation were used: the subject could enter their degree of stimulation on a keyboard and blood flow to the genital area was measured at the same time. The idea is simple. Show someone a picture. If they report that they are aroused you would expect that the blood flow measurement to their genitals would also indicate arousal. With man this is exactly what happened. The connection between brain and genitals was direct. Or, at least, the brain and the genitals reacted the same way. And men reacted predictably. Straight men were aroused by pictures of heterosexual sex and gay men were aroused by pictures of homosexual sex. What both straight and gay men reported through the keyboard corresponded to what the bloodflow measurements indicated. The conscious brain and genitals were on the same page. The subjects were shown other pictures in addition to man on woman, man on man and woman on woman sex. Images included a naked man walking along the beach, a naked woman working out, as well as bonobos having sex. Again men seemed straightforward. Naked people engaged in non-sexual activity or bonobos having sex did not arouse them as much as<b> explicit </font></b>images of sexual behavior. Women were a different matter. While lesbian women tended to behave much like gay or straight men (that is, concsious brain and genital blood flow indicating the same level of arousal), straight women did not. Many straight women reported not being aroused by homosexual sex wether man on man or woman on woman but their bloodflow measurements indicated that they were aroused at the genital level. The opposite happened when they were shown heterosexual sex. They reported through the keyboard being very aroused but blood flow to the genitals indicated just regular arousal. You guessed it: they reported no arousal when watching bonobos have sex and yet bloodflow indicated that even that aroused them. (This won't surprise you if you've ever heard the old story about getting a woman worked up by showing her a mare mounted by a stallion). So what we make of this? Where the straight women lying when they reported through the keyboard about their level of arousal? It's possible. There are other stories that ask women to self report on sexual activity under different circumstances i.e. in public or on an anonymous form for under her the monitoring of a lie detector and the same women come up with different answers under each scenario. This might lead you to conclude that the women are lying. I don't think that's the case. I think it's possible that women send themselves to different signals at the same time. Perhaps a part of the brain becomes conditioned by life experience or culture or whatever and so it actually believes that certain stimuli are not arousing. Meanwhile another part of the brain finds all the stimuli arousing and since that message to the genitals. I think, in other words, that the brain could be doing two things at once (of course, I'm no expert - your mileage may vary). I don't know the answer for sure but I prefer the latter interpretation. I'd rather think that women are complex than natural born liars. A single brain with two conflicting agendas may well explain why some women have little interest in sex or have trouble reaching orgasm easily. Of course this is just a snapshot of a small portion of the book. The authors describe it much better than I do and are more knowledgeable about the issue and understand it better. What I find interesting is the role the brain plays in sex and arousal and the idea of erotic plasticity. I can't recommend the book enough, either, and will share more thoughts on it later. |
Become a member to create a blog
