Strange how coincidences work I just mentioned her a couple of days ago in a post here and there she was this morning on TV so I listened to a bit of her while I drank my coffee before heading out the door.
I read her book "why we love" a few years ago and found it very interesting and insightful. It comes at love from a research point of view and she has studied the brain chemistry as well from the POV as an anthropologist.
I only caught the tail end of the interview but one thing that grabbed my attention, was her talking about two separate drives. One drive for lust and for love.
In the context of what many of our collective sexual difficulties stem from is expecting that the two should be in alignment. If you love me then you should feel lust for me. I know that uniting the two has been a struggle in my own life.
Here is a link to some free articles by the author. link
I'm going to read lust, attraction and attachment in the mammalian brain, because I'm just nerdy enough to f#ck.
Thanks for the link. I followed it, and now I'm reading "Lust, Romance, Attachment: Do the Side Effects of Serotonin-Enhancing Antidepressants Jeopardize Romantic Love, Marriage, and Fertility?"
It starts with a description of how "intense courtship attraction" (i.e., being in love) and lust are governed by different pathways in the brain, and notes that higher levels dopamine and possibly norepinephrine are involved with intense courtship attraction as well as lowered levels of serotonin. Boosting serotonin activity, therefore, can block intense courtship attraction.
I'm about halfway through it, and everything that follows here is not from the paper.
Now in some people, "intense courtship attraction" produces decidedly unattractive behaviors (Why? Maybe because of a generally dysfunctional mentality that needs to be treated anyway?), so suppressing it to some degree may improve a romantic relationship or even enable one. (I think that's true in my case) Also, some antidepressants also boost norepinephrine activity, which might keep the serotonin boost from killing the courtship attraction entirely. (Also plausible for yours truly... I find my own "courtship attraction" characterized by more "loving" behaviors and less "needy" behaviors during treatment, and more stable since it's more consistently reciprocated)
Anyway, I'll finish the article later and see what she concludes.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
Have you found anything in your readings that would give us HD's some way of producing the chemical rush of love and lust without out partners? That is the hardest part of SSM's, that I have to go without the chemicals caused by physical touch. It is such a complex chemical soup, and HIGHLY addictive.
