The Null Device

Love indistinguishable from sex

As Interflora/Hallmark Relationship Tax Payment Day approaches, an interesting article about how good sex is neurochemically indistinguishable from being in love. The thing that does the magic is a neurochemical called oxytocin, which is released during orgasm and triggers the bonding behaviours in the human brain. So the more sex you have, the more oxytocin you have in your brain, and the more "in-love" you feel. Which can be somewhat problematic if you're not suited to each other outside of the bedroom.

(Yes, it's that time of year. Remind me to keep up the tradition and post some links about how (1) being "in love" is biologically indistinguishable from (a) shooting up heroin, or (b) obsessive-compulsive disorder, (2) the sexual marketplace is not the positive, life-affirming thing it's represented as but rather a brutal, atavistic and ugly form of capitalism-red-in-tooth-and-claw, and (3) it's all a con to take your money and prop up florists, trinket-manufacturing sweatshops and the DeBeers diamond monopoly, and so on.)

There are 4 comments on "Love indistinguishable from sex":

Posted by: Graham
http://grudnuk.com
Sun Feb 9 14:56:36 2003

Friends, don't let friends listen to Smiths records.

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Sun Feb 9 15:03:35 2003

Hey, don't knock The Smiths. Morrissey was/is the Oscar Wilde of his time.

Posted by: Ben
http://leviathan.weblogs.com
Sun Feb 9 16:05:15 2003

Shit, when is it again?

Posted by: alex
http://jodi.org
Tue Feb 11 05:30:56 2003

while I was typing in random URLs ... http://www.infidel.org ... I found this interesting essay on St V_l_nt_n_'s Day.

February is named after wet strips of animal skin? Don't tell PETA

http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=260

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