Today’s scientists trace it to release of certain chemicals in the brain when new relationships are formed. Specifically phenylethylamine, which triggers dopamine release. After a period of time(between four months and four years), PEA stops being triggered by being around a person and various endorphins, including oxycontin(the so-called “bonding” chemical) get released instead of PEA(which is a amphetamine). So the “high” changes to a mellow. A relationship structured to avoid the “high” and work together to be compatible without the brain chemistry boost would be more likely to survive the change from high to mellow. So holding off in the activities which stimulate PEA release, working with just closeness, but not passion, and committing to each other under those conditions, may be a good approach. Then you get the high during the beginning of the marriage, but once it wears off you’ll still be able to make it work. A couple who forms the relationship with high PEA levels(passion), may not last when those stop and the endorphins are all they have to work with.
The problem with this comparison is that blind people have no idea of what a room should look like… but they’ll probably have plenty of other great ideas about the sorts of textures they’d like in the room, what layout would be easier to move around in, and what furniture they’d be most comfortable sitting in.
In the same way, a virgin isn’t completely unaware of sex and isn’t necessarily unfamiliar with “sensual experiences”, as you put it. Believe me, even my friends who waited for marriage did more than hold hands with their future husbands/wives, and I’m quite sure they had plenty of experience as to their compatibility on their wedding night.
Agreed, they may not necessarily have been as comfortable with each other as two fully experienced partners may be, but there’s also something to be said for a completely blank slate - breaking old bad habits isn’t easy.
That’s why 1932 books are curiosities, not guides to behavior. Why not build up this non-sexual intimacy over a few months, and then have both before marriage? I suspect he doesn’t have a lot of data from back then, right? He also seems to be reflecting the old sexist view that women should pretend to be interested in what men are interested in to snag them.
If I married someone partially because she liked baseball, and I found it was a fraud, I’d be pretty unhappy. Marriage is not about perfect compatibility (that’s impossible) but about tearing down all barriers between two people. I’d never want to marry someone who I never saw first thing in the morning.
I don’t think constant preferences means that everything will be the same over time. Frequency can change with tiredness and distractions, but that doesn’t mean preferences have changed - as I can testify to, having come out the other side of having kids. Sure you discover new things. But I doubt that there is going to be a big change in major preferences over time. Someone who hated exhibitionism, for a mild example, is not going to all of a sudden want to flash.
Again, the base libido stays the same even when it is modulated by things like childbirth. Knowing that a partner is not interested because of the effects of medicine or stress is a lot different from a basic mismatch. And debates about how many times a week are far different from ones about how many times a year. That’s the mismatch to worry about.
I don’t buy that men feel bonded to sexual partners or feel “as one” unless there’s already an established emotional connection before the sex. Otherwise, it’s just busting a nut. I’ve had one-off sex that felt emotionally no different than masturbation.
I have felt perfectly united through those other things while still having sex. No “sublimation of the sex drive” is required. The "high’ is there with or without the sex. The key is finding someone you can stand to hang out with when the chemicals wear off. Whether you’re boning them or not has nothing to do with the chemical response.
No, not at all, not even a little bit. He says that one really does become interested in baseball (or art or your mother) when courting without sex, due to the sublimation of the sex instinct. You really do feel a bond, and identification with that person and that person’s interests, even if they were things that didn’t interest you before.
Haven’t you felt that? I sure have. Haven’t you seen a friend so enamored of his new girlfriend that he’s suddenly happy to go to a quilting expo? I have. And I’ve also seen lots of those shared interests diminish after marriage or long term pairing. A strong relationship can handle that; an early relationship can’t, IME.
I did not wait until marriage before having sex, but on the other hand I know very well some people who did – family members who are Orthodox Jews. And they seem to be just fine.
That’s what I get for trusting my spellcheck. Stupid pharmaceutical companies getting their brand names in the dictionary while common human hormones still get flagged as misspelled. Bastards. I guess I should be grateful it didn’t come up OxyClean[sup]TM[/sup]
Thanks for the heads-up. Anyone googling for Oxycontin were probably confused as hell when it didn’t turn up anything about human emotional bonding. Oxytocin is the substance which produces these effects.
I think you mean ‘oxytocin’ and I’ve research oxytocin for a bit and this is different than what I’ve read the subject. Oxytocin is a bonding hormone that is released when men kiss, when both partners orgasm while having sex, and when women give birth and lactate their offspring. It increases trust, bonding, affection, love etc. So, if anything, partners should be more bonded if/when oxytocin is released in greater qualities.
If anything, I think the oxytocin release could cause a bonding to a person that would otherwise not occur without that sexual release. That’s the reason why my mother argues that we children should not have sex before marriage: because the oxytocin released during sex causes an intimacy and bonding to form that might not occur otherwise. And, I have observed many times with friends, that it is much harder to end a relationship when you are having sex frequently then when you have stopped.
Personally, I’d tell my children to wait to get to know the person very well before having sex in order to avoid this problem. Not I don’t know of relationships that started in sex that moved to friendship and love, but those seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
The theory driving those who oppose sex outside marriage, including myself, is like this. People who have sex within marriage will generally be happier than those who have sex outside marriage. The sexual behavior typical among young people in western society is a path to unhappiness.
In short, when a person switches sexual partners often, it creates inevitable problems. Jealousy, fear of betrayal, suspicion, insecurity. These cannot be avoided. They arise logically in an environment where any two people can have sex and there’s no attempt to uphold our society’s traditional rules governing sexual behavior.
As for the issue of determining whether partners are compatible before marriage, I view that as a category mistake. Marriage–both the sexual experiences and the rest–is not an experience like brain surgery where you want everything carefully tested and planned before it begins. It is rather an experience like dancing or white-water rafting, where you’ll enjoy it more when you know less about what it will be like.
That’s true, but the feelings of “passion” are not caused by oxytocin(thanks for the correction, I’ve updated my spellcheck). Largely these come from adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Oxytocin is thought to be antagonistic to dopamine and norepinephrine. Curiously enough, the more you “bond”, the less you have “passion” at least if we substitute the crude analogies of dopamine and norepinephrine for “passion” and oxytocin for “bonding.” The chemicals more associated with “passion” (adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine, etc.) are either blocked by other substances over time, or our bodies develop tolerances to them. Bio-chemically speaking, passion doesn’t last.
A relationship built on activities which encourage oxytocin, vasopressin, and endorphins, all of which can remain for a lifetime, is more likely to remain the same throughout than one which was formed in a mind state influenced by adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine, etc., which fade.
That’s what struck me after I read about this too–partners having casual sex with no strings attached and then getting this rush of bondingness. It’s got to be confusing to then tamp all that down and move on.
Not for me. I was happier fucking around when I was single than I was married, and I was married for 8 years. It really depends on the marriage, doesn’t it?
Once again, not for me. When I was switching sexual partners “often” (whatever that means), none of those issues came up. Again, it’s really an individual response, right?
Disagree here, too. You should at the very least know whether you’re going to be basically compatible in the important areas of a marriage (of which sex is definitely at or near the top) if you want the marriage to have any chance at all. Again, I speak from personal experience.
Question: I’ve been with my girlfriend for 9 years now, and we have no plans to get married. Should our relationship therefore be chaste? Because that seems pretty fucking ridonkulous to me.
First off, I don’t believe you can claim that your own personal motivation is the same motivation of all those who oppose sex before marriage. I mentioned a few reasons i’ve heard in the OP; I don’t believe you can generalise from your personal experience (or, rather, if you can generalise from yours generalisations from my personal experiences are equally valid and yet contradictory). And second, what are you basing this measure of happiness on?
Again, i’m going to have to ask you to define things. What is “often”? What exactly do you mean by “switching” - you make it sound like the opposite to abstinence before marriage is partner-swapping at the drop of a hat.
Granted, i’m not married, and in fact haven’t had sex, either. But it seems to me that were I going white-water rafting, though I won’t be plumbing the depths of the river or demanding an analysis of the water, i’d probably like to know the basic safety rules. If i’m going to dance, i’d like to know what the music is so I can dance to it. People don’t tend to get married after knowing each other for a couple of hours; they do tend to get to know one another beforehand. To use your terminology, that’s part of our society’s traditional rules governing sexual behaviour. It just seems to me that, in comparison to the areas where it’s encouraged to know one’s potential spouse well, sex is one area which is treated very much differently.
But change over time is true for everything else about us, too; personality, preferences in general, certainly situation and outlook on life. By the same logic, you could say that perfect compatibility on any matters were bad, since you don’t know what they will be like when matters change. It’s just as reasonable, under that idea, to say getting know a partner at all has bad points.
Really, I don’t disagree with you that over time, it may not have too much of an effect. But I personally think that i’d want to know at least a little about physical sexual compatibility. Talking about sex might be an adequate substitute, but how can it be known for sure without doing it?
I wasn’t criticizing you, only the book.
And no, I haven’t seen any difference in what interested me. More recently, I haven’t seen it in my daughter either. A guy will go to the quilting show to be able to spend more time with the girl, and will hold back nausea, but I think that is a lot different from actually being interested. Even after 30 years of marriage I don’t mind being dragged around to do birdwatching, but that is far more because we like being together in new places than my interest. And reduction of interest is not because of sex, but because people eventually migrate to their real interests over time.