Optimizing Pleasure
Purely hedonistic pursuit and finding the fine line.
Avoiding addiction and unrelated emotional association
Enhancement and periodized experience.
Love and connection to provide meaning and worth.
Relationships
Huberman
Dopamine-Prolactin Dynamics: Sex, Reproduction & Refractory Periods
Seeking mates and reproduction is one of the most powerful drivers. Released on anticipation and consummation of sexual reproduction. After orgasm there is a dramatic decrease and an increase in prolactin.
Prolactin associated with milk let down and lethargy and stillness. It sets the refractory period for men.
The Coolidge Effect: Novelty-Induced Suppression of Prolactin
The refractory period is reduced by novelty.
Vitamin B6, Zinc as Mild Prolactin Inhibitors
“Testosterone producers” by inhibiting prolactin.
Sexual Infidelity: Variety Seeking & (Un)happiness & Mate Switching
Hard to gauge as people like to keep it secret. Participants often drop out of studies when asked.
Sexual infidelity: for men, the primary motive is sexual variety (70%). Low risk, low-cost options. Women who have affairs cite they are emotionally or sexually unhappy in their current relationships, which is why they claim to cheat.
Why? Women risk their long-term mate and there is often reputational damage for both sexes.
Dual mating strategy hypothesis: women are seeking resources and investment from one guy, and genes from another.
Mate switching hypothesis: women who are looking to divest from an existing mateship, or to “trade up” in the mating market, to see whether they are sufficiently desirable so they can transition back into the dating pool, or keeping a ate as potential backup (mating insurance).
Of the women that do have affairs (Kinsey studies) about 70% say they have fallen in love with their affair partner and have become emotionally involved. Very compatible if you want to switch mates vs. dating multiple.
Genetic Cuckolds, How Ovulation Impacts Mate Preference
2-3%. Man believes he is the father when it is really the somebody else’s. Named after the cuckoo bird. Dual mating seemed to be initially supported by ovulation shifts. non-pill taking women, experienced a preference shift for more symmetrical men (weaker data than thought).
Long-Term vs. Short-Term Cheating, Concealment
People who have affairs, women tend to have affairs with one person, and men with multiple. Nowadays, it is easier to meet other people but easier to get caught. Social media and video cameras everywhere.
Emotional & Financial Infidelity
Emotional infidelity: psychologically close to someone else, falling in love, sharing intimate information, etc. In the show “Cheaters,” men would confront asking if they had sex, women ask if he loves her (more of a cue that he will leave her).
Financial infidelity: credit cards that the spouse doesn’t know about, bank accounts, pooled resources, etc. Women who are out spending lots of money or men going to restaurants with other women or strip clubs. Not wanting a paper trail. Or diverting resources to other genetic relatives.
Contraception
A lot of arguments between couples who experienced infidelity end up discussing whether contraception was used or not. Relating to paternity issues and disease. Not using a condom is also a more intimate act, although probably not an evolutionary adaptation as they are recent.
The Power of Competition, Plus: Anxiety, Persistence & Dopamine
The release of steroid hormones from the adrenals (particularly testosterone and its derivatives) are activated by competition. Sex steroid hormones also influence competition.
Testosterone plays a powerful role in determining what males will mate. The males with higher testosterone forage further and will fight harder for females. Testosterone and reduce anxiety, promote novelty-seeking, and promote competitive interactions.
Testosterone secreted from the testes and elsewhere binds to the amygdala and changes the threshold for stress. Making effort feel good and lowering anxiety. More willing to suffer in pursuit of sex.
Competitive environments themselves can increase testosterone short-term. Dopamine, which can be released from winning, can trigger things that go on to increase testosterone.
Increases in testosterone in females also increases mate seeking behavior.
Testosterone & Libido Pre-Ovulation
In females, estrogen increases receptivity to mating, while testosterone increases libido. In males, testosterone promotes seeking and estrogen is important for libido. In people who are hyper-androgenized, their libido will only be high given they also have a high enough ratio of estrogen.
How Sex Behavior Impacts Testosterone: Observing vs. Actual vs. Abstinence
Dopamine and testosterone increase with sexual activity, but after ejaculation there is a release of prolactin (which sets the refractory period in males). Some people take vitamin B6 to reduce prolactin levels and the refractory period.
Men who observe sex can have a slight increase in testosterone (about 10%), but those who participated in sex had a 70% increase. Ejaculation will not reduce testosterone levels, but abstinence for a week or more will increase testosterone up to 400%.
Testosterone & Prolactin: Sex Seeking vs Pair Bonding
Post-sex also increases prolactin in females. Pair bonding is encouraged during the period of calm in the individuals.
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone): Effects on Levels/Ratios
Will increase both testosterone and estrogen to the extent where whatever your starting ratio was and the amount of aromatase in the system will determine the effects. Low test and high estrogen will likely have the effect of more estrogen.
Behaviors That Decrease Testosterone (& Cortisol): Parenting & Prolactin
Expecting fathers have an almost 50% decrease in testosterone, estradiol doubles, and cortisol drops 3-fold. All explained by an increase in prolactin. The assumption is that this is to prepare for long nights with no sleep. Mothers also have an increase in prolactin.
Post-birth prolactin levels have to do with how much physical and odor contact the parent has with the child.
How Illness Impacts Testosterone & Estrogen: Cytokines, e.g., IL-6
Illness releases inflammatory cytokines like IL-6, reducing levels of testosterone and estrogen. IL-6 interacts with the receptors of the steroid hormones so that they can’t have their effect.
How Exactly Do Behaviors Change Hormones?
Many of the effects of behavior on hormone alteration is based on smell, and in some cases possibly pheromones.
Pheromones: Miscarriage, Menstrual Cycles, Puberty Onset, & Mate Recognition
A chemical released by one member of the species that has an effect on another member.
Lee-Boot/Whitten Effect: When you house females of a species together without males, they have longer estrus cycles. The human version of this hasn’t been identified.
Bruce Effect: Pregnant female will abort or absorb the fetus if the father is gone and another male is introduced. A pheromone from the male urine activates the GnRH system and cause reintroduction of the estrus cycle. In humans it is still an open question.
Vandenbergh Effect: Puberty can be accelerated by introducing a novel male. Delays can happen if you put them with more mature females.
Synchronized menstruation: If females wear pads on the armpits and offer the pheromones to other women you can modulate their menstruation cycle patterns by changing the duration and pattern of the ovulation cycle relative to the follicular phase. People are skeptical because there is no well identified pheromone organ.
There is a Jacobson’s organ (if it exists) would be the vomeronasal equivalent in humans, is thought to be a combination of smell and taste.
Girlfriends have been found to pick out a boyfriend’s t-shirt because something seems different even if the smell isn’t detectable.
Flehmen Response: During mating season some animals will open their mouths, exposing their gums, to capture the pheromones in the wind.