How to prepare for "Unexcited? There May Be a Pill for That

[wellnow]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/m...at.html?pagewanted=8&tntemail0=y&_r=5&emc=tnt

I found this quite interesting but have doubts. I think we men will take a while.

enjoy,

wellnow

 

[wellnow]

followup article

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ner-on-the-female-viagra/?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

 

[OnceFuturePoly]

The original article (like most of the NY Times) is behind a pay-wall (requires a login).

For me, this link worked.

 

[OnceFuturePoly]

I'm (not so) surprised about the researchers and the FDA worrying about creating nymphomaniacs. Damn Puritan refugees!


It looks like the current approach is to look for some neurochemical results of arousal, then try to add those into the brain with temporary neurochemical "tweaks".

This sounds like a surfer trying to catch a wave. Right time, right place, right wave, and you can get up on your board and ride. It's never a slam-dunk automatic win.

It would be nice to find something that either 1) triggers the arousal cascade, or 2) blocks the inhibitor that holds the cascade back.


Two observations about men that might actually be relevant, given that the body design seems to conserve structures and processes.

(Where things differ in the body, the design uses as much as possible the same parts and processes for each variation. For example, the same embryo tissue develops into the nerves that in girls connects to the g-spot and in boys connects to the prostate. The design purposes the same tissue differently depending on sex, rather than implementing two different nerves.)

First, the male sex organs normal state are "on", i.e. erect and ready for cotus. The actual details are handled far down the spinal cord (distributed processing, like the heart beat) and the brain itself almost continuously generates a "inhibit" signal to hold back the erection process.

Second, the male brain seems to have some "process" running in background that is always trying to match a desirable female template. Reports frequently surface into consciousness, as in "men are always thinking about sex" or "men think about sex every nnn seconds."


Perhaps scientists should be looking a little further back in the process to see if there is something which holds female arousal inhibited so much of the time?

 

[COCK_STAR]

Viagra works for women...

 

[wellnow]

Great reply - Thanks

I'm (not so) surprised about the researchers and the FDA worrying about creating nymphomaniacs. Damn Puritan refugees!


It looks like the current approach is to look for some neurochemical results of arousal, then try to add those into the brain with temporary neurochemical "tweaks".

This sounds like a surfer trying to catch a wave. Right time, right place, right wave, and you can get up on your board and ride. It's never a slam-dunk automatic win.

It would be nice to find something that either 1) triggers the arousal cascade, or 2) blocks the inhibitor that holds the cascade back.


Two observations about men that might actually be relevant, given that the body design seems to conserve structures and processes.

(Where things differ in the body, the design uses as much as possible the same parts and processes for each variation. For example, the same embryo tissue develops into the nerves that in girls connects to the g-spot and in boys connects to the prostate. The design purposes the same tissue differently depending on sex, rather than implementing two different nerves.)

First, the male sex organs normal state are "on", i.e. erect and ready for cotus. The actual details are handled far down the spinal cord (distributed processing, like the heart beat) and the brain itself almost continuously generates a "inhibit" signal to hold back the erection process.

Second, the male brain seems to have some "process" running in background that is always trying to match a desirable female template. Reports frequently surface into consciousness, as in "men are always thinking about sex" or "men think about sex every nnn seconds."


Perhaps scientists should be looking a little further back in the process to see if there is something which holds female arousal inhibited so much of the time?

I appreciate your excellent reply, even though I did a lacking job of posting.

WellNow

 

[wellnow]

The original article (like most of the NY Times) is behind a pay-wall (requires a login).

For me, this link worked.

It requires registration. I've used it for many years without having to pay a penny, After X amount of monthly use (if is quite reasonable). I seldom reach the limit. The next month is started a zero again.

 

[tonguedancer]

I think to some degree "desire" (if it's to mean sexual desire per se and not "marriage/mating" desire) has for centuries been surpressed by men because many men are afraid of the "sexually desirous" woman who will seek mates other than themselves. The classical thought has been that "men want to spread their seed but women want a single mate and secure home."

This isn't necessarily consistent with other mammalian behavior, especially when considering the bonobo chimpanzees. This is is a subset of chimps that are noted for their openly sexual behavior. They are often called the "nympno chimps" or the "horny chimps". They have casual sex for just about any reason from "celebrating" to "consoling" to making up after fights. It's not always about reproduction with them. The interesting thing is that their DNA is 98% that of human. They are very close to us, we are very close to them. I suspect that if natural "desire" in both men and women weren't surpressed by "social conventions" and "preaching of sin", we humans would be more like them. We obviously can't live like that in civilized society, but the basic urges are/should be there.

Unless there is a legitimate hormonal cause of "lack of desire" in either men or women, I think that condition is largely either self-imposed or externally-imposed by spouses, friends, parents, church, whatever. Often it's related to depression but I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.

I think many times desire can be kindled by the right erotic and or romantic environment and often by those to whom we are not married or otherwise involved. It's the "newness" factor that often triggers desire. It's why it's important for those in long term relationships to do whatever they can to "keep things new". That could involve travel to different places (afternoon delight at a local motel for the purposes of sex and not discussing the bills), role playing as someone else (let yourself and your spouse pretend you're with somebody you shouldn't be with), shared erotic films, DVS's, literature, etc. Do anything that will trigger the release of "mating" hormones which won't be released by discussions of this week's little league schedule, the PTA meeting, taking out the trash, or similar dull, boring, everyday things.

I think drugs, pharmaceuticals of any sort, should be avoided if possible. We are becoming a species of drug dependency because we've become estranged from our more primitive drives. We don't release our hunting and fighting and mating urges enough while watching TV and eating pizza.

 

[InsatiableDsire]

I think to some degree "desire" (if it's to mean sexual desire per se and not "marriage/mating" desire) has for centuries been surpressed by men because many men are afraid of the "sexually desirous" woman who will seek mates other than themselves. The classical thought has been that "men want to spread their seed but women want a single mate and secure home."

This isn't necessarily consistent with other mammalian behavior, especially when considering the bonobo chimpanzees. This is is a subset of chimps that are noted for their openly sexual behavior. They are often called the "nympno chimps" or the "horny chimps". They have casual sex for just about any reason from "celebrating" to "consoling" to making up after fights. It's not always about reproduction with them. The interesting thing is that their DNA is 98% that of human. They are very close to us, we are very close to them. I suspect that if natural "desire" in both men and women weren't surpressed by "social conventions" and "preaching of sin", we humans would be more like them. We obviously can't live like that in civilized society, but the basic urges are/should be there.

Unless there is a legitimate hormonal cause of "lack of desire" in either men or women, I think that condition is largely either self-imposed or externally-imposed by spouses, friends, parents, church, whatever. Often it's related to depression but I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.

I think many times desire can be kindled by the right erotic and or romantic environment and often by those to whom we are not married or otherwise involved. It's the "newness" factor that often triggers desire. It's why it's important for those in long term relationships to do whatever they can to "keep things new". That could involve travel to different places (afternoon delight at a local motel for the purposes of sex and not discussing the bills), role playing as someone else (let yourself and your spouse pretend you're with somebody you shouldn't be with), shared erotic films, DVS's, literature, etc. Do anything that will trigger the release of "mating" hormones which won't be released by discussions of this week's little league schedule, the PTA meeting, taking out the trash, or similar dull, boring, everyday things.

I think drugs, pharmaceuticals of any sort, should be avoided if possible. We are becoming a species of drug dependency because we've become estranged from our more primitive drives. We don't release our hunting and fighting and mating urges enough while watching TV and eating pizza.

Great post

I read the article quickly the other day and meant to come back to the discussion. Let me review and see if I have anything to add...

 

[InsatiableDsire]

Viagra works for women...

No, it doesn't.

 

[MatthewVett]

First, the male sex organs normal state are "on", i.e. erect and ready for cotus. The actual details are handled far down the spinal cord (distributed processing, like the heart beat) and the brain itself almost continuously generates a "inhibit" signal to hold back the erection process.

This is also pretty much why men who are being hanged develop erections and often ejaculate.

 

[InsatiableDsire]

The most interesting excerpts to me:

"But for many women, the cause of their sexual malaise appears to be monogamy itself."

"He shows women and men in new relationships reporting, on average, more or less equal lust for each other. But for women who’ve been with their partners between one and four years, a dive begins — and continues, leaving male desire far higher. (Within this plunge, there is a notable pattern: over time, women who don’t live with their partners retain their desire much more than women who do.)"

"Studies conducted recently are beginning to hint that female eros isn’t in the least programmed for fidelity."

"An experiment led by Samantha Dawson, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, and another by Stephanie Both, a psychologist and assistant professor at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, looked at the issue in another way. Heterosexual women and men watched pornographic film clips while their vaginas and penises were monitored. The subjects watched a one-minute sex scene repeatedly, with breaks in between to let genital blood flow return to a baseline state. Dawson’s and Both’s results show women’s responses leaping at first, then, in Dawson’s study, tracking the rapid downturn of the men, and in Both’s, plummeting while the men’s reactions stayed surprisingly constant. When the researchers introduced what are called “novel stimuli,” in this case new clips of pornography, “vaginal pulse amplitude,” like penile engorgement, spiked immediately."​

To me, this resonates. Women seem to need new and varied stimuli.

"This interplay of experience and neural pathways is widely known as neuroplasticity. The brain is ever altering. And it is neuroplasticity that may help explain why hypoactive sexual desire disorder is a mostly female condition, why it seems that women, more than men, lose interest in having sex with their long-term partners. If boys and men tend to take in messages that manhood is defined by sex and power, and those messages encourage them to think about sex often, then those neural networks associated with desire will be regularly activated and will become stronger over time. If women, generally speaking, learn other lessons, that sexual desire and expression are not necessarily positive, and if therefore they don’t think as much about sex, then those same neural networks will be less stimulated and comparatively weak. The more robust the neural pathways of eros, the more prone you are to feel lust at home, even as stimuli dissipate with familiarity and habit."​

VERY interesting. As a parent, (albeit of boys) I struggle to convey that sex is good and natural and fun while installing a sense of appropriateness and responsibility. I get why it's easier to say it's "bad" or "don't do it". But we have to achieve the balance to encourage women to be more sexual (stimulating those neural pathways).


And the sum up, that, even with a pill:

"All the agonies that have existed since the dawn of monogamy will still pertain, many of them coming down to the craving to feel special."​

Yup.

 

[Traveler78]

This isn't necessarily consistent with other mammalian behavior, especially when considering the bonobo chimpanzees. This is is a subset of chimps that are noted for their openly sexual behavior. They are often called the "nympno chimps" or the "horny chimps". They have casual sex for just about any reason from "celebrating" to "consoling" to making up after fights. It's not always about reproduction with them. The interesting thing is that their DNA is 98% that of human. They are very close to us, we are very close to them. I suspect that if natural "desire" in both men and women weren't surpressed by "social conventions" and "preaching of sin", we humans would be more like them. We obviously can't live like that in civilized society, but the basic urges are/should be there.

We are just as closely related to common Chimpanzees who don't use sex in the same way and the Bonobos tend to show much less tool use in the wild compared to Chimps (a trait very different from humans). Bonobos evolved from a common ancestor to use sex as a means to relieve tensions within a group. Comparing their behavior to ours and chimpanzees is interesting to think about, but it's hard to really draw any conclusions from it about what human behavior is like.