Sex and Desire IV

The Science of Sexual Desire

For four weeks, we have explored various aspects of desire. We have looked at the way desire emerged from the Indian myth of Radha and Krishna, and last week, we looked at the evolutionary roots of casual sex. I think it's fair to say that at the root of the desire for casual sex lies that pesky sense that passionate sexual desire can only be found in the transcendence of the mundane routines of domestic life- exactly Jayadeva's point.

Here we will explore what contemporary research on desire has to say about desire.

Contemporary Research on Desire

Despite the archaic attraction, and despite the fact that our ancestry is filled with casual sex (despite even the evolutionary significance of casual sex), much of the research of sexuality is focused on marriage. This is in part, of course, because of the secrecy that accompanies the illicit, and in part because of the brief and fleeting nature of the affair.

Research on desire is relatively new and for the longest time deemed rather insignificant. It was up until fairly recently commonly assumed that sexual interest was a given and that it came about more or less instinctively. This changed when people who experienced problems with sexual arousal became a source of scientific interest. Desire is now more and more seen as a distinct aspect of sexuality and is receiving much scholarly attention. Here, I will briefly touch on two of those new studies on desire.

Desirous Genes

One of these recent theories on desire suggests that sexual desire may not be an entirely psychological thing, as common understanding would have it. Rather, it might be, at least in part, in our genes. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered that differences in the way sexual desire is experienced could be explained by genetic variations.

The scientists looked at the genetic blueprints of both male and female university students and compared these blueprints with the students' self-described sexual desire, arousal and sexual function. Turns out that there is a connection between variants in a gene (the D4 receptor) and the students' descriptions of their own sexuality. The researchers suggest that the presence of particular genes either increase or decrease arousal and sexual charge.

In that same study, researchers also found that women and men were equally aroused by certain magazines and films, but women reported much more sexual dysfunction. And I thought that the stereotypical idea of women as not having strong sexual desires was a thing of the past! Cory Silverberg notes that indeed, as women increasingly take charge of and possess their own sexual agency, clichés about women avoiding sex with lines like "not tonight dear, I have a headache" are slowly disappearing.

Headaches and Sex

And this is where the second study I want to discuss comes in. This study, published in the journal Headache, looks at the relationship between headaches and sexual desire and suggests that the opposite of that old cliché might be true.

The study looked at the connection between migraine headaches and sexual desire. Researchers expected that migraine sufferers would experience stronger sexual desire. This is because of serotonin, a brain chemical. Serotonin overkill kills libido, but it turns out that migraine sufferers have low levels of serotonin. The results confirmed that indeed, male and female migraine sufferers have stronger sexual desire in comparison to, as they themselves see it, their non-migraine suffering peers, and also in comparison to people with tension headaches.

In their closing comment, the researchers commented:

The excuse, "Not tonight honey I have a headache," will probably remain a valid option in eluding sexual activity, but those suffering from migraine may be the least likely to use it (as cited by Cory Silverberg)

In the past four weeks, we have explored a wide array of aspects of desire, from myth, to genetics, serotonin, evolution and the freedom from the mundane routine of domestic life. Whichever we use to explain our own desires and or how we act on them (or not!) is, as with all things, simply a matter of which argument we find most desirable?