Category Archives: Sex addiction

brains and addiction

The Brain Chemicals of Sex

February 10, 2016

Brain On Sex: How The Brain Functions During Sex

The act of having sex or making love is a very complicated exercise. It is far from the simple physical act of merging sexual organs together. The sexual practice has actually to involve some emotional feeling from both individuals doing the act. For these emotional feelings from both the couple to work together in unison, there would be need for some body coordination. This coordination of the bodies of those in the act of having sex is done by the brains of both the couple. The brain has some chemicals that aid in this type of coordination. When both couples are in the mood for sex, the brain sends a communication to the receptors that are responsible and these chemicals are released as a result; dopamine, norepinephrine, prolactin, oxytocin and vasopressin, endorphins, serotonin, phenylethylamine, and testosterone.

The Brain Chemicals of Sex

When a couple is about to engage in a sexual act, their bodies experience some sexual feeling and excitement. Both their brains respond by releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is released by the part of the brain called ventral striatum. This is the part of the brain is wired in such a way that it is essentially the reward sensing system part of the brain, which acts as the pathway to experiencing pleasure. So when the couple starts to get intimate or start doing things that are slightly sexual in nature, as kissing and touching intimately, dopamine surge within their brains increases. This causes a lot of pleasure anticipation for the couple that they completely have no control over. The desire drives them crazy, and being that their brains probably know what they should do; sexual intercourse becomes an involuntary act. And this is how their bodies get used to responding each time they come into contact with each other in some sexually suggestive way.

Working closely with dopamine is the phenylethylamine. This chemical is produced by the brain in response to the sexual desire of the body. When a couple feels sexually attracted to each other, phenylethylamine is released in the brain. This hormone causes sexual attraction between the couple in addition to the feeling of excitement. It is also the hormone that triggers the production of dopamine. Its production occurs during sex and peaks at orgasm.

Before getting to the actual sexual act, the bodies and brains of both the couple need to be put at ease and ready for sex. At this stage, the brains respond by producing norepinephrine hormone. This hormone is responsible for making the body ready for sexual intercourse. It creates some sense of focus and alertness to the brains as it communicates to them what is coming. This focus on the brain is needed for the act of making love to be satisfactory to both couples. This is because sex goes beyond just the physical aspect of it. The feelings need to be internalized and processed from the inside too.

Brain and sex

Next in line of hormonal production on the brain during sexual intercourse are the oxytocin and vasopressin. These two hormones are for bonding. They assist the brains of the couple commit to bonding between their bodies. This it does by laying down a long-term memory for the brain cells. What normally happens during sex is that, the oxytocin hormone triggers or stimulates the prostate, which in turn causes the muscles of the body to contract, thereby causing sensitization of the nerves. This leads to the climax, hence the sexual orgasm. At which point the bodies of the couple experience the bonding as those their bodies were one.

Endorphins is another brain hormonal is released by the body during sex. It is formed within the body that binds to the opiates receptor sites in the brain. The hormone that that calming effect on the body by creating the sense of well-being and relaxation during sex. It also causes high wave of pleasure during sex.

The ultimate climax of making love or having sex is the orgasm. When a couple achieves orgasm during sex, there is the blissful feeling of pleasure that comes from deep down the bond created by orgasm. At the same time, a hormone called serotonin is released. Serotonin makes the body relax and calms down after having sex. The good feeling of sex is, and the good aftermath feeling is caused by this hormone. Then finally, there is the hormone called the prolactin. This hormone disengages the brain off the orgasm feeling. It clears off the orgasm arousal hence shifting the concentration of the mind off sex.

Brain On Sex: How The Brain Functions During Sex

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Digital-sexuality

Digital Revolution and Sexuality

February 4, 2016

Just how much has digital revolution impacted on sexuality?

The world has come a long way regarding the way information is accessed, received or even passed on. This is concerning the time it takes and the efficiency with which one takes to get or pass on a piece of information. Thanks to the digital revolution, information access, retrieval, and dissemination have become quite efficient. On the pre-digital era, it would take considerable effort for one to get a piece of information and yet still, to pass on that same information to the intended recipient. However, with the great revolution that has taken place in the recent years, information access is now a click away.

Digital revolution has seen the emergence of computer technology as the main form of searching for, accessing, retrieving and sending of information from one point to another. The Internet has emerged and with it the social media; WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter among others. It is, therefore, a common knowledge that this development in information availability has some profound effect. The article now talks of digital revolution and sexuality.

Digital revolution and sexuality

Sexuality has, since the ancient times, been treated as sacred. It is sexual feeling or behavior that surfaces when two people are intimate, a state that is now under threat. Thanks to the digital revolution, the sacred value of sexuality is quickly becoming extinct. The emergence of so many digital gadgets and platforms has made in practically impossible for sexuality to be between just two people.

Sexual morality in public and private has been greatly jeopardized through the digital revolution era. The internet is full of sexual contents ranging from nude photos of celebrities and even unknown individuals who post them there for attention from the public. Apart from the nude photo, the internet, and many social media platforms are full of sex tapes and pornographic videos. Exposure to this kind of information has led to great moral decadence. Prostitution has become the in thing as people now tend to pay for sex and others willing to get paid for sex. These are just ideas people who were previously morally upright have got from the digital world.

The digital era has also brought about bad habits like child sex abuse. Teenagers get exposed to sexuality at a very early stage in their development due to the technological advancement, or digital revolution. From the erotic videos they get exposed from the Internet and other networks with explicit sexual contents, teenagers develop the inappropriate urge to explore and experiment on their sexuality. They, therefore, end up having sex at a very early age.

Revolution in the digital world has also brought vices like sexual harassment and violence in sexual practices. People watch those commercial erotic videos and porn posted on the internet, and because of the violent nature of some, they want to put into practice the same. This also leads to addiction in sex as one would get aroused every time they think of porn or watch.

Sexual satisfaction with their partners is also affected by this digital revolution. When someone is addicted to watching porn and the sexual videos available over the internet, they ran the risk of experiencing some dissatisfaction when they have sex with their partners. This is because they will want to put into practice what they watch and because their partners do not have the same experience will not meet their expectation. Apart from that, they may also feel dissatisfied with their bodies. Sexual dissatisfaction with one partner will drive the porn addict to find other partners ending up practicing dangerous sexual practices. Having multiple sexual partners may lead to sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Digital revolution and sexuality

The sexual dissatisfaction caused as a result of too much exposure to the internet pornography, and the unmatched expectations may also lead to practices such as masturbation. This come as a result of the desire for sex that is developed by the individual but is unable to have sex for so reason such as lack of presence of a partner or poor socializing habits that are also developed due to over indulgence on porn watching.

In cases where one is over indulged or addicted to porn viewing, such medical conditions as erectile dysfunction do arise. Victims of porn watching may suffer from the above in that it becomes so hard for them to achieve a normal erection without depending on those videos. It, therefore, make personal relationships for them hard to keep, for whereas one partner will normally function, the other would need some stimulation.

Just how much has digital revolution impacted on sexuality?

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sex

Brain Activity In Sexual Addiction

February 4, 2016

Understanding Brain Activity In Sexual Addiction

Brain activity was studied while the subjects were looking at pornographic pictures.  The researchers responsible for this study used fMRI which uses a BOLD signal to monitor brain activity.  They studied the responses of 19 male subjects who were self-admitted sexual addicts who were unable to control their sexual behavior and whose sexual behavior was causing significant problems for them. They then compared these findings with 19 other young men who were classified as being healthy and who had no problems with controlling their sexual habits.

Compared to the 19 healthy volunteers, the men afflicted with compulsive sexual behavior had started looking at pornographic pictures at a younger age and spent significantly more time looking at pornographic literature than did the healthy volunteers.  In many ways, the patients resembled people who are addicted to drugs, in that they continued behaviors that were having negative impacts on their relationships and jobs.  The objective of the study was to find out if their brains mirrored the same type of activity as did the brains of drug addicts.

Brain Activity In Sexual Addiction

To this end, both the healthy volunteers and the patients were shown a series of short videos.  The videos were either sexually explicit in nature, or they were oriented towards sports.  While these videos were being shown, their brain activity was monitored using an fMRI which uses a BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) signal.  The result was that the patients brains had significant increases in activity in three separate areas of the brain, the ventral striatum, the dorsal anterior cingulate and the amygdala, are regions that are also particularly activated in addicts when shown drug stimuli.

The ventral striatum is involved in processing rewards and motivation while the anterior cingulate is involved in anticipating rewards and therefore in drug craving.  The amygdala is involved in the processing of the significance of events and emotions.  The participants in the study were asked to fill out a questionnaire which asked them to rate the videos they saw as to the level of sexual desire experienced while they watched the videos and how much they liked each video.

The reason for the questionnaire was to measure the amount of desire experienced and compared that to the amount of liking.  This is because drug addicts are driven to seek their drug because they perceive a need for it, but have little or no enjoyment of it. In fact, many addicts will state that they don’t use drugs because they enjoy the high any more but because they become really ill if they don’t.

 

The result of the questionnaire was as expected—the sex addicts rated the amount of desire experienced while watching the sexually explicit videos as being high or very high, but rated the liking of the same video as being poor or very low.  This means that the experience perceived by the patients was while stimulating, not very enjoyable.  The patients also experienced higher interactions within the regions of the network identified—with a greater amount of cross-talk between the three regions specified—while watching the sexually explicit rather than the sports videos.

The researchers also found a higher correlation between the age of the patients and the amount of brain activity—the younger patients had higher levels of activity in the ventral striatum in response to pornography. This association was strongest in patients with abnormal sexual activity. The frontal control regions of our brains—the brakes that control our compulsiveness—continue to develop into the mid-twenties.  This imbalance may account for the greater impulsivity and risk-taking associated with young people. The age-related findings in these patients suggest that the ventral striatum may be involved in the development of compulsive sexual behavior much as it is in the development of drug addiction.

Also, a second study seems to show that people with compulsive sexual behavior are more susceptible to cues that trigger their compulsion than are healthy men.  This study showed the men, who were divided between “healthy” men and sex addicts.  They were given identical tasks.  The first task involved looking at a series of images in pairs. These images were of naked women, furniture, and clothed women. They were then shown another series of images, some of which were familiar, and others which were not and told to choose a pair of pictures to win a specified amount of money. The researchers found that the sex addicts were more prone to choose the novel over the familiar choice for sexual images relative to neutral object images but that healthy men were more likely to choose the novel choice for neutral female images over neutral object images.

 

A second task involved learning to associate certain images overlaid with patterns with reward—similar to Pavlov’s dogs.  The men were then given a choice between those images and novel images. This time, the addicts were more likely to pick cues associated with monetary and sexual rewards. This supports the theory that seemingly innocuous cues can trigger a sex addict to seek out sexual images.

Understanding Brain Activity In Sexual Addiction

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pornography-brain

Effects of pornography on brain

February 3, 2016

How Watching Pornography Affects Your Brain
Watching pornography, just, like any hard substance that are abused can have a lasting effect on those who engages in it. This is because, like hard drugs, watching pornography over a long period does affect the brain. Human brains have chemical compositions that aid in the co-ordination of its activities. These chemicals, like dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for sensing reward and pleasure has been known triggered addiction in the case of drugs or substance abuse. It has been therefore noted that, in the case of watching pornography, the release of this same chemical is triggered and as so, the continuous watching leads to addiction.
Addiction in watching pornographic materials, be it photos or videos can have serious effects to the brains of the victims who engages in such practices. Take, for example, a case of a marriage or a serious relationship where one partner is an addict of watching porn. The relationship may get affected since normal intimate communication between the couples may get ruined. Watching pornography, therefore, has the following effects on the brain of the victims.

effects of pornography on brain
First and foremost, there is the question of addiction and dependency. Watching pornographic materials causes the victim not to be able to function normally regarding sexuality. That is to say, they need exposure to porn or have their thoughts focused on some porn materials to get aroused during intimacy. Normally this becomes a problem because the normal partner finds it tough to understand the victim more so if they, normal partner, themselves are ready. When the above scenario occurs, communication becomes difficult between the couple.
Pornographic materials, more specifically, videos are known to be violent in their form. The kind of sexual activities in these videos normally lack the tender that is or should be associated with making love. It has, therefore, been realizes that watching porn makes the victim view love making as just having sex. So for them, the notion of lovemaking is lost to them and do not make any efforts to try and bring out the aspect of intimacy with their partners.
Too much indulgence in watching porn also affects the sexual urge or desire of the victim. The sexual desire or libido of an individual addicted to watching porn is considerably lowered in most cases. Intimacy between two people in love or even a married couple is normally heightened by making love. However, in the case where one partner finds themselves addicted to porn, the intimacy is usually affected. This is because the effects of watching porn leave one with poor sexual libido. It has been found that those who are addicted to porn are so much affected by it to the extent that their sexual lives are affected because they find their partners not to be as good as the porn seemed. This makes them lose interest in making love to their partners as soon as the act begins, hence affecting the relationship in the long run.
The main beauty of making love or being in an intimate relationship with a partner is the ultimate satisfaction that comes with the connection the bodies make. In a normal and healthy relationship between two people, this connection should not just be physical. The intimate connection should also involve some emotional feelings between couples. However, watching pornography drives away the emotional feeling that intimate sex should bring. A victim of Porn views sex as just a physical affair, losing the emotions hence little enjoyment for the partner and even themselves.
It is common knowledge that for one to enjoy intimate sex, all the partners should have to be in the right mood. Consequently, it is of no use for a couple to have sexual intercourse when either does not have the feel of it. When one partner is addicted to watching porn, their sexual needs tend to be self-centered. Porn, therefore, causes selfishness in a relationship. The addicted individual becomes obsessed with their sexual needs that they tend not care for the feelings of their partners. Sex now become their personal need and may not want to listen to any protest from the other partner or even any needs of their own.

effects of pornography on brain
Making love between two intimate couple or in a marriage should be a process, and not just having sex. It is a process that involves foreplay as they get themselves physically and psychologically prepared for the lovemaking act. That is what a normal love making process should sound like, but not when one is addicted to porn. They, the porn addicts, lose the significance of getting the body prepared for the actual act of lovemaking.
Lastly, porn has the effect of creating some sexual disorder to the addicts. Just like the intensity of having sex in porn, the addicts normally apply the same in their normal lives. In such cases, the addict ends up having premature ejaculation and sometimes, even erectile dysfunction as they find it tough to maintain a prolonged erection.
How Watching Pornography Affects Your Brain

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Teen-sexuality

Teens Sexual Disturbance in Digital Age.

February 2, 2016

Teens, Digital Devices, and Sexual Problems

We are in a whole new era; the digital age. The implications of this are both positive and negative depending on what perception one views it on. On teenagers or adolescents, the digital age has caused quite a disturbance on their sexuality.

Access to information has been eased as a result of this new era. Anyone anywhere is now capable of searching, accessing, retrieving and transferring information from practically any location within the globe and teenagers are no exception. The digital age has provided the teens with that platform to access information through personally owned gadgets such as; laptops, iPhones, smartphones, etc. However, it is a common understanding that the information the teenagers seek over the digital platform more so the internet is sexually aligned.

This has led to what can be termed as sexual disturbance or unhealthy sexual behaviors by the teenagers. Before getting to these sexual problems experienced by the teenagers, let us first of all look at the activities the teenagers get involved in as a result of the exposure to the digital platform. Teenagers, as a result of being exposed to the digital platform, has the tendency to watch sexualized videos that are readily available on the internet. Some of them go as far as joining these video chat rooms where they get exposed to nude pictures and videos.

There is also the aspect of sexual exploration. From the experience they get from the chat rooms or networks, teenagers get to explore more about sex, and being teenagers, there is no trusting them that they will be responsible in their exploration. This kind of exploration will usually lead them to pornographic contents on the internet from where they acquire such contents and use them from their gadgets.

teen sexuality and digital age

Social media groups such as those formed on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram among others are some places teenagers get to find or access sexual contents. As a result of being a digital savvy generation, teenagers join such groups in large numbers and end up getting exposed. A part from the social media, there are the smartphone applications such as the “hook-up” apps that these teenagers can easily access due to the digital platform.

The fact that teenagers have gadgets such as smartphones readily available to them has made it possible for them to get engaged in sexting. They therefore get to exchange sex messages with lots of sexual contents.

Effects of Digital Age on Teen Sexuality.

This large exposure of sexual contents to the teenagers has some profound effects on them. Their general development as proper persons with morals and integrity is greatly curtailed.

Teenagers who use or access pornographic contents over the internet,  encounter problems when it comes to interacting with other on a face to face interaction. That is to say that they suffer from social isolation and loneliness. They get captivated by their smartphones or laptops to the extent that they lose that aspect of socializing with others because they tend to have no time for such activities.

There is also the aspect of forming relationships. Teenagers who to get sexual information from the internet tend to encounter serious problems in having relationships with others that actually work. Normally such teenagers will get ideas from the internet gathered across such media as chat rooms and networks and want to apply them in their relationships. For example, they would want to apply what they watch on pornographic contents in their sexual activities with their partners. This kind of adventure normally fails due to lack of satisfaction from the high expectations raised by porn.

effects of digital age on teens sexuality

Sexual addiction is also one problem a teenager is likely to suffer from as a result of exposure as use of digital gadgets. Exposure and accessibility to porn will make a teenager get some sexual inclination which if not controlled lead to sex addiction. He/she will want to put to practice what the watch hence leading to a teenager having too much sex. Again there is the possibility of potential multiple sex partners which is also enhanced by the fact that a teenager can now easily communicate with many partners they meet on social media.

Loss of self-esteem and focus in life among teenagers is also a problem that ca be attributed to the digital age or era. Any teen who gets indulged with watching porn or sexualized video chats will general become reserved and distanced to the outside world. Too much exposure to porn leads to some self-indulgence activities as masturbation which make teenagers loss self-esteem and focus in general.

Teens, Digital Devices, and Sexual Problems

 

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