Romantic Love and the Brain

When it comes to love, it’s been said that the brain is the most erotic organ in your body. Indeed, being head over heels in love is an emotionally intoxicating brain state. Do the overpowering feelings of romantic love involve a unique pattern of brain activity?

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect brain activity, researchers Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki (2000) investigated that idea with 17 love-struck young adults, all professing to be “truly, deeply, madly in love” with their romantic partner. Each participant was scanned several times while gazing at a photo of the romantic partner. Alternating with the “love” scans were “friendship” scans taken while the participant looked at a photo of a good friend who was of the same sex as the loved one.

Bartels and Zeki’s (2000) results suggest that romantic love activates brain areas that are involved in other positive emotions, such as happiness, but in a way that represents a unique pattern. Shown here is an fMRI brain scan depicting some of the brain areas activated by romantic love. Compared to looking at a photo of a close friend, looking at a photo of one’s romantic partner produced heightened activity in four brain areas associated with emotion, including the anterior cingulate cortex (not shown), caudate nucleus (C), putamen (P), and insula (I).

Given the complexity of the sentiment of romantic love, the researchers were surprised that the brain areas activated were so small and limited to so few regions. Nonetheless, the four activated brain areas offer some insight into the intoxicating effects of romantic love. Why? Because these are the same brain areas that are activated in response to euphoria-producing drugs, such as opiates and cocaine. And the good news is that these brain areas remain activated long beyond the early excitement of new love. A study of long-term couples—married an average of about 21 years—showed a similar pattern (Acevedo & others, 2011).

Interestingly, the flip side is true as well. Romantic love activates the same regions as the biological euphoria from certain drugs, and romantic breakups activate the same regions as physical pain. In an article titled “Broken Hearts and Broken Bones,” Naomi Eisenberger (2012) outlined the biological similarities between social and physical pain. Both types of pain include increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula. Researchers even found that acetaminophen, often sold as Tylenol, reduced the emotional pain of social rejection as compared to a placebo (DeWall & others, 2010). Hurt feelings, then, may be more than a metaphor. Clearly, there seem to be some close neural links between romantic love and euphoric states.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Sexual Fantasies

The brain is the most erotic organ in the human body. After all, the brain plays a pivotal role in the expression of human sexuality. What people think about and imagine influences how they behave sexually. And, in turn, people’s sexual behavior can influence the content of their sexual fantasies—erotic or sexually arousing mental images. In the realm of human sexuality, the mind–body connection is definitely a two-way street.

We experience sexual fantasies in the private theater of our own minds, but psychologists have discovered that sexual fantasies are a nearly universal human phenomenon. Using checklists and questionnaires, researchers have been able to answer various questions about people’s sexual fantasies. With the help of excellent research summaries by University of North Texas psychologists Joseph W. Critelli and Jenny M. Bivona (2008) and University of Vermont psychologists Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning (1995), we’ll answer some questions about this private human experience.

When and How Often Do People Have Sexual Fantasies?

Sexual fantasies tend to begin during the adolescent years, and almost all adult men and women (95 percent) report having had sexual daydreams. It is very common for both men and women occasionally to engage in sexual fantasies during intercourse. But compared to women, men report a higher incidence of sexual fantasies during masturbation and nonsexual activities. In short, men tend to think about sex more often than do women.

What Do People Have Sexual Fantasies About?

If you accept the notion that any fantasy, sexual or not, is based to some degree on life experiences, the three most common types of sexual fantasies that men and women have won’t surprise you. They are (1) reliving an exciting sexual experience, (2) imagining that they are having sex with their current partner, and (3) imagining that they are having sex with a different partner.

Do Male and Female Sexual Fantasies Differ?

There are some well-substantiated differences. First, men tend to fantasize themselves in active roles—that is, doing something sexual to their partner. In contrast, women tend to imagine themselves in sexually passive roles—that is, having something sexual done to them.

Second, men tend to have sexual fantasies with more explicit imagery, often involving specific sexual positions or anatomical details. Women are more likely to imagine romantic themes, including warm, loving feelings about their partner and details about the romantic ambiance of the scene.

Third, men are more likely to imagine having sex with short-term partners or with multiple partners (Buss & Schmitt, 2011; King & others, 2009). As Leitenberg and Henning (1995) put it, “Fantasizing about having sex with multiple partners at the same time appears to be more consonant with the male stereotype of being a ‘superstud’ than with the female stereotype of wanting a close, loving, monogamous relationship.”

Are Sexual Fantasies Psychologically Unhealthy?

Some people are troubled by their sexual fantasies. About 25 percent of people experience some degree of guilt over having sexual fantasies. This guilt is usually due to the belief that their sexual fantasies are immoral, are harmful to their relationships, or indicate that something is wrong with them.

However, the people who engage in sexual fantasies most often tend to exhibit the least number of sexual problems and the lowest level of sexual dissatisfaction (Leitenberg & Heming, 1995). The bottom line: Sexual fantasies seem to be a common, normal element of human sexuality.

Is it true that most adults have had multiple sexual partners in the last year?

Hooking Up on Campus

Pop culture and the news media alike have been abuzz about today’s hook-up culture. Katy Perry sings, “There’s a stranger in my bed, there’s a pounding in my head,” in her number one Billboard hit, “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” (Perry & others, 2011). And reporter Kate Taylor (2013) of The New York Times wrote a long piece about the “hook-up” culture on U.S. university campuses. “It is by now pretty well understood,” Taylor wrote, “that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline” (2013).

Although there’s nothing new about casual sex among young adults, hooking up does differ in some key ways from casual sex. Casual sex refers, by definition, to sexual intercourse, with or without an emotional or friendly relationship. In a “friends with benefits” relationship, the sexual relationship is presumed to be secondary to the friendship. In contrast, “hooking up” refers to a no-strings-attached, sexual encounter that can range from kissing and cuddling to sexual intercourse. The actual sexual behaviors may vary, but the common thread is that the sexual intimacy is not accompanied by the expectation of a committed relationship or even future interactions (Owen & others, 2010; Reiber & Garcia, 2010). Indeed, one college junior told Taylor about her regular hook-up: “We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” and observed that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee” (Taylor, 2013).

On many college campuses, hooking up is very common. Studies have shown that about 80% of students reported hooking up at least once while they were in college, and more than half had hooked up during the previous year (Owen & others, 2010; Reiber & Garcia, 2010). In one study, about 60% of students reported that their most recent hook-up partner was a new partner, and of those who had oral, anal, or vaginal sex, less than half said that they used a condom (Lewis & others, 2012). College men generally hold more permissive attitudes toward casual sex than women, and hooking up is no exception (Petersen & Hyde, 2010). Perhaps not surprisingly, alcohol use is strongly implicated in hooking up behavior. Alcohol precedes almost two-thirds of hook-ups (Fielder & Carey, 2010; Vander Ven & Beck, 2009).

Male college students have more favorable attitudes toward hooking up than female college students, although the sexes may not be as far apart as some people think (Bradshaw & others, 2010). As compared to men, women tend to report more negative emotional reactions after hooking up than men (Lewis & others, 2012). However, both men and women reported that hooking up had overall been a more positive than negative experience (Lewis & others, 2012; Owen & Fincham, 2010).

Although hooking up is widely accepted on college campuses, both sexes overestimate the degree to which the opposite sex is comfortable with hooking up (Reiber & Garcia, 2010). Today’s young adults haven’t given up on the hope of creating a long-term committed relationship. Indeed, one college senior quoted in Taylor’s news article described how a romantic relationship she had during a study-abroad experience made her hopeful that she would one day have such a relationship back home (Taylor, 2013). However, college students appear to have embraced what appears to be a larger cultural shift toward more flexible, less clearly defined relationships (Bisson & Levine, 2009).

Is it true that once they are in their 70s and 80s, almost no adults are sexually active?