Sex Love and Music ...... Chapter III: Romantic Love: "Why don´t we do it in the road ?"

    The Love and the Brain

         Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher studied 166 societies and found evidence of romantic love—the kind that leaves you breathless and euphoric—in 147 of them. According to Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry at HMS at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, this implies: "Romantic love is fundamental to our biological nature."

In 2005, a sample of 2,500 people underwent CT and MRI. They were shown a photo of someone they loved and a photo of a stranger. After statistical analysis of the results, brain areas that responded specifically to "romantic love" were identified:

- The caudate nucleus, a region associated with the detection and expectation of rewards, as well as the integration of sensory experiences into social behavior.

- The ventral tegmental area, associated with pleasure, focused attention, and the motivation to seek and obtain rewards. The ventral tegmental area is part of the brain's reward circuitry. This circuit is considered a primitive neural network; it is evolutionarily ancient and connects to the nucleus accumbens. The amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex also belong to the reward circuit. The latter are exceptionally sensitive to (and reinforce) pleasure-inducing behaviors, such as sex, food consumption, and drug use.

         When we fall in love, chemicals associated with the reward circuit flood our brain, producing various physical and emotional responses: palpitations, sweaty palms, flushed cheeks, feelings of passion and anxiety. Levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) increase in the initial phase of romantic love, preparing our body to cope with the crisis. As cortisol increases, levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin decrease. The decrease in serotonin precipitates the "intrusive and desperately worrying thoughts, hopes, and terrors of early love": the obsessive-compulsive behaviors associated with falling in love.

     Falling in love releases high levels of dopamine, a chemical that "activates the reward system," making love a pleasurable experience similar to the euphoria associated with cocaine or alcohol use.

      Oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones that play a role in pregnancy, breastfeeding, and mother-child bonding, are involved during romantic love. Released during sexual intercourse and enhanced by skin-to-skin contact, oxytocin deepens feelings of attachment and makes couples feel closer after sex, provoking feelings of satisfaction, calm, and security associated with the couple bond. Vasopressin is linked to behavior that produces long-term monogamous relationships. The differences in the action of these two hormones may explain why passionate love fades as attachment grows.

       Love modulates two neural pathways. The one related to positive emotions connects the prefrontal cortex with the nucleus accumbens. The pathway related to negative emotions connects the nucleus accumbens with the amygdala, responsible for negative emotions such as fear and social judgment. The latter pathway is deactivated. In romantic love, the neural machinery responsible for making critical evaluations of other people, including those with whom we have a romantic relationship, is deactivated. "That is the neural basis of the ancient wisdom 'love is blind.'" (Scientific evidence of this similarity can be found in many studies, including one conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, and published in 2012 in Science).

       A 2011 study conducted at Stony Brook University in New York State revealed that it is possible to be madly in love with someone after decades of marriage. "The passion is still there, but the stress is gone." Cortisol and serotonin levels normalize. Love, which was initially a stressor (at least for our brains and bodies), becomes a buffer against stress. The brain areas associated with reward and pleasure remain active as romantic relationships continue, but the constant longing and desire inherent in romantic love often diminish. "Couples lose the habit of sex, of being in love: work, children, a sick parent, etc." But that kind of love can be "rekindled." Sexual activity plays a key role; it can increase oxytocin levels and activate the brain's reward circuitry, which increases mutual desire. Here, the need for new stimuli reappears to trigger the cascade of hormonal and neurotransmitter changes to make "passion" flourish, and active sex is vital.                                                      -extract from "Love and Brain". Harvard Medical School.2015-

            

         In this regard, no one today can deny the role of pornography as a school for teaching the arts that stimulate sex and passion. Countless platforms exist at all levels that demonstrate the widespread use of pornography. This contrasts with the efforts of conservative and moralist sectors to disdain and criticize such activity, demonstrating a "double standard" among most people who are asked about pornography and whether they use it or not.

         Pornography, so distorted as something harmful, sinful, immoral, and an attack on Christian customs, plays a fundamental role, often silenced by the cynicism of conservative classes linked to economic power. The rise of pornography, as part of the "black market," has turned it into a high-cost activity. Not everyone has access to it. A certain amount of income is required to be able to use it. And this demonstrates the "double standards" of the conservative class. They quietly use the restrooms, and on Sunday, during Mass, they question and "morally" vociferate against activities linked to pornography.

             Twilight time over there now??...

<.. little by little the sun goes down in the background.....

slowly it gets dark....

when everything is already very calm....

when everything has already stopped....

I let my eyes float free....

I let my body loose....

Everything unfolds in silence....

from within it, it goes outwards...

it's like waiting inside a balloon....

where everything happens and there are no questions....

it's like a flock flapping its wings...

or it's a newborn snail...>

Hahaha... yes, that encounter was super crazy... we had already done it when we were young university students... and now, older, of age... walking, the question floated lightly in the air... should we have sex now?... and the answers were also "light" without negativity, without "weight" on the conscience, without any sense of "prohibitions," without the feeling of "evil" imposed by the current morality... we both said "yes" between laughs and smiles, and we did it... without any guilt... without remorse...

      Here, three great questions of life arise, defined by religion and the institution of the church and its "councils"... and not by "natural selection".......

Since when and why was marriage linked to sex???...

Since when and why was sex linked to love???...

and, consequently, .... 

 ...... Marriage was a contract entered into between kings, queens, princes, and princesses to generate strategic "alliances," and children were conceived not out of love, but as a "seal" that defined the perpetuation of a "lineage" that ensured the continuity in power of a given name and surname..... What was behind linking marriage with love??.......

..... and, finally, if this "Marriage" began to be forced and carried out for love..... why do the so-called royal families only maintain arranged marriages between "High-class" families.....

..... And, if it's no longer a contract by proxy, why, with each passing day, are marriages more "utilitarian" and short-lived ?, being easily "disposable" ?...... hahahahahahaha......a small and intricate "head broth" that seems to have obvious, simple, and supported answers...... but.....are they like that????.... hahahahahahaha....

    Biology, mathematics, astronomy, art, engineering clearly show us that "in diversity lies life and evolution" ..... not in the formation of pure "races" or in the formation of rigid family trees......

    In short..... a whole topic to which neither "laws" nor "religion" nor the "country" want to pay attention...... why Will it be????.....

    There's the issue of "blood"... that crimson red liquid that distributes oxygen and nutrients from one part to another to maintain "life".... and to which magical hereditary properties are attributed, in strong contradiction.....
but we'll talk about it another day, perhaps....
mmmmmhhhhh.... it seems like everything said sounds like "craziness"....
Please don't send me to a psychiatrist....
I don't want wires in my head or a lobotomy....
hahahahahahaha.....

...a hug, my dear friend ....
....remember...echoes resonating in our air....!!!!!

Writer's note: I'm not being the devil's "advocate" or a family wrecker... just expressing questions that curiosity reveals... hahahahahahaha....
     -extract from "Letters to a friend. Author: Antonio Alex Pezoa Scharpe-

            Love Game and Attraction

According to science, the "love game" is a neurological process that occurs in the brain and involves different parts of the brain: the hypothalamus, the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, the nucleus accumbens, and the frontal tegmental area.

Fisher defines a second stage in the process of falling in love from a neurobiological perspective: attraction, where dopamine comes into play. In 2000, a study by Arthur Aron (of Stony Brook University in New York) revealed through scans that people in this initial phase of falling in love have intense activity in the ventral tegmental area, a kind of dopamine "factory."

A 2017 study conducted by neurologists collected data suggesting that being in love not only has an effect on our emotions, but also on higher-level cognitive transmissions.

“That means it's possible that love has a real function: not just being able to connect emotionally with people, but also improving our behavior,” study author Stephanie Cacioppo told the New York Times.

             Is love like a drug?

Jim Pfaus of the University of Montreal is one of the researchers who has made the most progress in the field of sexual relationships and love. He claims that the insula and striatum of the brain are activated in both sexual desire and romantic love.

The fact that love is located in a specific area of ​​the striatum, associated with drug addiction, could explain why “love is really a habit formed by a sexual desire that is fed back through a reward.” The process is the same one that drugs produce in addicts.

Researchers from the Center for Neuroethics at Oxford University share this opinion, concluding that both love and drugs flood the brain with dopamine, which causes a strong sense of reward, triggering the vicious cycle of euphoria, desire, dependence, and withdrawal.

To establish this action-reaction of love or sexuality in the brain, Pfaus analyzed the results of 20 studies that examined the brain activity of 309 participants while they viewed erotic photos or images of a person they loved.

Not only did he conclude that the parts of the brain that were stimulated were the same for one feeling as for the other, but he also found that it affected men and women equally and that the areas stimulated were the same as those stimulated in addiction.

                  What are love hormones?

Oxytocin and vasopressin are the hormones most closely associated with love, although not the only ones. They are produced by the hypothalamus and released by the pituitary gland. Both influence both men and women. Oxytocin and vasopressin interact with the dopaminergic reward system and can stimulate the release of dopamine from the hypothalamus.

              Does love at first sight exist?

Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, established the different phases of love (desire, attraction, and affection) and their dependence on "love hormones." The butterflies in the stomach of love at first sight are a chemical reaction in the brain. The first phase of love (desire) is guided by the release of sex hormones in both men and women: estrogen and testosterone. Adrenaline causes the heart to race, the mouth to dry, and the hands to sweat, as part of nervousness or the body's normal reaction to a stressful situation. What could be more stressful than love?

             Romantic Love vs. Social Love

Robert Malenka of Stanford University has developed his studies of brain circuits related to love by focusing on how oxytocin acts in social love. "Our study reveals new insights into the brain circuits that underlie social reward, the positive experience often gained when meeting an old friend or when meeting someone you like."

Oxytocin is another neurochemical known as the love hormone. It is present in falling in love, mother-child bonding, and sexual arousal. Oxytocin is a master regulator of body temperature, hunger, thirst, sleep, and emotional reactions. Malenka's study demonstrated for the first time that oxytocin was stimulated during social interactions and that this neuronal activity was necessary for normal social behavior.