Dopamine, The Cruel Bitch Mistress

If you'll open your books to where we left off the other day...we talking about the exquisite agony of The Crush. The crush, as you recall, is where we basically become dreamy fuckheads, walking ids powered by the hideous/delicious combo of single-mindedness, spaciness, magnanimity to your fellow humans ("Everyone is so awesome!"), hateable neediness, and general giddiness alternating with sudden despair--all set to the constant backdrop of the throb of unquenched sexual desire.

As reader can't keep anything to myself put it:

Crushes are torture, but the most delicious kind of torture. They make you realize what a masochist you really are. It's such a fun feeling though when your insides are squirming and you're smiling at random people like an idiot because you're thinking about them again and your jaw hurts from smiling so hard/much.

If you are suffering thusly right now, please know that you're not acting like such a pitiful lovesick idiot because you're inherently weak or out of your fucking head, but because cruel, cruel dopamine is totally screwing with you. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, "a kind of natural drug associated with the expectation of a reward that brings us pleasure," writes Sheril Kirshenbaum in The Science of Kissing. Dopamine can start fucking you up even during a first kiss. Writes Kirshenbaum,

Spiking during a passionate kiss, dopamine is responsible for the rush of elation and craving, and can also result in obsessive thoughts that many of us experience in association with a new romance--almost like an addiction.

I'm sorry, did she say "almost like"? Because dopamine is involved with stimulating the mesolimbic reward system (Mmmm, you like it when I talk to you all scientifically, don't you?), the part of the brain involved with virtually all of the addictive drugs. Wheee!

It primes us to make us want more, making us feel energized. Some people pumping lots of dopamine even lose their appetites, or feel that they cannot fall asleep--not surprisingly, the same 'symptoms' commonly described when "falling in love."

So maybe you're not in love, maybe you're just high on dopamine, you friggin' junkie. Which can go either way, depending if your ardor is returned. Writes the delightful Helen Fisher in Why We Love:

Because romantic love is such a euphoric "high," because this passion is exceedingly difficult to control, and because it produces craving, obsession, compulsion, distortion of reality, emotional and physical dependence, personality change, and loss of self-control, many psychologists regard love as an addiction--a positive addiction when your love is returned, a horribly negative fixation when your love is spurned and you can't let go.

If you don't get your love fix, well, it's not good. The suffering includes all kinds of sucky withdrawal symptoms like "depression, crying, spells, anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite (or binge eating), irritability and chronic loneliness," reports Fisher.

Fisher continues, and I suspect she based her research solely on my diary entries from 1987: "Like all addicts, the lover then goes to unhealthy, humiliating, even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic."

Which is not good, either. (Well, it's sorta good.)

Our takeaways from all this?  Hmmmmm, I guess, if you're going to get all hepped up on dopamine over someone, at least try to make sure that they might be someone who'll like you back. Which, you know, is totally easy. (Helpful hint: After years of painstaking research--ahem, Nobel committee--I can say with a fair degree of certainty that emotionally unavailable, meanish, and your basic garden-variety insane dudes are not, to my great surprise, good choices. You're welcome.)

Anyway, after awhile nature finally gives us a break. Because even a good dopamine ride can be, well, a bit much. I mean there's only so much time you can spend in a state of constant arousal, contemplating such uber-focused matters as the insanely lickable curve of a loved one's particularly enchanting body part. "Our biology places a limit on how long the 'high' conferred by dopamine can last," writes Kirshenbaum. "Studies have shown that levels of this intoxicating neurotransmitter decrease as we become more accustomed to a romantic partner, which might be why sexual desire tends to wane with the same person over time." (See also: the Coolidge Effect in "Our Genes Can Be Heartless Puppeteers").

On the other hand, it also doesn't seem reasonable, or at all fun, to avoid excessive, stupid, sexy, out-of-your-fucking-mind passion, for fear of getting the dopamine monkey on our backs. As "Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of The Female Orgasm" author Nicole Daedone's current, possibly grammatically problematic, Facebook status says, "Desire is there to be lived inside of."

I will await your tales from the front....

xoxo
jill

[addendum: As the unrelentingly brilliant and hilarious Betty Fokker points out below in the comments, the sweeter, more mellow high of attachment and bonding chemicals conveniently kick in just as the harsher high of the dopamine fades.]

[addendum 2: My dear friend Tricia sent me this bad-ass article on the fleetingness and horrible unsustainability of such passion.]

(photo: Marlo Broekmans, Photo extraite de la serie "Autoportraits")

What I Do When I Leave You

Hey gorgeous,

Even though I've been away hustling words to afford enough Lexapro so I don't harm myself or others, I'm still thinking about you. All the damn time.

Let's just get to it then...

Disembodied Labia

I was working on a story about sex toy accessories* and came upon something that wasn't technically an accessory, but I had to tell someone (you!). I'd already seen a dick casting kit that you use to make a vibrating dildo out of your favorite penis (oh yeah) but what struck me was the ad for the Clone-A-Pussy Molding Kit.

Clone-A-Pussy seemed good for equal opportunity reasons (ERA Yes!) but apparently pussy-casting technology is not yet as advanced as for their dicky brethren. In fact, it kinda sucks. Mentions the site in not nearly bold enough font:

"Please Note: Your new pussy replica is a shallow likeness, without a hole, and not designed for ...ahem.... insertion."

So you can't even fuck it. It just sits there, like a homeless dried peach, but even less functional. Perhaps sensing the complete uselessness of such a product, the site offers this weak plan:

"Use the mold over and over again and create your own treasured collection of life-like vaginas."

(Warning: displaying "treasured collection" of disembodied labia pretty much insures you will never get in anyone's panties ever again.)

In quite related news, Clone-a-Pussy is now on clearance.

Disembodied Labia, Part 2:

Speaking of disembodied labia, as one does, I found this unsettling photo of the RealDoll labia repair kit.  I both love and hate how the labia is just sittin' there all unsexy and out-of-context, next to the tongue depressors and glue. It also makes me a bit cringey, maybe how like men feel when they see another man being kicked in the balls.

I showed this pic to my husband, because I cruelly enjoy making him uncomfortable, and he said "I kind of don't want to know why you might need that." Which is a pretty reasonable point.

My Cheatin' Heart
Here's some stuff you might like that wrote for other people (don't worry, they mean nothing to me and I was thinking about you the whole time.)
--An AlterNet story on the delightful dick pic judging site Critique My Dick Pic.
--A Cosmo piece I wrote on how to give a corkscrew blowjob, including the word "fucking," a possible suggestion to stick a sparkler up your bum and/or suck off household vegetables and a random Rankin-Bass reference is now running in friggin.....Redbook magazine. Yes, 70s mom mag, Redbook. I no longer understand the world.
  
Need You So Bad
I am working on a piece about the best porn sites "for women" and wondering what you'd recommend. I'm not entirely sure what constitutes a womanly site, but I guess to me it's something where--if there is a woman, or women, involved--they are doing things an actual woman with normal sexual responses would do, or at least would want to do. Where would you send me? (And don't tell me about that book Porn For Women where men are vacuuming, unloading the dishwasher, etc... cause that it's not actually that funny--or sexually arousing either. There's a big difference between "sexy" and just "nice things to do.")

~~~~~~~~~

Okay, lovey, I'm gonna leave you here for a bit, but here's a new bowl of water and a nice fresh leaf.  And don't forget to tell me about your girl-friendly porn!

xoxo
jill

*Hey, reader who bought Taming My Teddy Bear--An Erotic Story (Plushie Fetish Book 1) via the IBWMW Amazon link in the right margin (thanks!), you may enjoy the part about Jumbo Wolf with a SPH.