sexy.
The same goes for whether something hits the brakes. For example, the extent to which a person’s sexual brakes are engaged because of fear of an STI changes depending on the perceived likelihood of infection and the perceived impact of that STI. Using a condom? Know your partner’s health history and sexual history? Trust that you’re both being monogamous? Less threat. No condom? No history? Potential for betrayal? More threat. It’s the same with social consequences, too: Potential damage to your social status, your reputation, or your relationship all act as threats, depending on how likely they seem and how negative they would be if they happened.
Learning to recognize the contexts that increase your brain’s perception of the world as a sexy place, and having skills to maximize the sexy contexts, is key to increasing your sexual satisfaction. At the end of this chapter, you’ll find worksheets to help you think through what aspects of context influence your perception of sensations. On those worksheets, you recall three amazing sexual experiences you’ve had and three not-so-great sexual experiences, and think concretely and specifically about what made those experiences what they were, in terms of both external circumstances and your internal state. Do take the time to do this. Thinking through even just one amazing experience and one not-so-greatexperience can give you a sense of which contexts increase your brain’s tendency to interpret the world as sexy and which reduce that tendency.
Painful or Erotic?
If your partner spanks your butt while you’re in the middle of tying your toddler’s shoes, it’s annoying. But if your partner spanks your butt in the middle of sex, it can feel very, very sexy indeed. Context can cause sensations that are typically perceived as painful, like spanking or whipping, to be erotic. Sexual “submission” requires relaxing into trust—turning off the offs—and allowing your partner to take control. In this explicitly erotic, highly trusting, and consensual context, your brain is open and receptive, ready to interpret any and all sensations as erotic. And in a culture where women have to spend so much time with the brakes on, saying no, it’s no wonder we have fantasies about abandoning all control, relaxing into absolute trust (turning off the brakes) and allowing ourselves to experience sensation.
sex, rats, and rock ’n’ roll
What is the ultimate nerd evidence of the power of context to influence your brain’s perception of a sensation? Look at what happens to rat brains when you play them Iggy Pop:
Imagine you’re a lab rat, and you’re in a three-chambered box. 12 The researchers have painlessly implanted a tiny probe in your brain so that they can zap your nucleus accumbens (NAc), which is a tiny region deep within your brain; its job is to tell you which direction to go—toward or away from something in the environment. In the first chamber, you’re surrounded by the ordinary setup that you always encounter in the lab—the lights are on, but it’s fairly quiet. Here, if the researcher zaps the top region of the NAc, you engage in approach behaviors, like sniffing and exploration. Psychologist John Gottman calls these “ What’s this? ” behaviors. 13 Curious. Exploring. Moving toward. And when the researchers stimulate the bottom region of your NAc, you exhibit avoidance—“ What the hell is this? ” behaviors, like stamping your paws and turning away your head. Fearful. Avoidant. Moving away. And all of that is normal and exactly what you would expect, as a sort of bionic, semiremote-controlled rat.
So now you go into the next chamber, where the lights are off, it’s quiet and calm, and it smells like home. You love it here, it’s like a spa for rats. In this context, when the researcher zaps your top NAc, the same thing happens—approach behaviors. But this is where it gets crazy: When the researcher zaps your bottom
The same goes for whether something hits the brakes. For example, the extent to which a person’s sexual brakes are engaged because of fear of an STI changes depending on the perceived likelihood of infection and the perceived impact of that STI. Using a condom? Know your partner’s health history and sexual history? Trust that you’re both being monogamous? Less threat. No condom? No history? Potential for betrayal? More threat. It’s the same with social consequences, too: Potential damage to your social status, your reputation, or your relationship all act as threats, depending on how likely they seem and how negative they would be if they happened.
Learning to recognize the contexts that increase your brain’s perception of the world as a sexy place, and having skills to maximize the sexy contexts, is key to increasing your sexual satisfaction. At the end of this chapter, you’ll find worksheets to help you think through what aspects of context influence your perception of sensations. On those worksheets, you recall three amazing sexual experiences you’ve had and three not-so-great sexual experiences, and think concretely and specifically about what made those experiences what they were, in terms of both external circumstances and your internal state. Do take the time to do this. Thinking through even just one amazing experience and one not-so-greatexperience can give you a sense of which contexts increase your brain’s tendency to interpret the world as sexy and which reduce that tendency.
Painful or Erotic?
If your partner spanks your butt while you’re in the middle of tying your toddler’s shoes, it’s annoying. But if your partner spanks your butt in the middle of sex, it can feel very, very sexy indeed. Context can cause sensations that are typically perceived as painful, like spanking or whipping, to be erotic. Sexual “submission” requires relaxing into trust—turning off the offs—and allowing your partner to take control. In this explicitly erotic, highly trusting, and consensual context, your brain is open and receptive, ready to interpret any and all sensations as erotic. And in a culture where women have to spend so much time with the brakes on, saying no, it’s no wonder we have fantasies about abandoning all control, relaxing into absolute trust (turning off the brakes) and allowing ourselves to experience sensation.
sex, rats, and rock ’n’ roll
What is the ultimate nerd evidence of the power of context to influence your brain’s perception of a sensation? Look at what happens to rat brains when you play them Iggy Pop:
Imagine you’re a lab rat, and you’re in a three-chambered box. 12 The researchers have painlessly implanted a tiny probe in your brain so that they can zap your nucleus accumbens (NAc), which is a tiny region deep within your brain; its job is to tell you which direction to go—toward or away from something in the environment. In the first chamber, you’re surrounded by the ordinary setup that you always encounter in the lab—the lights are on, but it’s fairly quiet. Here, if the researcher zaps the top region of the NAc, you engage in approach behaviors, like sniffing and exploration. Psychologist John Gottman calls these “ What’s this? ” behaviors. 13 Curious. Exploring. Moving toward. And when the researchers stimulate the bottom region of your NAc, you exhibit avoidance—“ What the hell is this? ” behaviors, like stamping your paws and turning away your head. Fearful. Avoidant. Moving away. And all of that is normal and exactly what you would expect, as a sort of bionic, semiremote-controlled rat.
So now you go into the next chamber, where the lights are off, it’s quiet and calm, and it smells like home. You love it here, it’s like a spa for rats. In this context, when the researcher zaps your top NAc, the same thing happens—approach behaviors. But this is where it gets crazy: When the researcher zaps your bottom
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