How Sexual Desire Works- The Enigmatic Urge

by Frederick Toates

  From functional considerations, such a link makes sense. Given that ovulation in women is hidden, it would pay a man to stay around over extended periods of time to secure fertilization (Buss, 2005). Following fertilization, a pair who have formed a close bond are presumably at some advantage in terms of surviving the period of pregnancy and the subsequent raising of children. Somewhat surprisingly, sex and attachment have largely been studied in isolation from each other, though this is now changing (Dewitte, 2012; Mikulincer and Goodman, 2006).

  Individuals differ in the bases of their sexual desire: to achieve intimacy or more individual-based goals (Cooper et al., 2008). Comparing different individuals, there are various attachment styles with their characteristically different features of interaction with sexual desire (Dewitte, 2012). Space precludes an extensive discussion of these and the section considers mainly just a broad principle that applies to what is termed ‘secure attachment’.

  Characteristics of romantic love

  We could do no better than to go back almost a thousand years, to 1027 and the Islamic scholar Ibn Hazm, who described the characteristics of romantic love, as distinct from relatively ‘uncomplicated’ sexual desire:

  that mental preoccupation, that derangement of the reason, that melancholia, that transformation of settled temperaments, and alteration of natural dispositions, that moodiness, that sighing, and all the other symptoms of profound agitation which accompany passionate love.

  (Ibn Hazm, 1027/1953, p. 25)

  This hardly reads as a prescription for bliss. Indeed, six of the seven defining characteristics would seem to be decidedly negative, while the first mentioned, ‘mental preoccupation’, is at best somewhat neutral. If this were part of a job description, it would surely entice rather few applicants. The rumination and craving over the theme of the loved one probably owes much to elevated dopamine levels in the brain combined with lower than normal serotonin levels (Meloy and Fisher, 2005). A surge of energy commonly arises when in the presence of the loved one (Fisher, 2004), possibly reflecting dopamine activity. Persistence is a hallmark of courtship in various species, including humans. The phenomenon of love at first sight is reported by a significant number of people (Fisher, 2004) and might well owe something to dopaminergic activation.

  Art mirrors reality in this regard; great operas, ballets and novels often have a tragic course and ending, exemplified by Romeo and Juliet. Some of the most enduring pop classics of all time include The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve lost that loving feeling, Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, Dionne Warwick’s Walk on by, Marvin Gaye’s I heard it through the grapevine, The Supremes’ Where did our love go? and Little Anthony and the Imperials’ Going out of my head. Why so many of us actively seek such tales of unremitting misery presents a dilemma for motivation theorists, particularly if they believe that motivation derives from and serves in any simple way the maximization of happiness.

  Over 900 years after Ibn Hazm, the researchers Berscheid and Walster (1974) similarly cast doubt upon any simple equivalence between love and happiness (p. 359):

  some practical people manage to fall passionately in love with beautiful, wise, entertaining, and wealthy people who bring them unending affection and material rewards. Other people, however, with unfailing accuracy, seem to fall passionately in love with people who are almost guaranteed to bring them suffering and material deprivation.

  According to the ‘two-component theory’ advanced by Berscheid and Walster, romantic love occurs when there is (a) intense bodily arousal and (b) the situation is such as to label the experience as ‘love’. As noted (Chapter 9), intense arousal can arise in aversive situations, characterized as fear of loss and jealousy, just as much as in positive states such as eroticism and elation. Sexual arousal shares some of the same bodily changes of arousal as experienced in negative emotions. The authors suggest that, so long as the context is such as to label the arousal experience as passionate love, this condition will persist. A strong attraction, exemplified by beauty, will presumably trigger both arousal and a tendency to label this as love. The common feature of arousal might explain how the height of joyous passion can all too easily switch into despair at, say, a forced parting of the loved one, a rollercoaster effect. This has been compared to the alternating elation and fear felt by the novice skier (Hatfield and Rapson, 1987). Similarly, high arousal might explain the otherwise puzzling effect that on occasion intense love can rapidly shift to an equally intense animosity or flip-flop between these emotions.

  The researchers noted that various arousing negative emotions, such as fear, can increase the attraction felt towards someone, which lends support to their theory. This might arise for example in the fear of being parted from the object of the passion. Similarly, sexual frustration or the distress at rejection might contribute to passion. The story of Romeo and Juliet appears to exemplify how animosity, in this case from the feuding families, can heighten passion (Fisher, 2004). Hatfield and Rapson suggested that the double standard was traditionally such that, whereas men were encouraged to label sexual arousal as just that, cultural norms and prohibitions might have encouraged women to label it as ‘romantic love’.

  A list of some characteristics of romantic love, expressed in contemporary terms, includes (Reynaud et al., 2010; Tallis, 2005):

  Focused attention – the salience of the object of love is extremely high. Things associated with the loved one are sought out, for example locations known to be associated with his/her presence. Other considerations are often neglected.

  Planning – the person in love makes inordinate effort in planning to secure contact, and even just to be in locations where the loved one might possibly appear.

  Memories – memory retrieval is biased towards things associated with this single individual.

  Invasive thoughts – the conscious mind tends to be repeatedly (‘obsessively’) occupied by thoughts of the loved one.

  Withdrawal effect – this occurs on breaking contact even temporarily and is similar to that arising from the absence of a drug in the regular user and consists of such emotional qualities as craving, anxiety, depression and anger.

  Loss of reason – the person in love can ignore the risk of adverse consequences of engaging with the love object, a risk that might be evident to everyone else.

  These qualities would seem to make romantic love a candidate as an activity that can easily tip into addiction and merge with sexual addiction, a topic discussed later. Tallis (2005) notes the close similarities between romantic love and bipolar illness (Chapter 8), suggesting a common basis for the two phenomena. In the manic phase, the similarities include a lowered need for sleep, racing thoughts, naïve optimism, euphoria, recklessness and over-confidence. The depressed phase of bipolar disorder has similarities to when lovers are separated or the relationship terminates.

  Charles Darwin rationally constructed a balance sheet of the pros and cons of marriage (Tallis, 2005, p. 79):

  He was able to sit down and calculate the enormous personal cost of marriage: the wasted time, the financial difficulties, the restricted freedom, the obligation to squander hours talking trivia with uninteresting and boring relatives. Yet, in the final reckoning, all Darwin’s logic was overthrown because – and only because – he fell madly in love.

  Of course, Darwin contributed massively to understanding the function served by this loss of reason: the opportunity for reproduction. His experience exemplifies levels of control of behaviour; long-term rational considerations were no match for the immediacy of the present situation. In Darwin’s balance sheet, the negatives were all future ones, whereas the love object was in the here and now.

  To understand romantic attachment, insights can be gained from considering its precursor: the attachment formed between an infant and its caregiver. Romantic attachment is thought to build upon this system where we can sometimes see a similar ‘irrationality’. Given its very early appearance in the life of the child, attachment is assumed
to have a primary role in shaping the nature of the later expression of sexual desire (Schachner and Shaver, 2004).

  Although adult attachment to romantic partners has features in common with infant attachment, there are also some differences (Hazan and Zeifman, 1994). Caregivers normally are motivated to give security to infants but do not expect to receive it back. By contrast, in adult attachment, there is usually reciprocity of giving and receiving. It would be expected that such reciprocity would confirm the attraction value of each partner (Mikulincer, 2006), which would be reflected in sexual desire.

  Hatfield and Rapson (1987) note (p. 263):

  Often, passionate love seems to be fuelled by a sprinkling of hope and a large dollop of loneliness, mourning, jealousy and terror. In fact, in a few cases, it seems that these men and women love others not in spite of the pain they experience but because of it.

  So, is passionate love simply characterized by unending misery? That might be going too far! Usually people like those with whom they fall in love and so there is initially a minimal level of reciprocal good feelings (Berscheid and Regan, 2005). When the intense phase kicks in, I would suggest that the joy comes in times of approach to the loved one and in confirmation of reciprocated love, as in receiving a comforting gesture, letter or telephone call. Presumably, this serves to reinforce the bond. In some cases, the misery might well represent a much greater percentage of time but it is more delayed and diffuse (e.g. times of separation, doubt or tension or the termination of the relationship). Often the heights of romantic love seem to exemplify the fracture line between wanting (intense and unremitting) and liking/pleasure (mixed). This distinction runs through the present book.

  Feeling the mental states of another

  Clearly for most people, understanding, feeling and sharing emotional states (‘empathy’) are an essential ingredient of reciprocity in romantic and sexual behaviour. Where such empathetic emotions are lacking, there is the danger of coercive sex, as in emotional blackmail and rape. Such reciprocated emotions have an identifiable basis in the brain. Concerning empathy for the pain of another, there is activation in particular regions of the brain, which have overlap with regions activated at times when people feel their own physical pain (Lamm and Singer, 2010).2 For example, witnessing a loved one in pain activates these regions, having some overlap with physical pain. Evolution has built upon basic mechanisms of pain and exploited them for sophisticated empathy reactions. The system of empathy for another in pain or distress makes its appearance early in life, in fact as early as 2 or 3 years of age (Schachner and Shaver, 2004). The primacy of this emotion suggests a fundamental role in shaping interactions with later-emerging sexual desire. Sadly, both sexual desire and the system that would normally underlie empathy can get distorted in suboptimal rearing.

  According to so-called ‘simulation theory’ (Lamm and Singer, 2010, p. 580):

  we understand other people’s minds by using our own mental states to simulate how we might feel or what we might think in a given situation, and to infer from this what the other person may actually feel or think.

  The interaction with sexual desire

  Ibn Hazm articulated that erotic attraction is an ingredient of passionate love:

  when carnal desire moreover becomes so overflowing that it surpasses these bounds, and when such an overflow coincides with a spiritual union, in which the natural instincts share equally with the soul; the resulting phenomenon is called passionate love.

  (Ibn Hazm, 1027/1953, p. 58)

  This fits a modern notion of two interacting systems and little in the way of basic understanding has changed in almost one thousand years. Researchers these days emphasize the importance of sexual desire as an ingredient of romantic love (Regan, 2000). Sometimes lust starts first and then the interaction with romantic attachment is formed, while in other cases there is the reverse sequence (Fisher, 2004).

  In the survey conducted by Meston and Buss (2009), the reason a number of women gave for wanting to have sex had much to do with love for their partner. It was either a means of expressing love or a means by which they hoped that love would be triggered. A number needed to feel emotional intimacy with their partners for sexual desire to be triggered (p. 61):

  When I had sex with him, I was elated, almost triumphant, because to my naïve mind, sex was the equivalent of love, and having sex with him was ‘proof’ that he loved me.

  (Heterosexual woman, age 25)

  I thought that he would fall in love with me if I did the things he asked…He didn’t, and I still have feelings for him to this day.

  (Heterosexual woman, age 46)

  Men more frequently fall in love ‘at first sight’ than do women (Meston and Buss, 2009; Tallis, 2005). This possibly reflects men’s instant sexual turn-on by physical appearance, whereas women take more time to form an assessment of potential, yet another example of women’s greater use of cognition. Women tend to form stronger links between attachment and sexual behaviour, in some cases demanding at least some commitment before any sexual contact is permitted (Regan, 2000). Traditionally, social norms and ethical codes have permitted a love–sex dissociation for men but not for women.

  A study of bisexual men and women living in San Francisco found (Weinberg et al., 1994, p. 7):

  For men it was easier to have sex with other men than to fall in love with them. For women it was easier to fall in love with other women than to have sex with them.

  Basson (2000 and 2002) proposed a model of female sexual desire, in which emotional interactions described as ‘intimacy’ are central. She suggested that frequently women initiate sexual activity even in the absence of sexual desire as such. Rather, they are motivated to attain emotional closeness. Sexual desire and arousal emerge as the woman gains a feeling of emotional closeness.

  The link between romantic attachment and sexual desire can, of course, have its hazards and people sometimes take pre-emptive action to avoid these. Thus, some who practise sexual relationships outside the established bond take steps to avoid attachment developing (Hazan and Zeifman, 1994). For example, couples who practise swinging occasionally avoid repeated contact with the same partners (Stephenson, 1973). Some gay males avoid kissing except with the established partner.

  What is the physical basis of romantic love and its link with sexual desire? Oxytocin has a role in linking sexual arousal to bonding. In addition, oxytocin that is released during sexual intercourse could amplify sexual desire by acting on dopaminergic systems (Reynaud et al., 2010). As Tallis (2005, p. 2 26) expresses it: ‘If Cupid’s arrows are dipped in anything, they are dipped in oxytocin.’

  Companionate love

  Intense sexual desire and arousal are more usually associated with the early passionate phase of romantic love. A lower desire usually accompanies the so-called companionate love that was there all along (Berscheid and Regan, 2005) but was somewhat masked in the beginning and is more durable and characterized by feelings of intimacy including the sexual (Regan, 2000). However, this phase can, of course, be strengthened by regular sexual interaction (Dewitte, 2012). A 35-year-old homosexual male reported (Regan, 2000, p. 268):

  It’s not that I don’t love him anymore, it’s simply that I don’t desire him as much. In a way, our relationship is stronger now, built more solidly on other, less sexual feelings…It used to be that I would glimpse him making a certain gesture, or hear his voice on the phone, or catch the scent of his cologne, and I would literally be infused with this feeling of desire, of need, of sheer want.…But we’ve been together for a long time, and somehow, somewhere that feeling just faded.

  Problems within a romantic relationship can have a negative effect on sexual desire, particularly for women (Dewitte, 2012). Loss of sexual desire sometimes reflects simply the passage of time, but it can also be caused by emotional difficulties of a kind that threaten intimacy and attachment (Regan, 2000). Couples seeking therapy for loss of desire might sometimes usefully address this factor. Of course time
-related loss of desire and relationship difficulties are not mutually exclusive.

  Forms of attachment

  For folk who are lucky, so-called secure attachment is experienced as a child and reflected in adult romantic relationships. In the adult, secure attachment is characterized by reciprocal and empathetic sexual relations, associated with affection for the partner and a desire to please them. The securely attached individual appears to be happy with his/her sexuality and experiences relatively low levels of erotophobia and guilt and shows low levels of promiscuity (Cooper et al., 2006). Sexuality tends to thrive in a context of reciprocity, security and reliability, reflecting early childhood attachment (Davis, 2006). The pleasure that the securely attached derive from sexual behaviour is relatively high (Gillath and Schachner, 2006).

  Alas, there can be a failure to achieve a harmonious bond with significant others, as an infant and thereby also as an adult. When this happens, there can be one of two basic reactions both described as ‘insecure’ (Mikulincer, 2006) and both being associated with a lack of reciprocity and an increased risk of coercion (Davis, 2006). The individual can show so-called hyper-activation, in which he or she protests and employs coercion in order to try to obtain an acceptable degree of comfort. The other reaction is known as deactivation, in which he or she turns off the attachment system, shows detachment and does not try to gain an intimate and trusting association.