Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (66 page)

116
In 1694, Nicolas Hartsoeker, a Dutch mathematician and physicist, discovered sperm in men and animals’ semen. The discovery led to the medieval theory that men’s semen contained a “homunculus”—a fully formed little man which matured when planted in a woman’s womb. This became another prohibition against masturbation (besides all the religious ones) on the grounds that you were killing your already-existing child.

117
Tannahill (1980) says something
big
must have happened during the seven thousand years of the Neolithic period to change men from being equal partners with women to being acknowledged despots. Men’s growing control over food production and domesticated animals may have been part of it. But Tannahill proposes men made their move based on some blinding revelation beyond argument or question. She proposes it was when men discovered their own crucial role in reproduction: That was the end of woman’s sexual freedom.

118
This doesn’t mean everyone who wants monogamy is poorly differentiated.

119
Sexual expectations don’t have the same impact in the animal world. For example, a female gorilla mates willingly with the group’s alpha male, who clearly expects her to have sex whenever he wants. Why didn’t gorillas evolve so
that females respond negatively to the male’s expectations for sex, the same way humans do? Perhaps if they had, they would have a more advanced brain.

120
In Catholicism, the obligation to have sex goes both ways. In Judaism, the man owes the woman sex, but not the other way around.

121
Fox (1972). Also see Fisher (1992),
Anatomy of Love
, and Tannahill (1980),
Sex in History
.

122
People derive satisfaction from punishing norm violators, in part, because this activates their caudate nucleus, which releases dopamine in their brain. The caudate nucleus plays a decisive role in “altruistic punishment.” It is generally involved in making decisions or taking actions motivated by anticipated rewards. See De Quervain et al. (2004).

123
Are you entitled to your sexual preferences? For a complete discussion of this question, see Chapter Seven in
Passionate Marriage
.

124
Helen Fisher writes, “Man the natural playboy, women the doting spouse—Americans already believed it. Because of our agrarian background and sexual double standard it became acceptable to view men as would-be Don Juans and women as the more virtuous of the genders. So when Symons presented an evolutionary explanation for men’s philandering nature, many scholars bought it like a better chocolate bar.” Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, p. 89.

125
Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, p.93.

126
Ford & Beach (1951).

127
This is why your partner can have an affair with someone else and the sex can indeed be better. He doesn’t care about the other person as much as he cares about you, so he can “let it all hang out.” It is not a good thing to become more important to a partner who can’t hold on to himself or herself.

128
Other primates show some capacity to
want
in the sense I’m using here. Primates who learn sign language from human trainers indicate they wish and long for someone with whom they’ve established an attachment. Apparently dogs and elephants can
want
too. Perhaps dolphins
want
, but how do they show it?

129
Issues about
wanting
often get mixed up with issues about exclusivity. Wanting to be your partner’s “one and only” is another quagmire of reflected sense of self. See
Passionate Marriage
, p. 242, for further discussion.

130
Ovulation is obvious in all other species from changes in females’ behavior and appearance of their genitals. Fisher speculates that women’s shift to unobtrusive, “silent” ovulation gave them a powerful payoff:
choice
. Women had the ability to
choose
their mates more carefully. (Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, p. 186–187.) In
The Third Chimpanzee
, Jared Diamond summarizes six theories from anthropologists and sociobiologists about why humans developed concealed ovulation. These include (1) enhancing cooperation and reducing aggression among male hunters, (2) cementing bonds between a particular
couple, thus laying the groundwork for the evolution of the human family, (3) insuring constant food supply from men, (4) forcing men into a permanent marriage bond, (5) manipulating men by confusing paternity, and (6) giving women the opportunity to control conception and avoid the pain of childbirth. He thinks the core drive for silent ovulation was the second theory: inducement for pair-bonding and defining that pair-bond as a couple in a community. This coincides with Fisher’s ideas about kinship. See Diamond (1992).

131
An ape has a two-inch penis but three times the body mass of a man. An ape’s penis is also thinner. Given that female chimps have a much larger clitoris than women do, it’s not as simple as humans having larger genitals because it encourages sex. Beyond whatever pleasure female chimps derive from their larger clitoris, it offers a larger signal and target for mating when they are into heat.

132
“Making things official” is an important developmental step that is currently available only to heterosexual couples in the United States. Gay and lesbian couples cannot legally marry in most states in America, though same-sex couples have this (equal) right in more enlightened countries. Debate over the legal definition of marriage overlooks the fact that Nature has already defined it. Future generations in the United States will look back and wonder what the fuss was all about. See Quindlen (2009).

133
Quote from
The Inquiry
by Ugo Betti, cited in Tripp (1970) p. 383.

134
I’ve met celibate couples who live without rancor and find that celibacy comes easily. Others find it more difficult, but do so out of love. Like some couples I’ve seen cope with serious illness or disability, celibacy truly comes from the best in them. There’s lightness in their interactions, they still touch each other with affection, and they may share other kinds of sensual experiences. Such partners do exist and they are well-differentiated people. However, don’t kid yourself that this is the norm. In many situations, celibacy comes out of (much) less than the best in us.

135
American Psychiatric Association (1987).

136
Bullying, hate crimes, domestic violence, and mass shootings at schools are everyday examples of people wreaking havoc on the people with whom they are emotionally fused. The 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado and the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings are particularly sad examples.

137
For highly fused couples, their torturous relationship continues well beyond divorce. Some remained locked in emotional combat for the rest of their lives. Time, distance, property settlement, and remarriage to new partners doesn’t diminish their emotional fusion and reflected sense of self, which surfaces as financial disputes, jealousy, lying, and manipulation.

138
Passionate Marriage
contains a detailed discussion of the comfort/safety cycle and the growth cycle, together with an illustration showing details of each cycle and how the two fit together. See Chapter 9.

139
Weintraub (2009) p. 89. William Brietbart, chief of psychiatry at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and other cancer treatment specialists, see this as a question of whether or not people take advantage of having had cancer.

140
Weintraub (2009) p. 92.

141
According to a study of cancer survivors, the hopeful ones managed their treatment instead of letting doctors and medical staff run things, and often chose the most aggressive treatments. Hope was not a given for these people, it was something they wrestled from despair. See Weintraub (2009).

142
The neuroplasticity of the human brain is amazing. Scientists have discovered the visual cortex of blind people’s brains gets converted to auditory processing. Blind people hear better because they have twice as much brain space devoted to processing sounds. The visual cortex seems to be so plastic it can be used for anything. By using a photo-sensitive device attached to their
backs
, blind people have been able to see. Stroke victims have recovered from neurological damage, Jill Bolte Taylor being one remarkable example (Taylor, 2008 and 2009). Through massed repetitive neuroplastic training, brain-damaged children can regain functions presumed lost due to the site of their injury. For an uplifting view of neuroplasticity and human resilience, see Doidge (2007). Begley (2007a) documents how psychotherapy and personal development can change your brain for the better, which Doidge calls “positive plasticity.”

143
Your corpus callosum, orbitofrontal cortex, cerebellum, anterior cingulate, and hippocampus can be positively as well as negatively affected by interpersonal experiences. See Damasio (1999) and Benes (1998).

144
Stern (1985).

145
LeDoux (1996).

146
Meaney et al. (1996).

147
This falls under the new science of
epigenetics
—how personal experience modifies gene expression. See Caspi et al. (2002).

148
Cook & Wellman (2004) and Czeh et al. (2005).

149
Barretta (2005).

150
Fanselow & Poulos (2005).

151
See LeDoux (2003) for a thorough review.

152
Bower (1996).

153
Gurvits et al. (1996).

154
For further evidence of stress damage to the hippocampus, see Carrion, Weems, & Reiss (2007) and Sampolsky (1999).

155
Although rats exposed to a cat (predator threat) showed reduced neural plasticity in the hippocampus and enhanced plasticity in the amygdala, but Tianeptine, an antidepressant (e.g., Stablon, Coaxil, Tatinol), enhanced synaptic plasticity by increasing general excitability of the hippocampus and reducing it
in the amygdala. Tianeptine is a selective serotonin reuptake enhancer (SSRE). Unlike conventional SSRE tricyclic antidepressants (Torfanil, Norpramin), Tianeptine enhances serotonin reuptake instead of inhibiting it. This increases the effects of serotonin in your limbic system and prefrontal cortex, which elevates your mood. See Vouimbai et al. (2006), p. 32–33.

156
Nikulina et al. (2004).

157
Cahill (2000) and Quevedo et al. (2003).

158
Udwin et al. (2000).

159
Davidson (2000) and (1994).

160
Schore (1994 and 1996) and Stern (1985).

161
Siegel (2002).

162
Whereas genetics focuses on how traits are inherited through the genes in your DNA, epigenetics refers to changes in how your genes express themselves that don’t actually alter your DNA. (Changes occur in the protein wrapper surrounding your DNA.) Epigenetic effects show up in embryonic cell development, maternal effects, gene silencing, X chromosome inactivation, gene position effect, cell regeneration and normal turnover, cell mutation, the progress of tumors, the effects of carcinogens, bookmarking, imprinting, reprogramming, parthenogenesis and cloning. See Rutter, Moffitt, & Caspi (2006) and Rutter (2006).

163
A long-term study of over a thousand people in one New Zealand town discovered a strong link between how people responded to multiple episodes of stress, and “short” and “long” forms (called an allele) of a serotonin transporter gene. Those with the “short” allele produced less serotonin and had fewer serotonin reuptake transporter molecules in their brains. If these people had three or four severe life stressors in a five-year period, they were more likely to develop depressive symptoms, diagnosable depression, and suicide. People with the “long” allele (which produces and transports more serotonin) were much more depression resistant under similar episodes of severe life stress. See Caspi et al. (2003).

164
Caspi et al. (2002). Another study found maltreatment was more likely to produce conduct disorder symptoms in children at high genetic risk. Mal-treatment produced a 24 percent increase in antisocial behavior among these children, but just a 2 percent increase among other children. In other words, if a child with a “short” allele was mistreated, he or she was twelve times more likely to get into trouble. But if he wasn’t maltreated, he was no more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than other children. See Jaffee et al. (2005).

165
There are “short” and “long” alleles of a gene for MAOA, which metabolizes (neutralizes) neurotransmitters produced when children are mistreated and exposed to aggressive behavior. Mistreated boys with the “short” MAOA allele were more likely to develop adolescent conduct disorders, adult antisocial and aggressive personality traits, and be convicted of a violent crime by
age twenty-six. In one study, 85 percent of them had some antisocial history. Although they constituted only 12 percent of the sample, they accounted for 44 percent of violent convictions, because they offended at a higher average rate than other violent offenders. See Moffitt (2005) and Slutske (2001). Another study found that men with the low MAOA-producing allele who reported early childhood abuse before age fifteen, were more impulsive. See Huang (2004).

166
Even our primate relatives display primitive collaborative alliances. See Povinelli & Preuss (1995).

167
Fisher realized the length of human infancy and the length of many marriages is about four years. She proposes that pair-bonding originally evolved to only last long enough for a couple to raise a child through infancy and weaning. If a second infant wasn’t conceived, couples tended to separate and form another pair-bond with a different partner. This differs from the picture that life-long pair-bonding is the norm for adult “attachment” relationships. Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, p.154.

168
This coincides with Stephanie Coontz’s thesis. See Coontz (2006).