TEDxSalford

Love, Sex, And The Search For All The Answers

Love – the best and worst of all the madnesses.

The first thing I wrote in my draft for this article, after deciding on the topic, was “Where do I even begin?” Like many of the high-concept topics I’ve chosen to write about, I couldn’t possibly aim to tackle the entirety of love in one post, but staying true to my everlong quest for understanding, I can offer plenty of resources that might help with some insight.

Helen Fisher, anthropologist, professor, and expert on the science of love and attraction, gave a fascinating talk at TED’s 2008 conference in California, explaining her recent discoveries and future research projects. Her approach to the subject blends art and science, searching for answers to the mysteries of love through biochemistry and neuroscience, while staying true to its romantic ideals, exploring poetry, literature and art too.

In the talk, she had recently performed studies on people’s brain states under an MRI scan – looking at those who were in love, and those who had just been broken up with – and found interesting results. Fisher postulates that love is a scientific, measurable entity, a drive that exists in humans alongside (but separate to) the sex drive that expands mating from an act into a process. It is a homeostatic imbalance – a need rather than a want – and an addiction:

Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly.

A mixture of chemical processes, it’s affected by the dynamics of serotonin, testosterone, estrogen, and dopamine (a neurotransmitter I love to write about). It mirrors the three stages of cocaine addiction – tolerance, withdrawal and relapse. It’s almost a frightening thought, but it makes perfect sense.

Paul Zak gave a talk at TEDGlobal 2011 in Edinburgh about the moral molecule, oxytocin, and how it drives trust, empathy and love throughout human society. It’s another one of my favourite brain chemicals, being  released into the bloodstream during hugging, kissing, orgasm, and touching, and being involved in social bonding and group interaction.  Zak believes the world essentially needs more of it – you can find more details of his crusade for a more empathetic civilization in this Guardian article from last year.

As tempting as it is to write many words about the physical side of love, I’ll keep it classy and simply offer more TED talks - 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm is as fun as the title suggests, and Isabel Behncke explains how our wild primate cousin, the bonobo, sometimes has sex just to say hello (what a blessed life they lead). If you want to know anything more about human mating, the internet has plenty of things to show you. Search at your own leisure.

Understanding it all is an endless struggle. It’s one I’ll surely return to in future posts. If anyone has any suggestions for how to love, how to find love, or how to figure out , please let me know. It’s not easy.