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Chapter 2:
Your Brain’s Sexual Cocktail
The Neurochemicals Behind Sex
Habitual experience is only part of the learning equation. After
all, people experience a variety of activities that never stick. In
fact, you probably do some things over and over in an attempt to
learn something new and get incredibly frustrated at your lack of
progress.
So why does porn have such an impact? Why do many therapists,
psychologists, and neuroscientists insist it is addictive? In a
nutshell, it has a lot to do with the therapy term “attachment.”
Therapists and neurologists use this term to describe how the brain
neurochemically bonds and remembers how to react to a stimulus.
“It’s not so much the stimulation [the image, video, experience,
etc.], it’s what is done with the stimulation,” Weiss said. “The
initial arousal of novelty will be there, but that is not much of
a threat until it’s attached to the sexual experience [through
masturbation].” 1
Pornography attachment can be very strong because masturbation
and orgasm produce a fireworks display of neurochemicals and
repetition builds neural pathways to enable patterns of behavior.
The episodes are even more enhanced with other feelings,
including fear of getting caught, secrecy, and novelty. This
chemical and hormonal explosion takes learning to a whole new
level. People often remember their first orgasm, including where
they were and how it happened, even if that experience happened
decades ago. Yet, they probably don’t remember much else about
that day, unless it was their wedding day or the events were
traumatic.
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