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  • MONDAY AUGUST 1 2005 5:16 PM

Sex on the Brain

Submitted by susannah_breslin

Edited by susannah_breslin

Kate Sullivan interviews Dr. Gert Holstege, a neuroscientist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who has done a study on the nature of the orgasm. Holstege set out to discover if there was a "hardware of sex" in humans. Using a PET scan, he scanned the brains of volunteers who, working with a "stimulator," allowed their minds to be read by the machine during orgasm. The doctor found that, in that moment, the human brain deactivates the impulse towards fear.

Since the study, has your view of sex changed?

No. The finding of this deactivation of fear, it's not so strange, although I did not know what to expect. But you could ask yourself: "What is the feeling of happiness?" And perhaps the feeling of happiness you feel during orgasm is nothing else but the complete lack of fear.

 
Comments
waldo

waldo

I'm lost
June 2004

AUG 02, 2005 02:50 PM

Hm. Doesn't seem right, somehow; people in horrendously dangerous places still have sex, which you couldn't consider "survival-oriented" if it makes them unfrightened.

nerdboy2345

nerdboy2345

Oak Lawn, IL
December 2002

AUG 02, 2005 05:00 PM

there definately is a very strange mental state at the point of orgasm, which quickly changes to something else entirely a second or two later.

Dusana

Dusana

Nanaimo, BC
February 2005

AUG 03, 2005 01:09 PM

maybe that explains why you do some strange things when you orgasm, no fear, everything is let loose so to speak.

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