The Science of Orgasms and Your Brain on Porn

Inside the complex tangle of biology and behavior that shapes our relationship with and experience of sex.

We’ve already explored the origins of sex, the neurochemistry of heartbreak, and how drugs affect desire. But what, exactly, happens in the brain when the body belts out its ultimate anthem of sexual triumph? Count on creative duoMitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, better known as AsapSCIENCE — who have previously explained how music enchants the brain and what science teaches us about curing hangovers — to break down the body’s response during orgasm:

But what about sexual experiences that don’t involve direct contact with a partner? What happens inside the brain then is arguably even more intriguing. In this talk from TEDxGlasgow, physiology teacher Gary Wilson peels the curtain on the complex scientific processes that accompany, and perpetuate, the world’s addiction to pornography. Specifically, he looks at how the Coolidge effect fuels internet porn:

For more on this ceaselessly fascinating tangle of biology and behavior, see the recently released The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction by neuroscientist Larry Young and journalist Brian Alexander, who take us inside the living brain to explore how its neurotransmitters, hormones, and circuits shape the very behaviors we find ourselves most invested in.

Einstein on Why We Are Alive

Einstein on Why We Are Alive

The meaning of human existence in five lines.

Given my soft spot for big thinkers’ answers to young people’s questions about life, I was thrilled when reader Dave Anderson shared the story of his mother’s exchange with none other than Albert Einstein. When Marion Block Anderson, an altogether exceptional woman, was a freshman at Oberlin College in 1951, she reached out to “the quintessential modern genius” and asked him, “Why are we alive?” She later told Dave about the impetus for her letter:

We were having one war after another — first we had the First World War, then we had the Second World War and I just couldn’t see any point to the whole thing. So I wrote him a letter and I said, “What’s the point of living with what we’re going through here — having one war after another?”

Lo and behold, Einstein wrote back. While short, his letter extends with exquisite precision both the answer to the question about the meaning of lifeand his views on religion:

Einstein, in fact, had the admirable habit of actually responding to many of the letters he received from his young admirers, the best of which are collected inDear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children (public library) — the same compendium that gave us Einstein’s heartening response to a little girl who wanted to be a scientist and his timeless answer to a child who wanted to know whether scientists pray.

Also see Einstein’s little-known correspondence with Freud on war and human nature and his remarkable conversation with Indian philosopher Tagore ontruth, beauty, science, and spirituality.