Chemistry and the Body – A neurochemical dialogue.

Wilhelm Reich was the first scientist to describe the nature and purpose of orgasm as a release of excess bioenergy with the additional release of emotional energy, and he also recognized the negative consequences of blocked sexual energies. Orgasm is generally regarded as the ultimate goal of recreational sex.

And therefore, in addition to thrilling peaks, orgasms tend to produce powerful negative side effects that are only now becoming better understood scientifically, and this is due to predictable trends in hormonal activity that appear to be similar in all mammals to ensure certain evolutionary goals.

The main actors in this process are dopamine, the reward hormone; prolactin, the satiety hormone; oxytocin, the hug hormone, and androgen receptor levels, which powerfully affect our mood, our desire for intimacy, our perception of our partner, as well as our susceptibility to daily activities and behavioral and chemical addictions. In addition, the stimulant phenylethylamine (PEA) is involved, which is also present in cocoa and chocolate and increases energy, mood and attention, produced in greater amounts when you are in love.

When we first fall in love, we bond by increasing levels of PEA, oxytocin, and dopamine, and when we are sexually aroused by close contact, our dopamine level rises even higher. At the moment of orgasm we have a dopamine storm in the brain that researches point to comparisons with the effects of heroin on synapses. Dopamine is active in all addictions, even in sexually inactive people. Most of this activity is in the limbic system, the oldest part of the brain, responsible for controlling emotional movements and memory formation.

Excessive dopamine levels can generate addictions, anxiety, compulsions, aggressiveness and psychosis, whereas in deficiency they also generate addictions, depression, lack of pleasure, ADHD and social anxiety disorder, respectively. The balance of this hormone in the body brings with it, respectively, motivation, satisfaction, pleasure, realistic expectations and feelings of maternal/paternal love. After an orgasm, dopamine levels drop sharply with the usual withdrawal symptoms. This reaction tends to be immediate in males and refractory in females.

Oxytocin in balance generates love and its opposite component, which is popularly brought on as anger, is better known as cortisol, the fear hormone bringing imbalance to the hormonal system. Cortisol suppresses libido and, on the other hand, oxytocin increases sexual receptivity.

I brought brief examples of an extensive topic dealing with hormones, neural synapses, and how healthy sexual energy activation can change the chemistry and dynamics of how your life goes, including your sexual activity. In Tantra we value not only the conduction of this energy, but how it modulates your daily practices and the effective result of how your physical, emotional and mental body are aligned to a system of consciousness expansion, including a holistic view of the world. Pleasure is not just about your genitals, it is a state of mind that can be achieved by integrating practices into a system that excludes nothing about its own process.