It’s funny. As masturbators, our penises are always available and usually “in the mood”. And yet we never tire of them. In fact, we become more addicted to masturbation every time we jerk off. Is this an argument for wives to maintain their husbands in a male chastity device?

….So what would happen if your mate were always in the mood? Chances are good that you soon wouldn’t be…at least with her/him. The sad truth is that if your spouse isn’t having orgasmic sex with you as often as you’d like, he or she could be preserving your union by preventing you from satiating yourself sexually too frequently. This is not an ideal situation, however, because without frequent affectionate contact, the emotional bonds between couples weaken, and, unfortunately, many couples drift into engaging in conscious affection only when pursuing orgasm.

How can sexual satiation drive mates apart? When scientists looked into the brains of mating rats, they discovered that a neurochemical called dopamine (the “I gotta have it!” substance) was behind the phenomenon of mate fatigue. As a rat copulates repeatedly with the same partner, less and less dopamine is released in the reward circuitry of its brain.

Yet when a novel potential mate shows up, dopamine surges again. It’s the same mechanism that causes you to say “yes” to a sugary, fat-laden dessert even when you’re full of turkey and mashed potatoes. Dopamine surging in your reward circuitry can override your feelings of satiety, regardless of what your rational brain may think about overeating or infidelity. Surging dopamine is a “yes!” while low dopamine is a “not so much.” As we’ll see in a future post, dopamine also naturally drops after orgasm, which plays right into this phenomenon. Our genes can be heartless puppeteers.

via What If She Were Always in the Mood? | Psychology Today.