Can overabundance of sexually stimulating material, combined with constant availability of our own sexual organs, and a willingness to gratify ourselves be dangerous?
… Here’s the danger in our modern circumstances: When a mammal’s brain hasn’t adapted to the intensity and quantity of a stimulus, that stimulus registers as a superstimulus, and dopamine rises sharply in the reward circuitry. The preceding examples can be superstimuli for our hunter-gatherer brains. Internet porn is an extreme superstimulus. It’s on tap twenty-four/seven, free of social constraints, and every click supplies a “novel mate” beckoning to be serviced.
Chasing after today’s potent array of superstimulation can easily overload our vulnerable reward circuitry. Without realizing why, we may begin to experience withdrawal symptoms, cravings for even more frequent stimulation, and, sometimes, enduring brain changes.
The more extreme the stimulation (whatever our individual thresholds), the more dopamine surges in our reward circuitry. And the lower it drops afterward (or the less sensitive we are to it, due to down regulation of nerve cell receptors). Dopamine balance matters. For example, high dopamine is associated with compulsions, anxiety, risky behavior, and so forth, while low dopamine is associated with conditions like social anxiety, depression, inability to feel pleasure, and lack of ambition.
… We spend way more hours staring at monitors than engaging in friendly human interaction. Our brain’s primitive limbic system is starved for the healthy rewards that come from companionship and touch, which makes us more susceptible to overindulging, addictions, and compulsions.
Let’s say we choose to comfort ourselves with a big dose of today’s super-sexy stimulation. After dopamine soars in response to extreme stimulation, it drops unnaturally low. Withdrawal symptoms, such as restlessness, irritability, frustration, desire for isolation, and apathy are signals that we’re not yet back to equilibrium at a brain chemical level.
So why the massive libido? During recovery, we may feel uneasy or depressed, as if some key ingredient for our happiness is missing. As a consequence, we’re very susceptible to cues our brain associates with rapid relief from discomfort. When we spot one, our reward circuitry starts yapping and bouncing around like a crazed Jack Russell terrier. Surging dopamine is hard to ignore, so we want to “feed it,” just to shut it up. Yet if we climax now, we can easily fall into an accelerating cycle, medicating ourselves with more stimulation every time we get The Urge. Strapped onto this roller coaster of peaks and drops, we may forget entirely what balance feels like.
Unfortunately, we have to go all the way through the misery of withdrawal to experience balance again. There are no shortcuts, and if we’re seriously hooked, we may need longer, due to more lasting changes in the brain. For example, a protein known as Delta FosB remains in addicts’ brains for a month or two, making relapse more likely….
more at Sexual Superabundance II | Psychology Today.
With freedom comes responsibility. We need to find a balance in our masturbation with life’s other needs. But we have more scope for sexual gratification these days than ever in history.
I think that’s the type of danger, most of us are willing to take. To experience more pleasure than any generation in history seems like a gift to me!