Neuroscience of Sex
As a tribute to this month's episode, we wanted to give a quick shoutout to a local store Laine & I know and love: Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis.
Founded in 2003 by Jennifer 'JP' Pritchett, Smitten Kitten is a trans-owned business that has been a staple in the community for over two decades. JP and their team are passionate about creating a safe, inclusive space where folks can explore intimacy, sexuality, and self-expression in a fun and positive way.
Whether you're looking for high-quality toys, thoughtful resources, or expert advice, they've got you covered. Check them out online at smittenkittenonline.com and show them some love if you're interested.
We absolutely love supporting businesses that foster open, healthy conversations about sex, and we think you will too!
If you have any topic suggestions for future episodes, don't hesitate to reach out! Learn more at brainblownpodcast.com and send us an email at info@brainblownpodcast.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
REFERENCES
School-Based Sex Education and Neuroscience: What We Know About Sex, Romance, Marriage, and Adolescent Brain Development – Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman, DrPH; Megan Johnson, PhD; Elizabeth A. Shirtcliff, PhD; Adriana Galván, PhD
The Importance of Sexual and Romantic Development in Understanding the Developmental Neuroscience of Adolescence – Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman, K. Paige Harden
Frequency of Penile–Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Verbal Recognition Performance in Adult Women – Larah Maunder, Dorothée Schoemaker, Jens C. Pruessner
Integrating Neural Circuits Controlling Female Sexual Behavior – Paul E. Micevych, Robert L. Meisel
Neuropeptides and Behaviors: How Small Peptides Regulate Nervous System Function and Behavioral Outputs – Umer Saleem Bhat, Navneet Shahi, Siju Surendran, Kavita Babu
The Neurobiology of Sexual Function – Cindy M. Meston, PhD; Penny F. Frohlich, MA
Neuroanatomy and Neurochemistry of Sexual Desire, Pleasure, Love and Orgasm – H. Ümit Sayin, Carlos H. Schenck
Oxytocin, Erectile Function and Sexual Behavior: Last Discoveries and Possible Advances – Maria Rosaria Melis, Antonio Argiolas
Editorial: From Sex Differences in Neuroscience to a Neuroscience of Sex Differences: New Directions and Perspectives – Belinda Pletzer
The Human Sexual Response Cycle: Brain Imaging Evidence Linking Sex to Other Pleasures – J.R. Georgiadis, M.L. Kringelbach
The Affective Neuroscience of Sexuality: Development of a LUST Scale – Jürgen Fuchshuber, Emanuel Jauk, Michaela Hiebler-Ragger, Human Friedrich Unterrainer
The Physiological Basis of Human Sexual Arousal: Neuroendocrine Sexual Asymmetry – Ion G. Motofei, David L. Rowland
Neuroanatomy and Function of Human Sexual Behavior: A Neglected or Unknown Issue? – Rocco S. Calabrò, Alberto Cacciola, Daniele Bruschetta, Demetrio Milardi, Fabrizio Quattrini, Francesca Sciarrone, Gianluca La Rosa, Placido Bramanti, Giuseppe Anastasi
General Outline of Episode
1. Intro & Overview
Cherys:
You know what’s wild? For a topic that shows up everywhere—in marketing, media, jokes, even politics—we are terrible at actually talking about sex. Like, really talking about it. What it is, what it does to our brains, why it matters… or how much we don’t understand about it.
Laine:
Right? And it's not just the awkwardness or the cultural hang-ups. The science itself is often super limited, heavily gendered, and missing a lot of nuance. But even with what we do know, it tells a pretty fascinating story—especially when you look at what’s happening in the brain.
Cherys:
Exactly. This isn’t about being edgy or provocative. It’s about understanding something that's deeply human—and way more complex than we give it credit for.
Laine:
So, this is the neuroscience of sex.
3. Theoretical Foundation
What’s the core issue or problem in your scenario?
CHERYS: Okay, so if we’re going to talk about sex in a real, grounded way—we probably need to start with the basics. Not the birds and bees version, but what’s actually happening in our brains and bodies. So Laine, when we say “the neuroscience of sex,” what does that even mean?
LAINE: Darwin, in essence, states the meaning of life is genetic survival. He would state that life’s purpose is the perpetuation of genes through reproduction and survival. He has been critiqued heavily, and yet pretty much all of us have studied him at some point. Regardless of whether it's the meaning of life or not, it doesn’t change the fact that we have had lots of studies on the importance of sex, with or without reproduction. It's been shown to help with stress relief, improving sleep, boosting the immune system, overall better physical health, pain relief, brain health, emotional connection, increasing intimacy, interestingly enough, improve memory, but in a very odd way, more on that soon. Suffice to say it's difficult to put an amount to it, as the industry values depending on what you're considering it to be part of it, but without question has been shown to be multibillion. Which often does not count the amount of money we put towards being sexually appealing.
In our society, in one way or another, sex plays an important role. As we are covering how we are with one another, this one seemed to be important to review. So this is the Neuroscience of Sex
What scientific theories or frameworks explain this issue?
Laine: So important to start with the idea that we need to define sex starting off as the act or verb and not the noun or body description. Also I will state that we kept the research very general, but a lot of it is specifically covering only one type of sex act and that is specifically a penis entering a vagina. Much of the research admits that there needs to be an expansion to cover different types of sex acts, but that is what is currently available in the research.
Also, Mesto and Frohlic define this in multiple stages. They will state that sex starts at sexual desire, though they clarify that because there is no “objective physiological criterion for desire,” much of this becomes inferred through self-reports. They then define the next state of this to be sexual arousal, which is both subjective as in a self report, but also has a physiological or body response. This is where most of the research starts, due to being able to connect this to the body’s reaction.
“How much of our sexual response is mental versus physical? Like, is arousal really ‘in our heads’?”
So we are going to break in both what is going on in the brain, as well as what the body is usually doing and we will break this down the way the research does in male and female bodies.
During sexual arousal for male bodies, there is usually an interaction between the central and peripheral nervous system (Your peripheral nervous system is part of your nervous system that is outside of your brain and spinal cord). Specifically, there is a “complex interplay between neurotransmitters, vasoactive agents and endocrine factors”. This complex interplay tells the muscles of the corpora cavernosa which are two chamber like bodies that run through the lenght of the penis to relax. When this chamber relaxes, it allows an increase of blood flow to flow into the now open space. This blood gets trapped due to membranes such as the tunica albuginea to create an erection.
When we look at sexual arousal for those with vaginas we see this start to hapen by changes in the clitoris but also in the swelling of tissue in the vagaina, vulva, clinicerus and uterous. The clitoris also has a corpus cavernosum, which requires similar stimulation to relax the muscles and allow for increased blood flow. In vaginas what we see is that engorgement also results in lubrication of the surface of the vagina walls, however according to Mesto and Frohlic “the neruotramisters that mediate clitorial and arterial smooth muscle dilation remain undetermined”.
On a neuroscience level, this involves a neurotransmitter we have never covered before, which includes the nonadrenergic noncholinergic (noh-n-ahr-der-neh-jick noh-kon-uh-leh-juh-nick) or NANC that interacts with a specific type of cell inside the blood vessels and the heart. These together release nitric oxide, which causes this reaction to start. This connects with a nucleotide named cyclic guanosine monophosphate to cause the relaxation needed to cause an erection. In addition, in the brain, we are looking at the locus ceruleus. This is located deep in the brain in an area known as the pons, which is technically in the brain but is also the spinal cord/brain stem. The locus ceruleus is normally plays an essential role in responding to stress, panic and processing pain. However, it modulates arousal by sending noradrenergic fibers to the forebrain and spinal cord, which help control the erection. Importantly, we notice that sex has a tendency to be more in the nervous system and the base part of our brain and its suggested that the cerebral cortex, higher functioning, rational, reasoning, etc is less active at this point, and instead as according to Motofei and Rowland we are looking more at the base part of our brain.
Calabro et al. will state that your cerebral cortex is active for desire, however, because your body is seeking stimuli and the evaluation of if that is arousing. Your brain matters the most in getting interested in sex, and we all know that getting interested in sex is what makes it enjoyable. Calabro et al. will state that we are evaluating sensory information, comparing it to past experiences, as our brain loves to often do, and determining if that motivates us into sex. Thus, they argue that the limbic forebrain is important, including your “hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and nuclei of the septal region,” are involved in motivational and emotional processing. They state “different sensory cues are integrated by limbic structures in an unconscious way, thus triggering typical autonomic responses (heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory frequency increase along with brainstem structures).” and lastly arge that “all the stages of the human sexual cycle involve complex conscious awareness, which points at the cerebral cortex as the main character”. Specifically they are stating that our reward center (for that see our past episodes on the neuroscience of motivation, the neuroscience of please and the neuroscience of addiction” trigger sexual motivation. They state that your thalamus and hypothalamus are impacted by the person you might choose to engage with, as well as your amygdala. They state that your septal region, cingulate cortex, insula and prefrontal cortex are modulating sexual drive, and your insula and cingulate cortex are processing stimuli and aware of arousal.
Wait—so is essentially our thinking brain…shutting down, right? And our thinking brain also isn’t really on when we’re in love… so if you’re in love and you’re doing it, you’re not online AT ALL?!
I will say that we saw a lot about hormones in the research, specifically testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. There is data to show this influences sexual motivation and libido, but it looks like there is new research that might be contradicting older research, and when we see that, we try to not report one thing or another. We know hormones, like neurotransmitters (serotonin, vasopressin, dopamine and oxytocin, anyone?) are very much involved, and for this episode we will leave it at that. Also there are deep arguments about differences in brain structure and connectivity. The difficulty in studying this, as we know that its never nurture or nature with our brain, its always both, is determining if this is culture creation and innate.
I also am choosing to leave out orgasm, becuase sex does not actually require orgasm and orgasm does not require sex, but if you want to know more about that check out the neuroscience of orgasm.
What happens in the brain during this process?
LAINE: -So what happens in the brain during sex? Honestly a lot, and specifically a lot interplay between the brain and the body, depending on the act that someone is engaged with and at what step in the process they are at. Up and including to the way that brain interacts with lust verses passionate love. Cacioppo states “the posterior insula was significantly more activated by feelings of lust (than passionate love), whereas the anterior insula was significantly more activated by feelings of passionate love (than lust).”
Oxytocin of light touches – you get a lot more
5. Practical Application (Strategies & Takeaways)
Whether sex is something that’s always on your mind—or something that feels confusing, overwhelming, or even stressful—it influences both how we feel about ourselves and how we connect with other people.
So Laine, based on everything we’ve talked about so far… how does this actually show up in everyday life? And what can the neuroscience help us understand—or even do differently?
Laine: There are a few options to look at practical applications. We are hung up about sex, in many weird ways. We can become sex obsessed. Obesessed we are having it, not having it, that someone’s having it, that the wrong people are having it, that we are too obsessed about it, etc.
So lets cover a few of those.
We are not having it or having it for the wrong reason- a big one is that stress is a major factor to changes in sex drive. That makes sense, as we have covered, we are wired for survival or connection. Its hard to be in a connection state to survive, and for many, though not all, connection is needed for intimacy. That being said, sexual connection has been shown to decrease cortisol but the body can not and should not be forced into it, or that doesn’t work. Also, using another human being to regulate your own stress is a little suss, and leads us to
Sex is connected to our ventral tegmental areas and those “dopaminergic neurons of the reward system” which impact our opioid-endocannabinoid systems. Which is why we covered this in the neuroscience of addiction. The topic of sex addiction is controversial so we will leave it, on a neuroscience level, when you are chasing without the enjoyment, you are at risk for rewiring your brain.
Also, masturbation can help regulate your nervous system, so perhaps try that first.
That being said with all things, it generally just helps to regulate our nervous system and then approach things that impact our hydronic shift.
Not to be crass here, but if everyone’s doing it… Why is sex still such a controversial thing to educate about—especially for teens—when the research seems pretty clear?
Something else that is controversial that came about in the research is the wrong people are having it, specifically, people too young are having it. This podcast works to provide research to let its listeners make their own opinions. That being said, multiple research articles covered the fact that a primary policy to reduce adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections has been school-based programs, however, many have provided funding only for abstinence-only education. However, “This directive persists despite no clear research demonstrating positive social or emotional outcomes of refraining from sex until marriage.”. Specifically, Ballonoff Suleiman et al state that the idea that the healthiest
Behavior that one must abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage has been directly against everything research has shown for over 20 years. Especially due to the amount of neural placisticy at this time period, which is important for gaining knowledge, and feedback to shape these systems specifically to support healthy decision making and lifelong development for a fully functional adult and quote “it is essential to provide adolescents with accurate, research-based information to support them in becoming sexually healthy adults” specifically to help ensure education around the understand that sex that is not risky does not just mean any sex or unprotected sex but importantly “is the sex “pleasurable andsafe, free of coercion, discrimination and violence” as stated by the World Health Orgainztion.
Perhaps it is time to admit that talking about sex, especially educating young individuals about how to make healthy sexual choices, makes us uncomfortable and to prioritize children’s health over our own discomfort.
6. Closing & Recap
Wow, from everything we’ve covered, it’s clear that sex isn’t exactly straightforward—and that makes it understandable why it’s such a complex and sometimes tricky topic to talk about.
Laine, I know wrapping up can be tough, but maybe you could share a fun or surprising insight from the neuroscience that might leave our listeners with something interesting to think about?
Laine: For the most part, when rounding out an episode, this podcast works hard not to take a stand wherever we can. The goal of this was always to provide information and insight to help others make choices to improve their own lives.
So yes, perhaps we can leave you with a fun bit of information for this one. According to recent research sex improves your memory function, and cognitive functioning…around things like words, where things are, what matters to you, but not so much around who you had sex with.
Maudner, Schoemaker and Pruessner found that sexual intercourse, specifically a penis entering a vagina postively imroved neuroegeneses in the hippocampus region for thos who had a higher frequency of PIV, however did not improve memory function around fuisalform, or face recognition.
