The Cuddle Hormone

I recently had an interesting conversation with a sex educator friend of mine about oxytocin. It is a hormone that is released during breastfeeding and labour. It brings about feelings of contentment, reduces in anxiety, and encourages feelings of calmness and security around a mate. My friend said it also released in women during sex as well as when we do other soothing actions like touch our hair. I touch my hair a lot. I guess I need some soothing and that helps me take care of that.

I also read about oxytocin recently in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex* by Heather Belle and Michelle Fiordaliso (*a former spouse, lover, fling, or ”friend”).

Chemically, sex with an Ex produces a cocktail of hormones that make you feel loving towards someone who you intellectually understand is not the right person for you. In a Sex in the City generation, you want to believe that women can trade in the ‘walk of shame’ for the ‘stride of pride’: using a man like a vibrator - buzz, buzz, and then back in the drawer. Again, while times have changed, most women haven’t. Having sex with someone send a surge of oxytocin though you that lets you think he’s a dreamy guy who you want back in your bed on a regular basis. It’s just who we ladies are. We get attached. We want him to like us. Not to mention that oxytocin actually has an amnesiac effect that makes you forget what you didn’t like about the guy. And there you go, looped in for another bout of lovin’ - lovin’ that just wastes your time in the end. Time better spent doing almost anything else.

Fascinating. Explains a lot about many of my past choices. Not necessarily with exes since I have had few exes and the ones I have had get cut out of my life for our mutual protection. Still, fascinating information to think about and why women might choose to have sex and desire repeat performances with people they might otherwise stay away from.