have you ever wondered if a really good orgasm makes the attraction between you and your partner stronger I'm Dr Reena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today we're going to be talking about the research linking arousal and orgasm to attraction now research has shown that arousal and attraction are closely linked which seems pretty obvious however it even happens when we're not really sure why we're aroused and this means that when we're feeling excited or stimulated it makes us feel more attracted to the person who's with us during those feelings regardless of the source of that
excitement so they may not be the one causing that arousal it's like our brains are saying hey I'm feeling good and you're here so you must be the reason that I'm feeling good so there was this one famous study by Dutton and Aaron in 1974 it's also known as the bridge study and so this this is the one that you may have heard of it's often discussed to explain this phenomenon basically it's called the misattribution of arousal and so this Theory essentially suggests that people can feel physiological arousal meaning heart rate goes up their pupils
dilate that can be to fear excitement and they can appropriate it to the person that's with them during that experience making them feel more attracted or more intensified emotions to that person in these studies male participants were individually tested as they crossed one of two different Bridges one Bridge was deemed the arousal inducing bridge now this was a narrow rickety suspension bridge that swayed which was likely to induce a high level of physiological arousal the other Bridge was the control bridge and this was a sturdy wide bridge that people were crossing and this was thought
to induce low physiological arousal so while crossing the bridge each participant met an attractive female experimentor who asked them to fill out a questionnaire and at the end of filling out the questionnaire the experimentor gave her number to the participant and said call me under the disguise of discussing the experiment further and so they assumed then that people who called were more likely to have an attraction and what they found was that men who crossed this arousal inducing Bridge or this rickety swaying Bridge were more likely to call the female experimentor compared to those who
were on the control bridge and so they theorized that these men had a heightened physiologic State they had high heart rate and adrenal rush because of fear but they misattributed this to attraction to the female experimenter rather than recognizing the true source of their arousal which was actually the scary Bridge okay that's one study right so another study done in 1998 did a meta analysis and looked at all studies that manipulated arousal levels and examined how they affected attraction and what they found was that arousal does indeed seem to influence attraction even when people are
realizing the source of their arousal so maybe they know they're on a bridge but they're still getting more attracted so in this meta analysis they reviewed the data from 33 experiments involving 1,200 participants these all these experiments had to manipulate arousal levels and measure attraction to other people and looked at a variety of different factors that might influence the relationship and this could be things like how clear the source of arousal was how attractive the person being rated was what type of arousal was induced was it due to fear was it due to exercise was
it sexual in nature and whether the person being rated was either the same sex or the opposite sex of the participant and what they found was that arousal of any kind increases attraction to others and this is even when people realize their arous due to something else this effect is even stronger for Attractive people of the opposite sex and weaker or reversed for people who may be perceived as unattractive in general now different types of arousal fear exercise sexual all tended to increase attraction the researchers conclude that arousal automatically affects our Judgment of Attraction even
if we know we're being aroused due to something else and this happens very quickly and without much conscious thought however if people have the motivation and mental capacity to know that they are being aroused due to something else they may try to adjust their attraction ratings to account for their arousal so in order to test this the researchers also conducted their own study in this study they recruited 40 College age participants who were asked to exercise to induce arousal they then asked them to rate the attractiveness of women in photographs and half of the participants
were asked at the same time to remember a seven-digit number while making their ratings in order to essentially distract them and the other half were not distracted and what they found was that those who were distracted had even higher rates of Attraction compared to people who were not distracted because they couldn't use their mental capacities to really separate the arousal from the activity they were doing the other interesting thing they found in these studies is that when they didn't really realize they where the source of arousal was coming from the actual attraction was Stronger now
what about orgasms so during climax your brain releases a cocktail of chemicals like oxytocin dopamine and opioids now these are involved in feelings of pleasure which is obvious and bonding as well as reward it's like your brain's way of saying hey this is great let's do this again because we really like it in the research it shows us that this orgasm induced reward may actually shape mate preferences over time and this is particularly strong in animal models so what they see is that when you have these feel-good chemicals released during orgasm it can make us
more likely to be attracted to the specific features of our partner things like maybe their scent their appearance like maybe you had a brunette and you Contin to like brunettes even the sound of their voice and this effect may be even more strong during your very first sexual experiences at which point the brain is really receptive to forming these associations it's almost like your brain is taking notes okay this is what a desirable partner looks and feels like so we don't have a lot of data on this in humans but in rats they've shown that
early sexual experiences can actually shape future preferences and behaviors for example in male rats when they have their first sexual experiences with a scented female that's scented in the lab they later then prefer scented Partners later on in humans we know that brain Imaging studies show us what happens during orgasm and it activates certain regions of the brain that are associated with reward memory and emotion all things that will help us form these connections and these activations then may explain why we form these strong associations between sexual pleasure and orgasm and the characteristics of our
partners or our desired partners for that matter and so when we later encounter is related to that particular partner these regions of the brain can then become activated again which may enhance our attraction to that particular individual and maybe even an emotional bond interestingly repeated sexual experiences may also sensitize the brain's reward systems now again this has not been really extensively studied in humans to my knowledge but in rats they've shown that after multiple sexual encounters with the same partner there's increased dendritic spine density in the nucleus accumbent which is a key part of the
brain's reward circuit now this actually is suggesting that sexual experience literally changes the structure of your brain at least in rats and this again may be strengthening that response to certain sexual cues but I don't want you guys to freak out this doesn't mean that you're stuck with the same kind of partner you slept with first it will change throughout different types of Partners through different types of experiences and it will continue to be shaped throughout your lives our brain is very flexible however there may be some validity to these early experiences having a particularly
strong impact now some of you might also be wondering like do I need to have mindblowing orgasms every single time I have sex to bond with my partner no not exactly the research will suggest that it's not just about the intensity of the orgasm it's about the entire intimate experience and how you felt about that and the connection that that occurred and of course everyone is individual and so while some people may have stronger bonding Tendencies others may not and so of course it's something sort of to think about yourself and realize if maybe your
brain is influencing this connection with somebody because you form stronger Bonds in relation to intimacy or orgasm but we do know that emotional connection and compatibility play still a hugely important part in attraction relationships so what should you take away from this one is that a satisfying sex life which includes orgasms may help Foster feelings of connection closeness and attraction in your relationship however it's just one factor among many many factors and it's important not to put too much pressure on orgasms uh because that will probably likely lead to less orgasms all right I hope
you guys found this interesting um if you want to learn more let know or give me a comment about someone I should interview who is an expert in neuroscience and attraction as always you're want to take care of yourself because you're worth it
