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THE SCIENCE OF LOVE AND LUST - episode 2-01
What does science say about how we fall in love and why we stay in love? Is love something that is merely chemically driven or is it a transcendent merging of souls? These are the questions I asked myself when I approached this story. Given that my husband and I actually work together, could we be merely chemically addicted to each other? This story was hard for me. After doing my research, I was genuinely worried that the basis of my love for my husband was that we share a similar pool of brain chemicals. Oxytocin is the essential chemical that keeps us monogamous and bonded together and endorphins calm our minds and kill our anxiety. "Both chemicals are like natural opiates," says the Life magazine article, "and help stabilize the couple by inducing… a druglike dependency." A druglike dependency? Oh My God… I'm Hooked! I know that whenever Pedro goes away on trips I start to shake a bit, I'm incoherent and I yearn for my Latin fix. I know that I obsess and ache to feel his touch. I get cold, clammy and queasy and I crave his pleasure-loving opiates. Unbeknownst to me, I've developed quite the Habit. And so I sent Pedro away to San Diego to interview one of the leading experts in this field, Dr. Theresa Crenshaw. Dr. Crenshaw, the Masters and Johnson-trained author of The Alchemy of Love and Lust, did nothing to calm my fears. Oxytocin was coursing through my brain and I was to remain as monogamous as the prairie vole itself. (Prairie voles are one of the few mammals that remain monogamous and scientists have discovered that they are extremely sensitive to the effects of oxytocin.) Only 3% of mammals are monogamous and I definitely felt somewhat freaky to be part of such a small minority. Like the "monogamouse," I must have inherited some sort of strange "oxytocin sensitivity," and I've, therefore, "pair bonded" for life. But when Pedro returned and we rapturously hugged each other, I realized that no body could explain away this moment. Yes, we are addicted to each other and at that moment testosterone was rushing through our veins… but we wanted nothing else than to meld into each other's being and caress each other's soul. Michelle Melles
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