Ever since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been trying to understand and explain the mysteries of love and sex. Over the past few decades, scientists started using specialized equipment to measure physical arousal by attaching devices to private parts. More recently, they’ve been observing the most important romantic organ in the human body—the brain.
Forbes wrote about the research of Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., at the Imperial College of London. Bartels used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which can capture images of brain activity, to pinpoint the areas of the brain that are activated by love.
Bartles did a study of 17 people who were madly in love. He had the test subjects look at photos of platonic friends and of their loved ones while he observed activity in their brains. The resulting images clearly showed that certain sections of the brain are stimulated by love.
The scientist then did another study to observe the brains of mothers looking at their infants. The images showed that exactly the same areas of the brain were stimulated by maternal love, except for an area in the hypothalamus in the base of the brain that seems to be linked to sexual arousal.
The conclusion, therefore, is that specific areas of the brain light up at the prospect of love.
Bartels also noticed something else: When the test subjects were feeling love, certain areas of the brain were turned off. The scans showed that three regions of the brain generally associated with moral judgment go dim.
Chemistry of love
Then there’s the chemistry of love. Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a professor at Rutgers University, has written that three networks in the brain, and their associated neurotransmitters, are associated with love. They are:
- Lust—the craving for sexual gratification, which is linked to testosterone in both men and women.
- Romantic attraction—the elation and yearning of new love, which is linked to the natural stimulants dopamine and norepinephrine, and low activity in serotonin.
- Attachment—the calm emotional union with a long-term partner, which is linked to oxytocin and vasopressin.
Fisher also did a study using fMRI technology. She scanned the brains of 40 men and women who were wildly in love. When these people gazed at photos of their beloved, the scans showed increased activity in the areas of the brain that produce dopamine. This neurochemical is associated with feelings of excessive energy, elation, focused attention and motivation to win rewards.
Dopamine, by the way, is also the neurotransmitter associated with addiction.
Effects of arousal
Research has also proven what we’ve probably all experienced—sexual arousal can make us throw caution to the winds.
In another study using fMRI technology, Dr. Ken Maravilla of the University of Washington found that sexual arousal dims down the parts of the brain that control inhibition and, perhaps, moral judgment.
“These are things that keep you in line, and in arousal they may become less active, allowing you to become more aroused,” Maravilla said, as quoted by Wired Magazine.
In a paper called, The Heat of the Moment: The Effect on Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making, Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and George Lowenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, documented that being sexually turned on affected the judgment of college-aged men. (Well, duh ”¦)
Specifically, Ariely and Lowenstein found that, “the increase in motivation to have sex produced by sexual arousal seems to decrease the relative importance of other considerations, such as behaving ethically toward a potential sexual partner or protecting oneself against unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.”
But another of their findings was, “people seem to have only limited insight into the impact of sexual arousal on their own judgments and behavior.” In other words, most of us don’t appreciate how strong the sex urges are, and how they can make us do things that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing.
Sociopathic seduction
So let’s look at all this information in the context of our relationships with sociopaths.
Two of the main strategies that sociopaths use to snare us are love and sex. They emphatically proclaim their love and consciously seduce us into having sex. So what happens?
- Love causes specific areas of the brain light up, and at the same time, areas associated with morals and judgment go dim.
- The areas of the brain that produce dopamine become active, and dopamine is related to addiction.
- Sexual arousal dims the parts of the brain responsible for inhibition and judgment that might prevent us from making bad choices.
- We don’t recognize the impact that sexual urges have on our judgment and behavior.
Dr. Helen Fisher writes that the three primary brain systems associated with love evolved over the ages to play different roles in courtship, mating, reproduction and parenting. They are Nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the human species.
Sociopaths convincingly proclaim their enduring love and their sexual desire for us. Not realizing the pervasive deceit of these predators, we believe that they love us. We have sex with them, and the sex is great. Many Lovefraud readers have been amazed at the sociopath’s sexual appetite and prowess.
Therefore, sociopaths hijack our brain through our feelings of love and the bonds of sex. In their seductions, they turn the natural psychological and chemical functions of our brains against us.
Just to clarify something here that Tilly said about “Donna’s payroll”—number one, I have never received one dime for any of the articles I have submitted here and Donna has published on this blog. Number two, Donna does not make a “living” off of this blog, she supports herself by working like most of the people here. This blog doesn’t “make money” for her, it actually COSTS her not only in terms of time, but also money. This place is a public service, not a money making effort for Donna.
I can’t even imagine how much TIME Donna invests in this blog for OUR benefit and because SHE CARES.
Everytime one of thes yay-hos shows up and cause chaos it causes US to react and to get off track with OUR healing. Sometimes the attack is pretty blatant like last week (or when ever it was) and Donna jumps on it immediately and deletes those hateful messages and posters are blocked, but al lthey have to do is to come back under another name and/or on another computer. they throw out “hooks” and sure enough one of us will “pick it up”—I did with the latest one and told that poster it was offensive to me—in a respectful way I thought. The same way if one of you made a really offensive comment or “joke” you thought was funny and I didn’t think was funny, I would tell you. The DIFFERENCE is, you guys are not here to make trouble, you might say back to me, “well, I think it is okay” and I would say “then we can agtree to disagree” Kathleen hawk and I have done that many times and we are still friends, so what’s the difference in this situation? When a person comes here for ATTENTION and a place to make “snide” comments and “jokes” rather than SEEK information and to inform us how much they know, the hackles on the backs of our necks sort of go up when someone initially presents themselves in this way. They may actually be the nicest person in the “room” but they don’t present themselves well. Actually I think most people who present themselves this way, aren’t the nicest people in the room, but you never know so I will give that person the “benefit of the doubt”—so far my initial reaction still stands, but my response my reaction, is going to ignore this person and not read and not post to them. That’s what Donna asked us to do.
Actually, I think this is a GOOD EXERCISE for us in learning to SPOT them on line.
Elizabeth Connely spotted one in her neighborhoood the other day with the “baby sitting” request and I am so glad for her that she is SEEING the real story! We need to follow her lead! Me too!!!!
Good Advice OXY – I want Tilly to know that my comment was deleted also. And in retrospect I see where my comment was opinionated and in bad tatste. I respect Donna and her website too much to leave hard feelings so I apologized too her personally. This is not the first booger on the blog to make my p-dar go off. I was defending a fellow blogger and made sick by another. It is apparant that I am becoming to involved and addicted to LF. I will be back – never fear~! but gonna take a break – love to all my LF peepers……henry
I agree with Oxy, but this is a difficult situation for us who spot them. They are here to create disruption. Or to troll for new victims.
The problem is that we are at different stages of healing. And different stages of perception. Which means that we respond to things in different ways.
For me, the minute this person arrived and started asking us to explain how sociopaths operate to hook their victims, I knew we had a problem. He wasn’t here to share information or to seek emotional assistance. He was trolling.
I’m not the only one who saw this. And yes, I agree with Oxy and Donna that no contact is the easiest and cleanest way to shut these people out. But the problem still exists that some of us are going to be slower on the uptake. And there is going to be an inevitable disruption while some of up respond, as though this person were genuine, some of us are trying to warn the others, and some of us are engaging with this person to try to clarify that the person is a fraud.
I think that we have two challenges here. One is to clarify that this person is a fraud, if it’s not immediately clear. And that requires some interaction with the person. The other is to discuss it among ourselves, and that requires us to talk about the person, as though he or she weren’t here. Which raises the issue of “flaming.”
I think that Tilly made the effort to do both things. And she feels aggrieved because she feels like she got whacked for doing this.
The fact is that we are faced with a problem here. And if we or Donna have some argument with how Tilly handled it (though I personally don’t and tried to support her while she was doing it), then I think we need to find a better solution than simply no contact.
Maybe it’s just to speak up quickly to say that this person makes us feel uncomfortable. Either to each other or to the person. But I think that something needs to be done, in every thread where it occurs, to establish an alert.
And then go no contact.
And we do it as often as it shows up.
It is always an interesting learning experience to see how they respond to challenges. And yes, I agree that we run the risk of challenging someone who is here, because he or she belongs here.
But you know, there is fairly consistent of “entry” for real people. We tell our stories. We ask for help or feedback on what we wrote or other people’s advice or guidance. This is a support group. We ask for support.
We’ve actually had at least one questionable character show up with that pattern — the man who wanted to control his ex — but he wasn’t here with the sole intention of trolling or disruption.
I apologize for continuing to talk about this, but I think it’s an important issue. And if some of us persistent long-timers can agree on a strategy, I think we can carry it through.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Kathy
Tilly:
I feel your frustration, but you are not going anywhere. You know as well as I do what is going to happen here.
As far as I am concerned, it has already happened, but whatever.
It is just a matter of time.
Dear Kathy, and every9one else caught up in this “chaos”
I totally agree with you Kathy, on some posters like the ones we had that were from a psychopathic site (which on the site they were laughign abouthaving come here and disrupted us) and then this most recent one. I admit I spotted this one after his first post, and the second one about the adopted child being “sold into slavery” made me sure about that. I’ve heard some really bad stories on here, hell I have told some really bad stories on here—true stories—but that one did not ring true to me—it was over the top of “believeable fiction” when taken with the REST of the person’s posts about how some of us had “no sense of humor”—you are right, we don’t have a sense of humor about abusive and trolling people.
The other day when that one came on and our dear sweet friend henry told him to F%$& OFF, and donna deleted that I think, but you know it should have been deleted and Henry came back and apologized for it, and I UNDERSTAND WHAT MADE HIM DO IT! I felt the same way but thankfully RESTRAINED myself THAT TIME.
I did post to the person on the offensive (to me) quote about “prudish” women, and in retrospect I should NOT have done that. (even though I thought I was being respectful to the person in saying it the way I did) We all know that you cannot have a reasonable DIALOG with these people because no omatter what you say to them they will turn it into SOMETHING ELSE.
I still think, though, that we need to view this as a POSITIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE in learning to spot them on line from the GENUINE VICTIM’S POSTS.
What does a “genuine victims” post look like. Let’s work on this together. (so all input appreciated)
First I think a GENUINE VICTIM’s posts come on and they INTRODUCE THEMSELVES “Hi, I am Suzzie Q, I have been reading here a while and this is my first post…I was involved with a P ….and then goes on to tell something about why they are here.
The genuine victim does not START out with the “wise cracks” or make racial, sexist or other “jokes”
The genuine victim usually makes some comments about other’s stories, and how they are validated.
Their AFFECT in their words shows their pain, we can, I think, almost feel the pain in their post—can’t explaine it better than that, maybe someone else can.
They do not immediately go into a pity party about HOW MUCH WORSE THEIR STORY/PAIN IS and how we are NOT understanding.
They do NOT offer right off to EDUCATE US about psychopaths in a haughty manner like we are idiots.
They do not talk down to us.
I loved Erin’s post this morning about the guy P who owes her money and when he came to the meeting with her came up with the story that on the way there he found out both his parents had been killed in a plane crash so wanted to side track the converrsation into talking about his FAKE grief rather than the fact he had owed her money for quite some time. How P IS THAT STORY???? lol rotflmao There are just sxome stories that don’t resonate as “true” because if they really did happen you would not be “talking so calmly” about it. LOL
Psychopaths, not understandign the EMOTIONS connected with REAL GRIEF don’t even know how to fake it sometimes so that it is believeable. ERIN’s P obviously went so over the top with his “pity story” that it was SSSSSOOOOOO unbelieveable a 5 year old would not have believed it. I equate that one to the “the child was sold into slavery for drug money” pity party….ah come on, if that were true, you call the COPS and FBI, don’t post jokes around it.
I did notify Donna that I saw what I perceived to be a trouble maker troller on the site and I should have done that and will in the future when I see something that makes my hair stand up and my P-DAR go off.
In the meantime, I think we need to AL:L learn mroe of what a REAL GENUINE post looks like and waht a FAKER’s looks like. So far, Rosa has spotted all the most recent ones, including the “control freak”—Jen pointed out some things that I saw clearly after she did, so it wasn’t long before everyone here saw through that control freak and just ignored him….and he went away.
So let’s USE THIS BAD THING FOR OUR OWN GOOD AND LEARNING EXPERIENCES. You guys chime in with ideas. (((hugs))))
Hey guys aren’t we all suppose to be on the same side? This isn’t about who did this or who did that. This is about a “bad person” showing up here and DOING exactly what they set out out do. Divide and conquor.
There was a tit-for-tat exchange going on here last night for awile and I believe at some point that blogger got really ABRASIVE when he talked of suicide. And he was blogging to a NEWCOMER.
That is what is important here, the newcomers who may not even understand what is going on.
And of course, the END RESULT. He managed to get everyones feathers ruffled and everyone upset with each other.
Don’t you think that was part of his intention???
I agree with Katheleen Hawk. We need to come up with a better “plan” of how to collectively deal with this before it happens again.
But most of all we need to SUPPORT each other when it does.
TILLY don’t be mad 🙁 Get out your boomerang and give it a good whirl. Maybe it will strike a good target. Pianoman perhaps?
I was upset last night to. I got on to discuss a problem I was having and when I saw the crude remark he made about suicide to the newcomer, I jumped in for a moment and tried to blog around him.
I think we need a group hug!
Kathy
In response to anyone else having thoughts:-
I am really pleased with myself (smug even). I spotted the two mega creeps this week almost right away which is amazing to me that my radar is working so well and I give credit to all here who have helped me and been kind enough to post their experiences, views and insights along the way.
It’s a shame that so much upset has been caused but I think this is a lesson to us ALL that demonstrates the chaos they cause, the antagonism that arises because of them and the ensuing ‘bad taste’ left behind in their wake.
Tilly, Blueskies and MariaLisa (before she even got started) appear to have been thrown off track in helping themselves via LF by these idiots and that’s a great pity because I have found both Tilly’s and Blueskies’ posts of enormous benefit and interest in the short time I have been visiting.
I wholeheartedly agree that we all keep to the same strategy and use this as a learning curve – don’t allow them to divide and conquer – we’ve all had enough of THAT in the past.
Thought I’d just stick my 10 cents worth in, as you say in the U.S.
It’s not even over yet. At least not from what I am seeing this morning.
I could be wrong (but I don’t think so).
Rosa,
Is something going on that I am missing?
It’s on another thread.