After sex: women fall in love and men fall asleep?

We hear it all the time. Women who have sex (and especially those who have orgasms during sex) get attached the their male partners because of the rapid release of oxytocin into the bloodstream. This supposedly biological explanation for why women fall in love and men fall asleep after sex seems widely accepted given that women experience a spike in oxytocin around orgasm while men experience a more gradual increase.

But this is only a small part of the picture and this difference in oxytocin is measured in the bloodstream rather than in the brain. The researcher responsible for these findings wants to set the record straight and clarify that the “similarities are much greater than the differences in orgasm between men and women.” In the interview below, Barry Komisaruk explains that oxytocin is both a hormone and neurotransmitter and emphasizes that there is no scientific evidence that explains the behavioural impacts of oxytocin on humans. Check out Tracy Clark-Flory’s full interview below…