cheers to love

You know the moment you meet a special someone and your face flushes when your eyes meet? Or the accidental brush of a hand that makes you jittery and you start to sweat? That hug that makes your heart pound? These are all perfectly normal responses to being smitten.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day and romance, we’re going to talk about what happens when you get a little frisky. As embarrassing as the topic may be, sexual arousal brings about fascinating responses, born from primal origins long ago in our evolutionary history. Don’t worry; it’s all PG-13.   

Get it girl. (sheknows.com)

Flushing is an especially functional reaction. Increased heart rate forces blood into vascular dermal tissues such as your cheeks. A nice rosy glow communicates to your crush that you are interested, healthy, and sexually operative. (And thanks to the makeup industry, you can now fool people into thinking you are all of these things! Stupid suckers.)

Sweating may seem like a sexual deterrent (after all, pit stains don’t really say “come hither”), but is actually working for you in a romantic setting. You have two types of sweat glands. Eccrine glands are all over your body and really only secrete water and salt. Appocrine glands are found in your armpits and crotchal area and are connected to hair follicles. It is from these appocrine glands that pheromones are emitted. When sweating increases upon sexual arousal, it is your body’s way of dispersing those pheromones into your immediate environment. Though it may be only subconscious, the person of interest will pick up on these smells and (hopefully) react positively to your smell.

When you let your honey into your personal space, you are certainly allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Goosebumps that arise from this sort of closeness are remnants of the ancestral reaction to a potential threat. Think of a porcupine putting up its quills, or a cat’s hair standing on end. You’re on guard and your senses are heightened. Makes sense.

Thank you for setting
unachievable pupil standards,
Belle. Thanks.

My favorite sexual reaction is pupil dilation. Pupil dilation occurs as a means to heighten sight sensitivity, and functions similarly to the goosebumps as a way of being “on guard.” Studies show that men consistently prefer women with big ole’ cartoon pupils. The bigger the pupils, the stronger the attraction. However, this is not mutual. Studies by Tombs and Silverman (2004) show that women prefer men with moderately dilated pupils. They suggest that men with fully dilated pupils are more emotionally charged and pose more of a threat, tending towards violence or forcible acts. It has also been shown that females’ pupil size varies on a monthly cycle- peak size correlating with peak fertility (Caryl et. al).

Our bodily systems are amazingly and elegantly coordinated. Pupil size changing with fertility? That's amazing.

All of this being said, I think the distinction between lust and love must be made. All of these physiological responses are lustful. Love requires some extra ingredients that I’m not sure biology can explain.

Cheers to cool biology and love, friends. Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day.

Caryl, Peter G. Jocelyn E. Bean, Eleanor B. Smallwood, Jennifer c. Barron, Laura Tully, Michael Allerhand. Women’s preferene for male pupil-size: Effects of conception risk, sociosexuality and relationship status. Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 46 Issue 4, March 2009. Pg. 503-508.

Tombs, Selina, and Irwin Silverman. Pupillometry, a sexual selection approach. Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004), Pg. 221-228.