Men and Love, Sex, Relationships

Since my "Failure of Love" post has been generating so many comments, I've decided to post an article I found. As always comments are strongly encouraged. Plus, I think a little science will add an interesting twist to the discussion we've been having.

Decoding the Male Brain

By Michelle Burford

It's the mystery that has befuddled women for centuries: Why do men behave the way that they do? Neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, claims to have cracked part of that code in her new book, "The Male Brain: a Breakthrough Understanding of How Men and Boys Think."

While Brizendine concedes that the male and female brains share plenty in common, she whisks readers away on a tour through the male life span and demonstrates how the male brain is profoundly different from the female brain at nearly every stage. The point? Just about every behavior we've noticed in men -- from a tendency to analyze rather than empathize to the seemingly insatiable desire to ogle female body parts -- has a biological basis that Brizendine hopes will lend women a little insight on the men they love.

AOL: In your experience, what's the one thing that women most often misunderstand about men's behavior?

Louann Brizendine: Women don't quite understand some aspects of the psychological and emotional meaningfulness of sex to men. The sexual part of a man's interaction with a woman is how he expresses and feels love for her. I'm not talking about the kind of hit-and-run sex some men have with women they don't really have feelings for. But when a man is already falling in love with a woman, sex is what seals the deal.

When a woman sees that look in her man's eye that means he wants sex, she might be like "Oh, gosh … I'm suddenly tired." But she probably doesn't know that if she turns him down in a harsh way, he'll likely take that to mean that she doesn't love him -- even if it's just in that moment. Of course, it's rare that that's the case -- every woman who's in a relationship has, at some point, said, "Not tonight, honey." Yet when a man hears that sentence, it's as if he's hearing, "I don't really care for you."

AOL Health: In your book, you write that the area in the hypothalamus that's tied to sexual pursuit is larger in men than it is in women. Is this an excuse for philanderers like John Edwards and Tiger Woods?

LB: At conception, we all start out with female-type brain circuits; then at eight weeks of gestation, the tiny testicles start pumping out huge amounts of testosterone that marinates those circuits and turns them into a male brain. In males, the brain's area for sexual pursuit becomes two and a half times larger than in the female. And when a boy reaches puberty, the fuel that runs that area of the brain is testosterone. Between ages nine and 15, a boy's testosterone level increases by 200 to 250 percent, so for most of his adult life, a male will have 10 to 15 times more testosterone than females do. He's running at full throttle! But this isn't an excuse for abnormal or pathological sexual behavior in men. We all have the capacity to murder, but we learn how to show restraint. Philanderers may be hardwired with a strong sexual drive, but they don't get a pass for acting in an uncivilized fashion. They give all men a bad name.

AOL Health: It's not exactly shocking that men have a stronger sex drive than women do. What are women supposed to do with that information?

LB: A woman will call me up and say, "You've gotta save my marriage -- my husband is threatening to leave if I don't get more interested in sex!" When the couple is sitting in front of me, I'll say ask the man, "How do you know your wife loves you?" He'll say, "Because she wants to have sex with me!" But when I ask the woman the same question, she answers, "Because he wants to cuddle and talk with me." It's usually a big aha moment for both. Understanding the biological state of another person can very helpful -- then, we can stop blaming each other for being different.

AOL Health: While we're on the topic of biological differences, can you explain men's tendency to ogle random women -- also known as "the man trance"?

LB: Ninety-five percent of male sexual interest is visual. As young as age 12, boys start having fantasies of girls' body parts. They don't know that other boys are having the same fantasies, so they often feel alone, or like they're a pervert. It's important for moms to understand that this is the normal developmental curve of males. I have a son who's 19, so I've lived through this.

Just at the age when boys are starting to fantasize about female body parts, girls are often becoming obsessed with makeup, fashion and trying to be sexy. Yet this doesn't give males permission to, say, catcall or ogle females who are walking down the street. Parents need to help their boys learn how to behave in a civilized and socially appropriate way.

AOL Health: You call the male brain a "lean, mean, problem-solving machine." Can you explain that?

LB: That has to do with how a man processes the emotions he notices in his partner. There are two emotional processing channels in the human brain: the mirror-neuron system, which is related to displaying emotional empathy, and the temporal-parietal junction, a cognitive system that serves as a hub for searching the entire brain to find a solution fast.

The male brain doesn't wallow in the mirror-neuron system as long as the female brain does. So when a man sees his partner's face in distress, he quickly jumps into the use of his temporal-parietal junction and says, "Honey, here's what you should do." That's why I put a little yellow sticky on my husband's computer that says, "Honey, I know how you feel." It's scripted, but it makes me feel better when he says it before launching into solutions. He even started using that line with his adult daughter -- and he confessed to me the other day that it seems to be working!

AOL Health: You've said that men can fall in love just as hard as women do and sometimes more so. What is it about the male brain that allows men to fall so deeply in love -- and what are the gender-specific signs of that love?

LB: Sexual activity releases lots of dopamine in the human brain -- and that stimulates bonding and attachment between partners. The male brain has more dopamine than the female brain, and though we don't know all the details of how the male brain functions during sexual activity, we do know this: When a man falls in love with a woman, he actually incorporates her into his sense of self. Everything she likes or wants, he takes those things to heart as if they were his own, and he wants to give her those things. That's how he expresses love -- by providing. For men, the sexual part of that love is intense: With the release of oxytocin after intimacy, the protective mode in the male is greater than it is in the female. So in that sense, men fall harder in love.

AOL Health: As boys grow into men, some become fathers and develop what you call the "daddy brain." How does the male brain change during parenthood?

LB: The thing that surprised me most in doing the research for my book was discovering how the daddy brain gets formed. When a man's partner becomes pregnant, she starts to have huge hormonal fluctuations, and that stimulates her sweat glands to make different pheromones. Those pheromones waft across the bed into the man's nostrils and actually change the hormones that he releases. His prolactin level goes up by about 20 percent, and his testosterone level goes down by about 30 percent.

The hypothesis is that this lower testosterone level keeps the man close to the nest and prepares him to stop chasing skirts and become interested in his baby. Non-dad, pre-pregnancy brains have been scanned and then compared, eight or nine months later, to daddy brains. The scans show that a new dad's ability to activate the auditory circuits in his brain to hear an infant's cry has improved greatly. So these hormones prime his brain to take care of his baby. That's the whole purpose of a hormone -- to make a certain behavior more likely. So I worry about dads who are aren't around a lot, but that doesn't mean these men can't catch up in developing the daddy brain once they're home.

AOL Health: At what stage of life are men's and women's brains more alike than they are different?

LB: Around age 60, our hormones are more equivalent. The woman has a little more testosterone and a lot less estrogen, whereas the male has less testosterone and a little more estrogen. Testosterone levels in men begin to decline between ages 40 and 60 as they go through andropause, [also called male menopause]. Men usually still have a greater sex drive than women do -- but around 60, we're as close as we'll ever be in terms of the hormones that are running our brain circuits. So here's one hypothesis: The reason some men become more patient or more willing to get closer as they age is because they have higher levels of estrogen, which stimulates the brain to make oxytocin, the cuddle hormone.

In addition to noticing these hormonal changes, we also have to recognize this: Experience shapes the brain. The nature-nurture debate is dead because every experience we have -- and especially those experiences we repeat -- actually changes the brain's circuitry. By the time we are 60, we've had a lot of life experiences -- and those experiences have changed the architecture of the brain.

When you reject your partner's sexual advances, you hit the guy more deeply than he will ever admit to you. If you're going to turn him down, find a way to do it gently. It's one of the most loving things you can do.