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SEX Science - Secrets of Attraction - Full HD Movie Uncut
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00:00the moment of conception a sperm fertilizes an egg it's the start of a new life but how
00:12did these lovers choose each other and why do they turn each other on science is now
00:21uncovering the secrets of sexual attraction revealing how love is like a rush of cocaine
00:27how we can choose our future partner with our noses and ultimately how and why we pick our perfect mate
00:57boy meets girl girl meets boy each thinks the other is hot and the rest just follows naturally
01:06it's a mating ritual as old as humankind itself but now science is moving into the bedroom to study
01:15in-depth the details of sexual attraction scientists are putting the chemistry of lust love and long-term
01:22relationships under the microscope and around the world researchers are exploring your love life in
01:31some surprising ways powerful evolutionary processes determine what attracts us to a mate and the way we
01:39attract others natural selection is the struggle for the best individuals to survive animals compete
01:48with each other for food and to escape predators the survivors win the prize of passing on their genes to
01:55future generations but there's also another process at work sexual selection in all advanced animals as the
02:07saying goes it takes two to tango only animals capable of attracting a mate will pass their genes down the
02:14future generations so sexual selection encourages the development of features and animal behavior that
02:22differentiate male from female and help attract the sexual partner scientists now know that humans are no
02:33exception to these rules anthropologist Helen Fisher studies how our bodies and brains have evolved so that boy meets girl
02:43she believes that three separate sexual drives control the rules of the mating game
02:49lust the sex drive our craving for sexual gratification
02:56romantic love our adoration for the one partner who seems to be all that we seek
03:05and attachment the way we develop a secure union with a long-term partner
03:17the sex drive evolved to get you out there looking for a range of partners i think that romantic love
03:22evolved to enable you to focus that maiden energy on just one at a time and i think that attachment evolved
03:28to enable you to tolerate this individual at least long enough to raise a child through infancy
03:35you know
03:37but what is it that makes us lost for the opposite sex in the first place
03:41yeah fisher has been doing revolutionary research into our brains to discover what turns us on
03:52on the campus of stony brook university new york fisher advertises for students in love
03:57she uses a functional magnetic resonance imaging or fmri machine to scan the students brains
04:09it reveals the constantly changing pattern of blood flow in the brain active brain cells show up as they
04:16require more blood than their less active neighbors 15 years ago we couldn't have studied love this way now we
04:23can we can look into the brain and see which parts become active and really begin to understand the brain
04:29networks that that we all experience when we're madly in love first the team records blood flow through
04:37the brain as their subjects gaze at a neutral image then they change the picture to a photo of the subject's
04:44lover and measure the blood flow once again they find that men react differently to women
04:50men are turned on visually while women are more interested in character
04:58among our male subjects we found more activity in a brain region associated with the integration of
05:05visual stimuli and in our female subjects we found more activity in brain regions associated with memory
05:11recall of course we've known for generations that men seek visual stimulation when it comes to sex
05:19striptease is one of the oldest professions
05:23for men visual arousal stimuli are vitally important and activate the brain more than they do for women
05:30women do like to look but men like to look more and i think this is for a very uh profoundly powerful darwinian reason
05:40but what are those darwinian evolutionary reasons what exactly are men looking for
05:48to shed some light on the visual stimuli that fire up a man's brain cells
05:53we send a researcher out onto the streets of london to demonstrate a classic psychology experiment
06:01the researchers mission to ask men which of these four drawings they find most attractive
06:06which of these women do you think is most attractive the female figures are virtually identical although
06:13the small differences between them are all important no they're not there's a slight difference in all of
06:19them the relationship between the size of the waist and the size of the hips is marginally different in
06:25every picture the sex researchers refer to this relationship as the waist to hip ratio
06:31uh d c uh c i said a c any reason why she's got curves thank you very much
06:42in our survey a wins two votes b has none c attracts 15 and d scores five
06:52our result is the same as in the original experiment a clear majority of men prefer a woman just like miss c
07:00a woman whose waist is precisely seven tenths the size of her hips the figure that scientists suggest
07:05is the perfect waist to hip ratio with such a ratio a woman with a 26 inch waist will have 37 inch hips
07:14this result may not seem like much but it gives us an insight as to what men are looking for in a sexual
07:21partner women with this waist to hip ratio of around 0.7 are thought more likely to bear babies
07:30they find it easier to get pregnant conceive earlier in life and have fewer miscarriages
07:36these features along with well-formed lips high defined cheeks and sizable breasts are controlled
07:45by the sex hormones and are called hormonal markers biologist randy thornhill from the university of new
07:54mexico studies how our bodies display sexual attractiveness the human face and body is a collection of signals of symmetry
08:05and signals of hormone effects in the body male body testosterone female body estrogen
08:13features such as a woman's breasts and fat deposits in her upper cheeks and lips
08:18are substantially shaped by bodily levels of the sex hormone estrogen
08:26secreted primarily by the ovaries estrogen influences not only the menstrual cycle but
08:31also the development at puberty of a woman's secondary sexual characteristics which include her face and body shape
08:41estrogen is a marker of the quality of the female and that includes
08:46uh a marker of her reproductive capacity so her ability to bear children successfully is all highly estrogen related in women
08:58scientists theorize that men are disproportionately attracted to women whose features indicate healthy hormonal levels
09:05because that offers the promise of more easily producing healthy children
09:09for millions of years a man needed to mate with a woman who had signs of health and youth and fertility the kind of woman that could bear him healthy babies
09:24but it's not just women who display hormonal markers
09:29as a boy reaches puberty testosterone secreted by the testes promotes the growth of particular masculine features
09:37such as prominent cheekbones a strong jaw and broad shoulders these masculine features are markers for virility and health
09:49they also appear to be dominant markers dominance is associated with male reproductive success in many species including humans
09:59but sexual attractiveness is transitory
10:01estrogen levels decline with age which means that a youthful appearance attracts men who are
10:08biologically driven to seek out the most fertile women
10:12but nowadays all is not what it seems
10:16it is possible to fool the system by creating hormonal indicator features that nature may not have supplied or that age may have taken away
10:24in 2004 the united states public spent almost 13 billion dollars on cosmetic procedures
10:3190 percent of them were carried out on women
10:34dr mark monny is a cosmetic surgeon in what is probably the world's most silicone enhanced neighborhood beverly hills
10:44the majority of patients that come to me are fundamentally looking to be more successful
10:48successful in the sexual selection process commonly in women they're going to be looking for procedures
10:54that make them look younger and that again is because youth is something that is attractive in the
11:00process of sexual selection and so a younger looking female is going to naturally be more attractive to any male
11:06in 2004 plastic surgeons carried out nearly 340 000 breast implants and around 250 000 face and forehead lifts in the u.s alone
11:19but it's not just women who want to cheat nature in the mating game
11:23in that same year 1.2 million men had plastic surgery including 719 pectoral implants
11:31things that men look for in plastic surgery are going to be things that make them maybe look
11:37more masculine a lot of the time for example a chin implant to make the man have a stronger jaw
11:43this explosion of personal re-engineering could have a serious effect on human attractiveness in the future
11:51it actually may make the population more unattractive because people with unattractive features
11:57can have them changed and consequently be more successful reproductively so their offspring will
12:02still have the genes that carried unattractive features on but hey looks aren't everything and women
12:10more than men seek out other assets for women the ideal mate is more than just a source of fertile sperm
12:18she seeks the more intangible characteristics such as reliability loyalty kindness that suggest a good
12:26husband and a good father for her children but it's not possible to judge these just from looks
12:36for millions of years a woman couldn't really look at a man and size him up to know whether he would be
12:41a good provider and a good protector fisher finds a major clue as to how women weigh up their prospective
12:49mates by analyzing the brain scans of her female students
12:53the women in love have more blood racing through a part of the brain called the hippocampus
13:00an area associated with the processing of memory
13:07but what has memory got to do with sexual attraction and a woman's love life
13:14fisher suggests that women are particularly interested in the men's character
13:18and that they build up a memory map of their behavior in order to determine if they will be
13:23a suitable mate and father to their children she needed to remember what he did last valentine's day
13:30what he promised last christmas what he didn't do last summer she needed to remember to see if he was
13:36going to be a good husband and a good father and for that memory is vitally important
13:43and in fact that's what women do all the time we get on the telephone and talk to other women
13:49constantly recounting what he did and didn't do what we're doing is creating a memory trail of whether
13:56this is going to be a good individual to pass on our dna with it makes good evolutionary sense for
14:04a woman to mate with a reliable man who will help her raise their children but women look for other
14:10things in men that will help their offspring succeed such as status status is important in
14:18the mating game as wealthy powerful dominant men are seen as being able to provide a good life for
14:24possible offspring and they advertise this status with fancy cars and elegant clothes but status
14:34is only part of the story for humankind to survive and prosper we need healthy offspring with healthy
14:45genes and a healthy immune system to protect them from disease but how can you tell if the man or woman
14:53you think is attractive will bring a suitable and healthy immune system along to the party scientists
14:59suggest that getting your partner to play a little hot and sweaty sport might help
15:04so you can properly analyze their dna with your nose
15:11evolution has driven men and women to behave in different ways to maximize their chances of winning
15:16a mate but behavior is only part of the story scientists are now conducting new experiments to decipher
15:25more and more of the coded signals our bodies send out to attract a sexual partner signals that contain
15:32hidden information about the type and quality of the immune system we may pass on to our children
15:38and that we read in an instant
15:43university of new mexico biologist randy thornhill believes that we interpret these signals in
15:49milliseconds without even knowing we are doing it our awareness is just you know this person is more
15:56attractive than that person when in fact we're doing very sophisticated calculations that are going
16:02on in our heads and all this is done very unconsciously and very quickly he believes the human nose is one of the best
16:12tools we have for deciphering secret messages of sexual attraction from the opposite sex
16:18to illustrate this thornhill gets some students to wear identical freshly laundered white shirts during a
16:25game of basketball
16:31as the players perspire their shirts absorb the sweat which contains pheromones
16:37odorless airborne molecules exuded from the sweat glands of both men and women
16:43pheromones are believed to be involved in attracting the opposite sex
16:47what thornhill has discovered is that they have a far more complex role and convey far more complex
16:58information than previously believed in his laboratory thornhill asks a group of female biology graduates
17:07to put their sense of smell to the test the women will smell these shirts uh worn by each man
17:16and rate them for sexiness pleasantness and intensity the women have no idea which
17:24shirt belongs to which athlete they take each shirt in turn sniff and consider its scent and write down
17:32which they like best based on nothing more than smell the girls decide which shirts they find most pleasant
17:41and most sexy thornhill analyzes the immune systems of the male and female volunteers by studying the major
17:49histocompatibility complex or mhc a group of genes that play an important role in the body's defense system
17:57he discovers that the women students prefer the smell of men with a dissimilar mhc
18:03thus favoring guys whose immune systems differ from their own
18:06the general pattern is that both men and women like the body scent of individuals who are dissimilar who
18:15are different from them
18:16this makes good evolutionary sense
18:20the immune system helps fight off disease how good it is depends on the genes
18:28people who inherit a range of genes have an advantage
18:32because diseases evolve very very quickly
18:35you need genetic variation in the offspring to get the right genetic combination to cope with the
18:42currently uh prevalent diseases for the perfect match lovers should have immune system capabilities
18:50that differ from each other then their babies get the best of the mix a diversity giving them a
18:57better chance of a healthy life
19:01human beings just like the girls in thornhill study are able to pick a suitable genetic mate just with their noses
19:12that pheromones subconsciously reveal the body's defense secrets to others although nobody yet
19:24understands how this works but our noses can detect more than just different genes they can also detect
19:32symmetry it may seem bizarre but women prefer the smell of men who are more symmetrical
19:42more symmetric men uh smell better to women specifically to women who are at the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle
19:51the fact that symmetry attracts the opposite sex is nothing new
19:55it was first noted by researchers in the 1990s
19:58and has proved a popular topic for the media ever since
20:02the original symmetry studies measured a series of faces to determine how symmetrical they were
20:08and then asked people to rate the faces in order of attractiveness thornhill demonstrates this test with
20:15a biology class of 2005 to rate the attractiveness of some male faces with 10 being most attractive and
20:24one being least attractive well i would rate this first individual as about a three or four i think the
20:30second picture is a lot more attractive than the first i'd rate him more as a four or five i'd say the
20:36girl on the left's about a three and the girl on the right's a little more attractive i'd give her about a
20:40six to six and a half i guess uh the one on the left i'd put out about a four and the one on the right a six
20:49like the earlier studies the faces people thought most attractive were consistently those that were
20:57most symmetrical what's strange is that if a face is completely symmetrical like these artificially
21:05created by mirroring each side of the face the result is unnatural perfect symmetry is unattractive
21:13scientists do have a theory about why we find symmetrical faces appealing symmetry is a reliable
21:23signal of quality because symmetry is very very difficult to get right and hence symmetry is a marker
21:32of the quality of the individual to develop perfect bilateral symmetry recent research from 2004 discovered
21:42that our faces reveal hidden clues about our quality as a prospective partner just like the pheromones
21:49faces also display information about our immune system in the study women selected pictures of men
21:57they found most attractive when they analyzed the blood from the men they found that the men chosen as
22:03the most attractive had a greater variety of genes and hence a stronger immune system no one quite knows how
22:11our faces convey this information it's possible that people with a good immune system are less prone to
22:16diseases and parasites the sort of things that might lead to asymmetrical features when we are developing
22:23whatever the answer our symmetrical looks it seems are the store window in which we advertise the strength of
22:29our genes the evolutionary process over the last several million years has put into our brains
22:38psychological mechanisms that function to assess health of others and we interpret that as attractiveness of
22:48others and that attractiveness corresponds with these health markers the symmetry clear skin
22:57symmetry appears so important that the female body even performs its own tricks to appear more symmetrical
23:04in a simple experiment at the university of liverpool england biologists measure the hands and ears of women before during and after ovulation
23:13they discover that 24 hours before ovulation the women's hands and ears alter shape to become more symmetrical
23:22scientists are not sure how this happens but they think it's due to changes in water retention in the cells of the hands and ears
23:30because these changes are not the same on both sides of the body they have the effect of altering the woman's symmetry
23:39this could be perceived by males as a sudden increase in attractiveness
23:45but once we have found our future mate there remains a further mystery that perplexes countless
23:51men and women every day how do we persuade them to take an interest in us
23:58don't despair it turns out that science can lend a hand by improving your chances of winning in the
24:05great mating game with practical scientific tips to make you more attractive to the opposite sex
24:11our range of possible sexual partners and long-term mates is phenomenal every day we pass hundreds of
24:24people any one of whom could turn out to be the perfect partner
24:31anthropologist helen fisher studies the science of how we choose our lovers seeking to understand what
24:38amazing process of biology makes us fall in love with someone else and then keeps us together long enough
24:44to have children she has broken down this process of sexual attraction into three stages lust romantic love
24:57and attachment each of these three sexual drives comes with its own biochemical trigger
25:05one or more hormonal messengers carrying information from one cell to another
25:15in fact science now recognizes that a powerful arsenal of chemicals manipulates our decisions without us ever
25:22realizing what's happening lust is driven by the hormone testosterone men produce it in their testes women in their ovaries
25:33it travels through the blood to the brain and stimulates the sex drive
25:38it's what drives someone on their first tentative steps toward having sex seeking their very first date
25:48but lust can be influenced by other emotions
25:53social psychologist art aaron studies how sexual attraction can be heightened by feelings of fear and anxiety
25:59when it comes to initial intense attraction you experience intense physiological
26:08arousal your heart beats fast as would happen if you were running or if something tense or exciting it happened
26:19these feelings are similar to those caused by fear
26:22fear his research suggests that fear and anxiety can initiate feelings of sexual attraction and even make
26:30people appear more attractive aaron puts his theory to the test by conducting some literally high level research
26:41a high and wobbly suspension bridge provides the perfect location for the experiment
26:46a female researcher stands in the middle of the bridge a spot chosen as likely to induce a rush of excitement or fear
26:56she stops passing men and asks them to complete a questionnaire the questions are not particularly special
27:04but at the end of the interview she hands each man her phone number in case they have any further questions about the study
27:10thanks thanks so much in the second stage of the experiment the researcher changes locations
27:18this time to a low solid and perfectly safe bridge
27:24again she asks passing men to answer the questionnaire again at the end of the interview she gives them her phone number
27:31the next day back in the office she waits by the phone she keeps a log of which men call her and on which bridge they had met
27:48the demonstration appears to support the excitement hypothesis
27:54four times more men from the scarier wobbly suspension bridge call than from the safe and solid bridge
28:01and fear makes the woman more sexually attractive to the men
28:07so forget a romantic meal
28:10perhaps the best place for the first date is someplace really scary
28:14so
28:23so
28:25so
28:27man i can't believe i missed the bus
28:29this couple is enjoying the first flush of sexual attraction
28:34it's delightful but also a little nerve-wracking
28:39falling for someone is only half the story
28:41to take the next step they also have to fall for you
28:47now scientific theory is all very well
28:50but sometimes you want it to tell you something you can use in the real world
28:54something to provoke a little lust yeah and maybe a little more
29:00well the scientist's first tip isn't exactly revolutionary
29:04but a good tip all the same
29:06ever wondered why a candlelit dinner is so romantic
29:09it might help you look more attractive when you understand the science behind the candlelight
29:14the answer is in the eyes
29:18eye contact seem to be very important the more a couple feels in love the more they will gaze in
29:24each other's eyes and indeed much of romantic mythology is associated with
29:29gazing in each other's eyes and with the beauty of the eye contact
29:35what's important is the size of the pupils the bigger the better
29:41the excitement of meeting an interesting prospective partner releases adrenaline
29:47that dilates your pupils causing them to double in diameter
29:51so when we see dilated pupils we recognize the signs and subconsciously realize that this big
29:59eyed guy or girl must like us
30:03whatever date you go on science offers other tips to make yourself attractive to your partner
30:09that doesn't taste like coffee
30:10look intelligent and be kind
30:19evolutionary psychologist jeffrey miller researches how sexual selection influences humankind's levels of
30:26intelligence the funny thing about sexual selection is it's a very powerful evolutionary process
30:32but it's not blind dumb natural selection it's driven by our tastes our pleasure
30:38what we find attractive psychologically and physically about other people
30:43hundreds of thousands of years ago humans started selecting partners who were more intelligent
30:49as a result intelligence began to grow in our species
30:54we don't just grow brain for survival we grow brain to attract other brains as mates
31:01the evidence that our brain evolved by sexual selection
31:05comes from something biologists call the handicap principle the peacock's tail is the classic example
31:12such a large colorful tail takes energy to grow resources that could otherwise be put to survival
31:20it's a handicap and so only birds with the best genes can carry the biggest most glamorous tails
31:28like a peacock's tail a bigger brain carries a handicap because it uses a disproportionate
31:34amount of the body's energy it consumes about 20 percent of the oxygen we breathe
31:40about 25 percent of our calories and about 40 percent of our glucose
31:46it's a kind of costly conspicuous wasteful organ and in that sense i think of it as kind of being like a luxury
31:53good and often we're using it for things that aren't that directly related to survival we're talking
32:00we're trying to achieve status we're trying to impress people miller argues that human
32:06intelligence and our creativity are the result of our long history of sexual selection
32:13our creative imagination that has produced the rich variety of language music art and science we see
32:20today was forged hundreds of thousands of years ago by our ancestors choosing more intelligent witty
32:26and entertaining partners and when we choose a partner the choice we make will shape the creativity of
32:35future generations intelligence helps to show that you've got good genes because there again
32:42any kind of mutations that tend to reduce brain efficiency tend to reduce intelligence you know but
32:49it's not just intelligence that seems to attract us it's creative thought a recent report from the royal society of biological sciences
33:00found that many artists and poets have twice as many sexual partners as non-creative people
33:06the study backs up miller's theory that artists like picasso are more sexually attractive because of their creativity
33:13but there is yet another trait that comes out on top as miller's number one tip for winning them over
33:21top two traits most desired across cultures are intelligence and kindness in fact kindness even comes out a little bit higher than intelligence
33:32being kind has obvious attractions
33:35a kind person will make a good partner and will probably be a caring parent
33:40but there's a more scientific reason for choosing someone with moral virtue it's an indicator of good genes
33:49moral virtue is costly it's difficult almost anything that messes up your body or your brain
33:55mutations brain damage brain injury tends to make people more selfish and less kind what's more unlike
34:04physical appearance this type of attractiveness is harder to fake
34:07it's fairly easy to get your body looking pretty good 40 year old now can look as youthful and
34:14healthy as a 22 year old a century ago to some extent it's harder to fake the intelligence and moral
34:22virtues like kindness that are sexually attractive that's what's fascinating about the way that we
34:28evaluate potential mates is we just automatically focus on the unfakeable indicators of intelligence and kindness
34:35that's what's happening to us over the course of a few dates this couple engineered ways to show off
34:41their genetic gifts to each other some displays are more subtle than others yet neither of them has a clue
34:48about what's really going on in their heads they say when you fall in love your eyes light up
34:56but so do parts of your brain and some scientists are now busy exploring the neurochemical fireworks display
35:05that explodes in our heads when animal sexual attraction transforms into love
35:15what are the secrets of sexual attraction the reasons why we think someone's hot science has established that
35:22evolutionary cues kick-start the body into lustful behavior we are turned on by body shape symmetry
35:30and intelligence we are drawn to someone and hope they respond to our advances
35:35but we don't just mate with anyone usually our brain makes us focus our attention on just one individual
35:42what fuels this passion for one person is the second of anthropologist helen fisher's three mating drives
35:49romantic love that feeling of ecstasy so potent it should carry a warning from the surgeon general
35:57love has always been the preserve of poets and songwriters and novelists but i came some time ago
36:03to realize that this is one of the most powerful human feelings on earth romantic love is not a fanciful
36:10notion it's scientifically measurable the result of nature's biological alchemy
36:16social psychologist art aaron and anthropologist helen fisher join forces in a unique scientific study
36:27their mission to explore the chemistry of love to map the hormones of desire within the architecture of the brain
36:36fisher believes that romantic love is the second stage of sexual attraction
36:41moving the relationship to something deeper if you've ever been in love you know what an overpowering emotion it can be
36:52you feel elation euphoria mood swings you're very dependent on the person you focus your attention on them
36:59you're highly motivated to win them you crave the person uh you become obsessed with thinking about them
37:05fisher and aaron are eager to discover if these feelings of romantic love are different from the
37:11feelings of sexual arousal to find out they analyze their fmri data showing blood flow through the brains of
37:19students who are self-confessedly deeply in love they discover that a region of the brain known as the
37:27caudate nucleus appears to be activated when a person falls in love the caudate is part of the brain's
37:34complex reward system it appears that being in love affects the brain in much the same way as using
37:41certain illegal stimulant drugs the response we see in the brain when a person looks at their beloved who is
37:49intensely passionately in love with them is very much like the response to having cocaine
37:54the brain areas concerned have a high concentration of receptors for the hormone dopamine dopamine is a
38:04neurotransmitter that is involved in the control of fine motor coordination motivation physical energy
38:11short-term memory and emotions such as sexual desire dopamine is one of the body's primary feel-good
38:19chemicals elevated levels of dopamine produce extremely focused attention and unwavering motivation
38:28the very characteristics of romantic love it's a what we call a reward response a dopamine system
38:36response human beings seem to be wired to have a particular response to very intense reward and one of the
38:45great examples is falling in love and having it reciprocated heightened dopamine levels explain why
38:53love-stricken men and women become so dependent on the relationship and why they crave to be with their
38:59partner for fisher this desire to focus on just one individual makes perfect evolutionary sense
39:07this brain system evolved to become triggered and so that you could have an incredible amount of energy
39:16focus your attention on somebody be highly motivated to win them and stay together at least long enough
39:22to conceive a child
39:25the somewhat unromantic truth is that romantic love is born out of the evolutionary success
39:31of couples wanting enough sex with each other to get the female pregnant
39:36our brains have evolved to feel pleasure in such sexual bonding
39:42the desire to fall in love seems to be a basic human need across all cultures
39:51romantic love is seen everywhere in the world in one study
39:54of cultures around the world they found evidence of romantic love in over 150 societies this is a universal
40:04basic drive it's a drive that we've evolved to love the chemicals flooding our brain during the early
40:11stages of love are so powerful that it's little wonder that love is frequently compared to an addiction
40:17and just like the craving for illicit drugs love can make people do crazy sometimes dangerous things
40:28it's more powerful than the sex drive i mean if you ask somebody to go to bed with you and they
40:32reject you you don't kill yourself people kill themselves or kill somebody else if they are rejected in love
40:39romantic love remains a universal experience deeply woven into the fabric of the human brain
40:45everywhere in the world people live for love die for love sing for love dance for love uh are happy in
40:53love but fisher doesn't think that dopamine fueled romantic love on its own can keep couples together
40:59for long that was romantic love is very metabolically expensive i mean you walk all night you talk till dawn
41:06you you make love to the person till noon it would be very unadaptive for the human animal to be going
41:12constantly in a state of of uh high energy our success as a species depends on men and women sticking
41:21together long enough to raise their young to try and make sure this happens our bodies bombard our
41:28brains with yet more sexual hormones a chemical arsenal that keeps us together long after the fire of
41:38romantic love has finally flickered out
41:46naked science next asks one of the most provocative questions in evolutionary science can we be faithful
41:53to one partner or are we biologically predestined to cheat
42:02a study of nature's secret weapons of love
42:05shows how we are genetically programmed to instantly react to the possibilities of a lustful sexual
42:11adventure and how our brains feed us a heady brew of powerful drugs to induce the ecstasy of falling in
42:18love but once we've chosen our mate and fallen in love can we stay together or are humans biologically
42:28programmed to cheat 97 of all mammals are not monogamous so how can we stay together in the face of so many
42:39options john gonzaga is a psychologist at ucla in southern california gonzaga's studies show that true love
42:48really can bind people together in a monogamous relationship
42:54i think that evolution has given us the capacity to be committed but it's complicated because it's
43:00not just we either are a species that commits or a species that philanders we're a species that has
43:07the ability to do both because we react to the environment that we're in
43:10he has conducted a groundbreaking study to discover how humans stick with their partners
43:17rather than go off with any number of attractive alternatives
43:21so we wanted to directly test whether or not love rather than other states like desire is going to
43:27help you push thoughts of attractive alternatives out of your mind gonzaga tests college students who
43:34are in a relationship he asks them to choose a picture of someone they find very attractive
43:40then he asks them to write an essay while thinking of their own partner in a lustful way
43:47they are instructed that each time they think of the person in the picture they should put a check in the
43:52margin he then asks the students to write another essay this time thinking of their own partner in a loving way
44:05again they put a check in the margin each time they think of the person in the picture
44:12this time there are far fewer checks the students don't feel any lasting attraction to the people in
44:18the pictures and they quickly forget about them in the love condition people could push the thoughts
44:27out of their mind and they wouldn't get this flood of thoughts of attractive alternatives
44:31what this shows is that true love does seem to bind us together real love that is
44:40but it's in a constant battle with the emotion of lust or desire
44:48desire is a tricky thing because some of the evidence that we have shows that desire even when
44:53it's pointed towards your romantic partner can make you less committed to them
44:56so part of its function may be searching the environment for the most attractive alternative
45:03that is out there if there's somebody who's more attractive out there that may bode poorly
45:08for your current relationship
45:09so if the relationship is built on love we are more likely to stick together if built on desire
45:19then we are more likely to want to have sex with an attractive other
45:22it appears that love has evolved to keep us together while lust is there for us to choose the fittest genes
45:32so it looks like love but not desire is the thing that helps you get rid of this problem in committing
45:39attractive alternatives and helps you solidify commitment to your romantic partner
45:43it all fits in with helen fisher's belief that the third stage of sexual attraction is long-term attachment
45:54attachment is a sense of calm and security that you can feel with a long-term partner
45:59love it would appear does conquer all but how does it do it the answer is that the body has a natural love
46:07potion ready to stick you and your partner together like glue and it comes into play when a couple has sex
46:17this chemical is called oxytocin a hormone and neurotransmitter produced in the brain
46:24it was once believed to confine its effects to inducing labor in pregnant women
46:29and stimulating mothers to produce milk
46:31milk but now scientists are discovering other far-reaching effects on both women and men
46:41oxytocin acts as a sexual arousal hormone that signals orgasm and prompts cuddling between lovers
46:49before during and after intercourse hence its other name the cuddling chemical
46:55this is why when you make love to somebody who who you really do like or love you can feel a sense
47:04of cosmic union with them that's probably because you've elevated levels of oxytocin creating this
47:10sense of attachment it may also serve to strengthen the bond between lovers
47:17the theory goes that the more sex a couple has with each other
47:22the more oxytocin is released and the deeper their bond becomes
47:28this is why it's a little dangerous to go copulate with somebody you don't really like
47:32in fact i recommended my various students um don't copulate with somebody who you don't want to fall
47:37in love with because you might just trigger these brain systems it is playing with fire
47:44but nature isn't finished yet there is one last important drug in the pharmacy of love
47:51vasopressin released during sex it has a critical role in the long-term commitment stage
48:02a role discovered when scientists explored the mating habits of the prairie vole
48:09prairie voles are among the mere three percent of mammals that mate for life
48:14vasopressin is released when the prairie vole mates just as in humans
48:19the prairie vole has receptors in its brain for vasopressin in the regions responsible for reward
48:30mating stimulates its brain's reward center and forms a pleasurable memory of that particular mate
48:36and so forms a bond
48:40scientists argue the reward mechanism involved in this addiction may well have evolved in a similar
48:47way in other monogamous animals humans included
48:55it could be that like desire and romantic love
48:58forming a lasting loving relationship is simply a matter of chemistry
49:04sexual attraction exhilarates and motivates us
49:07the chemicals that flood our brain our very physiology all serve one purpose the continuation of our species
49:20once we have children these chemicals alter to encourage us to stay together and raise them
49:25love is just a part of it sexiness desire call it what you will it's distilled from an intoxicating hormonal mix
49:38designed to encourage human reproduction a chemical cocktail that really does make the world go round
49:46one other question
49:47I'm
49:54deep
49:56to
49:56touch
49:58and
49:58to
49:58I'm
50:00to
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