FYI: Sexual Tips

This information is taken from:

The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, MD

Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC): Weighs options, makes decisions. It’s the worry-wort center, and it’s larger in women than in men.
Prefrontal Cortex (PFC): The queen that rules the emotions and keeps them from going wild. It puts the brakes on the amygdala. Larger in women, and matures faster in teen girls than in boys by one to two years.
Insula: The center that processes gut feelings. Larger and more active in women.
Hypothalamus: The conductor of the hormonal symphony; kicks the gonads into gear. Starts pumping earlier at puberty in females.
Amygdala: The wild beast within; the instinctual core, tamed only by the PFC. Larger in men.
Pituitary Gland: Produces hormones of fertility, mild production, and nurturing behavior. Helps turn on the mommy brain.
Hippocampus: The elephant that never forgets a fight, a romantic encounter, or a tender moment – and won’t let you forget it either. Larger and more active in women.

“We have learned that men and women have different brain sensitivities to stress and conflict. they use different brain areas and circuits to solve problems, process language, experience and store the same strong emotion. Women may remember the smallest details of their first dates, and their biggest fights, while their husbands barely remember that these things happened. Brain structure and chemistry have everything to do with why this is so.”

I don’t share this information so that we can all just use excuses for our behavior due to our biology (i.e. “I can’t help it, this is just how I’m made.”). However, it is incredibly useful to know the inherent biases, strengths and weaknesses we share with most of our gender as well as those of the opposite sex. The more knowledge we are equipped with, the more armed we are with the appropriate tools to make more progress. Instead of falling into blame games and pointing fingers, we can instead be more apt to move into a posture of empathy and understanding. This posture is a necessary step for most couples to reach a more intimate stance when it comes to sex.

“If we acknowledge that our biology is influenced by other factors, including our sex hormones and their flux, we can prevent it from creating a fixed reality by which we are not ruled. The brain is nothing if not a talented learning machine. Nothing is completely fixed. Biology powerfully affects but does not lock in our reality. We can alter that reality and use our intelligence and determination both to celebrate, and when necessary, to change the effects of sex hormones on brain structure, behavior, reality, creativity – and destiny.”