“The largest and most powerful sexual organ is not between the legs of men and women, but behind the ears,” said John Money, a neuro-endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA). Penises and clitoris would undoubtedly be plunged into a soporific lethargy were it not for the fact that from time to time they are agitated by hormonal stimuli and elaborate electrical messages in the central nervous system .
For example, a cerebral phenylethylamine discharge can lead to lust, while oxytocin secretion reinforces the emotional bonds that promote monogamy; And orgasm can be summed up in a sequence of electrifying jolts. Irwin Goldstein, a urologist at Boston University, is not wrong in stating that “the brain is the most important sex organ.”
Far from having a mind of its own, as Leonardo da Vinci asserted 500 years ago, the penis – and also the clitoris – is subject to the dictatorship of our brain. This governs the erotic behavior of the human being, from the primitive impulses to the most elaborate libidinal sensations. “The human animal, like other primates, reproduces sexually and, therefore, a large part of the strategies aimed at reproduction will be aimed at identifying the sexes, obtaining a mate and inducing copulation” , writes the ethologist Enric Alonso de Medina, professor at the University of Barcelona, in his book The Human Animal . Control of the sexual instinct resides in the limbic system , the seat of emotions. But alongside this kind of ‘primitive mammalian brain’, as defined by neurologist Paul McLean of the Brain Evolution and Behavior Laboratory in Poolesville (Maryland), there is another evolutionary brain that is recently emerging. It is the neocortex , a folded sheet of tissue, about 3 millimeters thick, which in humans has developed as a thinking cap that covers the rest of the gray matter.
Well, the neocortex or cerebral cortex gives human eroticism an unknown dimension in the other 4300 species of mammals in the world; in ours, sex is not only an instrument for the perpetuation of the species, but it also fulfills a definite function of social relationship. In the words of Professor Alonso de Medina: “In men, the sexual act is something more than the pure bestial sex of procreation; it is also a sex of relationship, a physical dialogue, a playful activity that serves the purpose of union of the couple “.
At this point it must be said that the successes and failures of our love relationships are not the result of Cupid’s whims. Yes, sexual behavior is defined by our knowledge and sexual fantasies, as well as by taboos, myths, inhibitions, religious and moral beliefs, emotional deficiencies, traumatic experiences and the education received, among many other factors. In this way, the erotic dimension of an individual is established by their level of sexual intelligence , a concept introduced by psychologists Sheree Conrad and Michael Milburn, from the University of Massachusetts, in Boston, which they develop in their book Sexual Intelligence. For these authors, the erotic dimension of each person is fixed by their sexual intelligence quotient. This constitutes a part of our intellectual capacity as important as the emotional intelligence recently described by the psychologist Daniel Goleman and the other nine types of intelligence – linguistic, musical, naturalistic and existential, to name a few – proposed by the also psychologist Howard Gardner, from Harvard University.
“Less sexually intelligent people experience a lot of pain and confusion in their sex lives, ” say Conrad and Milburn. But erotic zotes have not lost everything. Sexual wisdom is a faculty that can be measured, quantified and above all enhanced. For this pair of psychologists, the sexually gifted face the relationship in a particularly different way from the rest of the people, which translates into greater erotic happiness and a lower incidence of sexual dysfunctions. “Being sexually intelligent – and having a better sex life – does not depend on luck, beauty or innate sex appeal. It depends on abilities that people can acquire, develop and master over time. Therefore, sexual intelligence is something that everyone can reasonably aspire to and work towards, “say these experts.
“The human primate – says Professor Alonso de Medina – has evolved morphologically and physiologically, until it has become an eminently sexual animal”. Much of our existence is oriented directly or indirectly to sex. But, paradoxically, not everyone achieves emotional stability in their sexual life. “Lots of smart people live with passions that lead to disaster or a frustrating and unsatisfying or non-existent sex life,” say Conrad and Milburn. The data that emerges from their research project support them. Both have studied the sexual desires of 500 people, from adolescents to retirees, using a test of their own elaboration that allows to specify the sexual coefficient and, incidentally, to reveal to what extent a person is happy with their life in the bedroom. Psychologists have learned that approximately 75% of Americans admit that sex is important or essential to their life, but at the same time, half say that it is the cause of their stress and 75% are worried because they are not having relationships erotic more frequently. Surveys carried out in our country do not yield more encouraging data.
Conrad and Milburn are alarmed by the high number of participants who reported suffering some kind of erotic dissatisfaction: for example, 42% showed a lack of libidinal desire, 57% declared they could not have an orgasm and almost a third confessed that Sometimes he does not find sex pleasant. Contrary to what one might expect, sexual dysfunctions do not only appear in older people and couples who have lived together for 20 years or more. Youth is also the prey of dissatisfaction: for half of women between 18 and 29 years old, intercourse is physically painful ; 33% of men of the same age confessed to having problems achieving and maintaining an erection; slightly more than half were premature ejaculators.
Everything seems to indicate that the sexual revolution that shocked society in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century did not completely resolve the issue of repression and erotic ignorance inherited from earlier times and, as the Boston psychologist couple assures us, “our teenagers , who are bombarded from an early age by images of sex in the media, are not sexually more sophisticated than their parents. “
Young people now have more sexual information than ever but, at the same time, “there is a powerful force within our culture – in the form of old attitudes towards sex – that imposes silence, shame and repression. If we open up the door to sexuality with one hand, it seems that we slam it with the other “, we read in Sexual Intelligence . On the other hand, commercial sex has brought a new problem that sexologists call the “tyranny of orgasm.” Indeed, society pressures adolescents to achieve maximum mastery of sexual technique, in order to score the goal of orgasm through sexual Olympics that, by the way, start at an increasingly precocious age. The result: the young – and the not-so-young – suffer their frustration in silence, discouraged and unable to face their deepest sexual fears and insecurities. ” Many people end up feeling confused and embarrassed by their erotic desires and behaviors , and with the feeling of not knowing their partner,” say Conrad and Milburn.
But no one should feel that way. The key to achieving erotic happiness and solving many sexual dysfunctions could be found in the new concept of sexual intelligence. But what does this consist of? Everyone is born with this cognitive ability that, like other types of intelligence, must be cultivated. Facing erotic relationships from ignorance is like trying to solve a differential equation with hardly any mathematical knowledge. In both cases, failure is assured.
In the opinion of Conrad and Milburn, the path to sexual satisfaction is not in becoming more seductive, or in repressing or unleashing our erotic desires and fantasies, or in applying the techniques and concepts learned in sexuality books to our feet . “Our research,” the psychologists comment, “indicates that the answer is to develop our sexual intelligence.” This rests on three fundamental pillars. The first component of love talent consists of acquiring the necessary knowledge to enter into the relationship.
“Those who are sexually intelligent have accurate scientific information about human sexuality that guides their decisions and sexual behavior,” comment Conrad and Milburn. This learning is not a trivial task, because only through adequate sexual education is it possible to detect and combat some erotic myths and taboos that are rooted in society and that we internalize through popular culture, religion and the family. The media and meetings in the schoolyard are also sources of unreliable and even disconcerting erotic messages. And this can be disturbing, since three quarters of the sexual information that reaches the ears of our young people comes from their friends and the media.
“Much of what people learn about sex is based on wrong data, accepted prejudices without stopping to think if they are correct, and even if they are superstitions,” say these psychologists. Beliefs such as that the penis must always be ready for action, that women who comply with beauty standards are more active in bed, that the female sex must be passive, or that simultaneous orgasm is the greatest erotic pleasure. cause self-esteem and self-confidence to collapse.
Once freed from the lies of sex, the second step towards a better sex life is to discover our own sex, that is, to find out what attracts us, what excites us, what we prefer and what facets of our erotic behavior pose difficulties for us. Conrad and Milburn define this pillar of sexual intelligence as awareness of the secret sexual self. It houses the true thoughts, feelings, and emotions that make love life more rewarding. But, as these experts warn, true sexual desires are too often covered up for a variety of reasons. For example, the secret sexual self can be negatively conditioned by unpleasant experiences that occurred in the past, by unmet emotional needs, or simply by myths or false images of human sexuality that are disseminated through the media. In this last respect, the American pair of psychologists highlights four myths of media origin installed in society and that they summarize in this sentence: “Sharon Stone does not make love better than other women .” The quartet of media hoaxes is the following: first, that everyone else has more and better sex; second, that our body is not perfect; third, that all problems are solved if “movie sex” is accessed; and fourth, that, if necessary, sex can be achieved by force. Young people are especially receptive to these types of messages.
“Conflicts with the body figure stand out especially as problematic among puberty, since they can give rise to cases of anorexia, bulimia or both; vigorexia and dimorphy or discomfort with one’s own body”, warns Professor Félix López, professor of Psychology at the Sexuality of the University of Salamanca. Undoubtedly, one of the main challenges for sex educators is teaching students to distinguish fictional from real sex.
When the eroticism that is seen and not the one that is felt is practiced, the ghost of disappointment –and dysfunction– makes an appearance. In this sense, the development of the erotic intellect offers the possibility of discerning the authentic sexual behaviors of the impostors, who settle in the mind as stowaways. “Sexually intelligent people are able to notice, for example, when their erotic desires are replacing emotional deficiencies that are not sexual, such as lack of self-esteem, security or power. They know when they have sex simply because they feel lonely.” , they affirm in their work Conrad and Milburn.
The third and final pillar of erotic intelligence has to do with connecting with others. Sex is a matter of two, if not more. “Maintaining an enriching sex life involves other people,” say Conrad and Milburn. To acquire good skill and mastery of sexuality, both in relation to the relationship and with yourself, you have to open up to others. This deficiency already makes an appearance in adolescence: interpersonal and affective relationships are one of the most common problems in this stage of development, since they often involve emotional and social loneliness, love frustrations and difficulties for seduction and difficult intimacy to face , according to Professor López.
Conrad and Milburn say that a person does not reach a high degree of sexual intelligence until they have mastered certain social or interpersonal skills, which include, among other things, the ability to talk with the partner about sexual life and to understand the erotic ego of the lover . “Sexual intelligence involves learning to be honest with ourselves and with our partner, about who we are sexually.” Once again, society stumbles toward this goal, because as these psychologists claim “one of the things that most people learn at an early age in their family is not to talk about sex. The idea that sexual feelings They are literally unnameable is one of the myths that acts as a barrier, both to know those feelings and to talk about them “. In a way, the social parameters that dictate what is “correct” and what is “abnormal” cause many people to silence their true sexual desires and fantasies for fear of rejection by their partner. In their research, Conrad and Milburn found, for example, that only half of the respondents thought that other people had sexual fantasies similar to theirs; 19% assured that they would feel very violent and even “horrified” if someone knew the nature of their erotic dreams and 12% confessed that they would never tell their partner.
For the authors, these data show how common it remains to be ashamed of one’s sexuality. “When we repress and hide this part of ourselves, the results are as destructive as when we keep our emotions locked up. We lose our sense of who we are and we strip our lives of authenticity and passion, ” the researchers say. Again, sexual intelligence allows one not to fall into this sexual silence capable of damaging the love relationship.
