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Home > Dating & Relationships > Your Chemical Romance: The Pros and Cons of Love Drugs

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Home›Dating & Relationships›Your Chemical Romance: The Pros and Cons of Love Drugs

Your Chemical Romance: The Pros and Cons of Love Drugs

By M. Christian
March 22, 2022
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Ready or not, soon we’ll be able to artificially induce affection or desire.

A heart gem comes out of an opened pill casing.

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey” —Victor Hugo

Contrary to what all those poets, romance authors, songwriters, or Valentine’s Day cards have told us, scientists are well on their way to unraveling the biological processes behind why we like—as in really like—someone.

Research is already spearheading the development of new medications that will eventually allow us to fall in love, lust, or perhaps turn these and other emotions on or off whenever we want.

Or, if we’re not careful, create a world where this sort of profound control over how we feel isn’t in our hands but someone else’s.

The neurochemical tango

Unraveled biological processes we currently believe involve oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and beta-endorphin.

Oxytocin takes the lead: a hormone that helps mothers during childbirth by, among other things, contracting uterine walls. Its production also affects how empathetic we are, lowers inhibitions, and spikes whenever we feel love or desire—as noted by this paper published in the scientific journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Right behind it is dopamine, its neurochemical steps boosting satisfaction, motivation, as well as desire and affection.

Functioning as a governor, keeping everything from getting too wild and crazy, as well as another sexual and emotional enhancement, serotonin comes next.

Rounding it all up is beta-endorphin, playing its part by reducing stress, giving us that “walking on sunshine” romantic euphoria, and bringing other sexually stimulating endorphins to the dance.

This is, of course, ridiculously simplified and doesn’t take into account factors like the genetic roots of sexual orientation—or perhaps other important drivers behind our attractions to who and why, as well.

While love drugs aren’t here yet, researchers do know enough to set us on the path towards a time when we—or someone—can change our minds.

Love me do

It’s tough enough to ponder the impact technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence, sexbots, and everything else we write about here at Future of Sex could affect human sexuality.

But when it involves altering our neurochemistry, the most optimistic futurist frequently runs screaming for the hills.

For lots of extremely good reasons, made ten times worse by how insanely easy they’d be to implement. Never mind how a fascist state might use it to force everyone to love “Dear Leader,” it’d take only a single, mess-up individual to do everything from emotionally and sexually controlling whoever they want to cultishly chemically enslaving hundreds or thousands of innocent people.

Can’t help falling in love

Before you close, lock, and then thoroughly barricade this technological door, I’d like to offer some suggestions why neurochemical-induced affection and desire may not be such a bad idea—and how we could prevent its abuse.

Beginning with, it shouldn’t be anything except an extremely well-regulated therapeutic treatment with a set of inordinately strict protocols and near-Orwellian checks and balances.

Whether resulting from emotional or physical trauma, biological disorders, or both, many find it excessively challenging or near-impossible to feel love or desire for others.

Then there are those struggling with debilitatingly painful memories, partners desperately seeking to reconnect, people crippled by sexual shame or guilt, anyone with anxiety who craves even a little relief from their paralyzing fears and self-doubts, and I could keep bombarding you with more examples of why this technology could be beneficial.

And all of them would continue to suffer if we let our fears of “what could be” obscure the reality of “what is needed.”

Love is the honey

Before bidding you a fond adieu, I want to take a moment to be unabashedly daring.

Remember how I went on about how love drugs should always be—emphasis on the always—kept out of the hands of everyone except medical or mental health professionals and then only if they’re closely monitored every step of the way?

Well, I should have opened with “Until humanity can handle it—” as with practically every technology we’ve ever developed, love drugs will gradually transition from regulated to freely available.

Scary, perhaps, though I like to imagine we’ll be socially and intellectually evolved enough to handle it. Maybe even where there’s no clear distinction between naturally occurring and artificially induced emotions. Kind of how we’re getting comfortable with the idea of virtual and “real” reality as two sides of the same coin.

Or, to put it another way, perhaps having control over our emotions is what’ll save humanity—instead of dooming it.

Image sources: paul quinn

M. Christian

M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex.

Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.”

Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian.

As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2.

M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise.

Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex.

If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro.

M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.
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