PART II Nerve Zero, Sexual Pheromones, Nonverbal Communication And Why You Should Avoid Oral Contraceptives
Christopher Philip
The Role of Oral Contraceptives
Oral contraceptives have been shown to wreak havoc on women’s sex drive and could potentially disrupt her choices in mate selection. Artificial hormones provided by “the pill” trick the body into believing that it’s pregnant. When pregnant, women look to surround themselves with members of their family, a potential disaster in reproduction as it causes women to overlook the MHC protein in mate selection.
Naturally, this leads women to select mates that don’t jive with their genetic make-up and also sets them up for fertility issues. Best if women avoid the pill until they select their desired long-term partners.
Once more, women who use artificial hormone based contraceptives during long-term romantic relationships will also suffer. As their bodies are physiologically tricked into thinking there are pregnant, there will be net behaviour repercussions. For starters, she will prefer to be around men who are more similar to her. Second, she will reduce her nonverbal communication of receptivity as her ovulation is inhibited and GnRH muted or absent. Finally, she will find his natural pheremones much less alluring. The net result is loss of connection and overall loss of sexual receptivity, potentially damaging or even ending a long-term relationship. Worse still, she might have chosen her mate while on contraceptives putting the entire relationship at risk from the onset.
How To Benefit From The Research
The message is simple; avoid oral contraceptives until well into a serious committed relationship, or at worst until at least the first kiss. This will help women select the most compatible men for the long-term. If you find your long term relationship suffers due to female receptivity, try condoms and other non-hormonal contraception, rather than artificial hormones.
Conclusion
Despite the intriguing findings, nerve zero’s role is far from clear. While some scents are known to be detected by the olfactory bulb and read consciously by the brain, other scents never reach the brain and instead are analyzed by nerve zero. For some animals, it’s vital that sexual pheromones be small and volatile to carry long distances to reach potential mates, but in humans, large molecules can travel short distances, and be passed between noses over a kiss, for example.
Certainly, it’s entirely possible given the information already collected, that nerve endings could by-pass the cerebral cortex altogether. We might like to think we have free will, but our consciousness might be totally sideswiped when it comes to enacting romantic interest. Evolution might have decided it was best to leave the more important matters of reproduction to the subconscious rather than risk it being befuddled by fuzzy logic.
Resources
Chaix, R ; Cao, C ; Donnelly, P. Is Mate Choice in Humans MHC-Dependent? Plos Genetics. 2019; 6(4).
Chen, D; Katdare, A; Lucas, N. Chemosignals Of Fear Enhance Cognitive Performance In Humans. Chemical Senses, 2006; 31(5): 415-423.
Maney DL, Richardson RD, Wingfield JC. Central Administration Of Chicken Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone-II Enhances Courtship Behavior In A Female Sparrow. Hormones and Behavior, 1997; 32 (1): 11–8.
Schiml PA, Rissman EF. Effects Of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormones, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, And Vasopressin On Female Sexual Behavior. Hormone Behavior. 2000; 37 (3): 212–220.
Vaglio, Stefano. Chemical Communication And Mother-Infant Recognition. Communication and Integrated Biology. 2019; 2(3): 279–281.