Quote Originally Posted by Top-Rock
I wonder if anyone else is as intrigued as I am by the article in the May, 2003 Discover magazine entitled "Emotions And The Brain: Love" beginning on page 70. The article relates stress to the production of the peptide oxytocin in women but relatively much less so in men, who produce adrenaline instead. Oxytocin has effects which produce behavior quite different from a man's "fight or flight" reaction. Instead women seek out social contact. Their "tolerance effect" in reaction to naturally occurring opiates, (opioids), is suppressed. Hence oxytocin intensifies the feelings of pleasure and reward and satisfaction attendant on social bonds which are produced by opioids, prolonging and enhancing their effect.

I believe this neurochemical complex explains part of the reason women make intense social bonds with Dominant Men when those men subject them to stress. In terms of evolutionary biology, it makes perfect sense. It would have provided an important survival mechanism for women kidnapped by members of neighboring tribes. (This is a common practice in New Guinea even today, in the internecine warfare which reigns in the hinterlands.)

Read the article. I'll bet many of you have had personal experiences which, empirically at least, validate the theory in the penultimate paragraph. (Anyone explaining the behavior of a sub who is a male will have to look for an alternative neurochemical parallel.)

Top-Rock
Fascinating. The article is still available on line for $1 but could you email me a copy? The responses are also interesting. The kidnapping of women in raids is also traditional in the nomadic tribes of Arabia. Note that I say 'is', as I'm not sure that it is not still going on in the more remote areas.

Rape brings up conflicting emotions. The classic 'rape and pillage' scenario is occurring in many parts of the world at frequent intervals, recently in the Balkans, Sudan and other places such as parts of Asia that are not in the news. There is nothing sexy about the reality in which women are often killed after being brutally, mercilessly raped with no thought of minimising the damage, and the ultimate aim of what is euphemistically called ethnic cleansing. Neither is there anything sexy about rapists in Western countries who attack women with equal brutality, and absolutely no consideration for the woman's feelings. Some rapists are even indifferent to the age of their victims. I find it hard to understand how a man can be turned on by the brutal destruction of the source of his pleasure. No degree of visceral need can explain it.

The nomadic cultures of Arabia are a different matter. The reason for taking multiple wives was that men were killed in battle, leaving a surplus of women, widows who could only be looked after by a husband, and the wealth of a tribe was counted in women and animals (mainly camels and goats) captured from weaker tribes in raids. There was no interest in brutal attacks on women. Reproduction, resources permitting, was a way to make a tribe numerically stronger than their competitors for survival, and sex with captured women was regarded as a reward for success in battle. So when a woman was captured she knew what she was in for, and she had better be compliant. If she was compliant she could expect equal treatment with her husband’s other women. Otherwise she could expect punishment, or even death if she was judged a danger, or even just a nuisance.

Although the original post did not mention rape, many of the followup posts did, The original talked about stress, although it did mention internecine conflict in a similar context to my comments on Arabia. Unlike rape, biochemistry does not turn me off! On the contrary, it is much easier to understand a properly supported scientific argument, even if it was just a summary. It was a good summary. Women do like the kind of excitement that comes from stressful fear.