Twice in the last couple months, I have seen references in the news to oxytocin, the hormone of intimacy, bonding, and close relationships. First, an interview with Dr. Louann Brizendine in the NYT Mag included a discussion of her findings that when women talk to each other intimately, their brains release oxytocin, which makes us feel good. I took this to mean that gossiping is good for us women. And this affirmed the way I have long felt after I huddle closely with a good friend, sharing bits of news, feelings, things heard and seen. It gives me a little lift. I started to talk about the concept at work, where we, who are 95% women, do our share of chatting. Soon we were requesting “oxytocin sessions” with each other.
Then, in the Times last weekend, there was an op-ed about Bush’s deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health & Human Services. This guy, an OB-GYN doc, is part of the Abstinence Squad, it seems, and has come up with a handful of cockamamied arguments to back up his anti-choice, anti-premarital sex position. He claims that premarital sex reduces a woman’s ability to generate oxytocin. He say that like duct tape applied repeatedly to an arm full of hair, which over time loses its adhesive qualities and the ability to remove hair, a woman’s brain loses oxytocin-generating capacity with each additional sex partner. [First of all, I’m wondering what kind of complex this guy must have had as a child with overly hairy arms that led him to come up with this strange analogy. In my family, my sisters and I had what we considered to be hairy arms as kids, of which we were self-conscious. One day, my oldest sister complained to my dad about being teased by boys at school (I think they called her an ape). My dad encouraged her to fight back. “The next time they say that, just tell them: ‘If you think my arms are hairy, you should see my dad’s!’” I don’t know if she ever used this quip, but in any case, she certainly never resorted to duct tape and somehow overcame her hairy-arm complex--and I’ll bet some oxytocin was produced in the process. But, I digress...]
As I was reflecting on my recent level of stress and anxiety (induced by a good development at work, but anxiety nontheless), I thought about activities I might engage in now that would generate GOOD FEELING, ala oxytocin. I remembered my blog, abondoned months ago when my arm was in a sling and typing was saved for vital messages to friends along the lines of: “Could you please come over tonight to help me fill up my cold-therapy unit with ice, and while you’re at it, could you please do the dishes that have accumulated in my sink?” I have missed it, but have been fighting a big bowl of inertia in getting back to writing regularly. Yet here I am, stuck on a plane, conducting a metaphysical search for GOOD FEELING. And I remembered the good feeling I get after writing, or being creative in general. The creativity hormone, which I see as a first cousin to my good friend oxytocin, is stimulating and sustainable. It not only makes one feel good once, but offers the possibility of multiplying, if nurtured. So, I’d like to toast oxytocin, her unnamed cousin, and her entire extended family as I unlock the door from my prison of creative inertia, collect my plastic bag of belongings (HTML, wit, courage) and prepare to re-enter the blogosphere. Cheers.
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