Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss

[groovedaddy]

In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — Dr. Young predicts that it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink.

That’s the bad news. The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.

Could any discovery be more welcome? This is what humans have sought ever since Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the mast while sailing past the Sirens. Long before scientists identified neuroreceptors, long before Britney Spears’ quickie Vegas wedding or any of Larry King’s seven marriages, it was clear that love was a dangerous disease.

Love was correctly identified as a potentially fatal chemical imbalance in the medieval tale of Tristan and Isolde, who accidentally consumed a love potion and turned into hopeless addicts. Even though they realized that her husband, the king, would punish adultery with death, they had to have their love fix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/science/13tier.html?th&emc=th

[Myrina]

1. aw c'mon, I want to know about the boob-fascination explanation!!

Being a perpetually uncomfortable 38DD, I have never been able to understand it. Ever.

[chaplainM]

2. Extraordinary claims require

...extraordinary evidence, Myrina.

[Myrina]

8. LMAO ... 38DD isn't really that extraordinary anymore ...

... thanks to the rampant obesity (and rampant plastic surgery) in our society.

But mine are real and I do have photos to prove they exist ...
It'll only just cost ya $3.99 a minute to access the site. ;)

[sakabatou]

9. I know one who has larger ones (band size)

But is thin.

[Voice for Peace]

3. It is the longing for mommy. nt

[pokerfan]

11. yep

http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/nursing/toddler_fasc.html">Toddler Breast Fascination

[Myrina]

14. ok, that link covers toddlers who were breastfed, but ...

... what about the rest of the populace that are now adults and who were NOT breastfed, but are still ... fixated??


:shrug:

[FiveGoodMen]

15. Evolution

We got babies from the people who were inclined toward the activity that creates them.

Nothing against gay sex, but the gene pool is mostly filled with genes that attract one to the opposite sex.

That means men are attracted to what women have and we don't and vice versa.

[pokerfan]

16. Good marketing

[Crunchy Frog]

17. My personal belief is that it's evolutionarily related

to sexual swellings in primates. I expect that swollen breasts, and the male response to them, probably evolved to replace the genital swellings that occur in chimpanzees and bonobos. There would have been alot less utility to such swellings once our ancestors achived bipedal locomotion, but the males still would have needed something to fixate on.

[RoseMead]

4. I could have used an anti-love vaccine from 1986 to 1996

Worst relationship of my life, and I stayed in it for so long because, like every dumbass on Springer "I loved him!"

I still haven't recovered from it completely, either financially or emotionally. Anything that would have prevented that would have been a godsend.

[tinrobot]

5. We all got one of those...

Sorry it was so brutal. I could certainly tell you some stories as well.

The recovery process, however, can teach you a lot about yourself. As difficult as some relationships have been, they were also very important to my personal growth. I'm much happier because of what they taught me.

[RoseMead]

7. My wonderful current husband

likes to say that we are where and who we are now because of what we've both gone through in our past. We've both had horrible previous relationships, and that's part of the reason our relationship now is so good: we finally learned how do get it right. :D

[tinrobot]

6. I don't think we need an "anti-love" drug

We need people to stop looking outside themselves for their happiness. If we taught that in school, then people would be far less likely to get into these types of destructive relationships.

Of course, an entire population looking within for happiness would also destroy the advertising industry, so I doubt we will ever teach that in public school.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. "destroy the advertising industry"

And a light shown from the sky. And a heavenly choir began to sing praises to those four beautiful words...

[rcrush]

12. Sign me up!

Anything else just ends in disaster.

[groovedaddy]

13. Babies who are breast fed are far better off than their counter parts...n.t