A Theology of Sex: Sex and the Brain

Though we don’t often talk about it the act of sex has as much to do with what’s between your ears as it does with what’s between your legs. The brain is intimately linked to the reality of sexual intercourse. This fact is crucial to grasp for several reasons: (1) what we think about can negatively or positively affect our sex life, and (2) this knowledge will help us more effectively counsel those with sex related problems.

The brain is the most powerful biological organ we have in our bodies. It controls all that we do, think, say, and even things like arousal and response. In relation to sex, the height of the event, orgasm, takes place in the brain. During sexual activity dopamine is released in the limbic system of your brain. Dopamine is a strong neurochemical that when released in the brain creates pleasure and motivates us to repeat the events that led to the dopamine release. God has wired us with a desire to pursue sex, not just once, but repeatedly. It’s his genetic design for ensuring the continuance of the race among other things. But dopamine releases also train us on what is important and how we are to mentally and physically respond. Dr. William Struthers writes:

Dopamine release acts as a signal that teaches what is important in the environment, helps remember what the appropriate response is, and fuels the tension and craving for meeting a need. (Wired for Intimacy)

What this means is that if we are not careful we can actually program our bodies to respond to different situations, arousals, and other stimuli. This is good in many cases, but if we are not careful it can be dangerous.

What we focus on during and for arousal can either positively or negatively affect our sexual life. Men who seek arousal in the more deviant sexual activities or experiences, or even the more bizarre, can train their brains, thanks to the release of dopamine, to be aroused by such things. For example, a young man I heard about years ago found himself aroused by a ball cap in his room. It wasn’t that the ball cap was particularly “sexy,” but it sat on top of his computer where he regularly viewed porn. Over time and repeated exposure, and over the repeated influx of dopamine to his brain while visual absorbing the image of that hat he trained his brain to respond sexually to a ball cap.

The ball cap might seem silly but there’s reason to pause here. What you fixate on during sex, or for arousal, can either promote Biblical marital sex, or it can harm it. Dr. Struthers applies this reality to the specifics of pornography, his words are devastating to hear and our culture needs to hear them. He writes:

As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on these images, the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed. The neural circuitry anchors this process solidly in the brain. With each lingering stare, pornography deepens a Grand Canyon-like gorge in the brain through which images of women are destined to flow. This extends to women that they have not seen naked or engaging in sexual acts as well. All women become potential porn stars in the minds of these men. They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God’s image.

This should be, then, a real motivation for all of us to think careful about what we view, what we turn to for arousal, and how we respond to what is unbiblical in the realm of sex and sexuality.

With that being said, however, we must also realize that when it comes to helping those who have already fallen into the trap of sexual sin there is not simple “fix.” The old comical, or rather more inane, suggestion of “take a cold shower” will not work. Nor will the basics of evangelism. While the gospel is real, and is powerful, and does change us, the reality is that sexual sin can be an addiction very akin to abuse of cocaine. Struthers, a Christian neuroscientist, agrees. He writes:

Human ejaculation due to stimulation by a partner (or by oneself) correlates with the euphoric, orgasmic states that are seen in heroin and cocaine use. Because of this activity, many have referred to people being addicted to sex. The orbitofrontal cortex is our emotional modulatory system. This is our decision-making system. To be addicted to something is to release dopamine, which causes you to want it and to make the decision to pursue it. That’s our addiction pathway.

So while I ultimately want to encourage people to believe the gospel and come to Jesus, I also know that helping them deal with their addiction is not going to be a simple as praying for “release.” God does sometimes grant people immediate relief from the consequences of their sin. But not all cocaine addicts are completely recovered after conversion, and neither are all sex addicts.

I help more young men with battling pornography than with anything else. It is a real problem in the church nation-wide. But helping young men (and now many women) with this problem must give full recognition to the damage done to the brain through repeated sexual sin. Struthers gives us some helpful points on this. He urges us to seek out new neural pathways of response. He says, “If this corrupted pathway can be avoided, a new pathway can be formed. We can establish a healthy sexual pattern where the flow is redirected toward holiness rather than corrupted intimacy.” We will talk more in the coming days about dealing with lust, porn, and other sexual sins, but it is important that we start here: recognizing that we are not just dealing with the spiritual but also the biological, chemical, and neural. Pray, friends, that God will equip his church to better address this problem…it’s a big one and in need of big answers. Thankfully we have a big God!