Central Neural States Relating Sex and Pain
- Richard J. Bodnar,
- Kathryn Commons &
- Donald W. Pfaff
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002 $69.95 hardcover, pp 256 ISBN 0-801-86827-0 | ISBN: 0-801-86827-0
Love brings us a good measure of pain. Artists struggling to decide whether this commingling of pleasure and discomfort is absolutely inescapable or merely commonplace might be surprised to learn that some scientists ask the same question. To what extent must an animal preparing to mate also prepare for the possibility of pain? For many species, such pain is not just psychological, but can be quite physical as well. Animals are often more vulnerable to predation when mating, and copulation itself may inflict minor tissue damage to the genitalia, usually the female's. In rats, for example, the male's penis sports cornified epithelial barbs that stimulate the female's cervix enough to elicit bleeding. However rough this sex might appear to us, it is not simply a case of the male forcing himself upon the female. Indeed, her physiology requires the male to provide this stimulation before she will permit his embryonic offspring to implant in her uterus. Furthermore, in many mammals, such as cats and ferrets, the male bites the female's neck when he mounts. For any solitary species, finding a potential mate brings the risk of intra-species aggression. This new volume, written by experts in pain signaling and hormonal action, explores the idea that the hormones that induce a female mammal to gather sperm for reproduction also prepare her to tolerate the male's rough handling.
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