Hormonal Reactions & Influences - part 2

How chemical reactions affect us

The Different Sensations

At this point it's important to explain the two different ways in which people can experience erotic power exchange activity. In simple terms: there are kick-seekers and life-stylers. Kick-seekers will be interested in short term, more or less incidental sensations without an obvious coherent pattern. They will sometimes visit parties, seek incidental contacts or just incidental sensations and are in fact searching for the adrenaline kick described above. In that sense this group is very different from life-stylers, those who identify erotic power exchange as a part of their personality who look for a more permanent place for erotic power exchange in their life.

Since there's no right or wrong, one shouldn't really compare the two. Both ways of looking at or incorporating erotic power exchange are valid and probably important to the people involved, just totally different, much like there's a huge difference between incidentally feeling the kick of driving fast and making a living as a professional Formula 1 driver.

Endorphins

Endorphins may be, at least to a certain extent, one of the things lifestyle erotic power exchange revolves around. Although it's way too early for any scientific conclusions, it's becoming apparent endorphins play an important role in erotic power exchange scenes. Although endorphins are relatively "new" to the medical world, and even more so to psychologists and psychiatrists, it's generally acknowledged that they play an important part in both our physical and psychological reactions.

Endorphins, first identified in the mid-1970s, have always existed in the human body. They're not just one chemical substance, but a group of substances that have the same or interconnecting properties. Endorphins are a complex set of hormones, released primarily by the pituitary gland (located at the base of the brain). This group of peptids composed of amino acids has offered some explanation of how systems are coordinated in the human body. But their greatest significance so far may prove to be the linking of the immune and endocrine systems with the mind into one psycho-immuno-endocrine system.

In 1973, at Marishal College in Aberdeen, Scotland, John Hughes tried to identify a "Substance X" which could satisfy the requirements for the body's own morphine-like substance. His mentor in Aberdeen was Hans Kosterlitz. They made progress and called their Substance X "enkephalin." Other researchers were also working to identify an opiate receptor in the human body; effectively a lock into which morphine could fit and activate responses. It soon became clear that there was a group of chemicals in the brain and body which had properties similar to morphine.

At a 1975 meeting at Airlie House in Virginia (U.S.) a New York receptor researcher coined the name "endorphines" (the morphine within) for all the brain produced substances with opiate properties. The 'e' was dropped later and the term "Endorphins" was soon being popularized by the world's media.

Initially, the endorphins were, and still very much are, looked at and researched from the pain control angle and some papers identified that acupuncture stimulated the production of endorphins. This is what gave acupuncture its first scientific respectability - however only in the area of pain control.

Slowly it became clear that there were profound and diverse roles for the endorphins. The runner's high was attributed to endorphins and more and more functions were identified. Candace Pert, an endorphin researcher, stated for the record that: "Endorphins are mood chemicals playing an important role in human healing processes."

Endorphins seem to explain a lot of things, including the phenomena of patients and sports people being able to exclude pain sensation by mental power only. It's become clear that the brain produces different "cocktails" of endorphins based on different impulses. These impulses can be external, such as a pain impulse, as well as internal ones created by the brain itself. In an erotic power exchange situation it's very likely - although this has yet to be researched properly - that both physical and mental impulses play a role in the production and release of endorphins by the brain.

This theory would at least provide one scientific explanation for the importance of fantasies, fetishes and symbols in erotic power exchange play, as well as for the obvious interaction between fantasies and the real live action. Another effect that's yet to be researched is the influence of the adrenaline hormone on the production of endorphins. The current theory is that where adrenaline among other effects causes a higher state of awareness, it's quite likely that this higher state of awareness causes an increased production of certain (groups of) endorphins. Thinking along the lines of this theory might also explain why orgasms during or as a result of an erotic power exchange scene are at least "different" (usually either more intense or violent or both) from other orgasms, since the orgasm itself is one of the events triggering adrenaline production.

Next, since endorphins at least seem to be "mood chemicals," other extra impulses, such as fantasy, symbolism, smell (like the smell of leather which is very significant to many erotic power exchange people), fetishes and direct physical and mental impulses such as pain, humiliation, discomfort, helplessness and others may very well be intertwined with or connected to the effects of the endorphins themselves.

Endorphins have been scientifically proven to have effects on all sorts of physical and mental processes. To name just a few of these with any possible connection or relation to erotic power exchange: effects on the central nervous system and peripheral analgesia and pain modulation, effects on the neuro-endocrine control of reproduction, stress, spontaneous behavior and motivation.

The very latest developments in endorphins research seem to point to two different methods of endorphins release. Besides the method described here, where the endorphins seem to have a predominantly neuro-transmitter function triggering moods and emotions, there also seems to be a second method, where endorphins are released in more or less random "fountains," allowing the brain to just register and enjoy external impulses, without interpreting and analyzing them. That would predominantly happen in young children and could explain the fact that young children don't immediately respond to impulses, other than just enjoying them. This theory would also explain the pure "enjoying without interpreting" stage adults can experience during extreme kicks such as riding a rollercoaster, skydiving and of course erotic power exchange. It's too early to draw any firm conclusions in this area however.

Article continues in "Hormonal Reactions & Influences - part III"
(genetic influences, the GnRH hormone, Gonadotropin, and more...)


Based on materials from the POWERotics Foundation
© 1996-2001; republished here with their permission;
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