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The Reward Pathway and Other Dopamine Neuronal Tracts Left : Position of the electrode (black bar) and stimulation site (red dot) in a rat brain in the experiment of Olds & Milner (1954). Right : Position of the electrode and stimulation sites in a the brain of patient B-10 (Heath, 1972). From (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015). In the first article of this series, I discussed the idea of mental energy and how it appears in many spiritual traditions. In this one, I will start exploring the possible link between dopamine and mental energy by describing the function of the main dopamine neuronal pathways in the brain. One way to understand the functioning of the brain is in terms of neuronal pathways. These are circuits of neurons that send their axons from one area of the brain to another, making contacts (synapses) with neurons in that region. Some neuronal pathways use a single neurotransmitter, in this case, we are going to explore the dopaminergic ones.  Dopaminergic  means that dopamine is the neurotransmitter used by a neuronal pathway. ‘Pleasure’ electrodes in the brain It all started in 1953. James Olds and Peter Milner were postdoctoral fellows lab of the famous neuropsychologist Donald Hebb  at McGill University, in Montreal. Their experiment consisted of implanting electrodes in the reticular formation of rats to study their sleep-wake cycle. They placed the rat in a large rectangular box and waited for the rat to be in a particular corner to pass current through the electrode. One of the rats kept coming back to that corner, as if it wanted to receive the stimulation (Olds and Milner, 1954; Olds, 1958). To check if this was true, they used a set-up called a Skinner box , in which rats can press a lever to activate the electrode themselves. What happened is that rats would press the lever several thousand times per hour. Given the choice between food, on the one hand, or pressing the lever, on the other hand, the rats chose to press the lever, even when they were hungry. Male rats preferred the lever over a sexually receptive female rat. Female rats abandoned their pups to go to press the lever. In view of this, Olds named the region of the brain stimulated by the electrode pleasure centers in the brain . However, this idea was challenged later (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015). Even Olds himself, in later books (Olds, 1977), recognized that there was no evidence that the rats felt pleasure when they stimulated the electrode. The area stimulated by the electrodes implanted by Olds and Milner was the lateral hypothalamus (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015). The hypothalamus is a region in the middle bottom of the brain that serves as a bridge between the brain and the body, connecting the brain with the endocrine system. The psychiatrist Robert Heath took these experiments from the rat to human patients with schizophrenia, depression and other disorders (Heath, 1972). He found that the patients would avidly activate electrodes placed in a widespread ‘septal’ area that included the “septum, anterior hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, ventromedial neostriatum, pyriform cortex and ventromedial neocortex” (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015). The most famous of Heath’s patients was B-19, a young man who Dr. Heath wanted to cure of his homosexuality by stimulating his brain in the supposedly ‘pleasure’ area located in the septum/nucleus accumbens (Heath, 1972). Although B-19 avidly self-simulated with this electrode, he never said that he experienced pleasure while doing so. And far from ‘curing’ his homosexuality, the electrode made him want more sex. The reward pathway Today, we know that the neuronal pathway stimulated by the electrodes is located in the ventral striatum, linking the ventral tegmental area (VTA) with the nucleus accumbens. It uses dopamine as a neurotransmitter. As I explained in a previous article , drugs that produce addiction does so by releasing dopamine in the nucleus accumbens to much higher levels than natural stimuli life sex, food or exercise. This dopaminergic tract is called the mesolimbic pathway  because it is located in the midbrain (hence meso ) and is part of the limbic system, the areas of the brain that control emotions. However, it is better known as the reward pathway because it mediates what scientists call reward behavior: anything that an animal seeks. A reward is not necessarily pleasurable. It’s just something that the animal needs — like food, water, a mate, avoiding pain, or escaping the threat of a predator. A reward is anything that motivates the animal to act. Today, even the name reward pathway  is being questioned (Salamone and Correa, 2012) because there is much more to it than just craving some things and avoiding others. Its main role is to motivate us to do something, to keep us focused on a task, and to generate determination to keep sustained effort (Wanat et al., 2009; Salamone and Correa, 2012; Berke, 2018; Wise and Jordan, 2021). It’s more a motivation  pathway. Motivation is similar to what I called mental energy in the previous article because when we are motivated we are ready to do some effort to achieve our goals and, when we are not, we feel passive and lazy. The mesocortical pathway However, the mesolimbic or reward pathway is not the only one that drives our motivation. There is another dopaminergic pathway that links the VTA with the brain cortex. It’s called the mesocortical pathway because it links the midbrain to the cortex. Its function is to maintain sustained effort and attention. The mesocortical pathway stimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex  (PFC), which is where working memory resides, the desktop where we keep the things we are paying attention to in a given moment. The PFC also mediates cognitive flexibility; our ability to switch between mental contents; abstract reasoning; planning, and inhibiting spurious impulses. The mesocortical pathway also activates the anterior cingulate cortex  (ACC), which plays a crucial role in motivation, planning actions, attention, and detecting errors and conflicts. Other dopaminergic pathways All the current talk about dopamine centers in the reward pathway because it is the most relevant to the issues of addiction, motivation and mental energy. However, the reward and the mesocortical pathways are just two of the six major dopaminergic neuronal pathways  in the brain. This shows that there isn’t just one single reservoir of dopamine in the brain. Instead, dopamine acts in different parts of the brain to fulfill a variety of functions. Here is a brief description of the four other dopaminergic pathways. The nigrostriatal pathway  regulates movement and some forms of learning. It runs from the substantia nigra to the caudate nucleus and the putamen. The dopamine-containing neurons in the substantia nigra are gradually destroyed in Parkinson’s disease, causing the tremors and motor problems characteristic of this disease. The hypothalamospinal tract  goes from the hypothalamus to the spinal cord, where it controls sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons. Some of its neurons contain oxytocin, which regulates erection in males. The two remaining dopaminergic pathways, the tuberoinfundibular and incertohypothalamic pathways, are key for the effects of dopamine on sexual function. Both of them are inside the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls body function in general and sexual responses in particular. In them, dopamine increases erection and ejaculation in males and sexual receptivity and orgasm in females. However, they are not responsible for sexual desire or pleasure. I will explore them in another article. The tuberoinfundibular pathway  goes from the arcuate nucleus  (also called the infundibular nucleus) to the median eminence , which releases hormones into the pituitary gland, which in turn releases hormones into the blood to regulate the endocrine system. The incertohypothalamic pathway  goes from the zona incerta, an area below the thalamus also called A14, to the paraventricular nucleus. Besides sexual behavior, it regulates fear responses and the autonomic nervous system. A seventh dopaminergic pathway goes from the A11 nucleus, near the thalamus, to the spinal cord, where it controls pain. The logic behind that idea that sex depletes mental energy The idea that sex depletes mental energy follows this logic: Dopamine is essential to activate the reward and mesocortical pathways, which generate motivation and sustain attention and effort — what I have called mental energy.   Sex is a powerful natural reward, so it releases dopamine in the reward pathway. Too much sex (porn, masturbation) depletes dopamine in the reward pathway, so there is not enough to sustain mental energy. The key question is in step 3. Is it true that sex depletes dopamine in the reward pathway? Is this depletion enough to have a noticeable effect on mental energy? There is a lot of confusion about what dopamine depletion really means. Sadly, this is perpetuated by the careless use of this expression in many scientific papers. We get the image that there is a reservoir of dopamine in the brain that leaks dopamine every time we experience pleasure. If the brain doesn’t manage to replenish the reservoir fast enough, we are left without dopamine and, therefore, without energy. However, there is no reservoir of dopamine. This is not how neurotransmitters work. In the next article, I will describe the dopamine synapse to explore whether dopamine depletion really occurs in the reward pathway. Can too much sex or pleasure decrease the dopamine that sustain our mental energy? References Berke JD (2018) What does dopamine mean? Nat Neurosci 21:787–793. Berridge Kent C, Kringelbach Morten L (2015) Pleasure Systems in the Brain. Neuron 86:646–664. Heath RG (1972) Pleasure and brain activity in man. Deep and surface electroencephalograms during orgasm. J NervMentDis 154:3–18. Olds J (1958) Self-stimulation of the brain; its use to study local effects of hunger, sex, and drugs. Science 127:315–324. Olds J (1977) Drives and reinforcements: Behavioral studies of hypothalamic functions. New York: Raven Press. Olds J, Milner P (1954) Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain. J Comp Physiol Psychol 47:419–427. Salamone JD, Correa M (2012) The mysterious motivational functions of mesolimbic dopamine. Neuron 76:470–485. Wanat MJ, Willuhn I, Clark JJ, Phillips PE (2009) Phasic dopamine release in appetitive behaviors and drug addiction. Curr Drug Abuse Rev 2:195–213. Wise RA, Jordan CJ (2021) Dopamine, behavior, and addiction. J Biomed Sci 28:83.

Framing the question of the effect of pleasure on dopamine and motivation Sculptures in Lakshmana Temple showing gods and a couple practicing maithuna sex. Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, India. Author: Benjamín Preciado   Centro de Estudios de Asia y África de El Colegio de México . The claim that sex depletes mental energy These days, there is a lot of negative talk about porn, masturbation, sex and pleasure. Two claims are made regarding these things: That they are addictive. That they sap the energy that we need to function in our lives. I rebutted the first claim in a previous article, Dopamine: Why Heroin Is Addictive But Porn Is Not  ( in Medium , in Substack , in Sex, Science & Spirit ). It is part of a wider debate (Olsen, 2011; Potenza, 2014; Hynes et al., 2021; Fournier et al., 2023; Zeng et al., 2023) on whether some behaviors — masturbation, sex, eating tasty food, gambling, video gaming, using social media, exercise and work — are as addictive as drugs like opioids, cocaine, amphetamines, nicotine and alcohol. In my article, I argued that, although some behaviors can become compulsive, this is physiologically different from the effects of addictive drugs. The second claim is more subtle. It is promoted by some modern fads like NoFap , which demonizes masturbation, and ‘ dopamine fasting ’, which proposes abstaining from pleasure to increase mental energy. This is rationalized by saying that sex and pleasure release too much dopamine in our brain, depleting it. Since dopamine is what motivate us to do hard stuff, like studying, working or doing sports, pleasure makes us weak. Hence, if we abstain from pleasure, mostly by not masturbating, we become more energetic and powerful — we have more mental energy . An in-depth look at the neuroscience of dopamine revels that this claim, like the first one, is wrong. However, explaining this in detail is not easy. What I first intended to be a single article has become too long, so I decided to turn it into a series of articles, which may eventually grow into a book. You can get a preview of this content in my interview on The Nicolas Procel Podcast . I am a neuroscientist and a UCLA professor (now retired). For 40 years, I did basic research on neurotransmitters, opioids and pain neurophysiology. I have published 65 scientific papers . My lab was supported for 20 years by several research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Administration. Is there such a thing as mental energy? The term mental energy sounds a bit woo-woo. It evokes images of the Jedi of the Star Wars movies throwing things around with the mystical power of their minds. It is nothing new, however. As we will see, this idea goes way back in a lot of mystical traditions. Nevertheless, we all have the intuition that there is something we could call mental energy. Some days we feel invigorated, able to focus on an arduous mental task or to do strenuous exercise. We are bursting with energy. Other days, in contrast, we feel depleted. We procrastinate, get easily distracted, are unable to focus, and even a small amount of exercise exhausts us. The same happens when we compare one person with another. Some people are strong, optimistic, resilient, healthy and productive, while others are weak, depressed, fragile, sick and lazy. Some of that has to do with health. A body in poor health is unable to do strenuous activity. Science has shown that depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a variety of other mental problems are diseases of the brain, no different from the ones of the body. Most mental problems of them can be treated with medication and therapy. Just as we do not despise people for being sick, nobody should be blamed or shamed for having mental disorders. Still, we all feel responsible for improving our mental health, just like we take care of our physical health with a healthy lifestyle. Shouldn’t we deprive ourselves of pleasure, then, if that improves our mental health? We could define mental energy as our ability to sustain effort, maintain focus, stay on task, generate motivation, be resilient to drawbacks and generate positive emotions like joy, confidence, curiosity, interest, awe, love and compassion. Lack of mental energy is when we feel weak, distracted, unable to focus, unmotivated, easily frustrated and entangled in negative emotions like anger, fear, sadness, shame, indignation and envy. Therefore, I think that is legitimate to use the term mental energy  as a concept encompassing these things. Mental energy is not physical energy However, it is important to clarify that mental energy is different from the concept of energy in physics. The bridge between these two ideas could be the metabolic energy that keeps us alive. Metabolic energy is physical energy contained in the chemical bonds of glucose, the molecule that shuttles energy through the body, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy coin inside the cells. However, unless we are starving, there seems to be little correlation between metabolic energy and mental energy. People can be well-fed and physically healthy and still have low mental energy. Conversely, some people who are sick, starved, or have been tortured display tremendous amounts of mental energy. Mental energy, then, is entirely different from physical energy. No matter how much mental energy you have, you won’t be able to throw things around like Star Wars Jedis using the Force. Is it possible to increase our mental energy? We know that there are things we can do to improve our mental health: eating healthy food, getting enough exercise and sleep, abstaining from smoking, drinking alcohol and eating sugar. These things do increase our mental energy. Hence, for many people, it makes sense that abstaining from sex, or from socially condemned forms of sex like masturbation and porn, can also lead to a healthier life. However, is this true? Science has shown that sex is healthy, for both men and women (Komisaruk et al., 2006). And that includes masturbation. Mental energy in mystical traditions The ideas of managing our mental energy, and that sex depletes it, are rooted in the mystical traditions of many religions. Christianity and Islam have strict commandments regarding sex. However, this is done to obey God, not to gain mental energy or achieve religious experiences. Still, these may come as side-effects of celibacy. In Hinduism, practiced in the West as yoga, prana is a vital energy that circulates through channels called the nadis. Yoga breathing, or pranayama, regulates and balances prana, giving us more energy and mental stability. Yoga also teaches that sex wastes prana, making us weak. This is particularly true of ejaculation in men, while the effect of female orgasms on prana is much less clear. Tantra is a mystical school common to Hinduism and Buddhism. Sexual Tantra is a series of practices in which sex is done without ejaculation ( maithuna ). This was imported in the West as coitus reservatus , sex without ejaculation in men or orgasm in women. Its modern adaptation is semen retention , an edging technique in which a man comes close to orgasm but does not ejaculate. In Taoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine, vital energy is called qi . Just like prana, qi courses through channels called the meridians. Acupuncture is supposed to restore health by inserting needles at acupuncture points located along the meridians. Again, sex is supposed to waste qi. This idea was imported from Taoism into Zen Buddhism. My personal experience with celibacy and mysticism I grew up in Franco’s Spain being indoctrinated by the Catholic organization Opus Dei . Therefore, during my early teens I strictly abstained from masturbating. When I was 15, I had a religious crisis that led me to abandon Catholicism . You would expect that this led me to start experimenting with masturbation but, instead, I was immediately attracted to yoga philosophy and its teaching of Brahmacharya : sexual abstinence to preserve my prana. Did this increase my mental energy? It’s true that I was a model student, getting top grades throughout high school and college. But I also had emotional problems. My sexual abstinence led to have a series of painful crushes that I didn’t know how to manage. My sexual liberation came halfway through college, when I finally left aside yoga philosophy and I started dating and having sex. Masturbation became a daily practice. I felt happier, more emotionally balanced, and my grades didn’t suffer one bit. I have continued practicing yoga to this day, though, and I can attest that some forms of pranayama do increase my mental energy. When I was 27 I started practicing Zen Buddhism. Unlike when I was immersed in yoga in my late teens, that didn’t keep me from masturbating and having sex. However, when I participated in long Zen retreats, called sesshins, I abstained from masturbation. We were asked to do so to increase the vital energy that we supposedly generated during meditation. It’s hard for me to separate the effects of this temporary celibacy from the effects of the long hours of meditation. As you can see, I have plenty of experience with both celibacy and a free sexual lifestyle. I also have experience with different spiritual practices supposed to generate mental energy. Although all this was personally enriching, it’s hard to derive any objective knowledge from my subjective experiences. What I can do is to contrast my personal experience with scientific knowledge about the brain, and see if I can make any sense out of this. There is no scientific basis for mystical energy Science has found no evidence of the existence of prana, chi, the nadis or the meridians. If you examine the areas of the body where the nadis or the meridians are supposed to be located, there is nothing there that resembles the descriptions found in religious textbooks. No scientific instrument has ever measured a form of energy in the body that could be prana or qi. The only way science can interpret these concepts is as some form of representation of subjective experiences — what we feel when we experience our bodies from the inside. Or, to put it in scientific terms, prana and qi could be interoceptive feelings. These feelings could be valuable as a guide to train us to feel if our body is in an unbalanced or a healthy state. This is how I interpret what I feel in my spiritual practice, which involves a fair amount of energy work . However, this doesn’t answer the question of whether sex depletes our mental energy. As I discussed above, we all have the experience of ups and downs in our mental energy. So, although the explanations of the mystical traditions do not make sense, there could be another explanation based on brain physiology. Dopamine seems to be a good candidate for such an explanation, since it is released by sex and other pleasurable stimuli and, at the same time, it is required for motivation and sustained effort. Hence, it makes sense that when pleasure depletes dopamine, we lose motivation and the mental energy required for effort. But the brain doesn’t work that way. It’s much more complicate than that. However, this would require a long explanation backed by extensive scientific evidence, which I will provide in the next articles in this series. References Fournier L, Schimmenti A, Musetti A, Boursier V, Flayelle M, Cataldo I, Starcevic V, Billieux J (2023) Deconstructing the components model of addiction: an illustration through "addictive" use of social media. Addict Behav 143:107694. Hynes TJ, Hrelja KM, Hathaway BA, Hounjet CD, Chernoff CS, Ebsary SA, Betts GD, Russell B, Ma L, Kaur S, Winstanley CA (2021) Dopamine neurons gate the intersection of cocaine use, decision making, and impulsivity. Addict Biol 26:e13022. Komisaruk BR, Beyer C, Whipple B (2006) The science of orgasm. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Olsen CM (2011) Natural rewards, neuroplasticity, and non-drug addictions. Neuropharmacology 61:1109–1122. Potenza MN (2014) Non-substance addictive behaviors in the context of DSM-5. Addict Behav 39:1–2. Zeng X, Han X, Gao F, Sun Y, Yuan Z (2023) Abnormal structural alterations and disrupted functional connectivity in behavioral addiction: A meta-analysis of VBM and fMRI studies. J Behav Addict.

We can learn to love pain Location of the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens in the human brain. From Wikimedia Commons. If you place an electrified rod in the rat's cage, the rat soon learns to avoid it. However, if you pair contact with the rod with optogenetic stimulation  of the central amygdala (CeA) of the rat, it learns to want the pain delivered by the electric rod. It seeks the rod over and over again. The CeA is the part of the brain that mediates stress and fear. What happens in the experiment is that stimulating the CeA induces dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, the key component of the reward pathway. This causes the rat to desire whatever is paired with the release of dopamine. Applying this to BDSM, the fear and the pain at the beginning of a sadomasochistic scene activates the CeA, which is part of the flight/fight response. Then, the bottom partner learns to want the pain, just like the rat does. The question is… does the masochist like the pain, or does he just wants it? These are different things. There is also an important twist… The rat chooses when to touch the electrified rod to experience the pain. If the rat loses control over the pain, then it learns to avoid the rod instead of seeking it. Having control over the pain changes things completely. It's the same for masochists. They have some basic control over a scene because they can stop it by using a safeword. Losing control over a scene (because it becomes non-consensual) turns a pleasant experience into a horrible one. Reference Positive Affect: Nature and brain bases of liking and wanting. Nguyen, D., Naffziger, E.E. & Berridge, K.C. Curr Opin Behav Sci 2021, Pages 72-78 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7978410/

on the Nicolas Procel Podcast Sunset in Bequia Island. Photo by the author. Dopamine is a very popular neurotransmitter these days. People who probably don’t even know what a neurotransmitter is talk constantly of dopamine boosts, dopamine highs and dopamine fasting. They have heard that dopamine is the stuff that produces pleasure in the brain, that you feel energetic because you have a lot of dopamine, or that experiencing too much pleasure empties the brain of that precious dopamine. All of which is complete bullshit. The problem is that neuroscientists who should know better, like Andrew Huberman and Anna Lembke, both professors at Stanford University, broadcast these myths in books like Dopamine Nation and the popular Huberman Podcast . The problem is this is driving a new wave of puritanism because, you know, too much sex or too much fun depletes the brain of dopamine and leaves you a suffering, powerless and addicted wreck. I started debunking these dopamine myths in an article that I published on my website Sex, Science & Spirit  ( también en español ), on Substack , on Medium , and on Fetlife . However, while reading The Science of Orgasm , a wonderful book about the neuroscience of sex, I realized that there is much more to dopamine than what I explained in that article. Dopamine is involved in sex, after all, but not the way that Huberman and Lembke say it is. I started pulling papers from PubMed and collecting them in my EndNote database. Soon, I fell down a rabbit hole. I started writing a new article but, when it reached 25 pages and 10,000 words, I realized that nobody would read such a lengthy compendium of thick neuroscience. I would have to turn it into a series of articles or maybe a book. That was when Nicolas Procel contacted me, asking if I would like to participate in his podcast talking about dopamine. I immediately accepted. The ideas were fresh in my brain, and talking about them would help me focus on something that people would understand. Nicolas Procel turned out to be a super-smart 19-year-old with a deep understanding of neuroscience and amazing podcasting skills. We talked for two hours, exploring the information I had gathered about dopamine and ending with some profound philosophical reflections about the meaning of pleasure and the way to live a good life.   If you are interested in this subject, you won’t regret listening to this episode. Here is the link to it on Spotify, although you can probably find it on other podcasting platforms: https://open.spotify.com/episode/12fV33JF4E1vkau6WDodJC?si=c360b5b29a7242f0 Please let me know what you think in the comments. Is it easy to understand? Did it answer your questions? Is there anything you disagree with?

Different patterns of dopamine release in the reward pathway mediate motivation and addiction Dopamine neural pathways in the brain. Shutterstock 2328747187 The dopamine myths There is much confusion these days about what dopamine does in the brain. The logic goes like this: Drugs produce addiction by releasing dopamine in the brain. Pleasurable activities release dopamine in the same brain region. Therefore, pleasurable activities must also produce addiction. Yes, the logic is not entirely sound. The devil, as always, is in the details. After all, dopamine is constantly being released inside the brain. When you block dopamine release in mice, they lack motivation for doing anything and die of thirst and starvation ( Wise and Jordan, 2021 ). Some people even take it a step further ( Lembke, 2021 ). They reason that too much pleasure must deplete the brain of dopamine, leading to an unhealthy state of lack of motivation. Therefore, we must try to conserve dopamine by avoiding too much pleasure. Especially masturbating or watching porn. These ideas are everywhere nowadays. They are key to the NoFab anti-masturbation movement. Its ideas have been absorbed by the manosphere , which seeks to make men more manly, powerful and less dependent on sex. But they are also supported by radical feminists, who have been campaigning against porn since the 70s . And, of course, religious conservatives are always happy to find arguments against porn, masturbation, sex and anything pleasurable. Here are a few examples of these dopamine beliefs: Porn and masturbation are addictive. Video games are addictive. Social media, and smartphones in general, are addictive. You can become addicted to loving a person. Too much pleasure depletes the brain of dopamine, leading to a state of pain, lack of motivation and weak willpower. Dopamine fasting - avoiding the addictive drug or behavior for 30 days - can be used to stop an addiction. Are behaviors addictive? These beliefs are defended in the book Dopamine Nation , by Anna Lembke , M.D (see critical reviews here ). It makes three main claims: That behaviors like masturbation, watching porn, reading romance novels, gaming, social media, and using your cell phone, are as addictive as drugs like cocaine and heroin; That pleasure and pain need to be maintained in balance - if you experience too much pleasure, you will pay with pain; That drugs and behaviors like those listed above require a 30-day dopamine fast to get out of addiction. These beliefs about dopamine are also featured in some episodes of the podcast of Andrew Huberman , particularly the one of August 16, 2021, where he interviews Dr. Lembke, and the one of March 27, 2023, “ Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort .” I generally like the Huberman Podcast. It provides good information about neuroscience and good life advice. However, sometimes (as in the case of dopamine) it lacks enough scientific rigor and critical thinking. The book The Compass of Pleasure , by Dr. David Linden, also defends the idea that we can become addicted to sex and love. However, it does so as an afterthought. Its main goal is to explain the involvement of the dopamine reward pathway in pleasure. It is worrisome that these prestigious neuroscientists defend the idea that behaviors can be addictive. This article focuses on examining this issue by diving into the details of dopamine release in the reward pathway of the brain. To keep it short, I will leave other claims related to dopamine for another occasion. This is a contentious issue with important social and political ramifications. If left unchallenged, this trend of demonizing sex and pleasure as addictive can start a new era of puritanism and repression. Hence, it is important to treat it with the necessary scientific rigor. Besides having a 40-year research career on the neuroscience of pain and opioids, I have researched this issue extensively to find peer-reviewed articles to support what I say. The reward pathway In 1953, James Olds and Peter Milner were postdoctoral fellows at McGill University in Montreal. By being a bit clumsy, they made a discovery of great consequence ( Olds and Milner, 1954 ; Olds, 1958 ; Linden, 2012 ). They worked in the lab of neuropsychologist Donald Hebb , famous for hypothesizing the mechanisms of memory by saying “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Olds and Milner were investigating the reticular system, an area in the midbrain that control sleeping and waking. But the electrodes they implanted in one particular rat were a bit off and landed in the septum instead of the reticular formation. When the rat recovered from surgery, they placed it in a large rectangular box. Every time that the rat was in a particular corner, Olds stimulated its brain by passing current through the electrode. The rat soon learned to return to that corner. Apparently, it liked its brain being stimulated in the septum. In this, it behaved differently than rats that had electrodes placed in the reticular system. Olds and Milner soon learned just how much rats enjoyed having their brains stimulated in the septum. They used a set-up called a Skinner box , in which rats could press a lever to deliver the electrical stimulus to their brain. When implanted with electrodes in this brain region, the rats would press the lever several thousand times per hour. Given the choice between water or food, on the one hand, or pressing the lever, on the other hand, the rats always chose to press the lever. Male rats would rather press the lever than mate with female rats in heat. Female rats abandoned their pups to go and press the lever. It was tempting to call this neuronal path the pleasure pathway. They called it the reward pathway , instead, or by the more technical name of mesolimbic pathway . By systematically placing electrodes in different parts of the brain of rats, scientists mapped this reward pathway. It runs in the middle of the bottom of the brain, back to front, from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens. It also sends dopamine-containing axons to the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the thalamus and the hypothalamus. Dopamine pathways to different brain regions. Wikimedia Commons. The VTA, together with the substantia nigra, contains many of the dopamine neurons of the brain. VTA neurons also send dopamine-releasing ( dopaminergic ) axons to the prefrontal cortex (volition), the anterior cingulate cortex (decision-making and planning), the amygdala (involved in fear and anxiety) and the hypothalamus (control of body functions). This is important, because dopamine maintains the function of these areas of the brain over long periods of time. For example, effects of dopamine on the anterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex are essential for flow ( Kotler et al., 2022 ), a mental state of effortless effort, focused attention and creativity. I explain it in detail in my article The Neuroscience of Flow . What does it feel like to have your reward pathway stimulated? Inevitably, electrodes were placed in the reward pathway of humans to see what they felt when it was stimulated. Just like the rats, when humans were given the opportunity to stimulate the own reward pathway by pressing a lever, they did so non-stop. But what did they feel? In his book The Compass of Pleasure , neuroscientist David Linden says that they experienced euphoria, a state of well-being and excitation, but he doesn’t give any references to support this. Is the reward pathway really a pleasure pathway? Let’s start with orgasm. Indeed, the VTA and the nucleus accumbens are activated during orgasm ( Wise et al., 2017 ). However, several other brain regions are also activated during orgasm: the insula, operculum, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, right angular gyrus, paracentral lobule, cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus and dorsal raphe. In particular, the insula and its nearby operculum mediate the emotions associated with body sensations, so they may be key for the pleasure produced by the orgasm. The anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex may mediate the desire to continue sexual stimulation. Dopamine acts on the hypothalamus to stimulate the release of oxytocin, a neuromodulator and hormone that produces bonding during sex. What about other kinds of pleasure? The linking reaction to sweets is mediated by a “hedonic hotspot” in the shell of the nucleus accumbens ( Mitchell et al., 2018 ). The pleasure produced by music is associated with dopamine release in the striatum, which includes the nucleus accumbens ( Salimpoor et al., 2011 ). This study used positron emission tomography (PET) to get images of the brain as dopamine displaces [11C]raclopride from dopamine receptors. Dopamine release occurred when arousal by music reached its peak, as reported by the subjects and measured by the activation of their autonomic system. Viewing pictures of a person who you love decreases pain by activating the nucleus accumbens, the amygdala and the frontal cortex ( Younger et al., 2010 ). Some dopaminergic neurons in the reward pathway respond to aversive stimuli, which means things that we dislike, like pain and distress. The activation of some neurons in the nucleus accumbens that have dopamine receptors was correlated with the emotional quality of pain ( Scott et al., 2006 ). The front (rostral) part of the shell of the nucleus accumbens reacts to things that we like, while its back (caudal) part reacts to aversive stimuli ( Hurley et al., 2017 ). A review paper ( Salamone and Correa, 2012 ) objected to the name of reward pathway . They said that it is really a motivation pathway because it mediates sustained effort to achieve a goal. Another review ( Paredes and Agmo, 2004 ) argued that dopamine is not important for sexual motivation or sexual reward. Even though this issue remains controversial, I would say that there is evidence that the reward pathway is involved in both pleasure and pain. However, scientists use the more precise terms reward for pleasure and aversion for pain. Dopamine receptors There are five receptors for dopamine, D1 through D5 ( Seeman and Van Tol, 1994 ). They are the proteins in the membrane of neurons to which dopamine binds to deliver its signal. The five receptors are divided into two groups: D1-like receptors include D1 and D5 receptors, while D2-like receptors are D2, D3 and D4. Importantly, these two groups of dopamine receptors have opposite effects on the neurons. D1-like receptors function by stimulating an intracellular signaling protein called alpha-s G protein, which increases the production of cAMP, a second messenger that excites the neuron. D2-like receptors, instead, decrease the synthesis of cAMP by activating a different G protein: alpha-i G protein. Therefore, the inhibit neurons. A subtype of D2 receptors, D2-short, are located in the presynaptic terminals and inhibit dopamine release. Receptors that provide this sort of negative feedback are called autorreceptors. The dopamine receptors most important in the reward pathway are D1 and D2 ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ). About half of the neurons of the nucleus accumbens have D1 receptors, which have low affinity for dopamine. This means that their full activation requires high concentrations of dopamine. The other half of these neurons have D2 receptors, which have high affinity for dopamine. This means that relatively low concentrations of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens are able to activate most of the D2 receptors. Since D2 receptors are inhibitory, the release of small amounts of dopamine inhibits the nucleus accumbens. When dopamine gets released in higher amount, this excites the neurons of the nucleus accumbens by activating the D1 receptors. However, since D1 and D2 receptors are in different neurons, the ultimate effect of their activation on the functioning of the nucleus accumbens depends on the role of these neurons. Untangling all this is not straightforward. What is clear is we cannot assume that dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens has a simple effect, like giving us pleasure or producing addiction. It depends on how much dopamine, where is released, what neurons get activated and how long the dopamine release lasts. Therefore, the patterns of release of dopamine are crucial to determine its effect. Dopamine release The key to distinguish the effect of addictive drugs on dopamine from the effect of behaviors like masturbating, watching porn or playing video games resides on somewhat obscure concepts: tonic and phasic release of dopamine. Shutterstock image ID 1400463092. Dopamine, like other neurotransmitters, is released when action potentials in the axon of the dopamine neuron reach a presynaptic terminal. This is a swelling separated by a small gap from the postsynaptic terminal containing the dopamine receptors. In the presynaptic terminal, dopamine is loaded into synaptic vesicles. When an action potential reaches the presynaptic terminals, some of these vesicles fuse with the membrane, releasing dopamine that then crosses the synapse and binds to the dopamine receptors in the postsynaptic terminals. Dopamine does not hang around the synapse for long. There are proteins called dopamine transporters (or reuptake systems) that take dopamine out of the synaptic space and put it back into the presynaptic terminal. Then dopamine gets loaded back into the synaptic vesicles or degraded by an enzyme called monoamine oxidase (MAO). Tonic dopamine release Neurons fire action potentials in different patterns. Tonic firing is the simplest pattern. It consists of single action potentials separated by time intervals of 150 to 500 milliseconds (ms). A ms is a thousandth of a second, so 500 ms is half a second. Tonic firing releases small amounts of dopamine that binds to D2 receptors, which are present not only in the synapse, but all over the postsynaptic neuron. Tonic release of dopamine is not triggered by sensory stimuli from the environment, but controlled by stress and hormones related to feeding, like leptin, insulin and ghrelin ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ). Tonic dopamine release controls the motivational state of the individual, its willingness to exert an effort to achieve a goal. A sustained rate of tonic release keeps basal dopamine levels high enough to activate the low-affinity, inhibitory D2 receptors. This decreases excitation in the nucleus accumbens, leading to a state of contentment and satisfaction. There is no need to take action. When tonic firing is low, dopamine falls below the levels at which it activates the D2 receptors. This creates a state of uneasy that drives the individual to seek something to relieve it. Based on previous learning, the person gets motivated to find a reward (food, sex, a work goal) that would increase tonic dopamine release again. For example, feeding hormones may cause a drop in tonic dopamine release, motivating the individual to seek food. Phasic dopamine release Burst firing of action potentials is more complex than tonic firing. It consists of several groups (bursts) of action potentials at high frequency - up to 100 Hz, which means one action potential every 10 ms. Burst firing of action potentials. Wikimedia Commons. Burst firing changes synapses by the process of synaptic plasticity , which is how the brain stores memories. Synaptic plasticity is composed of two opposing mechanisms: long-term potentiation (LTP), which increases the efficacy of neurotransmission, and long-term depression (LTD), which decreases it. Burst firing of dopaminergic neurons induces phasic dopamine release . Phasic means intermittent: a lot of dopamine is released very quickly during each burst of action potentials. This increases dopamine concentrations at the synapse so much that the D1 receptors get fully activated. Together with the burst of action potentials, the D1 receptors induce LTP in these synapses, recording the memory of the rewarding stimulus. Some of these synapses are in the prefrontal cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex, where they drive future decisions. Some of this dopamine spills out of the synapse and activates D2 receptors. If the D2 receptors are in the bodies of the neurons, this dampens craving. But when the D2 receptors are in nearby synapses, the lower concentrations of spillover dopamine induce LTD in them. These synapses are less efficacious in the future. This sets a signal/noise contrast between the synapses activated by a rewarding stimulus and those unrelated to it, increasing learning. Phasic dopamine release is driven by sensory stimuli related to rewards (pleasure) or aversion (pain). They are delivered to the VTA-accumbens pathway from brain regions that assign a positive or negative emotional value to sensory signals. For example, the amygdala may assign fear to a perception, or the insula may assign pleasure to different one. How dopamine mediates addiction to cocaine and amphetamines Although it may seem very technical, the difference between tonic and phasic dopamine release is essential to explain why drugs are addictive and behaviors like watching porn or masturbating are not. Let’s start with cocaine . It acts by blocking the reuptake of dopamine: the proteins that transport dopamine back into the synaptic terminals to end its effect. When neurons cannot capture back dopamine, its spillover to D2 receptors outside the synapse during phasic dopamine release increases considerably. Even tonic dopamine release causes higher levels of dopamine around the neurons. Cocaine increases 3 to 5 folds basal level of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ). But equally important is that these high levels of dopamine are present for long periods of time, for as long as we feel the effect of cocaine. Exposed to too much dopamine for long periods of time, the D2 receptors are downregulated: taken out of the membrane and degraded. So now there are less D2 receptors to signal satisfaction, leading to a constant state of craving. At the same time, the pleasure produced by cocaine sends a signal through D1 receptors that creates an association of cocaine with reward. This, together with the state of craving induced by the downregulation of the D2 receptors, is what drives the compulsive seeking of the drug that constitutes addiction. Amphetamine and methamphetamine acts in a similar way as cocaine, except that they not just inhibit the dopamine transporter, they reverse it! They also release dopamine from the synaptic vesicles. This results in increases in extrasynaptic dopamine even larger than those produced by cocaine. Notice that the increases in dopamine produced by cocaine and amphetamines are not mediated by changes in either tonic or phasic dopamine release. They are not related to behavioral rewards or aversions. It is an unnatural interference that completely messes up the reward pathway. How dopamine mediates addiction to opioids Opioids like heroin, morphine, fentanyl and oxycodone (the infamous OxyContin that caused the opioid epidemic in the USA) act by a different mechanism. Neurons that release the neurotransmitter GABA are the main brake system in the brain. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that reduces action potential firing in other neurons. There are GABA-releasing ( GABAergic ) neurons that make synapses with the dopamine neurons of the reward pathway, providing a negative feedback. When there is too much release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, GABAergic neurons that go to the VTA get activated, decreasing their firing and thus dopamine release. These GABAergic neurons contain mu-opioid receptors, which are the site of action for the opioid drugs that I listed above. When these opioid receptors are activated, GABA release is decreased. This relieves dopamine release from its inhibition, increasing it - a phenomenon called disinhibition . That is how opioids increase dopamine release in the reward pathway ( Johnson and North, 1992 ; Saigusa et al., 2017 , 2021 ). As in the case of cocaine and amphetamines, the resulting increases in dopamine are sustained and lead to the downregulation of D2 receptors, setting a state of craving. In addition, the abnormal activation of the mu-opioid receptors by the opioid drugs seems to induce long-term changes in the GABAergic neurons that reduce their ability to keep dopamine release in check. This may explain why opioids are even more addictive than cocaine. Curiously, endorphins - the peptides that naturally activate opioid receptors - do not produce addiction ( Stoeber et al., 2018 ). The reason for this is complicated. Endorphins are quickly degraded by enzymes called peptidases ( Song and Marvizon, 2003 ), and this limits the amount of time that they have to activate the opioid receptors. Another reason is that opioid receptors send different signals to the inside of the cell depending on whether they are activated by endorphins or by drugs. The intracellular signals sent by endorphins end the action of the mu-opioid receptors by internalizing them to the inside of the cell, while morphine and other drugs do not produce mu-opioid receptor internalization ( Keith et al., 1996 ; Stoeber et al., 2018 ). This is important because it means that natural stimuli that release endorphins - like sex and exercise - do not produce addiction. Both endorphins and morphine activate the mu-opioid receptors, but not in the same way. Cannabis Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are two amongst over a hundred psychoactive compounds found in marihuana. They act on CB1, CB2 and GPR55 receptors ( Lauckner et al., 2008 ; Pertwee, 2008 ). The natural ligands of CB1 and CB2 receptors are the endocannabinoids anandamide and 2-arachinodylglycerol (2-AG). They are called retrograde neurotransmitters because they signal the opposite way than regular neurotransmitters: they are synthesized in the postsynaptic terminals and diffuse to the presynaptic terminal, where they inhibit neurotransmitter release. Like opioids, cannabinoids inhibit GABA release onto dopamine neurons in the reward pathway, increasing dopamine release by disinhibition ( Szabo et al., 2002 ). However, cannabis is much less addictive than opioids and does not produce withdrawal ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ). Several things may explain why. CB1 receptors also inhibit glutamate release onto the dopamine neurons, which increases dopamine release. So, in this case, cannabinoids inhibit dopamine release, moderating their effect on the GABAergic neurons. Cannabinoids increase phasic dopamine release ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ), rather than its tonic release. They also interact with endorphins to increase “liking” instead of “wanting” ( Mitchell et al., 2018 ). CBD, acting on CB2 receptors, decreases addiction to cocaine ( Galaj et al., 2020 ). Other addictive drugs Other addictive drugs have their own mechanisms ( Wise and Robble, 2020 ). Alcohol is addictive when taken regularly in large amounts. Unlike other drugs, its effects on the brain are not mediated by a particular neurotransmitter receptor, but by its interaction with many receptors. These include glycine receptors, serotonin 5-HT3 receptors and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Alcohol produces only small increases in basal dopamine levels, but seems to increase phasic dopamine release. Still, alcoholics show a downregulation of D2 dopamine receptors similar to that produced by cocaine, amphetamines and opioids. Nicotine - the psychoactive substance in tobacco - is an agonist of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, some of which are in dopaminergic neurons of the VTA. Nicotine increases dopamine release from these neurons. In the long term, it downregulates D2 dopamine receptors. Benzodiazepines (Valium) and barbiturates (pentobarbital) act by modulating GABA-A receptors, increasing the inhibitory effects of GABA. They seem to disinhibit dopamine release, like the opioids. Why natural stimuli induce dopamine release, but not addiction Now let’s examine how some behaviors that are considered addictive impact the VTA-nucleus accumbens dopamine pathway. These things include ( Potenza, 2006 , 2014 ): food: eating sweets and other tasty foods ( Lindgren et al., 2018 ); sex: masturbating, watching porn, reading romance and erotica, fetishism, kink; playing: video games, gambling; social interactions: social media, anxious attachment, obsessive love ( Burkett and Young, 2012 ); shopping and shop-lifting; self-harm, like cutting; exercise: any sport done in excess; work: workaholics. These are all natural activities. Although video games and social media depend on the invention of the computer and the internet, playing, gossip and social interactions have always been human activities. The same can be said about sex. People have masturbated, engaged in sex, and watched others have sex since the dawn of humanity. Living today is much less dangerous and scary that in ancient times. It’s only that sensory stimulation has been increased by tastier foods, more appealing sexual images, more exciting games, etc. Strong sensory stimuli engage the reward pathway. However, they still do that by inducing phasic dopamine release. This is completely different from the prolonged elevations of basal dopamine levels produced by psychostimulants like cocaine and amphetamines. Neither do sensory stimuli mess with GABAergic inhibition of dopamine release, like opioids do. Natural stimuli also fine-tune tonic dopamine release to drive our motivations as we cycle through desire and satisfaction. Therefore, the stimuli provided by modern technology are not qualitatively different, in terms of dopamine release, from the old rewards with which we evolved. There is no reason to think that these activities would produce the enormous craving and withdrawal syndromes produced by addictive drugs . Still, it is true that some people develop strong compulsions to gamble, eat in excess or watch porn. However, this is better explained as an excessive tuning of the dopamine system towards one specific reward - gambling, tasty foods, exciting sex, etc. - and not an abnormal hijacking of the reward pathway, as drugs of addiction do. The reward pathway is also sensitive to mental conflict. For example, it gets activated by disappointment - when we expect a reward and we do not get it. When our natural drives towards food or sex conflict with shame and guilt derived from body image (social disapproval from being fat) or sexual repression from religion, this increases dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. It is this conflict, and not the pleasure of eating or masturbating, what leads to compulsive behaviors. The greater the conflict between naturals drives and repression, the more we feel that we cannot control our behavior. This explains why 'porn addiction' is often found in people with a religious upbringing. Is sex addictive? Unfortunately, science was often used in the past to justify puritanism and sexual repression. Even today, excessive sexual desire is considered a disease, termed Don Juanism and satyriasis in men and nymphomania in women. And let’s not forget that, for the longest time, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. Some contemporary papers ( Blum et al., 2015 ) continue this tradition by assuming that departures from culturally approved sexual norms are “maladaptive” and need to be cured. Thus, Bloom et al. define sexual addiction as “any compulsive sexual behavior that interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on the family, friends, loved ones, and one's work environment.” However, the severe stress may be due to family, friends and co-workers refusing to accept unconventional forms of sexuality, as it still happens with homosexuality. The problem, then, is not with the sexual behavior in itself, but with the bigoted attitudes of society. Indeed, in their review of the literature, Bloom et al. found no evidence that hypersexuality produces any withdrawal symptoms when the sexual activity is stopped. They state that “the prevalence rates of sexual addiction-related disorders range from 3% to 6%”, but these include “excessive masturbation, cybersex, pornography use, aberrant sexual behavior with consenting adults, telephone sex, strip club visitation, and other addictive behaviors.” However, these are behaviors accepted as normal by most people in Western societies. Calling these behaviors addictive is based more on their puritanical assumptions than on scientific evidence. Other scientists align better with modern sex-positive views by showing that hypersexual behavior is just one extreme of the normal range of sexual desire ( Steele et al., 2013 ; Prause et al., 2017 ). Indeed, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition ( DMS-5 ) rejected the concept of sexual addiction ( Potenza, 2014 ). Addiction or compulsions? Whether some behaviors are addictive continues to be hotly debated in the scientific community ( Potenza, 2006 , 2014 ). An emerging view is that compulsive behaviors like excessive eating, gambling, gaming and watching porn are not addictions but reflect an underlying deficit in the reward pathway that causes these individuals to be always craving something. This underlying disorder in the reward pathway may be genetic, produced by a disease, or derived from trauma. Only by addressing its true cause can these persons be freed of their basic craving. Then, curing them of one “addiction” only serves to switch their compulsion to another behavior. For example, when “sex addicts” do not have access to sex, they start smoking or eating in excess. Trying to cure these people of one compulsive behavior has the danger of switching them to consuming addictive drugs, a situation much worse than the original problem. Closing thoughts There is much more to the brain than the VTA-nucleus accumbens reward pathway. Like any other system in the brain, it doesn’t work in isolation. Its function is deeply connected to sensory systems that weigh the importance of incoming information, and to cortical systems that plan actions. Trying to view human behavior through the narrow window of addiction is incredibly short-sighted. Yes, there are many things in the modern world that strive to capture our attention, but they don’t have the hold on our will that drugs have over addicts. Of course, obsessively seeking pleasure can be a problem. But so is shackling ourselves to the repression of sex and other pleasures of life. Too much self-discipline, guilt and shame can cause much suffering by propelling us on an ego-driven chase of success, money and fame . Puritanism has been in the collective minds of Americans since the start of this nation. It gave birth to the Prohibition and to the War on Drugs, misguided attempts to address alcoholism and drug addiction through criminalization. One reason why books like Dopamine Nation are so successful is because the narrative of sin and redemption — which underlies the cycles of abuse and sobriety of many addicts — is so deeply imbedded in the American psyche. In fact, calling porn and video games addictive undermines the importance that we should give to the tragic problem of drug addiction. The current opioid epidemic in the United States was started in 1996 by Purdue Pharma , ran the Sackler family , with its aggressive marketing of OxyContin to American doctors. It was not caused by people chasing pleasure. Its toll is over 300,000 deaths. Nobody has died from watching too much porn or playing video-games. Saying that porn, masturbation, gaming and cell phones are problems similar to drug addiction is simply ridiculous. It is a slap in the face of the millions of people who have lost loved ones to real addictions. I hope that in this article I have shown that the neuronal mechanisms that underlie drug addiction are quite different from those that motive us to do anything else in our lives. Including enjoying pleasures like games, porn, sex and love. References Blum K, Badgaiyan RD, Gold MS (2015) Hypersexuality Addiction and Withdrawal: Phenomenology, Neurogenetics and Epigenetics. Cureus 7:e348. Burkett JP, Young LJ (2012) The behavioral, anatomical and pharmacological parallels between social attachment, love and addiction. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 224:1-26. Galaj E, Bi GH, Yang HJ, Xi ZX (2020) Cannabidiol attenuates the rewarding effects of cocaine in rats by CB2, 5-HT(1A) and TRPV1 receptor mechanisms. 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What science says about the taste for oral sex of men and women Pink seashell. Photo by the author. This writing was inspired by an article in Medium  claiming that a majority of men don’t like eating pussy. It goes on to blame men for being entitled and treating women unfairly when having sex. And, if you disagree, this just proves that you are guilty of it — what it’s called a Kafka trap . This is part of a nasty habit in online discussions: turning a conversation about a general topic into an inquisition about the personal behavior of one of the speakers. Please, let’s try to avoid that. I think it is important to address this issue because it is part of a belief popular these days: that men are selfish and malicious at sex. Because of these ethical implications, it’s important to compare men’s attitudes towards oral sex with how much women like receiving and giving oral sex. To avoid confounds like the frequency of having sex, I will compare preferences for oral sex with preferences for penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse, the most stereotypical sexual act. The evidence I will examine is from papers by the research group led by Debbie Herbenick , a professor at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, School of Public Health, Indiana University. I consider her one of the top sexologists in the USA. Her research consists mainly of examining sexual attitudes and behaviors, based on surveys. How many men say that they like eating pussy? The answer is given in this paper (Herbenick et al., 2017): Sexual diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men . Herbenick, D., Bowling, J., Fu, T.J., Dodge, B., Guerra-Reyes, L. & Sanders, S. PLoS One. 2017. Issue 7. Pages e0181198. The hyperlink is to the PDF of the whole paper. This is a comprehensive study of the sexual preferences of American men (N=975) and women (N=1046). It examined a lot of sexual practices, including things like porn, spanking, threesomes, bondage and using sex toys. Responders were 91% heterosexual, 2.8% bisexual and 3.6% homosexual. Therefore, the effect on the results of men-on-men and women-on-women oral sex should be small. The paper has several multi-page tables listing a lot of different sexual practices. Table 5 lists the percentage of men and women that like a particular sexual activity. Two rows are devoted to receiving and giving oral sex, respectively, giving the percentages of men or women who found it very appealing, somewhat appealing, not appealing or not at all appealing. Men giving oral sex: very appealing 41.3%, somewhat appealing 35.2%, not appealing 10.6%, not at all appealing 12.8%. Women receiving oral sex: Very appealing 43.3%, somewhat appealing 29.7%, not appealing 10.3%, not at all appealing 16.7%. Adding up the first and the last two numbers, we get that 76.5% of men like eating pussy,  while 23.4% do not like eating pussy. Therefore, more than 3 out 4 men like eating pussy. Only 1 out of 4 do not like eating pussy, far from a majority. Unexpectedly, the percentages of men who like and do not like giving oral sex closely match the percentages of women who like and do not like receiving it. While 73% of women like cunnilingus, 27% do not like it. This is a substantial number, especially considering that almost 17% do not like it at all! How about giving and receiving blowjobs? Men receiving oral sex: very appealing 60.5%, somewhat appealing 24.2%, not appealing 4.8%, not at all appealing 10.6%. Women giving oral sex: very appealing 21.3%, somewhat appealing 36.6%, not appealing 20.0%, not at all appealing 22.1%. Here, the differences between the sexes are quite striking. While a whopping 84.7% of men like getting blowjobs, only 57.9% of women like giving them. It’s still a majority of women, but here is where we find a significant mismatch in the sexes between givers and receivers of oral sex. Let’s compare this with penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse How much do people like old-fashion fucking? Men: very appealing 72.8%, somewhat appealing 13.0%, not appealing 2.6%, not at all appealing 11.6%. Women: very appealing 69.9%, somewhat appealing 19.7%, not appealing 3.5%, not at all appealing 7.0%. Surprise! Women like PIV intercourse as much as men: 85.8% of men and 89.6% of women like it. The only difference is that men tend to like it more, while women tend to be a bit less enthusiastic about it. However, the percentage of women who dislike PIV (10.5%) is less than the number of men who dislike it (14.2%). This is the opposite of what we have been hearing from radical feminists since the 70s: that women have PIV sex just to satisfy men’s desires.   “But wait!” you say. “Very few women orgasm from PIV intercourse!” Another myth. I debunked it is this article: Politically Correct Dogmas That Are Complete Bullshit — “Most Women Do Not Orgasm From Penetration” It is true, however, that the percentage of women who orgasm from PIV intercourse, which is 54.6% (Herbenick et al., 2018), or 40%-60% of 25-54 years old women (Kontula and Miettinen, 2016), is smaller than the almost 90% of women who say they like it. Apparently, a woman does not need to experience orgasm during intercourse to like it. There is much more about fucking than cumming. Comparing PIV with oral sex, women like PIV more than having their pussy eaten, 90% versus 73%. Men, however, like receiving blowjobs as much as PIV, 85% versus 86%. How many men do actually eat pussy? Okay, so that is what men say. How about what they actually do? Could some of them be lying? Table 2 of the same paper has the answer. Here the data are more complex, because they are sorted between seven age groups and whether oral sex was practiced in the last month, last year, or in the lifetime. Lest ignore the lifetime data and examine data for the last month, first, and last year, second. Men who gave oral sex in the last month Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 32.9, 50.7, 41.5, 34.0, 36.8, 21.7, 21.4 Mean = 34.0 Women who received oral sex in the last month Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 35.8, 48.1, 51.3, 34.7, 28.3, 17.0, 8.5. Mean = 31.8 For men, pussy-eating peaks at 25-29 years and then declines with age. This is logical; people have less sex as they age. Also, older men may have more conservative attitudes towards sex. For this reason, using the mean value may be misleading. A slight majority of men (50.7%) at their sexual peak gave oral sex to women. As expected, there is a good match between men giving and women receiving. The main discrepancies seem to occur at ages above 60. Older men give more oral sex than older women receive. Perhaps older men give oral sex to younger women? Admittedly, less than a majority of men gave, and women received, oral sex in the last month. How about the last year? Men who gave oral sex in the last year Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 49.5, 69.4, 71.3, 67.9, 57.7, 42.3, 33.7. Mean = 56.7 Women who received oral sex in the last year Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentage: 59.7, 69.5, 68.7, 54.9, 49.4, 27.7, 16.2. Mean = 49.2 In this case, a majority of men gave, and women received, oral sex, up to 60 years of age. These are large percentages for people at their sexual peak, between 25 and 40. Therefore, most men do eat pussy. It’s just that many of them do not do it all that often. However, they say they like doing it. Are they lying? No, I think that many do not have the opportunity to do it as often as they want. As we will see, a similar mismatch occurs between how much men like receiving blowjobs or having PIV intercourse, and how much of that they do get. Again, there is a good match between the percentages of men that give and the percentages of women that receive oral sex up until 60. After that age, a lot of women stop receiving oral sex, while men still gave it. The opposite happens in the age group 18-24, where 10% more women received oral sex than men gave it. The explanation is likely that women tend to get oral sex from men older than them. What likely happens is not that men over 60 eat the pussy of women under 24, but that women get oral sex from men in older age groups, perhaps just a little older than them. How many women give blowjobs? Men who received oral sex in the last month Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 36.4, 66.0, 44.9, 42.4, 36.7, 27.9, 19.2 Mean = 38.4 Women who gave oral sex in the last month Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 44.7, 53.5, 53.0, 41.6, 31.9, 19.7, 8.0. Mean = 35.7 While the means are not far apart, there is again a mismatch by age. Older men receive more blowjobs than older women are giving. I guess they are getting them from younger women. Maybe that’s why men 18-24 are getting fewer blowjobs. The number of men that received blowjobs monthly (38%, on average) is just a little higher than the number of men that ate pussy (34%, on average). This doesn’t seem terribly unfair, especially considering that men like fellatio much more than women like cunnilingus. Men who received oral sex in the last year Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 61.7, 76.1, 71.0, 75.1, 59.6, 46.2, 33.4. Mean = 60.9 Women who gave oral sex in the last year Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 57.3, 76.4, 73.8, 63.0, 54.3, 27.4, 16.2. Mean = 52.6 Again, more old men receive blowjobs than older women give. They may be getting them from younger women. However, this time this does not represent a loss in blowjobs by young men. They get their cocks sucked, just not as often. Yearly, women get less cunnilingus (49%, on average) than they give fellatio (53%, on average). But, again, the differences are small. How much PIV intercourse takes place? Vaginal intercourse in the last month, men Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 39.3, 68.9, 63.2, 62.3, 49.1, 44.1, 37.2. Mean = 52.1 Vaginal intercourse in the last month, women Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 52.1, 72.6, 77.3, 62.0, 52.8, 32.6, 14.6. Mean = 52.6 Vaginal intercourse in the last year, men Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 53.3, 74.4, 74.9, 79.3, 65.6, 57.5, 50.6. Mean = 65.8 Vaginal intercourse in the last year, women: Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ Percentages: 62.1, 83.6, 85.3, 74.2, 64.5, 39.3, 23.8. Mean = 62.4 Women have more vaginal intercourse than men up to the age of 60, when it decreases substantially. This is not surprising, since older women have vaginal thinning that can make intercourse painful and dangerous (because of urinary tract infections and other problems). Remarkably, women in the 18-24 age group have PIV intercourse more frequently (monthly figures) than men of the same age. This is matched by the higher intercourse rates of men over 60, which cannot be with women of the same age. When we compare oral sex with PIV sex, the monthly figures for men are smaller for blowjobs: 34.4% received blowjobs and 52.1% performed PIV. Yearly, they are much closer: 60.9% oral and 65.8% PIV. Therefore, men get blowjobs, but not as often as they fuck. As for women, 31.8% got cunnilingus compared to 52.6% that got PIV monthly, very similar to men. Yearly, 49.2% of women got cunnilingus compared to 62.4% that got PIV. Therefore, women get their pussy eaten less than they fuck. However, more women like PIV than cunnilingus, so this does not seem to be unfair. Other studies on oral sex There are two more papers from the Herbenick group with data about oral sex, but their results are similar to the ones I have given before. The first one was published in 2010 (Herbenick et al., 2010), so the surveys were done one decade earlier. The evolution of sexual tastes is the subject of the second paper, published in 2022 (Herbenick et al., 2022). Its main finding is that people in the USA are having less sex, not just vaginal intercourse, but also oral sex and other types of partnered sex. The only thing that increased was solo masturbation. The percentage of adults who gave oral sex in the last year decreased from 65.3% in 2009 to 60.4% in 2018. Adults who received oral sex in the last year went from 67.1% in 2009 to 62.2% in 2018. For PIV intercourse, the numbers are 76.5% in 2009 and 71.9% in 2018. So, a decrease of 5% across the board. Comparisons between genders in that study are quite limited. There is no crisis of men not wanting to eat pussy I think that the evidence is quite conclusive. A large majority of men (75%) say that they like giving oral sex. The percentage of men who do it on a regular basis — monthly — is much smaller (34%), but that includes men of all ages, 18 to 70+. Men at their sexual peak eat pussy much more often. Besides, the mismatch between men wanting to do something and actually doing it also happens in other sexual activities, like getting blowjobs (60% want it, 38% got it in the last month), and PIV intercourse (73% want it, 52% got it in the last month). Or between women wanting vaginal intercourse (70% want it) and getting it (53% got it in the last month). Like the Rolling Stones  sang, “you can’t always get what you want.” Something similar happens with women giving blowjobs: 60% of them say that they like doing it, but only 36% did in the last month. This is age-dependent: 53% women aged 35 to 40 performed monthly blowjobs. Yes, that’s more than men of the same age giving cunnilingus, but that doesn’t mean that men are being unfair, if you take into account that more men like receiving blowjobs (85%) than women like receiving cunnilingus (73%). And, for 27% of women, having their pussy eaten is a hard limit. Why do men who want to eat pussy do not do it? Your guess is as good as mine. The papers I cite do not go into searching for causes. However, things other than men’s unwillingness to give oral sex are likely responsible. Men who like to eat pussy may be partnered with women who do not like it, of which there are a substantial percentage (27%). The difference between the monthly and yearly numbers could be explained by men being in and out of relationships, or in a long-distance relationships. For older couples, couples with children and lengthy marriages, having sex less than once a month is not uncommon. The moral of the story Let’s talk about fairness. The assumption that men do not want to eat pussy leads to blaming men for not respecting women’s bodies or not honoring their pleasure. Those accusations have become commonplace in the man-blaming culture of fourth-wave feminism. They are turning men away, not just from feminism, but from progressive politics in general. And then Trump happens. That’s why I feel it’s so important to debunk this bullshit. Men feel that these accusations are unfair. The evidence I put forward in this article shows that, at least when it comes to oral sex, they are right. I have shown that men want to eat pussy as much as women want to do blowjobs. And that they do it as often as women give blowjobs. And it’s not that men eat pussy as a way to convince women to have vaginal intercourse. Women need no convincing because they want vaginal intercourse as much as men want it. And they do it more often than men. But there is a deeper ethical issue. One of the victories of feminism is to establish that women have the right to say no to sex, and to say no to particular sex acts. If a woman doesn’t want to give blowjobs, nobody would question her right not do it. At least, not in a progressive environment. Women should not be shamed, blamed or coerced to do sexual things they don’t want to do. The same should apply to men. Unless we want to enforce a double-standard that contradicts any claims that feminism is all about equality between the genders. To put it another way, men and women have a right to personal autonomy, which means that they should not be forced to do things against their will. When you blame and shame people for not having the sex they don’t want to have, you are violating their personal autonomy. That doesn’t mean that we should not do sexual things that we do not like just to please our partner. But we should do them out of our own free will. Out of generosity, not of coercion. Podcaster Dan Savage #savagelovecast says that sex should be GGG: good, giving and game. Good  means that you have the skills, and know your body and your partner’s body well enough to have good sex. Giving  means that you treat sex as a gift of pleasure to your partner. Game  means that you are open to try sexual things that your partner is interested in, even if you don’t like them at the onset (unless they are hard limits for you). We need to stop bringing politics into the bedroom. We need to stop treating sex like the bargaining between unions and corporations. We need to stop being so fucking judgmental about sex, examining it under a microscope in search of any sign of unfairness. Sex should be generous and playful, not transactional and a political minefield. Perhaps if we treated it that way, that would reverse the trend of people having less sex. References Herbenick D, Fu TJ, Arter J, Sanders SA, Dodge B (2018) Women's Experiences With Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm: Results From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women Ages 18 to 94. J Sex Marital Ther 44:201–212. Herbenick D, Rosenberg M, Golzarri-Arroyo L, Fortenberry JD, Fu T-c (2022) Changes in Penile-Vaginal Intercourse Frequency and Sexual Repertoire from 2009 to 2018: Findings from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior. Arch Sex Behav 51:1419–1433. Herbenick D, Reece M, Schick V, Sanders SA, Dodge B, Fortenberry JD (2010) Sexual behavior in the United States: results from a national probability sample of men and women ages 14-94. The journal of sexual medicine 7 Suppl 5:255–265. Herbenick D, Bowling J, Fu TJ, Dodge B, Guerra-Reyes L, Sanders S (2017) Sexual diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men. PLoS One 12:e0181198. Kontula O, Miettinen A (2016) Determinants of female sexual orgasms. Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology 6:31624–31624.

Sometimes cheating is just the best amongst several bad options Shutterstock Photo ID: 345126524, by beeboys. The problem of adultery Although statistics about the prevalence of infidelity vary wildly (between 25% and 60% over the duration of a marriage), everybody seems to agree that it is on the increase on Western societies. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Or is it just one more symptom of the disintegration of the monogamous norm? Many polyamorous people, while critiquing sexual exclusivity, are quite judgmental when it comes to cheating. In agreement with people of a more puritanical persuasion, they tend to view infidelity as the betrayal of a sacred oath. According to them, if a person is sexually unsatisfied in her or his current relationship, there are only three morally acceptable options: 1) continue to live sexually deprived, 2) negotiate an open relationship, 3) leave the relationship. The 4th option, of course, is cheating. I believe that sometimes it is ethically justified for the following reasons. Sexual morality is based don personal autonomy I believe that the basic issue underlying the ethics of sex is personal autonomy. This means that my body is mine and I should be able to use it as I see fit, as long as it doesn’t impinge in the personal autonomy of somebody else. This has two implications, one negative and one positive. The negative implication is that nobody should use my body (or my mind) against my desires, which means that rape, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and other forms of non-consensual sex, are immoral. The positive implication is that I have a right to my own sexual satisfaction (again, as long as it doesn’t violate the personal autonomy of somebody else). This implies that sexual repression also violates personal autonomy and should be considered a form of abuse. Therefore, contrary to what some people argue , cheating is not a violation of consent because it does not violate the autonomy of the partner being cheated. What it does violate is a personal contract in which two people have agreed to mutual sexual exclusivity. However, breaking an agreement is a much less serious offense than violating personal autonomy (as in rape and sexual abuse). It is important to note that the sexual exclusivity agreement does involve relinquishing a large segment of personal autonomy. Before the agreement, I was able to have sex with whoever wanted to have sex with me, now I’m restricted to just one person. Because of that, any form of coercion in establishing this agreement should be considered quite seriously. Monogamy is coercive We cannot forget that we live in a society that strongly enforces monogamy. In fact, there many places in the world today where non-monogamy is punished with death. But even the more enlighten Western societies exert considerable pressure in favor of monogamy, using different forms of legal, economic, cultural and social sanctions. Very often these are unfairly directed more toward women than toward men. Because of that, we cannot consider the agreement of sexual exclusivity involved in marriage as one freely made, but one made under the pressure of a coercive environment. In practice, this means that we are given the option between a monogamous relationship or no relationship at all. Almost nobody is given the option between an open relationship or a sexually exclusive one: it is monogamy by default. Let’s remember that an agreement made under duress is not morally binding. The three choices when faced with sexual insatisfaction Let’s now consider the three options (other than cheating) offered to a person who is sexually dissatisfied in a relationship. The first one is to just put up with the sexual deprivation. In the old, sexually-repressive culture, this went unquestioned. Sex was considered something superfluous, unnecessary for the happiness of a decent person (especially if it was a woman). The new sex-positive culture has changed that perspective, stating that it is unacceptable for a person to live sexually deprived. This not only applies to having sex in general, but also to enjoy alternative sexualities like BDSM. If I’m kinky and my partner is not, I’m entitled to do something to fulfill my kinky needs. The most extreme case, which is quite common, is the dead bedroom . One of the partners in a monogamous relationship no longer wants to have sex. This condemns the other partner to chastity.   Therefore, sexual insatisfaction is no longer an acceptable option for a lot of people. The second option is to negotiate an open relationship. This is considerably difficult, often impossible. Let’s not forget that open and polyamorous relationships are vanishingly few. Realistically, proposing an open agreement to a partner entrenched in the monogamous mentality is not only futile, it is foolish. The only thing that it would accomplish is to make us instant suspects of cheating, or wanting to cheat. The third option is breaking the relationship. I am quite surprise at the enthusiasm with which so many people propose this option… Like breaking-up was easy and entailed no suffering at all! Quite the opposite, most of the time it is the least desirable option, and often an impossible one. This is because we live in a society that wraps a lot of power in the institution of marriage, in the form of economic power (share savings, mortgage, etc.) and restrictions of individual freedom (the house where I live, the job that I have, childcare, etc.). Then, breaking-up is not a simple matter of stopping a sexual and emotional relationship, but something that throws our life in a complete turmoil, most likely ending up by lowering significantly our standard of living. Divorce is easy when you are rich, ruinous when you are poor. And then there are the children, who probably wouldn’t suffer much if a parent occasionally cheats, but would be devastated by a divorce. Decreasing the drama of adultery Cheating is not a black-and-white issue, but one of great complexity. If one thing is clear, is that we would all gain a lot by de-dramatizing it. Contrary to what we read in novels and see on television, it’s not worth killing anybody over it. It’s not even worth leaving our loved one over it. Sex is just sex, let’s not blow it out of proportion by attaching all sorts of mystical meanings to it. Yes, in some cases cheating is a dastardly thing to do, involving breaking of trust, dishonesty and betrayal. But in other cases it is just the least bad of a set of bad options. Like the case of the woman who has become economically dependent of her husband by leaving her career to have children, and now finds that he no longer wants to have sex with her. Adultery as an act of rebellion From the point of view of a non-monogamous, sex-positive culture, we should be able to appreciate the element of rebellion against the established order that is implicit in cheating. Yes, the person being cheated suffers, but the monogamous norm is partly to blame for that suffering. It is that culture that has convinced them that being cheated is, oh, such an awful thing to go through! Let’s not forget that this cultural norm of sexual exclusivity creates an unbalance of power, empowering the sexually repressive member of a couple to the disadvantage of the one that yearns for sexual freedom. Ideally, we should all be able to be polyamorous or ethically non-monogamous if we wanted, but in reality the ability to do that is reserved to a precious few. We should not be judgmental of people who have to resort to other, more unpalatable options.

Would it mean an European Army or NATO without the USA? A map with NATO members in blue. From Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NATO_members_(blue).svg . We are just a few days into the second presidency of Donald Trump, and it looks like it’s going to be as bad as we feared. After disowning it during his campaign, Trump is following the 2025 Project playbook. He is firing thousands of federal employees in regulatory positions, probably in preparation to replacing them with loyalist. He has paralyzed the NIH, the largest scientific organization in the world, by not allowing it to carry the meetings (Study Sections) that it needs to adjudicate billions of dollars in research grants. Without this money, all American universities will have to stop their most important missions.  He has sent his minions at ICE to business, churches and hospitals, detaining immigrants and USA citizens alike. However, it’s in the international arena where he is probably doing the most harmful and long-term damage. He wants the USA to take over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. This proposition is so extreme that nobody can take it seriously. Why? Because it threatens the most basic principles of international order and the most important alliance of the USA, NATO. If Trump were to make good on his threat, the international policy of the USA will completely disintegrate. The Long Peace In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature , Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker writes about the Long Peace , an unprecedented period without major wars that extends from the end of World War Two to the present. Although it includes the Cold War, with its attaining regional wars in Korea, Vietnam and Nicaragua, the number of war deaths during it were substantially smaller than in any previous historical period, at least as a percentage of the world population. “Overall, the number of international wars decreased from a rate of six per year in the 1950s to one per year in the 2000s, and the number of fatalities decreased from 240 reported deaths per million to less than 10 reported deaths per million.” Long Peace , Wikipedia. After the Cold War ended, world peace increased even more in what has been called the New Peace. Its most important threat is the current war between Russia and Ukraine. The threat of nuclear war Several factors contributed to the Long Peace, including the globalization of the economy, the increase in democratic countries, the awareness of human rights, and the unpopularity of war. Perhaps the main one was the threat of nuclear war, which forced a de-escalation of any conflict between the major world powers, the USA, the Soviet Union and China. Studies on Nuclear Winter done by Carl Sagan and other scientists in the 1970s showed that no nation could hope to win a full-scale nuclear war. Even if the USA could completely devastate the USSR and avoid retaliation, the amount of gases, dust and debris injected into de atmosphere would make life in America no longer possible. Worldwide, temperatures would plummet, harvests will be lost and everybody would freeze and starve to death. Borders must be respected Another factor was that the colonial era that ended with World War Two was followed by the establishment of nation-states all over the world. The rejection of the colonial system created the principle that no nation should violate the borders of another. The borders of the world were fixed in place. There were some border changes at the end of the Cold War, but they took place because states like the USSR and Yugoslavia split into smaller nations, not because one nation invaded another. Still, the breaking up of Yugoslavia started regional wars in the 1990s. The few invasions that occurred didn’t end well for the invader. Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 80s and had to retreat, like the USA in recent times. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, started a bloody war that ended without changes in their borders. And when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, the international response was swift and stern. At the end of the Cold War, NATO emerged as the unquestioned military superpower. Nobody dared mess with it. It grew ever larger, swallowing all the countries of the former Pact of Warsaw, including some that were part of the Soviet Union itself. Putin’s folly All this shows Putin’s folly when he invaded Ukraine. He broke the principles of not invading another country and not changing existing borders. He indirectly challenged NATO. If Russia didn’t have nuclear weapons, the response of Western countries would have been devastating. But he did have them, so the West had to tip-toe around the possibility of nuclear war to support and arm Ukraine. As things stand, it is clear in the mind of many Western leaders that Russia must not be allowed to prevail. If the principle of not invading another nation is fragrantly broken, the next thing that will happen is that China will invade Taiwan. All around the world, powerful countries will start invading weaker ones to steal their natural resources. The international order would crumble. War will become the norm instead of the exception. Trump’s folly Trump’s folly is even worse than Putin’s. Just before being inaugurated as President, Trump repeatedly stated that he wanted to annex Greenland, take possession of the Panama Canal and incorporate Canada in the United States. The Panama Canal  was given to the Panamanian government in 1999, by the Torrijos-Carter Treaties  of 1977. Going back on it would bring back tensions between Panama and the USA that existed since even before the opening of the canal in 1914. They culminated in an uprising in January 9, 1963, in which 20 Panamanian students were killed and 500 injured. Since then, January 9 is a national holiday in Panama. Instability in Panama would threaten ship transit through the canal, with dire consequences for international commerce. A significant American military force would need to be based permanently in Panama to avoid these problems. China and many other countries will look with suspicion at the USA controlling the Panama Canal. Nicaragua and Venezuela, who are hostile to the USA, are neighbors of Panama. But this would be minor compared with the consequences of trying to annex Greenland and Canada. Denmark, who controls Greenland, and Canada are members of NATO, and therefore close allies of the USA. Any military action against either country would go directly against the foundational principle of mutual defense of NATO. Signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty commit themselves to defend any participatory country that is attacked. What happens, then, when a NATO country invades another? NATO would not be able to survive this flagrant violation of its foundational principle. The consequences Of course, Trump already threatened to undermine NATO in his first term. However, that was just a bluff to decrease or withdraw economic support in order to entice other members to increase their military spending. In view of what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that may not have been a bad thing, after all. Germany and other European nations are enlarging their armies in view of the Russian menace. Attacking other NATO members is an entirely different kettle of fish. Trump is following Putin’s playbook, disregarding the commitment not to invade other countries that is at the core of the Long Peace. If he follows through, then the USA would be no different from Russia. Just another bully of a country, using its military might to rob weaker countries. The response of other NATO members would be to start considering America as a threat. If you add to that Trump’s philosophy of America First in the economic arena, there would be absolutely no advantages for any nation to remain in NATO or to support the goals of the USA. An European Army? Perhaps it was long overdue. When the European Union (EU) was established, its defense was delegated to NATO. Never mind that some EU members, like Austria, Ireland and, until recently, Sweden and Finland, were not members of NATO. It was sort of understood that NATO and the American nuclear umbrella protected the entirety of Europe. If NATO were to be dissolved, the obvious thing to do would be to create an European Army as the military arm of the EU. The increasing aggressiveness of Russia and the new confrontational attitude of Trumpian America makes it not just a necessity, but a priority. There will be a number of hurdles ahead, though. What would EU members that are not NATO members (Ireland, Austria) do? What about NATO members that are not EU members (the UK, Norway, Canada, Iceland, Turkey)? What should be done with pro-Russian EU members (Hungary, Slovakia)? France is the only EU member with nuclear weapons. Should they be used to protect the rest of the EU? Unfortunately, we may see something happening similar to what happened with the euro adoption: some countries will take part in an European Army, while others won’t. But a common army is much more serious than a common currency. Nations that do not participate in the European Army may see it as a threat. Or, at the very least, feel pushed around by not having the same leverage on international relations. Speaking of which, a common army implies a common foreign policy. Otherwise, it would never be clear who is an enemy and who is a friend. A common army and common foreign policy would require that the EU would become more integrated, acting more like a nation and less like an economic union. The problem is that there is strong popular opposition already to a more integrated EU. We may expect a lot more strong-arming of politicians like Orban, who befriend the enemy of other EU nations. In turn, these politicians will fear that an European Army may be used against them. I predict that a disintegration of NATO will cause the richest European countries to develop their own nuclear weapons in record time. After all, they already have the technology. Germany will get nukes. Poland will probably beat Germany to it. Sweden, Finland, Italy and Spain will probably follow suit. Ultimately, the fundamental problem with creating an European Army is that there is no European government to direct it. The EU has a parliament, but no real governing body. Every decision the EU takes has to be negotiated amongst its 27 members. This is no way to have a common foreign policy, never mind running an army. However, there is an increasing popular opposition to further developing the EU into a federal or confederal state. European countries have strong national identities. Their citizens are increasingly attached to them, and have failed to develop a common European identity. Perhaps globalization has made them more aware of the fragility of their national cultures.  NATO without the USA? The problems with creating an European army make the option of maintaining NATO more palatable. NATO has been there for three quarters of a century and has functioned well. Maintaining it does not require opening the can of worms of an European government, or tackle the difficult problem of which countries would join an European army. However, if the USA starts threatening NATO countries, it cannot be part of NATO. Who is going to kick the USA out of NATO, then? It may not be necessary. Next time Trump bluffs about leaving NATO, European nations could just say “go right ahead.” Which may take the form of a carefully orchestrated political crisis that forces Trump to make good on his bluff. A NATO without the USA would have the additional advantage of keeping Canada in it. Which would be good for the Canadians because it would keep its southern neighbor from crossing its borders. Lacking the protection of the American nuclear umbrella, Europe would still have to develop nuclear weapons. However, if this is done as a NATO project, it would look much better than if Germany or Poland would develop nuclear weapons on their own.   The international isolation of the USA would follow There have been talk about a multipolar world. We never thought that Europe would be one of the poles, detached from the interest of the USA. In the long run, the USA would lose with this arrangement. Europe would form bonds with Latin-American and Canada, countries with which it has strong linguistic (Spanish, Portuguese, French) and cultural bonds. There is a deep resentment in Latin-America against the USA because of its engineering of coups and support of dictatorships during the 20th century. This will marginalize the USA in its own neighborhood. Europe is also geographically close to Israel, North Africa and the Middle East. Its policy in these regions may also veer away from American interests.  If Russia is defeated in its war with Ukraine, the EU will promptly absorb Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. In the long run, maybe even Russia itself. Then the USA will face a giant even larger than itself. There are better alternatives I am a citizen of both the USA and the EU. I have an American passport and a Spanish passport. I vote in both countries. However, my birth country was not Spain but Italy, where I spent my first five years. I lived in France on two occasions, for a total of a year and a half. Therefore, my identity is pan-European. And also American. I’ll hate it if I had to choose between these two identities, because I love both Europe and America. I say all this so you understand that I take no pleasure in seeing the United States lose at the international game. My strongest preference would be that the USA and Europe remain united as the bulwark of Western civilization, democratic, secular, scientific and, yes, capitalist. I don’t want NATO to fall apart. Or to exclude the USA. So I hope that some adult in the room talks Trump out of starting an expansionist policy that the USA never had.

Flow as the core of a spiritual practice The author rock-climbing in Texas Canyon, California, demonstrating flow. What is flow? Flow is a mental state of focused attention in which we are productive and creative without apparent effort. It can happen when engaging in an intellectual activity, like writing, or while doing a sport, like rock-climbing. I mention these because these are two occupations that are often given as examples of flow. They also happen to be my favorite activities. Flow was named by the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi, who gave it these six characteristics: Focused attention on a task. Merging of action and awareness. Decreased self-awareness. Altered perception of time, which either speeds up or slows down. Feeling of complete control. Positive emotions like joy, pleasure, euphoria, meaning and purpose. Flow is a healthy mental state In another article, The Neuroscience of Flow , I explain the key characteristics of flow and describe the brain neuronal circuits that mediate it. I will not give scientific references for what I say in this article. You can find it in that one. Flow turns off the default mode network, which is active when we don’t focus on anything in particular; when we daydream, reminisce the past or fantasize about the future. It is also active in some negative mental states, like rumination. The default mode network includes the medial prefrontal cortex, which mediates the feeling of the self. Therefore, it is a mental state that brings up the ego. In contrast, flow turns on the executive attention network, which deactivates the medial prefrontal cortex. It activates the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, increasing focus and performance, and the orbitofrontal cortex, reducing impulsivity. This led me to think that flow is a healthy mental state that not only lets us do things in a joyful, productive and creative way, but also promotes a better way of living in general. Because it increases mental energy, it can push away depression. By turning off the ego , flow can ward off anxiety and craving . Like many things in life, mental states become habits. By spending a lot of time in a given state, you develop a groove that makes it easier to return to that state. If you spend a lot of time in the default mode network, it becomes hard to step out of it to stop daydreaming and following your ego. If, on the contrary, you spend a lot of time in flow, it becomes progressively easier to enter it. Then, you are able to do a lot of things in this state of apparent effortless. We spend most of our life working. Most people find work meaningless and exhausting. We feel that we are wasting our life away by having to work to make a living. However, if we were able to do a substantial part of our work in a state of flow, we will waste less energy and would feel more joyful doing it. Mindfulness or flow? Developing joyful and meaningful mental states is the basis of many spiritual practices. We practice meditation to cultivate a mental state in which we are more aware of our emotions and thoughts, and therefore can direct them in a healthier direction, away from rumination, anger, anxiety, shame and other negative emotions, and towards joy, curiosity and compassion. Mindfulness is a mental state that consists of opening the mind to all sensations, thoughts and emotions, without rejecting or attaching ourselves to any of them. We just let them pass, like clouds in the sky. An important directive in mindfulness is not to judge any of our mental contents. We don’t push away those that we consider bad or dwell on those that we consider good. Since judging is one of the main activities of the ego, mindfulness diminishes the ego. Flow also diminishes the ego by decreasing self-awareness, turning our attention towards our task instead of toward our self. We are not able to enter flow until we stop judging ourselves and engage playfully with our task, so that the energy that is wasted judging is directed towards the action. That is one of the reasons why flow feels so effortless. However, mindfulness and flow are different mental states. Mindfulness also turns off the default mode network, but it does not engage the executive attention network. While all mental contents are allowed in mindfulness, flow requires a strict filter to only allows sensations and thoughts related to our task. Practicing mindfulness requires us to take time away from our daily activities, because we cannot be in an open-minded, non-judgmental state while we work or do chores. However, we can train ourselves to enter flow to perform any task, even the most menial. When I attended sesshins — multiple-day Zen retreats — one of the daily activities was samu: some banal work like sweeping the floor, cut vegetables for cooking or cleaning the toilets, which had to be done with absolute focus. Even eating meals was done following an elaborated ritual. When done right, samu led to flow. While being different, flow and mindfulness support each, because both of them require the same soft control over the mind. By soft control, I mean that we cannot enter these mental states by exerting willpower: our conscious mind forcing the rest of our mind to do its will. Instead, the entirety of our mind, conscious and unconscious, has to slide into those states. By alternating mindfulness and flow, your mind learns to gently enter these states in an integrated way, without the inner conflict of one part of the mind trying to control the other. No confrontation means no wasted energy, so we don’t experience the loss of willpower that comes when we force ourselves to do things. Choose the right challenge So, how do we enter flow? Flow requires balancing skill and challenge. Skill means that we have to train to do things. When we are learning a new activity, like skiing, we need to exert a lot of conscious control to translate the things that we learn in theory — keep your skis parallel, use your edges, flex your knees — into the right muscular actions. Until these actions become automatic, we cannot release conscious control. Because consciousness is the slowest thing that happens in the brain, our movements are clumsy. Consciousness also requires a lot of mental energy, so we soon feel exhausted.  However, once we learn the skill to do something, we may fall on the opposite problem: doing things automatically, using muscle memory . In our example, our skiing may become lazy, doing the ample turns that we feel comfortable with instead of continuing learning new skills. To enter flow, we need to take our task to the edge of our ability, so we can do it well, but it’s hard enough to require all our focus. A couple of hours ago, I was bouldering at the climbing gym. I started doing some easy problems, V0 and V1, then moved to V2, then challenged myself to V3. I failed to complete some of the V3 moves, so I knew I was at edge of my skills. When I became too gripped, I moved back to V2 problems to restore my flow. I keep a playful mindset, laughing at my failures and knowing I was doing great, regardless. The struggle period: generating sustained attention and effort It is not possible to enter flow right away. There is always a period of struggle in which we gradually focus our mind on our task. There may be some internal whining. We may be tempted by distractions. During this struggle period is when we require self-discipline. Entering flow involves commitment. We have decided to perform this activity, so we leave anything else to the side. In the struggle period is when we focus our attention on our task, with unbendable intent. Flow requires passion. You must love the task that you are about to perform. Some anxiety and mixed feelings are okay, but if you hate what you are about to do, if it has no heart, you need to wonder why are you trying to do it in the first place. What is the origin of your internal resistance? Can you find a way to recognize and honor the parts of yourself that do not like the task, and re-establish your internal unity? When I rock-climb, there is a part of me that gets really scared. It’s a child-like part of my mind, but it’s also the part that prevents me from taking too much risk. I call it the survival ego . It is opposed by the daring ego . I need to listen to both of them, negotiate with them. Sometimes, I will bring down the challenge to decrease the risk. If possible, create an environment free of distractions. These days, I have the luxury of having a study at home in which I can close the door to write. If you don’t have that luxury, another option is to become habituated to a busy environment, so you are able to focus no matter what goes on around you. Many writers work in coffee shops and similar public places. During the hardest part of my scientific career, I didn’t have an office, just a desk in my lab. My postdocs worked around me, handling rats and equipment, and I was barely aware of them. I wrote some of my best papers and grant proposals during that time. Abandon the comfort zone Writing scientific papers and grant proposals are high-anxiety activities. Both will be harshly criticized by other scientists. Most papers are rejected on first submission — you are lucky if they let you resubmit with corrections. To get a grant funded, you are competing for limited research funds with the best minds in your field. I was on soft money , meaning that all the funds for my lab, including my own salary, came from grants. If I didn’t get a grant, I would lose my job. Often, we enter flow fighting anxiety and fear. In rock-climbing, fear is ever-present in the vertiginous void behind your butt. The first thing you learn when you start climbing is how to turn that fear into sharp focus, into flow. Perhaps what allowed me to survive my high anxiety scientific career was this ability to overcome fear that I learned climbing. Other scientists, however, face similar challenges and they are not climbers. One of the great things about flow is that fear fades away once you are in it. Of course, one does not always have to face fear to enter flow. People write, paint, dance and play music without facing consequences, good or bad. However, the fact that you are challenging yourself to do something hard entails a certain amount of anxiety. To experience flow, we have to abandon the comfort zone in which things feel easy. We have to venture into the unknown, experiment with things we haven’t done before. We come face to face with the randomness of the world. Novelty and unpredictability are essential to flow. You don’t know what is going to happen; you can only do your best as things come at you. That’s when flow awakens the insight and creativity within us. Plugging power drains Flow has a certain inertia, but there is no guarantee that you will stay in it once you have entered it. If you lose it, you’ll be back to square one, having to go through the struggle period all over again. There are many things that can take you out of flow. They are called power drains because they increase the energy that we need to stay in flow, or to perform our task without flow. Some power drains a pretty obvious. Do not try to multitask. The brain doesn’t work that way. What our mind does is to switch attention from one task to the other, so that our attention never fully focuses on one activity and we never enter flow. Do not take scheduled breaks. It’s likely that when the time comes to take the break is right when you are deep into flow, so you will ruin it. Then you’ll have to go through the struggle period again. Instead, wait for a natural breaking point in your task or until you feel tired. But the biggest, meanest enemy of flow is the ego. When the medial prefrontal cortex enters the game, it brings us back into the default mode network. One way the ego sabotages flow is perfectionism. Flow is a mental state of playfulness and experimentation. It involves a lot of trial and error. Being in flow doesn’t mean that we are going to do things flawlessly. In fact, if we make no errors, it means that we are not learning, that we are not challenging ourselves to leave the comfort zone. Perfectionism is when the ego butts in to tolerate no mistakes. The ego rides on that awful emotion, shame, to make us feel bad for doing something wrong. All the playfulness and joy is gone. We are wasting energy on an inner conflict, instead of investing it into the activity to which we have committed. An even more subtle way the ego raises its head is when we start wondering if we are in flow. Ironically, you will never get into flow by trying to get into flow. You’ll be back in the mind-trying-to-control-the-mind game. So forget about flow. Set the conditions, commit to your task with unbendable intent, and go! Focus on the process and not the destination Yet another way the ego interferes with flow is by focusing on the reward we will get from our task. That reward can be simply that pat in the back we give ourselves for having accomplished something hard. Or the bragging rights in front of our friends: “Man, I red-pointed a 5.10d climbing route yesterday!” Other times, it’s a financial reward, public recognition, or fame. Most tasks have a goal, and that’s okay. I write this article to publish in my blog and in Medium, attracting more readers and making a small amount of money. But we need to forget about the goal while performing the task. Of course, the activity should fit the objective that we have set for ourselves; we need to pay attention to that. But that is different from anticipating the reward we are going to get or, even worse, our disgrace in case we fail. That is a huge distraction and a power drain. Detachment from our goals is emphasized in many spiritual traditions. In Zen, mushotoku  consists of doing something with detachment from any reward we are going to get. The whole Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text of Hinduism, is devoted to explaining the benefit of acting without attachment to the outcome of the action. Flow with menial tasks If flow requires engaging in an activity that is challenging enough to match our skills, then is it possible to achieve flow doing menial tasks? After all, that’s what I claimed before when I spoke of doing samu in Zen sesshins. The literature on the neuroscience of flow assumes that it is only achieved through challenging activities. However, what constitutes a challenge is up to you. In Zen’s samu, the challenge is to engage in a menial task with absolute concentration. This complete focus is a carry-over for the long periods of meditation and from the environment of the sesshin. Any small task can be transformed into a challenge. If you are chopping a cucumber, can you do it slices of even thickness, very fast? I have watched sushi chefs do that and tried to emulate them at home. Cooking, sweeping the floor, doing dishes or washing your car can be done mindlessly or in flow. It’s up to you to decide. When you do things in flow, the smallest task can bring unexpected joy. That’s one of the best things I learned in Zen sesshins. I am not saying that you should try to live your entire life in flow. That is not possible and can easily become an ego trap . Ideally, we should balance a mixture of mental states during the day: mindfulness, flow, daydreaming, reminiscing and sleep. In reality, what happens is that our attention is captured by TV shows and social media when we are not working. We do not devote as much time as our ancestors to daydreaming, fantasizing and remembering past experiences. I suspect that our lives are less rich because of that. Flow as part of a spiritual path I am an atheist. I don’t believe in an afterlife. And yet, all my life I have followed a spiritual path. I have practiced yoga, Zen and learned from a variety of other mystical schools. My spiritual path consists of attaining my full potential as a human being. These days, I call that hunting personal power , following the philosophy of the Way of the Warrior . Personal power is not power over people and things, but attaining a state of self-knowledge, inner integration and soft control over my mind that decreases suffering and brings happiness. For many years, practicing meditation and seeking altered states of consciousness was the goal of my spiritual path. Since I discovered this idea when I was 13, achieving some sort of Nirvana or illumination was one important goal in my life. However, after many years of practicing meditation in its many forms, I reached an impasse. It was not bringing the mental clarity that I had hoped to achieve, much less an illumination. Zen teachings defined satori or illumination in confusing ways. So I stopped doing meditation. I started writing instead. This was something I loved and, much to my surprised, brought the insights about myself that I had sought through mediation. Perhaps is that my long years of meditation gave their fruit that way. However, I realize that it was the state of flow that I achieved while writing, professionally as a scientist or as a hobby, what brought me this joy. So, lately, my inner work centers on cultivating flow and other elements of the Way of the Warrior, of which I will write in future articles.

Each ego, from the wounded to the spiritual, defines our interaction with the world Looking down Wipeout Chute, Mammoth Mountain, California. Photo by the author. I subscribe to the view that the ego is the part of our mind that directs our behavior, based on our self-conscious emotions of shame, pride and guilt (Lester, 1997; Bastin et al., 2016). The ego is formed by the internalization of the instruction that we receive from our parents and educators. In a path of self-discovery and self-transformation, it is crucial to understand the role that our ego plays in our lives. While doing this, I came to realize that there may be different types of egos. This is my attempt to classify them. Survival ego In the first years of life, children learn that they are something different from their environment. They realize that they have needs: for drink, for food, for sleep, for warmth, for skin contact, for words of affection. On the negative side, they experience pain, fear and distress. All of these experiences are related to their bodies, to their selves. This is how the most basic ego is formed, what I call the survival ego. It drives us to meet our basic needs and to self-preservation. It is concerned with keeping us safe, warm and fed. Therefore, it responds to the basic emotions of thirst, hunger, pain, pleasure and fear. We cannot ignore this basic ego. It drives us to take care of our basic needs and keeps us from reckless behavior. In some mental diseases, this ego is weakened, causing patients to stop taking care of themselves. They do not wash or groom, eat irregularly and do not sleep well. However, when this ego gets too strong, our needs get exaggerated. We fall into a scarcity mentality, eating and resting in excess. Our instinct of self-preservation gets exaggerated, our fears overblown. It keeps us from abandoning our comfort zone, which is necessary for learning. Haunted by images of how things can go wrong, we may fall into catastrophizing. Daring ego A developing child also needs to explore. Healthy development involves a cycle of seeking adventure and retreating into a safe base. The safe base is a mother figure who provides comfort. The challenges are provided by a father figure. Daring behavior consists of doing something despite fear. When we do this successfully, we experience the emotion of thrill, which is essential to build anti-fragility. People who fail to build anti-fragility during their childhood and teen years are more prone to anxiety disorders as adults (Haidt, 2024). They have not learned how to process fear, so every challenge in life becomes an unsurmountable barrier. The daring ego balances the survival ego. In life, they act together to guide us between challenging ourselves and seeking self-preservation. They represent an internalization of the father and the mother, respectively. The daring ego may become too strong, especially in young men, who may build their self-image around the ideal of being brave. The adrenaline high of experiencing thrill becomes compulsive, leading to increasing risky behavior. On the positive side, a strong daring ego drives athletes to face fear. On the negative side, it produces criminals who have lost the fear of the punishment of the law. Caring ego When they become mothers, women often experience an urge to care for their child so powerful that it becomes the center of their lives. However, love and taking care of others can also happen in fathers or outside parenting. The caring ego is built around the idea of love and giving. People in a romantic relationship may love each other so much that mutual care becomes paramount. Some professions, like nursing and therapy, greatly benefit from a caring ego. Some religious people focus on selfless giving to people in need. Obviously, this is one of the healthiest egos to have. However, it is still an ego, so it may lead to delusions and unhealthy states of mind. One danger in emotional blackmail, in which the giving is not as generous as it seems, but done to create a psychological debt and dependency. Another danger is overprotection. Just as the survival ego can create an overblown need for self-protection, the caring ego may live in fear of something bad happening to our loved one. When it is a child, this may keep him from engaging in challenges and experiencing thrill, leading to an anxious personality in adulthood. Self-controlling ego This ego centers on the idea of success, particularly professional achievement. It is strong in people with careers — a job involving constant self-improvement and competition. Parents and educators reward us with praise when we succeed and punish us with shame when we fail. This gets internalized in our psyche, becoming an internal drive. The ego becomes our main source of motivation, driving us to make sacrifices to achieve our goals, sometimes to the detriment of our health. The self-controlling ego pushes away the survival ego, depriving us of enough sleep, leisure time, and healthy eating. The dopamine reward system in the basal striatum of the brain is mistakenly blamed for making us seek pleasure. However, it is not a pleasure center, but what provides the motivation for the self-sacrifices of the ego (Wise and Robble, 2020). That pat in the back that we give ourselves for a job well done is a surge of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. That’s why it is called the reward system. The self-controlling ego also plays a role in making us act ethically. It makes us chase our image as good people: hard working, faithful spouse, caring parent, dependable friend, outstanding community member. If we don’t perform to our high standards in these things, the ego punishes us with shame. Clearly, a strong self-controlling ego is necessary to live a good life. Behind every successful person, there is a strong self-controlling ego. And yet, the self-controlling ego causes us a lot of suffering. What we call burnout. The ego is an insatiable master. It doesn’t tolerate the slightest imperfection, making us become perfectionists. No achievement is good enough for the ego. It immediately points to the next goal, a higher peak to climb. Success is expected, so we are not allowed to celebrate it. Failure makes the ego bring out the whip of shame. At some point in our life, the veil may fall from our eyes. We may realize that all of our struggles were for nothing. We have been running on a treadmill, chasing ghost carrots. Behind the most amazing professional success, there is a basic dissatisfaction. Victory hides an emotional void. In the worst-case scenario, the clash against this void can make the ego collapse, leading to depression, even to suicide (Lester, 1997). Possessive ego Like the self-controlling ego, the possessive ego is obsessed with control but, instead of controlling himself, it wants to control its environment. This ego is what makes us accumulate money and possessions. It also wants to control the people dear to us. The possessive ego may be a degeneration of the survival ego. Meeting your basic needs is no longer enough; you need to ensure that everything around you is ready to provide for you at an instant notice. Therefore, you accumulate stuff. You surround yourself with people who would satisfy your slightest whim. The most obvious way to achieve this is to have lots of money, which would allow you to buy things and services. The possessive ego is what makes you greedy. If money is hard to come by, then you resort to devious ways to manipulate people. You scare them, blackmail them, gaslight them, or make them dependent on you. The possessive ego is at the core of many abusers. The person with a possessive ego thinks that everything is at their service. If they don’t get the absolute best, they take it as a personal affront. They want to be the first in line, get the best seat in the theater, the best service, the biggest slice of the cake.   Jealousy is a symptom of having a possessive ego — you want to own the person you love, so you are afraid that somebody else would steal her from you. Envy and schadenfreude are other symptoms. Wounded ego We associate the idea of the ego with something that drives us to become more powerful. However, some types of egos make people weak. The wounded ego develops after psychological trauma or repeated experiences of defeat. Experiments in rodents show that social defeat can lead to great damage to the mind and the body: decreased learning, susceptibility to stress, inhibited behavior and immune suppression (Reyes et al., 2015; Wood et al., 2015). It is a state called learned helplessness (Maier and Seligman, 2016), brought about by experiencing unescapable distress: no matter what we do, we get pain. So we learn to do nothing. In humans, it can be trauma like abuse during childhood, abandonment, or the dead of a caretaker, but also experiences of social rejection or continued failure at everything we do. The main concern of the wounded ego is to avoid more suffering. People with a wounded ego it shelter themselves from danger, hiding and withdrawing. They engage in daily routines that they feel are safe. Novelty is bad. They avoid too much social contact, particularly meeting strangers. The wounded ego sees any new social interaction as a threat, so it retreats into itself. The good news is that having a wounded ego is often a temporary situation. Eventually, these people may find ways to empower themselves and develop other types of ego. Victim ego However, wokeness trap people in their wounded egos by encouraging a victim mentality. The victim ego is based on the belief that the struggle between oppressors and victims is at the core of society. Since being an oppressor is unacceptable for our self-image, we need to find a way to be considered a victim. Unless you are a super-rich man, there is always a way to cast yourself as a victim.   It may be race. Are you Black, Hispanic, Arabic or Asian? Or it could be gender. If you belong to the female half of humanity, you’ve got it. Are you trans? Non-binary? Even better! If you are a man, perhaps you are gay, or at least bisexual? No? Were you abused as a child? Not even that? Then go for identifying as poor or exploited. That should do it. Once you have determined that you are a victim, you are entitled to ask for redress. The world owes you. They should make things easy for you, since you have suffered so much. And, if that doesn’t happen, well, that makes you even more a victim! The problem with having a victim ego is that you give up agency. Bad things have been done to you. Something external needs to happen to make it right. This takes away your motivation to take charge of your own life. I won’t deny that many people (most people, in fact) have been victimized. However, when we construct our core identity around that victimization, we surrender our power. Because then our identity is defined by what happened to us. Even worse, we seek the remedy for our suffering in the external world, instead of inside ourselves. Grandiose ego The grandiose ego is built around the belief that you are destined to do some great thing in life. You will be rich, famous, a powerful politician, a great artist, a genial scientist. The grandiose ego could develop from the self-controlling ego after continuous success makes us overestimate our abilities. It is common in narcissists, but you don’t need to be one to have a grandiose ego. Of course, grandiose egos are often in a collision course with reality. Only a few can become truly successful. When that happens, the grandiose ego undergoes a curious transformation. You are really as great as you thought; the problem is that nobody understands you. You are the politician who refused to sell out. Your art is too pure for the masses. Your scientific ideas are too advanced to be understood at this time. Spiritual ego The spiritual ego is a type of grandiose ego that we often find in religious or spiritual people. It develops when we come to believe that our goal in life is to be saints. Or, if we gravitate to Hinduism or Buddhism instead of Christianity, the goal may be to become enlightened. Even atheists can fall into this trap by wanting to become virtuous, as preached by Stoicism or another ancient philosophy. In my own spiritual search, I met one Catholic saint, a Hindu guru, and several Zen teachers. I was disappointed when I caught a glimpse of their oversized egos. Spiritual gurus feel the need to cultivate a public image of being better than anybody else. They need it to manipulate people, using their money and their effort to build their temples, ashrams or communities. They are not free from the ego. They only have a more devious one. You don’t need to be a guru to have a spiritual ego. It is a common mistake when striving for self-realization. For me, a spiritual path should lead to inner freedom and finding meaning. An ego of any kind traps us in a meaningless struggle, chasing goals that are defined externally instead of responding to our profound aspirations. A spiritual ego wants us to be morally superior. It drives us to be generous and helpful… as long as everybody is looking. We flaunt our spiritual practice or our religiosity. However, there is an unresolved internal conflict between our spiritual goals and our ‘base passions’, like food, drink and sex. When we fall into temptation, we hide it carefully, lest it tarnish our image of pure beings. Inevitably, this leads to hypocrisy. Some spiritual experiences erase the ego. However, this is just temporary. The ego comes back when we feel proud of having that experience. Some religious beliefs hide the ego by calling it consciousness. In my experience, transformative experiences integrate the mind by merging the conscious and the unconscious. Because we perceive our unconscious as the other, this diminishes the ego. Living with our ego This classification of the ego was done on the spur of the moment, so it may be flawed. Perhaps I missed some important type of ego, I don’t know. It seems likely that a person would have an ego combining some of these different types. Everybody has a survival ego. The self-controlling, grandiose and spiritual egos seem apt to combine. So are the wounded and victim egos. I don’t think that our goal should be to get rid of the ego. We need it to live our lives, particularly the survival ego. Other types of ego have many beneficial aspects, too.  The key may be to accept the ego as one more part of our mind instead of letting it take control. In other articles, I will share my thoughts and experiences in bringing the ego to its appropriate place in our lives. References Bastin C, Harrison BJ, Davey CG, Moll J, Whittle S (2016) Feelings of shame, embarrassment and guilt and their neural correlates: A systematic review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 71:455-471. Haidt J (2024) The anxious generation : how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. In, p 1 online resource. New York: Penguin Press,. Lester D (1997) The role of shame in suicide. Suicide Life Threat Behav 27:352-361. 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The seven practices of obedience, surrender, service, discipline, punishment, demeanor and mind-fucking Photography by Marcus J. Ranum , CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons As most people know by now, the acronym BDSM stands for Bondage, Dominance/Submission, and Sado-Masochism. Everybody knows that bondage consists of tying people up in erotic positions and that sadomasochism is the erotization of pain, but very few people have a clear idea of what happens in Dominance/Submission  (commonly abbreviated D/S). There is a vague notion that the dominant gives orders and the submissive obeys, but it is actually more complicated than that. In this article, I explore D/S is detail in terms of seven practices things that most often are used in it. D/S and sadomasochism often overlap and a lot of people practice them together. However, some D/S relationships do not use pain and thus have no elements of sadomasochism. Why do people engage in D/S? You may be puzzled as to why would anybody give away their freedom to become a submissive or, conversely, how can anybody be so full of themselves as to want to dominate others. A lot of people practice D/S following a deep, spontaneous desire to submit or to dominate, as strong as sexual desire and often (but not always) mixed with it. Others are converted to D/S when wanting to please a lover and end up liking it. Being a dominant or a submissive in a D/S relationship has nothing to do with behaving that way in normal life. Often, the opposite is true: people in leadership roles become submissives as a way to relieve the stress produced by having to make important decisions. I have explored the motives behind the desire for dominance or submission in another article: The Origins of Dominance-Submission . The ethics of D/S: safe, sane and consensual D/S is a sharp departure from the principles that guide normal relationships, such as equality, personal autonomy, independence and respect. These values are still present in a D/S relationship but are changed by the fact that the submissive surrenders a great deal of power to the dominant, so the relationship becomes inherently unequal.  D/S relationships should be safe (no physical damage or adverse health effects), sane (no emotional damage) and consensual (all persons involved have given informed consent to all the activities). This is abbreviated as SSC. Sanity is a particular concern in D/S because these practices can easily lapse into psychological abuse. We need to be watchful for anything that harms the self-esteem of the submissive or that creates psychological dependence. SSC is ensured by a previous negotiation , establishing limits and the use of a safeword . SSC establishes the boundaries between an ethical D/S relationship and abuse, which I explored in a previous article, How to Recognize Abuse in BDSM Relationships . Dominance-submission and gender D/S can happen in any combination of genders . However, it has unique characteristics depending on each particular combination of gender and role (dominant or submissive). For example, Femdom (women dominating men) emphasizes the worshipping of the dominatrix, is quite strict, and often includes chastity or sexual control. In contrast, male domination over women focus on the body of the submissive and tends to be more caring. Gay D/S can be harsh and extreme. Lesbian D/S can take a wide range of styles. For the sake of simplicity, here I will refer to the dominant as a man and the submissive as a woman, occasionally explaining some differences in Femdom. Otherwise, what I say can apply to any gender assignation of the dominant and submissive roles. Dominance-submission can be done in scenes or as ongoing relationships There are many forms of dominance-submission: Master-slave , Daddy-little girl , brat-disciplinarian , domestic discipline , and others. For this discussion, I want to emphasize that there are two levels of commitment or time arrangements in D/S. In the first, D/S is done for a limited time, usually a few hours, in what is called a ‘ scene’ . This theatrical name is apt because this is a sort of pretend game in which the participants take on the roles of dominant and submissive temporarily to weave a common fantasy. They may not be in a relationship but meet casually to play. There are people (called ‘ switches’ ) who are dominants in some scenes and submissives in others. In the second, called 24/7, D/S is ongoing and may be an essential part of a relationship. Some people who practice D/S this way object to their D/S being called a game. For them, it is real. They feel that being a dominant or a submissive is an essential part of who they are. These relationships usually develop slowly over long periods of time. There also can be in-between arrangements in which a couple has established roles as dominant and submissive, but only adopt them in certain situations, like when having sex. I have experience in both types of D/S interactions. None is better than the other. However, I would advise any newbies to experiment with D/S in scenes before entering an ongoing D/S arrangement. 1 - Obedience Obedience is, obviously, following the orders of the dominant. In D/S scenes , the orders usually consist of submitting to a sexual act, but they may also be about something trivial (“make me coffee”) or about a particular fetish (“clean my shoes”). Some opportunists see this as a chance to get “free blow-jobs” or having sex without having to satisfy their partner. These posers are quickly exposed because an experienced dominant works hard to create a situation in which the submissive finds satisfaction in obeying. Giving orders is an art. The dominant has to work inside the fantasy of the submissive and never break her limits. If the submissives find that they cannot follow an order, must argue against it, or use their safeword, their trust in the dominant will be undermined. In 24/7 D/S relationships , obedience is more complicated. Here the orders are not just about sex. In domestic discipline, the dominant enforces rules about how to do chores and keep the house in order. Daddies treat their adult submissives like little girls that have to eat their vegetables, do their homework and have a bedtime. A good dominant chooses carefully which orders to give, taking into account the needs of the submissives, their limits, and the nature of the relationship. A good strategy is to delimit an area of the submissive’s life that will be under the control of the dominant; the most obvious being their sexuality. It is generally a bad idea to try to control the professional life or the relationships of the submissive. It is not ethical to bring into the D/S dynamic third persons who have not consented to participate in it, so it is problematic to order a submissive to treat their friends and family in unusual ways. 2 - Surrender Surrender goes beyond mere obedience. In it, submissives expose themselves physically and mentally to the dominant. A lot of people come to D/S following their fantasies of sexual surrender. In a D/S scene , dominants treat the submissives as their sexual plaything, touching them however they please, placing them in embarrassing positions, and fucking them in full control. Male dominants control the orgasms of their female submissives, who need to ask permission to cum. The submissive is made aware of the difference between making love and being fucked, and prefers the latter. In Femdom, the submissive is often made to pleasure the dominatrix without cumming, and can only touch her with her permission. In 24/7 relationships, the sexual surrender becomes more extensive. A common agreement is that the submissive must be sexually available to the dominant at all times. Women are made to wear dresses or skirts without panties to make them aware of their accessibility. In Femdom, men are deprived of masturbation, sometimes by locking their penises in cages, so that they can produce an erection of demand. But surrender goes beyond the realm of the physical: submissives gradually reveal their secret fantasies, fears and desires to the dominant, deepening the intimacy and vulnerability of their submission. Here, the dominants must tread carefully and not judge the submissives when they open up to them. Shame and guilt are powerful emotions that can damage the self-esteem. If submissives make themselves vulnerable and then feel that their confidences are being used against them, they will withdraw and put up barriers. 3 - Service Service is the active counterpart to obedience. The submissives work to please and satisfy the desires of the dominants by spontaneously doing things for them. It goes beyond obedience: the submissive needs to anticipate the desires of the dominant. On their part, the dominants must be mindful not to inhibit the creativity of submissives by being over-controlling. In some cases, the submissive would need to ask permission before performing the service or should meekly suggest it. Having a submissive well trained in service allows the dominant to relax and enjoy the D/S relationship without having to be continuously alert to decide what to do next. 4 - Discipline Discipline consists of activities used by the dominants to assert their control over the body and the mind of the submissive. In a scene, D/S is often combined with sadomasochism to give the submissives pain and pleasure until they become pliable. Both pain and pleasure impose themselves on consciousness, forcing us to pay attention, so they provide a gateway to the mind of the submissive. If pain is out of the picture, the dominant can order the submissives to disrobe and adopt some exposed positions to get them into the right frame of mind. In 24/7 relationships, discipline is the training by which the submissive becomes more accomplished at surrendering and servicing the dominant. Dominants may give submissives a series of tasks and exercises to do. These can include, for example, sexual exercises like timed masturbation, Kegel pulls or wearing a butt-plug. Non-sexual discipline may include physical exercise, reading assignments, bedtime and wake-up time, diet modifications, writing a diary, etc. For male submissives, chastity and sexual control are widely practiced forms of discipline. Although some discipline exercises can be unpleasant, they are not done for punishment but to help develop a submissive frame of mind and attitude. 5 - Punishment Punishment is a controversial part of D/S.  While some reject it, it is a key activity in brat-disciplinarian, domestic discipline, and other forms of D/S. A lot of people have what I call a “punishment fetish”: they find the idea of being punished or punishing others deeply erotic. However, this applies to an infantilized view of punishment as spankings and other forms of physical punishment, and not to the long jail time that our society uses to deter crime. In any case, since D/S is based on obedience, service and discipline,   there should be consequences  if the submissive disobeys or does not perform as expected. The problem is that, if submissives enjoy the mere idea of being punished, how can punishment be used to effectively correct their behavior? Wouldn’t they misbehave so that they can enjoy their punishment? Well, it is more complicated than that. People with a punishment fetish enjoys the whole process, not just the spanking (or whatever the punishment is): having to recognize that they have done something wrong, the humiliation of suffering a punishment, the forgiveness after the punishment, and their commitment to not misbehave again. All this is done with utmost sincerity and involves a big emotional turmoil. The punishment fetish may come from the release from guilt and shame. By delegating the punishment to the dominant, submissives frees themselves from psychological self-punishment. Then, paradoxically, the chastisement is experienced as relief. To help with this, the meaning of punishment has to be carefully explored, emphasizing its healing value as catharsis and atonement. Submissives should be explicitly prohibited from punishing themselves. It is also important that the punishment ends with aftercare, in which the forgiveness of the dominant encourages self-forgiveness. The submissive has accepted her weaknesses, witnessed the power of the dominant, and hopefully has become a stronger person and a better submissive. 6 - Demeanor Demeanor  is the way in which submissives dress, carries themselves and behave  in order to express a submissive attitude. If you see a couple when they are in-role as dominant and submissive, you will notice a peculiar vibe. In a BDSM party, the dominant may be attired in leather with metal studs or a power suit, while the submissive may be partially or fully naked, wearing cuffs and anklets or erotic clothes like stockings, garter belts or lace bras and panties. One of the most powerful signs to convey submission is the collar, which often is made of leather and resembles a dog collar. It can also be made of metal or even be a jewelry piece. Certain types of D/S relationships, like domestic discipline, reject fetish clothing, but you can tell their roles by the way they talk and move: the submissive will be serving, while the dominant gives orders in a way that would normally be considered rude. Not all submissives have the same demeanor; each one expresses in a different way what submission means to them. Some submissives are meek and subservient, looking down, walking behind the dominant, and speaking only when asked. Other submissives may be bratty, proudly lifting their chin, challenging the dominant, and freely speaking their mind. The appropriate demeanor emerges from the personality of the submissive and is polished through training to produce a poise that conveys the depth and beauty of the D/S relationship. Different demeanors are equally valid. They simply represent different styles of surrender, service and discipline. 7 - Mind-fucking Mind-fucking is the most difficult element of D/S. It consists of   mind games that dominants play with submissives to weave a collective fantasy   and bring them to a state of defeat and surrender. It may be as simple as teasing the submissive about their desires. It may also consist of pretend anger. Genuine anger is an emotion that is difficult to control, so the dominant should not engage in a D/S interaction while he is angry. Other instances of mind-fucking involve some elaborate mind games that are the culmination of the six other D/S activities. They require superb creativity on the part of the dominant. However, without the willful collaboration of the submissive, the process would fail. Mind-fucking is not so much something that the dominant does to the submissive as something that they create together. No matter how skillful the dominant, it is impossible for him to mind-fuck submissives if they don’t surrender or if they lack the discipline to cooperate. Here are some examples of mind-fucking: Attention games : Doing something that requires skill and concentration, like serving tea following a precise ritual. The submissives will earn praise if they succeed or be chastised if they fail. Impossible tasks : Similar to the attention game, but the task is so difficult that the submissive is doomed to failure. Alternatively, there is a particular twist that they don’t know that would make them fail. Submission is demonstrated by attempting the task even when knowing it is impossible and by accepting failure with grace. Embarrassing tasks : Doing something that requires overcoming shame or shyness. Predicament : the submissive has to choose between two punishments or two unpleasant disciplines. Sometimes there is a trick and one of the choices is better than the other. Or the choice that appears to be the better one turns out to be the worse. Trust games : The submissive is asked to do something scary or embarrassing that requires the dominant to protect her. Pretend danger : Submissives are put in a situation that makes them feel vulnerable, but they are not in real danger because the dominant is controlling the situation. There are no recipes for mind-fucking. It needs to be tailored to the personality of the submissives. A good strategy is to find their points of resistance, their inner conflicts, and making them face them. Needless to say, a great deal of caution  and skill are necessary. Dominants need to give the submissives their full attention, focusing completely on reading their reactions. If successful, this can produce a spark of self-discovery, even self-transformation. The reward: sub-space Submission is a path that starts with a vague desire to surrender. At its end, there is a jewel that satisfies this desire: a coveted mental state called “sub-space”. There are altered states of consciousness  that receive that name. Some of these arise in response to pain during sadomasochistic activities. Properly speaking, sub-space is the one attained by submitting. It is a state of bliss, devotion and profound emotional connection with the dominant. It is normally attained after a good scene, but it can also become the background of a satisfying D/S relationship. Like with many other things in life, what matters is the journey and not the destination.

The science and safety of using ginger in BDSM Who enjoys figging? Figging  has nothing to do with figs. It’s a sadomasochistic game that consists of inserting ginger root in the anus and, less often, in the vagina. Although figging has a reputation for being quite painful, the sensation it produces is generally tolerable. It varies from a pleasant warmth to a burning pain. Some masochists find this sensation erotic for several reasons: its warmth, the fact that it’s experienced in an intimate place, and because of the feeling of vulnerability in evokes.   Responses to the chemicals in ginger root vary considerably from person to person, just like some people love spicy food and others hate it. To enjoy figging , you should be completely comfortable with anal play and be able to wear butt-plugs without problem. You should also be familiar with pain, for example, to the point of being able to enjoy a hard spanking. Experimenting with figging is not risky because the sensation decreases quickly the moment the ginger root is taken out of the anus. Therefore, it is possible to insert it for short periods of time to get familiar with it. In another article , I explained how chili peppers can be used to increase the afterglow of a spanking. What is normally a feeling of warmth in the buttocks is increased by the capsaicin of the peppers to a burning sensation and a hypersensitivity to touch so strong that you cannot wear pants or panties or sit down. Ginger is milder. Besides, the capsaicin of chili peppers gets readily absorbed into the skin and it is almost impossible to wash out, while the active compounds in ginger need to be constantly released from the root to maintain their effect. The science of ginger There are several compounds in ginger that give it its strong flavor and pungency. They have exotic names like zingerone, shogaol and gingerol. I will refer to them with the generic name of gingerols . They make up 1-3% of the weight of fresh ginger. Thermal sensations like heat, coolness and cold are produced by a family of proteins known as TRP channels, which are present in the sensory nerves terminals in the skin. TRP stands for “ transient receptor potential ” (whatever that means). They form channels that, when open, let sodium and calcium ions into the sensory neurons. This depolarizes these neurons, causing them to fire action potentials that send a signal to the spinal cord, and from there to the brain. For example, TRPV1 is the receptor for heat because high temperatures open its channel. It is present in sensory nerves that sense heat. TRPV1 is also activated (the channel is opened) by capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers. That is why our mouth feels hot when we eat these peppers. It’s not that our mouth gets actually hot, but that our sensory nerves tell us that is hot. The heat is an illusion produced by capsaicin tricking our nerves. However, when TRPV1 channels get repeatedly activated, they can trigger an inflammation that will actually warm up the skin. TRPM8 does the opposite: it is the receptor for cold. It is activated by menthol. That’s why menthol feels cool in our mouth and in our skin. Gingerols activate another TRP channel: TRPA1 . You may have noticed that spices like mustard, horseradish and wasabi have a pungency different from that of hot peppers: it is not hot and it gets into your nose. This sensation is mediated by TRPA1. Gingerols activate TRPA1 and TRPC5 , another member of the TRP family. Unlike TRPV1, the TRPA1 channel produces a cool sensation. Then why does ginger feel hot in the anus? As it turns out, gingerols are also able to activate TRPV1 , the heat receptor, although in a different way than capsaicin . This explains why ginger produces a less intense heat sensation than hot peppers. Also, sometimes the TRPA1 protein binds to the TRPV1 protein, so that they mutually modulate their effect. Figging produces two sensations: an initial coolness due to TRPA1 activation and a prolonged heat mediated by TRPV1. Safety Ginger is consumed as food, so is quite safe. Gingerols not only are non-toxic, but have a variety of healing effects. Ginger is commonly used to treat nausea. Recent research shows that gingerols can be effective as anticancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antioxidant, neuroprotective and gastroprotective medication . The burning produced by ginger is milder and short lasting compared to that produced by capsaicin (hot peppers). Besides, while capsaicin is not water soluble, and hence impossible to wash away, gingerols are easier to eliminate. For most people, taking the ginger root out of the anus eliminates the worse part of the sensation. Keeping ginger inside the anus for a long time triggers a mild inflammation that leaves the anus sensitive. If it becomes too strong, it may lead to hemorrhoids. However, hemorrhoids may be caused by the roughness of the ginger root and not by the gingerols, so using a good amount of lubricant when inserting it may prevent them. It is also a good idea to dilate the anus first with a dildo or a butt-plug, So it is already relaxed when the ginger root is inserted. Keep these things in mind and don’t go overboard. Some people may be allergic to ginger, but they can find out by eating ginger first. Ginger may also “ interact with some medication , including the anticoagulant drug warfarin  and the cardiovascular drug nifedipine .” How to do figging Buy a piece of ginger root at the supermarket, selecting carefully the shape more suited for this purpose. It’s better if it is fairly straight and has a large knob or branch at one end to act like the base of a butt-plug. This will prevent the piece of ginger from getting lost in the rectum, which could mean an embarrassing visit to the ER. The girth is also important, but a root that is too wide can be trimmed down with a knife. Using a knife, strip the skin of the root in all the length that you are planning to insert. Leave the skin in the part that will act as the base, so ginger juice does not get into your hand. Cut away any irregularities and smooth out the end of the finger of ginger. Be careful not to leave any flakes attached to the root, because they may stay in the anus and prolong the sensation when you take the root out. Also, watch out for weaknesses that make cause the ginger to break and get lost inside. Cover the ginger with lube before inserting it in the anus. The lube may prevent some of the gingerols from getting into the skin, but this may actually be good for a novice. Not putting lube on the ginger will produce some abrasion in the anus's mucosa when it is inserted, leading to a stronger irritation. Some of the games that I propose below require the recipient to move around with the ginger inserted. Obviously, the ginger root will not stay inside by itself. Tight pants or underwear may help. You can also use a leather harness with straps going over the anus to keep in place. Or you can make a harness with rope. A small towel between the strap or rope and the piece of ginger will help to keep it in place. In women, the ginger can be inserted into the vagina instead of the anus. You can also cut a small piece of ginger and insert it between the labia  or put it on the clit. Experiment carefully and find what you like. What does figging feels like? Initially, you will feel a cool sensation, which is quite pleasant. After a few minutes, the coolness turns into warmth, which increases progressively until it becomes a burning sensation. Knowing that the burning is an illusion and that nothing bad is actually happening to your ass may help at this point. Contracting the anus will increase the burning until it is hardly bearable. Keeping your sphincters relaxed will make it tolerable. Since one tends to contract the anus involuntarily, this soon becomes a devilish torment that keeps your attention focused on your butt.   If the sensation becomes unbearable, taking out the ginger will get rid of the worse of it. Otherwise, the burning sensation will peak in 15-30 minutes, then slowly fade away. It can be brought back to full intensity by taking out the ginger root and shaving its outer layers with a knife. This will cause the ginger to leak out more gingerols. If a long piece of ginger is used, the hot sensation can be felt deep inside the rectum. In my experience, ginger has very little effect on the gland of the penis or on the nipples. Mind-fucking games with figging In BDSM, mind-fucking is a series of games that the top plays to put the bottom in a state of defeat, vulnerability, loss of control, uncertainty and submission. It is a difficult art to master. The top takes the bottom on a mental trip by manipulating pain and pleasure, and also powerful emotions like fear, surprise, shame and surrender. Like in a movie or a roller-coaster ride, the emotions should be strong but not overwhelming. Two things about figging can serve to assert power over a submissive. The first is that it produces a strong burning sensation in a very intimate part of the body. The second is that this sensation increases considerably when the sphincters are is contracted. Contracting the anus is an involuntary response to both pleasure and pain. Hence, any pain given to the bottoms leads to an additional pain in their anus, while trying not to contract the anus makes them more vulnerable to the pain. Conversely, pleasuring the bottoms puts them in a predicament between enjoying themselves and having to withstand the pain in the anus, or focusing on not contracting the anus and not being distracted from the pleasure. Here are some mind-fucks that can be done with figging: Caning with figging.  After each cane stroke, the pain will make the bottom contract the anus, which will increase the burning sensation of figging. Alternatively, if the bottoms focus on not contracting the anus, that makes them lower their guard to the pain of the cane stroke. Either way, they lose. A vibrator or receiving oral sex while figged.  The submissive will find herself caught in the predicament between enjoying the pleasure or staying alert to not contract the anus. Doing chores while figged.  A complicated task is given to the submissive, with the admonition that the ginger will not come out until it is completed to the satisfaction of the dominant. The bottom gets torn between rushing to finish the task, paying attention to do it right, and the constant distraction in their anus. Giving oral sex while being figged.  The burning in the anus will be a powerful distraction, but a good submissive should provide excellent service, regardless. Otherwise, the ginger may need to stay in a bit longer, wouldn’t it? Fucking while being figged.  A male bottom is made to fuck his mistress with a piece of ginger up his ass. The fucking is for her pleasure. He’d better keep that in mind and not squeeze his ass, or he would play an instant price. Also, he may find his orgasm spoiled since ejaculation is accompanied by strong anal contractions. Being fucked while being figged.  The ginger root creates a nice double-penetration. At the same time, the bottom is torn between the conflicting pleasure and pain. Her orgasm will be interesting. Anal sex after figging.  Figging sensitizes the anus, so getting fucked there awakens new sensations and vulnerability. Chastity by figging the clitoris.  Women may find that, after having a piece of ginger on their clit, it becomes so sensitive that masturbating becomes unpleasant or even impossible for a while. At the same time, they become acutely aware of the presence of their clit. The dominant may choose to apply the ginger at intervals short enough to keep her horny and unsatisfied.