What Happens In Male And Female Brains During Sex (Yes, It’s Different)

Sex has led many an unassuming victim down a path of confusion. But why? If sex is such a good and unifying experience, how can it be so problematic at times? It seems like, even though we have been roaming around the earth together for millennia, we are still bewildered by the opposite gender. 

According to science, there is a reason for all this confusion and, at times, mutual frustration. It turns out men and women are biologically wired quite differently, so even while sharing a sexual encounter, each party is exposed to a unique hormonal cocktail that largely determines their own experience. We may be sharing the same sexual encounter, but physiologically and psychologically, we are experiencing different things. 

How Male and Female Brains Differ

Everything starts in the hypothalamus, a small portion of our brains in charge of maintaining our temperature, hormones, and appetite at optimal levels. In the male brain, the sexual pursuit region of the hypothalamus is twice as large as in the female brain, making the average male brain more sensitive to testosterone. In addition, the average man has “more than 10 times as much testosterone as women, and some even have up to 183 times more than women, which directly impacts their sex drive.” 

But the hypothalamus isn’t the only region of the brain to display sex differences. Deep inside our brain’s frontal lobes lies the amygdala. In this small almond-shaped region of our brains, we process emotions such as fear, anxiety, and aggression. It’s where our fight-or-flight responses originate. And much of our sex behavior is processed here. The average male amygdala is more than two times larger than the average female amygdala, and as a consequence, it’s more reactive to sexual stimuli. So, just as a matter of nature, a man's response to sexual stimuli is much greater on average than a woman's. So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that men think about sex more frequently than women do or that they tend to struggle with porn addiction more than women do. 

Now here is where it gets interesting at a psychological level: One study found that when men are in an aroused state, they become more willing to go against their personal ethics and do everything from telling a woman they love her when they don’t to committing something as atrocious as rape. This explains (but doesn't justify) why men are also more likely to be deemed “players” and to commit sexual crimes than women are.

In contrast, the female amygdala is more reactive to food stimuli than sexual stimuli. This is accompanied by the fact that the hormonal cocktail women experience during sex does more for bonding than the male hormonal experience does. In particular, oxytocin and dopamine make the woman experience warm and loving feelings towards their partner even if they did not have those feelings beforehand. This is why women are more likely to bond with their sexual partner, even if they have just met.  

On the other hand, if a man has a high body count, he is “more likely to experience a decrease in his rating of the woman’s physical and sexual attractiveness after having sex with her.” Shockingly, this decrease can occur in only 10 seconds following his orgasm. This is scientific evidence of the old cautionary tale that men are likely to lose interest in a woman after sex. 

Just by looking at the sex differences between the male and female brain, there are plenty of reasons that explain what cultural observations perceive as obvious: Casual sex comes easier to men than women. 

This makes me think of Samantha from Sex and the City, who more than once throughout the show, points out her desire to have sex the way men do – without any emotional attachment. She refers to this as the ultimate demonstration of equality and power that women should have. She has a point, even if it’s not the one she thinks she’s making: men are less likely to experience an emotional bond through sex, while women are more prone to bond through sex, even if they were initially not interested in bonding. 

The Female Brain and Casual Sex

With a higher response to sexual stimuli and less oxytocin during sex, men's brains may be the ones pushing for a world filled with non-committal sex. However, hookup culture goes against the average woman’s sexual nature, as in, it’s not what our brains and bodies desire. Sadly, this is often shamed, calling women prudes for not wanting to engage in casual sex, and even sadder when women are pushed into it by others with the argument of "You should just try it" or "You will have fun" or even worse "Everyone does it." But study after study highlights that casual sex encounters are not positive experiences for women. Rather, post-hookup, many women feel emotionally vulnerable and anxious about themselves and the nature of the relationship. And when there was a mismatch in commitment, the women “tended to experience feelings of distress, degradation, and exploitation.”

Unfortunately, that desire for commitment and to make their sexual encounters meaningful, even retrospectively, can lead women to continue having meaningless sex in hopes of it eventually becoming the meaningful sex in a committed relationship they actually crave. But when it doesn’t happen, which is in most cases, they end up as victims of a Chinese finger trap. 

But beyond the morning after regret, research also confirms that women enjoy casual sex in the moment less than men – women are less likely to orgasm in a casual sex encounter and much more likely to orgasm when they are in a serious relationship. Furthermore, both sexes strongly believe in the woman’s entitlement to pleasure – but only in committed relationships; both sexes doubt the woman’s right to orgasm in casual sex. In other words, casual sex doesn't offer much value to women!

My all-time favorite illustration of this fact is the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The cinematic beauty and impeccable fashion of the film sometimes distract the viewer from the actual subject matter: An escort trying to save enough money to build a home for her and her brother Freddy, the only blood relation she has. Audrey Hepburn's portrayal of Holly Golightly is impeccable – she appears to be a happy girl, always ready for a party, but deep inside, she’s struggling with severe attachment issues and panic attacks. There are many clues throughout the movie that point out that this girl is surrounded by many friends and many powerful men (let's not forget the mafia does her accounting), yet she is extremely lonely. 

Intellectually, Holly accepted the fact that this is what she needs to do in order to achieve her ultimate goal, but the consequences of her choice are evident. There is one scene when she admits to Paul that she suffers panic attacks. Even more telling, Holly herself explains the reason behind the iconic opening scene. Read this carefully as it will change your perspective of the whole film: After a night of partying with friends she doesn't have actual friendships with and working as an escort, accepting $50 for "the powder room" (around $530 in current money), Holly's brain cannot take it, and she experiences panic attacks. As a way to soothe herself, she leaves the party at sunrise, and, still wearing her beautiful Givenchy gown, she has breakfast at Tiffany's. The film's title itself is Holly Golightly's self-soothing routine for the consequences of casual sex. As hard as she tries, she cannot escape her nature.

Perhaps just like Samantha (SATC) and many other women, Holly Golightly played the casual sex game for the promise of what it could provide her – money, power, pleasure – yet her brain still protested. Even though these women freely decided on casual sex, it seemed their brains were not able to fully adjust to it.

The Male Brain’s Double Standard

The irony of all this is that men don’t actually want women who are or seem to be interested in casual sex. Perhaps the best book to explain this is Why Men Love Bitches. While I don't personally agree with everything the book claims, it does a good job at proving why the more assertive (or bitchy) a woman is, the more a man will love her. Let me explain: Men are more likely to fall in love with a woman who is focused on her value, her worth, and her life than she is focused on him. The moment we put him on a pedestal, he is more likely to lose interest. Why? Because men tend to appreciate what they worked for more than what is handed to them, so we are better off motivating that work than giving in to sex too quickly.

While men are weak for the excitement of a one-night stand, they still value and seek long-term commitment (read: marriage), and they are very clear about what kind of woman will give them each.

I recently witnessed this double standard in the wild. While at a friend's birthday party, someone brought as a gift a female performer with a killer body, skimpy clothes, a snake, fire, and, as if that were not enough, a chainsaw she would rub against her belt and shoot out sparks. I had never seen anything like this in my life, and the show she offered had everyone in awe. To my surprise, as soon as she was done, a good guy friend of mine who had been applauding and cheering throughout the show turned to me, and matter-of-factly said, "I would never date a girl who did this for a living." Nobody asked him. He just felt the need to make it clear. Why? Because for men, it is very clear.

Men can recognize the excitement of casual sex and their brains may strongly advocate for it, but this doesn't change the fact that they still desire sexual purity and fidelity in a woman – the significant factor here is that men crave this for long-term partners, not short-term ones. The key difference between men and women lies in whether they are seeking a short or long-term relationship because, in general, women look for the same things in a man regardless of the length of the relationship. However, the average man does the opposite. Men tend to look for particular qualities in a woman when they’re seeking a short-term relationship (promiscuity, sexual experience) and some very different qualities when they want a long-term relationship (fidelity, loyalty, devotion).

Interestingly, the qualities of a woman considered "wife material" to many men – meaning she withholds sex – are exactly what’s needed to trigger the male hormone response that leads to bonding. Unlike the female rush of dopamine and oxytocin that leads to bonding, men “go through a two-stage bonding process which requires a delay in sexual gratification to activate properly.” The primary male bonding hormone is vasopressin (not oxytocin), and it rises slowly and over time. If an orgasm occurs too soon in the process, it can actually cancel out vasopressin’s bond. However, if sex is off the table, and the man is continually pursuing his love interest, then vasopressin is consistently being released, which causes the male brain to build new receptors. Once vasopressin locks into those receptors, the man begins falling in love. In stage two of male bonding, testosterone drops, allowing oxytocin to have a more significant impact on the body and strengthening the bond begun by vasopressin.  

Ultimately, abstaining from sex until marriage is more aligned with the needs and consequences of the female brain, and the same tactic is the most likely to create bonding in the male brain.

Closing Thoughts

Sex is so personal and we often aim to make it what we want it to be, but in doing so we can easily end up betraying our own nature. Instead, let’s embrace the way our body works as a whole. They say that for good sex we should get to know our bodies, and I would add that our brains are the most valuable player in that game. Understanding that men’s brains and women’s brains might operate differently during sex can enrich our experiences by helping us understand where that urge to bond or that struggle to connect may be coming from. For women, it’s hard to make a case for casual sex when it inevitably brings with it a cocktail of hormones that say differently. But this isn’t bad news, this is just a step further to understand our bodies and make wise decisions surrounding what we do with it.