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Are you permanently horny or constantly scrolling your phone in search of sex? Sex is great. Gay sex is even better. But perhaps all that scrolling is having a detrimental effect on your life?
A new study has found that men who display hypersexual behavior, often have elevated levels of the hormone oxytocin.
Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden looked at 64 men with a clinical diagnosis of hypersexual disorder. The results were recently published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Hypersexual disorder is when you have an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges or behaviors to the extent it has a negative impact on your life.
Around half of the hypersexual participants were enrolled in a seven-week cognitive behavior therapy program to help them address their behavior. They also gave routine blood samples for the study.
The study discovered that men with hypersexuality had almost twice the levels of oxytocin as the control group.
It also discovered that after seven weeks of behavioral therapy, the oxytocin levels fell significantly, until they were just slightly above the control group.
“There is a lack of knowledge regarding the pathophysiology underlying hypersexual disorder, and this is the first study to indicate a role for oxytocin’s involvement,” lead researcher Andreas Chatzittofis, MD, PhD, told Healio.
Why the men had higher oxytocin levels is unknown. However, the researchers believe that at the very least, if someone is seeking a hypersexual diagnosis, checking their oxytocin levels might prove a beneficial indicator.
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What is oxytocin?
Women tend to have more oxytocin than men, as it’s a key hormone of the reproductive system and plays a role in childbirth and breastfeeding.
However, all humans have the hormone. It’s sometimes dubbed the “cuddle hormone” or “love hormone,” as levels are boosted when we experience affection and intimacy. Men also experience a boost in oxytocin from their brains when they ejaculate. Hugs, hand-holding, and touch can boost the hormone, or simply cuddling your pet dog or cat.
It generally makes us feel warm and fuzzy and improves our sense of well-being, but in stressful situations, can also drive us to seek out social contacts or fuel our fight-or-flight instinct.
The exact impact it can have upon mood is uncertain and seems to depend largely upon the situation people find themselves.
The researchers in this study speculated men may seek out ways to elevate their oxytocin levels to counteract feelings of stress but say more research is needed to explore this theory.
They also say more research is needed to determine whether “recent sexual activity” is a factor in the raised hormone levels, highlighting that, “ejaculation is known to significantly increase plasma oxytocin levels in the short term … future studies should address and properly account for this potential source of bias.”
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Chatzittofis, lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Cyprus, told Queerty, “the relationship between stress and sexual behavior is complex depending on many factors,” so it might not be a case of men seeking an oxytocin boost to alleviate stress.
He was also unwilling to speculate on whether gay men, who are known to experience a greater degree of depression than the general population, are more prone to hypersexual behavior. This study didn’t ask about sexuality, “so it’s very difficult to express an opinion,” he said.
However, he agreed that gay guys, “experience greater levels of stress than the general population and oxytocin might be involved in stress-coping mechanisms also in that population.”