Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Grief as an Aphrodisiac

Aphrodisiac is defined by Webster as "an agent (as a food or drug) that arouses or is held to arouse sexual desire" and is commonly used to describe a state of heightened excitement. Many commercial organizations have sought to uncover and exploit the body's natural feelings of desire with chemical compounds - this is not a recent phenomena. Love potions in some form or another have been around since men began their conquest of women. The ancient greeks used love potions and the indians use herbal concoctions and incense (or peyote!). The modern day perfume can also be considered a "love potion" designed to attract the opposite sex.

The one-liner "grief is nature's most powerful aphrodisiac" was made infamous by Chaz (Will Ferrell) in the movie Wedding Crashers. As a pioneer in easy and sleazy ways to get women into bed, Chaz starts to crash funerals under the guise of a family friend and becomes a shoulder to lean on for the women he seduces.

This got me thinking about the powerful feelings of grief. People always say that near death experiences (car accident, etc) can cause a heightened sexual arousal - there is a whole separate issue with those that are into BDSM to achieve a staged environment in which to achieve this heightened sense, however, that is not the point of my post.

Does grief actually trigger something in our brain chemistry that follows with a raised sense of sexual attraction?

In my preliminary search it appears that grief can be a foundation for many sexual disorders. It can lead women and men both into varying states of impotence and can prevent them from achieving orgasm.

Was this just a convenient one-liner that made for good TV or is there any real truth behind it?