Have you ever consumed alcohol and suffered from a stronger sexual mojo? Have you observed a higher propensity for fun social activities?
Did you think you were alone in these feelings?
Science has come your aid. A recent study published in the journal Psychopharmacology, suggests that consumption of alcohol changes a person's social perceptions, making them recognize happy faces and increasing their sexual arousement.
Yeah, shocking, I know!
The study found some 60 brave individuals to consume alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. They then measured their performance on face emotion recognition task (FERT), Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), and Sexual Arousal Task (SAT) . {I remember taking the SAT in high school, but it was not that memorable. But then, I was a nerd.}
Having compiled the trial results, the authors concluded:
Alcohol acutely enhances decoding of positive emotions and emotional concern for positive stimuli and facilitates the viewing of sexual images
Finally Proven. However, an interesting result is that oxytocin levels did not increase.
Explicit sexual pictures were rated as more pleasant after alcoholic beer compared with non-alcoholic beer, particularly in women. Alcohol did not alter the levels of circulating oxytocin.
So, mere consumption of beer does not appear to be the source of sexual arousement, rather some other source. I personnally guess the social interaction.
For inquiring minds, here were the volunteer requirements: (Are you healthy enough for beer study?)
Inclusion Criteria:
▪Age between 18 and 50 years
▪Sufficient understanding of the German language
▪Subjects understand the procedures and the risks associated with the study
▪Participants must be willing to adhere to the protocol and sign the consent form
▪Participants must be willing to refrain from drinking alcohol in the evening preceding the study session
▪Participants must be willing to abstain from excessive drinking and from taking illicit psychoactive drugs during the study.
▪Participants must be willing not to eat or drink xanthine-containing liquids (such as coffee, black or green tea, red bull, chocolate) 3 h prior to the study session
▪Participants must be willing not to drive a traffic vehicle or to operate machines for 3h after the sessions
▪Women must have a negative pregnancy test at the beginning of each session.
Exclusion Criteria:
▪Chronic or acute medical condition.
▪Current or previous personal history of psychotic or major affective disorder.
▪Prior or current alcohol abuse, dangerous drinking behavior (>15 points in the AUDIT questionnaire).
▪Family history of alcoholism (first-degree relative).
▪Alcohol hypersensitivity
▪Prior illicit drug use (except Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products) more than 15 times or any time within the previous week.
▪Use of medications that are contraindicated or interfere otherwise with the effects of the study (monoamine oxidase inhibitors, antidepressants, sedatives etc.)
▪Pregnant or nursing women.
▪Participation in another clinical trial (currently or within the last 30 days).
Article: journal Psychopharmacology
Citation: Dolder, P.C., Holze, F., Liakoni, E. et al. Psychopharmacology (2016). doi:10.1007/s00213-016-4431-6