The best advice I can give regarding New Year’s Resolutions is, “Don’t do it!” If you are striving and hoping to change your sexual behavior, “Stop trying!” Why? Because our brains do not work that way.
Let me explain. Our brains are designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure, and seeking pleasure is ten times (I made that up) more powerful than avoiding pain. But it does not stop there. There are two kinds of pleasure: the activation of the quick route through the pleasure system of the brain, and the process of setting goals and achieving them. They both go through the same pleasure system, but one is short term and leads to pleasure, and the other is long term and leads to happiness.
So what is the difference between pleasure and happiness? Pleasure is easy to define; it is biological; more specifically, it is chemical. It has two purposes: to excite and then to soothe, thus completing the pleasure circuit of the brain. Our bisexual brains have decided that the quickest and most powerful way to activate the pleasure system is gay or lesbian sex. This is how it works. We are feeling down and need a fix; we need to get a high to escape the low. All drugs work this way including that wonderful hormone mix of testosterone, estrogen, oxytocin, epinephrine, and adrenalin. Together they not only excite the body, but they also serve as neuromodulators to excite the brain. Now the combined hormone/dopamine rush is on with the goal of a pleasure bath through sex. There is one other thing to consider. Having sex with our life partner is great and usually provides a high; however, if we are really down, we may need a greater high. This is where going out on the hunt, or to a lover on the side, comes into play. You see, the novelty of finding a new partner or the feeling of crossing a forbidden boundary actually adds to the charge – namely a more intense flow of dopamine and a greater adrenalin rush. At this point, desire becomes an obsession, an intense dopamine and hormone flow that can only be alleviated by accomplishing our goal – new and exciting sex. Unfortunately, there is usually no soothing after we literally come back to our senses. There is usually pain in the form of guilt and shame. Oops, no soothing. Back to anxiety.
Now let’s look at happiness which is much more complex and almost impossible to define because it means different things to different people. The closest we can get to universal agreement on happiness is intimacy. This is where sex with a life partner comes in. We look across the room and see our lover and our neurons begin to fire. We are not likely looking just for a fix. Usually, the goal is intimacy. Whenever we feel a little down or we have a hard time seeing the connection with our partner, within ourselves, with life, the world (whatever), we can connect all those dots with sex with our partner (a very clever design because it has the potential to create one more human being and save the human race one more time). This type of sex in usually slower, seeking connection as well as pleasure. This combination of connection and pleasure creates intimacy and intimacy is a form of happiness. To celebrate this reconnection with our partner, our world, and our self the brain now releases a flow of serotonin creating a soothing type of contentment and quiet pleasure; in other words, happiness. The circuit is now complete. No anxiety.
Which brings us back to New Year’s Resolutions. They simply do not work. Our brain will refuse to abandon its favorite sources of pleasure without a very good reason. So all the “I will stop” resolutions are worse than useless. They create anxiety, and unsoothed anxiety is a form of pain which the brain wants to avoid. These types of resolutions are doomed to fail, and repeated failure is another form of anxiety and pain. What about the “From now on I will…” resolutions? In this case, the brain has another objection. You see, the pay-off or reward has to be perceived as attainable and perceived as a significantly greater source of pleasure. In other words, we have to firmly believe that being “happy” will be a greater reward than the sought after pleasure. The second factor is that we also weigh the amount of effort (employed anxiety) it will take to achieve the goal. If the cost is too great the brain will not engage the dopamine achievement pleasure system. It takes a strong dopamine charged circuit to change a behavior, and the brain simply does not want to expend the energy it takes to prune and develop the circuits needed to change the behavior.
So what is the alternative? Here are my five suggestions for bisexuals:
- We do not make any New Year’s Resolution. We do not try to change our behavior. Instead, we aim to evolve into higher human beings. If we can learn to appreciate and enjoy who we are, we will be “happy”, and as long as we are happy, we will no longer have out of control anxiety, and we will no longer have the need for a sexual high to counterbalance our emotional lows.
- We can do this by awakening our higher self. It takes no effort, so our brain will be happy. We simply change our paradigm. We simply choose to accept ourselves and love ourselves just the way we are, with all our flaws. This includes our sexual orientation and our sexual desires and behaviors. They are what they are. There is no blame there is no shame.
- We continue to seek pleasure. It is a wonderful gift from the universe. Whenever we have sex we enjoy every minute of it. Every smell, every touch, every taste, every “I love you”, and how beautiful our partner is. We plan to indulge all our senses. No blame no shame. After sex, we stick around and come down together, thus releasing all our tensions and enjoying our body’s serotonin bath.
- We do not stop at pleasure, we seek happiness. This means getting rid of guilt and shame once and for all. If we have a partner, we work things out together. It will mean honesty and compromise. If we cannot work it out, we may have to make plans to part. Whatever path we choose, we have to free our sexual behavior from the guilt and shame pattern. Sex was meant to be enjoyed and to be a part of our pleasure and happiness circuits. It is too powerful a force to have working against us, and it is too precious a gift not to be enjoyed.
- We seek deeper and deeper levels of intimacy. Good sex with a partner leads to bonding, intimacy, contentment, purpose, and to feelings of control rather than helplessness. It establishes a firm base. It is that one guiding principle that our brain can understand. It is willing to try anything, any new adventure or risk as long as it adds to its feelings of intimacy and contentment.
Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education 