Jill told you this week about Dr. Eric Keroack, the anti-choice, anti-contraception quack doctor who’s been put in charge of Title X funding by Fearless Leader. Because it’s always a great idea to have someone who is against contraception in charge of administering federal funding for it.
But let’s take a closer look at some of Keroack’s handiwork. Alternet has a powerpoint presentation of Keroack’s work, a using copyrighted cartoon characters and an alarming number of quotation marks to illustrate his quack theory that sex — but only non-marital sex (there’s a husband loophole) — both overstimulates and blocks oxytocin, leading to emptiness and more sex with more men in a desperate search for that oxytocin high that you would have gotten, you hussy, if you’d just have kept your damn legs shut until you were lawfully wedded.
But you won’t be, because that string of failed relationships blocking your oxytocin means you are NEVER going to fall in love, missy, not unless you SHUT THOSE LEGS.
Oxytocin is a hormone whose actions are associated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and maternal-infant bonding — and, according to Keroack, it’s the tie that binds in marriage, as well. People don’t fall in love, but into hormonal bondage. Therefore, the most important rationale for sexual abstinence isn’t faith-based at all, but purely physiological. Unfaithful men and promiscuous women are created by misuse of the “emotional glue” of attraction, an abuse leading to a “perpetual cycle of misery.”
In his presentation at the 10th Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas City earlier this month, Dr. Eric Keroack … explained that oxytocin is released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, “trust” encounters, and sexual intercourse. “It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression,” he said.
Forty percent of couples who live together break up before they marry and of the 60 percent that do marry, 40 percent of them divorce after 10 years. … So why do so many adults continue in a cycle of sex without a marriage commitment, cohabitation, and failed relationships? This perpetual cycle of misery is due largely to the role of oxytocin. The following is Dr. Keroack’s explanation of the cycle:
“Emotional pain causes our bodies to produce an elevated level of endorphins which in turn lowers the level of oxytocin. Therefore, relationship failure leads to pain which leads to elevated endorphins which leads to lower oxytocin, the result of which is a lower ability to bond. Many in this increased state of emotional pain and lower oxytocin seek sex as a substitute for love, which inevitably leads to another failed relationship, and so on, the cycle continues.”
There is hope for the weary brokenhearted, Dr. Keroack said, but it requires abstinence and plenty of time for healing.
My God! It’s just like heroin. The more sex you have, the more oxytocin you produce, leading to higher highs, and lower lows.
And pretty soon, you’ll do anything to get your fix. Desperation — desperation to recapture that warm fuzzy feeling you get from a hug, or positive social encounters, or being in labor, or massages, or “having sex” — will have you hopping from bed to bed, an empty shell of a woman, spiraling ever downward. And there’s no methadone clinic for sluttiness, young lady. The only cure is a wedding ring. Those have magical powers.
Because GOD is WATCHING YOU! And not even Popeye can defeat GOD when God gets a mind to BLOCK YOUR OXYTOCIN!
PZ Myers explains the “science” behind the “presentation” and “Amanda” cooks up a powerpoint of her “own”.
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This is what modern science education leads to.
I’ve seen better junior high power point presentations. Just saying.
I promise to be abstinent if I never, ever have to look at another PowerPoint presentation by this idiot again. That was painful. My eyes hate me now.
Keroquack’s science is bad, but he’s got some fascinating analogies: “Pre-marital sex is really modern germ warfare.”
I believe my reaction is ‘fuckin’ scary’. In so many different ways.
What the fuck? Oxytocin is affected by the presence of a wedding ring? How should it matter if they marry before they live together or after?
(And, I wonder, how many of those forty percent that break up “before they marry” have long, fulfilling relationships and count as “failed” because they just don’t get married? Obviously such people don’t fit in with the “sixty percent that do get married.”)
Wait–Almighty Zeus blocks joy in my head-chemicals, causing me to crave sex and overpowering even Popeye in His wrath?
No wonder He got laid with all those chicks He turned into cows and swans and things.
Those slides resemble nothing so much as a mentally ill person’s insane Internet ramblings. The first thing I thought of was http://www.timecube.com.
Except, well, you know something is very very wrong when the Time Cube guy makes MORE sense than the guy in charge of Title X funding.
I would love to see the owners of the copyrights on all those cartoons go after this clown. So depressing that he doesn’t have to be confirmed by Congress.
““Emotional pain causes our bodies to produce an elevated level of endorphins which in turn lowers the level of oxytocin. Therefore, relationship failure leads to pain which leads to elevated endorphins which leads to lower oxytocin, the result of which is a lower ability to bond.”
Or – B*tch! You dumped me, and now look what you’ve done!”
“Close [or good] enough for government work” – never a positive claim – is going to take on a whole new emphasis by the time Bush is through with us.
The vengeful spirit of Chuck Jones needs to lay a downpour-of-falling-anvils style smackdown on the “good” doctor.
that’s an interesting way to express lament for the good old days…
And, what, failed relationships are the only cause of emotional pain? Or is it only failed-relationship pain that produces the Popeye defeating endorphins?
So if my husband won’t have sex with me or talk to me any more, my hormones will make me have affairs with other people to salve the wound of my failed relationship. What a great excuse! Oh, I forgot. Marriages never fail.
The worst crappy science here is the failure to consider whether–if his data are correct–he has cause and effect identified properly.
For example: Does random and/or premarital sex cause depression of oxytocin levels and failed relationships, OR do people whose oxytocin levels are congenitally low tend toward more random sex and experience more difficulty maintaining relationships?
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